Spiritual Sunday - fountains

Welcome to Spiritual Sundays

hosted by the lovely, gracious Charlotte

please stop over to see all the beautiful postings.

http://bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/

Please click to see this awesome fountain in full detail.

Photo taken in Biloxi, MS

 

"Does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter"?

James 3:11

I so love fountains.

Love to view them, sit near them, photograph them.

I always wonder if HE keeps fountains so much in my life

because I am a spontaneous, passionate person

and yes, need HIM to put a guard over my mouth at times.

Do any of you have this problem?

If you are in area that feel like Fall this week

oh do enjoy for me!

However, we will be in NC soon to enjoy Fall ourselves.

PTL, I am so excited.

I will not be posting on Spiritual Sundays for the next few weeks,

but I will be back in Nov.

Pink Saturday - adorable cottage

Welcome to Pink Saturday

hosted by the lovely, gracious Beverly

please stop over to see all the other "pinkie" posts.

http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/pink-saturday/

A few weeks ago hubby and I were driving

along the beaches from Sand Key to Treasure Island.

I saw something I just had to photograph!

So hubby lovingly turned around, pulled down a side street

so I could show you this adorable find!

Oh be still my heart!

Purple shutters and pink awnings!

plus small white picket fence.

I am in cottage heaven.

Above the door the rabbit and the cottage name.

I thought sure it was a rental, as everything in that block are cottages for rent.

However, coming home and researching turned up nothing on any site.

Can you image living here.....

the beach is just across the road, behind condos and such.

Want to see more?

Like I said, be still my heart!

My two favorite colors together.

So love the pink door and awning alongside the lavender/purple shutters.

Let's see what else is pink.....

Ahhh, pink window boxes!

Now here comes the entire front view.

When I was happily shooting photos I knew I had to share this

on pink Saturday.

Simple Joys

Welcome to my Thursday post of Simple Joys

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."

C.S. Lewis

Perhaps I should correctly refer to my pleasure as "herbal infusion" and not tea.

Passion herbal infusion by Tazo is a "magical blend of hibiscus, lemongrass, rose hips,

mango and passion fruit flowers.

It goes on to say this, on the side of the box:

"Luscious hibiscus flowers join with subtle citrus notes of lemongrass and tart rose hips.

Natural flavors of passion fruit and mango attend the ceremony and bless the union

that is now known as Tazo Passion. Like love itself, this powerful herbal

infusion may make you do crazy things, but it is better to drink it once than never

drink it at all."

Thank you for joining me in my special corner, snuggled up in my favorite chair, which

is covered with my favorite quilt/bedspread.

My studio/office is a work in progress.

Someday it may be photo-ready, he he he.

Oh, do go out tomorrow and enjoy your day.

Then, perhaps, come home and snuggle up with a wonderful cup of herbal

infusion or hot drink of your choice.

Have a beautiful weekend too.

 

Congratulations to our fantastic Tampa Bay Rays!

This is me yesterday at Cracker Barrel for my birthday.

Never missing an opportunity to show my support for

Tampa Bay Rays.

 Below is Terry a year ago in NC

We cheered the team on as AL East Champs.

Tonight, I congratulate the entire team

On winning

AL WILD CARD CHAMPS.

In the most amazing come back in history.

The most amazing game tonight and we are so wired we may be up all night!

Coach Madden has the concept of focusing on one game, just one game.

Go out there and don't think about anything but this one game.

The Rays started out loosing their first 6 games this season.

Sports writers laughed at them.

They came back!

Sept 4, they were 9 games behind Boston in the Wild card race.

No other team has ever come back from such a deficit in September to be in the

post season.

We kept going, always believing.

Two nights ago we tied Boston for the Wild card race.

If we tied tonight, tomorrow was the playoff between Boston and Tampa Bay.

Boston was ahead of Baltimore for most of their game tonight.

Yankees were 7 -0 against us until the 8th inning.

We were one run down at the bottom of the 9th....

A home run tied the score...

The game went into extra innings.

Inning after inning....nail biting tension and excitement in our living room watching.

Then the announcement that Boston had lost the game in the 9th inning.

Which now meant even if we lost to the Yankees tonight, there would be a playoff tomorrow.

BUT

We won our game!

We are the

 AL WILD CARD CHAMPS.

I cannot post pictures because all are copyrighted.

Terry and I cannot afford tickets to the see them play in person.

So we faithfully have watched every game on TV this year.

Even the ones blocked out, we watched on the computer play by play.

