Made in America this Bennington pontoon boat that arrived this morning...

The Bimini ten foot top is down now due to the above rails, although it has come with a mooring cover as well as an engine cover too! Actually, two fire extinguishers, and new flares ( we do have old ones), it came with everything, anchor, lines, Coast Guard package, more vests style life jackets, we have accumulated more than twenty of just those over the years, we should donate some, even the rest of the Coast Guard package has so many great things, it came with even a soft side cooler that matches the subtle décor of black and tan! The floor is that pebbly looking fiberglass material, tan with black flecks. The actual people capacity is eight, the salon seating has stowage below, and there are two live wells, and four fishing seats, (2) bow, front, and (2) aft, rear, for fishing purposes.  

 The dressing/head, really potti room Hubby has already been set up with a Pelican case with paper and hand cleaner inside, as well as potti on its pedestal, TMI? It is located just behind the salon seating with table. The fishing seats are easily removed for me to attain more room for maneuverability. Hubby brought her around after the splash down that was an hour earlier at nine instead of ten A.M. from the Beach Complex, oddly enough Hubby reported there was no wait to get her in. JR from Ingman's Marine, we had bought our other boat from them way back in 2003, the one we just traded in, so that is why we bought her there again, great customers every fourteen years, ha, and so JR from Arcadia, not Dallas, picked up Hubby with her, the boat, and he put her in there for us... Same process for her twenty hour check up/oil change, and all those little missing things like her name and registration numbers curtain for dressing room, but our bill of sale is enough until then, so we have copied it for onboard. We decided to forgo the trailer for now, we know where we can get one later on, less expensive, but in truth we rarely took our other boat many places all those years, and we are fully insured for replacement cost and towing, in case of really bad weather like our up coming hurricane season yearly! We even had boat insurance on our older one that we just traded in for that very reason with towing. While Hubby was busy getting her ready and determining what we needed onboard and what we did not I prepared our food.

Although, due to the very warm weather in the nineties we determined that I would be best to go on her maiden voyage for a sunset cruise when the temperatures will be ten degrees cooler or more. And so dinner has been eaten inside this evening, and I am still on my usual time slot for posting.

The blue hard cooler peeking out from behind one of the fishing chairs is for me to cool off in and if I should try an earlier ride it will be filled with iced water to help with that, keeping me cooled down! Oh, at the age of sixty-five on up in Florida you no longer need a fishing license, just proof of age, drivers licenses will do! Who knows while watching those sunsets over the next few weeks, months years perhaps we will drop in a line or two or more and catch some dinners, like we used to! Now something more energetic for me to look forward to, YAY!

On this note of having something very nice to look forward to, daily, share those blessings and we will share ours too!

All aboard! Well, not all, but six of you!

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

Tomorrow night I will be posting the cruise pics, okay!

Anyone out there numbers superstitious?

Not the triskaidekaphobia type that is the fear of the number thirteen, but you all knew that... I am more than sure. My interest is in specific dates or even further more; perhaps some of the days of the week that historically have caused good or bad happenings in your life or even in the broader sense in the world?
And that names of the week's days at one time represented numbers to know which was what during a week? And I do believe the derivation of many numbers are from other languages, such as Latin, as the names of the days of the week.
Sure most all superstitions are unfounded and silly, but without numbers where would we all be?
Although, many religions believe in superstitions, see and that is what I am saying reasonable thought processes many, but some not so much, a matter of opinion.
So to give any sort of credence to a number or a date for good or bad, or even to take those numbers and turn them into something more meaningful would seem a bit frivolous to some, but not to all, hmm?
Books have been written about such things, i.e. the meaning of numbers, life's paths as in numerology, a science dedicated to it that is as much as astrology is considered one, ha. Forgive my perhaps ignorance or nervousness of such things...
Too deep for me, or I am not smart enough to be into them that perceptually.
No, mine is a more mundane belief.
Wednesday's the third day of the week and it has been good and bad luck with my personal life experiences due to births and deaths. Now take the number three (3), quite a lovely nice quality number and for some strange reason I have always had a fondness for threes!
Thirty-three I had worn when I had been chosen for something in my childhood in a contest at school.
Threes always seemed just right, not a one, or a two, but a three, ya know?
No sense to that way of thinking, but quite lovely, you, me and we, see 3.
Although, a song goes that number one is the loneliest number, and most everyone does agree, see?
Something to think about, hmm?
Numbers, what would we be without, without them, no clocks with telling us the time daily 24/7 or calendars with days of the month, or overtime working, dates of occasions are all numbers, truly numbers are intense and if for some unknown reason they would all disappear tomorrow what we as a civilization do?
See numbers very nearly make the world go round, hmm?
Fascinating, never really gave it much thought being numbers obsessed, but in reality we all are, weights and measures too, let's not forget how important they are, truly!
Try to get through a day without them.
Mathematics may be the truest science of numbers and their uses and fixations by academics and geniuses, but even us commoners of slightly above or average intellect use them, and so we must not abuse them, ha!
This was fun for me, for you too?
Maybe a game could be created for children using numbers or asking how we do? Use them that is.
Our sons were brilliant in their math skills and we played cards with them from the time they were so small, toddlers really, and Hubby played chess with them from an early age, five I believe, could have been three, probably that luscious number again. And most children by that age have learned the difference between bad and good, right from wrong. And after pre-school kindergarten teaches so many other skills, and that book all I ever learned about life I was taught in kindergarten, or some such thing has proven to be quite accurate? The same could be said by the many precocious kids in pre-school like ours.
Amazingly, adults forget that the earlier you start with making learning a game for those children of yours, therefore fun, the children do not realize that they are absorbing all that knowledge, and consider it is just a wonderful time spent with mommy and daddy, and then curiosity is born from that!
Nice parent child bonding times too.
Monopoly, a game for all ages was based on acquiring properties and money, more numbers!
Ask your little ones as you play those nontech games, board games to think of some more that they might like that are people interactive not alone techno machine active!
Go unplugged!
Just more thoughts from someone who has way too much time on their hands!

