The threat is still on...

Ours is only the continued threat of freezing for four more nights, which so far here in south west Florida somehow we have been able to escape thankfully!

In spite of the inclement weather; too cold to believe, only highs in the low fifties!
We did manage to take care of business, and we accomplished all errands set for today’s schedule.

The warehouse store was a major choice for the day’s journey for water at 32 bottles for just $4.48 in the thinner recyclable material that even if it doesn’t go where they say it will it will still decompose, and so we bought two of those, and gasoline for our car to fill up. Which is usually cheaper by five to ten cents a gallon less than the other road shops, but it was just our luck by our late morning arrival it had just gone up by five cents a gallon! Although the other stations probably too went up, but for some reason on our way home I forgot to check.

Then on to the home store for house plants and potting soil, yeah!
We did find a bunch of my all time enduring favorites, dracaena, schefflera, ivy, a couple of succulents, and a Boston fern filled out the home pots waiting for them, very pretty and oh what oxygenation! They are currently all planted and scattered here and there according to their light needs. Hubby even gave me a spare sprayer to use as a mister for the Boston, and I painted the recycled bottle with my acrylic non toxic paint in a very pretty apple green.

We also stopped first thing to pick up some wine at our discount liquor store.
And tonight my co-ordination was way off again as I put my red wine Lucite glass on the coaster between our two easy chairs I looked over to admire the new look I made to the foyer table with my wooden Toucan, ceramic butterfly, and bee candle holders with a colorful mini print in the center I knocked over my glass and sprayed the entire, well not the entire, but most of the glass of RED WINE at my Hubby’s matching easy chair that's in off white ribbed cotton , and I screamed and went to work with a bottle of club soda and upholstery cleaner, and Hubby went to the garage for his wet dry shop vac. Together, we did the best we could, several times, and all we have to do now is pray that it is all gone.
Hubby is resting his derriere on white towels over the damp remainder of our cleaning efforts. I hope it will heal.

Foolishly, I have attempted another glass of red wine while I write tonight, but it is in the sunroom on the very wide top of this desk on a coaster, oh darn, yes I have spilled things on this too including this keyboard, but I promise I will try to be more careful!
And this Cabernet is so good, really!

With that true confession I will bid you all a very good night, and to all count those blessings and I will too!

Heron country once again! And the fickle pickle was at it again!

Where do Great Blue Heron’s eat?
Anywhere they want to………..but here!
Fortunately, our netting, but not our cheesy pink plastic flamingoes saved our remaining fishies! That thing about heron’s being territorial I suppose does not have anything to do with fighting pink plastic flamingoes for their property or eateries, dinning facilities… you get the picture.
He has been here at least three times today, which is the first time in ages that we have seen him. Many fish have probably found warmer waters, and so he may very well be desperate.

Our cold snap is still snapping away, although tonight is the first night that doesn’t threaten to freeze, but tomorrow night may. It’s so nice to be at least prepared for the worst. I know, in reality who wants anything in life to be the worst? We sure don’t.

But as possibilities go, cold weather being colder, is not as bad as many other things that run through this hyper active brain stormer of mine. I have so much imagination I could put an imagineer (Disney guy) out of business! But my ideas are either way off track and many are not even close probabilities.
Some are dream based others may be some irrational fears, and others are just creative justifications, none are ever drug induced unless cholesterol or blood pressure meds cause hallucinations? Mind creations or ideas can be fascinating when they are not at all boring, and most of mine are not, boring that is.

Did I tell you I started my own greeting card business again, well not really a business, just manufacturing cards for family and friends no income involved, darn, the hard copy type (I still had a lot of card stock and envelopes left from years ago, ergo the cards don’t cost me anything and yet I search my clip art for PICS, and my logo is two feet! I know I call it: ‘Put my two feet in’, publishing, get it, a nosey-body sticking your two feet in; like putting your two cents in the personal business of people?) I send the cards out snail mail. I do know that the US Post Office is dying a slow death; we all, shop and pay our bills online. So I feel like I am doing a major service giving the guys and gals called postal workers something to deliver! And I still have quite a few forever stamps left… so why not?
And because of them I have no idea how much it is to mail a regular card these days, do you?

