Outside My Window ~ 5.29.11

Outside my window…right now at 12:15 p.m., it is 82°F with about 62% humidity.  Our high is forecast for 85°F today with lots of sunshine and a few clouds.  The sky is a brilliant blue and there are a few white, puffy clouds out there now….not enough to block the sunshine.  I’m sure the local beaches are quite full by this point…and if you aren’t there by now, be prepared to endure a lot of traffic to get there.  Helpful hint number one….getting to the beach early enables you to pick that prime spot and you avoid the mind numbing traffic that comes later in the day.  🙂   It looks as if tomorrow will be just as beautiful with our temperature approaching 91°F.  Mind you, the water temperatures are still in the chilly mid to upper 60 range ~ but that is bound to feel quite refreshing on your body after baking in the heat.  Our week will round out with pretty much the same forecast except with a chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

I am glad…the horrible storms seem to have taken a holiday as well.  We had a rain shower late yesterday afternoon, but nothing serious as far as storms go. 

I am thinking…how happy I am to have a three day weekend followed by two days of working at home.  I’m also thinking while Memorial Day is a day of celebration and time off, it is also the unofficial start to beach season and with it comes all the people flocking to the area beaches….to the locals, it is known as “Gridlock time for I64 and the HRBT” to the southside on any given weekend from now until Labor Day.  It is time for those alternate routes folks.  🙂

From my kitchen…is going to be our dinner this evening ~ we are having grilled hot dogs, my family famous potato salad and a Memorial Day cake Cailin will be baking…maybe some homemade bread for tomorrow as well.   

I am currently working on…perfecting my relaxation techniques.  Seriously, I’m not working on too much right at the moment.  I’m taking a time out to reorganize my thought process so I can pick which direction I need to go and finally see all these tiny projects going on at once through to their completion….I need to have a clean slate for a while, the clutter in my mind (and around me) is beginning to bug me.

I am going to…take this opportunity of time to hopefully get some things accomplished.  I didn’t get so much accomplished yesterday but I have hopes for this day….and the next.  I won’t be joining the throngs of people at the beach and other locales this weekend….it feels like a good stay at home and do what I want weekend without any added stress.

I am currently reading…magazines from NAPP and PPA, one of the many benefits of both associations I have particularly enjoyed.  I haven’t continued my Harry Potter series…guess I needed a break.  And it appears the reading bug has subsided somewhat lately…I go through periods like this.

I am hoping…that everyone who celebrates Memorial Day has an amazing one.  And please, don’t forget why we celebrate this holiday and those we honor for their ultimate sacrifice.

I am hearing…the ticking of my many clocks…birds singing songs outside…the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard…the hum of the ceiling fan…an otherwise quiet house.  It has been pleasantly quiet so far today…you can really hear the birds singing today ~ could be they are enjoying the day as well.

Plans for the week include…making dinner with my youngest this evening….working from home Tuesday and Wednesday…picking up properly altered prom dress and getting some photographs of Cailin and her boyfriend before they attend his senior prom…another dentist appointment for Cailin…wading through “where did all this come from” paperwork at work so we can close the end of the year without too many headaches.

One of life’s little pleasures…is three day weekends with no where to go and all day to do it.  😉

From my camera…did everyone see the photo I got of the blimp this past week.  You know what is really odd about this, I was helping my youngest find some information online just a day earlier for a report she had to do on….blimps.  I know!  I have seen one actual blimp (other than on television) in my life…and that has been a lot of years.  The one I saw was on the ground near Houston at the Goodyear facility back in the late 80’s while traveling from Galveston back home to Dallas.  So Thursday evening I’m getting ready to sit down to dinner with my mother and decide to get my glasses from the car ~ cause sometimes I like to see what I’m eating.  🙂  I walk out her back door, hear this dull, low roar and glance up and there is a freaking blimp going over my head…and it was close too!  I bolted back inside and excitedly exclaimed “there is a blimp outside” as I rushed to grab my camera.  My camera goes with me everywhere and instead of leaving it in the hot car, I carried it inside when I arrived.  So I grab the camera, dance hurriedly back outside still exclaiming “there is a blimp outside”, flipping off the lens cap, checking the settings (but not very well cause the first image was totally blown out), and look up.  By this time, he is across the road…it is moving quicker than I thought it would.  Fortunately I had my 55-250mm lens already on so I was able to get a few shots before it was out of decent viewing range.  I think my photograph was a good shot of the blimp…but I decided to spruce up the kind of plain image a little by adding texture and a few brush strokes.  Since the sky was clear, I added some clouds using a Photoshop brush.  The compass was also a Photoshop brush.  Anyway…this whole paragraph was some back story on my blimp sighting ~ if you didn’t see the original post, check out the photograph. 

On a less exciting note….things that made me smile this week was posted yesterday ~ it is something I hope to continue with each Saturday…and a couple of other ones for today…