Great Views of Sandestin

I've posted my own shots of this Panhandle area previously, including lots of photos of the resort area I'm located in this winter, Sandestin.

But I've just recently come across some aerial and other views, so thought I'd include them, too.  I'm staying Bayside at Sandestin this year in the little enclave called Bayou Village.  Next year, I'm staying on the beach.

Bayside at Sandestin

Bayou Village

Golf at Sandestin

Village of Baytowne Wharf at Sandestin

Beachside Pool

Beachside Pool (from a friend's condo)

Grand Boulevard

Grand Boulevard is a shopping, dining village adjacent to Sandestin, along the Emerald Coast Parkway.  It is where I grocery shop at Publix, and I can easily ride my bike here in 10 minutes or so if I want to pick up a few things and take them home in my bike bag.

(Click photos to enlarge)

Favorite Ice Cream Shop

Upscale, yummy restaurant adjoining the clothier....

Publix

Even the parking lot is pretty!

Spring Has Sprung.....Some More

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I included this one just because I think the fountain and Spanish-style townhouses are very pretty.

And this one because the biking is so lovely in Sandestin.

Just one of the ponds on the resort.....

I love the mix of "Northern" greenery alongside the many palm trees....

Even the grass is greening up now!

Never a shortage of pretty places to sit and meditate.

 

Even the main road, Emerald Coast Parkway (#98) is beautiful....enlarge this one for sure!

 

Windy Fun

Wow, was it windy today!   Too windy to try biking and not much fun to be walking either.  So the sport of the day was windsurfing.

Not me, silly.

Them!

(Click to enlarge these)

With waves like this, it was scary watching them!  And the red flag was out on the beach....

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning....

Oh, what a beautiful day....I got a beautiful feeling everything's goin' my way.

Yeah, right.

I've been dealing with my bad back acting up very badly this week.  At 18, I was in a car accident that left me with whiplash and a herniated disc, which never healed.  In fact, my orthorpedic surgeon told me it had calcified.  And when I asked him whether that was good or bad, he said, "That depends.  Are you still in pain?"  And therein lies the answer.

And why did it never heal, you ask?  Let me just say that while in PT for a knee surgery many years afterward, I got to talking about the disc with the therapist.  He told me that the way they rehabilitate a herniated disc in the low back like mine was to have the patient do systematic arching.  The bulging disc then would get "sucked back inbetween the vertebrae."  I was shocked and told him even up at Mayo Clinic (where I'd gone in desperation for some relief when I was 35) I was told to do the opposite...press the small of my back down to the floor when lying down.  Which I did over and over, even though when I awoke each morning, my body was screaming to arch!   He winced.  I pressed:  "Why was I told that?  Why do you do the opposite motion now?!"

"Because our patients weren't getting better the other way."

Oh. 

Great.

The ole "trial and error" of medicine.  Boy, did that give me a new perspective on medicine.  I'm sure like many of you, dear readers, as I age, I have less and less faith in conventional Western medicine.  And more in what I feel my body telling me.

Anyway, eating Advil by the bottle isn't good for my liver, I'm sure.  I think I've been coping by doing a number of things I've kind of learned with my back over the last three decades, but it may be time to get an adjustment from a chiropractor, which on occasion has helped.

It just sucks not to be able to sit, stand or walk without pain.  Especially for someone who was fairly athletic as a girl in gymastics, cheerleading, dance....and for someone who loves to be active, but has had to curtail so many activities because of the chronic pain.

Sometimes ya just gotta whine.

(And even with the pain, I'm thankful I don't have something worse.  I'd still rather be "here" -- if you get my drift -- with the pain, than not "here" at all.)

But here's something cheery. The sunrise out the front of my condo here in Florida.

Click to enlarge to see the pier, mist on the pond

So it really is a beautiful morning.

Morning Sun

Woke up this morning to this:

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See my little pal?

When it's this inviting outside, you have to go.....

Going to be 70F by tomorrow!

Problem - Solution

Reading is good, right?  We should encourage a love of reading with our children and read all kinds of materials, shouldn't we? 

I began my love affair with reading as a very young girl and relished my weekly library trips, returning loaded down with volumes of fiction.  I still remember tackling A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, thinking it the thickest novel ever and finishing it by reading half an hour every night before I had to have "lights out" during high school.  In my adult years, I devoured psychology books and non-fiction.  Now I find almost anything and everything I am interested in reading at my fingertips.....the internet!  (And still get my fiction from the library or bookstore.)

The only downside I can think of about loving reading is that I could read all day long, inside, never seeing a single soul and become a hermit.  And for someone who loves the company of people, that's a big downside.

So when I get into those "reading mood" days now, this is what I do:

Click to enlarge:

And it's really quite nice outside, too:

So while I can enjoy my reading, I can still feel almost outdoors and also strike up conversations with other coffee shop patrons, hence, my "people-fix" at the same time.  I can head home after an afternoon at Starbuck's, feeling I've been out in the world, a part of the human race, and satisfied.