Happy Valentine's Day to All!

Meanwhile that is why this is so very, very late.
As many know today was also our anniversary, our forty-sixth!
And we went out like many of you may have too.
We had dinner and a comedy show at Visani's right here in Port Charlotte Florida, would you believe?
Yes, we have had others, but this one is really, really good and so is the food!
No photos are allowed to be taken there and so sadly I have none.
But here's the next best thing, their site:  http://www.visani.net/
Menu there too!

Oh so late and blissfully tired, so happy good night to all, and laughter is truly the best medicine!

Pictorial night!

 Blue moon or blue sun? Hubby says moon...My simulated rusted brass wall art, redone yesterday! What do you think?

 My skinny Buddha for peace and harmony on the bar to our living room with our galley kitchen seen in background also with our new stainless microwave installed, new stainless range and frig coming this Wednesday, yay! 

Long time coming some of the many pictures of my drive in shower!

 My home sign that cost less than six bucks to make with gold paint and rope that we already had and five inch particle board letters hot glued on; from Walmart!

More shower, my marble bench, and one of the three grab rails!

Some of my many fish in all mediums from metal to Neoprene to decoupage to poufy metallic fabric that was applied by Velcro. The blue one above is the $1.80 one from the thrift shop that I painted it too was a rusty mess! My most expensive are in the double digits like $15 -$20, ha! Oh and our double showerheads in the rain style. In the corner is my body wash, shampoo and conditioner dispenser, Hubby has his regular soap dish.

 Our glass block window (8) for privacy and light.

The house painting nearly done!

 Our hallway looking into the guestroom with Number One's old dresser and the striped white cane back chair!

A corner of our living-room with the oak ice box styled end table and the mirror from the old dresser from our guest room at our old home on the other coast.

 Our old grandfather clock circa 1987 with a plaque with our name on it.

My pimped out hospital table for me to use whenever daily, sadly, but prettier now with marble contact paper on it and painted up/down adjustable stem. Was all plain Jane brown, bought online new for only $45 bucks a year or so ago. Holds my laptop where I write this nightly and it's handy for meals and beverages etc. for when I am too tired to sit in our dinette. Oh I almost forgot that lamp which is the twin to the one on Hubby's side is the one he spray painted that metallic gold for my request, it had been white, again no cost, since we had the spray paint same as on the home letters! And it is a wooden lamp, no metal at all; safer for clumsy me, ceramic is so pretty, but also very breakable!

The end for tonight!
I finally figured out how to get my PICS with this newer laptop, no need to upload, just email my PICS and save them and then they are accessible and yay!
But I bet you all knew that... Gosh why didn't anybody tell me, hmm?
It's okay!
Have a great evening and now allow me to be the very first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know whom and we will too!

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

Fun Sun!

Not the kind outside, oh wait yes it is, but in a decorative wall plaque.
It had been a brass colored metal, not real brass since it rusted, and so Hubby sprayed it white after he scraped the rust off and handed it over to me inside; it was then basically a blank canvas.
The new mellow yellow walls that he had given to us needed a pop of color, and as anyone who knows me knows I love blue and so...I took my true blue acrylic paint and started painting every other burst, thinking that I would alternate with gold or apple green or what-have-you, but when I did just the burst parts it still looked odd and not what I was going for, a statement piece. After all it is going back on the front of the house, where the brass of its previous self had been.
So I made a  bold move and painted the whole thing that true blue, bursts, plated face and everything!
Still not quite right and so in the old days I would have done my splatter technique outside, but I was indoors and although I use plastic sheeting on my kitchen counter the splash would be outside of those boundaries.
Instead I speckled the apple green on top dabbing sporadically without rhyme or reason just feeling on the now well dried true blue.
Hubby came in and asked where the face was... hmm, another issue...and so I drew with a thin brush after the two previous colors were fully dry, and used the raised shadows in the metal of the eye, nose and mouth and enhanced them with black paint using the thinner brush and voila the sun has a face, and now hangs back where it had been, but brighter if a sun can be, ha!

Here comes a blue sun..., like a blue moon?

Any-who, that was not my only project today I was given our front door bell in actual brass and it is shaped like a pineapple, a welcoming hospitality symbol internationally!

