Ahhhhhhhhhhhh Florida!

Taking advantage of the beautiful sunny Florida 80’s weather?

Good.

We again are back to how Florida should be.

Our overnight temperatures are now, once again in the 60’s with the last two days in those 80’s.

So come on down!

Or come on over?

Feel free to visit?

No one will complain about these temperatures of Fahrenheit numbers anywhere in this vast world.

Oh I suppose some might complain; those who call themselves lovers of the cold snowy weather.

But we do have some of the most beautiful beaches in America: http://time.com/3713884/tripadvisor-best-beaches-2015/

And our weather for the better part of this year is on its way to continue with only perfection in its several long months’ view.

Our weather is the main reason tourists come here and then decided to move here as either permanent residents or snowbirds, six months up north in the summer and six months down here in their winter.

Oh you all knew that, hmm?

Well, what are you waiting for, there are still a whole bunch of good buys, but not for long.

Nah, who I am kidding they’re still building new homes all over the place.

But the better deals are on the older homes in established neighborhoods.

In all the forty-four years of marriage and in those years owning five homes over all those years this is the first home that we have been in the longest, going on seventeen years, and our third in Florida!

Tell you something?

Who knows what?

Any-who, living these last couple of decades, yep, we are going on our third here… has been mostly wonderful.

One hurricane out of twenty-eight nearly twenty-nine years is not that bad.

Are you superstitious?

I am not really, oh okay, just a wee bit.

About being thankful that it has been nearly eleven years since we had a direct hit from any hurricanes; and so I really don’t want to anger the bad weather gods, would you?

Oh sure, you are all dealing with dreadful weather in our three quarters of the United States to our north and west and it has been a deadly winter for you too, so our thoughts of nasty weather in the south seems frivolous to even consider.  Oh don’t get me wrong I get it and worry for all you up and out there, but the offer still sticks, “Come on down!”

Plenty of room in our hotels/motels and B & B’s too.

You didn’t think I meant here with us, oh dear no.

There used to be a time that it would have been the case when I was younger and healthier I would say sure!

We can all go out to lunch or you can ride on our boat or use our pool, but even though we still have room for quite a few, about six with two sofa beds and a guest-room. But I don’t believe I could treat you how you would be better treated by professionals, ya know?

We do have that advantage of living close to entertainment, including beaches, all with in a ten mile radius.

Think about it and get back to your travel agent, truly more qualified than me to help you find a good place to rest your head at night, since during the day you will be going, going, going!

On that cheerful note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS: Authors note/correction: last night I made two slight mistakes, Neil Patrick Harris had never hosted the Oscars before, and the actual show started a eight thirty not eight o’clock, sorry!

Oscars!

Tonight’s 87^th Academy Awards, the Oscars has had a long colorful exciting imaginative and dichotomous history.

And with it again coming of age with a vast culinary choice lists of tasty morsels for every imaginable palate preference and appetite; tonight’s lengthy programming shall be most enjoyable, especially with Neil Patrick Harris once again providing the hosting at 8 P.M EST on ABC.

Don’t forget to be there on all your ABC affiliate stations starting at 7 P.M. EST for the Red Carpet ensembles; always proving to be a show in themselves. “Who are you wearing?” Is not only an odd question in many societies but here/there it is an absolute must know to be in the know!

Many have parties for this yearly event, we do not.

Many have seen ALL of the movies, we have not.

Many know ALL of the competitors at least by sight if not by name or at least by reputation, I can once again say, we do not, not all…

But that doesn’t change a thing for us it is a great way to know what we will be watching in the next several months on our Netflix account, or what we should look for in the near future that comes highly recommended, sort of.

You know what is odd?

As we have gotten older we both agree the ‘R’ rated movies are not for us.

And yes, we both know that most are what “they” are making and some of those are the ones nominated, many of them are…

Gone are the days where regular TV eventually shows the movies in a timely fashion and then all of us would have the PG version that had been edited accordingly without losing any of the content, hmm? I know what a woos, but I have delicate sensibilities, and yes I still cringe at four letter words that are considered cursing, but not as much as I once did, sad.

