Mother's Day luncheon

At the end of February, Justin prepared and served a wonderful luncheon for some of my lady friends from the building and from The Club. We had planned to have a second luncheon for the church ladies but then ran out of time before he went back to work full time this spring. It was his idea to do a luncheon for Mother's Day for our Sunday group, minus Terri T. 

 Here is the table all dressed for the luncheon

 The first course was strawberry soup with the angel food cake croutons. Mike S. said he'd never had such a soup before and described it as being 'refreshing'

 Here is the glazed fruit salad. Unfortunately we were unable to find fresh strawberries so he had to use frozen ones instead. They got a bit mushy but still tasted good

This is the kalamata olive salad tossed with Caesar dressing. Mike loved this salad, saying he could make a meal out of it. Justin bagged it up for him to-go since he doesn't eat it 

Justin made his tasty chicken salad using rotisserie birds, grapes, red onion, garlic, slivered almonds, and mixed with Greek yogurt. This was served in pastry cups

Justin used his Apple watch and his iPhone 6Plus to take our picture. He propped his phone on the glass piece in the river room and remotely snapped the photo of our group. From left is Mike, me, Justin, Betty, Michael, Judy, and David (Judy's grandson)

Fried chicken, anyone?

Today we didn't have Bible study because of a project going on at Victory requiring our leader's attention. Cary is taking Pastor's place while Anne and he are on vacation in Alaska. I hate to miss class but it can't be avoided. I'll have to find something else to do!

Nancy and I decided to go have lunch at The Club, on Fried Chicken day! On Thursdays they offer a mini-buffet besides the regular menu. Not all the offerings are up my alley but their fried chicken certainly is! So good!

Her gentleman friend had been in town for a visit during the week so she filled me in on where they'd gone and such. I mentioned how the other Nancy had tried getting hold of her for dinner for Bill's birthday dinner at The Club but this Nancy said she didn't get a message. In reality, she had but didn't recognize the number. We got that all figured out so the next time she gets an invite, she can make it. I didn't mind having Bill and Nancy M. to myself for the night, though!

Justin and I are eating in tonight, meal yet to be determined. We are trying to be done eating dinner before 8:00 so that Justin has a couple of hours of digestion before he goes to bed. He usually doesn't feel like cooking so I give it a whirl, or there's always leftovers. With the long work days, he is exhausted at the end of the day. His back is doing much better but he still feels achy when he gets home. The alarm goes off for him to get up at 5:45 so the night is sometimes short. Tonight will be one of those where he gets to bed early so I better come up with something to make and quick!

A birthday treat

Today our usual group plus a couple others celebrated a bit belatedly the birthday of our friend, Gretchen. Last Sunday, closer to her big day, was not workable, so today after church we gathered at Sam's St. Johns Seafood. Having fish twice in a week's time is over the top for me, but hey, for Gretchen, I can do it!

Terri T. called ahead to make sure they could accommodate our group of 10 and was assured there would be room for us. Good! The rest got there ahead of me because I had choir rehearsal after worship, but Justin knew what I was ordering. As I zoomed in the door, thinking I was far behind them, I was wrong. The waitress was just then taking the order, with our group broken up into three sets of tables in a row. Shoot! That was the best they could do for us, despite Terri's best efforts. I got to order my own food and in fact, got mine first! As Darwin said, "The last shall be first...." 

Gretchen seemed to enjoy the time with us even though we were spread out this way. No one dared to sing "Happy Birthday" to her or make any type of fuss. She is not fond of that type of attention, so it was kept low key. What a dear lady and friend she is, I just love her!

Justin and I stopped at Winn Dixie on the way home, each of us taking our own carts. We wanted to pick up a few things including special priced chicken legs and thighs plus I got a beef roast on sale. I can smell it already! The hamburger was a good buy as well so we took three pounds of that for the freezer. I think I'll have to cook some meals before I leave for WI! He got a bunch of stuff, too, for our larder and for himself as he is going to make dinner at Jesse's this week for Cinco de Mayo. Fajitas are on the menu so far, not sure what else they will have. 

A lovely evening ended our day with the full moon rising

We got our purchases hauled up in one trip, which was remarkable for us. Often I leave non-urgent stuff behind for the next trip but today this was not necessary. It helps for him to be strong like bull and able to carry so many bags at once. No dilly-dallying, though--straight to the elevator and to the door so he can put them down. Every time I use the elevator I thank the Lord for it, for allowing me to pay my share for a new one a few years ago. Sure would hate to tote those bags up the stairs---yikes!  

