Christy

October 3, 2022

Hurricane Ian, the aftermath

I don’t know where to begin. Relief that Ian didn’t hit directly as first thought and despair that it slammed into the coast about an hour and a half south of us as a Category 4 hurricane. I saw someone post that Sanibel Island and Ft. Myers Beach are decimated as is Ft. Myers and towns and communities all up and down southern Sarasota County, Lee, and Collier Counties. This storm has also caused catastrophic damage on the east coast as well, including flooding in Daytona Beach.

We rode out the storm at Southeastern Guide Dogs, my husband’s work. He is the VP of Information Management and Captial Projects, meaning he’s responsible for all the buildings and grounds as well as keeping the network up and running. Throughout the day and into the night we watched the wind and rain get stronger and stronger.

If you want to help South Florida recover, click HERE for an article with links to donation points. I would caution you against donating to anything coming from Gov. DeSantis’ office. His wife is in charge and there has not been any info on how that money is going to be distributed.

We are on day six at this point with no power. We are lucky that we have a generator and that the weather has been beautiful. I documented before, during, and after the hurricane.

This storm really bothered me. Knowing that it was headed right for us and at the last minute, shifted south is a weird feeling. Almost like survivor’s guilt.

About the photos: All shot on my Canon 6D with a Sigma 35mm Art lens. I’m really loving this lens and getting to know it. I’ve had it for about a year and haven’t done much with it but am loving the versatility.

September 27, 2022

Hurricane Ian

Not going to lie, this one is giving me lots of stress and anxiety.

September 5, 2022

Moooooooooo!

As part of my new job with the school district, I get to see all aspects of our Career and Technical education departments. One of the things that I am looking forward to is learning about all of the Career and Technical Student Organizations that our county offers. I got started in CTE through my work with TSA, the Technology Students Association. While I know TSA backward and forwards, I know very little about the others, HOSA, FFA, FCCLA, SkillsUSA, etc.

Imagine how excited I was to be able to get to see many of our FFA students raise animals for the competition and auction at the county fair. The first ‘official’ event of the fair season is the steer weigh-in at the beginning of August and I went out to get some photographs and video. I had a blast! To see these kiddos manhandle these huge steers is impressive. On this day, the steers got vaccinated, had a DNA sample taken, and weighed. I had never seen the beginning process, so this was all fascinating to me. These kids put in a lot of work to raise, feed, groom, show and sell their animals. It was really cool to be able to talk to some of these kids about their animals and see how excited and knowledgeable they were about the process. I can’t wait to follow them until the fair in January. If you have a local fair that showcases local students, please go and support them. They are the future of farming in America.

February 1, 2022

Project 365 Month 1

I managed to complete an entire month of my Project 365! Can I make it through month two?!

January 23, 2022

A Snowy Sunday Part II

I had meant to post this earlier in the week, but the time got away from me. Last weekend we were in Atlanta and on Sunday, it ended up snowing! It started around 10:00 and snowed the rest of the day. We started off the day by going to Warm Waves Coffee. They were only open until 11 in anticipation of the snowy weather, so we hurried up and drove over. They were on my list to visit and I’m so glad that we managed to squeeze in a visit. We had planned to hit up more coffee places but managed to get to Valor Coffee and this one. I can’t wait to visit again. We are hoping to get back this summer.

Just as we got there, it started sleeting and by the time we were on our way back, it started to snow! Amanda and I were tickled by this.

We had a lovely day watching the snowfall. I managed to pull out some knitting and get a photo of yarn in the snow!

I took Sága for a walk in the snow, but she wasn’t too sure of sitting on the cold rock. The final photo is taken as it was getting dark. I loved how peaceful and pretty everything looked. We had a wonderful time visiting and can’t wait to go back in the summer. I won’t have to worry about classes as I will graduate from USF in May with my Masters and will be able to just relax.

Not a terribly busy week coming up, so hopefully, I can post the last two weeks of my Project 365. If you want to keep up with that on a daily basis, you can follow me on Instagram. Until next time, have a wonderful week!

