Ducks & Gators

Went looking for gators with Rick this weekend. He'd never seen one in
person, much less in the wild. We went all over and finally found
a gator swimming in Lake Adair.

In addition to the gator I spotted this very awesome duck mamma. These
ducklings were pretty old, they'd already lost their fluffiness, and
there were still 11 of them. They swam up and then came on shore to
say hi before swimming away.

-posted from my iPhone-

Celebrating Exotic Cars

There was an exotic car show over in Celebration, FL today. C and I
went together, it was well organized with a great turnout. A nice way
to spend our Saturday together. Plus C had fun calling buddies to
brag. ;)

The picture is of a line of Ferraris.

Overeaction/Heros

I am back, with no interesting thoughts to share that don't relate to travel so instead, my favorite post secrets from this week:

I'll come up with something else cool to post soon. :)

Away Message

You've reached my blog. I'm sorry, but I'm not here right now. I'm in Italy with my Mom - you can find us here. Otherwise you can leave a comment after the beep and I'll get back to you.

Beep.

Moving On

We're pretty much settled in. We're still shopping for a few things, I need a comfie chair for my office, hoping to find a comfie futon but we'll see...We are going to make curtains for the living room. I found the fabric and Old Time Pottery of all places. Other than that we're in. I just have to get used to it all now.

I leave for a trip to Italy with Mom on Thursday though, so it's time to switch gears. Keep up with me while I'm in Italy just hop over to the travel blog.

New House Facts

Fun facts about our new house:

- the trains blow their horn a lot, it's comforting
- our bathroom has no door seperating it from the bedroom, curtain hung
- there is a lot of pedestrian and lake traffic out front, more to watch
- wood floors hurt my feets, slipper shopping
- we are under the hospital helicopter traffic path
- our attic space is huge and yucky and dark
- roger can get to the attic from the laundry room
- roger likes to play peekaboo from the attic with people who are below
- if left alone in the attic roger will nap, with all the insulation, bugs and dust
- roger does not like post-attic bathes
- roger has a short memory and will forever try to sneak back to the attic
- we have a lot of windows, that's a lot of window treatments needed
- merging traditional and modern is tougher than I thought

Update:

- the sprinklers go right over our bedroom windows - must close windows on Wednesdays...

Spider Payment

A co-worker sent this to me.

It gets a bit out of control, but it is funny. :)

Moving

We're moving next weekend (anyone who wants to help...) from our current apartment on the East side to a house on Lake in Maitland. I got the keys yesterday and spent the day painting.

Pictures of the house and move etc will come.


In the dining room I wanted to do something different, some type of geometric design. I got Mom to design it for me and we go it up on the wall today. I think it's going to be cool, but it will be hard to tell until we take the tape down.


Check out the process here.

She Skydived & Survived!

My pseudo mom, Velma, wanted to skydive for her birthday. So we all
pitched in and came out to watch and support her.

She was do psyched when she got back that she giggled for three
minutes straight. Says she'd do it again in a heart beat.

I'm very jealous and VERY proud of her.

Random City Crop

This is a vacant lot in college park. The owner has planted a crop of
something. We drove by and they were sitting out watching the
sprinkler water the crop.

Totally random. It felt like a setup for a movie or a candid camera.

Rapping Actor

Chris sent this to me and it caught me off guard. Did you know that Joaquin Phoenix is now a rapper? The same guy from Gladiator, who played Johnny Cash is a rapper?

What?!?

Apparently he's not very good at it.


Check out the story here.

This makes me sad, because I like him as an actor...

Movie Reviews

I'm a bit behind on my movie reviews. Alright a lot behind. So I'm just going to hit those I've seen in the past few weeks.

Slumdog Millionair : It was on my Netflix list long before the Oscars but after it did so well with the awards and was highlighted in the talk shows, I was even more curious. It was a lot more raw than I expected, I think I would have been impressed if I hadn't gone in with high expectations after the awards. I know, I shouldn't listen to the awards....It was good though, entertaining, original, I definitely recommend renting/flixing it. Makes a good date type movie.

He's Just Not That Into You : I knew nothing about this before seeing it. I was looking for a chick flick to see with a chick buddy and it seemed to fit. The cast was full of very familiar faces which was suprising since the two leads were the least well known. It was definitely a sappy, cheezy girly movie. But you know any movie that can make me smile, laugh, embarassed, uncomfortable, suspensful and sad all in one - well that's entertaining and worth watching. Worth a rent/flix.

That's all for now.

Lent Fast Food?

