..and then there was Saturday

After that 3 hr adventure from Friday, including a nice bruise on my side from the cow train ride, Saturday was even more packed. I started the day at about 8:30am at Jax Beach for the Out of the Darkness walk for suicide awareness and prevention. I was there to support a former co-worker who lost a brother to suicide a few months ago. It was a beautiful day at the beach, and at about 9:30 (after coffee & a donut) we set off for a 3 mile walk on the beach. Thank goodness it was low tide! :)

After the walk, I had enough time to shoot over to the Arts Market for just a bit. This weekend there was some chalk art going on, and the Salvation Army was kicking off the "Bell Ringing" season. Bonus: A couple local restaurants got together and started a food truck! Mossfire Grill & O'Brothers are the restaurants, and they call the truck "busin' your chops". I didn't get a pic of the menu board, but I did grab a corned beef and cabbage "taco" and enjoyed it at a nearby park.

Last, but certainly not least, I headed home to change, feed the cat and head up to church. From there a bunch of us car-pooled to a favorite restaurant in Fernandina, FL called Barbara Jean's. Very down home, southern cooking. I had my shrimp n grits for dinner and for dessert a few of us split a big bowl of "Chocolate stuff" Kinda like a cross between warm pudding and raw brownie batter....sooooo good!!

It was almost 8:30pm by the time I got home..it was a wonderful day, full of good friends, and good food!

Central Florida jaunt

To start off my 4 day Holiday weekend, on Friday I took a drive to the Orlando area of Florida to see the Citrus Tower in Clermont. I've decided I need to venture further away than I have been. So, for me this was a new drive in very new territory. It's definitely the farthest I've driven in one go since I moved here. 

There is a miniature White House next to the Citrus Tower as well as a mini Mount Rushmore, and a mini Statue of Liberty, too! Inside the White House there were all kinds of wax statues, souvenirs and Presidential memorabilia, such as the China they used or jewelry worn by the First Ladies.


Here are some photos of a few of my favorite displays, and the outside of the building. The day was gray and a bit wet, but thankfully it wasn't raining too hard.

I believe I was supposed to pay to walk thru the Hall but there was only one person working, and she was leading a school group, so I walked thru quick and poked around the store area before heading to the Citrus Tower. I loved the Lincoln Statue.

Out front there was a bench with a Barack Obama sculpture sitting there, presumably for people to sit next to him. It was too wet, and it honestly didn't look much like him, not to mention his face was more green than anything. Next time, I'll get my picture in front of Mt Rushmore though. :)

After the Hall of Presidents I headed over to the reason for my visit: The Citrus Tower! It stands about 22 stories up, and because of it's location the top of the tower is at about 500 feet above sea level. Pretty tall for down here.

There were actually 2 different signs for each direction, but I only did the one side this visit. Hoping for much better weather the next time I go. Perhaps better planning on my part to actually look at the forecast before I go?

The oranges will show in the winter, and that sounds good for my next visit.  I picked up some key Lime coconut bars in the gift shop, and headed across the street to my next stop.

While searching the internet for other things to do there, I noticed that they had Friendly's Ice Cream. I honestly thought those were only in the Northeast! I sat down and ordered up a glass of water (tap, ugh) and a banana split. Jeanne had sent me a copy of The Improper Bostonian (Anthony Bourdain on the cover, Bonus!) and enjoyed reading that while I noshed.  I stopped at the Florida Mall in Orlando for a little while, and then drove back home. Lots of holiday traffic, but hey, i wasn't in a rush. I drove right past Universal Orlando, too. Oh,  how I wanted to stop and see the Harry Potter section of the park! :)

Downtown Jax

Last week I went to the arts market, and decided to take the trolley to the Jazz Festival that was going on a couple miles away. I would have walked the riverwalk, but not in the heat. The air conditioned trolley ride was well worth the dollar! Here are a few pictures of the Jazz Festival and the downtown area in general.

This first one is from The Arts Market and a church jazz band that played there. Being under the bridge is great, even in the summer. There is always a nice breeze coming off the river to cool us off.

Downtown isn't usually where I venture, as the parking situation is pretty horrible. The garages are expensive, especially during special events, so the trolley was perfect for this. I got a few shots of this sculpture in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, or MOCA, as most cities are calling them. I definitely should make it a point to go in there sometime! There is a good mix of old and new buildings, plus a few that are empty and in dire need of demolishing. The new main library is beautiful, 4 floors of pretty much everything, including a neat little courtyard with a fountain and shaded tables and benches to sit and relax. It had a very open feel to it, with desks set up in several different areas for people to work on a library computer or your own with the free wifi.

This is a large sculpture on the outside of the library set on a shelf into a corner. In my walking around downtown I found the building that housed the previous main library, and an even older one, where you could just read "jacksonville Public Library over the door, along with the slogan they continue to use "open to all". Hopefully this new library is big enough to last a few years more than the previous 2!