We closed on the boat this afternoon and tomorrow morning she will be delivered and then we will be splashing the Miss "T" 2! Name will be put on by the dealership after twenty hours of use, good thing this time not thirty-three(33), ha!

Happy night to all and please share all those blessings and we will too!

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

Interesting last two days, not exciting, but...

Ordinarily just plain interesting, nothing to really to write about,( since I am already home so I cannot say write home about) but you know me I will anyway, just because that is what I do.
Gosh, I could've written for Seinfeld, truly... I am so great at saying nothing about nothing, hmm?
Oh, why interesting?
I can't hear you, but I will take it that you all are so polite that you would be nice and ask, even if you don't really want to listen/read it here, am I right or not?
Sure I am, I know what nice people you all are.

Any-who, I received  call backs from a couple of phone calls I put in.
The nurse at my Sarasota neuro's office, Holly, very good listener and succinct in explaining the answer to my question about the paresthesia that I have been experiencing from whence what where or why it has come from?
I told her that when I had not heard from the doctor after my MRI's in April I thought that perhaps my newer issues of the newer locations of the numbness could be attributed to my cervical, thoracic and lumbar herniations and stenosis in those places of mine, and so I went to see my orthopedics' PA, and in a way I was hoping that those were the culprits causing it all. Why, would anyone want that?
Well, those areas could be surgically repaired, therefore fixed, and that is why.
But no such luck.
Mine are all part of my Multiple sclerosis progression, and the fact that they have not been transient or fleeting, but permanent was extremely, forgive the pun, unnerving!
And so it is.
The call then by the FDA sending me forms to fill out considering that the Ampyra, ironically medication to help people with MS walk better, was the cause of my initial paresthesia effecting me  bi-laterally in my thighs was purely now thought to be coincidental, after two months of use back in 2015!
So now Ampyra does have a reprieve, at least from that awful side effect.
Each and every patient's reaction may be different with every new medication they try.
I suppose now I will be ripping up the forms from the FDA that they suggested I fill out when they do arrive.

My fourth "new" chronic care nurse, this one from NJ, our home state, is now living in Lee County  is exactly five years younger than I, since she mentioned we share identical birthdays except for the year of course, day and month are the same.
Although, I have a cousin twice removed, as she says, should that insult me, nah... that she and I share the same exact month, day and year for our birthday!
My questions to Debbie this NJ RN gal I felt the need to also get her input since the last time that she called was during our dinner and so we cut the conversation short.
She had not given me her direct number so for two days I had waited to hear back.
My Dr. Nord's office apparently only had the toll free number that I did call and left her a message and some how it finally caught up with her, two days later. I now have her direct number.
Touching base with people that have your care in their hands and are paid via my/your insurance to do so, is extremely important to get to know them I feel.
For the last two years, beyond my ken these nurses have been changed quite frequently.
Every time, I kid about it being me?
They laugh and assure me it is not, they seem to move out of the area so I have been informed each and every time by the three previous nurses that I have had by their successors had been reported anyway.

