Quiet times should be relished, right?

How many times in your lives have you complained that life was boring?
Most would probably answer too many to count, don’t you think?
Just during those teen years alone would account for millions of times of saying, “I’m bored”, that probably would have been said by me and my many friends over those harsh years of adolescence.

I once heard, most likely in my early childhood development psychology class that a child who can entertain them self was more than likely an intelligent child.
Who writes these things?
As we all know those text books were written by well educated knowledgeable people in their particular field, most likely a psychologist or physiatrist familiar with the topic of early childhood development, correct?
Now for the hard part, how do they study the children that enable them to come to that conclusion?
Do they put children in a cage or a two-way mirrored room to watch them to see how each individual child reacts in each individual situation?
Or do they just assume that when a questionnaire is filled out by loving or not so loving parents that they have the exact ability to comment on what is asked of them in respect of specific questions?
This has baffled laymen for as long as the professionals in their respected fields have stated that they are the last word of how this all comes about and that what they profess to teach is true and concise information from reliable sources.

But is it?
Before these professions of the mind were accepted professions, experience was considered the best teacher, or trial and error.
I can remember a time when many said that their first born was their experimental child, and that what they learned from that one right or wrong would enable them to parent much better with each successive birth of a new being, practice makes perfect, right?

It has been this layman’s/woman’s observation that many never ever get it right, or may even do great with their first and then goof up the rest of the siblings.
And I also believe that as difficult as being a parent can be at times it is well worth the effort, and many times there are no tangible rewards; only the fact that speaks well of them when you have personal knowledge that you have raised an independent loving capable human being, then that is definitely a tremendous award winner!

Characteristically children on the whole are enigmas unto their own unique personas.
Which is why I question with respect the one size fits all reasoning of child rearing and why a child behaves the way that they do at times.
It is tremendously fascinating to me that we as humans really know so little about ourselves or the ones we care about and their behaviors and motivation of why we may do what we do at any given time.
Does it interest you as well?
Have you ever people watched?
The least intrusive place to do this sort of observing is sitting in the middle of an enclosed mall; it can be quite enlightening. Try to watch, but don’t stare too long or you may creep someone out; utilize the time to examine what that person is doing and how, and perhaps where they may be heading in to what type of store. Try guessing their age and background or family origins. It may seem weird to some but examining people is a great way to understand characterizations for writing purposes; or just have some fun with imagining nothing real but a character to make come to life in your imagination or in a story that you have created.
Human behavior is very interesting and should be something that is never assumed to be alike at any given time for any two people.

That’s your tonight’s assignment, try observing someone without them knowing but in a public place, challenging, huh?

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

Disappointed by plans falling through, but big girls don't cry!

We had planned to go to an Antique Show today at our events center, but when we got there, surprise, they were charging to go in! Everything else we had been to there had been free.
It was a nominal fee, just $12 bucks, but Hubby peeked around the corner to see what they had, and he said it looked a lot like a glorified garage or yard sale, and so we nixed the idea.
It’s not that we are cheap, although, recently I have found that most of the very wealthy are, and that is how they became so wealthy, but we are careful and frugal.

Instead we decided to spend our funds on a lunch out and we had intentions of trying a Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood that somehow we had missed.
But they nixed us since they were closed on Sundays!
And so we went to our safe choice the sports bar next door, Hubby had the slider plate and I had the Caesar with grilled chicken (At first I asked for shrimp, but they were out of shrimp, would you believe?), hmmm we both agreed that we made the right choice, until the bill came and it was all screwed up.
Apparently, they had new menus that did not jive with what had been fed into the computer, and so it was charging extra for things that on the menu were included, like Hubby’s cheese on his sliders and such. Once the server saw the mistake she corrected it immediately, and all was well, once again!

It appears that nothing was falling into sync, Hubby wanted to work on the seawall, but the tide came in. And we both would have loved to have gone to the library but ours are all closed now three days a week, Saturday through Monday. Nothing good was on the boob tube or if it was any good it was a rerun of something we already saw.
I suppose it was just one of those days, a mild Murphy’s Law day, not too terrible, just annoying.

