Sunday Adventure - and I saw the sun!

Had a lovely Sunday Adventure and, as the title says, I actually saw the sun. Mind you, we had to go to another state to see it. As soon as we started heading back home the clouds rolled in and well, it was cloudy by the time we got home. 

We decided to go south today. We ended up going down to Michigan City to take a walk along the beach and then on to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I think I've mentioned this before, but because husband is a veteran we get free admission to National Parks. We decided to check out an old homestead that is included in the National Park. It's strange to call it a park as it is about 20 miles long and encompasses over 15,000 acres. It really is a massive area to explore. There are so many trails and areas of interest. 

We decided to look at the Bailley Homestead. Below is a little information from the website about the homestead history. 

The Bailly Homestead, a National Historic Landmark, was the home of Honore Gratien Joseph Bailly de Messein (1774 - 1835) and Marie LeFevere Bailly (1783-1866). Bailly played a role in the development of the Calumet Region of northern Indiana. He was an independent trader in the extensive fur-trading network that spread from Montreal to Louisiana, and ultimately to Europe. Joseph Bailly was one of the earliest settlers in northern Indiana. In 1822 Bailly set up his fur trading post at the crossroads of several important trails, including the Tolleston Beach and northern branch of the Sauk Trail. He provided a meeting place for Native Americans and Euro-Americans. Except for White Pigeon, Michigan, Bailly's trading post was the only stopping place for travelers and missionaries between Chicago and Detroit. The Bailly Homestead complex is the last remaining site of its nature in the Calumet Region, both in its capacity as a fur trading post and in its vernacular architectural features and construction types. The Bailly Homestead was authorized as a National Historic Landmark in 1962.

It is currently undergoing renovations so we couldn't go inside, but the area was absolutely beautiful. 

Some phone photos

Reflection in the river. 

The main house. You can see where there are supports. 

The middle house was my favourite. It seemed to have a lot of character.  I was glad we were there in the daytime. I think it might have been a little creepier at night lol. 

We didn't get home until later in the day. I did manage to finish up December photos for my project so now onto the next stage!  I am going to give it a rest for a couple of days and work on something else. I have photos from my camera that I took today on our beach walk that I want to get sorted too. 

I have completed a meal plan for the upcoming week (through Sunday). I do have to check the cupboards and freezer as I am sure I have most of the items needed, part of the reason I chose the meals planned lol. 

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

The 'Go with the Flow' Post

I had a plan when I woke up this morning. After several days of drizzle and cloudiness the weather forecast sunshine. It's the first Saturday of the month and time for #1day12pics. At the beginning of the year part of my plan was do this photography challenge each month again with a theme. I thought sunshine! It's a plan. I'll do a sunrise. Not just the sky but the colours, the light and the brightness. I got up early, batteries ready and cameras packed. 

Was there sunshine? My phone weather app was still optimistic when I got up. I kept looking out of the window, even in the darkness trying to check the cloud cover in the sky. Husband was sure he could see some clearing through the clouds. 

Sigh. 

Not a glimpse of sunshine. Not even a sky that was filled with puffy clouds. Just flat white. Monotone skies. Sigh. No sunshine. So, my #1day12pics is Go with the Flow. I didn't take many pictures while we were out. In fact, there are several of the really cute squirrel in my garden who seems to have a balance problem. It's such a lovely squirrel. Makes me smile every time I see him. He obviously has a problem as, when he looks up at you, he lists to one side, but he is so cute when he does it. I am guilty of feeding him too many peanuts. 

The rest of my day didn't work out how I had planned either. I had been planning to get up in the craft room, but I ended up ultra-focused on my Big Project from last year - A Year at Asylum Lake. I want to get it finished by the end of the month. I had taken all the photos, but had to sort through them, pick out the ones I want, date and label them ready to put into posts for my Photography Blog. I am only up to April on the blog. It's a bigger project than I imagine. I really want to finish it really just for me, so I know I can do it. 

I've taken hundreds  thousands of photos of Asylum Lake throughout last year documenting everything from views to flowers, to animals, birds, weather. I wanted to get through November finished by mid next week. I got it finished today! I only have December to do before I can get started on writing the blog. 

