I know—a strange mix of subjects on this Friday morning.

Finally, my necklace that we bought in Cartagena! It's turquoise and a stone similar to lapis lazuli. The ornament is a replica of a pre-Colombian nose ring worn by the native people. It is removable so I could wear the nose piece with another necklace if I wanted to. The gold beads intermixed with the stones are also indicative of what the natives would have made and worn. We saw examples of these nose rings in the gold museum first, then when walking around the town we saw this in a gallery window. Without our trip to the museum I would never have known what it was.

Funny, I am not a huge fan of turquoise having been around it so much in the west, but this particular piece has extraordinary color. I am used to the more faded-out turquoise. I tried several ways of photographing it but went with flash since it showed the true color. Here's a close-up of the ornament.

What do you think? My feelings won't be hurt if you don't like it. But I LOVE it!!

Our local paper came in the mail yesterday, and on the front cover was something very sad. Do you remember these photos of the wing-walker at the air show last year? On Saturday while performing at an air show in Dayton, Ohio, she and her pilot both died when their plane crashed doing a stunt. So sad. There is a video here of the crash and you can see that thankfully they probably never knew what happened. The video is pretty graphic, so be forewarned. Our local air show in August won't be the same without her daredevil act. 

On a happier note, the paper also contained a surprise for me. If you remember, I told you that the paper published my photo of the cicada two weeks ago. I read the front page stories and the paper about halfway through when it first came and then put the paper aside. When Rick came home I was thumbing through it again and came across another photo of  mine that I had submitted of the cicada in the pool. Take a look! Not only did I get my name as a credit on the photo, but they named me again underneath! I was thrilled and very much surprised. Maybe they just needed fillers! But still …

I'm glad to report that I am feeling much better all of a sudden. I did go to the doctor the other day and my "vague symptoms" were inconclusive. I do think that she figured out my cough problem: post nasal drip. Since I've been shooting steroidal Nasonex up my nose for two days now, I am coughing a lot less. She said it might all have been related to allergies. Who knew? Either way, I am feeling more energetic and more like myself. 

We finally got a good old-fashioned thunderstorm last night. The only bad part was that it messed up our plans to skinny-dip for the first time this year as the pool was up to 82 lovely degrees. Maybe tonight …

So with that mishmash of topics I think I've said enough for today!

It would seem that the minute the calendar turned over the first day of summer, summer really began this year. We've had very warm, humid days and the pool is warming up nicely. Yesterday we spent the entire day in and around the pool. The water temperature is at a very refreshing 78 degrees; a bit chilly when you first get in but it feels wonderful once you are wet. You never know about the weather so we tend to take full advantage of good pool days when they come around. Although, this week is supposed to very hot and humid so maybe, just maybe, it will be night time skinny-dipping very soon.

I am out of shape for swimming and just managed 10 lengths. When I am used to it I normally do 30. So, I have some catching up to do. If I do 10 lengths every day I should be up to form pretty fast.

Our new cabana is lovely. With the palms, the area rug and new furniture inside, a fan that sprays cold water, it's our own little oasis. We feel like we are on vacation at a cushy resort. I think the cabana looks like something out of Arabian Nights, so we decided to call is it our chic sheik shack! Funny, eh?

The cicadas are still here but they are on the wane. We see them more now as they fly by or lie spent and dying on the grass and decks. It's sad. I keep  turning them over and they keep flipping themselves on their back again to kick at the air. I am so used to the background noise by now that it will be strange when we longer hear them. The local newspaper did print my cicada photo (this one) and gave it an inside front page spread. I was thrilled! This makes the third photo of mine to make it into the paper.

The day lilies are just now starting to bloom by the pool. We have plenty of dragonflies and even a few damsel flies which we've never seen around the pool before. The fireflies are finally showing up in greater numbers. We haven't seen as many this year it seems, but maybe they just needed a little warmth too to get them started. We sat outside last night by the pool and watched two bats swooping overhead. We used to have many more before the white nose fungus hit them so hard, so it's nice to even just see two and know that the disease didn't take them all.

I know this post isn't about Cartagena, but at least it's something! I am still sorting through the photos and trying to decide which ones to toss and which ones to feature on the blog. Don't despair, those vacation posts are coming!

Sorry about the lapse. Did anyone miss me this week? What I thought was just a cold or sinus infection turned out to be strep. So, I've not been feeling the best to say the least. I finally went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon and after one look at the pus on my right tonsil, she swabbed it for strep. The test came back a faint positive, but she said she was going for strep and the treatment as such. Three days in on the antibiotics and I am starting to come around to feeling human again. 

It didn't come at a very good time considering my mom-in-law is here visiting. Not that it stopped us much from going and doing as we had planned, but by Thursday I was dragging my butt behind me. I'm sorry I haven't been around to anyone's blogs but I just haven't felt good enough to sit and concentrate on much of anything. The pressure in my sinuses has been enough to blow my head off.

My mom-in-law's luggage finally showed up at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday night (she arrived Friday morning). She was so glad to see her own clothes again. Rick did have to take her out shopping for essentials and since those first few days that she was here were pretty darn chilly we loaned her some outerwear items. Not that she is needing them the past few days which have seen temps rise into the high 80s! She has seen quite a spectrum of weather since she arrived. We are all now huddled inside with the A/C blasting.