Dinner was light since we finished my homemade Minestrone soup with garlic bread sticks that was just right!

On that pleasant thought note I will bid you all a very good night and count those blessings and we will too!

What could it be?

Our neighbor yelled across the canal to Hubby that he heard something scratching in his ceiling last night.
These little homes are built so minimalist that we don’t have attics, crawls or basements in them.
So to have the possibility of something making noise above your head during your precious sleep time is just plain weird or more than likely rodent induced.

Now you have unacceptable ones like rats and mice, and even a squirrel by some may be considered not that cute or loveable.
Personally at times I have thought each of those to be adorable, and or icky-poo too.

The mystery may never be solved.
We were fortunate when we heard that familiar scratching under my bathtub in my bathroom. Yes, we had all the tell-tale signs from holes in a dog food bag to chewing through a plastic container where the dog food had been put after, and then finally we fixed the problem by putting the dog food in our car in the garage with the windows rolled up!

Yep, we have experience with this problem, but at first we thought it could be our ghost coming back. We may of have had a haunting way back when our home had to be gutted after Hurricane Charley, and then oddities ensued.
I did consult a professional in the field of ghost busting, a local husband and wife team, and their report from our photo was inconclusive but interesting just the same, and left the door open for the possibility.

But in reality ours too was a rodent, a small rat or large mouse, either way, he or she was brazen, since we did have a cat! You would logically think he/she would have gone elsewhere?
Hubby put a live catcher on a shelf in my laundry room cupboard with bait. Since we were able to determine how the little gnawing darling managed to gain entry through the dryer vent! Hubby then installed that spray insulation, and figured that he/she were either caught in the garage or the laundry room, so traps were put in both.
The little critter was way smarter than you would have thought though since he/she managed to remove the food bait without setting off the traps!
This went on for weeks!
The last thing we wanted to do was to poison it since it could gain entry into our walls and could stink them up pretty fiercely if he/she was to die there, yuck!
We have heard stories of that; people having a disgusting odor emanating from somewhere but never quite being able to quite pinpoint it or having to cut open the wall to get it out when you could!

Our little fellow was brilliant until one day in the wee hours of the morning I heard Casey, the cat running around in our living room. He seemed to be having a heck of a good time!
It was then that I saw what had caught his fancy, our culprit Mister or Ms. Scratching noise maker, dog food eater, non-welcomed guest!
The rat/ mouse, running back and forth behind furniture, and Casey would corner him and just stare, and I screamed! That got Hubby’s attention out of a deep sleep!
He ran in and saw what all the commotion was about and got the broom out of the closet, opened the front door and swept the little interloper out!
He/she did not move for quite some time, and Hubby thought he may have killed it but within several hours it must have been just fine, since it was gone.

And you see that is why we have a bit of experience when it comes to four-legged little rodent type critters. I don’t know about the rest of you but I took to disinfecting any place I thought the little thing had come into contact with, and after all was said and done it was reassuring that he/she had just moved on and that we were not murderers.

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

Good night Mickey or good night Minnie!

The answer to the question is...

What’s the question, you ask?
Why did our electric bill go down when we had our heat on full force at seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit for over two weeks?
The answer came in the mail today.
We are not magically besotted with an ability to cause utility bills or other high use bills to go down by wishing for it… We received, like all the rest of the Floridians on this particular carrier’s electric company’s client list a one time only fuel rebate of $ 92.60 on our bill for this month. Different discounted amounts were given by percentages of kilowatt use or it would have been much, much higher with my worries being realized for real!
Boy, did we all luck out or what?
The coldest weeks in the history in this state, and our power company, Florida Power and Light, AKA FPL, I should mention the nice guys, right decided to give us all a real break on our bills!
Thankfully, as I said last night the weather is now on the upswing and more to us Floridians liking.

I’m going to put my own question out here for all of you to muddle over, OK?
When you have offered something to someone have they right away wanted to know if they could pay you for it or barter with you to exchange something for it?