So, no crafting today, but I have worked a lot on a project I have really wanted to get done. I have even managed to create collages of my favourite photos of Asylum Lake up until May 2022. Once I get December photos sorted and collages created for all 12 months I'll share. I am finally feeling good about being able to get this finished by the end of the month. 

Tomorrow, we're off out for our Sunday Adventure. Although the weather forecasts partly cloudy skies I am of the mind that the weather forecasters are just being optimistic. I am preparing for all clouds, but we shall see. 

I did also finish a book today. 

From Amazon

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
 
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
 
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past. 

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Really enjoyed the book. It caught my attention. Lately, I've been really struggling to find a connection with the characters in the books I'm reading. I sometimes feel as though they are one dimensional or too perfect. 

End of the Week - ramblings

I thought about this post being an update on my Creativity for the week. I am hoping to be more creative this year. However, I haven't been as creative (yet) as I had hoped this week. I have done some creative photography but will share that tomorrow when I will (hopefully) have some more creativity to share. We will be going out for a short time in the morning and then I plan to spend the rest of the day doing some crafting. 

Most of this week has been about getting into the swing of things after the holidays. I did get some of the house resetting done but there is still more to be done. I did make a meal plan for the week and meals are planned and food purchased for throughout the weekend. Husband cooks at the weekend and usually we end up going to the shops and spending a lot more money than we should have. Instead, I planned meals that I knew he could cook and purchased the items needed. I am sure this will save us some money. We have plenty of snack foods left from Christmas gifts and things I had purchased for our snack table. No need to buy any more. I am already thinking about the meals I will be planning for next week. Meal planning made things so much easier this week. 

It's been grey and dreary the last few days. There are mud puddles on most of the trails I've walked, and almost slipped a couple of times. Luckily, I caught myself. The weather is making me feel quite down. It's supposed to be sunny this weekend. I hope the weather forecast doesn't change. A good dose of sunshine will make me feel better. 

My laugh for the day was the weather bar on my computer. It said this

Really? Really? The sky is just completely cloud covered, we're talking monotone, no definition to the clouds at all. It's been drizzly all day and we've had snow showers. There wasn't even a patch of blue. How my computer - set to the town I live in - decided there would be a great sunset I don't know! It was like that in the blizzard. The snow was coming down outside and the computer weather bar said it was sunny out. Sigh. Maybe it's just wishful thinking lol. 

Here's to some sunshine tomorrow!

It Really is Wednesday Today

Not a good night's sleep. Husband snoring. Thoughts tossing and turning in my head. I woke up several times and when husband got up - way before dawn lol - I didn't get much more sleep. I ended up getting out of bed when son left for work 5.45am. Ugh. Not a great start to the day. 

It wasn't raining today so I went for a walk. It was nice to be out. I did see one beaver and lots of muskrats.  There was even a peek of sunshine which was really nice. I took my list for the shops along with me so went directly from walk to do my food shop. There were a couple of things I remembered that I needed, and I was sucked in by some Christmas sweets (that were 70%) off. I have got everything I need for meals until Sunday apart from drinks (should last until the weekend). 

Housework done. I worked on my Big Project for my online photography club from last year some more. I think it was a really BIG HUGE project as I took photos there almost every weekday apart from when we went away for holidays. It's a bit much. I think if I decided to do something like that again I'd pare it down some more. Perhaps a certain place through the seasons, rather than the year. I now have photos organised through mid-September. I haven't updated that blog yet but once I've got all the photos ready to go, I'll start working on putting it together. I'm hoping the majority of it will be done by the end of January. IF I can stick to the plan. It's actually nice to look back at the photos. I think I need to slow down and do that more. There are some interesting ones that I took that I had forgotten about. 

Tomorrow, it's supposed to be cloudy and then maybe some snow in the afternoon. I'll go for my usual walk. I want to get started on some more sorting. I have a box started of donation things. I'd like to fill it by the end of the month. I want to get some more done on my Big Project later in the afternoon/evening. Nothing exciting. 