Since I mentioned my card publishing I thought I better tell on myself…remember how cold I thought my cousin was sending me notification of my uncle’s death by email, and so I felt an email note was a proper way to respond…I sort of decided I would send a hard copy of a more appropriate sympathy card and so I made one and sent it out today.
Of course mine are so much more personal than the store bought ones, but this time I was more sympathetic and tried to make him feel that he did all he could for his dad, which is true. He moved his dad nearby him when he felt that his dad wasn’t doing so well so far away, and I told him so. Any-who, who knows what will come of our relationship.
Right now it is fifty-fifty that it could go either way, only time will tell.

Well, on that revelation I will bid you all a good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Brrrrrrrr....cold enough for you?

Tonight I do mean the temperatures and they are a falling once again!
I told you I thought that we in the southland had laws against this sort of thing!
But noooooooooooooo here we go again, almost as if we were jealous of you northerners and your cold stuff, i.e. your air temps; but not me by any means. I much prefer our warmth, twelve months a year, thank you very much!

To our good we never did make it down to freezing although we were prepared, as warned. Tonight and tomorrow night are supposed to be just as threatening, where am I? Did I fall back into New Jersey during a horrible weather freeze dream/nightmare?
Nothing personal New Jersians, but that is one of the major reasons we left twenty-three and a half years ago, too cold winters, causing severe hibernation modes, aching backs from shoveling out, and nearly frostbite in places we no longer have to worry about, since here we can expose all extremities whenever we care to, due to our usual warmth.

I must say the heat is getting a work out, which I cannot remember needing to use for this length of time in years, no make that never! Our daytime highs were in the mid-fifties today, another unheard of weirdo experience. According to the Weather Channel reports for the balance of this week… it’s a total non ‘come on down’, commercial for our highs will only reach up into the mid-sixties towards the end of the week and then plummet once again to the mid-fifties!

Hubby even drained the solar panels on our roof, and closed down all outdoor valves!
Charlie, our 30 year old Cockatiel has now been moved into our dinning area out of our sunroom, which has turned out to be the coolest at night, would you believe the sunroom?

During the day it does do a great job of spreading it’s warmth throughout our space, which is like a great room that encompasses our living room dinning and kitchen without walls and the sunroom is off the kitchen. Do you have a mental picture of the set up?
Our bedrooms are off the hallway to the left of the space with one bath, and the other bath is off the sunroom, the laundry-room is off the foyer, and has a door into the garage;all very nicely stream-lined for easy access.

We did venture out to the park in River City, AKA Punta Gorda, translation Fat Point, there was a car, truck, motorcycle show there today, along the Peace River but it was way too cold to stay, but we did manage to go once around the displays.

On that note I will wish all a good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Cold and colder...

Our weather is dipping into, dare I say, the thirties tonight!
And we are taking appropriate action to protect our crops!
Hubby built a frame out of PVC pipe, and will put the coverings on that, well I meant Hubby is. I am no help at all on this type of project, due to my inability to stay upright when the task calls for it; balance issues, Ataxia.
And this concludes the cold part of tonight’s Blog.

Now for the colder part…my uncle passed away on New Year’s Eve,(here in Florida my cousin moved him here, two blocks from him, on December 11th) sad but he was 94, and had a heart attack recently. The colder part is the way I was told, by email!
And this from my cousin just a half hour away in Venice, he’s the teacher I speak about often, and what is worst, the funeral is just for the immediate family.
I wasn’t quite clear on the actual meaning of that all these years, but I did finally look it up: immediate family:
“ A spouse, parents and grand parents, children and grand children, brothers and sisters, mother in law and father in law, brothers in law and sisters in law, daughters in law and sons in law. Adopted and step members are also included in immediate family. See also first degree relative.” Thanks to the Business dictionary.

