Memorial Day Weekend

Well, Hello there my friend!  Where have you been?  I decided a break was needed from the blog.  I know, I just started writing but I found I wasn't writing anything new or all that interesting.  Even worse, I think, it was already getting into a rut.  Now that's just want you wanted to read isn't it?!  The same old crud just a different color, so to speak.

Sorry, but I still haven't found a great solution to this for you or for me.  I'm working on it with my puzzler and you'll be the first (actually the second-since I'll be first) to know when I figure it out.

We had a terrific weekend!  I hope you all did too.  Like I said before, we worked on the 'chores' Friday and first thing Saturday morning.  It's crazy, we've gotten into the habit of grocery shopping between three different stores.  Ah, I actually liked it at first but now, man, it's a chore for real.  We go to COSTCO for major meat purchases and fresh produce.  Not too bad except it requires a 25 minute one-way trip into Tumwater.  Then we go to Fred Meyer (Kroger to y'all in TX) for bacon, fresh pasta and my shampoo/conditioner.  Why? you may ask, well because the other two stores don't carry these products, except for bacon and we don't like the bacon at the other stores, yeah go figure.  Then the bulk of the shopping is done at Walmart.  I told you it's crazy and I used to think my sister was nuts for driving all other town to save money on the sales.  I gotta tell ya, I'm not digging this "country living", never did.

Anyway, we got it all done and in the car by 10:30 am Saturday morning on the way to play.  I took a picture of us departing but it's awful so just imagine two grown adults saying 'cheese' to a camera while sitting in the car. 

We finally went on our adventure of Westport.  Gotta say it was more like a shopping spree than an adventure but we still had fun.  Basically, the main attraction of town is the marina dock area.  One side of the street you'll find the marina the other side the shops and restaurants.  Most shops were busy, busy.  They have their fair share of closed businesses in the community and it always breaks my heart to see a closed out business.  It just seems I'm seeing more and more these days.  Anyway, we went in and out of all the little boutiques and gift shops.



Our first purchase of the day....a donut!  I'm not kidding and it was yummy.  We had our first fresh donut in almost 2 years.  I've only seen counting this shop, 3 donut shops in our area since July 2009.  Two of these shops are in Olympia (20+ minutes from me) and this one in Westport (about 1hr from me).  They were out of glazed so I had a lemon cake and hubby had plain cake donut both had a simple glaze so it wasn't all lost.  We really enjoyed.



As I said we went in and out of all the little shops.  Hubby has been wanting to decorate his home office area a.k.a. our dinning room in a nautical theme.  I've been really pushing back because I so did not want anything corny, cheesy or cliche.  And guess where his taste ran.  Yep, right to where I've been pushing away from.  I finally just caved, to a point.  I did gently and kindly state I did not like a few things and that was okay.  He did pick some really cute items with out going over the top.  We both loved a canvas piece.  It's a modern photo in sepia tones transferred onto canvas.  It's sort of huge maybe about 2 ft x 3 ft.  It's a picture of a ships sailing mast and rigging from a lower perspective looking upward.  I really liked it and so did hubby.  Surprisingly the price wasn't too bad either so on the wall it goes.  He doesn't have but maybe 6 feet of wall space that he can actually hang art work on so this is a good piece.  The remainder of his wall space is filled with windows and a slider.  Oh, and a very high pass through to the kitchen (it's weird to me).  Now if we could just agree on a decent dining table we'll really be making progress.

At the end of our shopping expedition we drove through a part of town that most tourist don't venture into.  We went in around the fishery warehouses.  It was pretty smelly.  Don't know what we were thinking other than 'let's go see what's down that street'.

We then headed over to the closet beach, Westhaven State Park, the first stop of our beach hop.  You'll see these pictures of us and think, 'crazy people, why are you bundled up like Nanook of the North?'  and I'll say because it was freaking chilly, fool and our Texas blood hasn't adapted to it.  The surfers you'll see are all wearing wet suits and dry suits.  We are NORTH and it's not warm water, it's all that dang water from Alaska and Russia-hahaha. (funny stuff huh?!)  No tropical gulf stream here, dang it.

Taken from the beach looking north to the marina of Westport.  The flag you see on the horizon is the same one in the photo above.



We remember from our first trip to this beach the messiness of the sand.  So we got smart and planned ahead this time with the rubber boots.  Once or twice a big wave splashed up and got my pants wet at the top of my boots and that was okay.  Over all, the boots kept our feet dry until the third beach when a pretty strong wave came in and swamped me a bit.  Once the water got my feet wet I was ready to be done with the water.



We just walked the beach, snagged about 2 dozen whole sand dollars, the place was lousy with 'em.  I'm used to finding only broken ones down in Galveston or at Padre.  I'm not sure what I'll actually do with them all but I have a few ideas.  All in all it was a great day.

Sunday we just hung around the house.  I did some laundry, hubby mowed the yard and the was the extent of our efforts.  Oh wait, I played in my art journal.  I'm still challenged with just letting go in there and letting things happen.  I feel a need to have a purpose, a start and finish, but the idea is to actually just let things happen.  I just keep plugging away at it, I'm beginning to think it's a control issue.  I did another page again today and purposely walked away with it incomplete.  Gotta say, it's bugging me right now.....

Today, Memorial Day.  I hung out by myself, as usual.  Bill went fishing, I just wasn't really wanting to spend the day on a boat.  So I went into Olympia to see if a few art stores I found online might be open.  They weren't and one had actually gone out of business.  Sad I'm telling ya.  Went over to Joann's for a few things, then stopped into ROSS for some jeans. 

Home again, home again jiggidy jig.  I began breaking down, cleaning, sanding and painting my $3 kitchen stool I told you about after one of my treasure hunts.  I got it all done but I can't put it back together again yet.  I need to decide on the vinyl covering color.  I did the structure metal in a cherry red, I was going to use stark white vinyl for the seat and back support but I'm now thinking it's to much contrast.  I was only going to use the white because we have some left from Bill's re-upholstery project of his boat interior.  Now I'm thinking of trying to match the cherry red or maybe look for a red gingham pattern, if such a thing is even out there.

Today is about remembering our fallen solders and I have in my own way.  I cried a bit this morning for the families who lost loved ones as recently as yesterday in Afghanistan.  I remember my grandfather who served in WWII he did his part.  I thought of my niece, nephews and young cousins who are now in the service and prayed they are kept safe from harm.  I hoped that some day soon the craziness of war will realized but in reality I know it won't. 

I love these kids.  I'm just as proud of them as if they were my very own children.

Our weekend was filled with sunshine, love and laughter.  I hope yours was too.
~Hugs of love


p.s. I forgot this....