lizards and bears and earthquakes ... oh my!

So I've really been trying to stay focused and write and have some extended ME time.  What's a girl s'posed to do when there's earthquakes - that 5.8 in VA sent a pretty good rumbling down this way and, on top of that, I'm still kind of rattled by the bear sightings in our back yard ...

This must be the guy that took out our bird feeders the day we left for Florida.  He came back this past Saturday hoping for seconds on the smorgasbord, but the buffet had been dismantled.  He came out of the wooded area just behind our house and when Dave started hollering at me, he was about 10 feet from the downstairs bedroom window.  BTW - he was BIG!

Luckily he sauntered on off, but I'm still not too excited about going outside.

Happily, we did have a lovely short stay in Florida.  Early morning walks on the beach every day, the last day we headed out in the rain, but the beach was empty - perfect!  And, silly me, I didn't take my camera onto the beach at all.  I was planning on swimming and didn't want to mess with it.  Unfortunately, we discovered there was a large influx of plate size moon jelly fish.  Not terribly dangerous.  But Dave brushed against one that first morning and had a big itchy circle on his chest for a couple of hours.  The jelly fish also thwarted our snorkeling adventure, actually okay by me as I'd never been snorkeling and they added one too many challenges for little ol' wimpy me.

We did spend the better part of one day at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Del Ray.  Really really hot, but absolutely lovely.  Seems the theme of the day was reptiles, well mostly lizards ... small, medium, large, greens and browns.

 small and brown

green, medium sized and, from what sister-in-law Kim says, mean and agressive
(btw - gorgeous huge bamboo!)

this one was medium sized brown and relatively sedate

then there was fearless and jumbo and green ... this iguana walked within about 3 feet of us ... beautiful

I love iguanas ... my fourth grade class had a pet one named Lurch ... very silly

As for my ME time, my attempts at interviewing myself haven't been as productive as I'd hoped.  Yesterday, I did a bit of the write a question with my dominant right hand, answer with my left hand.  I'll look it over again tomorrow and see what I had to say to myself.  Today I was mostly distracted and trying to resist the urge to run errands that could wait until tomorrow.  Then there was that silly earthquake and then I spent the rest of the afternoon thoroughly distracted, so I figured I'd edit a few pics and say HI.

One thing I've decided ... the (formerly) wounded child me is doing just fine, the adult me seems to be pretty good as well, but there's a part of the artist me that's still in hiding.  She's the one I'm trying to coax out.  Judging by today's high level of distraction, she's not wanting to budge.  But I'm going to be gentle and nurturing and soft spoken and see where that leads.  Keeping my fingers crossed. 

l i g a - kvk