Hello? Are we there tonight?

Was that an attention getter?

Now I would like for all the people in Tennessee to know that all our hearts here in Florida and elsewhere in the country want you all to know that we would like to know what we could do to help you?
I had been to Nashville in 2005 and loved that place it was great; a fond memory.

We as a nation have so much daily to contend with due to all these natural disasters, now Oklahoma too in the disaster mix, needing help!
But we Americans are a ‘can do’ type of people and so I truly believe that where there is a will there is always a way!
And so I suggest that all non-profit organizations: Red Cross ( actually I am sure they are already there) and the such and people out of work who need to find their own way in life might find solace in helping others and go up there to be of assistance.
Go with supplies from local groceries, home centers, etc. and notify the media that help is needed! You will be surprised how they go out of their way when you just ask.
When you help others you help yourselves; just do it!
We did over the years and human nature is truly amazing when given the chance to help.In actuality you get so much more back when you help others.

For us on the Gulf Coast, plan B is in the works with the latest method for capping off the oil leak has begun with what they call a top hat, pray it works folks!
This is not by any means a natural disaster and affects all of the country not only our local shore lines. From oil and seafood prices and the quality of nature in our estuaries and all other tributaries such as the Mississippi River; these millions of gallons of spilled crude oil is an absolute gargantuan disaster, which has been continuing since April 20th.
Don’t forget those eleven who died immediately from this one too!
And has been a slow-mo catastrophe for the rest of us to watch in shock with little ability to do anything, the idiotic topper now is that the companies are all passing the buck in the blame game, BP, Halliburton, and Transocean Ltd. who are the culprits who are responsible. Hopefully they will do the right thing, own up to their responsibility and pay for this horrendous mess!

Anywho…
We had that appointment today with the solar people, and it appears to be doable.
How it works is that you get the system installed and pay it off from the monies you would have been paying for your electric bill, which should be zeroed out from the system or be in your favor for about twenty or thirty bucks a month paying you back until the initial cost of the system is paid off and then you will be off the grid, greenly speaking, and then you will receive bigger bucks, got that? And this is the system for the hot water heater, whole house electric and the swimming pool! Whoa alternative energy what a concept!

Update: My mysterious rash has gone as mysteriously as it had appeared thankfully no additional intervention needed!

I think that’s it for tonight folks and so I will wish you all a very good night and suggest you count those blessings and we will too!

Mysterious rash on both upper arms and plotting a get together!

Many of you, at this point may have come to the conclusion that I am either crazy or brilliant!
Working off of those two with no in between possibilities I will now let you in on this most recent symptom.
Sunday, after my poolie exercise routine and before my BIG day out I found a disturbing rash, for lack of a better word, on my upper left arm.

It appeared to be an allergic reaction to possibly something.
And since I was using a new sunscreen I thought maybe that could be it, but the fact that it was only in one location that idea didn’t wash, if you know what I mean?
Racking my brain for other probabilities I said to myself, self perhaps Skipper did have fleas after all and when he was in the pool with me they jumped off of him and on to me!

Nah, we couldn’t find even one on him although Hubby sprayed him with the flea spray last night. Today he went in for his grooming experience and we asked the professionals there to see if he had any, and they again said no that they couldn’t find any!
And I had proceeded to go into our pool once again today, and now this is crazy I have the same odd rash on my right upper arm too!
Well, it stung so much I have no idea what it is but I couldn’t stay in the pool any longer, and asked Hubby to test the chemicals, since last week the chlorine was too high he had lowered it and now with his new test it was registering too low.

The pool had just been vacuumed and appears to the naked eye like crystal clear water, but who knows, really what microscopic critters may be abounding within.
Anywho, I read online that what it appears I have is some type of insect bites that I should treat with hydrocortisone, which I fortunately had in the house!
They have calmed down considerably since treatment, and hopefully I will not need any medico’s intervention.

Have you ever missed people of like mindedness that you yearned to chat and network with on so many diverse topics of common interest?
Well, my writer’s workshop peeps from years ago are in that mode of possibility, and have indicated it might come to fruition!
We all have been somewhat scattered to the winds, speaking figuratively of course.
In actuality only one has returned from some distance, the leader of the pack, so to speak, the Prof, college English that is, of the group, and the rest of us are the somewhat educable peeps of learning desire.
Barbecue is the topic for the germ of an idea, which I cast into the throws of maybes and what ifs.

