Galveston Island- Beach Weekend

We tagged alone with my brother and his family when they were headed to Galveston Island for a wedding. 

They rented a house and wanted to fill it.
 They were sweet hearts and invited us along.
We stayed out at Pointe West on the western edge of the island.

I love the pastel colors of these seaside homes. 
It was hard pick which would be my favorite.

Saturday morning I drank coffee on the deck and this was my view. 
Our deck didn't get the morning sun so it was perfect.



Bill and my brother got up at five to go fishing.
My brother, Rob brought in a shark.

Bill also caught this grouper.
 It was catch and release so we didn't get to have fish for dinner. 

Amy and I did some shopping on the Strand which is the historic shopping district. It is a "must do" in Galveston. 
I got a new Vera Bradley large duffle bag on clearance and an ironstone pitcher.
My favorite find was this pink locker but I didn't get it.

I thought it was a steal at $125.00. 

Galveston in known for its historic gingerbread houses so we drove around to have a look.

Look at this paint detail.

Gorgeous!

We met for dinner at Nonnie Tony's Restaurant.
As we were going in we saw a large camera crew. 
It was prom night but we didn't think prom warranted T.V. coverage. 
The crew was there to film an episode of The Little Couple. 
We got to see Jen Arnold, Bill Klein, Will and Zoey walk through to their private room.  
How fun is that? I started watching that show a few months ago when Bill was out of town. I was instantly smitten with their darling family. It should be a cute episode.The owner of the restaurant took two giant lobsters back to their private room. The kids had to love that.

After dinner we made an exciting trip to Walmart to get a bathing suit for Bill and a fan for each of our rooms. 
I need moving air even though the house was air conditioned. 

Sunday morning Bill and I had coffee on the deck and then took a walk on the beach and collected a few shells. The sand isn't the pristine white sand that you'd find on the gulf in Florida but this beach is only 5 hours away.
It was so windy that we didn't get much beach time but I took a few pictures when the wind died down a little.  

 When we got back to the house my hair looked like Monica's in the Barbados episode.

Okay, not quite that bad but almost. My hair does not like the beach at all. Bill and I read and napped for a bit Sunday afternoon. I did some bird watching once we were refreshed. The Texas Coast is one of the best birding areas in the U.S.

We went back into town for dinner at Gaidos Restaurant which has been in business for 103 years.

Bill and I have have made 5 or 6 trips to Galveston over the years so we've seen many of the major sights. This time we visited, relaxed, ate seafood and enjoyed the scenery. 

It was so much fun!
A big thank you for letting us tag along.
  Katie 

A Stroll Thru Life    
The Scoop   
Savvy Southern Style   
French Country Cottage   
Reflections En Route

Cleaning a New Bathroom

When we redid the master bathroom last summer, I was determined that we wouldn't use anything caustic and harmful on our new fixtures. 

I only use a vinegar to wipe water spots off of the chrome. 

The other night Bill lamented the quality of the faucet in the shower. He thought that it was worn and pitted after only 10 months.

I guess it has been a while since my husband has done any cleaning because I said, "No, the faucet isn't ruined it only needs to be cleaned." 

I also did the hinges and the gorgeous handle. 

There were some hard water stains on the granite behind the faucets. 

Vinegar took care of that. 

 The little table from Target had water stains. 

I used baking soda for that. 

 I was convinced that some of the discoloration on the old tub was caused by Clorox Clean Up.

I don't want anything discoloring my new tub so I only use Baking Soda to clean our new claw foot tub. 
It wipes soap scum right off.  

It cleans it without scratching. 

We always squeegee the shower glass after every use so it only needs an occasional squirt with windex or vinegar. 

Finally, I clean the shower pan with baking soda. 
I have become an utter convert to the uses of baking soda.
God knew what He was doing when He created this stuff. 
I will share that in another post. 

We love our new master bath. 

We are off to the beach for a long weekend. 
I hope to take some pictures for you. 
Katie   
Linking with,

A Stroll Thru Life  
The Scoop   
Savvy Southern Style

Anniversary and Hair

Happy Anniversary to my sweet husband of 31 years. 

He is amazing, funny, smart, successful, Spiritual and talented.

He has had a hard year but has persevered under stress.
I love him dearly. 

 We have no big plans. We'll eat dinner at our favorite restaurant - Mac's Bar and Grill. 

[They have two in the metroplex.]
Link:

I hope we have time to run and get his present - a new table saw. 

He has wanted one for years but really it will be for both of us. Wink, wink.

It was hair color day. 

Does any one else have such problems with hair color?

I have been blessed that I didn't turn gray early like some of my siblings. 

Pay back for the way they tortured me as a child. 

Oh, you want to hear about that do you? I'll tell you a story at the end of the post. 

I started touching up the gray a few years ago.

There wasn't a lot just a few streaks.

Especially one that ran down the right side of my face.

I thought I might keep it and look like a 40s or 50s starlett but instead I felt like Cruella Deville.
 I don't know about you but I am cheap. I didn't want to get into a coloring routine that would cost me a fortune to maintain. I'd rather spend money on my house rather than on my hair! 

I was also experiencing some hair thinning after my hysterectomy. It was terrible! 
I didn't want anyone touching my head so I picked up a root touch up kit at the grocery store. 

