Downtown Orlando

In spite of my sunny attitude, it rained yesterday. I'm not talking a little shower my friends, I'm talking hard rain for nearly an hour. What's more, it's a long story, but it took us longer than normal to set up, and less than four hours later, we were sadly, having to close down.

All the while Dana was guiding cars into their spaces for loading, which was making me a tad nervous due to the thunder and lightening. Fortunately, Mr. Bruce had the foresight to put a few rain walls up which kept everything relatively dry, mind you I said relatively! Actually we did fine, it just takes so darn long when it's raining. Before the deluge I took a few photos for the weekly album:

I'm not much of a mango fan, so I've no idea if they should have all this darkness on them, but it does add a little something to the photograph. The berries, who doesn't love berries and cherries?

And, of course, every week I'm loving the look of the peppers,

Mr. Bruce left way early this morning, like maybe 4:45? I woke briefly as he was saying goodbye, and then again soon thereafter. Looking at the clock it read, 5:15! Because I was awake anyway, I got up, briefly considered a day trip, and thought better of it. Instead, I did my now-normal morning routine, emptying the drainer while waiting on the kettle to boil for my morning tea. And, of course, my bike ride which I'm still thoroughly enjoying. I've just finished cleaning up all yesterday's mess after everything had a chance to dry out in the air conditioning.

Experience has taught me that selling something big and pricey at the market is pretty tough. Because I won't be doing any fall art shows, I decided to hang my big flower in the sun room which I'm thinking works pretty well.

Enough about the weekend. When last we met I wrote that this post would include a bit about downtown. Well, wait a minute, the market is downtown. Okay, that means we are on track!

Friday afternoon I dropped off my calendar submissions at City Hall. As I walked there from my parking spot on Rosalind Avenue, I got a closer look at a very exciting project, our new performing arts center, under construction. To make it all happen, the city bought a block of property which housed a fairly new building belonging to First United Methodist church. In turn, the FUM, built a new building across the street to make up for the one they lost.

Hard to tell it's even church-related. So, down goes the other building:

as shown from the Rosalind side, and here's a look from Magnolia:

You can see the new center going up on the right. It's the story of Orlando--something new torn down for something newer. While at City Hall, I had to go through the whole screening thing--making myself a badge, along with the x-ray screening, all of which took me way longer than my ride up the elevator to the sixth floor and my drop off! I'm not holding my breath over my entries.

Once on Orange Avenue, I saw the construction from this vantage point.

I know my friend Karen will loves those puffy clouds! Because I'm always practicing, I re-take many things I've done in the past. This one, a sculpture in front of the Orange County building, has always been one of Bruce's favorites:

And this one, the colorful sculptures of Dorothy Gillespie in the middle of a parking garage, has always been one of mine:

I hope I haven't overloaded you with pictures today. I'm well aware that blogs are no longer so cool, facebook is losing steam, while the brevity of Twitter is where it's at. That said, although I try my darnedest to keep it short, it's pretty much impossible on most days!

Finally, here is a super cool new tool from Sherwin Williams, called, Let's Chip It! Click on the link and you'll see an image I uploaded, which through some sort of computer magic, turned into a paint color palette! Recently I overheard some folks saying that choosing wall paint colors was the absolute hardest, so what seems like a nifty idea to me is, choose the art work, and then, just, Chip It!

Are You a Collector?

 I've been away for a few days, thus we've got some catching up to do haven't we? How about if we do so without much fuss, letting my photographs tell most of the story?

I've been busy planting as I've already described in an earlier post. For the moment it's all done, all that's left to happen is for the sun, rain, and time do it's thing, hopefully with positive results. Cold weather could wreak havoc, however, I prefer to think positive. Some cold, not too much thank you very much. I could not resist this beautiful color of geranium:

I've nestled it in the middle of a pot that already contained a pink plant Nancy purchased while here. It's providing height, or so I hope!

 I think it must have been Thursday night that I made, for the first time in my life, this recipe for Bernaise Sauce with some of the tarragon you saw last week.

