Time's a truckin' along, fun visit with family, canning & fabric fun.

We've been continuing to prep for our trip out west by doing household chores, routine maintenance on the cars, whittling down freezer contents and getting our dental and doctor visits out of the way.

We also got together with my sister and brother-in-law for a wonderful picnic lunch down in Mt. Dora, FL which is about half way in between, a little over 100 miles. It was a beautiful day for a drive and we made things super easy by agreeing to each pick up sub's for lunch rather than doing a potluck affair. Even though we talk all the time, and email back and forth, this is the first time we've actually been together in a few years. BIG HUGS all around!! 💖🥰

The Elizabeth Evans park was pretty nice, and right by Lake Dora. We were blessed with a shady picnic table and a medium-strong breeze all afternoon which kept temps down and bugs away.

Donna and I each had a goodie bag with several small gifts
for each other to make up for all the missed celebrations. It was also
her Birthday weekend coming up so we didn't want to miss that.

Looking towards the lighthouse, the shoreline is natural with lots of cattails and such.

One of the neat things about the park were all the large trees. There was one cluster that actually had a palm tree growing up out of the middle of it, and you can see how nice and shady it was at our table.

The guys talk car racing and stuff, while Donna digs for
 something in her purse. I'm just being a nuisance taking pics.

Palm tree just growing into the mass.

Lots of hills & small lakes dot the area near Ocala.

The Boss enjoying his new shirt.

In addition to that fantastic visit, I've lately had time to indulge in some canning, some floral work and some sewing fun.

First off, the canning. In the 2 freezers I had a stockpile of ground pork, ground Italian sausage and brats that I decided to can - there was no way to eat it all and it never hurts to have a few things on the pantry shelf.  It requires a hot pack, so browning it first and having some hot beef stock to cover the contents, then pressure canning for 75 minutes.

I've got this huge, deep wok-like pan which is great
for cooking up large quantities. Even so, I worked in batches.

Since meat shrinks when cooked, it ended up only being
enough for 6 pint jars (16oz).  Rainy day goodness.

I was also hit by a need of the Southern cooking variety, which lead to homemade cornbread, black-eyed peas over rice, and fresh spinach (in lieu of collards) to go with our roast pork. Yum, so good!

I fry up some chopped onions & add
minced garlic, then I use an envelope of 
onion soup mix and 1/2C water. 
Let it simmer a while.

More rescued straw baskets with their new and perky flowers. We use these all over, and they're especially nice on the back deck.

A nice pop of color and civility, lol.

Last topic, my purply-squares fabric project turned out to be a bed pillow sham. I liked it so much I made another using pastels and tried utilizing a geometric pattern instead of random like the first one. I like them both, and they didn't take a world of time either - win, win. Which do you like best?

Well, thanks for hanging out with me and catching up on my rather unexciting activities. Hopefully, next month we'll be out west and we should have some new scenery and stuff to talk about. Until then, see you next time.

Driveway/walkway freshen-up, gobble work and crafts

 Back in 2015, a couple of years after we switched to being part-time on the sailboat we had the driveway/walkway's refinished in a decorative concrete finish & sealer and it was quite an improvement. Here's the before/after for that.

A sad sight for sure - I hated those white rocks!

2015 - Quite a spiffy-up, looking good.

After many years that lace-like pattern trapped a ton of dust and dirt which hardened & turned it into a dirty looking mess, not to mention the surface cracks reappearing in the concrete. Going off and leaving it for several months at a time didn't help the situation. 😞 I got kind of fed-up about how bad it looked, so to stop my b*tching and complaining about it we bit the bullet and had a different treatment applied. No more dimples, instead a slate-like, smoother texture for easier maintenance.

Big-time pressure wash finished, and now fixing the cracks.

It took a week, luckily we had great weather, and it came out great! Ryan and his crew did a thoroughly professional job, and made no bones about getting our input all along the way to make sure we were happy. Looks a dream again now! 😍

I think I'm going to get some brick stain to breathe a little
life back into my brick paver edging, it's a little washed-out.

If you click on the picture you can see the grid lines & new texture.
Also, in between the 2 doors is the new-to-me floral arrangement.

