Blind Date with a Book

We ventured to Inverness, FL on Saturday to check out "Market at the Depot" at Liberty Park.  The city venue is fabulous. The property is located near a bike trail and in addition to the large pavilion, has a "stage" under the water tower and a café with a game room. 

A squall came through just after we arrived. The outside vendors, and even some of the inside vendors, had to deal with blowing rain. 

There was a large variety of wares being offered for sale. 

This was my favorite:

This clever lady acquired a variety of books of different genres. Each was wrapped and included a brief synopsis. For example, one synopsis stated:

Historical Fiction

- Contemporary  - Cold War 

- Troubled marriage  - Lies

- Kept secrets  - Love

- Twist  - NYC

Rating: 4 stars on Amazon

The pretty packaging also included note paper, a marker, some stickers, a tea bag and other ephemera.

Who doesn't love a brown bag mystery?!

Clever idea!

 

No! Stay Away!

When we discovered our new little piece of heaven we were thrilled with being back in the country, yet having some shops and medical services nearby. Evidently lots of other folks feel the same way and we will quickly (I fear) be surrounded by Everywhere Suburbia, USA. 

Truthfully, the writing was on the wall. We just chose to overlook it. For example, the road outside our development is a 4-lane highway, with practically no traffic most times of the day. Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Target and other shops/restaurants are only 4 miles, and 2 stoplights, away.  I guess they didn't build it just for my convenience! All I can think of is, "Build it and they will come!"

Key to the map

Yellow Star: our house on top, center, and shops on the right

Red Circles: existing stop lights. The entrance to our community is at the red dot on the left side of the picture. 

Green speech bubble above the highway: cute cows that were there five months ago, and have now been displaced by earthmovers and machinery paving the way for more big box stores. 

Green speech bubble below the highway: cute cows and donkeys, with a sign out front indicating that they are grazing on borrowed time on commercial property that is for sale.

Pink speech bubble labeled "Trouble": site of the exit ramp for the Suncoast Parkway with a new stoplight standing between me and the stores. It's due to open any day. 

Shrouded stop lights up ahead.

The boom truck on the left is installing directional highway signs

The Suncoast Parkway is a toll road that runs from our area to Tampa. Even though this particular exit hasn't been opened...yet... the toll road has been convenient to hop on and proceed to Tampa on a direct route with less traffic. I'm thinking lots of folks will appreciate the easy access to a speedier commute. The new exit will dump all northbound vehicles onto the four lane highway, until they construct the flyover and extend the toll road to the north. How serendipitous to have our development, with over 3,000 empty lots right at the end of the proverbial rainbow! Not to mention other communities in all directions. It reminds me of billboards I've seen, "If you lived here you'd be home by now!" 

Yikes! Traffic outside our area, including the main entrance/through road in our development, is going to be a snarl of cars and trucks in the future. Ugh! At least we are nestled in an area with larger lots, on a road that really isn't convenient to use as shortcut. There is some satisfaction to be gained from that.

The Farm Dog vs the Queen

Recall the theme song of classic TV show, "Green Acres" with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

This is Kaitlyn and Vickie's take on the theme song.

Farm livin’ is the life for me,

Outdoors is where I wanna be.

Land spreadin’ out so far and wide

I don't like cities just give me that countryside.

I prefer to live my life inside,

Under the bed is where I like to hide.

On the couch is where I like to sleep

I'm the queen, and the countryside you can keep!

...the critters.

...give me the jitters.

...space to run.

...that's no fun.

Too bad for you,

This is what we're gonna do.

Life at the new place is surely a lot of fun!

Login With....

Hulu 

Roku

Disney

Sling

Fubo

Netflix

Paramount

Acorn TV

Max

Tubi

BritBox

HBO

.

.

.

.

.

What happened to good 'ol TV? (Can you tell I'm getting old(er)?!) I struggle figuring out what show is where... and why do I need to spend oodles of money for this service, and oodles of money for that service to watch the shows I enjoy? 

Seriously, just think how much better off we oldsters were when we had 13 channels and UHF. We had plenty of choices of things to watch. 

We didn't spend hours trying to log in to a service, only to find out that the show we want isn't on that particular one, so we spend more hours logging into another service. When we were young (once our families had a TV), we stood up, walked all of the way to the TV, and turned the channel. (Additionally, we never lost the remote, had to find batteries for it, or had the dog chew it up!) 

We had to wait until the following week (or worse, the following season) to discover what happened next in the series we were watching... we didn't have the opportunity for instant gratification, nor the excuse to spend hours/days binge watching a series.  Moreover, we could go through the TV guide to pick out and highlight the shows we wanted to watch.

