Randomness – Page 6

My “rescue”

Posted on April 18, 2015 by kokomeau

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been a cat person. I love the softness of them, the calmness, their purrs, their kneads, their attitude. Kittens are among the most entertaining baby animals I can think of (aside from, say, baby monkeys), and if there were a way to keep them little, I’d probably invest in it! My last cat had us for 15 years before she died of natural causes.

With Thom’s allergies, though, it’s the first time in my life I haven’t had a cat, and I do miss it. Instead, we have two dogs: Sadie, whom I rescued in 2005, and Doug, Thom’s rescue in 2013.

They say a rescued dog knows it’s rescued and is grateful. I don’t know about that. What I do know is that timid, sweet Sadie rescued me. And it is I who am eternally grateful. She got me through a very difficult time in my life and shared my days at the shop where she received tons of love and belly rubs from my knitters. She doesn’t leave my side when I’m home. If I’m gone for several days, she won’t eat; she stays in her crate, desolate until I return. It’s been 10 years since we met. She has slowed down a bit. I see the beginnings of cataracts in her eyes when she looks at me. She spends most of her day sleeping while I’m at work. But when I walk in the door at night, she comes to greet me, tail wagging, sniffing all around to see where I’ve been all day. She stays nearby, follows me from room to room, nudges me for a stroke while I’m knitting and is currently laying at my feet. She is simply the sweetest animal. What you see in this photo is who she is. It is this face looking out from the newspaper that compelled me to go to the shelter that day where I fell in love and was rescued.

Randomness

Hidden gems

Posted on April 4, 2015 by kokomeau

My friend Sarah made me this colorful pot years ago. It’s traveled with me from Michigan to Florida. We’ve planted several things in it since, and while not all were successful, some were and have been replanted in the ground. It currently sits outside our lanai waiting. At first, it held only the dirt left over from the previous dweller. Now that it’s spring, it’s becoming full of green, unidentified leaves waiting, perhaps, for another chance to grow something beautiful.

But Mother Nature had other ideas. While we were waiting, a pair of wrens (we think) created an amazing nest neatly tucked beneath the foliage in preparation for their springtime babies. We witnessed them taking turns bringing twigs, hair, and moss into the pot, taking their time to piece together a most beautiful little home.

And then we didn’t see them for days. We’d had a pretty heavy rainfall, and later when we checked, the pot looked flooded and we assumed the worst.

But this morning Thom saw them enter the top of the pot once more. And this is what we found:

I’m not sure why birds build nests so close to humans. Last year we found one in our garage under a lamp shade. The little birds had found a hole in the screen and decided to take advantage, perhaps, of being out of the weather. I remember some robins had built a nest atop the garage door opener in my parents’ home. (They parked outside for several weeks, much to my dad’s chagrin.)

We will try not to disturb these hidden gems as they develop and hatch. God knows it’s hard enough to raise a family without adding noisy neighbors to the mix! We did tuck the pot under the eave to hopefully prevent it from filling with water during the next storm. That’s all we can do. Mother Nature will take care of the rest.

Family & Friends, Florida Fun, Randomness

T’was the season!

Posted on January 11, 2015 by kokomeau

What a great holiday season we had this year! I typically find it hard to get into the Christmas spirit here in Florida as there is no prompting from the white stuff that would normally cover the Michigan ground this time of year to remind me daily of the season ahead. And all the neighborhood houses lit up with colorful Christmas lights and their lawns with inflatable snowmen are a little amusing without the icicles hanging from the roof tops. But this year was different.

This year my Meg decided to spend Christmas here, the first time in 6 years any of the kids have been with us for any holiday. She arrived a week before, which I was so excited about, because I had a special gift in mind for her. (Read more about that here.) She has a way of making any event more fun with her contagious energy, and this Christmas was no exception. We shopped the flea market, enjoyed the holiday lights in St. Augustine, played Christmas music non-stop, and even opened the required night-before-Christmas presents (matching jammies!) Christmas day found us busy preparing a traditional Christmas dinner complete with turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, rolls, green bean casserole, and PIE! And then my sister Molly and her entire family joined us for a wonderful Christmas afternoon and evening, where we ate, laughed, got to the beach for a beautiful sunset, then went back to the house for a crazy game around the table. I was so pleased they stayed as late as they did, as they had a long drive back to their hotel in Kissimmee. It made me realize how much I missed these gatherings, and I was grateful for all the photos from all the phones that were shared with everyone.