Here:

It was fine the first few times but it started turning my head a very carroty type of red. 
Now there is nothing wrong with red hair it just isn't my color. I've always had auburn or blond highlights but that was about it.

It would look fine in the house but wonky in the sunlight. 

I first noticed it in photographs. 
Taking a picture of my head proved what sunlight was doing to my color. 

Each strand had some weird red/blonde transparent quality to it.

I decided to go a shade darker.  

I am clearly not skilled in the art of the selfie. 

It was better but it still had a bit of a glow.

Are you laughing yet at how silly I am?

I still thought I needed to go darker because after a few washings it faded.

These are the Clairol Root Touch Up colors I've tried. 
5 medium brown

5a medium ash brown 

4 dark brown
My whole life I thought my hair was mousy medium brown but it must have been darker than I thought. The dark brown looks almost black on the model but not on me.

I feel like I'm finally back to my natural color and it doesn't go all transparent and as red outside.

So is getting it professionally done better with truer color that a do it yourself job?

My friends who go to the salon complain about their color sometimes. That would frustrate me to spend a lot of $$ and not be happy.  

Here come the selfies.

You wouldn't think dark brown would be such a hard color to achieve.  

Okay, now for the story about how my brothers terrorized me when I was just a small, innocent, sweet child.

My light switch was on the other side of my room. It seemed like a long walk in the dark. My awful brothers would hide under my bed, wait until I'd almost reach the light switch and then jump out and scare me. 
It worked every time and to this day I'm easily startled and scream like a girl.


There you have it, another riveting post.
Do you have hair color woes? 
Katie

Blog Photography

Hi everybody! Are you as tired as I am?

Thank the Lord I don't have to work today so I can recover and do laundry. 

I feel sorry for my husband. He got up as usual to be on time for his Monday morning work out session.

I'm tired but we had a great day. 

It's cloudy so I won't get any pictures taken today. 

I'm hoping that with the clouds we will get some drizzle but I doubt it. We were blessed with a really nice strong rain last night. We haven't gotten a soaking like that in a very long time. 

I am praying this drought will be over soon. Join me in that won't you? Please pray for rain in Texas (and in the other southwestern states.)

The cloudy skies had me thinking about photography. I knew nothing about taking pictures when I hit publish for the first time so I thought I'd share my immersion into blog photography just in case you are a new blogger. 

I wish I'd known what I know now. At the beginning I had a little Nikon Cool Pix point and shoot. I took pictures at night and with a flash because I worked full time and it was dark by the time I came home. 

This is what I got. 

and this.

See how the light from the flash sort of distorts the shadows and bounces off of the glass? The flash bounces off of glass, metallics and even shiny wood. I read early on that you should never take pictures with your flash. The Cool Pix had a function that shut it off.

I was still trying to photograph at night so now my pictures were grainy. Without a flash the shutter stays open longer so the camera is very sensitive to movement. 

Movement of the camera causes pictures be be blurry or grainy.

I wanted my blog to be a journal with words and pictures so the photographs were important. I went and downloaded some free photo editing software. I chose Picassa. I was able to sharpen my pictures somewhat but it took many photos to get a few good ones. 

I solved this problem by setting the timer on the camera. By setting the timer for a 10 or 20 second delay it eliminated the movement that pushing the button caused. Once the button was pushed I concentrated on holding the camera still while it snapped the picture. 

And no more nocturnal photos for me. 

The next six months of pictures were done like this and some of them were pretty good. 

This one has been pinned a lot but there are many problems with it. 

Bill got me a new camera before a trip to Ruidoso.

The quality of the camera was much better so taking pictures was easier. Using the timer was still the best option. It was an Olympus SZ-31 MR and I think we paid $300 or $400 dollars for it. 

It took some time to learn how to stage shots.

Food photography is not my favorite thing to do so it doesn't happen often on my blog. I wouldn't want to be a food blogger. They have a tough job.

At this point I began to explore light and shutter speed in the manual mode. There are tons of sites that explain all the ins and outs of photography. I'm not really sure I understand it all but I read and played with my camera until it felt comfortable.

Before we went to Alaska Bill once again thought we should have a new camera. A big kid camera this time. 

So we headed back to Arlington Camera and got the Nikon D5200 which was around $700. It shoots in SLR and Digital. SLR stands for Single-lens reflex - a mirror and prism system. (Don't ask me more than that.) 

Bill said he should have bought me this one in 2012 but was too nervous to bite the bullet. Maybe he didn't think this blogging thing would last. He was overdue for a camera so he kept the Olympus.

The new Nikon camera is great for what I have do for Let's Add Sprinkles. It has been a journey learning what time of day is best for photographing which rooms and how to best display items for pictures. I've also edited and eliminated a lot of visual clutter from my home. I had too much stuff and it was distracting.

I learned to see cords, plugs, tufts of dog hair, smudges on the wall etc. before I take a snapshot.   

The tripod is the next thing on my list as it will eliminate further movement and blurred photos. Right now I'm using a tall table or step ladder to keep the camera still.  

Blog photography is so much more than "Hey look what I did!"- click! It is an art form that I've far from mastered. 

If you want to see some gorgeous photos from amazing bloggers check out these sites. 

French Country Cottage 
Cedar Hill Farmhouse 
Miss Mustard Seed 

Have a great day. 
Katie

Linking with,
French Country Cottage     
Common Ground