Today we are off for a 3-day weekend event to Mystic, CT with the L@dybug. This will be our first time out without the dogs along. We are meeting up with friend Carolyn (who lives in Rhode Island). For once we are headed her direciton instead of her coming our way.

For more, visit our T@B site and read the rest of the entry.

Two windows in San Miguel. Is it any wonder why I love this city? The road is slanted, not the photo!

You all know how I used to feel about Facebook. I dug in my heels and refused to participate, even to the point of deleting everything I done on it so far. I'm not sure what made me think differently. Maybe it was our friend, Phyllis, back in Colorado that recently had a kidney transplant. I knew she didn't read the blog and I wanted to be more in touch with her. I'm not sure. All I know is that one day I woke up and said "today is the day I start posting on Facebook."

I started this blog when we moved to New Jersey so that my family members and close friends could keep up with us in our newly adopted state. After a while I realized that only a few of them were even reading. Facebook is a good way to keep up with them without them having to slog through reading my blog if they don't want to. I will always post a link to my blog post on Facebook and they can either choose to follow the link and read, or not. And they still get to know what we are up to. A win-win. I figure what the harm? My blog is public now and open to anyone who happens to stop by. My Facebook account is set up for only friends to be able to access my mind's meanderings.

Aren't you glad I'm not ranting and raving about it anymore? It's actually kind of nice. I feel connected.

However, I still feel that social media can quickly get out of hand if taken too far. If we aren't careful it could all end up like the book The Circle where everyone has to know everybody's else thoughts and you have to "like" everything everybody in your "circle" does or they get offended — and sometimes your circle contains a large part of the world and you have to keep track of all of them. It's an interesting read and it makes you think about privacy control issues. The main character works for a scarily powerful internet company (which mimics Google). She wears a camera and records everything that she sees (except for bathroom privacy moments) and it all gets "shared" over the internet as it unfolds in real time. The whole thing is very creepy, especially the ending.

And what about those Google glasses or a tiny camera called the Narrative that you clip on and it captures photos of your day by taking two pictures every minute. I mean, really? You can photograph things without anyone knowing. And why? Do we really have to "remember every moment?" If we do our brains are sure to explode from all the unnecessary garbage that we don't need! Do we need to be that plugged in? I think people spend more time recording events on their phones than they do actually participating in the event. When we saw the Rockettes Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, the entire row in front of us was rudely holding up their phones, recording the performance. We politely asked them to stop  and put down their phones so we could see the show. Instead of living in the moment we are always looking back at what we missed because we were so caught up in capturing the moment.

I've been guilty of doing this very same thing when I tote my camera everywhere. I am always the one taking photos and sometimes I've felt like my experience was taking photos and not the actual experience of whatever I was doing. Do you know what I mean? I sometimes now even leave my camera behind when I go for a walk, just to enjoy the experience and not to record it. (Even if I do say "darn, I should have brought the camera" at times.) And then I think to myself, never mind, just enjoy the moment.

Okay, I've started rambling now and I am not sure I am making any sense at all anymore, so I'll stop here. Read The Circle if you get a chance. It will make you think.

The pool temperature was hovering at a very chillly  65 degrees F since its opening. It took until Friday to really have Robby the Robot clean it completely. We fired up the heater Saturday morning and set the temperature to 80 F. It took it most of the day to reach 78 F, using less propane than we thought it would, which is a good thing given that it doesn't come cheaply. 

We put the rest of the cabana curtains up early Saturday morning and got all the furtniture inside. How do you like our little backyard paradise?

We waited until after dinner to take the first swim of the season — with suits on, I might add. It felt really good but we both could only do ten lengths before calling it quits. It's something we have to work up to. We waited and watched for fireflies but they did not make an appearance. The frogs were our only entertainment.

On Sunday, after a trip to the Warwick Farmer's Market, we brought the L@dybug up from the back yard to the front in preparation for our trip to Mystic this weekend. Johnny does double duty as a tow vehicle!

We had lunch poolside:

• Strawberry Arugula Salad (with fresh berries from the Ringwood Farmer's Market)
• Goat Cheese (from the Warwick Farmer's Market)
• Slice of baguette (also from the Warwick Market)
• and fresh cut flowers from whatever we had blooming in the yard.

Then we spent the better part of the afternoon in the pool. The pool temperature was perfect and the day was a beautiful one. Just perfect for pooling.

