I was in a Regatta!

Wow, what a wonderfully long and exhausting weekend!  I actually participated in my very first official regatta. Let me just say it was super fun! 

  I was basically just along for the ride on this race and was not actively sailing myself, although I did pull a line once or twice maybe.  I am usually not one for racing but this is a very special race that occurs every year around this time.  My husband has participated every year for some time and I've attended all the fun events but never the race itself until now.  It is called the Outback Cup Regatta and is held at another sailing club on our lake, Columbia Sailing Club.  It is sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, yum, and proceeds go to the MDA, Muscular Dystrophy Association.  It begins on Friday night with registration and cocktails and ends on Sunday with the finals of the J24 fleet.  This year we had the most participants from our club attending in quite some time.  If I am correct I believe we had a total of six boats from our club and several members teaming up on each others boats like we did.  We attended the Friday night registration party but I didn't bring the camera for that, only for the race.

This is Columbia Sailing Club the morning of the race.  They have a new clubhouse built two years ago.  Isn't it gorgeous!

The skippers meeting was held at 11:00am.  We had to leave our club at 9:30am in order to motor over across the lake to attend the meeting.  This means I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday AM preparing foods to pack and take with us for the race since we would be out all day.

Here are a few more boats arriving for the race.

This was one of our club members, John. All participants need to attend the meeting and have to tie up to the docks which means rafting up to each other to cross over to the docks.

More of our club members, Debbie and Simon.

They are shown here tying on their "class" ribbon before the race.  All of our members were participating in the Cruising fleet race. There is another division of racer boats which are mostly J-24's.  They are more hard core and race separately from the cruisers.   All the boats in the cruising fleet race are divided up into several different classes based on several things and given a colored ribbon according to what class you are in.

This is my husband making his way back from the meeting towards the boat we were on.

I did not attend the meeting and opted instead to sit on the boat and wait.

We were on our friends boat a Catalina 30, called the Dragonfly.

This is one of the owners, Bud coming aboard.

And the other owner, Ray,  talking to his wife and daughter who were on the way by land.

Time for all the boats to head out to the mark, our starting point and wait for our start.

Here we are all jockeying towards the mark to start.  This is where it get's a little dicey as everyone get's very close together.  I put away the camera  at this point so I could stay focused so I don't have any super close up shots of our competitors.  

Bud and his wife Audrey counting down the seconds before we begin.

And here, we're off!  These photo's were taken of us by another member from her boat.

Another  club member of ours, Frank and his crew.

Other sailors.

This boat was pretty cool.  It had brown sails which is very unusual, kind of reminds me of a boat you would have on your mantle, huh?

It was a beautiful and long day and the winds were very light making it slow going.  Then right after we rounded the island and were on the way back to the finish lines don't you know the wind all but died.  This is where everyone gets very hot and tired but we held in there and finished up fourth in our class.  

After the race we dropped sail and motored back to our clubhouse to shower and change and get ready for dinner back at the other sailing club.  

Ray and his beautiful daughter, Elizabeth are very excited to be going back to our clubhouse to get ready for our steak dinner provided by Outback.   Dinner was at 6:00pm which meant we all had to hustle getting ready and then drive our cars over to the other club.  

Sorry, I forgot to bring my camera back to the dinner.  The food was delicious but I was so exhausted that we ate and made it a short evening and got home around 9:00pm.  What a day!

Looks like we missed all the later fun.  I borrowed this photo of our captain and his wife enjoying the night from another member.  I don't know how they were still going, but I sure wasn't.  LOL!

I spent Sunday relaxing and revisiting all the memorial tributes of 9/11.  Lot of tears and sad memories but I am so thankful to know that we live in a country that is still so filled with love and compassion and the spirit of freedom.  Freedom that allows us to live as this!

Thanks for taking a look with me today.

I hope you enjoyed your visit!

It's Fall By The Pool Tablescape

It seems Fall arrived rather suddenly over the Labor Day weekend here.  It was ushered in by a few tropical storms that blew several dead leaves all over our newly planted back yard and into the pool.  The winds were so strong they almost blew some of our older furniture right into the pool as well.  Whew, it was quite a close call!  I am very thankful that we got the sod done just before the storms came in or that would have been a mess.  Then we were blessed again when next we had a wonderful day of much needed and timely rain.