And so me being me, I remembered what had occurred when my Mom died way back in 1982 when I was just 31, February 15th, and before email, and so I called her brothers in Las Vegas to notify them.
We even delayed her burial a day to make sure that they would be there, but they both were no shows, how sad, but over a thousand people were, since my parents lived in a retirement village at the time. And today I had no chance to be a no show, since I was NOT immediate family, just a niece. What would any of you do in this situation?
Well to me it was a no brainer… email deserves email returned, and so I wrote an email note of condolence.

Dear Cous:

For your sake I am truly sorry for your loss of your father, at 94.
Unfortunately, I suppose all that goes through my mind now is that when I called him to tell him that his sister, my Mom, died at age 70, and I was only 31 at that time, when I called him, and his reaction was hard to understand.
We held up the funeral for an entire day thinking that he and Uncle B---. Would be there, but they were both a no show, (literally over a thousand people did show up, family and friends, friends were from their retirement village, thus the enormous turnout) and so I do somewhat understand why you are having just your immediate family.
At first I thought you were quite cold telling me such news online, but I do understand your grief, and your way of handling things.
Who knows if I would have not done the same thing if my parents had died in this era, not as they did in 1982 and 1986?
Please with the utmost sincerity accept our deepest sympathy to you, T-- and R-----, and all else who loved and cared deeply for him.
And yes I do remember how you and Y made up for your Dad's not coming to my Mom's funeral and for that I have always been grateful! Thank you both!

With love and caring,
T


I know cold and heartless maybe too?
I guess that’s two less relatives for me, huh?
I really hope not, but he is a man (my cousin) and is 66 years old, you would think he could have called!
I called him when I found out about my brother and niece dying.
Oh, who knows…?
I thought we were family, but I guess not.

Not a good start for the New Year after all.
I loved my cousins but I guess they don’t feel the same.

Good night.

Up yet?

How did your New Year’s Eve go?
Ours was basically uneventful, which I think is pretty good.
We managed to relax, and go wild only with an order of Calzones and an antipasto delivered to go along with our own red wine.
Wow, we are two crazy kids!
Somehow we did mange to stay awake long enough to watch the Waterford Crystal Ball drop in Times Square, a tradition for thirty-seven years.
Although, I must admit I do believe the last two years I think we went to bed early, wild ones as we are!

We had some nice pleasantries occur today; our number one son called to send his well wishes for the New Year, but admitted that at only thirty-seven years old while spending the evening with his girlfriend he too fell asleep, and woke up to drive home and fell back asleep before ten, could it be hereditary?
Then we received two emails from Hubby’s Bro with PICS of two of his five grands’, these were the grandsons, he has three grand-daughters too and he also sent us New Year’s Eve well wishes.
My good old friend from my writer’s group sent us an online card too!
Hubby later on called his Mom to wish her well, and she was once again acting quite like herself; which is good news!
I think a rather nice beginning to the year.


Now there is some discussion on how to say this New Year, 2010.
Some are saying twenty-ten, and others are saying two thousand ten.
I do believe either is correct…but this conversation could last until 2011, LOL!

Who cares accept the banks for what you write on your checks, but not many of us use that form of payment these days. I don’t know about you but I have been paying all my bills online for the last several years, and I use a debit card for most other things even groceries. I enter all transactions on my computer when I arrive home and verify them nearly daily online with my bank; very careful and to the penny I am happy to say!
The only thing that irks me is that even when we do our own personal banking shopping what-have you electronically and just about immediately, when it comes to a return monies transaction it takes them, the other party you dealt with sometimes takes days or even weeks to correct theirs! Why is that?

Another unanswered or perhaps just a rhetorical question to ponder… on that moment of wonderment I will bid you a good night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Happy New Year's Eve Peeps!

And I wish it to all who have already celebrated the New Year, most likely on the other side of the world, to make this new one happier and healthier than all the previous ones. Let’s face it; anything will have to be more prosperous, right?

