Balmy weather, Tai Chi, and baby

80 degrees here folks! Lots of snow and cold in other places - if I could send some warm your way I would... And while we should stay and enjoy the beach and balmy days, we leave in a week to go to Star Mt., where last night the temp was -24 - oh yes, I did just write that and no typo - 24! We hope it warms up just a tad before we get there. Staying 3 weeks to enjoy winter wonderland (snowshoeing & skiing in the plans) We have lots of warm clothes and tons of wood for the fireplace - think we're going to need it...

Tai Chi this morning, which consists of many moves with cute names (grasp sparrow's tail, single whip, white stork, etc.) Our instructor Mike is teaching the short form with 37 postures. So far in a month we've learned 5. Hmmm, it will certainly take a while to learn it all at this rate. In his defence, he thinks it's super important to learn proper stance, balance, & center in the beginning, and he has bumped the learning curve up a bit. He's also letting it slip that really it's a martial art, cute names or not, but a defensive one. I guess that's okay, you never know when you need a skill... I'll miss 7 classes while we're gone, but intend to take a private lesson to catch up when we get back. Don't want to be left behind...

Walked to the beach after class and finally saw a young alligator. They have been non-existent for weeks. And the woodstork was right in the middle of the cart path for awhile paying no attention to bikes, walkers, beach trams, but by the time I got there, he sauntered off to the side and turned his back on me. Cold shouldered by a bird, thinking that's pretty low on the social scale.
Finished book #5 of the year. Sadly, did not like it and struggled to get to the end. The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk. Travel for 3 months to Italy with her husband & kids, should be fun right?  It was gloom & doom all the through - who knew you could make travel to Italy sound depressing!
And we did see the Fighter over the weekend. Another well deserved nominated movie. Boxing is not my thing, but the storyline was great and acting superb.

Lastly, but not in order of importance. I have exciting news. I'm going to be a grandmother!! Tiffany and Chris are expecting and she's due in August. Wildly joyous about it all. Can't wait!

Birds and movies

Mark communing with the birds

So why when you have the birds calling, the surf crashing or waves gently swishing onto the sand, do people wear earphones? On my beach walk I've noticed about 1/3 of the people do this, and I just don't get it. I mean, they sell soundtracks of the ocean noises - meditative and all that.  Anyway, no earphones for me...

Caught this heron trying to catch fish at the water's edge. They are shy though and flew away...

Be warned: you're probably going to see many movie reviews from me. It's a nice activity when we're kicked out of the house for a showing.  Just saw The King's Speech. Very, very good and not surprising that it's up for tons of awards. I'm, as you know, a anglophile extraordinare, so no surprise I liked it, but Mark really enjoyed it too (and he's not an anglophile in any sense of the word).Open house tomorrow so we bought tickets to see The Fighter. My review will follow!
Finished book #4  - number 6 in the series - The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith. Great series set in modern day Scotland.

Cooking sauce, pools, and art

Sunrise at the beach

Meyer lemon sauce from William Sonoma is really great stuff - and popular, they're out of it a lot. Mark used it to make osso bucco the other night - yum. It's good on other things too,chicken for one. Pick some up! And yes, you need to actually have a Williams-Sonoma near you for this to work - which I do currently, but of course do not in Gunnison.

So the house is on the market, and of course after fixing, painting, etc. something else breaks. Naturally. This time it's the pool timer. This Florida lifestyle of every house with a pool means fun but also maintenance. Our pool light had gone out as well (not as crucial but nice) so the repairman fixed both. Did you know the lights are in waterproof housings so you don't have to drain the pool (which we briefly thought would happen).I don't think he was having fun, but it was fun for me to watch..

I'm posting a still life assignment for art class. Not my normal forte, but I enjoyed it. At least it's a happy thing with color...

Finished book #3 Wait for Me, the latest memoirs of Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire. Wow,that's a mouthful. She's 90, still very active, and the book was full of great stories. It made me want to go see her home - Chatsworth, now in the national trust owned by the British government. It has 497 rooms!

