Thursday, October 15, 2020

Really Random Thursday, 10/15/20

 While most of the time it seems this year has crawled by, I look at the calendar and cannot believe it is the middle of October already!

Mark and I spent five wonderful days at the coast again, craving cooler temperatures and clean air. It was in the 60s and foggy when we arrived on Monday afternoon. Perfect weather.

The next day we walked along the beach toward the newly reopened pier.

 I could be wrong about how long the pier has been closed for remodeling--seems like a couple of years. But anyway, it's very nice. 

They have installed three Airstream trailers, not open quite yet. We heard that one will be a bait shop and the other two might be serving food. Maybe they will be open when we return in January.

The waves were large and there was a large group of surfers. It's always fascinating to watch them and try to figure out which waves they will choose to get up on their boards.


A couple of years ago, a very good friend, Jullie, moved from the foothills near us to Santa Maria. We were able to meet for lunch midweek. She suggested a place we had never noticed before, Fin's. They had a large patio and we enjoyed a lovely lunch together.


True to form, I had brought a lot of projects to work on while in the room--knitting, English paper piecing, etc. I nearly always overestimate how much I will actually accomplish when I'm on vacation, especially when I ended up doing a lot of reading, which is very conducive to glancing up at the waves every few minutes. Also, with the reality of turning in a draft of my "quilts and classics" calendar to the printer looming soon, some of the pictures needed some editing. Sigh. I'm such a procrastinator. I know virtually nothing about photo editing. So I did some "cramming" by watching an excellent iphonephotography editing course I had purchased several years ago and never had time to watch  never took the time to watch. I learned some valuable things on some simple edits, so I'm hoping that the photos will be good enough to print in calendar form. The photos have all been chosen, and I'm gathering the final information before I send it all off to the printer. 

We had some beautiful sunsets.

Before coming home on Friday, we had lunch in Morro Bay.


Gabe turned 9 while we were gone. So on Saturday we celebrated his birthday by having ice cream and watching the second Harry Potter movie. It was a really fun afternoon. 



Gabe is endlessly entertaining. He loves playing games. For his birthday we got the Harry Potter version of Uno. If you asked him, he would tell you that so far he has beaten me 11 games to 2. I keep telling him that I'm "letting him win because I love him," but he's not buying it. I also have no doubt that he will keep an accurate running total as we keep playing.

He is also teaching us chess. He brought over No Stress Chess which is definitely the way to go if you are ever interested in learning how to play. You start out with cards that show you which direction the pieces move, and you play a card that tells you which piece to move. Ultimately you can turn the board over and theoretically you have the information to play without the cards. However, I'm still learning so I keep a set of cards handy.


A couple of Pickles cartoons that seem eerily similar to our real life.



Speaking of spelling, I'm also a font geek. Anyone else enjoy looking at and choosing fonts? I know the paragraphs are hard to read, but maybe you can still figure out parts of it. I thought it was fascinating.


My well of COVID-19 memes seems to have run dry. Not that I'm complaining about that. Mark sent me a couple of funny things.

I'm not sure exactly why he sent this one to me...

While I was going through the photos on my phone, I came across these (sorry if I have already posted them).The first is from Gabe, a reminder to keep reading Harry Potter.

Amen to this one. 


Mark was supposed to take Aaron, Charlotte, Levi and Gabe to Minnesota this past July. They were going to attend two Dodgers-Twins games and do some sight-seeing around the state. Just like everything else, the trip was canceled. The Twins finally returned the money for the tickets, along with the tickets. Seems like rubbing salt in a wound...

And something I never thought I would be asked to alter...

That's it for this week. Off to do some more photo editing...


8 comments:

05 08
Robby said... #

Your beach trip looks like a glorious break from most of 2020. So glad you got to go! I'm afraid I'm not a fount of knowledge when it comes to fonts. In fact, my font tastes are bit like the old adage about art... I know a good font when I see it. LOL And this new push to "save ink/toner and paper" with some of these austere looking fonts is, in my opinion, one of those great hypotheticals, but the reality is often not at all aesthetically appealing to me.

Anne / Springleaf Studios said... #

Glad you got in a mini vacation. A beachy getaway looks so lovely about now. We got away for a quick overnight in the mountains a couple of weeks ago while installing one of Justin's sculptures. It was nice to be out of the house and yet I was ready to come home after only 2 days. I think it's the masks that make everything seems so abnormal. I always take projects with me on trips and then never even touch them. Sometimes I don't even read the books I bring.

Needled Mom said... #

That’s a great place to cool off! It looks like a relaxing visit too. Happy birthday to Gabe. Good luck on the alterations..

Sewgirl said... #

Ah, my "home" stomping grounds...my parents bought a place there 40 years ago...I have been going home ever since! I think the remodeled pier had been open until Covid. Nice to hear it's back open again. I often run the beach early in the morning and find oodles of sand dollars along the shore! Fun to see it from someone else's perspective, and the photos are great!

Cathy O said... #

Looks like a great way to learn chess! I always forget which moves each piece has. Must try thus version!

FlourishingPalms said... #

How nice that you had a get-away. Did you feel safe in the hotel? And no social distancing or masks while meeting a friend? We too were away for two weeks, and returned home Tuesday. We went to Kansas City to visit our daughter and family, and my dad, for the first time in 15 months. It was so good to be with them. But I didn't get to see Carla because she wanted to meet for coffee, and that meant no masks. I didn't want to risk exposure when I wanted to see my 90 year-old dad. All extended family visits were outdoors, social distanced, and wearing masks. No fun not being able to hug, but I do feel better about being at home for another long stint of staying home. Your memes are always fun, whether or not they're appropriate to anything. Take care of yourself!

Andee Neff said... #

The trip looks fun! I always take more projects and books than I can possibly do too!

OPQuilt said... #

You make those Pismo Beach weekends so appealing, I've got to figure out how to find my own "beach" locally. Such a great idea to get a little getaway! Love that suit of Aaron's, and so sorry about the ballgames. Good to see your family is still going strong and having fun.