Kayaking

Where does the time go? I can't believe it's been two weeks since I updated!

I learned a valuable lesson Saturday. Never go off on a day trip without details. I blithely agreed to go kayaking with a group of guys doing the St. Johns River and never once asked how far we were going or how long it would take. About 3.5 miles into it and about halfway across Lake Harney with white caps swamping the kayak, I'm thinking "next time, I'm gonna ask a few more questions."

But it was great and a calorie counter tells me it could have burned more than 3,000 calories.

The truly amazing thing was all the water. The St. Johns is so wide and flat at the moment, more than two months after Tropical Storm Fay, that it has a completely different character. We kayaked probably in places where no one has ever kayaked before. And once we got into the river proper and out of purgatory, oh I mean Lake Harney, it was really beautiful. Sabal palms, cypress, birds galore and only two alligators on the whole trip. I was a bit disappointed.

To read more about Kayaking the St. Johns, go here:

Thursday night I got to enjoy all my children and grandchildren when they came for dinner. It was absolutely divine. Katelyn will be walking before we know it and Will is going to be crawling very soon. They seem to be fascinated by each other, which is totally fun.

Now I must get back to the Halloween costume, which will be great practice for making prom dresses or even a wedding dress!

Aren't they adorable!

Weekends

Boy how I wish every weekend was a three day weekend. There's just not enough time to do everything. Today, like most Saturdays, we shopped. Everywhere you go the selections are huge. It makes things so much more difficult. We picked out tile this morning. It's going to be different but I think it will be beautiful. A combination of beach and stone grotto. Can't wait til we get it done. But I couldn't believe the tile choices. It was incredible.

Then we visited Lowe's and Home Depot, trying to pick out a ceiling fan. How can there be so many and still not one I like -- except for the ones you special order for $250. That's just beyond my budget.

And speaking of beyond budget, does anyone really think it's worth an extra $120 to have a bone, high commode rather than a white, high commode? That just seems silly.

We put in eucalyptus mulch in a bed and the cat loves it. Everytime we go outside she's sitting in the mulchpile. It must smell like cat nip.