January 16, 2022

A snowy, long Weekending Part 1

As we were not able to make it to Atlanta to see my in-laws over Christmas, we drove up on Wednesday to take advantage of the long weekend. You might want to grab some tea, coffee, or beverage of your choice because this is going to be a long one. We packed a lot into a few days! I’m going to break this into two parts.

We drove up on Wednesday night so that it would give us a full day on Thursday.

On Thursday, we spent the day around my in-law’s house. We all had some work to do, and wanted to rest since we didn’t get in until nearly midnight on Wednesday. Amanda, Nana and I visited Valor Coffee since we wanted to return since our first visit in 2019. It was just as good as we remembered!

Friday dawned cold and breezy. Joel decided to take my car in for service while we were here so I didn’t have to worry about it next weekend. It was due for it’s first service so it was easy to take it in to the local Volvo dealership. While that was being worked on, we took MARTA to the Georgia Aquarium. Fun fact, in the 26 years that my in-laws have lived here, we have never taken the train into Atlanta.

It’s been years since we have been to the Aquarium and we picked a good day to go. It wasn’t too crowded so we could take our time with the exhibits. It was a nice way to spend a few hours and get some good photos.

The adventure continued on Saturday when we went to The High Museum of Art. I wanted to see Picturing the South: 25 Years, but we missed the Obama Portraits as the tickets for that exhibition was sold out for Saturday. Interestingly enough, the photography exhibit is one where I DIDN’T take any photos. Well, I took a couple, but not like the other areas of the museum. We saw a mixture of classical paintings, modern art, folk art and African art. I loved that exhibit and could have stayed there for hourse looking at it. We were with my in-laws and needed to get back to prep for Joel’s surprise 50th birthday party. His birthday isn’t until the 29th, but his parents wanted to take advantage of having us here for dinner and cake!

Joel’s 50th Birthday

Ok, that’s it for now. I have to pack for our trip home tomorrow, but I still have the Sunday Snow Day to show you!

January 9, 2022

Weekending

Well, I actually had more planned to talk about, but I was stuck on a TEAMS call for my last semester of grad school (thank goodness) then got involved in sorting through my clothes and closet. I’ve lost about 50 pounds since July and lots of stuff needed to go. I had planned to drive to Winter Haven today to Four Purls, but put that off for another day. Hubby decided that since we missed Christmas with his parents, we would go up on Wednesday which resulted in me having to scramble to get time off and get some assignments turned in that are due next Sunday.

I think I mentioned in the last post that I am attempting Project 365 and thought that I’d share my weekly photos on Sunday. Since today is the 9th, there are 9 photos here, but going forward, there should be seven. Click on the photos for the full version. For full description of the photos, hop on over to my Instagram page. I’m looking forward to our trip to Atlanta and can’t wait to share our visit.

January 4, 2022

Happy New Year!

I hope that your New Year celebrations were fun (if that’s what you are into) and that your 2022 is off to a great start. Today was my first day back at school, it was a Record Day for teachers and tomorrow is our in-service day. Kiddos return on Thursday, which will make this week a very weird one for all involved. I have to say that I am excited about this year. I have some really good things coming up. I graduate from grad school in May for starters! With my master’s in Career and Technical Education, I hope to move mostly out of the classroom, or at least out of the position I am in. I am scheduled to take a new position next school year that would have me teach half-time and oversee a new program the other half. Hopefully, that will happen. I’m excited to pull out my knitting again and to be here on the blog more. I really have missed it and it’s been great to ease my way back into writing on a more consistent basis. I’m also going to sit down and come up with a posting schedule to keep myself consistent.

I’m not really into resolutions, because I think it’s a setup for failure, but I do have a few things that I’d like to accomplish this year on a personal level. I’ve already mentioned knitting and the blog, but I’m looking to start a podcast. I used to work in radio years ago and would love to see if I can pull that knowledge back up. I am also getting into more photography projects. I’ve challenged myself to a Project 365 so let’s see if I can actually ‘intentionally’ take a photo a day. I’m going to try to post them here on a weekly basis, but you can follow along on my Instagram.