On to other things that I've been spending time on. Remember that .49¢ per lb turkey I picked up before Thanksgiving? Well, I had to do something with it that didn't involve eating it - too much other stuff to try to eat up before decommissioning the freezers and heading out west. The solution; thaw it out, cut it up and pressure can it using the raw-pack method!

I have a separate piece of plastic I use over my craft table 
when I doing messy work. No lingering contamination that way.

I got 8 nice pint jars out of it and, as they say in the Islands,
"Dat Finish" - whew, happy to have that done, (it wasn't too bad).

Additional things I've been working on are silk floral arrangements, I'm a victim, really! I see these half-way decent straw basket/greenery projects at the thrift for $2.99 and I can't resist - it's a compulsion. 😁 Anyway, I have to bring them home with me and "fix" them. Here's my latest; unfortunately I didn't take a before pic showing all the bare stalks of  greenery in the pretty good basket. It looks quite nice now, I didn't spend more that a couple more bucks on it (Dollar Tree flowers, lol), and I'm using it in the courtyard.

Nice oblong straw basket, now full and pretty

Still on the puzzling train and enjoying it in between bigger projects. Here's the latest. Bigger than usual at 550 pieces, it took more time but was fun. Patsy (https://patsyischillin.blogspot.com/ ) could knock this out in a couple of hours, she's a master puzzler!

In the food arena, we had more beef pot pie, more cookies (pecan & chocolate chip macaroons) and fresh cornbread to go with our baked ham leftovers from the freezer.  I was mentioning to my sister that I may try to source some dry ice and pack an old Omaha Steak cooler with some of our frozen goodies - I still have quite a few steaks and center cut pork chops not to mention roast pork and baked ham. It would make for some easy meals if I could get it out there intact.

Edges got a little dark on me, boo.

A "half recipe" is perfect for us, we usually get at least 3 meals off it.

And finally, building some more fabric squares for some future project.  It's great busy-work and I enjoy it. I'm loving my puff quilt/pillow!

I guess it's going to be purply-blues this go round.

Thanks for the visit, hope to see you again sometime. In the meantime, take care, be safe, count your blessings and have a great day. 

Azaleas, and our Cruiser's Potluck

 Once again it's that time of year for the big azalea bloom-out and boy, did they! The problem was that we had a spell of HOT weather shortly after they bloomed and within 2 weeks (or less) it was over; brown, spent flowers drooping then falling to litter the ground. Sad, so sad. I love seeing the bushes blanketed with the pink's, fushia's, salmon's & white's. Here's one pic of some bushes by the pool that aren't fully out yet but close.

The landscapers stop trimming the azaleas in the fall
to ensure a good bloom, that's why they look leggy.

Here's one right out front in the roadway median. There was a big uproar around here regarding a severe pruning of the common area azalea bushes. They had gotten to be 6' tall and needed to fill-out not get taller. Anyway, a severe "murdering" occurred a couple of years ago and they're looking stunning; short and stout with a ton of blooms! Good job grounds committee.

You can also see the storm security door we recently
installed which allows us to leave the front door open
for nice breezes through the house, and for
when we're sitting in our small courtyard area.

My friend Nancy is in the process of moving to a new apartment complex, so I offered her some moving boxes we had from my M-I-L's house. When she came by, we not only had a great little visit with her but she brought books! Many by my favorite mystery/thriller authors, thanks a bunch Nancy!

I generally don't keep many hardcover books, so I will 
begin whittling the pile down right away. Many are re-reads,
but I don't mind that one bit.

On the cooking front I made another beef pot pie, with Tex-Mex overtones - lots of cumin and cumin seed, california chili powder and some reconstituted dried chili's/garlic paste. So good, a big hit with the boss.

Beef pot pie with flourishes, lol.

I've also been stocking up on silk flowers (on sale) for spring/summer bouquet baskets. Surprisingly Walmart had some really gorgeous flower bunches they were selling for $1, and some full, pretty forsythia picks for $.25, I couldn't pass them up!  When I make up these baskets they go outside where they live until they are completely beat up by the brutal summer sun/heat. I toss them and make new ones using thrift store straw baskets or wreaths and silk flowers. I don't have the skill or patience for live plants anymore.

Really nice little find.

Now for the fun part. We went down to Rodman Dam to meet up with Marlene/Benno of http://marleneandbenno.blogspot.com/  fame, our long-time cruising friends formerly of m/v 'Diesel Duck' and Allayne/Dennis, our good friends from Venezuelan cruising days and formerly of s/v 'Audrey Paige'. They are from the northland and winter here in FL, visiting family in the area.