Now the tree and decorations are down, slowly the neighborhood is getting back to normal. The sun is shining and temperatures are hovering in the high 60’s to 70’s. My mother is here out of the cold of the north for a couple months. I’m back to work, and life continues. But I do love looking back on that day, that visit from family and the laughter that reassured me that some things just never change. Thank God.

Cabbage Life, Family & Friends, Randomness

Déjà vu

Posted on November 2, 2014 by kokomeau

I had a déjà vu moment yesterday morning. November is typically a comfortably warm month here in northeast Florida, but a cold front in the region had the temperatures dipping into the upper 40’s overnight. (Perfect for sleeping, if you ask me, though Thom was happier after I put the down comforter on the bed. But I digress.)

Thom had gone off to work pretty early, so when I got up, the house was quiet. Looking out the French doors, I saw the trees moving in the breeze. Stepping out into the lanai, the sunshine, the smell, the unfamiliar crisp, cool temperature and the sound of the rustling trees suddenly hurled me back through time, first to my “Cabbage” (my CABin in the woods and cottAGE on the lake) where fall is the most beautiful time of the year, and then back even further to when my kids were small and the chilly autumn air meant leaf raking, playing in the piles, and noisy laughter. Memories of colder seasons; beautiful backyard snow drifts, ice rinks and neighborhood kids, feet stomping snow off boots, rosy cheeks and a fire in the fireplace…it all came rushing back in a moment that simultaneously brought grateful tears to my eyes and a nostalgic smile to my face.

I miss those time. I miss my small children’s laughter and raucousness, though I would never have believed it at the time. Because when you’re a young mom and in the midst of it all, it can often seem overwhelming, never-ending to the point of just wanting that Calgon moment to take you away from it all.

But it does end. Life moves on. And those small children become bigger children, and then they move on to become adults with their own lives and their own small children. Do I want to do it again? No, way. There is a time to every season.

But it all began with a déjà vu moment when I opened the doors to the lanai and let some beautiful memories in.

Family & Friends, Randomness

I wish I’d written this….

Posted on October 19, 2014 by kokomeau

Not sure if I need permission (I’ll apologize in advance), but I want to re-post this blog post from Kelsea, who is one of four sisters with this blog. For some reason, I’ve been reflecting lately on my boys as babies, children, teens, and men. Maybe it’s because I saw a couple of photos of them lately with their beautiful wives and they look so happy and content; maybe it’s because I’ve been working with old pictures getting prepped for Christmas presents. Whatever the reason, I came across this blog post, and like so many women out there, I wish I’d written it years ago to my now wonderful daughters-in-law:

To My Future Daughter-in-Law

My boys and their brides: Drew and Kristin, Kevin and Savanna

Florida Fun, Randomness

Singin’ in the rain! Not!

Posted on October 2, 2014 by kokomeau

I’ll apologize in advance for the second post on the weather here, but this was a pretty unusual September for Florida. The only thing that was predictable this past month was that if the sun was shining when you walked into the store, odds were, if you didn’t grab your umbrella, there would be torrential rain when you were ready to leave. Rain became a subject of conversation for everyone you encountered. Normally we exclaim daily about the warmth and the sunshine here in the ‘sunshine state.” But not last month. Last month was the gloomiest on record with a total of 151 severe weather reports causing the weather radio to “Blare!” “Blare!” “Blare!” and then repeat over and over the latest alert. Areas around Miami, Palm Coast (Jacksonville) and Tampa were especially hard hit with torrential rains keeping beach-goers indoors and umbrella sales at an all-time high.

My friend Anita was making her way home from work one afternoon going through quite a downpour in the 18-mile drive. When she entered her subdivision, she found she couldn’t make the first turn towards home due to flooded streets. She tried another direction only to learn that the further into the sub she ventured, the deeper the water was over the road. She finally left her car in someone’s driveway and began wading through the knee-deep water hoping to NOT encounter any weird, scary critters in the murky flood waters.

Summer is typically the rainy season, and I always enjoy the daily afternoon showers that might last about 15-30 minutes and be very isolated; when they come in over the ocean, they create tremendous photo ops. But enough is enough. We’ve broken the record for the most rain in one month, and I’ve learned my lesson: If a hurricane creates this kind of rain along with 100+ mph winds, we’re outta here!

Now let’s get back to the sunshine!