I searched and searched I could not find our brass cleaner, so instead of Googling how to make your own I foolishly went at it without thinking.
First I tried window cleaner, duh, nothing happened, but I know ammonia is in the real stuff that is why I thought it might work, logically.
For some strange reason, me without one chemistry class to my name decided to experiment with natural household items, and so I tried baking soda and lemon juice and it fizzed so I thought hmm, why not and I poured the combo into my corning ware microwave safe side dish and put the pineapple plaque to our doorbell face down into the solution and got out my old toothbrush that I use for cleaning jewelry and started scrubbing! Crazy as it might seem it worked and yes it is back out there next to our front door! After all was said and done I did for the heck of it I  Googled the concept of making homemade brass cleaner and my concoction was no where to be found, but salt and vinegar were and ketchup was too, odd that mine was over looked, hmm?

Oh well, perhaps I am an inventor.

On this note of necessity being the mother of invention... sorry, couldn't help myself, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know whom and we will too!

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


 

Donations

The Humane Society in Englewood Florida will be receiving our old refrigerator and range; they have a thrift shop there to sell them in. I wonder if they would take our extra couch, I should have asked.
I'm trying hard to get rid of some of the clutter. Two couches in the sunroom looks a little bit much, but the one I want to get rid of was bought for the guest room, since it is a nicer styled white futon type but with thick round metal legs and the cover that I had on the good white living room couch that was donated to the Cultural Center. We had decided to put a full sized bed back in there a few years ago.
We had thought with not having so many visitors these days, actually after Hurricane Charley when the original bed had glass shattered all over it from being under the only window that broke due to our neighbors roof going through it and having no warning, then, so we thought that the couch would suffice, but then my Mother- in- law, did not look so comfortable on the futon and that is initially why we went back to a regular bed. Although, she never came down again, due to my husband's sister putting her in a nursing home up by her in Pennsylvania when her dementia got so very bad, thus a regular guest-room, and with Number One Son returning the dresser that was his in his room as a child the beautiful golden oak dresser, the suite was now somewhat more complete. In reality the guest room dresser in our home on the other coast that was in our four bedroom 4k square foot home, that dresser is now in my closet for extra storage there and its matching mirror is in our living room with our ice box styled end table from that den from the other coast are all in golden oak, with our grandfathers clock too that had been returned too. He had sold both his homes and moved on his sail boat then sold his live aboard and moved in with his girlfriend, and bought a towable sailboat!
I know, I know...
He's a grown man and a great son, so he can do whatever he wishes. He works hard at the same job for over twenty years! So he simplified his life, and vacations frequently with his gal, girlfriend for several years, who is a psychologist and two years older than him, so I am sure they know what they are doing.

Any-who, today is a happy and sad day, our younger son's birthday is today and he is forty-one!
The sad part is we are all estranged from him.
Yes, even his brother and all relatives, his choice none of ours.
But he is an engineer and his wife is an attorney and they live well in a four bedroom two story home and own a forty-two foot long yacht, no children yet, I think...
Perhaps, we are not good enough for him, he lives in North Palm Beach Florida where Tiger Woods family lives, not far from the Pres. DJs locale is.

I guess I should be happy for him and not so sad, but its been nearly thirteen years since we saw him and we never saw his second wife, they have been married for several years already... oh well... I have tried and tried... and even sent a happy birthday wish to all the emails that I have for him this morning, simple, Happy 41st Birthday, Love always Mom and Dad... makes me want to cry just thinking about it.

Guilty of dwelling... so I must...
Move on...

Hubby, started the painting of the house with the front completed, he will be doing it in increments, so far it does look great!
A side at a time.
I feel bad I can't help anymore, but he brought in our hanging sign with our names and calling it our cottage in for me to refurbish.
You see, it is weathered and rustic, our Number One Son made it in woodshop in high school nearly thirty years ago and it has been on any place wherever we lived since. The varnish flakes and Hubby wanted me to scrub it off with the brass brush for such things and so I did.
We also have a teak wooden bench to the right of our front door that has a wooden colorful planter on it, now weathered too, a gift from my cousins, the teak bench was made from our old boat in NJ our 25' Catalina, we had it to fix its dive platform way back in the 1980's, and the remainder bench sized piece has moved with us ever since; we had sold that boat before we moved to Florida.
The sign needs to be varnished and the bench could use some spar varnish too, but I don't use either indoors, the fumes are not good!

That's it for tonight, allow me to cry occasionally we all have sadness in our lives as well as joy, and hopefully the joy is more so than the other for us all! So now allow me to wish all of my friends and family a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and to please share those overages with you know whom and we will too!

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


 

No smoke signals or extreme pain today!