Sadly, Bruce got home from his trip much later than I'd planned for, thus when we got around to eating so close to bedtime, I ate only a small portion, thus I'm still not sure what I thought about it. It came out fine, it's just that I've never eaten it before so I've nothing to measure it against. I'll have to hunt for something else to eat it on.

Friday morning while walking Baxter we finally ran into Regina who invited us to visit in her back garden. Apparently, her daughter is "holding her own." Argyle, her new Welsh Corgi was having a blast chasing our little Baxter around! Fortunately, I had my camera slung over my shoulder so I could get some shots of him to share with her:

Friday night we had a much too expensive meal at Nick's Italian Kitchen in the Sanctuary building downtown.

Our review would go something like this:

• Pretty good ambiance, however, with Bruce facing the swinging kitchen door, it could have been better.
• Salads are a weakness, overdressed by loads
• Same problem with spaghetti, way too much sauce
• Bread in upper right of basket was super good, the eggplant goop in bowl, not so much

We try our best to support local restaurants, however, more often than not, we go away disappointed.

Saturday I headed out to Winter Garden which was a bit slower, however, still enjoyable. I took a few photographs there which pleased me.

I'm a sucker for little things, including these peppers:

Then, the citrus, which is just ripening:

Naturally there's more, but I'm sure you've seen enough. Saturday afternoon and evening were spent watching college football. What a game between Alabama and LSU! Fortunately FSU had a great win on Thursday night. Up next for our beloved Seminoles? MIAMI!





I'm not much of a collector, although I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority. What's more, I've discovered after a lovely Sunday spent at Renningers with my honey, that the depth and breadth of collecting is unfathomable to me.

Because Fiesta in the Park took over Lake Eola on Sunday we had a rare Sunday off. These days Bruce claims all he knows how to do is work, so it was up to me to think up something to do. Furthermore, he spends SO much time sitting at his desk, said activity had to include movement. The day began cool and cloudy, with intermittent rain, however, it was no deterrent. Renningers is located on Highway 441 outside the main town of Mt. Dora, an easy 30 miles or so from our home.

It's been years and years since we visited, with both of us having little recollection of what it is like. Better than we expected. The prices on lots of the stuff did surprise me though; I told Bruce I'm much more accustomed to "thrift shop" pricing. I'm thinking if my new little $1.00 sailor salt and pepper shakers were to be displayed as part of a S&P shaker collection, they would fetch $20.00!

As you can see behind Bruce, the outside buildings are little more than large sheds, however, inside they look anything but like sheds. The fronts look pretty neat as well:

We were among the first to arrive. We wandered, and we wandered, and we wandered. Neither of us bought anything,  although I'm still sorely tempted to purchase a gorgeous Haywood Wakefield dresser/desk combo we saw inside. Oh my, is it ever terrific looking, however, I can't begin to think of a place to use it. I found the same piece on Ebay for slightly more.

I couldn't help but think of my Matthew's sweet tooth when I saw this display:

And here's one for my sister Carol for whom horoscopes are a guiding principle:

One of the pieces I inherited from Bruce's mom is a Carnival Glass vase. While Bruce was chatting with another vendor, I moseyed into Betty's stall to look at the CG. After visiting for a bit she agreed to a photograph. See Penny in the basket? Apparently, she's never once, in three years, moved from that spot during Betty's work day.

Betty is a collector. Not so much any longer, but for many, many years it ruled the roost in her home. At one point, her husband added on a room, 16x24 to hold all 724 pieces of Carnival Glass she'd amassed. Stunning, isn't it? Eventually she sold the whole lot to a collector from New York state who came down with a truck to haul it all back to HIS collection. These days, she still buys CG, however, she sells it, enjoying it for a time before letting it go. She's spent 26 years selling glassware at Renningers, which is a story we heard over and over throughout the day. Collectors are definitely everywhere. Who else would purchase all manner of tubes and tins of bygone tooth paste? We saw those. Seriously, we saw everything. A very amusing way to spend the day.



Finally, I had to share this Incredible!!! website. Now, THAT is a photographer