• Blogtober,  Florida,  Knitting,  ravelry,  shawls,  yarn

    Clapotis 2024

    Blogtober Day 2 If you were in the knitting sphere back in the early 2000s-2004, to be exact—you probably knit a Clapotis by Kate Gilbert. This pattern went viral before virality was a thing. You couldn’t open a knitting blog without seeing one posted. Keep in mind that this was pre-Ravelry and was brought to us by the amazing Knitty magazine. I’ve knit two over the years and will cast on again this weekend. I am looking forward to it! More than likely, I will be using Miss Babs Yarn in Yowza, one of my favorite yarns for wraps. I have a skein in the stash, but I will probably order a new skein…

  • books

    Recipe for Second Chances–a quick review

    Super cute, fun, and light read. Stella and Samuel met in college while not in the right space for a relationship. A few years later, they meet again at a destination wedding in Italy for mutual friends. As predicted, they kept getting thrown together during the wedding events. Hilarity and mouthwatering recipes ensue. While the interior monologues of the main character got tedious at times, the overall book was a delight to read. It’s a great book for a little escapism. 4.5 Stars I am looking forward to reading other titles from this author. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg , Florida

  • Florida,  Road Trip,  Teaching,  Travel

    Summertime

    This summer has flown by! I had four weeks off in June, but one of those weeks, I was in Louisville for the National TSA Conference, which was my first time at a conference without a chapter. It was very odd. I felt like I was missing something the entire time! I stayed at the Omni Louisville and it was amazing! One of the best properties that I have stayed at in a long time. The conference was great and I would like to go back to Louisville to tour the surrounding area as we didn’t have the time to that this trip.

  • coffee,  Daily Life,  Diptych,  Kiki Mac Photography,  photography

    A year of Diptychs…so far

    This year I decided to step out of my comfort zone and do a weekly challenge on Instagram. I figured it would be good for my creativity. For the most part, I’ve shot during the week specifically to make a diptych, but sometimes I’ve pulled from my archives to put the two photos together. I’ve only missed one week of the challenge, and that was due to being at the TSA State Conference. So why a diptych? What the heck is a diptych? A diptych is a set of two photographs used to tell a story. Below are my entries for the year…so far. I’ve posted the first nine weeks…

  • Crafting,  Daily Life,  Knitting,  ravelry,  shawls,  socks,  yarn

    Confession…..

    I never watched the original Sex and the City. Several reasons, the main one being that when they were originally, on, I didn’t have HBO. Heck, we barely had cable. The second reason was that I was a twenty-six-year-old mom with a four-year-old, in the middle of Central Louisiana, far from the bright lights of New York City. Heck, I couldn’t relate to that life, or even really imagine what that life might be like. I had barely been out of Louisiana, and even at that point, had only been to San Diego. Don’t get me wrong, over the years I could have watched it as it was released on…

  • Crafting,  Daily Life,  Knitting,  photography,  ravelry,  shawls,  socks,  Travel

    Happy New Year I’ve been knitting!

    Happy New Year! I know we say this every year, but I can’t believe that the last year flew by. I had lots of personal changes, all good in 2022, which is definitely an improvement from the previous three years. I’ve also picked up my knitting needles again, and knitted this lovely wrap for my mother-in-law. When she was here in May for my master’s graduation, I offered to knit her a wrap. Over the years, I have knit her several things, and the last wrap that I made her, became moth food. She was so upset! I had her pick out some yarn from my stash, and she chose…

  • Florida,  Hurricane Ian,  photography

    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…

  • Daily Life,  Florida,  photography,  Teaching

    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…