We are full speed ahead on the new pontoon boat delivery this weekend and Hubby has come to the conclusion that once BIG Blue takes me to the dock that I can use my manual transformer in house walker to board still that is due to fear of getting my highly expensive computerized Permobil wet by being splashed or perhaps getting caught in a rain storm.  I do have a manual wheelchair too, as well as this walker that turns into a transporter. The computer that I use in the arm alone is 6K to replace if ruined, but insured for four more years, but still.... avoidance is prudent,  for short spurts of drizzle we use plastic bags like going into and out of therapy and independent exercise building. But he is right, once onboard I will be sitting anyway on any of the very nice and abundant salon seats with table, it is the fishing model so additional seats  up in the bow for that has two more, the live well is in the aft as well as the dressing room/potti room,  it is a Bennington 20SF 2017 pontoon, with an extra long Bimini top, ten feet long. Captain's seat is starboard. All in all it is more than just right for us, and a few chums and family too, of course!
The trouble is Number One Son is a sailor, has his own sail boat 25' when he moved onto shore again in a home he traded in his live aboard, and our younger one has his motor yacht, a forty-two footer, with a large home too. So boating with us, and us being far away doesn't seem probable.   
We had them boating from babyhood.
As well as all water sports from swimming to SCUBA, surfing, to snorkeling, to water skiing.

Living on the water for these last nearly nineteen years especially, having a boat on a saltwater canal is practically mandatory!
We are on our third larger ones here all not very big at mostly 20 feet, a deck boat first, named by us Miss T, then the center console fishing boat we are now trading in named by us Seas the Day, sadly for the last several we have not. But even so we have our row boat, aluminum too 12 footer, and a fiberglass canoe that is fifteen feet also still!
Over the years our largest was just a twenty-five footer cabin cruiser with head and galley and sleeping for four, that our younger son amazingly at age eight was able to maneuver into its slip in Forked River NJ  our marina there that we kept it, it name was BLISS, actually stood for our business name at the time that we had sold when we moved to Florida the boat too, Bamber Lake Irrigation Sales and Service, one fine acronym! We did commercial and private sprinkler systems, from retirement villages to sports fields, our sons soccer fields, and of course private homes all over Ocean County NJ, we were the second largest there then!
We had other boats too, runabouts, and another canoe if I recall, when the boys were very small I tied them with ropes around their waists with life jackets on in the boats. They also took water baby classes from seven months for the younger one and Number One was a toddler then, before his brother though also at two and three and onward more water classes, tadpoles I think they called them at the Y, indoors in NJ in winter. More than forty years ago!

Ah memories!
See nothing exciting, but to me, my stuff.
And you have yours too.

Happy night to all and share those blessings and we will too!

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

Aint this better than digesting our idiot in chief's latest shameful misspeaks and computerized foot in mouth blurbs?
Okay, I get it.
Never mind.



 

An Ode to the Rain AKA That WET STUFF!

Rain, rain, please stay for awhile do not leave us high and dry, flood not us or anyone!
For we all need water to survive, but not too much we will not thrive, but of course it is also needed to have some fun, and to give us all a break from too much sun!

It has been too long and we did miss you so, please do not go.
But we do not want you to wear out your welcome either, be here for a time to bring up the waterline and then move on until next time!

Daily we will say hello when you are here for we will become a bit mellow!
You see, that you are a cure for our drought woes, and we may even dip our toes into the coolness that from you flows.

WHO KNOWS!

So glad that you had not forgotten us and now we hope to always remember not to make any fuss!
For when you are part of our lives we know things grow and that does brighten the skies!
And then too we must easily surmise that for you are always creating colorful
prizes for our eyes!

Moving on...

Hubby got the mini cement ramp done today, when you see it you too may be surprised to see that it took an entire sixty pound bag of  high strength concrete mix to make it! Below there it is and that will turn into a more white color once completely dry; and what you are seeing is our white painted cedar cottage styled gate from the pool, and that squished cement ramp is onto our lawn just a smidge to smoothen the bump there.
Yes, the grass is rebounding! Oh did you notice one of our pineapples sticking out from the plant in the forefront there that is in the garden under the sunroom windows.

PIC was taken through the screened window.

Yup that's it, amazing, a whole sixty pounds of concrete there in that one little spot of high strength concrete mix to accept BIG Blue, my Permobil motorized wheelchair that weighs in at 300lbs. plus me! And no, I will not go there, yet!

Happy night to all and to all please share those blessings and we will too!

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

How many of us Americans actually knew just where Manchester England is?

 

 

That is before yesterday?