I am celebrating the transition of fall with my first official outdoor tablescape by the pool on a table.  LOL! I am sure this is going to be one of many to come.  I hope you enjoy it!

I decided not to use an umbrella as we are starting to cool down more and I now have more shade in this area.

I thought it would be neat to pull out one of my plaid tablecloths too, nothing says fall like plaid right?  I use this one at Christmas but thought it would also look great with all my serving pieces today too.

How do you like the centerpiece?

First, I knew I wanted to use this basket I have been storing my wine corks in.  I purchased this on clearance from Hobby Lobby this past winter.  I don't know why exactly but for some reason I also associate fall with wine. Silly huh?

Then I knew I would need to also use a bottle of wine to add to the centerpiece.  That's what you call a useful centerpiece.  I'm sure the Mr. would be pretty proud of me for that.  Ha ha!

And because I thought it needed just a little something extra I added this little arrangement that I made last fall.  The little pitcher was also another Hobby Lobby clearance find that I added flowers too.

Now let's take a closer look at the dishes.

The green and terracotta stoneware is called Casa Verde purchased from Piggly Wiggly many years ago.

The square melamine dessert plates are from World Market purchased on clearance this year.  

I can't believe it's time to pull out my fall napkins purchased from Walmart last year, end of season of course.

I decided to combine them with these pearlescent napkin rings I got from the Lenox outlet because I think it complements the purple in the dishes.

The glasses were an agonizing choice for me this time because I really wanted to use one of the green sets I have. But, I just could not overlook how appropriate the iridescent blue goblets looked yet again!  They seemed to pick up on the blue and purple and greens and almost had a purplish grey look to me.   What do you think?  Good choice?

Well I'm glad you thought the glasses were a good choice because here's the bad choice in all it's photographic glory!  Do you see it?  I got in such a hurry as I usually do and set all the place settings wrong!   I always mix up my forks yall!  I do not know why it is so hard for me to remember this.  I even know in my head that logically you would use the smaller one for a salad first but question whether you work your way out on utensils or in.  Mercy my manners!  I really need some other type of rhyme or something to help me keep it straight.  Should have pulled out my cheat book today.  Sorry!

Well, there it is!  

 The first official "by the pool tablescape" at our table and my first "fall tablescape" this year too.

Thanks so much for stopping by, be sure and visit the link below for more beautiful tablescapes

 that are full of inspiration at;

BNOTP for Tablescape Thursday

Have a great day and great weekend!

Oh Mercy!  Where did everybody go????

UPDATE:  Yay!  I can see your blogs on my list again!  I can tolerate my followers dissappearing but when the blog I follow dissappear I get a little wacked!  Thanks for all your sweet comments to hang in there! :))

Yall, I have been having such a time with blogger lately it is driving me nuts!  Today my entire list of blogs I follow is gone!  I can't even get into reader!  What is up with that?  Is anyone else having these troubles too?

I can see my blogs on my dashboard but no list that I follow.  I do not list blogs that I follow on my blog, only those who are following me so I'm very limited to get to anyone today.  I am very frustrated because today I have made time to try and visit others but cannot get to them!  Ughhh!!!!

Along with today's very annoying and unusual events I have lost my followers off and on several times on my blog, received many comments that friends cannot comment, friends who have told me my blog is not showing up on their feed and have received a ton of spam comments from computer tracking sites that are leaving comments on old post in order to get more hits.  The comments rarely make any sense or have anything to do with the post.  I am very frustrated!  I have a separate stat service that I am linked to and can see I have several blog visits from overseas sources.  I seriously feel like my blog has been tampered with but just do not have the knowledge how to find out if I have or much less how to fix this.  I've tried putting comments on bloggers website for help but have received no replies.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I turned on my comment moderator again and that has helped with keeping the spam off my blog.  For some reason though the spam emails continue to show up in my email box but not in blogger for me to moderate though the emails I get show that they are.