The group would be fairly small; about ten in all and the location would be here.
Hubby would be the chef; barbecue being his specialty and also being less worry for me too to do things.
And two lovely peeps have already offered to bring something.
Menu aside, I get all funny when people offer that.
I mean in the respect I don’t know what to say to them, since I am more of a last minute type of Gal never that far ahead prepared for things, spur of the moment is more my style and less stressful!
Too long preparations makes me wacko.
I always want everything perfect, and of course it never is.

The big evening is looking like the end of June the weekend before the holiday weekend.
I will keep you all posted.

On that note of hopeful fun and excitement plans I will bid you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!


PS Sleep tight in your heavenly place Miss Lena Horne your talent and beauty will be sorely missed by all who had the pleasure of seeing it!
She has passed at the age of ninety-two.

Jumping to conclusions and expect the unexpected...is always nice! PS Happy Mother's Day!

You know something I was wrong, yes this woman, AKA Tobi, of many mistakes making daily again was W-R-O-N-G! Today was surprisingly good and nice and pleasant, and not at all sad or miserable.
And I will tell you that that was quite a relief!
Being wrong has its rewards.

Everyone and his Mother knows what today was, oh excuse me for the pun, nah, since today was Mother’s Day!
And somehow in my mind I played it over and over like a broken record why this day was so powerful over me and my past issues of family life and the preconceived notion on how it should all go down to be a successful day, and never ever could be.
That alone should have told me it was doomed for failure.

But as I said when beginning this rant that again I was proven wrong!
Let me start at the beginning, OK?

Sadly I awoke before five A.M. expecting magically I know not what.
Oh yes I do, a pile of Mother’s Day cards littering our dinette table.
Or at least some emails from my sons telling me how much they love me and that they were on their way to visit and that we would all go out to brunch!
I know only in the movies, huh?

But Hubby is the one who changed/saved the day for me!
When he awoke he uncovered the pool so I could take an early dip, but then made breakfast for me!
While he was sleeping I was able to finish the second of the double header of movies we were watching last night but I was unable to stay awake for. The line up had been, ‘Nine’ and then ‘The Tooth Fairy’. With the second one being the one I fell asleep on, and so this morning in the wee hours I watched that.

After my morning pool exercises and shower and dressing, but of course you knew that; we got into the car and went over to Fishville to see the Arts and Crafts Show and have some lunch at our favorite waterside fish restaurant. We both had the lobster casserole, a new dish on the menu and it came with their delish Cole slaw and our choice of a second side which happened to be the house salad for us both! Hubby had coffee and I had my unsweet iced tea, same as usual.
But let’s face it, it was a special occasion! And believe it or not; that lunch was not that dear in price for what we got, and was worth every cent.
I felt as special as the meal.
What did you expect at this size?
Food is my diamond necklace!
And when you stop that nasty habit of smoking everything tastes that much better!

Wait... there is more!
Hubby bought me an orchid, a beautiful lavender colored one that came with instructions how NOT to kill it!
I always wanted one and so at only eight bucks we went for it!
After a few more short stops, including one at the bakery section of the best grocery in the south, Publix where Hubby purchased a doubled fudge chocolate cake. I hear you saying: how decadent of you both!

Wait there’s more: When we got home we still had one flick left to see in our rentals and since it was in to the ninety degree temps outside and so we sat back in our air-conditioning, relaxed and watched, Its Complicated, and it was good too!


Come on folks, you know he had that big job of making this day a VERY HAPPY ONE!
He succeeded and do you know what the icing on the cake was actually?
Our son, the elder one, that I thought would forget to call, well he didn’t!
Of course the hole in my heart from the other one not, is still in my heart, but I guess you could say I am batting in the fifty percentile and that aint too bad, huh?
Nah, I’ll take it!

Hope that all you Moms out there too had a VERY Happy Day!

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

Anticipation and when 'Happy' means more than that!

I will take the last topic first, if you all don’t mind, do you?
Since I can’t hear you; I will take it that you don’t, mind that is. LOL
Anywho, the other day I saw that a new magazine had made it’s debut last month with an amazing name that makes you think that all there is to it is goodwill and good cheer and great times, fun, you name it in any very positive way, attitude or concept in publishing and it is called ‘Happy’!

Simplicity at its most simple and finest I think you will all agree.
And so being the mood swing maven that I am I thought wow something to promote my emotional well being, and oddly enough I can think of about a dozen close and thousands of not so close people that I know who would benefit from that very worthwhile notion also!

These people from this magazine sound like they are really on to something and it could be really BIG, humongous BIG!
Starting this magazine when the world is in turmoil, people are loosing money, homes and jobs, sounds just like what the doctor ordered to bring back mental stability!
Now if we can just get everyone to read it, then the world would definitely be a better place, and so I am dedicating these paragraphs to that new less than a month old avenue to upbeat thinking and I will also include right here and right now how to get there from here, right here and right now! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Happy-Magazines/117580634934467?v=desc#!/pages/Happy-Magazines/110944588937886?ref=ss
I suppose you will have to copy and paste it, the above site that is.

