A BIG new adventure and Caterpillars

I can hardly believe what I did yesterday. My dear friend Mary took me to the range and taught me gun safety. Then, for the first time ever, I fired a gun. It scared me and was way wayyyy outside my comfort zone.  I am proud to have tried it, comfortable saying I don’t like it but weirdly certain I want to try again to become less frightened of it. 

A handful of new neighbors have moved into our garden.  I met them today. Neighbors who look a little something like this: 

                                                                              

Enjoying my dying parsley is a tiny herd of these caterpillars.  Needless to say, fresh parsley did not make it into my crock-pot this afternoon.  I drug my tablet out to the garden to figure out just what kind of caterpillar they were.  Google pointed me to this lovely gal’s blog where I learned that they are going to grow up to be Black Swallowtail butterflies. The wild thing is, she’s from far Northern Canada and my garden is on the Florida coast, these butterflies have quite the range.  I can’t wait to see the cocoons and then the big beautiful butterflies they turn into!

Proud Pink Running Shoes

I started to write this post in a very different frame of mind. I titled it Salsa, yes please! I was going to expound on the yummy new recipe I made tonight. Healthy, delicious and approved for a repeat. A recipe involving salsa where I literally get to spoon the salsa into my mouth with no judgment. Hurrah, a success! But, I’ve been cooking for most of my life and these successes, while exciting and fun take a backseat to the success I had before I even started cooking.

Two weeks before my birthday, I hit my first running goal.  Then I got sick. Then I climbed back on the wagon and pushed myself back to where I had been. And further. Then I slid back again. And forward. Then a tropical storm, rain, rain, thunder, rain and no running.  Then, sunshine. Then, last week, I felt awful. Awful like I was trying to get sick and had an awful tummy flare up to boot. Hardly any running.  So, this afternoon, when I got home from work, strapped on my tennis shoes and suited up, I was uncertain how it would go.  I can tell almost instantly if this run is going to be one of those amazing runs where my determination is in sync with my body and I just go.  Today, surprisingly, was one of those days.  I feel like an Olympian, a champion, this afternoon.  And I love it.  I am proud to say I run. Proud to say I take care of my body. Proud that I like the way I look in my clothes. Proud of me. Proud of what I can accomplish.

Stop and See the Wildflowers

Today started with an abnormal morning. Instead of going straight to work, I went to an early morning before work allergist appointment.  While my normal commute is done mostly on autopilot, full of hurried coffee sips and busy traffic, this morning drive was much different.  Streets eerily empty of cars and lesser frequented roads prompted me to stop and take note.  Stuck in a turn off trying to make a U-turn, I saw a sign for the Melbourne Wildflower Program in the median amidst a patch of bright yellow flowers.  The entire rest of my trip found me scouting the medians for similar signs. I saw tons of different little flowers - bright reds, oranges and yellows cheerily gracing medians I had previously thought were little more than weed bedecked grass. Those little weeds are deliberately placed, lovingly cultivated treats.

I may be editorializing; they may not be loved but they certainly are pretty and perky.  My oddball morning gifted me with a reminder to slow down and enjoy doing something out of the ordinary. 

Weekend Update

After what felt like the longest week ever, this weekend has been equally long but much much more pleasant.  I’ve had lots of fun with friends, fun with Mikey, some quiet time by myself and lots of food and wine. 

Beth’s birthday was this week. We celebrated by wandering the Avenues and exploring Total Wine.  Beth, Amy, Brie and I wandered around the store for ages picking out stuff, finding all kinds of nifty new wines, craft beers and yummy liquors.  I finally found the pumpkin pie vodka I’ve been hunting for since Pinterest tempted me with pumpkin drink recipes.  I can’t wait to try them.  In further celebration of birthdays and spring break, we drank some of the wines we bought at one of Beth’s trademark wine tastings. We did a March Madness bracket test of Bordeaux versus Chianti coupled with flatbreads.  Ever since we had flatbread pizzas at Seasons 52, we’ve been pretty hooked on experimenting with them.  Everything was super delicious and the company was grand – Amy, Jonathan and Emma even made an appearance. Emma is almost one; she’s adorable.  There are so few girls in our group that getting to see Amy so frequently is a treat.

Easter was today but being away from family, lacking children to do any Easter Bunnying with and lacking any religious sentiments, we did not exactly celebrate it.  Last night Beth and I dyed eggs using some strange methods that yielded varying results – they never ever turn out as nifty as they look on the boxes. Today Mike and I slept way in, made buttermilk biscuits for brunch then spent a fair portion of the day fighting with the dryer vent. We lost to the dryer vent. The dryer continuously wins these battles. We spent much of the remainder of our afternoon fighting other battles, kicking butt in Torchlight.

Friday night, I celebrated the opening of one of my very favorite restaurants – a long anticipated event in my little corner of the world. Melbourne got its first Chipotle! Nearly every time we go into Orlando, Mike takes me to Chipotle because I miss their tasty spicy burritos. No more! I gorged myself on a hugely delicious burrito after waiting in one of the longer lines of my life. After our joyful Chipotle trip I took Mike and Chris to Total Wine to get their contributions to the wine tasting and more exploration of our giant new wine store. 

I’ve gotten a bunch of time to myself this weekend too.  A couple of really good runs, some surprisingly satisfying cleaning and organizing events, some sewing and a lovely bath.  I’ve even gotten to sit down to read a whole magazine. 

Summer Closet Challenge

Temperatures climbed into the high 80s this weekend.  It seems that, despite this week’s cold snap, a Blackberry Winter as Wikipedia tells me, summer has returned. Prompted by the increasing humidity and unreasonably warm garments filling my closet, I pulled down the boxes of my summer clothes.  Summer clothes, as I know them, never truly go away down here.  The little tee-shirt with its short sleeves that would never EVER have shown its face in my January closet growing up now lives in my closet perpetually. Only the really extreme clothing cycles in and out – the heavy cardigans, long sleeve blouses, tank tops and candy colored skirts.  

During my first year down here, I tried really hard to not buy a bunch of new clothes, only buying what I felt I desperately needed to help make my northern wardrobe Florida functional.  I made notes on what I thought I needed, living through every “season” Florida had to offer before committing the ample amount of money it would take to totally revamp my sweater-rich closet. A year and a half ago, when we moved into our house, I remember complaining vociferously about how urgent remodeling my closet was.  Now, as I pull all of my summer clothing out of storage and begin to try to stuff it into my closet, I realize two things:  I still need to remodel my closet and I have WAY too many clothes.  Too many is an understatement; the amount is staggering and equally embarrassing and impressive.  Thus, my summer project begins:

No clothes buying! None. Zero.