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.

I really don't have much for you today, so you're going to get a little of this and a little of that. As you can see by the photo above, my view on the world has turned to green. The trees seemed to burst into full leaf nearly overnight with our rain last week. Sometimes they fill in gradually and it seems to take forever, but this year they seemed to need to make up for their later than usual start. My tomato plants that you can see have not been potted and put outside just yet because our temperatures this week are dipping into the mid 30's and flirting with frost. It's  kind of hard to imagine the pool opening that is scheduled for Monday.

I forgot to mention the hummingbirds. They arrived right on time about two weeks ago and somehow remembered exactly where the feeder was. The rose-breasted grosbeaks made an appearance at the front feeding station yesterday but I have yet to see them on the back yard feeder. They only stay a few days and then they are off to other locales. We had so many little white-throated sparrows a few weeks back singing their sweet little peabody, peabody, peabody song, but they too seem to have been just passing through. The cardinals are singing their heads off and I love having them around. I am still waiting for the wood thrush and now that the trees are fully out I shouldn't have to wait for long.

white-throated sparrow

The fox has been back. I always know when it's in the front yard because Bella goes nuts. She hates the fox. If this is one of the same foxes that visited  before and distributed mange amongst the dogs, then bark away Bella! If it is the same fox, it looks like it's a lot healthier than before. The only part that still looks bad is its tail.

Figgy is leafing out and has been living outside now for about a week. We did bring it into the garage last night because of the predicted (but didn't happen) frost. She seems to have survived the winter in the garage just fine. The leaves might not be quite large enough yet to cover Adam's parts but they are looking good.

RIght now the crabapples are about done and the dogwoods are blooming. Wisteria is also blooming right now and I need to take some photos of it just growing wild, hanging in the trees. I don't have any in my yard but down by Green Turtle I noticed some right by the road the other day. Azaleas are also pretty showy right now.

I mentioned last week that I was knitting on a project. It's a market bag for my sister. I made myself one and loved the pattern and the end result so much that I wanted to knit another one and asked her if she might like one. Here is what mine looks like, and you'll be glad to know I didn't have to take the other one completely out. It's coming along but I haven't worked on it very much in the past few days.

Now that the roof is finished there is a small project in the laundry room that is being tackled. We needed a new slop sink and faucet and are ripping out the old fake tile wallboard and having actual tile put in behind and around the sink. Then we'll need to paint the whole room, but I' m not so sure when that will get done. You see, our schedule for the next month or so is going to be a bit crazy.

On Friday we are leaving for the shore since we have had an invitation from friends Andy and Linda to visit them at their shore house for the weekend—dogs and all! The last time they invited us was the weekend that Sandy hit so we are hoping for good weather this time. They've only just finished the repairs on the house since the damage that was done by that superstorm and we'll be their first guests. I hope the dogs behave. We're anxious to see how water dog Bella likes the ocean.

Monday is pool opening day and Rick has business and an overnight stay in Philadelphia, returning home on Tuesday. Wednesday we have the pool deck and sides of the house being power washed. Thursday brings Rick's Mom (also named Lynn but without the "e") for her visit of ten days. After Lynn leaves on June 3rd we have a week and a half before we take off to Cartagena. So you can see what I mean! After that things calm down again until September and we can kick back a bit and enjoy the summer in full swing.

How's that for bits of this and that?

 I took my camera for a walk around our yard after the rain the other day.

Here is what I found of interest.

 Rain Drops

Violets

When I mowed the yard unfortunately I had to mow some violets. I have never seen so many violets in our yard!

Dwarf Iris

A Busy BumbleBee

Blooming "Orange Goo" Fungus

Remember last year? This time I caught it as it was drying up, but still creepy.

MORELS !

Rick found these mushroom gems growing in their same old spot.