Tampa Bay Rays

do not DEEP POCKETS.....

in fact, those deep pocket teams lured some of the top free agent individuals away.

So we basically lost half our team this year

but we had a coach who always believed in us

and a bunch of crazy guys who actually have fun and support each other

and believe in their team and each other.

Tonight, is proof that hard work, belief and never giving up

still works.

CONGRATULATIONS TAMPA BAY RAYS!

AL WILD CARD CHAMPS 2011

Some great Fall color from Indiana 2010

 Back in 2005 we took a road trip that included Indiana.
Since I am inspired by all types of crafts, I gave us a side trip to
the "artistic colony of the Midwest", Nashville, Indiana.

Nashville is snuggled into the hills of Southern Indiana, in
Brown County.

Today I am showing collages of Fall color taken around town
last year on our trip back to Nashville.
Next time I will show the artist studios and building that house wonderful crafts
of all kinds.

Also showing you the Artist Colony Inn where we stayed.
Last year Terry still walked with his cane and could not walk far at all.
So we stayed right in town so that I could just walk out the door
with my camera and enjoy the beautiful day.
Then we would have lunch in the lovely restaurant together.
Other days we simply road the gorgeous back roads around
Brown County.
Beside being an "artistic colony", there is plenty of hiking, biking,
Bluegrass, Country music, shopping and antiquing all around the region.

Please enjoy my favorite memories of Nashville, Indiana.

as always, please click to enlarge for best viewing

Have a beautiful day.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

I did not intend to post today, but was making a collage for myself and when

finished, thought you may like to see me back in the day.

I actually turn 65 today, technically in about 7 minutes!

I have so many passions to explore, to capture through the lens of my camera,

to share with loving hubby that I look at that number and laugh.

Not possible!

To all my followers, friends, lurkers etc thank you for being a big part of giving

me smiles as I read your comments.

May you each be as blessed as I feel today.

please enlarge for best viewing

The Blowing Rock

Ah.....so many passions in my life to discover, to learn, to enjoy with loving hubby....

the hours, days, weeks seem to fly by.

I will be sitting at the computer, starting a post or starting to respond to my email

and

loving hubby will pop into my "studio/office" with a huge smile

and ask me to take a ride with him while he does an errand.

When he has that smile, I usually think we will stop at McDonald's for an ice cream

after the errand is completed.

So I ask you dear readers.....could you continue to sit at your computer?

Or....would you jump up and leave for the pursuit of an "adventure" with

loving hubby?

As you can see......I leave a lot!

Right now, however, I am here......

simply because loving hubby is sleeping. It is the wee hours of the am!

I put together some of my favorite shots of The Blowing Rock.

There is the town of Blowing Rock, NC

and

The Blowing Rock with has a unique legend and history.

If after viewing my collages you would like to know more about this legend

please click below.....it is really fascinating.

http://www.theblowingrock.com/

please click all collages it enlarge

Flowers, barns, mountains, road trips

This is NC to me.

Top left is the entrance to The Blowing Rock.

Lower right is THE Blowing Rock itself

The trail, lower left is actually in front of the rock, right in front of the stone wall.

Awesome view as you can see.

More stunning views.

The plaque with legend written on.

Please go to the website above to read much more.

Next post I am skipping over to Indiana, our next stop.

Have a beautiful day.

Whoops!

Just a short note to tell all of you that my

"welcome to the first day of summer" post was a draft from back in June.

Yesterday after I post the "roadside stand" in Boone NC, I was cleaning up

my "labels" on prior posts.

Apparently, I redid the labels on the "welcome summer" post and then hit "publish"!

Yes, Ginny, I am still here in Florida and even thought it is "summer" temps

and tons of humidity, I do know it is the first day of Fall, lol.

Having said that.......I am glad I accidentally shared that picture of my

parents lovely back yard of long ago.

My parents so loved their home, the back yard.

Dad had a garden after he retired and mom always had flower gardens all around

the yard.

I am sorry I have not been visiting each of you much this week.

I will be around asap to catch up.

Happy Fall, Happy weekend to all of you.

Indiana, 2010

Summer Days Under the Birches

Summer Under the Birches

in my parents backyard with all the family.

That is me next to the Coca-Cola cooler.

My mom is on the right end, my dad is taking the picture.

This is SUMMER as I will always remember!

Early 50's.

Guilderland, New York

(just west of Albany city line)

Happy First Day of Summer Everyone.

I am linking with Kathy

Do you like roadside stands?