I miss all of that.

So I will move on due to that bewitching hour arriving very soon for your viewing pleasure.

Below you will find two locations/links on the Academy site for you to peruse: The first is a bit of its history and the second is a list of all nominees!

 http://www.oscars.org/academy-story
 http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2015

Enjoy, and on that note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

What makes a good American?

I have to admit that being born here I take so much for granted, although…having had the advantage of traveling abroad as a young woman it did make me more missing of what we call home, America.

No one has questioned me recently how I think of being an American.

Actually, it has been years, and it was my brother in-law, a Tea Party thought process guy, I think, today as always a far right Republican that always questioned my Liberal ways of thinking.

I met him while still in high school and I am proud to say that my way of thinking then and now has changed very little in what is right or wrong about America.

We all know that many extremist ways of thinking people live here. That is why we refer to them as right or left, odd to me that the most conservative of us are considered “right” thinkers while people like myself are considered “left”, just the idea of those two opposites thinking types makes one seem, by entitlement, being called “right” that they are right, but not by me, got that?

To me it does seem totally wrong that Americans are split into too many extremes, but I do love the fact that we have that, “right”, there’s that word again, hmm?

I suppose being considered on the “left” way of thinking is way better than being called on the “wrong”, although so many on the “right” say that we are!

To anyone not here, i.e. America might be confused now with me talking about rights and lefts in thinking, but believe me when I tell you as an example to think of “right” as very strict parents who’s law is cut and dry, black and white no wiggle room for differences of opinion and “left” parents who say let’s talk about it and truly believe in all matters having grey areas, and that they are open to discussion! Okay, not convinced, free thinkers’ lefties, conventional thinkers’ righties.

And yet some may have a difference of opinion in my simplistic way of trying to make myself clear and they do have that "right", there's that word again, Geez!

Oh, we were talking about, “What makes a good American?”

Sure we all believe in the laws of the land and yet we all interpret them differently, reminds me of the way we all see and read something different in the bible, now that should be bibles, since each religion has their own, don’t they?

But we have very few written down laws of how our government is to be run and sadly, I suppose even though I have visited Washington D.C. many times and studied American History in school I am NOT as knowledgeable as I should be, see being born here kinda makes you forget those things are your responsibility to keep somewhere in your educated brain for future reference, since no one ever knows when you will be quizzed!

Of course not!

I’m not a politician or member of any of the factions that we VOTED in to represent our concerns and biding for us as people of one nation, and yes I will even say under God.

But no one knows that my memory has lapsed due to not using that info as often as perhaps I should be, and having Multiple Sclerosis that affects my brain with lesions causing my cognitive ability to falter, and also having Fibromyalgia causing fibro-fog, as well as being close to sixty-five years young very soon…if I am lucky that is!

We have a wonderful country and since I was lucky enough as a college student to visit many other places in this world I truly missed “my home”, yes America and as Americans it was proven to me just how lucky we are to have what we have…do you really need specificity?

I would not like to compare my needs or precious private feelings with people who live in other lands and LOVE theirs too, and so I will leave that as is, alright?

We Americans are notorious for criticizing others, I really hate to think it is in our make-up of thinking that we are so far superior to others, but at times it can come across like that.

Yes, we are a very proud nation of Americans loving this land of ours and that is the bottom line.

And it annoys me when another American, who has every "right" to speak their mind, but besmirches our president's good name, by saying that he is not a “good” American like the former mayor of NYC Rudy Giuliani had said, and yes he has his right to his opinion but that was very mean spirited to say about our highest office of our land and Rudy would not even apologize and since he IS an American he has that "right" to, not that is.

Being as honest as you can be how many times have you thought about your own imperfections and discussed them, and so our land that we love is NOT perfect either, and there is much room for improvement, but we still, as Americans love this place!

No one and nothing is perfect, correct.

And if not pointed out with what we have to work on to try to achieve betterment of oneself or one’s land how else will anyone know?

I’m just saying…

So in closing, I am an American since the day I was born and before, since both my parents although old had been born here too, 1907 and 1911, respectively.

Their parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and the UK.

