Good Morning Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Good Morning Everyone,

Today is the last day of March!  I’ve had yesterday off so today when I get to work it will be a “catch up” day and all kinds of things will be “happening”.  I started my day praying that I stay focused and happy today without fear of causing more anxiety in an atmosphere of anxiety.  Amen!

So yesterday, Dick and Doug and I took a road trip to Weston to visit with Ale and Jon.  What a wonderful day it was.  The weather was perfect and their home is a beautiful testament to hard work and sacrifice.  As Dick kept pointing out to me, Jon worked for a tyrant for 38 years and put up with a world of chaos in a third world country.  So he deserves to have a life that is free of that now and it seems he has found it.  Here we are in our “group” shot:

The Group Shot

We took a wrong turn right off the highway – note to self – take that first right off the highway at exit 22.  So we got directions back to where we were to go and had no trouble finding the home.  We got there and there were 3 cars in the drive way so I got nervous that we were at the wrong place, but I remembered the garage entrance from the last time I was there so I knew it was right and the mailbox had the correct number on it.  Turns out, Ale Jr. was there with her VERY NICE boyfriend – totally polite and handsome from Argentina.  Ale Jr is BEAUTIFUL and working with a caterer and going to school also.  She is learning the “party planning” business and loves it.  She is going to be really successful – so enthusiastic and YOUNG!  The 3rd car was for their housekeeper Celeste.  So then there is the 3 car garage with the 2 Mercedes and the 1 Ultimate Driving Machine BMW.  Dick fell in love with that car!  It’s a BOY thing.  Jonny was really proud of it and will be getting the 2016 version shortly.  They aren’t even out of production yet and he will get one in June so they extended his lease until then.  It’s an $80,000 car!  But it practically does the laundry.  There are all types of cameras in the chassis and and the next one will parallel park the car on it’s own.  Now THAT I want to see and will take a visit over there just to experience that!  Note to self……invite myself over in June!

So I knew that Ale was talented, but now she has proven that she is a wonderful “bargain” hunter.  She gets most of her stuff from “Homegoods” and she and Doug gabbed and gabbed about that as Jonny & Dick chattered away.  It was really fun.  Come to find out that Jonny is doing the “Wheatbelly” thing also and is having a lot of success with it also.  He cooked the most wonderful salmon for lunch and Ale created a wonderful salad with heart of palm and avocado and nuts and spring mix and it was fabulous.  Just the perfect, healthy lunch.  And for dessert a fruit compote.  I wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful layering of the fruit – raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and meringue and a little bit of white chocolate.  It was amazing!

So here are a couple of beautiful paintings that Ale has done in her home:

Ale’s Painting 1

Ale’s Painting 2

She actually said she would paint a picture for me – I hope she does and I have the perfect place for it:

Dick doing his thing 2

My “Elf of a Shelf”!

That space is “begging” for something spectacular and I bet she would do that.  I asked her where she had her “studio” and she said she just paints at the house and in the back yard.  I’d love to see that one day.

Here are a couple of other pictures that have been on FB from Ale, but their gardens are beautiful.  They have the neatest wall plant thing.  It is a self contained wall of pockets (like a shoe holder you see in closets) but the plants are put in a fabric that tucks into the pockets.  Then you have a place to change out plants whenever you want.  It would change the look of the garden each time.  It was really cool, but Jon said it’s really complicated with the self contained watering system, but it was really cool.  Anyway, the entrance to their home is beautiful!

The Front Entrance The Front Entrance 2

Orchids in Weston

Anyway there is much more to the day, but I’ve run out of time.  There are a couple of things in this post that I put in by mistake (a “table” for a picture and a place for a title to a picture) that I can see here as I type, but I don’t know what they will look like when I “publish” this.  I can’t seem to be able to remove them so this may look a little funny once it’s published – we’ll see.  Have a great day today and thanks for visiting!