The 17 year cicadas have arrived and are starting to make themselves known. They mostly "sing" in the mornings and they sound different than our normal July/August cicadas. Rick found one by the shed and got to stare into its red eyes, but I have only managed to find the papery husks left over from them molting. They are more of a continuous hum than the back-and-forth banter of our own normal ones. When we first heard them I thought they were a machine running somewhere close by. I find it soothing but Rick finds it disturbing, like a plague about to land on us.

Still no fireflies. Rick and I thought we saw one the other night, but every night since when we look for them we see nothing. My mom-in-law has never seen one so we are hoping they will still make an appearance either tonight or tomorrow night before she has to leave.

The pool was opened on the 20th of May and the temperature was 54 degrees. Today we swam (yeah!) and it was 72 degrees. The new cabana is wonderful and hopefully I will have some pics to share this week.

I have more to say but I think I've at least caught you up a bit now. This is the first time I have felt like sitting here long enough to blog.

Photo: This tiny cat door was seen on our food tour of NYC last Sunday. I thought it was very cute.

It seems like that's about all we did this weekend: eat! The weather on Saturday was sleety/rainy/windy/not nice. I am ready for spring! The snow we have left on the ground is now the consistency of snowcones and very slippery. Ugh. We kept a fire going in the wood stove all day to take the damp chill off. It's hard to imagine that last year we had crocus coming up two weeks from now and we were driving around in Mia with the top down. I don't think that's going to happen this year. Even harder to imagine is swimming in the pool. Right now it's covered with a layer of slushy ice. 

While we were housebound on Saturday, Rick baked bread (above) and we made Coq au Vin. Well, it was really Poulet au Vin if you want to get technically correct. Good food for a still-winter day. Here is the chicken as it came out of its marinade of red wine before cooking, making it look like it has freckles.

We caught up on our TiVo'd shows and went through our closets. We now have bags and bags of clothes going to Goodwill. I went through my bookcase by the computer and took out all the manuals on outdated computer programs--they are scheduled for the recycle bin on Wednesday. It feels good to get rid of things that are just useless clutter. 

Sunday was a nicer day temperature-wise and we even managed a walk down the road with the dogs. Lunch was one of my all-time favorites: Salad Lyonnaise. We used to eat these all the time when we lived in France. The Lyonnaise part of its name comes from the city of Lyon which was close to where we lived. Rick has mastered the perfect poaching of the eggs. Delicious. (We used the homemade bread for the croutons.)

My first amaryllis to bloom is now on its second stalk of blooms. This one only has two huge flowers just like the last one. I am pleased to report that the second amaryllis, which is only two years old, has a hefty flower stalk and is also about to bloom as well (I suspect more than two flowers inside), and even more surprising, the oldest one has a bud poking up from the bulb. This will mark its sixth consecutive year of blooming. Wow, I am thrilled!

Alex, our oldest dog had minor surgery today to remove a nasty little tumor on his butt that looked like a hemorrhoid which was causing problems. According to the vet, this kind of tumor is widespread in older intact male dogs and most of them are benign. We decided to do a biopsy just for peace of mind but we are not expecting it to be anything other than what it appears to be. Poor dog is going to have a little trouble with sitting for a while. But we are glad to have it off since it was smelly and trying to keep him clean back there would cause the darned thing to bleed. I'm sure he's glad to be rid of it too. Be gone you nasty thing! He's resting comfortably at the vet's right now and I can pick him up just before dinner. Rick recently did a blog post with a video of Alex being silly and playing with his toys. You can check it out here. He's pretty cute if I must say so myself.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope your weekend was a good one!

I shot this photo of our pool cover after a heavy frost about a month or so ago before the snows came (and stayed). It looked like a smiley face to me. Or maybe the pool was taunting me (neh neh neh neh neh neh you can’t swim in me!) Either way, it caught my eye.

Hopefully this will be my last post before the new look for the blog will be revealed. We are getting so close! I’m so excited to have a new, fresh look. I can’t promise that the content will be new and fresh—just the daily life of a ‘new’ Jersey Girl as it unfolds day by day.

I did manage to go over to Skylands on Friday, but it was a rather disappointing trip. The constant freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw of our snowpack has left a solid sheet of ice in spots as I found out when I tried to go cross-country instead of keeping to the paved areas. I slipped my way to the slimy bullfrog pond only to find it with barely a covering of ice and looking very un-photographable. My next slippery stop was the koi and lily pad trench which I found out they drain completely in winter. Even the Duck Pond was boring as it was totally frozen over with a heavy sheet of ice and no reflections to be seen. I would have walked the loop but I didn’t have a hat on my head and a nasty little wind was blowing. I went home. This was the only shot I took the whole time.

With the warmer temperatures this weekend we hope to get down the Christmas decorations outside. I think the lights on the trees have unfrozen by now and the snow has shrunk enough to gather up the extension cords that are on the ground. I am tired of looking at them.

One of my amaryllis has a bud coming! I think it’s the oldest one of the three, and if so it will be its sixth year or so of blooming. It’s going to be a small one, but still—six years of consecutive blooms! The other two are still not showing any signs of a bud issuing forth but they still have nice green leaves. I was contemplating cutting them off with the thinking behind it of them putting all their energy into the leaves and not in producing a bud, but my master gardner neighbor Aileen nipped that idea in the bud (so to speak). She told me not to cut them. So, I guess I’ll wait and see what happens. I’ve treated them the same way I have every year so there should be no difference.

Next up: the big reveal!