I do want to share a couple of photos from a photoshoot I did in December. I’ve been photographing this family for seven years now and Lily wanted to recreate a photo from the first shoot that I did with them. The kids were in 2nd and 3rd grade and now they are in high school. Eli, the youngest, wasn’t born yet. In fact, their mom was pregnant with him in our first shoot. The first photo was shot in 2014 at Emerson Point and the second one was shot last month at Coquina Beach. We are actually going to go back to Emerson Point this year to recreate it exactly with the same point of view. Fun fact about the first photo, I entered it into the Manatee County Fair in 2015 and won the Paul Bartley Award for the photo that best represents Manatee County. Honestly, I had only been shooting a year, and this was such a proud moment for me. The last photo is of all three siblings.

Enjoy the rest of the week, hopefully in the next post, I’ll have a photo of my latest knitting project. It’s just getting started, but at least it’s a start!

December 31, 2021

Good-bye 2021

In 2021, I lost my father, making my siblings and me, orphans. Adults, yes, but orphans, nonetheless. After my mom died in 2019, I knew that sooner, rather than later, we would be also burying my father. In some ways, I was surprised, but in some ways, not. I was very fortunate that I was able to go home the week before he passed and see him. Something, I didn’t have the chance to do with my mom. For that, I am grateful. Losing my dad in February just made the year all that much harder, and it had just gotten started. It colored everything, and I don’t think I realized at the time how much that it has affected me. I felt untethered and adrift for much of the year. I’m just now feeling like I am maybe emerging from that, but it’s still difficult as many of you are all too aware.

I plodded through three semesters of grad school, hating nearly every second of it and just praying to get through the final semester beginning in January. Teaching has been much more difficult this school year than last, so much so that I will either find a way out of the classroom in 2022 or will leave teaching altogether. It’s just been rough. Bacchus, our Italian greyhound, passed away on Halloween at 12 years old, so that hit us pretty hard. I know that many many more people had it much worse than us, but I will be glad to put 2021 in the rear-view mirror.

While it seems like it has been all doom and gloom, it hasn’t. Sága, one of the puppies we raised and that became a guide dog, retired due to some issues with her handler, and we got to adopt her, bringing us to four yellow labs in the house. It’s never a dull moment. Joel and I took a quick vacation to St. Augustine and had a wonderful time! It was nice to get away and we plan on going back soon. All of us have had our vaccines plus a booster, and Amanda had her textbook published in October! In November, I had a life-changing surgery that maybe I’ll share in a future post. I’m determined to have a better 2022.

So, for 2022, my goals are to get back to regular blogging and I’m adding a podcast! More info on that later. I am also planning to do more things to feed my creativity. I’m going to participate in a 52 weeks photo project and I’ve picked up my knitting. I’ve also cleaned out my craft room and purged it. I’ve kept the things that I want to create with, so I’m excited for that. Knitting is back too! I’ve pulled out some yarn from Must Stash Yarn and started on a shawl. I’ll do a blog post on it in the next couple of days once I can get a good photo of the yarn. I may bring back the Hurricane Sock Party from 14 years ago so if anyone wants to participate, leave a comment, and watch my Instagram for more info.

I wish everyone, a safe, happy, and joyous New Year. Let’s make 2022 a good one!

December 25, 2021

Merry Covid Christmas to Us. Blogmas 12/25/21

Well heck. We did everything right, all of us have had three doses of the vaccine, wear masks in public and at work, and we still got Covid. More than likely, I brought it home from school. I would have assumed that I had allergies had I not tested when Joel started feeing bad. Sure enough, both of us tested positive for Covid. I’m guessing it is Omicron based on symptoms. I’ve since tested negative as I am thinking I was at the tail end of the infection. We were supposed to be in Atlanta for the first time in four years and we are so upset and disappointed. We didn’t decorate this year and opted to open presents on the 22nd just before Joel and I took the Covid tests. Amanda is still negative thank goodness. I’m trying not to be annoyed by knitting, reading and watching YouTube. It’s not working. 🙁