It's getting to be that season, where little girls where frilly dressers, little boys where bow ties and vests, purple and orage egg salad is found at lunch time and rabbits especially cute. Easter is coming.

I'm always reminded of this by the seafood commericals on TV, suddenly everyone from Wendy's (a burger joint) to Popeye's (a chicken joint) is pushing a seafood dish. It must be Lent season.

Last night, though, I got to thinking about this....Lent - "The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus." It is most common to give up red meat during lent, especially on Fridays, this satisfies the "self denial" part.

So around this time of year we see commercials for the juicy, delectible seafood options in fast food restaurants.

Isn't this a bit self defeating? I will deny myself the pleasure of red meat but then as a substitute I will eat this deep fried, yummy peice of fish? The fast food joints are making a killing off of successfully enticing devout, lent practicing Christians into enjoying a meal when they're supposed to be in self-denial.

I know, a bit extreme, but I still found it ironic. If I ate fast food I'd be in heaven, this is prime pescatarian (vegetarian + seafood) season in that market!

PS - while I do not participate in any of these religious traditions, I respect those who do, so please don't take this offensively, it's the fast food industry I hold at fault, not the un-suspecting lenter.

Pilot Wife

When we moved back to Orlando I realized that I no longer really know my childhood friends - surprise. So I started using craigslist and meet-up to look for new people. I haven't had much luck so far. I've met people, but no one who's sticking.

Lately I've been interested in finding more pilot wives and was thinking of starting a meet-up for this. I did a google search and found this site. Neat huh? It didn't remedy my problem so I'm still searching and pondering.

3/2/09
Update: I wanted to first respond to packphour's comment - which I do sometimes feel to be true, but I'm social, and I'm on those sites. It's funny, the older you get the harder it is to make friends. I can't walk up to a person with a similar style who seems nice and say "want to go play on the monkey bars". :) Don't worry though, the internet is just one method of expanding my social circle.

The second update is that over the weekend I had lunch with Misty, a fellow pilot wife who's husband is at about the same place C was when we met. He's just about to become a flight instructor in Sanford. So, random internet search equals success!

Don't Divorce Them

I found this touching.



"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

I know what Mini Mama would say - America was founded on Biblical principals! (quoted fondly)But the way those men of God designed this country was to keep church and state seperate. To give people the freedom to think and feel as the want about religion. I truly struggle to understand how a rational person, no matter what their religious and personal beliefes, could justifying allowing the goverment to dictate what qualifies as love, marriage, family.

I know that same gender marriage in California has a shakey past, I know that there is a lot more going on here. But what it boils down to is 18,000 couples and their family, friends and children will have their lives turned up side down because of this. It just doesn't seem right. With everything else going on in this country right now, can't we just let this be and focus our efforts elsewhere?

If the video touches you too you can click here to sign the letter and find out other ways to help.

See Rock City - we did

Chris and I had to drive my green car up to Cinicnnati and decided to make the best of it. We timed it so we stopped for the night in Chattanooga, TN. We enjoyed a great dinner at Rain Thai and then the next day went to Rock City.

You've likely heard of Rocky City but just don't realize it. They advertise on birdhouses and barns. I've been working again so I asked Chris to find something for us to do on our drive, a distraction, and he found Rock City. The history behind it is actually kind of neat.

You know I want to visit all 50 states, but not just pass through or even stay the night. I want to experience them. I'm convinced that every state has something interesting or memorable worth seeing - shoot there's whole websites dedicated to it. Rock City is a perfect example.

The gardens were pretty. The rock formations crazy. I'm pretty sure we didn't actually see all 7 states, but it's a nice idea. The fairytale land was just down right eerie.

Pictures are here.

Valentines

On the WhiteCastle sign:
"make your valentines day reservation now-call 859-433-3564"

We saw it in Florence, KY but someone else reported one in greater
Chicago!

Has anyone really called? Are any locations already booked full?

Nevermind, scratch that. I'm scared of the answer.

Ps I tried to get a picture, I'm sorry to say that I failed.

Rock City Gardens

As in the see rock city bird houses? It's really pretty so far!

And Again

It's official, we're moving again. We're leaving our apartment in East Orlando and moving to a large house on the edge of Maitland, almost in Winter Park.

Our lease at the apartment is up March 31st, we're moving into the new place on March 15th so we'll have a couple weeks of over lap.

I'm excited but not at all thrilled about all of the work that is ahead of me. The good part is that we really plan to stay put for awhile this time.

We'll see.

Craziness in Thorton Park

While driving around Chris randomly spotted peacocks wandering around.
They were on top of a car at first! Random huh?