Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Plumeria Winter
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Thoughtful Journal Series Launch
We're launching a series of books to help people think about all of the things they do from travel, to food, to daily life.
The first two in the series which have already come out are The Thoughtful Travel Journal and The Thoughtful Tasting Journal: Chocolate. We started these because we've started traveling more again and realized that pictures, although good to take, are only a part of the experience we had.
The Thoughtful Travel Journal will help us and you to better record and be able to reflect on the the journeys we make. The beginning of the book has tips on how to journal, be mindful of your experience, and tips on things you might not otherwise have though to write down. Many of the journals that have been published for others to read started out as private journals of people who merely got to do interesting things that we today now want to read about. This could be true of anyone's journal. What you think is ordinary, to your children or grand children might be a glimpse into the life of a beloved family member.
Our families still tell new stories that they had forgotten about or that they didn't think were that interesting at the time until something brings it up. Just think how many stories never got told just because it was never jotted down.
The other book that we put out recently is a Stamp Book for collecting rubber stamps from various locations. There are a few places in the states where you can get such a book stamped but we traveled to Japan where it's a huge past time. Every city we went to had multiple stamps including most train stations and public buildings. Other places to check for stamps are museums, corporate buildings, and shopping areas. All you usually have to do is ask and even if they don't have a stamp they will most likely know where the closest one is.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Cruise Coincidences
We went on a cruise around Japan recently and while on one of the shuttles from the ship we noticed one of the other passengers had the same USB backup fan we did. A different color of course but it was still neat.
I hadn't realized when I got it that it was in the shape of a bear with little ears and all. I thought the little ears were just bumps to keep it from rolling away, which they don't.
These seem to come in a number of colors but the upshot is that they really do work pretty well. I prefer to use the fan option as the storage for phone charging really is more for emergencies than anything. We got secondary backups for the trip which came in really handy.
But for looking stylish and having a good fan I don't think anything I've seen matches this little guy.
Monday, September 9, 2024
Aloe
Friday, August 9, 2024
Texas Transportation
Sunday, August 4, 2024
Water Conservation
Friday, July 12, 2024
Cluster of Figs
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Plumeria Sprout
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Lovely New Fig
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Drones and the Garden
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Local Cattails
Monday, June 24, 2024
Bird Watching
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Lemon Passionfruit Bars
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
A Chocolate is Announced
Monday, June 17, 2024
Pink Hibiscus
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Morning Glories
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
State of the Garden
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Enough With the Spring Rains
I'm sure we're going to want the rain months from now but at the moment it's feeling like a bit much. The ground is thoroughly saturated and the lakes are filling up to the point that they have to release water downstream. And because each lake feeds into the next lake for overflow they all have to release at some point.
The gate to the lake at the side of one of the bridges is entirely underwater now. The sign marking the gate is also now underwater. Suffice to say you shouldn't try entering the lake from this point since you're bound to hit something you can't see. A large majority of the trees we had been able to see in the lake, from when it was turned into a lake, are also now not visible. Of course they're probably mostly rotted but they can still cause damage or at least make it difficult to maneuver around those areas in a boat.
Also on my way home recently I was routed down a road that had a bridge that was prone to flooding so much that it has gates on either side just in case it's under water. I've seen this before and actually seen the gates in use down around the Venus area. I had to walk for about 45 minutes to get back to my car since I couldn't find a ride.
Fortunately we're well above lake level by thirty feet or so. One of the things I looked into when thinking about purchasing a house where we did. So although we get the weather, we don't get the flooding like we've been hearing about with older neighborhoods where they didn't plan for rain events as much. Individual houses were built up but not the roads or ditches.
Monday, June 3, 2024
Bean to Bar Beach Vid
Here's one of the Bean to Bar mini clips. This one is for book 3 where the mystery is aboard a cruise ship out of the port of Galveston. This is a busy port in real life and this would probably be a difficult murder to pull off but, hey, this is fiction.
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Texas Spring Weather
Monday, May 27, 2024
Sean and Addi Getting Along
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Oatmeal Cookies
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Backyard Design
Monday, May 13, 2024
Boletus Mushroom
Monday, May 6, 2024
Backyard Cooking
Burned about 2 Tablespoons of different percentages of isopropyl alcohol in a copper censer and used a K2 pyrometer model DP-902F to measure the temperature.
The results:
70% alcohol observed
a maximum temperature of 1210°F
91% alcohol observed
a maximum temperature of 1300°F
99% alcohol observed
a maximum temperature of 1430°F