From the left clockwise; Dennis, Marlene, Benno,
Allayne, Ed and Harley chilling out nearby.

 The meetup location got mixed-up but we all ended up in a nice picnic pavilion with 2 tables, ideal for a potluck situation. Just by the river there were some folks fishing and tearing it up - catching mainly mullet, which are really good smoked. They were catching them left and right, we were jealous of all the good fishing fun. 

Perfect spot to chill out and fish from.

Just down from the dam the "fishing" birds hang out; cormorants, anhinga's, ducks and whatever.

In addition, there are always a few osprey around too.

After a few hours the heat got a little too brutal
so we hugged all around and went our separate ways.

It was a shame that Nancy couldn't make it but it's on again for next year, God willing (and the creeks don't rise).

Here are a few more shots.

Marlene with her doxies Reggie and Elsa.

Everyone except Allayne who took this great shot.
There's never any lack of conversational gambits with this bunch,
every time we see each other it's like no time has gone by at all.

It was a great day out and about and has been a fun few weeks as well.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. We love comments should you feel so inclined. 😄

Early December; baking, visiting, craft projects.

 We're still finding plenty to do around here, between cleaning & organizing, crafts and sewing, computer maintenance and various cooking endeavors we stay busy. Busy is happy!

We seemed to have moved into our winter weather pattern, a bit gloomy at times but nice temps around 70°. Windows and doors opened for a big swath of the day.

The other day the Boss got busy on the windows and screens of the florida room, which run the whole width of the house. Thank you Honey!

He does a *much* better job than me - very thorough.

Meanwhile I did something for him (and me), I baked a fruitcake. Some people might groan but we love fruitcake, loaded with pecans, raisins and candied peel.  We split a slice with our hot tea after dinner & it can't be beat. 

I have more baking plans but this had to be done early so I could season it properly with bourbon before it's debut in a couple or 3 weeks.

An easy recipe which turns out beautifully
each time. You can find it on the 
svdreamtime.com recipe page if 
you are interested in checking it out.

I also managed to (finally) have a lunch meet-up with Nancy, a friend from cruising. We went to a deli/butcher shop, which turned out to be very popular with the lunch crowd, deservedly so. Saw this amusing "old-timey" sign when in line to order. We found a nice table out in their outside dining area and chatted away.

We joked about them needing another sign about using "inside voices" as some rowdy car salesmen were "conversing" (shouting) with each other, a little decorum guys.

I found a good price on ham shanks and bought one a couple of weeks back. Doubled down on collard greens too and had quite a feast on that, with lots of yummy leftovers.

Sliced ham ready to be bagged up and put in the freezer.

Collards and cornbread can't be beat. I sauté onions, chopped ham or ham hock in olive oil, add fresh minced garlic, chipotle sauce and chicken stock (1 C), then add the washed and chopped collards to the pot and let it simmer for a few hours. So good, and good for you too.

Mincing garlic has always bugged me. I've never found a garlic press that worked for me - until now, that is.. I love it.

I keep the peeled garlic cloves in the freezer, then 
do the rock-a-bye thing on them to get the above result.
So easy and quite an easy clean up too.

Got a few decorations out and set up our 2 small trees plus made up a couple of floral decorations too. It was fun. Here's a small countertop lighted vase that I put onto the kitchen counter. So pretty lit up at night.

Next blog I'll do a bit more show and tell on the outside decorations and on my newest sewing obsession.  Meanwhile, here's a shot of some of the fabric I will be using.

Wonder what I've got in mind?? We'll see.

On the computer repair front, the Boss was having some power issues with his 'vintage' HP. Since the battery was shot and was generating a CMOS error during boot, we ordered a replacement, then proceeded with making sure we had a good recovery usb and backup.  The next step was popping the skins and making the swap. I was nervous as I hadn't done any hardware maintenance on a laptop in a long time. I got started and got-er-done.

Pretty daunting, but knowing we had a new Dell on order helped
alleviate the jitters. I was so nervous I had to close the door to my work
room. I work well under pressure, just not so much with an audience.

That's it for this addition, thanks for stopping by, and we'll see you next time.