NOT AGAIN!

Damnation! I got another yellow fly bite! This time on the side of my right leg close to the bend of my knee. I have a saucer size swollen area that is warm to the touch, pink and very itchy. It's hard to bend my leg. Grrrrrr

Hugs from the beach,
Kat


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

INVASION

It's THAT time of year!  We have been invaded by the tourists.

Crowds everywhere.  The beach.  Restaurants.  Shops.  Golf courses.  Tennis courts. Pools.  Publix and Walmart are unbelievably packed.  Even the library.  The traffic is bumper to bumper.

And it's gonna get worse.  Much worse.  July 4th is coming.  Actually the whole month of July will be a nightmare for us locals.  (I shouldn't complain 'cause I used to be one of the tourists coming here! LOL)

July is my least favorite month to live at the beach for the reasons mentioned above, plus it's HOT and humid. Thank goodness we live in a golf cart friendly neighborhood and we can get to plenty of restaurants, shops, nail salon, banks, etc.  on our golf cart or bikes and we don't HAVE to get out in the traffic on the main roads most of the time.  Even the hospital and medical building for our doctors are close by.  My neighbor fondly calls where we live "the tiny kingdom".  LOL

I plan to stay home more, cook more, clean out drawers and cabinets and do a lot of reading this month.  Let me know if you have a book suggestion for me.

What do YOU have planned for July?

 

Hugs from the beach,

Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

WELL.....

I must not be boring.

Because let me tell you...I am never ever ever bored!

Are you?
 
Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

MAKING BAD CHOICES

 

 Confession is good for the soul, right?

Well, I must confess that I have been making tooooo many bad choices lately by....

not making time for the treadmill

enjoying way too many McDonald caramel frappes (to die for!)

having that extra glass of wine

ordering fries instead of a salad

etc.

etc.

etc.

I could go on and on, but why make myself more depressed and bore you ;-)

I'm not liking my scale right now, but he (oh, it's a he, for sure!) keeps me honest.

I'm not making excuses (?), but wearing sundresses all day/every day sure keeps me cool and comfy, BUT... with no waistband, it's easy to not notice a few pounds creep up and stick around.  grrrrrrr!

All good things must come to an end and today is THE day for change!!!

Back to the treadmill for me.  And back to using myfitnesspal.com   Doing these two things is what works for me!

Are you making good choices?

 
Hugs from the beach, 
Kat

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

A PICNIC IN THE PARK

Our church picnic was held after church this morning in a magical place - EDEN GARDENS STATE PARK.

The 161 acre park is truly beautiful and is the home of the Wesley mansion (1897) which was named after a wealthy Florida timber family.  The white columns and wrap around porch brought mental images for me of scenes in Gone With The Wind.  I could just imagine horse drawn buggies full of giggly girls in hoop skirts holding parasols ;-)

Breathtakingly beautiful moss drapped live oaks everywhere!

 
 Love the shadows under the trees too!

Thankfully our "picnic" was held inside this screened-in pavillon, which included restrooms and overhead fans.  The day was beautiful, but quite WARM!

 It was big and comfy and tucked back under the trees.

And we could still enjoy the beauty as we ate our lunch.

My silly husband modeling someone else's hat!

  

I hope your weekend was good too.

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

BY REQUEST

 
I mentioned in my last post that I made a cold spaghetti salad for our church picnic tomorrow and several of you have asked for the recipe.  It's been so hot lately that I knew I would want to take something cool and refreshing.  I'm taking a cooler to keep it in while we are in church.  (I've taken this salad before to a pot luck dinner at church and it was a hit.)

It makes a lot!  It's hard to tell from the photo, but this is a LARGE bowl of "wonderfulness"!

Kat's Cold Spaghetti Salad

1 pound of vermicelli pasta

1 small bottle of Kraft Seven Seas Viva Italian dressing

1/2 (or more) of a bottle of McCormick Salad Supreme

1 bunch of green onions

3 or 4 tomatoes

2 or 3 cucumbers 

Cook and drain pasta.  Cool pasta.  Chop onions, tomatoes and cucumbers.  Mix all together with dressing and salad seasoning.

I think it's best if you let it marinate overnight.  Add more dressing and salad seasoning if desired.

Enjoy!

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

HEY YOU!

What's going on in your world?

Me?

Today seemed to fly by.  My cleaning girls came so my house is CLEAN and I'm happy.  I got a haircut.  George and I played in our neighborhood tennis round robin this afternoon and then attended a party afterwards...lots of fun!

No luck so far in selling our house, but we're having an open house again tomorrow so that means that George and I and Miss Daisy will need to find something to do for 3 hours ;-(

We have a church picnic after church on Sunday so I made my cold spaghetti salad this afternoon.  It's always better if it has a day or so to marinade.

I'm happy the weekend is here!  

How about you?

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

OH, WHAT A NIGHT!

I looked out the window just as the sun was setting and it took my breath away.  Oh, what a night!  
Isn't our God something?!

Now, today was a whole something else.  HOT HOT HOT!