 

My maternal grandmother was from the next village over where a famous band was from too, The Beatles in Liverpool, another seaside village. But she left England at the age of two, in 1895. The only reason I mentioned this at this horrific of all times for that area is because when CNN posted the map last night and I noticed Manchester's proximity to Liverpool. So heritage wise, now this might sound a bit ridiculous to some, but I feel a bit closer to the those and saddened more as if they were friends or maybe even some of my relatives from there? Weird, but who knows, I have no idea if I still have any relatives there. The point is that we are a worldwide family anyway and each horrid death by the hands of these inhuman hateful terrorists is a black eye on all civilization! And each time they rip our hearts out! It seems that only decent people seem to have the ability to feel the loss putting themselves in the parents place of all those children that were murdered, twenty-two killed on the twenty-second day of the month, does it have any significances to these horrendous perpetrators of destruction of lives?

Did the date 9/11? How soon we forget if it was told. And if that is the case, perhaps the brilliant minds of the world can determine by that illogical logic if it is a key to figure it all out, before it happens again?    

Plus with my recent binge watching of BBC programming on Netflix it does give you a good reason to understand our Mother Country that we fought to gain independence from, but have maintained a wonderful relationship with in modern times. If our new pres. doesn't screw that up too!

Tap on the map to enlarge.

Oh I don't know, another horrendous murderous happening for no good reason at all is so definitely upsetting and WRONG, and should have never happened! But no matter what we seem to do to prevent these things these people get through to do their commit their evil... our hearts and prayers go out to all of the UK since like with us with 9/11, Boston, Orlando, and on, and on, and on... we are one country when we are attacked we feel we all are attacked and so must they feel that too, and yes we are one world!

So we all cry together.

 

 

Moving on....

 

This seems so silly now, but Hubby has been working very hard, and that is not silly at all!

Those bunks as you can see in the first PIC, and Hubby took all four pictures, by the way, the old bunks are bowed due to age. According to Hubby even if we were not getting the new pontoon boat they would have had to be replaced. He took the pictures in order of his work, although, even though he removed the old bunks he did not take a picture with none showing.

 

The little float below is sturdy enough for a jet ski, or motored smaller boat. It had been on loan to our across the canal new neighbor, but he went back up north for the summer about a month ago and returned it. Good thing since Hubby uses it for just these sort of projects. 

 

(1) is a side view of the old bunks, (2) is a front view of the old bunks, (3) side view of new bunks, (4) is a front view of the new bunks, Ta DA!

 

He also bought two bags of cement to make a solid ramp from the pool area to the lawn. Oddly enough I have not been out in the back yard for over a year, would you believe? The last will be building a ramp to go into the boat from the bow, since that is where it's gate opening is nearly thirty inches wide!    

 

Great work to accomplished in just two days Hubby!

 

Moving on again...

 

Please send all our condolences to all of Manchester for their losses, all our losses.

Who knows a great future leader, brilliant scientist, or medical doctor to cure so many ills may have been murdered by those heartless souls!

Too terrible to think about of what might have been from those children who are no longer here, but they will remain in our heads and hearts forever, and so we shall never forget, again...

PS Oh I almost forgot, while a college student I had been to London England, Edinburgh and St. Andrews in Scotland, Dublin and Shannon in Ireland, not to mention other countries way back then.

People have to learn, as I have that...

Nothing and no one can ever be taken for granted!

I was almost scammed today by someone who claimed to be with Publisher's Clearing House saying that I had won 2.5 million dollars! I said that I hadn't entered, and he said that they had gotten my name out of a selected drawing from one of the companies I deal with.......hmmm...
Yeah, I know what you are thinking, or maybe not.
Of course knowing about such things as scams, being a business person and dealing over the years with all sorts of people and Hubby being retired law enforcement so sure we have heard of just about everything under the sun. And being in the Sunshine state, I do believe that is where the cons come to sharpen their skills, in the sun, ha.
And as we all know the expression that if it seems too good to be true you know that it is most definitely is the case that it is!
So like anyone in their right frame of mind with such things I asked up front how much is it going to cost me?
Oh nothing, except subtraction of 7% or 175K for taxes, as he said my name, leaving you with 2.325 million, this fellow said, calling himself Andrew Goldberg who just so happens to be the real name of the CEO of PCH in NYC, not Philadelphia as he was saying, red light there.
The next one was that he wanted to ask me if I have an active bank account, I said yes, and he then asked if I wanted the monies to go into that account by direct deposit or would I prefer a certified check. I said give me the check, knowing full well he was going to ask for my bank account number.
Next he told me that my delivery charge on the check was going to be one thousand dollars, I said to him that is fraud.
A contest winning does not require payment from the recipient.
Oh then we will split it, only $500?
I asked him his phone number and oddly enough he gave it to me 1-215-486-8021, his address too was given as: 1960 or 1916, not clear on which, Welsh Road Philadelphia PA. sorry I forgot to get his zip code.
THIS IS FRAUD!!!!!!! I shouted and hung up!
I then called the phoned number he had given to me and he answered saying hello using my name that I had not said yet!
I said PCH does not have only one employee, I hung up.
Meanwhile, Hubby tracked down the actual Publisher's Clearing House toll free number in Manitoba Canada 1-800-566-4724, a customer service represenative confirmed what we all know that PCH does not call winners, they knock on your door with the winning check in hand!
He the rep said while we were chatting that he notified the federal trade commission, and recommended that I contact fraud.org, and I did.