I found a goldmine in Chamblin's Uptown. Bookstore and cafe, I could have spent all day in there. I picked out a few books, and purchased a large coffee. They brew Green Mountain there, so that was a nice taste of home! In addition to this location, there is another one a bit further away, so I'm sure I'll make my way to that one eventually!

Scrap Your Day #8

November's "scrap your day" layout, a little late. I had all the pics attached, but hadn't finished my journaling yet. I finished that before I forgot it all, and took my pic. The theme this time was "capturing movement", and with that in mind I used a little more embellishment this time.

Yesterday I went to St Augustine. Not sure what I was thinking cuz it was freezing out, especially by the water!! I knew I had to visit Luli's Cupcakes, since I usually go down on Sunday and they are closed that day. Oh, my the choices! Can't wait to go back to try another flavor or 3. This visit I tried the Lemon Twist and one called The Godfather. Lemon is pretty self-explanatory, but The Godfather was a tiramisu flavor with an espresso syrup in the cake, and the frosting tasted just like the filling for a canoli!

After the cupcake adventure, I stopped at the local library after seeing online that morning that there was a book sale that day. I found several older but interesting books to pick up. So, will keep an eye on when they have there next one as well. I need to find out when my library here does them. I don't recall them having one posted or anything recently. Books are always worth the time and money! Next time I'll have my camera handy in there, too!

Here I am in front of the Castillo de San Marcos, all bundled up in coat, gloves and a hat! :) Have a fantastic week, everyone!

Scrap Your Day #??

Seriously, I don't know where I am on this project. No, we just finished our 9th month (December). Can't believe we've gone this far already! It has been a blast, and with the project 365 (facebook edition) I can see time just flying by even faster. Pretty soon, it will be spring and I'll be on vacation and hitting up Boston again. **sigh**
So anyhoo, here is my December layout. November is only half done, so that one will be shared sometime before this weekend.

The little metal letters ("my holiday") down in the right hand corner are so cool! Glad I was able to find the perfect LO for them too! (Thanks, Jeanne!) Of course, you should also go visit her site to see the layouts she completed, and all the other cool stuff she has going on!














I will post again, soon! Have a great rest of the week, and keep warm, wherever you are!! We've had some record lows here, this morning it was 29 deg F this morning, and only 31 yesterday. I know that's not real cold up north, but here, especially after being here for 3 years now...LOL it's COLD! It's hardly gotten above 45 all day, also. Out of the closet comes the hat and gloves!

Christmas

Hoping everyone out in Blog-Land had a very Merry Christmas! As I have for the last couple years I went to Lake City/Branford to visit my Aunt and her family. But only after enjoying some webcam family time on Christmas Eve. For the last several years, now that we are all adults, we've drawn names. We play games, have trivia questions, and just have a good time chatting. When my niece was younger they used to drive to Maine for Christmas Day, so we always celebrated at our house on Christmas Eve. When they stopped going "up Nawth" we've kept up our end of the tradition. Gives you that extra day to relax, or spend time visiting.

It's certainly a little more challenging over the webcam, but we manage ok. So, without further ado here are some of my favorite holiday shots, in collage format to save space.

Above are several treats that I made to hand out to co-workers, and at the top is me, enjoying my morning coffee on Christmas Day.
To the right are a couple pictures of my Aunt's Norman Rockwell Stockbridge Village Set. Only part of the set is out, as she has limited space for it. I was able to capture this shot of a pretty male cardinal in her backyard too! The female stayed pretty well hidden, but I did see her. At top right is probably my favorite shot of all of them. My "happy accident" photo. :) At bottom left is my breakfast and my uncle's father.

It's been overcast and cold for the last several days. In this last group of photos we went for a drive the day after Christmas to several local springs, the water was very high in spots, so got some neat pics. Over by the Suwannee River we saw a tree full of turkey vultures, but the closer I got they all flew away. Still cool.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

This week..

It has been crazy at work this week. So many different projects and things all going on at the same time. I'm so glad next week is a short work week. The whole crew will be in tomorrow, too, so I have to be in for 6am. meh.

Tonight I stopped by Panera Bread to grab supper since I heard one of their new soups is Mac & Cheese. Sure, It's not like mom makes, but hey, comfort food is comfort food. Especially when someone else makes it!

 And in keeping with that comfort theme, I stopped by Starbucks to get a yummy peppermint mocha. It was all delicious. All that was missing was my friend and some cushy chairs. :)

On Saturday I was able to hit the Arts market, and since the weather was so nice, I walked down to the Landing. There were local artists/students/kids doing chalk drawings along the mall. The Andrew Jackson Portrait was awesome, as were the others. In the bottom right you'll see a statue of Mr. Jackson, "for whom Jacksonville is named".

