Chilling and willing...

Yep that is what I said!
Why the kids use that expression, and do they have an exclusive on that?
No, I don’t think so.
For us oldies but goodies it means the same thing to relax and kick back.

The willing part is just me being a wee bit silly tonight since our local station is running one of those contests to win a battery digital seven inch color TV for emergencies and I finally got into the game today to enter it.
Waiting is like any waiting one might do, and so far no news is not such good news, since winners are contacted daily, and so far I haven’t heard a thing.
They notify you by email or by calling and nope not a thing….yet!
And this game is on for the next two months, but the difficult part is you must watch and listen from five A.M. to seven A.M every weekday morning until June fourth!
I do watch the news every morning and on that particular channel, NBC out of Ft. Myers, but my times of waking up fluctuate.
I have a wild wake up schedule from the wee hours like three A.M. to as late as eight A.M.!
So you can see my problem the word given is randomly said and shown during those two hours!
I just went to their site and sadly, no it wasn’t me today!
But I do have some time as long as I get those words daily!

Most people are probably wondering why I am so competitive for such a small item that probably isn’t all that expensive, but oh contraire they do go for more than a hundred bucks in some brands. The fun is in winning I suspect since I don’t really know though since I could probably count on one hand how many times that I have won something over the years. The other reason I would like to win is because the contest is going right into the beginning of our hurricane season being that it ends on June fourth, and the season begins on the first of June, and usually by then the stores have all sold out!
I know now that you are all saying; what’s the big deal?
Well, our little battery TV that I used during the Hurricane Charley hours was the reason I knew what to do and when to do it!
And it won’t work now due to it not being a digital TV its junk now thanks to that modern better gem of an idea called digital TV!
I know you are all saying battery radios work for us now still and are for that too!
But I am still a very visual, hands on type of learner, and it was good to see just where it was and when it was coming here, got it?
I do believe that that little TV may have saved our lives!

On that note of you all hopefully cheering me on in this venture I will wish you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

PS So far no oil or smells here ….yet!
We are way far south of all that being here in south west Florida, but we are on the Gulf of Mexico quite south of where the spill actually is!
Let’s hope they fix the problem before it does its worse.

Salvaged fish and colorful ideas...

When we bought this priceless diamond in the rough nearly eleven and half years ago it was quite something!
I am speaking of our current home and final stop in life.
First of all the entire block structure and surrounding foundation, carport even its rafters, its floor and our cement path from our front door and even the patio was painted a vivid sky blue.
Now ordinarily I am a big fan of blue, why it’s my favorite color even, but the expression too much of a good thing comes to mind…
And this particular home had been used as a rental for eight years so it was in a major need of mucho TLC!

The backyard was so overgrown you could not find the canal; it was a literal jungle back there. But we Hubby and I could see its potential.
In good old NJ we had owned brand new homes, one a condominium townhouse and then our five bedrooms bi-level that we had physically built ourselves.

On the other coast we had had two homes that we renovated one with an addition nearly as big as this whole house we are now in!

So we knew what we wanted and when we saw it in our vision we knew what could come of it.

Prior to Hurricane Charley we had stuccoed the exterior over the block and had it painted in Navajo tan, had the jalousie windows replaced with wind resistant to 140 MPH’s modern ones. The carpeting also blue was replaced with wood floors, enclosed the carport into a garage, broke through the interior wall in our foyer to make the laundry an indoor one, and we had replace the water heater, stove, and refrigerator all before we got hit.
Hubby built a matching to our home long narrow shed adjacent to the garage forming a courtyard on that side. And we had done extensive landscaping and Grandfathered in our new seawall, dock and boat lift that were only slight remnants showing. And Hubby made me that octagon white lattice gazebo I have mentioned before. We also added two additional metal twin sheds in the backyard for our overflow of stuff!
One blue tiny shed had been on the side and was falling apart and when the sturdier ones replaced that its contents were moved, and I found a small treasure, a leaded glass panel, which I have painted twice in different colors over the years and it hangs in our living room looking very antiquey. In the laundry, which had consisted of two over size not working well washer and dryer they were replaced with a stackable set allowing for many cabinets and more storage, but in that room we found a couple of more treasures that were used and we still have! The old shelves Hubby made into a book case and that sits in our guestroom, two wall hanging white plaster fish that have been painted bright colors and hang outside in our lanai!
They hadn’t been painted by me in the last maybe ten or more years until yesterday and they are bright and cheerful once again hanging out there!