A wonderful open house

Today I had the privilege of hostessing for the spring Open House at Great Hang Ups Gallery.  Sonya had her little pop-up canopy set up in the parking lot. Her work table was underneath it, ready to help ladies or anyone paint silk scarves, with Mother's Day in mind. It was a good day for Open House but was a bit windy outside. Sonya's stuff kept blowing around, but it helped the finished scarves to dry faster.

Mark is regaling us with a story of some sort

After a slow start the traffic picked up with lots of people coming in for framing. No problem with that! Even my friends, Jacquie and Mark, stopped in to get a pair of paintings framed. Oh, how excited I was to see them! I think I haven't seen Jacquie since last August when we had lunch at Panera. Many of the people who came in I recognized and my job was to encourage folks to sign up to win one of Dee's paintings which was displayed. 

Besides the scarf painting being offered, Dee set up in the shop to do a demonstration painting on Yupo, a Japanese paper, where she showed how to maneuver the paint on the more glossy paper. It was fascinating to watch: 

Around the store were light snacks, cookies which Dee had made. One was a meringue cookie with bits of pecan and the other cookie Julia describes as 'crack'. Actually they are a lace cookie, her grandma's recipe, and are so good, you can't stop eating them. Because both cookies are so light, having more than one goes almost unnoticed by your system. Julia also had coffee and midget doughnuts from Dunkin. A few people enjoyed a glass of wine while they mingled and took in the art exhibits or watched Dee paint. 

At one point both Dee and Julia were tied up, so I went to talk with a lady who came in. She asked me how much the painting of the sheep cost and I had to go ask about that. This painting had won Best of Show and a couple other prizes at the County Fair. Dayan actually was looking for cow pictures so I directed her to a certain bin to see if there were any in there. 

We talked and eventually she made her way to the counter. Somehow the conversation turned to pottery and sculpture so Julia brought out a piece she had done of a nude. It had won a prize at a show last year, I believe. After some more conversation and such, all of a sudden Dayan said, "I'll take her." Wow! We took a picture of Julia signing the piece and then of the two ladies with the sculpture. This was a red letter day for Julia and for the lady who bought 'Nicki'!

The door prize drawing was scheduled for the end of the day, at 4:00 pm. First, Julia drew names gathered from the FB page as anyone who shared the announcement got their name in the drawing for a $25 gift certificate. Then, she threw those names into the bag with the others from today. Julia shook it up really good and Dee reached in to extract the winner. It was ME!!!!  If I hadn't been there to witness it myself, I would have guessed it was fixed, but it certainly was not! I won the painting!!

Talk about being blown away! I told the ladies I would come in next week to select my frame, thinking I'll use the dark red that Jacquie had looked at for one of hers. It should pick up those berries perfectly, I think. 

This is not the first time I've won and been the hostess. One time several years ago (since I lived in this house) Justin was there to do the drawing. Julia shook the bag and held it up high so he couldn't peek in, not as if he would, of course. And out came my name!! That time I won a slumped glass bowl made by Kevin Eagleton. I have several of his pieces in my home including the lovely one on my river room table. Maybe tonight I should buy a lottery ticket since I feel so lucky/blessed! It was a good day!

Sitting down with Nancy

Yesterday as I walked along the promenade by our building, I caught the eye of the lady who does the housekeeping in the restrooms at the cabana besides other responsibilities at The Club. Sondra was waiting for me at the top of the steps to the pool when I came downstairs. She asked me when I was coming over for breakfast and I told her I would come soon, so had to make good on that promise. 

Nancy W. and I met for breakfast this a.m. at The Club and got to see Sondra and the regular breakfast lady, Kathy. She brought me a separate plate with bacon on it, knowing how much I love their bacon (after I picked out every last bit from the serving pan.) The Sunrise Rotarians got there before I did!! We also had sausages plus eggs, potatoes, and grits available to us in addition to the 'continental' breakfast foods. Kathy makes the fresh cakes each morning and today's had strawberry frosting on it. My favorite! 

Nancy and I sat and talked for a while afterward, even as the table cloths were being changed all around us. I had been telling her about the drama involving one of our units for sale and she wanted to walk over to look in the windows. She has a friend in the market for a condo so we went to take a look. I was pretty sure the owner was no longer living there so Nancy could take pictures through the windows. We walked along the bulkhead, a narrow walkway along the river's edge, to see into the sunroom. 