To me that was a wee bit awkward, when our neighbors did that since this had to do with an overabundance of our lettuce crop. I felt the need to share with our neighbors and family since it would go bad being there, and it is really way too much for just the two of us.
We have always given away our overages in crops; we did with our fruit to the seniors, work and strangers at the cultural center and also to even to one of Hubby’s old chum’s from work that had cattle we gave them our grapefruit when it was overripe.
Our lemons, that are of the Ponderosa variety, used to be a favorite of many family and friends, but still have not come back all the way from Hurricane Charley, but they are producing now, just not as many or as big as they once were, they used to be the size of grapefruit!.
I suppose I feel that the above items are gifts to all the people we offer them to, which means I never once offered them to them with expecting to receive anything in return.
But for some reason everyone was in a haggling mode, and I resisted and explained again that it will all go bad if someone doesn’t eat it.
Although, one persistent neighbor came over with self squeezed orange juice to trade, and so I upped the ante, besides lettuce, radishes I sent her home with also my homemade Minestrone soup and she took it since I insisted I had no room for her generous amount of orange juice container, which is the size of a gallon of milk! It was a done deal, and I believe all involved parties were satisfied with the outcome.

This morning I went for my last check up on my eye surgery and all was perfect! I don’t even have to come back for a year, and so all is well!

On that positive note I will wish you all a very good night and for you all to count your blessings and we will too!

A surprise, and a few informative emails

The last few weeks many may be wondering what the outcome of my concern was over getting a sky high heating bill that hasn’t materialized yet, like most of us with that extreme cold snap that we all went through.

And so a few days ago when I saw the power company coming around reading meters I decided to try to access our online electric company account, and that was yesterday, to plan for that scary possibility, and curtail any unnecessary additional spending.

You can only imagine how brave I was to do this frightening as the prospect was, since we have had some whoppers over the years when we have had extremes in either direction, too hot or too cold, both up north and since living here in the southland.

Knowledge is power (LOL, this is a power driven story, LOL again, I crack myself up!), any-who as we all know, forewarned allows one to accept the inevitable and to prepare accordingly, right?
So I have not ever been a shy shrinking violet in the arena of when it comes to any difficulties. I attack those head on and try to solve or dissolve any problems and nip them in the bud, so to speak that’s just the way I roll, what can I say?

And to say that I was taken aback by what the site that held that information had on it would be an extreme exaggeration to say the least! I know you are all waiting with baited breath with what I found out and I will tell you, but you must not be as shocked as I was, OK?
Because it doesn’t make any sense at all, since our thermostat was nearly all the time on seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit. Are you ready for what I am about to say?

There is no rhyme or reason for why this happened; all I know is now the weather has neutralized and we are now back in a normal, for us, weather pattern mode…

OUR BILL WENT DOWN NEARLY TWENTY-NINE DOLLARS from the previous not too cold month, WOW! That means less, people, I know craaa zeee! I am waiting for the other metaphoric shoe to drop, as if it might be a mistake and the next bill will be twice as much… but that’s just me; sometimes my glass is half empty. Not going to think that way, sorry!

And these last few days have been so pleasant we haven’t needed heat or air-conditioning, with mid-seventies and very low humidity the windows have been open!
Amazing! All that un-necessary worrying for nothing! I wish the same for all of you!
I tell you folks if not, just come on down so you too can have lower utility bills!
And before the chamber tries to thank me again, you are very welcome, just kidding!
They have never ever thanked me for any of my positive spin ads for our sunny warm state.

Upward and onward I also wrote an email to the county extension to try and find a safe way and non-toxic for out rain barrels to not be a breeding ground for mosquitoes with the advent of the lovely change in the weather. Here is what they said that two tablespoons full of vegetable oil will keep the little suckers out; they apparently don’t like the slickness of it! How about that? It was so easy and Hubby already took care of it.

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

Well, I tried...

Last night was somewhat of a disappointment. Congratulations to the victor though, Scott Brown, a Republican.