They proved to me that voting was one of the very important ways to be a “good” American, and even in college I wrote a paper on giving eighteen year olds the right to vote way back in 1968-69 when the voting age was twenty-one, it was eventually passed in 1972 when I was turning twenty-two, ha!

But somehow that paper in my mind made me list powerful reasonings why people of that age, eighteen, mine at the time should be allowed to vote, most importantly to me at the time was the Viet Nam War where they could die for their country but not vote for their country, and to me that alone was a good enough reason, of course there were many other reasons as well and I know that I listed a boatload of tried and true people in history that also had wanted it to come to pass, like FDR and JFK two of the many presidents who felt as I did. I received an “A” for that paper that I had researched with all my heart as if in a debate proving my point and in the end I did learn a lot. To this day I have voted every time… so I am a GOOD AMERICAN because my vote should count and it does, barring any hanging chads or other ridiculous mistakes by human flaws that are not unlike all Americans since we are all when it comes down to it just mere mortals, at least I know that I am, I suppose some, like Rudy, feel that they are more than that, ha!

On that note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

BRRRRR TOO!

Here's the proof that southwest Florida nearly froze and survived to go on another day!This indoor outdoor unit tells the highs and lows for the day as well as humidity. The bottom number is our indoor temperature and humidity, included is the time of day and date, so there you have my proof! Any-who, we are being told that all is well again, sort of with lows only going into the high forties with afternoon temps in the seventies, whew Florida weather in February, is BACK! By Sunday is still a go for that over eighty temp, hip, hip hooray! (PS for tonight's blog I just hit the lows and highs for the day on the bottom buttons, pretty precarious though I had to snap the pic fast for it wanted to change back to the current temps, and so it took a few times until I could get what I needed for this little ditty of mine for accuracy.)

Oh I almost forgot since this topic appears to be weather related once again, Robert Van Winkle, our senior meteorologist on our local NBC affiliate, hit the nail on the head the other night when he said the rain would be here by seven o'clock......... it sure was, exactly! Oh look at those humidity's, there goes many of yours' theories that Florida is always hot and sticky, hmm!

Oh and by the way by the time I got up it was already going up, it was at thirty-six degrees by then and just before our temperature stated that we are now at sixty! Easy come easy go...thank goodness!

Moving on...

Just the right briskness for Hubby to continue his beautification of our yard.
He had been playing a normal man's version of Edward Scissor hands with trimming and fertilizing all our flora in our overgrown gardens, including our hedges of Plumbagos and hibiscus as well as our bougainvilleas, Scheffleras, ficus, palms, gardenias, dracaenas, citrus etc. so today he took the twelve bags of Cyprus mulch and after he had put down the Preen for any weeds, just like I used to be able to do... it all looks just lovely!

Our time to trim/prune is fine this time of the year with most of our plants semi-dormant but not entirely, since our cold spells are quite short lived. I had inquired years ago, by examining my quite extensive gardening books and when they did not have what I needed at that time I watched local PBS garden shows.
These days since many of my books were destroyed by "the hurricane", I use the county extension people for any questions when the Internet may be too vague, rarely but it does happen. 
We are in what is called zone 10 a semi-tropical/tropical area and so our needs and plants are quite specific to that.
I know boring to many, but not to me.

Just sad that I can no longer do what I so did enjoy due to my inability to handle the extreme temperatures in either direction and endurance of finishing any outdoor project that I might want to begin, since many are quite time consuming.
So Hubby has decided to do it all instead and he has done one hell of a great job!
He actually takes pictures and brings them into me to see all that he has done...

On that note of Geez, another mini wrong turn on the happiness train, but not totally derailed, forgive anyway, and allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

"Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind."

Happy New Year!

For any who wonder it is the Chinese New Year. “2015 is the Year of the Sheep according to Chinese zodiac. The Year of the Sheep starts from Feb. 19, 2015 (the Lunar New Year / Spring Festival of China) and lasts to Feb. 7, 2016.”

That first one is a bit unclear, which was actually the last but the most provocative in my mind, yes my itsy bitsy mind, or is it just me? I suppose it could mean that handling “calamity” is the touchstone of a brave mind. I believe in other words how we handle bad times well means that we are brave?