Part two of my title which in actuality was stated in part one, got it?
Doesn’t matter I will continue anyway, you know why? Since I can’t hear you! LOL
I believe the word for the day is ‘anticipation’, ah what a troublesome word that can be at times, you know why? Never mind, I still can’t hear you and please stop shouting! LOL!

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and for all you Moms out there have a very happy and healthy and loving day! I truly mean that with all my heart.

But for me it is a horrible reminder of the day that my father died, May 11, 1986 and that was Mother’s Day that year, and that my Mom has long passed away back in 1982, and that one out of two of my sons is estranged from us, not by my doing, since I still love all my children and the other is working again on the holiday and probably will forget to call since he does forget often, unless he is dating a family oriented woman, which he is not. These are facts, not by any means anger, actual sadness.
Not to mention the fact that Hubby’s Mom is now under the control of his sister and is probably put away or if we call or send anything it would have been confiscated.
This is not imagination, because for her short time of being coherent during this recent dementia, when asked if she had received this or that she had said that she never did, and we did send her cards and gifts often! Calling her does not register anymore either, because she forgets who we are or that we did. And traveling there is way too far with her in Pennsylvania and us here in Florida. Her daughter is five miles away, or closer, who knows anymore.

Darn, I am so sorry for this Debbie Downer talking but you know me…
On a not so tragic note, Hubby has plans for me tomorrow and I will let you all know if they do come to fruition, but I know him to be a man of his word!
So there I go with anticipation of something good or great happening and you know something… I bet it will!
Let’s play pretend for a second, OK? I can’t hear you, but that’s OK, I know you are all there.

My perfect Mother’s Day would be having my Hubby and both our sons and their families here to celebrate and we could be like the rest of all of you, happy! That’s crazy I know, but it would be all I could ever want to have them here and to be the best family ever!

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

Smelly, nausea, cancer driven globs of disaster filled black guck!

Oh the joy of our futures, or maybe NOT!
The dome that is a one hundred ton box has just made the news and is in place over the oil leak!
And they did it earlier than expected too!
We have something wonderful to look forward to if it should work!
Our wildlife and beaches will be saved, hooray!
In order to be a voluntary help you must get certification to clean up what has already been spilled, but many areas offer the training and if you so desire to be involved check with your local EOC, here in Florida try this site: http://www.floridadisaster.org/ , for more information.

Closer to home, actually only a few canals away from our home, yesterday, somehow, some idiot, now you may think that is too harsh but wait until you hear this, some idiot dumped raw sewage down our local Fordham waterway! Our beach complex is over there, and now on this heat seeking missile, heat wave, Mother’s Day Holiday, of a weekend those people not as fortunate as us with pools, haven’t the option of going there to chill! Just horrible! The water was immediately tested and yes, the bacteria levels are high and unsafe, just dreadful! Humans sadly make too many ecological mistakes that we all suffer from. We must all be more aware of those choices, please world think before you act.
What could this person have been possibly thinking?
It boggles the mind; ever hear of a pump truck?
It had to be where there are still people with septic tanks and now with the cost of everything being so high didn’t know what else to do, at least that might be the possible scenario, since I hate to think that they just thought it was a good idea to get rid of the problem to dump human waste in our pristine water of our harbor.
I guess we are just fortunate that we are on both city water and sewers.

Anywho, I was back in the pool again and the temperature was bathtub warm, actually a few degrees warmer than the morning air, would you believe?
The contrast of water to air temps this morning made for a foggy eerie London-like morning!
In fact I took a picture of the sun coming up in the fog, which I emailed to the meteorologist at our local NBC TV station and it was shown on that station this morning with my name mentioned for the credit! Now if I get a few more thousand of those I could…. What could I do? LOL

Tiger Woods made the cut to play this weekend in the Players Championship! It would be too sad for that gift of golf he has had to also have been lost in the shuffle of all his horrendous mistakes. Everyone needs something to build on to make a worthwhile comeback! People are worth getting a second chance, and a third if necessary…

Scare in Times Square again, but fortunately this one that had to evacuate all the people again for more blocks and hours was a non issue since the canvas bag cooler that was of concern was only full of water bottles, thankfully!

On that less controversial note of happenings I will wish you all a very lovely good night and to ask you to count those blessings and we will too!

Wow what a ride! And I thought roller coasters were only in amusement parks!