Florida Fun, Randomness

Florida weather

Posted on July 27, 2014 by kokomeau

When we first moved to Florida nearly three years ago this September, we were just heading into the best of the seasons. Late fall through early summer here in northeast Florida consists of sunny skies, some sweater weather, few bugs, and the rare shower in the evening. We sleep with the windows open listening to the cacophony of noise from the forest behind us and wake up to the quiet.

Even though spring in Michigan means winter might finally be over, it is typically slow in arriving with showers, dampness, puddles and mud. Spring here in Florida means a gradual warming with even more time bike riding, walking, or enjoying meals outside and sun-sun-sun! Granted, summer here is hot and humid once we get into July and August, but like Thom says, it’s our ‘winter’ where we do outdoor chores in the early morning and then move indoors to stay cool and comfortable. Thankfully we have the beach close by where the water warms up to the 80’s, and walking into the surf is as refreshing and as wonderful as it can be. But our ‘winter’ also means rainy season, and if you like storms like I do (thanks, Grampa B),you’ll love the rainy season.

I love the colors of the sky as the wall of clouds move in. I love hearing the thunder in the distance and watching the far off light show moving quickly towards us. I love the weirdness of it when it’ll be raining in the front yard but not in the back yard…at least not yet. And then it’s overhead and all around us, and the lightening and thunder and drenching buckets of rain surround us, and I’ll sit on the lanai as long as I can, watching an opening way, way up in the trees behind us, jumping at the claps of thunder that arrive so quickly after the flash of lightening.

The ocean changes with the weather; something that should be obvious but wasn’t to me. When it’s windy, the water is typically choppy and frothy, with large breakers and high rip current. If there’s little wind, the Atlantic is calm and quiet. The pelicans come in trails, soaring low to fly against the calm water, sometimes coming so close you could reach out and feel the breeze as they pass.

I can’t decide what I like best: The calm, clear water where I can just rest on my board watching for dolphins and pelicans without fighting the breakers and the current while soaking up the sunshine, or the hot, unexpected days of the rainy season with the amazing storms, the breathtaking skies, the violent ocean. I guess I love it all.

Randomness

A Memorable Memorial Day

Posted on May 26, 2014 by kokomeau

Firstly, let me say how proud I am of my niece and nephews for their many years of service to our country. They and their families have endured several deployments during critical and dangerous times, and their unwavering commitment to their branch of service is more than admirable. They are the role models we need for the generation they lead. So, thank you to Chris, Josh, Ryan, Shaunna, and to Cousin Christopher, as well. You are bragged on often!

Back in the day when I had young kids, Memorial Day was celebrated with a parade down Main Street stopping to honor our Veterans at the Memorial, then cookouts at the State or County Park with as many family members as could make it, and, weather permitting, swimming, laughing, eating, and fun.

Now that I’m a thousand miles away from that both in distance and in years and with just Thom and I and our few friends around us, these holiday weekends are decidedly different. But that doesn’t mean they’re any less enjoyable. With so many outdoor activities to be found here, sometimes it’s just fun to not follow the crowd. Early mornings at the Atlantic are incredibly special. Knowing that the crowds were imminent, we arrived Saturday morning at 9:00, set our chairs in the sand at the foot of the walkover, and made ourselves comfortable. Thom of course headed immediately into the water while I waited. After about a half hour watching the throngs of pelicans soaring north and south over the water, I joined him for about an hour in the warm, salty water and watched the beach slowly begin to fill. Around 11:00 we decided it was time to leave and give our prime spot up to some in-lander who probably needed it more than we did.

Sunday was spent with my ‘Neet who saved me from myself in my current knitting project by stopping me from assembling it before it was ready. Even afters years of knitting, even owning a yarn shop, I had more to learn about prepping and blocking and steaming.

Monday morning found Thom and I at the beach at 5:00 a.m., this time in the hopes that we might spot one of our incredible sea turtles making her way back to the sea after a night of arduous labor laying her eggs. We had no luck spying one, but we did see her tracks with her nest newly protected by our wonderful Turtle Patrol. We’re going to try and do this every weekend during the season until we spot one. These are truly amazing creatures, and the opportunity that presents itself every summer is not to be missed. By the end of the season there will be thousands of nests along our Florida coastline, so our odds are pretty good we might encounter this amazing miracle of nature.

A cookout at the Beach House Beanery with sangria, hot dogs, and brats, visiting with friends and enjoying the ocean view seemed like a good end to a lovely long weekend.

I think Memorial Day weekend is a great way to begin another memorable Florida summer!

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