I enjoy and love remembering simple things in life and seeing how much we accomplished twice mind you due to the hurricane! I tease people when we go to those home shows that we only redecorate due to natural disasters, not so funny you say, yes I more than agree.
I suppose it could be considered a distant memory of all that horror, since it is nearly six years now but in reality it is still so fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday.

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

My observations about organized religions and love as it pertains to the human populace...

Being of the straight hetero type species I feel my life is not too difficult far as the relationship understanding goes. I love Hubby and he loves me, and that is that our extreme differences are not blatant to the world but we have many or at least we did when we first met nearly forty-three years ago.
Oddly enough we are both Caucasian and Hubby is a male and I am a female, simplicity and quite evident at a glance that anyone can see.
But in reality he was raised a Catholic with a Lutheran father and I was raised a Jew with two parents of that faith.
His family seemed to favor the GOP, Republicans and mine the Democrats.
His Mom was a divorced and a single parent and mine were married.
He had two siblings a few years apart from him in either direction while I had only a half brother nineteen years older.
But none of those differences were for the world to see but as you can tell they were vast and extreme.
This coming February we will be married forty years and to me that seems to be something quite special and amazing in this day and age of the divorce rate being so very high, but you know something we love each other and no one can take that away from us and I bet none of you would even have the nerve to suggest such a thing.

It is true that over the years we have more than compromised on those above differences with both choosing not to be religious in any organized one, although I do believe in G-d, Hubby questions his/hers existence.
Politically we have also changed and are registered as non partisan for many reasons since we always vote for the right person not for any one party, and we get much less phone calls that way! LOL

His family is spread far and wide and most of mine has passed away, and sadly they are not in the picture, only fond memories.

There is a reason for all this explaining and now I will tell you why I gave you my background and where my heart is in all this angriness in the world unfairly over PEOPLE being in love with same sex or different races or religions… I say that LOVE is LOVE and all HUMAN BEINGS are entitled to have it!
I am wondering if the ones who think they shouldn’t are ones who don’t have it for themselves and are just JEALOUS! Who knows but having something as special as a loving relationship with anyone is miraculous today, right?
Go for it I say!
Adults who are in a loving relationship should be put up on pedestals for they are the truly lucky ones in the world.
And no one should stop that or prevent that from being a way for all of us to be happy.
More love creates peace!
Now really who could argue that point?
So here I go out on a limb, taking my life in my hands all in the name of ironically the COURAGE CAMPAIGN… below you will see what it is about.
Let’s face it folks if we believe that all men and women are truly created equal this is the epitome of that belief that will back it up! Proving once again that we should not be just all talk and no action…now you can put your mouth where it belongs in the right direction of doing something for your fellow and women peeps!
Get informed and do the right thing that’s in all of your hearts and souls and be heard!

Courage Campaign | President Obama: Sexual orientation should NOT be a factor in selecting a Supreme
www.couragecampaign.org

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

Snoot full?

Our darling little Skipper, our six year old Bichon Frise, just made me laugh!
We have what does look similar to half of a French glass door set for the exit out of our sunroom ( the other is in another location in the same room, but what can I tell you I preferred the wall space!), and he was sniffing in the bottom corner of the door for what reason I have no idea. But I thought that maybe he might have wanted to go out and so I opened the door to allow his exit and he jumped away and came over to this computer chair to take up his usual location lying behind me; its amazing, truly! You see, he has been doing this since he was a pup and at that time I weighed about a hundred pounds, he was just about two or three pounds, he had fit in Hubby’s hat, and since…well, let me put it to you this way I am nearly twice the woman I once was and he is about fifteen pounds and he still finds the room to lie in that restricted space! LOL

