Second on the Second- A Multi-Year Look Back

   Hi everyone. Happy September 2. I hope you had a nice start to the new month. We were supposed to have some much needed rain yesterday, but mostly it was just clouds. But  besides nothing more than a few drips falling, it made for a nice relaxing day for me. 😊 Today I am posting to  join Bleubeard and Elizabeth and Squiggles too for Second on the Second, where all you have to do is repost something from an earlier post.

   I recently started my 7th year of retirement.  Where does the time go? I decided  for this month's second look I would go back to the start of the last year I was teaching, September 2019.  It was fun  to look back and see what I posted and what life was like when I was working full time. 

Sept. 17, 2019

   Then I started to wonder what I was up to during my first retired September, right in the full swing of COVID and before we had vaccinations to protect us. 

September 30, 2020

   How had 2021 changed from 2020, now that I was vaccinated and felt a little more "free" to get out and about?

September 15, 2021

   I might as well keep going at this point,right?

September 6, 2022

   I remember making that 2022 page. Was it really 4 years ago? On to 2023.

September 27, 2023

   And then onto 2024. I also remember making this spread like it was yesterday also.

September 19, 2024

    And finally, last year. 

September 7, 2025

   Time just goes by too fast. However, I am glad I have a blog so I can look back and see what else I was up to during those months and years. 👍 It's a nice reminder of just how rich and wonderful life can be.

    I may be slow to comment on blogs today as I am off to my last play for this season at the Ogunquit Playhouse.  I'm looking forward to this one; it's The Producers by Mel Brooks, which I saw years ago in Boston. I remember laughing a lot.

   Enjoy your day!

August Second

    Hi everyone. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend  and start to the new month. Blog wise it's another busy Sunday because there are 3 challenges today I'll be linking  up to. I'll be linking  up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles, Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR) and also , because it is the second of the month, I'll be linking  up to Second on the Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog .

    Because Second on the Second is a time to repost something from the past, I'm going back to August of 2016. That month along my husband,  my sister-in-law and her husband,  I went on a weekend get-away to a part of the Hudson River Valley in New York. I love to collect odds and ends when I travel, and then when I get home, I like to make a little memory journal. Today I'll re-share  a couple photos of the junk-style journal I made when I was home. 

   Here's a few pages.  This first page is half covered with the brochure from a sangria festival we visited. The journaling pages come from this post August 28, 2016.

  Since my theme this month at Art Journal Journey is In The Good Old Summertime, I thought I'd also share a few summery photos I took on that trip.  You can  find these in some of my August of 2016 posts. Any of these could be a great idea  to make a journal page from too. 😏

   While on our trip, we had visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt home and presidential library, as well as the Eleanor Roosevelt home. We also made a quick stop at a Vanderbilt mansion which was next door to the other homes and took a lovely walk through the gardens there.

    I took tons more photos, but these were the main ones I posted. One other thing we did while on our travels was visit a vineyard that was having a sangria festival. This potted hibiscus is a beauty.

    It was a fun weekend away. It was fun to relive it again.  And, it was fun to share it for a second time with you. 😏

    Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week. 

  

Bumblebees and Second Looks

    Hi everyone. Happy July 2! Yesterday the crazy heat arrived to New Hampshire. 😧 I'm going to miss the beautiful weather we'd been having. 

    I have a few things to share on my post including stopping by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for Second on the Second. I also want to mention the last couple of days were busy, so I am once again going to apologize if I missed  any of your blog posts. 

   OK, I promise not to hyper focus on bees every post,😏,  but the other day David over at Travels with Birds made an important point in a comment on one of my recent honeybee posts. Since many of you enjoy a bit of bee info, I thought I would take a moment to share the general gist. (And then I won't keep going on about bees...well maybe I won't. )😉

    Honey bees do help with pollination, and they are important, however, sometimes people get so wrapped up  thinking honeybees can save our food supply that they forget about native bees. Native bees are the various species really in trouble. In fact, some of our foods cannot be pollinated by honey bees. Take tomatoes.

   OK, these are milkweed plants, not tomatoes, but you can see one native species of bumblebees.