Moving on to only the second fortune of the three, and yes either end you look at this one it was the second of the three, “Your greatest fortune is the friends and family that you have,” of course!

What would be other than that?

And now for our last which was actually first, “Always a valley before a hill,” could this be a metaphor for not too dissimilar words of wisdom, “it’s always darkest before the dawn,” my Dad’s go to one, or in my simplistic reasoning, “lows before heights are realized?”

Any-who, we decided to, celebrate the Chinese New Year with our usual Chinese food place selections of China City.

It has been a while since we have, weeks I think.

Without leaving the house these last eleven days we have not eaten out at all, and so we have saved quite a bit, but Hubby has been out for groceries just today in fact, but we are good for two weeks now, I think.

It was nice to celebrate sort of.

I am born under the Chinese sign of the Tiger and Hubby is an OX.

Here’s a way to find out yours if you care to and if you don’t already know…http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/zodiac/

Moving on, yes really on…

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, tonight is our night to join the many in the BIG FREEZE! And yep we may very well have freezing temps, although, being on a saltwater canal our chances are lesser due to the canal's water temp still in the mid to upper sixties, even if we go down into the lower freezing thirties it shouldn't be for very long!

Yes, I do know thirty-two is freezing, but here it depends on how long it stays there to cause trouble.

Our groves for citrus inland are all prepared to protect their/our extremely profitable crops! This is historically unusual for it to go this far south, the cold that is. But by tomorrow our highs should go up to a still very chilly sixty degree range. Even with a low of forty-four here last night our high just glanced sixty here for the day! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

It’s cold and NOT what any of us northerners from NJ for us, but others from many places, transplants signed on for all those years ago, it was circa 1986 for us!

We have no blood left for colder temps and at this point in my life and size I don’t even own a winter coat, I usually find layers work, besides by Sunday it will be eighty again, it never lasts for long, any of cold snaps. Thanks heaven for central heating too and me being home bound again.

I truly believe our blood thinned out six months after we arrived all those years ago.

On those notes of our version of the BIG CHILL arriving allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Misinterpretation

Misinterpretation: misunderstanding, misapprehension, the wrong idea, false impression delusion, misconception, misreading. And there you have it, male VS female communication.

When women talk we mostly talk in generalities unless truly pissed off, but mostly we say “they” said this or did this or should have done this or another did that, but not their significant other did it, who in turn interprets what was said as, “you are the one who said this, and you should have done this or you did that, get it? No names were used, why is it about you?

Why is that?

Sure both of our genders have our moments of anger over a difficult situation, and yes with women it is more than likely the situation itself that perturbs us, not always the people involved, oh alright sometimes it is the people, actually many a time it is the people, but more often than not it is the nasty situation itself, truly.

We see the bigger picture and in my case I try to see some good in the bad and to problem solve, while many a man, not all and not always, but quite a few rather handle a bad/difficult situation without over analyzing it and ignoring or walking away totally from the whole damn thing! Not a good thing, oh no!

Us gals, I especially, want to figure it all out, after the initial throwing up of the hands in mostly frustration, and yes I do do that too.

But then once calmed down a new perspective can often be seen and with that realization a mindset of planning of how to fix it from all the different angles.

Many men are analytical with the ability to problem solve, but when they are too close to what may seem like an insurmountable emotionally charged problem they throw up their hands in disgust at times, not always, and say its not worth the aggravation, and decide on a quickie resolve of either doing nothing or the most non-logical reasoning one of all the ultimate demise of it all, of throwing the baby out with the bath water…I’m just saying… emotions run strong and deep for some, which proves not to be very helpful in the long-run.

In an effort to try to understand the male portion of my lopsided immediate family, meaning a household with three men and me the only woman when our sons were still at home I tried to put myself into their place, and even at times realized that their tough façades were many a time just that, false fronts, they had feelings too!