Boy things are such a mess here!  Hope all is well with most of you!

End of Summer Celebration

It is hard to believe it's the end of summer already, but it is!   I for one am very excited and ready to move on past these record breaking temps we've had this year just about ALL Summer long!  Three digit temps is waaaay too much to bear for soooo long, even for this born and bred southern gal.  I'm so thrilled to say goodbye to our hot summer that I will be celebrating with a few friends today over at;

 A Musing Potpourri for an
 End of Summer Celebration.

While we are still hitting temps here in the 90's, there has been a cooling down over the last few days in the mornings and evenings.  That's a good sign that summer is starting to move out.  Our new pool has finally dropped it's temperature to it's first all time low of 83 degrees. Burrr!!!  LOL!  It's quite refreshing though!

I've put together a few fun things in order to celebrate the end of summer.  First I've created a few mosaics of all my summer highlights.  Then, I am also sharing a very easy Chicken Salad recipe I've been working on perfecting this summer.  So thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy!

Yes ladies that is canned chicken.  I know, I know, I can just see you shaking your heads and rolling your eyes, and I'm sure many of you are considering clicking off right now...but wait!!!  I promised to share an EASY chicken salad recipe with you didn't I?  Well, yes I did! 

 I love chicken salad and there is about a bazillion ways you can make it for sure, but I really wanted a recipe that was simple and easy.

Besides taking a mini vacay, building a pool,tablescaping, and various other projects that I've been working on I've also been trying to eat lighter.

  I have been buying chicken salad like crazy this summer from our local meat market but it cost almost $7.00 for a small tub.  It had a very simple taste and the more I ate of it, the more I decided that I certainly could make this myself.  I kept looking at what was in it and then started looking for recipes online that might come close to what I was tasting.  After omitting all the recipes that required me to cook fresh chicken first, (because I knew that would not work with me)  

  I finally found a recipe I liked from allrecipes.com and tweaked it just a bit.

The tweaking was a short process and used up a few of these.  I was pretty excited to find these at Sam's Club sold in a pack of 5 cans for about $9.00.   I know the preferred "southern" method to make chicken salad is by using roasted chicken then shredding that but come on, me, really? I just don't have the patience or time for that because I literally want chicken salad for lunch almost daily. I do have the time for this though and think the secret is in using white meat.

After draining the can I dump the chunks into a bowl and use my fork to break it up and shred it more.

Then I used about two to two and half stalks of celery very finely chopped.  First I cut the then slices...

then diced it down, very small!

Add that to the chicken...

...then I added two heaping tablespoons of mayo.

Next I added three heaping "tea" spoons of dill relish.  The recipe calls for sweet relish but I prefer the dill relish.  I just don't care for a sweet sweet pickle taste but do love dill pickles.

Next add one half of a teaspoon of onion powder.  I love this!  It may taste slightly pungent the first day immediately after you make it but after being refrigerated tends to be less strong but helps flavor the chicken.

Then you add your salt and pepper.  I only used about an eight of a teaspoon of each, but this could be changed due to your tastes too.  This was just enough for us!

Continue to mix it all up good with your fork and then spoon it into a lidded tub to refrigerate.

Here's mine that I recycled from the meat market.  Sorry guys!

I've been using these for an even lighter lunch lately.  Yum!

After spreading my chicken salad on the bread, I add a few pieces of lettuce and that's it.

Roll it up and ENJOY!  I sure do!

Here's my version of the Chicken Salad recipe;

(1)13oz can of premium white chicken chunks

2 large stalks of celery very finely diced

2 heaping "table"spoonfuls of mayo

3 heaping "tea" spoonfuls of dill relish

1/2 teaspoon of onion powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Mix it all together in a bowl until chicken is finely shredded and store in a container w/sealed lid in refrigerator.  Tastes great on sandwich's and salads and no extra condiments needed for serving. 

It's a great light lunch for summer and will be even tastier this winter on toasted wheat or rye!

Yum!  I can hardly wait!

Thanks for visiting today!
Come again!