I

I play tennis in a mixed doubles group on Thursdays at 9am.  I know...we're nuts!  Especially this time of year.   Lordy, it was HOT this morning.  The humidity was incredible!  About 30 minutes after we stopped, the rain came.  

My yard was smiling when I pulled into the driveway.  snicker

The heat really drained me today.  I've been yawning all afternoon.  I wanted to just take a nap, but I had a meeting I needed to attend and then a pedicure appointment.  awwwww...finally!

By the way....

still nothing happening with the sale of our home :-(

my yellow fly bites are almost healed ;-)


   

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

POW!

Yikes!  I got hit right in the kisser...and my nose...this morning, but not by a fist (thank goodness!).  I was playing at the net in tennis and got hit by a FAST ball!  My friend who hit it felt so bad.  It wasn't her fault, of course. 

It scared.me.to.death!  

We stopped and I put some ice on my nose and lips for a few minutes and then kept playing.  

A little yellow ball isn't gonna stop ME!  LOL

So far, so good.  I just had a little bit of a bloody nose.  Now my nose is a bit sore and my sinuses feel a tiny bit tingly...BUT... 

I still have my teeth and my nose isn't broken ;-)

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

THE LUNCH BUNCH

The Tuesday Lunch Bunch met today at Fajitas Grill.  It sure was fun!  

Our sweet leader Marie (the first one on the left) sends out emails each weekend to let us know where we're meeting on Tuesday.  We go to different places each week.  You never know who will show up.  Sometimes the group is small (maybe only 4 like last week) or medium like this week (12) or really large (20 or more).  We're all busy, but we come as often as we can.  

I love the ladies in our Lunch Bunch and look forward to Tuesdays!

Thank you Lord for good friends and good times.

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

NOT YET (pooh!)

Some of you have asked how things are going with our home for sale.  Nothing yet :-(

Our realtors are wonderful and we are confident that they will sell it.  And soon, I hope!  I've found something I really like and hope no one else buys it before we can.  

We had a realtor open house last Thursday and it was a big success!  George was out of town so I had to leave and take Miss Daisy with me right before it started.  It was hard to leave because a party was going on in my house and I wasn't there!

Here's what the beautiful brochure looked like (photos should be clickable)....

They served wine, sushi, a cheese tray, and wonderful little bite size cakes.

 

 They hired a sax player and he was GOOD!  I took a quick photo as he was warming up.  The sound was wonderful and added an extra punch to a special night.

 While the party was going on, I took Miss Daisy for a walk across the Jolee Island bridge. 

And then I picked up a caramel frappe and we parked by the beach and enjoyed people watching ;-)

Trying to stay out of the house with a dog when it's "hot as blazes" isn't easy.  I ended up stopping lots of places and taking her for walks.  That's how I ended up with the bad bug bites on my ankles.  Grrrrr    I'm doing much better though.  Today was my best day.  Epsom salt and water makes a wonderful poultice by the way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I loved having my sister here for a long weekend while George was away watching our grandsons baseball tournaments.  My sister left this morning and George returned home tonight.

 

Hugs from the beach, 

Kat 

 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

SUNDAY

My feet are still itchy and swollen, but not as much as Friday night.  It's so hard to believe a little insect can cause so much trouble.  I have two friends who have had yellow fly bites and they both said it took days and days to get back to normal.  For someone like me who is soooo allergic, it's gonna take longer.  Grrrrrr

When I got up this morning they actually looked pretty good so my sister Kim and I went to church and lunch and then came home.  By the time we got to the house my feet were swollen again!   We decided to stay in and watch movies.  I've loved having her here this weekend.

 


Hugs from the beach,
Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

MISERABLE FEW DAYS

 

This is NOT my foot.  Well, it is my foot, but not my foot.  Not my normal foot anyway.  I got bitten by something (a yellow fly, I think) on both feet and ankles when I walked Daisy on Thursday night. I've had a miserable time since then.  I took a photo of my right foot too but the photo didn't turn out, but believe me they are both bad.  Looks like I have no ankles at all.  I took this photo this morning and they look bad, but last night was MUCH worse.  It looked like I had bricks for feet.  Lots of redness, swelling and extreme itching.  I've been soaking them in Epsom salt water, rubbing them with a cortisone cream, keeping them elevated and taking lots of Benadryl.  Ugh!!!!!!!  The Epsom salt water feels good, but it's dried my feet out and now my nail polish is awful. I want MY feet back...pretty please.  And a pedicure.  lol 

My sister Kim is here visiting and has been a great nurse ;-)

I hope your weekend has been much better than mine.

 

Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 


"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."

ENJOYING SUNSET

Gosh it is HOT HOT HOT here in the sunshine state!  So hot that all of us tennis girls have decided to cut our playing time down to only an hour and a half instead of two.  Works for me!

You know Miss Daisy has to have her golf cart ride and she doesn't care how hot it is.  We are enjoying making it later so it's a tiny bit cooler AND we get to find different spots to watch the sunset.

Last night, we watched it over by the marina....so peaceful.

 



Hugs from the beach, 
Kat 

"Father, please let me be a blessing to someone today."