I had contacted the news reporter I just met, but she no longer does this type of investigation, and she had done this scam alert back in 2011 when she was at her Orlando station.
I got the impression she felt that everyone knew about it; I told her many seniors are too trusting, and many people in general want to believe that they were chosen to win that sort of a prize!
Not all are greedy and stupid, just ill informed and so consider yourselves duly informed again, if you remember this one of many out there!
Simple rule is... just remember that... if it sounds too good to be true, it is!

She did say she would pass it on to the appropriate on air person, and she just emailed that she had.

Happy night to all and share those blessings and we will too!

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

Before it is lost, I must add this PIC in, and how truly interesting that the REAL PCH read my blog?

If you tap it you will see their ad., I suppose this is my man bites dog story? 

Plugging on...

No matter what I must be resilient!
Things cause me to get down.
Like everyone else, I suppose.
From time to time.
Disappointments have been known to traumatize me, but only for a short time... I do prevail in spite of my at times of right on reading of a situation or when over thinking of one.
Abilities lost as well as inabilities profound.
Jealousy: the threat of losing something (usually someone), as well as envy: the reaction of lacking something.
But gosh, I don't have to tell you anything, you all know too!
And I shouldn't tell anyone anything anyway.

Moving on...

What is the true meaning of a curmudgeon: a bad tempered or surly person, hmmm!
Lately Hubby has even called himself a "grump", and he has met the criteria of a curmudgeon, a little too often!
But I rack it up to his finally quitting smoking over these last five months! Congrats and soldier on Hubby great job!
Mister thin man who was always like 155 at five foot eleven, lost weight there for a while and scared me and even the doctor put him through a myriad of tests, all thankfully coming back negative. He had gone down about ten pounds, in the 144-145 range!
This morning he weighed himself on the big scale at the grocery store and he now weighed in at 162!
So he is just right according to most all weight charts.
See men even gain less weight from quitting smoking than women!

The first six months that I quit nearly eleven years ago on July 11, 2006. I had gained fifty pounds, but that was just after my MS diagnosis that April and my ability to exercise as I once did diminished severely.
Hubby always has physical projects, even these days.
The new bunks on the boat lift are his next big thing!
Our neighbor across the street in the rental on the corner who shared his boat mechanic with us, helped Hubby get the sixteen feet 2X10 and 2X4 also 16 feet, two of each off of the top of the van's luggage/roof rack They were very heavy; the people at Home Depot strapped them up and on.
Hubby drove home very slowly.
Now that the snowbirds have flown home the roads, especially on Sunday, are very quiet.

Oh and that Range Rover is theirs, the rental neighbor on the corner with the pool, as well as a new truck and a bigger than ours boat too!
Classier rental neighbors than we have had in any of the homes in quite some time.
The house directly across has a group of twenty-somethings with a few cars, newer models and a motorcycle without a muffler, it sounds like anyway! And they are in and out at all hours of the day and night, which causes Gus to bark, even in the middle of the night! And have left a delivered phone book in its bag on their lawn for months without taking it in or throwing it away, bugging Hubby tremendously, LOL!
On our left side of our home where they were long term renters they had moved out a few months ago and it was rented right away, but no one fixed the outside up, needs painting and yard work, we do know that the inside was taken care of, we saw all the workers going in and out!
But the outside needs some TLC, and those new rental neighbors are very quiet with two quiet vehicles, no complaints. Only wish they would pretty it up!
Our empty lot next door I have been known to see if anything sales wise was going on with checking with those real-estate sites, and yesterday it said that a sale was pending!
Yay!
More neighbors that will have to build and hopefully a new home. The previous ones bought to build when they retired. I guess they changed their minds, they were from Germany, who knows.
I suppose after all the ups and downs this neighborhood has been through, finally things are looking up! I really do hope so.
After us living here in this home nearly nineteen years that is a good thing, although with improvements... taxes go up...
They have been going up anyway!
Death and taxes two sure things.

Happy night to all and share those blessings and we will too!

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