Here we are heading north back to Boone NC from one of our day trips.

On top of the hill to the left of your picture we found a

wonderful "old timey" roadside stand.

I so wanted to share with you and almost forgot!

Since the photos are self explanatory, no words are needed.

Enjoy.

Here we are heading back North to Boone.

Grandfather Mt. and Blowing Rock are within 20 minutes of Boone.

We were up and down these roads all the time.

Two questions:

Did anyone or does anyone still love rock candy?

As a child I loved it, but too sweet now.

 Still love to see it on sticks in  glass jars.

Second question and I would really appreciate your feedback on this one.

Which do you prefer: 

Lot of photos and explanations

Lots of photos, little explanations

One or two photos, little explanation.

One photo, a quote  or scripture.

Or something in between as the post calls for.

I love our trips, I love photography........

but

showing so many photos at once just seems too much to me.

I have so many photos I could blog for years showing one per post.

I tend more to one photo, a quote or scripture or a sequence of photos such as the

sunset I recently posted.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Have a wonderful Fall weekend everyone.

A fantastic place to eat in Boone NC

Here we are in Boone NC in Sept. 2010 and loving it!

Yesterday we took you all to Grandfather Mountain.

Today we are HUNGRY!

If you are just joining the trip photos, please be aware that this is not a "planned" trip, lol.

I retired August 27, 2010, my hubby's birthday, and we left Florida on Sept 12th

headed first to Mt. Airy, NC, then toward "home" (just outside of Albany, NY) and on to

Maine where we had reservations for 3 weeks.

Something happened to both of us when we crossed into NC! Our hearts would not

allow us to leave anytime soon.

From the time we left Mt. Airy, we had no true destination planned.

We would look at the map, think "how about this", find a McDonald's and take my

laptop in and see if we could find lodging.

It was the greatest trip ever!

We had been in Boone a couple day when we encountered low lying fog upon waking up.

It continued......so we just hung out, check our emails, played cards together, napped.

But eventually we both were really hungry.

We wanted someting special but not expensive special.

You know what I mean, I think?

So we looked at the brochures in our hotel room and found an Italian place just

around the corner from our hotel.

Joe's Italian Kitchen made us smile before we even went inside.

We walked in, were greeted immediately by the waitress carrying to yummy looking

pizza by us and told to take our silverware and napkins and a menu and

find seat!

Right away we both felt at comfortable, relaxed and really hungry for

the delicious food being served around us.

Please enlarge these photos and take notice of all the photos around.

These are of Joe's family and friends.

Joe has tons of both.

It is easy to understand why when you meet Joe.

Meet Joe.

Better known as Joseph Cafaro.

This delightful Italian restaurant is located at:

190 Boone Heights Drive

Boone, NC.

you can also go to:

joesitaliankitchen.com

Joe graciously agreed to my taking pictures for my blog

and graciously consented to me taking his picture.

Thank you Joe!

We have a surprise for you......we loved your restaurant so much

that my part of my birthday gift from loving hubby is

drum roll.................................

Going to NC in October

You better believe we are heading to Boone and Joe's

for a late birthday celebration.

This wall was filled with articles written about Joe and his restaurants.

He is originally from NYC.

Did I mention everyone loves Joe!

If you find yourself in Boone, NC do stop in.

This was our oh so yummy dinner.

Oh the food is recipes handed down in Joe's family.

Cannot wait to get back to Boone and enjoy spagetti again.

(this time I am doing WW so one dinner will give me portions for almost the

entire time we are in Boone)

Tomorrow we are doing Blowing Rock, NC

Saturday will be Bryson City, NC, on top of the mounatin.

Monday we will travel to Indiana.

From Indiana we travel to MI, IL, IA, back to IL, back to IN, KY and home.

Sure hope you can join me as I relive a special retirement trip of a lifetime.

Simple joys

Happy Thursday,

Sadly, but understandably, Dayle has given up hosting

Simple Pleasures.

I came to enjoy this Thursday party very late in the game.

However, I want to take this time to thank

Dayle for being such a gracious, inspiring

hostess for all of us.

I am still going to post "Simple Joys" of my own

on Thursdays from now on.

Please enjoy the simple but stunning joys of

watching a sunset on our beautiful beaches

on the Florida Gulf Coast.

as always please click to enlarge

Tomorrow evening and Friday,  I will continue with NC segments of our 2010 trip.

Hopefully, I will catch up so I can start Indiana on Mon-Wed.