“Retired” is a state of mind. Monte has been working every day out in the shop making sawdust and pretty furniture. This is his latest project, one of a pair of LP cabinets. Made out of beautiful walnut with a gorgeous custom finish. He designed and built them. Quite the craftsman!
The drawers have heavy duty full bottom-mounted slides. And he designed an angled, adjustable back-stop for each drawer.
Below is the “before” picture 🙂
I wonder what’s next?!
I am addicted to Amazon Prime. I use it for purchasing nearly everything other than groceries. And I’ve been placing so many orders lately, the UPS man is wearing out the front walkway. I guess it’s time I took a break, though.
The clutter (virtual and physical) in my life is reaching a new peak. We have, admittedly, been processing a spike in household paperwork / accounting that requires more of my attention, what with the monthly household bill paying, insurance paperwork for the Audi, buying the new boat, insuring the new boat, registering the boat, processing Monte’s retirement paperwork, converting 401Ks to IRAs, moving the new retiree to my insurance, etc etc etc. We somehow misplaced one of the new ATM cards for our accounts that arrived a few weeks ago. I also have this nagging feeling that I need to double check our estimated fed income tax payments. I’m about 2 months behind on niece & nephew birthday cards (!). Work-work is piling up too, and traveling a week or so every month is not helping either on the household-organizational front.
The Amazon “stuff” just went on top of that pile.
I have been trying to get the return authorizations processed for 2 boat-related items that I ordered from Amazon recently that I wanted to return. Today I realized that I returned the wrong item to Amazon, using one of Amazon’s return authorizations. And I have the Amazon item here in my office with the return authorization for a 3rd party vendor. The nice UPS man came by and picked up the first item before I realized the mistake.
*sigh*
Luckily the nice-man at 1-800-please-help-me-Amazon said he’d figure it out for me.
I hereby impose a 2 week moratorium on ordering anything from Amazon. And I resolve to reduce the huge pile of paperwork piled up on my home office desk on one of the days I hope to take off around labor day.
Sheesh.
P.S.
I realize there are people struggling with real problems out there. This is definitely not one of them. But it just turns out to be something to feed my blog for today. 🙂 Enjoy the rest of the week!
What a nice weekend! Saturday we (Julie, Monte and I) headed to the lake. We raced in the Beer Can for the first time on Nirvana. Let’s just say we have room for improvement 🙂 We came in 4th though!
Afterwards we anchored in Arky South for the night. Just us this time. Today we picked up the anchor around 11:30 and sailed to the yacht club and back. Julie took the helm for the first half of the trip. She’s a natural.
Back in the slip we floated and visited with Joe, Marty and Wally.
I can’t wait til the upcoming long Labor Day weekend!
When I arrived in San Francisco on Monday I saw signs welcoming the America’s Cup World Series races that were taking place here… this week! Unfortunately my hotel and meetings were across the bay in Emeryville, so I had no chance of getting a glimpse of the heats and qualifying races that started every day at 2pm and went until about 4pm. I would have LOVED to see them race, but was going to have to settle for getting a picture of the boats.
We did drive over to the city on Wednesday night, but didn’t make it to the Golden Gate Yacht Club, the home marina of the America’s Cup holder Oracle Racing, where the boats were moored.
So today I had a tiny window of time between meetings and the drive to the airport. I was determined to make it to the waterfront. So I braved morning traffic and made it to Marina Green and was able to walk up and down the boardwalk about 50 yards from all the boats.
The shot above is a bit into the sun, but it shows all the boats moored in San Francisco Bay. Alcatraz is in the background. The boats above are the AC45 (45′ class) boats. The mainsails are “wing sails” and they are catamarans. These World Series races are practice for the America’s Cup Finals racing next summer with even bigger boats. In February they will introduce the 72′ (AC72) catamarans that will be raced in the Challenger races of the America’s Cup. If you think these boats are fast, just wait until next year. The final America’s Cup will be in September 2013 in San Francisco. If you want to see them in action, NBC will be carrying this Sunday’s final races live on national TV @ 11:30 AM Pacific. And, you can follow the standings of this week’s races here.
The shot below is a closer picture of the Oracle Racing boats.
And, a trip to San Francisco would not be complete without the obligatory shot of the Golden Gate Bridge: 🙂
After the day’s wrap-up meeting session, we headed to a restaurant closest to the hotel. It’s Polynesian fare tonight, folks. This is the first course. 🙂
I drove into San Francisco with several colleagues for dinner tonight. I had fresh Dungeness crab, and after dinner we ordered a round of legendary Irish Coffees at The Buena Vista.
Deeee-licious!
The restaurant’s website has instructions on how to make one, if you want to try to make one yourself:
| Buena Vista Irish Coffee | ||
 Fill glass with very hot water to pre-heat, then empty. |
 Pour hot coffee into hot glass until it is about three-quarters full. Drop in two cocktail sugar cubes. |
 Stir until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. |
 Add full jigger of Irish Whiskey for proper taste and body. |
 Top with a collar of lightly whipped whipping cream by pouring gently over a spoon. |
 Enjoy it while piping hot. |
Why, yes I am.