Photo today - Praying Mantis from September at Asylum Lake. This photo made me smile. They really are such interesting insects

Back to Normal

Today was the first day since Christmas that son was back to work. It was quiet in the house. The day started with rain. I didn't take a walk. I got up later than normal as I spent half the night on the sofa and the other half not being able to sleep. I finally got back to sleep around 5.15am so turned the alarm off and slept until after 7am. Once awake, I got some errands done and then came home and got started on the housework. I did get all the things done on the daily list I had made and started on what I wanted to get done by the end of the week. I also got my meal planning done and a list of things I need for my food shop tomorrow. I made a list for things to be done tomorrow. It felt good to have everything checked off the list for the day. I feel as though I actually accomplished something. 

While I was out I did have a little look around and found this pen set irresistible. I don't generally see many things that are Edith Holden style and the price wasn't too bad $5.99 so I used a little of the money I got for Christmas and treated myself. 

I shall keep them with my notebook to write my lists! 

The weather looks to be a little better tomorrow. There might - fingers crossed - even be some sunshine. I shall hopefully be out early and take a nice walk and some photos. 

Back tomorrow. 
 

Sunday...no, Monday Adventures!

 I was going to name this post Sunday Adventures and then I remembered that it was actually Monday. Groan. It's going to be another of those weeks lol. You know the ones, where you are always trying to remember what day it actually is and then feel off-kilter all week long. 

We did go out this morning. There was a Dense Fog Advisory and - wow - was it really foggy! We couldn't see much of anything. So much for going out and taking some nice photos lol. 

These photos were taken with my phone

Our first stop was at Pere Marquette Park in Muskegon. The plan was to walk along the pier, maybe see the lighthouse and some birds. What happened? Could not see the lighthouse and couldn't walk far as the ice was still really thick on the pier. See? No lighthouse. You can usually see it as you walk along here. Can't even see the lake!

The trees looked quite eerie. 

From Muskegon we travelled down the lakeshore to Grand Haven. It was still foggy but we could see a little more. The water was quite calm looking.

There was still some ice around. There was a little left on the lighthouse, but lots on the path. I can't imagine how thick this was at one point!

It's a walkway. Or it is normally a walkway. There was a huge chunk of ice blocking the path. No, I didn't climb over it. There is another way to reach the path and I went that way. 

It was nice to get out and have a walk. It wasn't too cold, just above freezing. I would have liked to see the sun but, hey, it wasn't raining or snowing so that was a good thing. Tomorrow looks like rain, so maybe no walk. My poor walking friend is out of commission for a while. She broke her foot again! I might take this time to explore some other places to walk. It depends on cooperation from the weather. 

As for the rest of tomorrow, it's time to get back on the wagon. I have lots of cleaning and sorting to do. I packaged up a couple of sale items and have made a couple more sales so will get them packed up tomorrow. The usual problem areas are again problem areas so they need to be tackled. I have a meal planned for tomorrow, but have to check the freezer and cupboards to make a meal plan for the rest of the week and see if there is anything needed from the shops on Wednesday. It's a short week, but everybody will be back at work. 

I want to get started on being creative, but there are some things I need to tackle first. Keeping on track is the goal, so creativity can follow!

I hope everyone has had a good start to the new year. 

More tomorrow!

January 1st

This new year starts slowly. Daughter and I chatted on New Year's Eve and watched Big Ben ring in the new year in England together. This was always a tradition that Mum and I did. Even that last year before she caught Covid in the January she stayed up until her midnight (my 7pm) and saw in the New Year together. Last year, the first year since Mum died, daughter was with me for the night. This year she rang and we chatted and watched the BBC on Youtube. The fireworks were lovely. We had a toast together. 

The rest of the night I spent watching telly. Husband went to bed before midnight. I wasn't going to stay up, but son came up just as I was about to go to bed, so I watched the ball drop (rather boring really lol) and then I immediately went to bed. 

New Year's Day was rainy first thing. As husband has tomorrow off too we had decided to either go out Sunday or Monday. As the weather wasn't the greatest (supposed to be cloudy on Monday too) we decided to put it off until Monday. When the rain stopped I went for a quick walk. The rest of the day I was rather lazy. I worked on my Big Project - A Year at Asylum Lake from last year. I'm behind. Of course. 

Middle son came up and had some dinner. We also watched The Glass Onion. It was quite good. 

I haven't decided on specific projects for the year quite yet. Leaving that late too lol. I'm not doing the photo-a-day. I really just need a break from it. 

Today I thought I'd share a photo of one of the deer that came to my garden on Christmas Day. Quite snowy!