Although, we did survive, and I know many of you did too.
Our New Year, 2010, sounds so science fictionish doesn’t it?
What we all have to do more than make up resolutions is just to have a definite game plan for all we do in the coming year.
Be it, saving money, finding that job, trying to get necessary things accomplished to make things better for you and your family, whatever.
Planning a way to tackle the jobs is always better than going into anything without thinking it out, but always remember to throw in some fun too!
And so that is the best way to change things on a personal level.

Being happy is something all of us should strive for, and I am not saying that the way to become happier is to immerse ones self in materialistic garb, oh no!
Read a funny article or book, see a funny sitcom or movie, and yes it is all right to watch the boob tube, I won’t tell that you aren’t reading constantly or looking only at PBS, how informative, but dull at times, anyway.
We all need to keep our funny bones primed, and enjoy more of the simple things in life.

When was the last time you watched a sunrise or a sunset?
Did you know that tonight will be our second full moon for this month, December, and that it only occurs 7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle that we have two full moons in one month! How about that friends, amazing, and free too!

Now to appreciating the fact that when we awake every morning, we awake!
We get out of our beds, and yes we have beds, and that we get out of them, wow, aren’t we lucky?
I also know that when I open my refrigerator door that usually there is some food in there, wow, on that!
I turn on the faucet and the water comes out, boy is that great or what?

And so when you do your own tally on what amazes you too and that you have taken for granted, remember not everyone in this world has what you have, so think about that, and smile, a big stupid one, and then promise to volunteer so others can be as lucky and happy as you are!

Happy New Year and ponder about your good life, and I will wish you all a good night, and remind us all to count those blessings and we will too!

Global really warming? and Are you getting old when you fear the stranger at the door?

I think that we may have to revisit that possibility of Global Warming concept.
Why, you logically ask concerned for my universal awareness bone?
Well, lately I don’t know if it’s just me, but I truly doubt it, it has been downright chilly down here in the southland, don’t all you locals think so too? Now I can be wrong, I’ve been wrong before, but I feel like a liar with my come on down attitude for the warmth here. Hear me out… this morning and for honestly the last few days it has been running in the forties in the A.M.! But of course it has warmed up to the sixties or low seventies, but still, for our southwest standards that is way colder than I can remember in years gone by living here.
I mean the news vine has also reported that you northerners are having records broken with your snowfall! Now does that sound hot to you? Sorry, Paris Hilton to use your fabulous word that means something entirely different, here I do mean air temperature, not a body/ person or object sexually superior, OK? Clarification is always absolutely necessary when speaking on the world arena, right?
Al Gore you are one of my all time heroes and I am not trying to counter any of your scientific discoveries, but I am just voicing my inadequacies to understand just how this Global Warming really works, and yes I saw your film, and the glaciers melting, but still these other things do confuse, and I am sure not just me that’s all I am going to say.

Now to the other part of tonight’s title, the fear of the stranger at the door, and its meaning that you are getting old, another yesterday item I forgot to discuss. My answer to myself is eyesight, and stupidity. I could not see who was at our door, but that I got a glimpse that it appeared it was a male, and this was from one room away, and instinctively I called out the back door to Hubby to answer it, since I was sitting here at the computer and the fact that we rarely get uninvited guests knocking on our door on any given afternoon, one can never be too careful, can one? And so I shouted out I’ll be there in a minute, which was not at all true since it was actually Hubby who was there in a few minutes.
Relief when the door was opened and it was our across the street our own resident female gay neighbor and her Mom and Dad from Pittsburgh, she had wanted us to meet them, and she brought holiday cookies too!
Of course when we get any company these days I am a bit like Skipper very excited to see them. Oh I don’t jump on them like he does oh no I just talk their heads off with excited joy! We were able to manage to entertain them with a tour of our palatial quarter acre and homestead. Oddly enough they did appear impressed, which was nice. I offered drinks, tea, coffee or soda, but no takers, but they did need one thing from us and we were able to oblige, to print out the boarding passes for their leaving earlier today, and I was overjoyed with that ability to be helpful. It was the least I could do after torturing them with incessant talking. Oh well, such is me.

Good night to all and to count those blessings and we will too!