Today, I had some energy, which unfortunately did not last that long, but I did get outside under the lanai to help Hubby redo three planters that were out there and that were root bound.
They are the long window box type planters, in fact they used to be surrounding the octagon shaped lattice gazebo that Hubby had built prior to Hurricane Charley, but sadly Chuck blew it away!
Oddly enough the containers remained. And so they fit quite nicely on the shelf like ledge in our patio lanai area and had been there since.
Hubby rolled over the wheel barrow and the containers were all dumped, and the evidence of the root bounding up was extreme. Salvation of a few plants that seemed healthy was our objective and to shake the soil from them and break up the massive mess, which we did and amended it with potting soil and top soil as well as slow release fertilizer and mixed it all together in the wheel barrow. The best of the mothers- in –law tongue, wandering Jew plants and aloe were saved to transplant into the healthier environment. They were watered well and look great! The cost was zip, zero, zilch, nothing, since we had everything including the shards that were placed in the bottom of the long narrow planters for appropriate drainage.

We did have a heck of hefty nasty storm during last night and a bit of this morning too…Hubby slept through the whole thing while I was up and a nervous wreck around three in the morning. The nerves were due to the tornado watches that were coming over the airwaves. Plus I am not fond of thunder and lightening at all. Lightening is wild by itself but put it together with my concerns over having eye flashes and you got one confused worried woman with eye problems that she’s not sure are happening, got that? Well, today I can still see out of the eye that I really was getting those flashes in; did I mention that they actually started before the storm?

I’m no fool and the fact that I saw on the news that horror just a few days ago in Mississippi was all enough to keep me not in any sleeping mode!
Tornados are so ominous since you have little or no warning usually!
Here in Florida it is a rare home to have a basement unlike the mid-west or up north.
So escaping from one of those scary wind tunnels takes a bit of figuring out, look for a room without windows, or go under something strong with a mattress or some other such thing over you for protection, when outside they say to hide in a ditch, now where would one find a ditch when out and about? Do you understand why the fear of something like that is so deservingly frightening?

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

Sleep is not always what it's cracked up to be...

How many of you have had a nap recently on a Sunday afternoon?
I hear you, and you are saying just a few of us can say we have, mostly because my readership is quite diverse in age ranges… Ha, I’m just guessing folks!

Anywho, back to the topic of napping, if you have had a recent one the question is: how long did you sleep for?
The recommended time is only a half an hour, did you know that?
Well, according to the medicos any longer is detrimental to your well being.
Supposedly it can cause strokes in the elderly or some such other nonsense.
All I know if I sleep too long I wake up with a heck of a headache like I did today!
For some reason I was blinking off while trying to read my new book by Dan Brown, ‘Deception Point’ , copyright 2001, new to me not to him. In case any of you don’t know this author, which I truly doubt he is the one who wrote a little novel called the ‘DaVinci Code’?

It wasn’t the story putting me to sleep just me being extremely exhausted from the late night of watching ‘Avatar’ on our movie night last night a two hour and forty minute marathon movie; I suspect and so by one P.M. I realized I no longer could keep my peepers open and succumbed to heading to the bedroom for a few winks of blessed rest.
The next thing I knew it was 2:24 P.M.!
And Hubby was in his usual reading location out on the lanai and oblivious to my length of time in oversleep! To his good he did say he checked on me only fifteen minutes before, but didn’t want to disturb me!

My head has been pounding ever since I awoke, and I must admit I tried an afternoon cup of java to help me out of this stupor I felt like I was in although the pounding is persisting, the dullness of lethargy has subsided fortunately.

Friday night we had another movie night too, and showing that evening was the flick, Crazy Heart.

Can we talk? You know I love Jeff Bridges to bits and he deserves to win anything that the academy feels he should but you know the hype on his film and Avatar sort of left me with strange feelings of emptiness. I guess it could be me, and probably is, with me just expecting more, but most of the world got what they expected, right? And I am NOT by any means or should be by any means a film critic although I am a critic of just about everything in every medium form…If you know what I mean? LOL Enough said, right?

Dear Mississippians please know that we send our love and concern and condolences to all of you, nature’s wrath seems to be unrelenting this year again!

On that note of fear of what the rest of this year has in store for us … I will wish you all a good night and to all count those blessings and we will too! Think positive happy thoughts.

