Now that I have all the new trees and flowers planted out in the yard, I have a short list of easier home improvement projects I am going to get out of the way. I am going to add decorative shutters to the front of the house, replace the curtains in the family room with faux wood blinds, and retile the 2nd bathroom. It is a very small bathroom off of the family room and will be a very good project for me to get my feet wet learning to tile. I can work slow and steady, sine it is such a small area.

I’ve been browsing the tile over at the Anchor Bay Tile website. Since I have such a small area to work with, I want to make it pop by using unique tiles. The shower already has some groovy looking glass tile form when the bathroom was first installed. It is actually in very good shape and I want to continue the retro style and the color scheme out to the floor tiles I choose. I can afford to go a little funky with the 2nd bath. Anchor Bay has an impressive selection of tile that is very different from what I see in my local home improvement stores. Plus, shipping is way reasonable.

Here is my next cooking adventure in the genre of Star Fruit. I love Pineapple Unside Down Cake and want to give this recipe I try. Substituting Star Fruitsounds yummy.

3 to 4 star fruit, sliced
1/4 cup butter, melted
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
juice of 2 passion fruit
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Arrange sliced star fruit in bottom of a greased 9 inch cake pan as close together as possible.

Mix together 1/4 cup butter, brown sugar and passion fruit juice and pour into pan, turning so mixture covers bottom. Set aside.

Cream together 1/2 cup of butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beat well. Mix together dry ingredients. Add flour mixture, alternately with milk, to butter mixture. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts. Pour into prepared cake pan.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until cake pulls away form sides of pan. Let cool for five minutes before inverting onto serving plate. 8 servings.

Somehow you just don’t feel so alone in the world when you stop and realize that the United States isn’t the only nation with crappy real estate problems. We have a glut of properties on the market here in the U.S. due to plummeting home prices. The market is re-adjusting itself after a massive mushroom of falsely inflating pricing. We bought our last home at the height of the real estate bubble and now that we need to sell, we will not even be able to ask close to what we paid. And, there are unreasonable taxes and skyrocketing home owner’s insurances rates to consider.

Alas, over in the U.K. there are woes in the real estate market as well. Their housing market is also oversaturated, with the buy-to-let market seeing the biggest glut. Part of this is due to the fact that so many sellers put their proprieties on the market this summer to try and beat the June 1 HIPs deadline.

Currently, it still stands to see if HIPs (Home Information Packs) will be introduced at all. The packs would include title deeds, copies of planning approvals, local searches, guarantees for any work done and an energy performance certificate. They were going to be required for all homes sold after June 1 and cost sellers between 300 and 500.

Oddly, delays in the process have caused a situation where HIPs are now only required for homes with 4 or more bedrooms. There has been a trend in property owners listing 4-bedroom homes as 3-bedrooms plus stuffy, to avoid the fee. Silly, since a fee of 500 is far less than the additional income a 4th bedroom could potentially bring.

Seems to me that even if HIPs are a bane for sellers, they are a boon for buyers. The additional information required in the packets protects the buyer in many ways, much like an inspection does here in the U.S.

Real estate market woes: they seem to be universal. Perhaps going back to a time where we all lived in caves and log dwellings wouldn’t be so bad.

You like to think that something good will come from every tragedy. USF is still reeling from the death of Rachel Futterman. The 19-year-old sophomore contracted bacterial meningitis and died within days.

Her death triggered changed in the immunization policy at USF, though. By next fall, the university will require meningitis vaccinations for all students living in their residence halls. Currently, this is an optional vaccination.

Today, student health directors from Florida’s 11 public universities are meeting with state education leaders in Tallahassee about protecting students from deadly illnesses. It is likely statewide vaccinations will be the answer

I was listening to some old CDs a friend made me years ago and came across a couple of zydeco tunes. Zydeco music is the Creole sound of New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana. That got me thinking about when I worked for a market research company in Frederick, MD and one of the VPs there talked a lot about how he had become very involved in zydeco dance. Zydeco dance is syncopated version of two-step that is done in place. It was always very hard for me to imagine this guy dancing at all, little less a super fact two-step. He was a nice guy and super intelligent, but not the sort you imagine involved in coordinated activities like dance, of any kind. Nonetheless, I regret not taking him up on going to see him perform. I may have been pleasantly surprised. Maybe he was gifted at dance.

To this day, when I hear anything about zydeco, I think of that guy. I hope he is doing well. I think I’ll go download some new zydeco tunes now. They will pep me up so I can get more work down this morning.

The weather is cooling off here and it makes my mind turn to thoughts of autumn. I read an article online detailing all the best places to go in the nation to see the fall foliage and it made me do a mental double-take. Is it really almost that time of year again? When I lived in Virginia, mid-October was the height of the color season. So, I suppose that means that the leaves are beginning to show their brilliance further north even now. Wow.

You get a little off track living in the tropics. If you are observant, though, you do see the seasons shift here. We might not have the typical four seasons, but right about this time of year we see the humidity begin to go away and that marks the beginning of a glorious fall for us.

The evening light is less direct and has a lovely yellow cast. Unlike northern states, you will still need sunglasses here in the fall and winter, but the light is filtered now and less harsh. Mornings bring the heat slowly in the fall. There is no more waking up to 90+ degrees at 8 a.m.

And the snow birds, how they begin to roost. Of course, I do not mean literal birds, but rather those who spend their summers up north and come to live in Florida in the fall and winter. Right after school starts around here, the traffic begins to double. We seem to have twice as many cars on the roads these days, many from Canada and New York. You need to figure in an additional 10 minutes for drive times.

Tourism in general picks back up. Summers have lots of tourists, but fall and winter are even more hospitable down here. People make their way here for business conferences, stints at addiction treatment facilities, and the type of leisurely family vacation where you pull the kids out of school.

Most Floridians would agree that we suffer June through mid-September here simply because the other 9 months are bliss, a veritable Heaven on earth.