 

There was a man at the market who makes, sells and plays the didgeridoo. He makes them out of PVC.

A few weeks ago I came across this cutest camera. It's perfect for sneaking into concerts. It has a carabiner clip, and a decent enough resolution.

And well, it's orange. It's pretty much a known fact that if it's orange, I will probably buy it. I've tried it out a little bit in stores, and it works well enough, as long as it's held very still. I don't plan to make it my primary camera, but it's nice and easy to keep with me.

I'll leave you with tonight's sunset after I left work

and a quote:

“Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.”

~Elbert Hubbard

messing about..

Today was such a long day at work. We got in some long awaited product that needed to be packaged and stocked. We had extra help from another department, plus my normal crew. A few of us stayed til almost 8pm tonight, and I need to go back and finish it tomorrow morning. Glad to get it all done finally. I got them McDonald's for dinner for staying so late, too. Gotta love the dollar menu! :)

A couple of weeks ago I picked up an old Kodak Duaflex IV camera on Ebay to use for "Through the Viewfinder" Photography (AKA TtV). If you're not familiar with TtV, basically it's taking a photo through the viewfinder of an old camera, with another camera. Usually digital, but I'm sure any other camera would work. I've always loved the idea of a small display of old cameras anyway, so I'm gonna build towards that as well. There's a whole Flickr group devoted to this type of photography here, and if you're a photoshop user (which I'm not) there are also "actions" you can use to get the same effect. Not nearly as fun, though. I took a few photos looking out from the balcony and of the cat when I first got it,  which came out really badly. Last Sunday I took it to the beach.

Speaking of Sunday, it was Jeanne & my 7th "Scrap Your Day", adapted from Shimelle's project of the same name. The theme this month was reflections. Once we can get together and do our layouts, we'll have a post to share on that, as well. so my teaser shot is this one.

Oh, Scout asked if I could post his picture anyway.

As always click on the photos to see them in more detail.
Looking forward to a quiet scrappy weekend at home. After last weekends adventures, I think I shall stay right here. :)

today's photos..

It was a chilly start to the day, but once the sun came out it was very nice. I headed to St Augustine for the morning, and had a lot of photo oportunities. I heard at least 3 or 4 foreign languages as well: Italian, Spanish and French..and those were just the ones I recognized!

As the sun was coming up over the very heavy cloud on the horizon, the fog/mist started to lift on the river. This ship just screamed Pirates to me, dunno why. Maybe it was the way the sails hung, or the fog, or both! :)

I had lunch in this small Spanish Bakery: an Empanada, a roll, a cookie, and a can of lemonade for $5.50! It was delicious, too. After I was done there I picked up a birthday present for a dear friend. *hehe*
While walking down the street I heard some accordian music, and got a quick photo of the one man band! We tried to get someone to take our pic for me, but the gentleman we asked refused, so I just took it myself.

On the way home I stopped at the beach quick, and it was very windy and cold. I almost got killed by a kite crashing down near me. And for some ungodly reason, there was a surfing contest going on! BRRRR!

I thought about walking on the pier, but not with the way that wind was blowing. My ears were near frozen.

Back home I went to do some laundry and feed the Master and myself some dinner.

Something Like Normalcy..

Hooray! I actually managed to visit the Riverside Arts Market yesterday. Parking was a challenge due to Toyota and their awesome Farm to Table promotion. They paired local farms with local restaurants and in addition to offering (delicious) foodie samples, and promoting the Hybrid models in their automotive line, you could also take a test drive. They handed out passports at the entrance to the market and as you got samples, they stamped it. Once you got at least 3 stamps (I had 7) you could get a free herb. I waited until I was ready to leave so I didn't have to carry it, and chose a nice basil.

Due to the heavy traffic and hard time I had parking, I stopped at one of the little parks nearby to see what was hanging out in the "pond", and kill some time. I saw a roseate spoonbill, among other water fowl types. There was also a "Pet Blessing" going on, seen in the photo in the lower left. Lots of furry pets about.

Out in the St John's River the fish were really jumping. Several boats stopped to watch, and there was a few people at the rails watching as well, probably wishing they were out fishing. :)

After all those healthy samples, I had what I'd been craving for a couple weeks, a beignet and an iced coffee. Yum!

At left is my dessert, the plant wagon and the stamped passport. The dish is pickled beets with goat cheese. And like all the other samples before it, it was delicious.

St. Augustine on Sunday

I wasn't able to leave as early as I usually would, but I still managed to make it down there shortly after sun-up. I didn't bother with the beach this time. I parked the car in a nearby garage, and headed to the Castillo De San Marcos fort. Chatted up a random photog (one of many I saw today) for a few minutes about our favorite spots and time of day for shooting, and parted ways.