Home and Garden and Eco Shows today!

We had the fortitude to wander out into the world today, our own microcosm world that is.
Our event’s center, just over the bridge had its annual or bi-annual home and garden show, and our fishville, down the way from said center, had its ecological display show, combined they were both intoxicating enough to keep us entertained for over four whole hours!

Doesn’t take much I hear you all yelling!
I have one word to say to you, and it is …HA!
Hubby was primarily hoping to get a few more ideas on how to repair our leaky solar panels, since our usual method has stopped doing the trick, and a fine temporary trick it was, using E6000 adhesive.
But alas it no longer appears to work.
I have no idea if it’s just too many holes or the quality of them, but Hubby says we need to replace them, and boy that is not a cheap procedure!


But at the Eco Show over at Fishville today we may just have the right company for the job who just might be able to make our whole heating/air-conditioning, water heater and pool pay for themselves and pay us back too in the process with a federally funded solar system! To me, the skeptic it sounds too good to be true, but Hubby feels otherwise. And so he may have them come over to crunch the numbers on site, long as that’s a freebie its OK I suspect. The company is out of Sarasota and they are called Florida Solar Power: www.fspg.com, how original, now I ask you? If nothing else that makes them not difficult to remember. The absolute idea is to make enough power to sell back to the power company and receive a check back at the end of the year! The reality is though that we will not be taxed on the additional value this will increase our home to or even see higher utility bills. They could be as much as half of what we have now; see that’s why I said sounds too good to be true. They laughed when I mentioned when would we see it pay for itself…I kiddingly said that our sons will see it after we were long gone from this earth, and they did not disagree…well, we will see what we will see.
No harm to crunch the possibilities, since we have been told that there will be no out of pocket expenses either.

We did eat lunch at the fish market there at Fishville and again had a delicious meal with me having the crab salad and Hubby having a blackened Grouper sandwich with onion rings, iced tea with lemon for me and coffee for him.

So diner was simple back at home with just leftovers for sandwiches that hit the spot.

All in all the day was pleasant, who could complain, who would listen anyway! LOL

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

Fly me to the moon!

Living in the south has it's attributes, many which I have expressed with much enthusiasm and gusto utilizing this Blog for that praise but on some occasions, not too many, we do have annoying flying insects that were placed here by whomever that man/woman almighty for what reasons we have yet to determine. If you had been wondering of which tiny critter I was speaking of; why it is the fly, one of the ones that is universal, not unlike the cockroach.

Damp, moist or dusty weather seems to attract these species of non necessity to the world?
And most of you thought it was just garbage, horse barns, dead matter or feces, etc., eh?
Nah, cleanliness is next to godliness so it is said but flies don’t seem to care that your garbage is contained and covered tightly, and your yard is un-littered of doggy dos and as far as you know nothing has passed away recently in that yard; at least we can’t locate anybody!

Flies spread disease and to me they are just yucky, sorry to get so technical.
And unfortunately or perhaps fortunately they are actually prevalent here at this time, and are not a portion of my eye disorders symptoms, they are way too big to blame on a vitreous humor tear!

For those of you who believe in reincarnation I will now request you to not look at these next few sentences, since you will feel the need to accuse me of murder!

For that is just what I did today, my count for those little insect critters deaths is now up to seven, for just today! Horrifying, when you think that was just the ones inside of our home, since Hubby does go in and out constantly and Skipper does too!

My method for the kill is to wait until they are on a window or the floor and then wham bam thank you ma’am or sir, I really don’t know how to tell, but just to add to my murderous behavior I do hope it was the females, squash those breeders!
I am proud to say it worked today for me those seven times.
The weapon of choice has been the all utilitarian swatter of yore but if in a bind tissues suffice rather nicely without getting you full of the squishy guts.
Flushing the remains is my way of disposal.

I am not a hired gun and you may try my methods at home if you care or dare to…let’s face it whatever works!

Who would have thunk it that I would dedicate an entire Blog to those adult maggots!
Yep, that is what they are!

Sorry, don’t get nightmares from reading all this, but do try to have a very good night and count those blessings and we will too!