The biggest realization was when our eldest was in scouting and Hubby was the Ocean County Scouting Coordinator back in good ole NJ in the early 1980’s and we took the troops to West Point in NY. Those prepubescent and pubescent boys acted not that dissimilar to my memories of my girlfriends as a child at a sleep over, silly, giggly and full of vim and vigor.

Yes, the sexes are not that different, except when they seem to think all bad situations are their fault, but it’s just what they hear in their heads, not what is actually said, got that?

And why, why, why is that?

I have NOT been able to adjust to that misinterpretation or misread or miscommunication.

You can be staring right into the other person’s eyes and still they hear it ALL WRONG!

Life is hard enough without giving up on people or critters or things that are needed to survive in this hard enough alone world I imagine, so far I have not had to navigate any of it alone…

I pray in my head daily that I never ever will.

But things happen and misinterpretations cause some to act as if it is the end all of it all, but no it should not ever be…

I see it this way, once the dust has settled all we can do is try to understand the best way to solve the problem, and if it proves not to be solvable then either punt or then do the last thing on the list of all the reasonings that you have tried first, second, third, fourth, fifth…infinitely…but all very trying or that should be tried too!

And in the very end if all else fails at least you can say with an honest heart that you did try everything!

On this note of vagueness amplified, even our dog is a male, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Rain again?

So here we are in our dry season and expecting more rain within the hour according to our local weather guy, called a senior meteorologist who is on our NBC affiliate here, Robert Van Winkle is his moniker, yep the exact same name as that Vanilla Ice rapper guy, but no relation, as far as I know. Who knows could be related to Rip. Although, some give themselves catchy names and it might not be his born with one, who knows…

Good thing he is NOT related to that Vanilla Ice guy, because then we would definitely be questioning the accuracy of the weather predictions, hmm?

Some of us still do…question that is.

He has said that our particular drizzle will be here at seven P.M. EST, not around but at seven and be on and off into the morning.

WOW!

If it keeps happening like this, a seemingly weekly event, perhaps they will have to rethink our entitled “DRY SEASON”, maybe?

What about “occasional wetter weather that periodically drops out of the sky in winter not that we have winter but that time of the year for the rest of our fine country and it comes to prevent forest fires and is now thought to be working with the state’s fire safety people and knowing that drought is a horrible thing to have so drizzle enjoys smiling on us, this SUNSHINE STATE!” That’s the ticket!

From my personal experience with watery events in this state it is looking like we are in for something, and soon, the wind is a highly visible indicator and our swimming pool is getting that gelatinous appearance of blue Jell-O right now and yes it is an hour before the time it’s supposed to be here.

Knowing what I do from all our years here it amazes me that the predictors have that attitude that it is going to happen when mostly it does but then there are times that it doesn’t, you know what I mean…

Today was quite nice with a slight breeze and mid-seventies and sunny, perfect, by most standards.

Though the whitish sky looked like it might snow, which to my knowledge has never ever happened here in southwest Florida in our lower on the map on the Gulf side close to Ft. Myers by less than fifty miles area south of us. But he is now saying a cold front IS coming in after and within a few days we will have a low in the upper thirties, but daytime temps in the lower sixties, still rather brr for here!

Oddly enough the prediction for those horror temps is short lived since by Sunday we will be back to over eighty degrees…

WHEW!

Did that scare you, I know it scared me…doesn’t take much these days… especially when I am in my climate controlled home.

Haven’t been out yet, in nearly ten days, facial issue is still stopping that.

Healing is an individual thing.

I used to heal faster, as we all did as young persons.

When my boo boo is all done then I will feel free to leave our cocoon of safety…

It very well might be next week.

Boy that wind is making those palm trees sway; pretty looking from being safe in my domain.

Okay, now this is silly I have run out of time to discuss Mardi gras, oh well, enjoy! http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mardi-gras/videos?mkwid=bF60cPusJ_pcrid_316322707_pkw_origin%20of%20mardi%20gras_pmt_b&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=origin%20of%20mardi%20gras&utm_campaign=M_Holidays&paidlink=1&cmpid=PaidSearch_bing_M_Holidays_origin%20of%20mardi%20gras

Have fun with all the stuff there for you and the kids too, it is a very hot key…and allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!