I’m on my way to San Fran for a week of meetings. Before I left the house today Monte sang a verse or two of “Are You Going to San Francisco?” (youtube link here). You know it, i’m sure…
If you’re going to San Francisco…
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair….
If you’re going to San Francisco…
You’re going to meet some gentle people there…
For those who come to San Francisco…
Summertime will be a love-in there…
Checking my email during the flight I got a note from Monte telling me that the guy that sang that song, Scott McKenzie had died. R.I.P. Scott.
Kind of a coincidence, i suppose. Anyway, that song is in my head now for a while. So, i thought I’d spread it around.
I’m pretty sure I will not run across the summertime love-in on this trip. Maybe next time. But I definitely will try to find some flowers to put in my hair. 🙂
This morning as I was walking by the kitchen window I notice a leaf that appeared to have blown up and gotten stuck to the hummingbird feeder. I figured it was a remnant from some of the wind gusts during the weekend rain. When I took a closer look, i saw that it was not a leaf, but a moth or butterfly of some sort.
Very effective camouflage, i must say.
We headed to the lake yesterday around noon. We have a long list of chores and minor repairs to take care of on the boat, and we schlepped a bunch of tools and supplies out to take care of some of them. Rain was in the forecast, so not a lot of people were out and about.
About 5 o’clock we called it a day and headed out of the slip to anchor out overnight in Arkansas Bend cove. Lori, Dave and Jake joined us on Camelot. We had a very pleasant night but boy did we get rained on. We hunkered down below on one of the boats and played cards until it let up. After the rains blew through it was quite nice. Good breezes through the boat kept us cool.
This morning when I went up into the cockpit this was the view that greeted me. A beautiful Lake Travis sunrise. A good morning, indeed.
Whew, what a long week. Monte has also had a long and HOT week, working in the shop all day, every day this week in 100 degree temps.
I was happy to hear the blender fire up at about 5:30.
TGIF, and have a great weekend everyone!
Today is the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I was a (relatively) wee lass when he died. Now I’m older than he was when he died. Sad to realize he only lived to the age of 42. You are missed, big guy.
Here’s one to give a listen to on this day…not one of his own songs, but I like his version: My Way – Elvis style. He certainly did live life his own way….
When we adopted Keeto last year, he was approximately 6 weeks old. Based on that we guesstimated his birthday to be August 15. Today marks the completion of his first lap around the sun. Happy Birthday birdie!
On one of my trips out to the shop in the wayback part of the yard today to see what Monte was up to, I encountered this little art exhibit.
He’s been talking about wanting to make a sundial. But I don’t think this is it.
The story behind the shot: Monte is very fond of colored bandanas / hankies, and won’t get dressed without having one or two of these in his pocket. He uses them for pretty much everything. Well, last weekend he declared that he was running low and came back from a shopping run with a couple dozen bright, crisp, new colored bandanas. They bleed profusely, though for the first 5 – 10 washes. So he’s taken to washing them in a bucket of saltwater to set the colors. This is apparently the drying cycle for the latest batch. 🙂
It’s Sunday night, and the end of another great weekend. Yesterday my cousin Devitt and Aunt Joanne came over for a breakfast visit with Monte, Julie and I. Monte made french omelettes, Julia Child style. And we tried our hand at a potato recipe that we got from Devitt:
Browned Breakfast Potatoes
Large cast iron skillet
8 oz bacon, cut into 1-2″ pieces
3 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt & pepper
Cook bacon, onions and garlic in large cast iron skillet until browned. Discard bacon fat from pan. Add potatoes, salt & pepper. Cook another 10 minutes or so over medium heat on the stovetop. Then place skillet, uncovered, in 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 and cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve and savor!
Afterwards, Julie headed home to study up for the last final exam of Summer session (good luck!), and we packed for the lake.
We planned to raft-up with friends overnight to watch the Perseids meteor shower. We made it to the cove by about 5pm and set our first anchor on the new boat. It was a good set. We were soon joined by Joe on Prelude, Rory & Greg on Sapphire, Nick, Laurene & Morgan on Kalliopi, and Kurt & Kevin on Dancer. Everyone was tied up by the time the golden hour was upon us. The shot above is of the 5 boats, stern to the sunset. Nirvana is in the middle.
After dinner and stories from the day, everyone grabbed a cushion and laid on the bow of their boats to watch for meteors. It wasn’t a knock-out show, but we did get to see some good ones. The night was peppered with random shouts of “There’s one!” every 10 or 15 minutes.
This morning everyone floated for a while and then people started peeling off at about noon. I’m pleased to report that we got the anchor up with little problem. I am loving the electric windlass to bring up the chain and anchor!
Monte and I sailed ALL afternoon. The breezes started out sluggish but filled in to some great wind that we haven’t seen in a long time on the lake. At about 3:30 we dropped sail and picked up Devitt at Arky cove to take him out for a sail. He did great, taking the helm as Monte and I worked the lines. We dropped him off back at the park around 5:30 and headed back to the marina.
By the time we got home several hours later we were pleasantly exhausted.
I can’t wait to get out there again. Friday soon come!
Sheila365 