    Honey bees evolved in Europe and Asia, and some foods, like tomatoes, that evolved in North or South America, evolved without the help of honey bees. Their flowers are not accessible to honeybees because the 2 species didn't evolve together and honeybees can't get to the pollen. The only ones that can do this are native pollinators. As native bees disappear, so might those foods they pollinate. Therefore it is important to  not to do big whole lawn sprays for insects ( all insects  breath the same way, so if you spray say for mosquitoes, it can effect bees) and to remember wild bees need habitat to live in.  I'm not trying to be the bee patrol, just passing on some information. 😁

  Today's main topic of my post is for Second on the Second  over at Altered Book Lovers Blog. I want to share some fabric art that I posted back in 2015 to go along with Halle's fabrictrim/sewing themed challenge this month at AJJ. . Here's my original post. More Quilting.

   I had a large piece of canvas that I painted, and then I did some stitching on it. Here's a few close ups.

    I'm still looking if I can find  any other photos for you to show the finished piece. It might be still folded up in a box under my sewing table because I know I never backed it, at least not yet. (Even though it's been a lot of years...too many actually.😒)

  I'll keep looking and add in a photo if I can find one.  

  With that in mind, I hope you have a super day!

T Stands for a Second Look and Other Things

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And happy new month too! The last couple of days I have been straight out. I'll explain  that in a couple of paragraphs, but needless to say I haven't gotten by too many blogs during that time. As you all know, sometimes life just gets in the way. 

   It's also time for T over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog and also this T day falls on the second of the month for it's time for Second on the Second also over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog . All you need to do for Second on the Second is repost a post from an earlier date.

  What's been up with me? This June means I've been called up for jury duty. That was how I spent June 1, in court going through a  jury selection process. I also had a fun tourist day with my husband, daughter and son-in-law in Boston over the past Sunday. More about those things in another post. 😏

  My big chore last week and once I get some time this week  has  been picking up my art space that became  an absolute disaster zone and that has needed some reorganization since some of the ways  I organized back this past winter are not working for me. I'm close to finishing that project, and hopefully it will be done soon.

   Plus our shower drain is leaking into the basement. My husband can fix it, but in the meantime my laundry area (which is also in the basement) has some water. Not a flood or even puddles, just a wet cement floor. Once the leak is fixed, I decided I wanted a new mat for the floor since the  one I have there now is stained,  worn, and owes me nothing since I've had it for a long time. 

    My husband and I went out last Saturday afternoon over to Sanford, Maine. There is a discount home store over there that sells flooring and floor coverings, and I knew I could find something for my laundry room floor there. I wanted to get one before we were too far into the summer season because what I wanted was an indoor-outdoor style mat. If I waited too long, they probably wouldn't have a big selection as this is the time of year people want outdoor mats. I found just what I wanted for less money that I thought it was going to cost so it was a worthwhile trip. 😏

    This isn't a great photo since the mat is still all rolled up, but here's my floor mat for the laundry room.

    After our home store trip we decided to get an early dinner at a place called Shaine's of Maine. I've mentioned this place before, but here's a photo of  the building.

    And here's an inside view. Shaine's of Maine is really known for their homemade ice cream.

   But they are so known for their food which is very reasonable. Here's my drink for T day.  I had their lobster roll  and chowder meal which was still only $14.99. It's not the biggest lobster roll, but it is less than half the price less that just about any place else you go including Pop's. 

    Plus with it being a little smaller I could also have some ice cream. 😏❤👍 My favorite flavor is coffee, and add some brownies to it and it was a win-win meal finisher. 

   I also wanted to share my Second on the Second view in this post. Three years ago in early June I was in Iceland with my husband. We were driving the ring road. Here's a couple of T day photos from that trip.

You can see the whole post from June 26, 2023 here. 

   That's all for me today. Wishing everyone a wonderful T day and rest of your week.

  

Second on the Second- Charleston from 3 Years Ago

    Hi everyone. Happy May 2. Today I'll be joining Bleubeard and Elizabeth for  their Second on the Second   link up. All you need to do to join in is to share a post you've already posted before.

     Since I've recently shared a couple of  posts about my latest weekend getaway to Charleston, South Carolina, and since I also visited there 3 years ago in early May, I thought I would make my second look about that city. One thing I did in 2023 when I visited with a friend was to walk around the historic downtown area. It's very beautiful there.  My friend and I took a lot of photos, and we poked around in some little stores and galleries.

      None of that interests my husband even the slightest bit, so on my visit a couple of weekends ago I did not go downtown. That is OK because we did some other things. 

       My post today has photos from a July 27, 2023 plus a few others from 2023 that I never posted and decided to include today. Warning, this is a heavy photo post. 

  Lots of photos, not a lot of writing.  Hope you enjoyed the views. Have a great first weekend in May!