Otterness

Happiness is finding a new wallet with otters on it.

Panda vision

Here it is, as requested. If only I had a panda battle pet too. :-)

Pandacraft

 This week I started on a craft project from a kit I picked from The Wayfarer's Whimsy at the Bristol Renaissance Faire over a year ago. I lost track of the kit when we moved to Wausau a year ago and when we were unpacking from moving to FL, I found it again. It was in a big bag of stuffed animals. How it got in there, no idea.

 Felting is process of using needles with tiny notches in them to "felt" wool together, sculpting/shaping it in just about anyway you want it. The kit came with 2 balls of carded wool, 2 needles, and a pre-made wool armature body. Essentially you take strips or rolls of wool and poke it repeatedly until its attached, creating a tightly woven bond that can not be pulled apart.

I found it very relaxing, a nice way to unwind in the evening after work. Besides the occasional finger prick with the needle.

 It was surprising how easy it is to sculpt wool and have it retain its shape. My mind was already thinking ahead on what other subjects would be fun to create with wool felting.

Watching old X-Files episodes while felting is an added bonus

 Just about done.

Lvl 1 Panda Monk

 Finished. Adding the little white sparkle eye highlight was quite tedious. I think I pulled it out 6 times and started over to try to get them balanced enough. I think he needed it, otherwise he would have been too bug eyed.

Signs

Indeed

On a busy intersection on my bike ride last night, I spied this yard sign with a grouping about another dozen various election signs, underneath a billboard. Someone else added an handwritten response on the litter sign.

Florida Car

Lighthouse Wins!

Our car is resident now too. We picked out a lighthouse themed plate. It was a hard decision between normal, turtles, or lighthouses. Seriously, Florida has a crazy number of specialty license plates. (or tags as they call them here)

Another tour

 On Saturday, I went on another bike tour of St. Andrews State Park. I can see myself making many trips here in the future. For one, its so close, so it is an easy destination with my bike and less crowded. Secondly, I just bought an annual pass for all of Florida's State Parks, so we'll have to get our money's worth, here and other parks.

I stopped to check out the pier this trip, and noted a new sight for me.

Purple Flag! Purple flag on the beach means dangerous marine life is near.

Arrgh... Pirates. Tourist pirates rather.

No shark fins here.

I never did find out what caused it. There were beach goers on the beach and in the water near the purple flag, they didn't seem concerned.

Back to land.

Hazardous plant life, stabby!

St Andrews State Park

Friday I cleaned up my poor neglected bike and went on a bike tour of St Andrews State Park. We live about 4 miles from the park. It is a nice little park that skirts the bay and the gulf. Although they cater a lot to the boating and beach crowd, there is still a lot of nature to experience.

Gator Lake. I did not see any this time, though I did see many lizards.

Residents

Hurray for sane looking pictures.

We are officially Florida residents now. Since Wisconsin isn't on Florida's list as a state that they use the Wisconsin Drivers License as a primary form of identification, we had a bring in every important document to the DMV (or Tax Collector's Offices as they call them here. weird) to prove our identity and residence. Might as well get our passports now, since we have all the important papers together again. The event of actually getting licenses wasn't too bad, as we did our homework and came prepared. There was a lot of grumpy people there waiting in line and once getting to a clerk, realizing they were short on paperwork. The photos turned out better compared to our last ones. Zachary's has less of a homicidal drifter vibe now and mine looks like I have been meth-free. (I blinked for my last WI license photo and they didn't retake the picture. And yes, both of ours were awful pictures. Bad lighting, I don't know what it was...)

So I made a cake later to celebrate.

The cake is not a lie. It is delicious.