Fog, windows, and for sale signs

Amazing fog this morning at the beach. That's the sun trying to blast through... We're a mile away, but the weather can be substantially different there versus the house.

Saw our first dolphins in three months yesterday. And - there is no picture.  I have a bunch of serene blue water ones sans fins. It may be more difficult than I thought to catch them on film...

Anybody seen True Grit? - yes, we're suckers for westerns (something to do with Star Mt., no doubt). It's a great movie and if you're old enough to have seen the original, it's so different you're not dealing with the remake issue. Recommend it highly... Our super deluxe movie theater doesn't hurt either - oversize leather seats which you can reserve online...
And the house is officially on the market. Whoo hoo - all comers are welcome, hmmm, let me qualify that - all serious comers, I mean. We finished all the little projects, including removal of the old, cloudy,incorrectly placed(put outside not inside, at some point by our previous owners) hurricane film on our windows. I hasten to add we did not remove it, our handyman did. Nasty job involving sharp blades... For those of you not in a hurricane zone, the film is supposed to keep the windows from shattering in the event of a true hurricane. Not so much, according to my online research - it appears to be one big fat scam, for people who don't want to spend the large chunk of money it takes to put on hurricane shutters. Anyway, clear clean windows are what we have now.

People, cars, and zoom, zoom

Life here is now moving fast - it's season! Here, that means crowded restaurants, foreign languages wafting in the air, lots of traffic and crazy acting traffic at that, and ridiculous things -seeing Bentleys & Rolls Royces every day, designer clothes on people who really should not be wearing them - too old, too heavy, too whatever... I'm convinced those clothes only look good on 6ft tall, skinny, 20 year olds...it's a good thing since I can't afford them anyway...

And then there are the houses - no, neither one of these is mine, not even close.  The top one on the beach is worth $10 million -wow, that's a lot of zeros. Gotta love it - the Naples scene.

Enjoying my Tai Chi class. It's a very centering, meditative art - quite the opposite of our modern world. We're learning postures very slowly (yes, my impatience is showing) it's a discipline, but all good for the body & mind. I will keep going - there are 37 postures to learn and we're only on number 2!

Bathroom remodel done - hurray! Now the house goes on the market this weekend. Not so much hurray - I have to gear myself up for the onslaught. I keep telling myself: no people, no sale...

Leaks, watercolor paint, and reading

The DIY project continues - mirror out, old vanity out, new one purchased and brought back home. Small hiccup, mystery small leak has been evidently happening behind the old vanity - our handyman is trying to determine origin as we speak. The bathroom looks very sad right now...

I am posting some more paintings I've been working on in the last few weeks. I start a new session of classes with the art teacher that I'm so enthusiastic about this afternoon. http://www.artbypattykane.com/ Can't wait -

Finished, kind of, book number #2 for 2011. Okay, I didn't like it at all, made it half way and gave up. It had highly recommended on a reading blog I peruse from time to time. Not my kind of thing... Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland. Historical romance genre I believe now. Lusty, heaving bosoms etc. - about Elinor of Aquitane of all things...

Paint in my hair and Meyer lemons in my frig

On to fun projects for 2011 - hmmm, maybe not so much. The DIY concept is good and money saving, but hard on my back and neck... You know how one thing leads to another. I thought all we had to do was replace the falling apart vanity. It turned into ripping old wallpaper down, texturing, painting, scheduling the mirror man to come take away the old mirror (it won't fit with the new vanity) and measure for the new one, scheduling the removal of the vanity, and having to buy & pickup the new vanity. Only the walls have been done so far and that was a bit of work - we have 10 foot ceilings everywhere.
And we're putting the house back on the market. It's prime time for real estate sales here, so I'm trying to gear up for the onslaught of people. Last season we had mobs of people but sadly only bargain shoppers. Could be that way again - cross your fingers for us. We're ready for the year round Star Mountain experience. Mark certainly is - he must look at the webcams of Crested Butte 3 times a day - every day.

Went to the farmers market in town. Oh yes the people are here! I'm elated to be able to buy local produce and people watch. And Meyer lemons are back - hurray. Oh, and isn't that car cute? I want one - would be lots of fun.