After a dinner of delicious ceviche and pisco sour, we headed out to the L@dybug to sit and chat for a while. We took the phone out too and called Rick's mom. While we were on the phone with her the dogs were inside barking their heads off. At first we thought it was just jealousy that we were outside and they were not, but finally Rick sat up a little to look out the window and there was a bear walking by! Oh my, how exciting! It felt weird to be sitting so close to it in the L@dybug. It looked like the same bear that we saw two weeks a go. Of course, I did not have my camera or I would have gotten some great shots of him, but RIck was clever enough to look back at the footage of our weather cam to see if it caught him passing by. And it did! (Sorry for the tiny picture.)  Just strolling through our front yard unfazed by the barking dogs. 

It was a great weekend!

Meet our little deck herb garden! Every year we plant herbs because we use them constantly when we cook. Normally we plant them directly into this old wash basin, but this year Rick wanted to try something different and have them all in separate pots.

We have other herbs in bigger pots too.

I've never grown sorrell before and didn't really know what to do with it. We put it in a few salads (it has a slightly bitter taste) and last night we made a dish with chicken thighs, caramelized onions and the sorrell. It was this recipe from Mark Bittman and it was very tasty. The sorrell went in last, and like the recipe said it would, it just basically melted into the onions. The sweetness of the onions combined with the slightly tart sorrell paired well together. I used chicken thighs because I had a bunch frozen instead of a whole chicken. Yum.

Sage is just a good herb to have around. Plus, it produces pretty flowers (that you really should snip off!).

Well, not an herb but a lovely basket to have around, especially when it produces strange berries like the triple-headed one seen here. A fluke for sure.

I like rosemary in small doses. I find it to be overpowering and a little goes a long way. This plant is huge because it wintered inside in the sunroom over the winter. We could never even begin to use it all, but it smells good when you run your hands over the leaves or when the leaves get disturbed.

Another good thing to have around, especially for making mojitos. This overgrown and somewhat scraggly plant also was kept alive by me all winter long inside. It really needs a good haircut but I can't bring myself to do it, so it gets snipped a little at a time whenever we need it.

We only use the flowers (you can see it's about to pop out) and not the hairy leaves. I think they are probably good for something but I'm not sure I'm interested in knowing what! The flowers are purplish-to-purply pink and are delicious either eaten by themselves (they taste a little like a drop of honey on your tongue) or we put them in salads. You can also freeze the flowers in ice cubes to give a pretty look to whatever you are drinking. We haven't had a borage plant in years but we always had one in our little garden area in Colorado. (The woman at the farmer's market talked us into taking both the sorrell plant and the borage plant.)

We also have two pots of tomatoes but since I just bought and planted them the other day they look pretty boring. One is an heirloom red, three normal tomatoes, and one yellow one. We are also growing cherry tomatoes inside in our AeroGrow and they are going crazy! So many tiny tomatoes I can't imagine them all coming ripe at nearly the same time. I've tried several times to get photos of them (one small plant has at least 20 tomatoes on it if not more) but during the day the grow light is on and it makes taking a photo of it pretty hard. 

So, that's our little "garden." Welcome!

Doorway in San Miguel (Mexico)

For the first time in I don't know how long I had a really great night's sleep. I normally have bizarre and exhausting dreams all night long and sometimes it feels as if I am leading a different life as I sleep, but last night I was spared all that drama. It feels great! Maybe it was because we slept with the air conditioning on and the windows closed and all that nasty pollen from our big pine tree (which is right in front of the bedroom windows) couldn't float in. I feel as cheerful as this doorway!

It also feels good in a strange way to embrace Facebook. All that angst and anger last year has passed. I've let it go, and it too feels freeing. 

Robby did a fairly good job on cleaning up the pool yesterday after about six diaper changes. It still needs some work before we swim this weekend. We will fire up the pool heater (hurray!) on Saturday morning. It's predicted to be a really nice weekend. Can't wait for that first swim. I know it will take me awhile to get back to doing 30 lengths again, but however many I can do will feel great. Nothing works out the kinks like swimming. 

Today the back decks and the pool deck are being power-washed. When that's done we can finish setting up the cabana and move into our outside space for the summer. 

Ceviche is on the menu for Sunday for sure. The Warwick Farmer's Market now has a fishmonger! He showed up last week much to our surprise. All the fish comes from Hampton Bay. We'll head to the market early to get the best selection as he was super busy with lines of people waiting last week.