Mr. Brown was interviewed this morning on the Today Show, probably just one of many, but it is the one I saw, and he insists that he believes that all Americans should have health care, and that the bill should be reworked or each state should take up the gauntlet and make their own provisions for insuring its own. When did we become the un-United States of America, was I napping?
He was, as I said before, against the current bill since his state already has 98% of his constituents covered in Massachusetts.

Well, the latest news is the president has decided to go back to the drawing board to rework the bill, what a coincidence, Mr. 41.
For those of you out of the loop of what I am referring to is that he makes the count now forty-one (Republicans) to fifty-nine (Democrats), now allowing for filibustering, the use of extreme dilatory(slowing) tactics in an attempt to delay or prevent action especially in a legislative assembly of the senate.

Interesting observation: Did you know that the 30 million uninsured is the same amount as the 10% of us 300 million Americans that are also unemployed?
Now most don’t make that correlation, and rightfully so, because, some who are not employed may have insurance, and some that are employed may not, got it?

I never took a civics class; at least I don’t remember one, that’s a disclaimer in case I got the above all wrong, sorry! But I am an American with a purpose here to survive, and I am saddened enormously by extremely healthy people or well insured people not getting it; that is all I am going to say about that for now. And I reserve the right to speak on this topic again at a later date, OK?

Today I got some this and that done early, even shampooed and vacuumed the living-room furniture, area rug, and guestroom couch and carpet too! That’s a lot for me.

Hubby worked hard on the seawall and got the framing done on his repair work, and even went to the home store for the cement for the repair, he used our boat trailer.
That thing was responsible for transporting most of our house parts after Hurricane Charley, handy thing, and almost never used for our boat which is up on our lift in the canal alongside our dock. It's hard to believe that they both will be seven years old this July.

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

PS An aftershock in Haiti of 6.1 some are now saying only a 5.9, only? Wonder what they would think if their area got a 5.9, only? Sounds to me more like another earthquake, quick we should now consider where to send the people? Donate money, and watch the telethon on Friday night peeps!

Did you know...

In my opinion it is that most people who appose the Healthcare Bill, already have extremely good health care, and have no idea what any help in that arena could mean to the others who are, the have nots? Thirty million Americans are still not insured not to mention the ones who are under insured.
And by far that has always been the case; until a problem hits you personally you, the collective you I am referring to here, cannot understand why others may find the necessity to complain foul play!

I believe that there is an old adage or poem that refers to this:
I wasn’t concerned when they came for the man in the news, because I didn’t know him or what he believed.
I wasn’t interested when they came for the woman down the street since I was not of her religious persuasion.
I didn’t really care about it when they came for my neighbor since his rituals were always so strange to me.
Then they came for me, and that was not fair and I fought and cried! But no one was there for me.

Or some strange thing, I know I got this all mixed up but the finale is the same and means the same.
The point is if we as humans aren’t directly affected many of us are sadly that selfish not to care.
And I had such high hopes for our human race!

Please people don’t allow for the wrong person to be put into the senatorial office in Massachusetts! We need for Ted Kennedy’s legacy to go on! Vote like you are one of the minority who needs you to care! Put yourself in their shoes.
If the republicans win; we underdogs lose.
Is it better to become a burden to the system in other ways, or should we all just die early so we vanish from your view and pretend we never existed?
And mark my words many of the under insured, pre-existing non insurable, or non insured will die.
Americans where is your compassion?
The senators of the Republican Party have great insurance but no hearts.
It amazes me that the apposing party, Democrats, who is also that fortunate to have excellent coverage can also have compassionate hearts, why is this?
Perhaps it is that they have remembered who they are representing, ones who cannot speak for themselves, the down trodden, and the ones who also have the privilege to vote for them or vote them out!

So I plead with you people of Massachusetts, do what you know is right continue to progress not retrogress! Vote another democrat into Teddy’s senatorial position he’s watching and that is what he would have wanted, really!

Good night to all and to all up in MA vote your conscience and compassionate souls, and you won’t be sorry! Count those blessings and we will too!