I spent quite a few minutes watching some chickens, roosters and babies over by Flagler College. A local told me there was 3 chicks, and after a trip crossing the road, there were only 2. Mama still seemed to be looking for that 3rd baby.

I had been messing around with my camera settings this morning, and while some of it worked, some of it didn't. This shot is pretty blurry, but you can still tell what it is.

Shortly after noon, I was back home to listen to The Red Sox game.

This is one of my fave pics I got today.

Red Hats & stormy skies

During a recent Saturday at the Riverside Arts Market, there were many ladies belonging to the Red Hat Society wandering as well. Here is a collage of the ones I managed to get photos of. They all looked to be having such a good time!

I decided to skip out on the market this weekend, and instead listed a few unneeded items on Ebay and Swap A CD.

Maybe tomorrow I will head down to St. Augustine for the morning. It's usually pretty quiet there on Sunday mornings, but with enough people out for some good people watching, and photographing.

I couldn't resist getting a shot of this last week. If you look closely you can see downtown jacksonville. Obviously, I was driving, so wasn't going to attempt making sure it was composed. The sunlight is what I was after.

RIP, Mr Kennedy..

Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy passed away last night. Despite the fact that he has been quite ill as of late, it was still a shock to hear the news this morning.

Work was good. We have slowed down yet again, so several people are taking a vacation day tomorrow. We did manage to get quite a bit of work done on our current Kaizen project, so at least it was a productive day.

I can't wait for my vacation, 3 weeks to go. So much to do and see in just 10 short days. Boston and the Big E have been occupying my every thought lately and that's just 2 of the 10 days. lol! So much food, so little time! I'm starting to check the Boston sights a little more now to see what we can find that's a little more out of the ordinary. We came up with quite a list, too! It will definitely require leaving very early in the morning, and employing lots of logistics. Not to mention camera batteries, memory cards, and really good walking shoes! :) Let the insanity begin!

Seriously, we've been there so many times and have yet to see all the little nooks and crannies that make up Boston. Then there are those places we visit over and over, and never tire of the sight..

Yesterday was Tuesday, (and Scrap Your Day #5) so that meant a trip to Barnes & Noble to catch up on some of my favorite magazines, and a Green Tea frap.

This morning I *had* to go to Dunkin' Donuts to try the new "Toffee for your Coffee" donut, created by a customer in a contest this summer. It was a little too sweet, but still very good. It consists of a sour cream donut with a little glaze on top, and then crushed Heath Bar candy on that. Did I mention it was sweet? LOL

Scrap Your Day #4

I was finally able to complete my layout for the 4th Scrap Your Day held on Saturday July 25th. The theme this month was looking down, out and up. I did pretty good for down & out, not so good on up. Two outta three ain't bad.

I love when SYD falls on a weekend. Weekdays make it much more of a challenge, since I can't take pics at work. This particular saturday I went down to the Riverside Arts Market and watched some live music from Justin Roberts and the Not Ready For Naptime Players, had a delicious pulled pork sandwich and lemonade, and wandered all about downtown Jax. It runs thru December, I can't wait til it's just a little cooler out.

Here are a couple more photos that didn't make it onto the layout.

Downtown Jacksonville Highway Maze. There is still construction going on, but it's gotten better than it was a couple years ago, thankfully.

This is the splash fountain in front of the jacksonville Landing Mall. Oh, how I wished I could have taken a splash..I did stand on the edge and try to get a good shot of my slightly wet sneakers, but it didn't come out like I wanted.

This is the back of the turtle seen in the upper left of the layout. I think I've found about 6 of them so far.

As always click on the pics for a closer view, and don't forget to visit Jeanne's blog to see what she made!

Sunday Ride

I was up fairly early this past Sunday and decided it would be a good day to hit St Augustine. I hadn't been there for a few months, and wanted to see what was going on. I made it to the beach for sunrise, then headed into town. Did a lot of walking all around the fort (Castillo De San Marcos) and the historic district. Being a sunday, not much was open that early, but I managed to find a small cafe, which seemed like a great idea. No iced coffee and they didn't take debit cards. I hardly *ever* have cash on hand. So I got just a hot coffee, and took it to go. I'll be prepared next time, since it did seem like a nice place to relax.

On the way home I stopped at a preserve, and took a good long walk there too. I saw lots of animal tracks, but other than a few frogs and lizards, I saw no wildlife. This little guy was hanging out in the box where the sign in/out clipboard is stored. too cute!

Here is a collage of a few pics taken of the fort. I love walking around it and just knowing how old it is amazes me. I never fail to find something that I missed on a previous trip.

Also, I was reminded recently that I still haven't shared pics from the 4th of july. ooops. I made it to the beach in Jacksonville. It took forever to find parking but once I got settled in to watch the live music, then walked the short distance to the beach for the fireworks after. Totally worth it!

As always click on the photos for a closer look!