Families often had only one TV in the house, and enjoyed watching TV together. Did they realize at that time how rich and precious those experiences were? The shows (to my recollection) were wholesome and endorsed good clean values. 

I did embrace new technologies. I loved the flexibility afforded by our VHS player/recorder. Oh, and movies you could rent at a local store. And then, the variety of shows available on cable TV at many different times during the day. I was an early adopter of technology, having my first personal computer, a VIC-20, in 1980. Heck, I taught 6th graders who all had their own laptops in an innovative program in 1986. And connecting to the Internet become more feasible for more and more people, in more and more places. I've been riding that technology wave, trying to keep on top of things. But....

With respect to my TV options...I wish things were simpler!

PS: We live in a "hollow" amongst the ridges in this area of Florida. Thus, despite a TV antenna reaching over our roof, we can't pull in TV signals from either of the two larger towns near us. Thus, we don't have the option of selecting local channels. 

Sliding Puzzle

I used to love this sort of puzzle. 

Currently, I seem to be "living" that puzzle, and I don't find it quite as entertaining!

Out of necessity, our spare bedroom is doing double duty as my sewing room and potentially a guest room. However I challenge any guest to come visit...and feel that we have welcomed them! While we wait for the garage to be converted into a sewing/craft area for me, we have many things that for both rooms shoehorned into one.

If I need something out of the closet I need to roll away two carts, move a roll of batting and move two folding chairs. 

If someone wants to use the only bed that is made, they have to crawl up to the head of the bed. The other bed used to be in the garage, which allowed a bit more room, but once we started work out there, it had to come in. along with various lamps and lamp shades and stacks of IKEA shelving.

The good news is that even as I type this, the garage is slowing being transformed into my sewing/crafting room. A day-by-day recap of that transformation will be posted upon completion. 

How exciting is that?!

Come Walk With Me

 Our community, Pine Ridge Estates, has over 28 miles of equestrian trails. 

The trails are marked by the bold lines.

 Our house is the pink star.

Trail entrances are marked with the board fences, and cautionary notices

Trails are marked with color coded paint marks

Walking with the corgis can be a challenge. This one likes to be ahead of me,

the other lags behind. If we are walking on the edge of the road, one wants to be on the grass, and the other on the pavement. 

Yes, it's a pained look. It's hot, I'm sweating...

but the good news is we have only the rare mosquito. 

This is a sand ridge. We have no standing water, and rarely a puddle.

"Two roads diverged in the yellow wood...."

Finding Family - Not Always Folklore

My husband's ancestors lived in Scotland and Ireland. He talked about wanting to visit Ireland for years. I'm so glad that we could do it this year. While we were there he was able to connect, in some way, to his ancestors. My hubby's grandmother was born in Dublin. Having studied the family's genealogy for years, he even knew that she was born in the Rotunda Hospital, which still exists today, and still operates as a maternity hospital. 

According to his grandmother's hospital birth record, the family lived in Killiney, Ireland. We took DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit to Killiney (Cill Iníon Léinín).

Killiney has a pebble beach, and we walked up the steep hillside to the town. The area has many large, hillside homes, owned by affluent Dubliners and celebrities.

At one point Scott's great grandfather was a butler. It is possible that when his grandmother was born, her father was a butler for an affluent family in the area. 

Later records show the great grandfather as being a clerk of court, living in Castleknock, where his grandmother was living until moving to America as a teen. His great grandfather was killed while riding his bike through Phoenix Park on his way home from work. 

The view from our room at the Ashling Hotel, just outside Phoenix Park

Dr. Steevans Hospital is the yellow building- I didn't realize the family connection at the time I took the picture.

Our tour guide at the Pearse Lyons Distillery points out Steevan's Hospital (seen in the "window" created by the tree), where we learned, the great grandfather would have died following the accident. 

The cemetery above is not part of the family connection story.

But this one is!

We visited the site of an old Parish church in Dunleckney.

The graveyard was predominately used in the 18th & 19th centuries

Look closely at the eptiaph.

Oops, ran out of spac

                                 e!

Most of the headstones were illegible. 

However I discovered this notice:

We trekked to the library in Carlow

The librarian, a genealogist himself, was thrilled to help us and took us into a research room where the book just happened to be sitting on a table. 

He quickly discovered what we had been looking for. The grave of his great, great, great grandmother.

Although no inscription was made on the headstone when she was interred next to her husband, my husband has other documentation suggesting she was buried here. He was thrilled to discover that there was, indeed, a family connection in Dunleckney.