Well, I bet that surprised you? No? Me neither really, something had to give.
Everybody should have at least one day where  they can call it mundane, but not too many of that nature... for no one really wants that!
I know that I don't.
The adrenalin has got to pump, we must have imagination, make life an adventure, seek to learn and learn to seek... Oh I don't know, enjoy each day with an open mind and a child-like curiosity.
Behave, be devilish, be unique, be artistic, be creative, be musical, be political, be a voracious reader, be a town crier, be able to commit, be able to pick a side, be a voice of hope and respect, be a non-fool about what is true and right, and be non-accepting of all you read or see, be an investigator and find out what is what!
Love all people, even yourself!
Care as if everyone is related to you!
Now once you have accomplished all of that take a break!
But not too long, keep on going, on, and on, and on....to infinity!
Or death, whichever comes first, ha!

Geez, was that too preachy?
Hope not.
Words to live by.

Moving on...

Today after I was evaluated in PT by Amy, the grad student, and got to use the all over machine; Hubby and I went over to Publix, yep again, missed a couple of items from yesterday, Pam, bread, lemon juice, and my dish drying rack, actually the other Publix was fresh out of the one that sits just right on top of my smaller and shallower of the two sinks, it's a Rubbermaid brand. Unfortunately, they do rust after a few years. I must be on my fourth one, not stainless, but white coated rubber that seems to come off after much use.
See I use that much more often than the dishwasher for just the two of us.

After that we went over to Bocca Lupo's Coal Fired Pizza restaurant, their half price sale on large cheese pizzas is whenever there is a full moon and tonight there will be!
We ordered one large pie and a small Greek salad, which is really rather large!
We packed up most all of it and took it home, after we finally picked up our exterior paint for the house at Lowes in the same shopping center, and so I rode over on my BIG BLUE, while Hubby did too, but in our van and he did find another parking spot there.

Deciding on a paint color was the biggest issue.
Going darker than our off white shade or going with an entirely different color, and we discussed sea mist blue green/ teals, greys, darker tans, and finally Hubby made me decide and I chose pale yellow with white trim!
And so it will be, the front door has the yellow trim around its window already, with the remainder the deep sea blue and it is also on the wood and wrought iron chair too with green in its striped appearance; it sits by the front door, so they will remain as is.

Some may say a bold choice, but the islands' homes are pastels and look lovely, some new neighbors have chosen paler shades in the peachy look, another with a bright salmon front door, another chose too dark grey with maroon shutters, in my opinion, to me looking too northern.
But refreshed their home and they like it and when it comes down to it that is all that matters.
Each to their own and better clean and well maintained than ignored.
In the eighteen plus years that we have lived in this home it has been blue, white, beige, and now starting this weekend yellow, yay!

On this note of decisions allow me 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 whom and we will too!

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

 

PT, PUBLIX AND HOME!

I awoke with the base of my right thumb bruised and swollen, and my left hand on top having the feeling of those small bones aching and oh so sore! Now my left arm is so bad I am writing all this with one hand, actually one finger!

Consequently, I had a very interesting physical therapy session today.
Mostly, the third year grad student, Amy, had to be creative in figuring out just what I could do.
I did do the all over exercise machine on a lower setting of three today, and I did not hold on too tightly with barely grasping of my hands on the holders, no thumbs required.
Then I went over to the raised mat, and did some leg thingies, but then my back went into spasms!

Did you ever have a day where you should have never left the house?
Me too!
Sadly too many to count!

Any-who, with all that said I guess you will understand if I make this a shorty tonight... take care and live life to the fullest, yep another PT session tomorrow, and it is possible tomorrow could be better, a whole lot better than today, or worse... hmm... now allow me to be the very first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know whom and we will too!

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

Smokin!

Yes, we were consumed by smoke all due to our microwave having a meltdown!
Fortunately, there was no fire to contend with, but all that nasty smoke!

And so it went like this... at the mere age of twelve it passed away... and the fridge was so saddened by the turn of events and being the elder of the quartet of appliances commiserated and with heartfelt sympathy did not pass on, but became ill with its temperature plummeting and a mere seventeen year old, as the siblings faltered the stove had had enough too, and decided to follow his brothers in necessity of combatting daily help to the human beings for filling their tummies and souls with nourishment, which saddened him deeply... their pale white faces cringed with their ordeal... and so their human parents spent much of the day looking for a deal to bring the next generation to the forefront, hollow sentiments I hear you say, not really, but alas no other choices could be made the need was there in the  kitchen to be able to fulfill our sustenance!

And so they, Mom and Dad, me and he, found the deal of the day, at Lowes, and replacements are eminent within the week for thy fridge and stove, but micro is here and now!
All went from pale white to glistening shiny stain of the less! The only alone martyr of the group who thus staid pale and white to face his opponents to fight another day is thee lowly dish of thee washer!
The Dad felt since he of little use, his words not mine, he can stay!

THE END!

Till the morrow...