Did you watch the stock market today?
What a ride, huh?
Not for the feint hearted.
Happy that we are no longer involved.
Too many losses for us way back in the ’89 crash!

In a way that was a good thing that we were already poor when the economy tanked this time and so we didn’t lose anything! LOL, not really… losing some bucks would have been nice to be able to have a bit of complaining rights, but alas we don’t!
And as far as the housing market goes we bought our little gem of a retirement home back in 1998 cheap and before that also went under with our definite scaling down mantra in place, due to; lesser income and my ills since I was not working by then for four years already and Hubby was a rookie cop for those first few years, and salaries were disgracefully pitifully low, now I believe they start them much higher; at least I do hope so!

Anywho, we managed and eventually adjusted to our living and learning that less was a fine manageable lifestyle and much less stressful!

When we were younger we had the big home and everything anyone could want and our sons never needed anything, since they too had it all.
I suppose the fact that they were both well educated and on their own by the time we scaled down made our decision to miniaturize our lives that much easier.

Oh don’t get me wrong we are still living large by many people’s standards.
And we are just right for us and have more than enough for what our daily needs require.
Few get the idea of the simple life being that.
But we did.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty the expression goes, and for once I suppose that’s exactly what this all is.

I’m not bragging, no, I am thinking out loud and thankful for we have made way too many mistakes in our lives over the nearly forty years of our marriage.
For once this seems to have been all our right choices.
Boy, could I tell you stories of all those past wrong choices and maybe I will if the trauma of them hasn’t blocked them all from my mind.

Who knows some day I may just write all those horrendous recalls down in this Blog and scare the pants off of you all!

And so when I say I can appreciate the situations of others in those difficulties I am speaking from my heart and soul and personal knowledge of those experiences.
Our lives have not been that dissimilar to our stock market’s; and that’s no exaggeration believe me!

On that intriguing closing sentence I will bid you all a very good night and suggest for you all to count your blessings and we will too!

PS Did you all hear? The latest idea to handle the oil spill is to form oil boom posses with boaters joining the water brigade; not too farfetched and could work!

Cinco de Mayo Amigos!

Hola!

Hope yours will only get better as the day goes on…

Since we are not much for going out at night we decided to do lunch and while we did not go to the Chihuahua fast food place we did go to another chain of a wee bit higher caliber, no offense to the other; a Southwest cuisine was in the offering at this particular one.

And so when in doubt order chicken, right?
Mine was basically arroz con pollo, chicken and rice but jazzed up with lotsa of this and that. I think there were anywhere from two types of beans to three to five different types of hot peppers, hmm I was in my glory, how I do love them and also other salad type items served in a bowl. Hubby had two chicken tacos and both meals came with Tostitos and they also had a bar like area that provided you with your choice of salsas. I had my iced unsweet tea and hubby had his soda and all of these satisfying yummies for would you believe, less than ten bucks! Ah fast food… can’t beat it in a crunch or for lunch or a hunch; sorry for the Doctor Seuss-isms, nah they were actually quite enjoyable. LOL

Got to wear my new outfit purchased yesterday, I think it’s the first time in years that Hubby and I looked like we might be together since I was back in my jeans jumper and gauzy blouse, and he in his jean shorts and striped denim shirt. I think we looked similar.

After lunch we opted for stopping by the home warehouse store. Hubby wanted to check some prices on a possible project. You see… years ago way back in New Jersey he built for our swimming pool up there a solar panel and made one for our neighbor too, way back in the 1980’s, and this neighbor who I still keep in contact with by email said that his still works!

Hubby is somewhat of a Rube Goldberg with the fact that he has used unconventional items to make things that we need or just might like, thus being the ultimate recyclers.
And so with that in mind he did his own financial feasibility study to see if it was not only possible but financially practical in cost effectiveness to make another homemade solar panel for our use once again.
Hubby had eight years of drafting and five years of engineering, and you thought he was just another pretty face, ha!

Although, we do have those professional solar people coming to crunch their numbers this coming Tuesday, but you know the saying if it sounds too good to be true...then it most likely is! They promise no out of pocket monies up front, and so we are putting together a back up plan. With this summer/heat wave hitting us now the pool doesn’t need them but since it is my only decent form of exercise this is for those three or four months that I can’t use the pool!
Last year was my longest swim season ever from April to November with just the un-leaky solar panels and the solar blanket, but now the panels are toast.
And so our do-it-yourself mode has kicked in.
But we will hear them out those pros; maybe it will be true and possible.

We are not newbies off a turnip truck as I have said before so we will keep level heads in our decisions.

On that note I will bid you a very festive night if you so choose and count those blessings and we will too!