As we headed back around, I strayed off the bulkhead and went up onto the grass. Nancy stayed on the solid surface. As I got to the edge, I stepped from the grassy area and down to the curb toward Nancy. Like a round ballerina I did a little dance as I came onto the pavement and ended up sitting down on the curb. About three feet from the river!! Nancy was right there and was waving her arms as if to stop me but there was no going back once I was headed down. Boom! Right on my butt, on the curbing. She put her hands out to pull me up and I did just that, with really little effort, dusting off my butt as I stood. Whew, that was close!

I gave my poor friend a terrible fright, that's for sure, but it was entirely no harm, no foul for me, thankfully. After assuring her I was fine, she went on home, probably to lie down after this harrowing experience. From now on I will stay on the solid ground and not try to go cross country when peeking in my neighbor's windows!

Up the creek

This morning I had a chance to watch most of a movie I had seen many years ago called "Cross Creek". The star was Mary Steenburgen, who is married to Ted Danson in real life. She plays Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of "The Yearling" and other books. The story itself is based on her life and its notes, telling about life living on Cross Creek. 

This brought back memories of a trip my family took to Micanopy, FL and Cross Creek back in 1990's. We arrived too early to take the tour of Rawlings home and property so we had to hang out in Micanopy for a bit. This little town was nothing but little gift shops and antique stores. One thing I remember was finding a bin of albums in an antique store and seeing one of my collection for sale there. What? "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly was certainly NOT an antique album. It might be now, but then, no, it was not! 

I also remember us visiting an ice cream shop and getting some fudge, if memory serves. Of course, things were expensive as they took advantage of the people passing through on their way to Cross Creek. I do not recall much about what we saw  or did once able to take the tour other than walking around the grounds and looking inside the house. We did enjoy our day trips (Ha, Day trips!) and this was one of those. 

A little piece of trivia about this sleepy town of Micanopy is the movie "Doc Hollywood" was later filmed there. I have not been back to see the place since the filming so don't know if the town was spruced up for the movie or not. Marjorie, in the movie today, was told over and over by people how difficult life on the creek can be, how some don't make it (physically or economically) and so on, but this did not deter her. She managed to have people around her to help maintain the cabin and her property so she could focus on writing. At this time she was penning Gothic novels which were not as good as her true tales from Cross Creek. And, of course, she had a love interest. 

It was fun to watch it again after decades of my first viewing and have a new appreciation for the landscape and region where she lived here in N. Central Florida. Cross Creek is outside of Gainesville, about an hour and a half southwest of here. This was the first time, also, when we saw black and white striped cows, commonly called Oreos. For a boy raised on a farm, this was quite the sight! The ends of the cow with hooves was black and the middle was wide band of white. Most unusual! I had a fun trip today without leaving the house.

A bunch of flowers!

Last night Justin asked me what my plans were for today. I explained I was going with the Over 50 group from church to Mandarin for lunch. Why? He had some deliveries coming and one of them required a signature. I told him if I was ready to leave before they came, I would ask Connie to sign for it, which is common around here. Justin told me one of the packages needed to be opened immediately so now I was curious. Sherry's Berries, perhaps?

I put a note on the door for the UPS man that Connie would be authorized to sign for the package. All the arrangements were made---Connie would put the package (a new cell phone) on the counter in the kitchen once signed for. I didn't know what to tell her about the other one. As it turned out, I was still at home when the door bell rang. It was a FedEx man with both deliveries. I took the large box from him and then signed for the smaller one. While I was standing there, I went to reach the note for the UPS man. The FedEx guy acted wounded, but I explained that the watch came via UPS last week so I simply assumed the phone would come UPS as well. But I talked fast and told him my neighbor is a pilot for FedEx to soothe his wounded feelings. All in good fun, of course. 

                                 

This lovely bouquet of flowers is what came in the larger box and needed to be opened right away. What a sweet guy he is!

Judy C. came to pick me up for lunch as Twila's and my designated driver. The group was trying a new place (for most of us) called St. Mary's Seafood, located in the plaza for Hobby Lobby. Guess it has been there a while but just wasn't noticed. We had 14 people including 3 men. The food and service for a group this size was fantastic, with me enjoying fish with the rest of them. I had the fried pollack, two giant fillets, plus two sides. I sampled them (got a third one because it was extra and the manager saw fit to give me the green beans!) and brought the rest home with me. Judy took the half of the fillet I didn't eat as I didn't want to reheat fish. As far as I know, everyone liked their meals.    

                                                                                                     

I won't name everyone in the photo but closest to the camera are Judy C., Twila, Fausto and Julaine. I was on the end next to Judy. On the far end was Gretchen, seated next to Ethel. The bad thing about eating at long tables is not being able to talk with everyone. Unfortunate but it can't be helped with so many diners.