Tomorrow we're off out for an adventure, then it will be time to get back in the groove. I do have some Ebay orders to go out on Tuesday so I have to get them ready when we get back tomorrow. Hopefully on Tuesday I'll do some tidying up and some listing. I've got to get back into the groove!

Goodbye 2022....Hello 2023

Just popping in to say Thank You so much for all your support this past year. I really appreciate all who read and comment (I am behind on comments as per usual lol). I hope you all have a lovely, healthy New Year. 

Day 365 Phone Photos - Things That Make Me Smile 

I can't believe that I made it until the end of the year!!! 

To finish the end of the year off, a walk along the beach. Don't be fooled by all the sand, underneath the sand there is ice!!

See you next year!

Friday

It was raining when I woke this morning. Instead of going for a walk, I got out early, went to the Post Office, stopped at a shop to pick up a couple of things and headed home. Once home it had stopped raining so I decided to go for a quick walk. It's been quite warm the last few days and I was really surprised this morning on my walk to see that all the snow from last week had gone! I was a little saddened and a little angry. Why couldn't last weekend have been like this and daughter could have come for Christmas? I could have handled the snow this weekend. Sigh. There was only a little ice on the path. I didn't walk for long as it started to rain again. 

I only took a couple of photos, including these phone photos. The nice part of the walk was that there was still ice on Asylum Lake but it was warmed by the air and there was some fog about. 

I came home, did a couple of chores and then spent the afternoon working on a photography/photoshop challenge. I had signed up for a lovely free challenge by Janey Lazenby She offers these free challenges usually around holidays. I decided to really give this one a go. I don't know a lot about photoshop but she makes it a lot easier. I am behind on lessons but hope to do some more tomorrow (I've finished Day two and I've done both the bonus sessions). I shall share my image when it is finished. 

Day 364 Things That Make Me Smile Phone Photos

Not sure I'll do this challenge again next year. It's been fun but will be nice to take a break. 

I got quite a laugh out of this. Paczki Day here in America is February 16th this year. A little bit early ha ha 

Bonus phone photo of the day. After losing Shasta this year daughter has decided to foster huskies for a while. She applied with a rescue organisation, had an interview and home visit and got approved. She already has a rescue husky in the works! She and husband will pick up their foster dog on Monday. Her name will be Sakari. So there will be a new husky in the house! Hopefully she will find her Forever Home Soon!

I saw this at Walmart and had to snap a photo although it looks nothing like Sakari. She is a white husky rather like Koda (one of their other huskies)

Looking Forward

It's almost the end of another week and almost the end of another year. As the year draws to a close, I've been thinking about next year, the projects I want to do and things I'd like to accomplish. I didn't choose a word of the year for this year, and I wasn't going to choose one for next year either. Then, as I was lying in bed unable to sleep, I got to thinking about what I'd like to be able to do next year. All roads led back to Creativity. I have missed being creative. I haven't cross stitched or really done a lot of crafting and my photography has stalled a little. I want to bring joy back to the things I used to enjoy doing. So next year I am going to try to be more creative. It's not a lofty goal or world-changing, just something I'd like to try to weave through my life. I still haven't decided on specific projects, but it's a start. 

I don't make yearly resolutions. Personally, I find them too lofty and the first time I fall I give up as it seems like a failure. I am going to make monthly goals to try to get things done. For January it will be about continuing to sort through the craft room, clean out a couple of problem areas and restart the donation box. I am seriously considering sorting through the DVD collection. Now that there are streaming services, we rarely watch them anymore and they are, frankly, just gathering dust. January will also be about jumping back on the meal planning wagon. I have fell off it since early December and I miss it. When I have a basic meal plan, I know exactly where I am and don't think most of the day about what's for dinner and, more importantly, I go to the shops less and therefore spend less money. 

Do you have goals/aspirations for 2023? Do you make resolutions? Choose a word of the year? 

Day 363

Not the greatest photo, but it was so peaceful at Asylum Lake this morning. I am almost at the end of my year documenting Asylum Lake (nowhere near finished putting the project together) and almost at the end of the Photo-a-Day - Phone Photos Things That Make Me Smile. Can't believe I've almost completed it. See, I can stick to something lol