I Need A Little Help

These are some of the hardest words to say for me as well as many people I know.  I don’t always know that I need a little help, I know I am very bad at asking for it and right now I am not sure what that help would look like.

Many of us here like to  think of ourselves as writers, more of us can’t even put our names in that sentence, big sigh, well here goes.  I am trying to write a murder mystery style book and can’t figure out how I want to have someone die.  I want  my main character to be around when they find the body to help solve the murder as an amateur sleuth, but not to be too closely involved.  My setting is current time in a big city.  Should be easy, right.

I guess this is a bigger ask than I originally thought, but if anyone wants to share a crazy idea, I would appreciate it.  I do think I will go back to the board game and see who committed the crime in the library with a candlestick.

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February In Florida

This was a stroke of luck.  I met an old friend for lunch and found out she was spending February and March in Florida. So I did the natural thing and invited myself to join her.

Sunset on the first evening looking out at the Gulf of Mexico.

A lot of the brown pelicans like to hang out with the people fishing for an easy lunch.  This is on the pier, with beach condo’s in the background.

The wonderful assortment of beach umbrella’s make the color on the beach match the  buildings on the shore, a mixture of pastel and bright colors.

Mural on the wall at the manatee park.  This is a great area to see the manatee in their natural environment and they are safe, people can only get to a certain area and not near enough to the water to cause any harm to the animals.

Lots of gecko’s everywhere.

The manatee park has an area for plants that attract butterflies.  Not many on the day we visited because of the wind, it was a little to strong for them but nice for us.

Of course in my world all things lead to quilts.  I found a couple of samples of beach umbrella quilts to add to my wish list.

We have 2 new states added to our list and two very successful trips. I am not sure what state we will visit next, but I can hardly wait.

 

 

Spring In Alaska

Spring truly has arrived in Alaska.  In some parts of the country spring seems to last for only a week or two, here it develops over a longer period of time.  Which is delightful!  We have the usual spring flowers.

We also have trees filled with flowers.  For people like me who came here from another part of the country that already experienced spring, I get to have allergies all over again.  The kites flying in the park is another sign of spring, and they are glorious.

The other aspect of spring is climbing Mount McKinley in Denali National Park. I had something to do at he airport recently and met my first official mountain climber.  This nice young man is currently living in Iceland and has been climbing for years.  He was arriving for a 3 week stay so he could climb the mountain.

The following week the newspapers announced the first team of the season had made the summit for this year.  There is a lot of preparation involved in this type of climb as well as expense and an element of danger. While it has never been on my bucket list of extreme activities, I can certainly appreciate what goes into this.  I am just grateful if I can see the mountain, I have not on this trip yet, I have however, on past trips to Alaska and will view it with new eyes thanks to this mountain climber.

I can only imagine the joy felt when you accomplish a physical and mental goal like this.

Moose Walking??

This is an actual photo I took of a man walking his moose.

This is a young moose, but still a moose, not your average household pet.

I had to take several pictures just because.

It was a beautiful day and I was taking a walk near a park to see the kites people were flying.  Because of the almost constant winds, flying kites is a very popular activity, not your Charlie Brown caught in a tree kite, but flying kites that take a great deal of strength to keep them aloft.

Love this shot with the American flag and the mountains as a backdrop.  It’s hard not to get mountains in almost every shot.  But these are some serious kites they are flying.  This was going to be a part of what I was writing about it really being spring in Alaska, but then along came a moose.

Moose 1             Kites 1/2

This last one is not the same moose, but this one seems to be waiting for the right bus.