How about going out...we did!

What would be the occasion to leave the compound and venture into the world, you ask?
This and that …but of course!

Do you all recall that I felt the need to propagate?
The pineapple, silly!
I’m way too old for the other kind.

Any-who, we went to the giant discount store up the road a piece to acquire those few items which we just had to have, potting soil, hair care products and …gosh I forgot!
But we really hadda have it; if you know what I mean?

Once back at the ranch, so to speak, we chilled for a bit and sat outback.
Then Hubby got out the empty large flower pot with matching saucer, and filled it with the potting soil, he did the honors too with the planting of the pineapple according to the instructions off the net, push in till it stands by itself.

Hubby did some other things while I bathed in the dapple sunshine under the shade of our lanai. Soon I noticed through the houses that the next street over mail had been delivered and so I told Hubby, and he went and got ours. It was mostly junk mail and our water and sewer bill with an addition inside, a water quality test result for the county.

To the good it did show that we were all within the required limitations for any impurities. But I called anyway, since it was really written for a micro-biologist to understand. Hubby and I both knew we had very hard water and this was a definite from the exterior faucets deteriorating and the same issue occurring with our kitchen faucet as well. But when I questioned it the times before I was told that our water couldn’t do that and so I told the faucet manufacturer and they replaced it for the third time for free, the first and second times we paid for it.

Also the last time I called the utility department I was told a water test cost one hundred bucks but this time I was told it was free, huh?
And so I requested one, and sure enough the person was here this afternoon, service with a smile, how about that?

The gentleman was greeted by Hubby who went out specifically to speak with him and show him our faucet proof. The man agreed the water should not do that, and proceeded to test the water, it turned pink very quickly indicating that something was definitely askew it was showing the disinfectant was too high, and he told Hubby that the system should be flushed out by them within the next few days. Thank you very much!

I had concerns previously and even switched our animals to bottle water like me, since I could never drink ours; it gave me a stomach issue, that’s as close as I am going to say, you get the gist.
My other problems were pink rings in the toilets, and if I soaked towels or white clothing for more than a few minutes in the washer they would actually rip!

Now I feel like I am being exonerated, well at least I will when they fix the problem.
After all our water and sewer bills run around eighty bucks a month, only once it was in the sixties, and a few times like this current one which I already paid online was in the low nineties, which seems high to me, but this was a thirty-one day month, and even though Hubby waters with the rain barrel water he can’t add back water to the swimming pool or the fish pond which evaporate with our dryness, because there is too much sediment from our roof in the rain barrel water, even with the screen in place. So he does on occasion use city water.

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

Downer Dolly is hopefully gone for the night!

Howdy folks…I’m back!
Who was that likely unmasked and disembodied person who wrote on my Blog last night?
Good grief, so sorry to my reading public; I will have to research who that severely saddened creature was.

Tonight I have returned to take back my counting of my joys on this planet and find the happiness in it all!
Have you never felt that you were having an out of body experience?
Nah, neither have I; that would be CRAAAZZZEEE!
Wouldn’t it be?

Pleasantries are supposed to be exchanged daily and a way of life in this life. We all should thank our lucky stars, and all those other redundant clichés, each and everyday that we wake up that we wake up, right? And so why would anyone have the indecency to complain about being lonely on a holiday? Geez it’s not like they were dying. What nerve to be so sad that you think that the rest of the world needed to hold your hand or at the very least pay you some mind, how selfish and self serving, I declare… just beastly, shame on you!

Well, to be honest who knows why people do what they do or what motivates anyone to reach out to a nobody in cyberspace for answers that more often than not go unanswered.

Most of these poor souls are just so self-involved they have no rhyme or reason for why they need reassurance. Perhaps it’s a form of lack of self confidence? Who are we to judge?

Judging is for Judy, and Joe and the like.
What a roar those shows are, aren’t they?
Makes you realize that your life aint so bad afterall; you know what I mean?

While this Downer Dolly was busy feeling sorry for herself on my Blog our Florida was having the best weather ever, did she mention whether or not she went outside to enjoy it?
Hmmm I do wonder if the lack of fresh air could be the interloper’s problem, oxygen and all that…who knows…but could it be a reality check for the deary, sunshine has been known to cause unexpected smiles and laughter, you know.

We are now in the CORRECT weather pattern for us Floridians once again, low humidity and mid-eighties, how wonderful that we can flaunt our good fortune to the rest of the world, LOL?

Specifically, I must apologize for the behavior of anyone who seems to have access to this Blog; some just take over without thought or concern of those ramifications.

Plans for going here and there are in the works after all we have things to do place to go to and lives to lead!
And so I will be busy most of the week with Hubby.

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

PS: Pray for the rest of the West Virginia miners in the explosion area!
Thankfully that 7.2 earthquake yesterday in Mexicali Mexico felt into California and Arizona was not as disastrous as it could have been!

Easter time and nowhere to go...

And so we stayed home again, as usual, these holidays of lately, which seems to be our practice.
Just the two of us again, sadly erroneously at the winter time of our lives, because I truly thought at this point we would have made up for all of our losses of deaths with a renewing with in-laws and grandchildren and extended family members that would be more than we could count, but no it has not happened and I don’t see it occurring in the near future either.

Hubby and I did manage a delicious meal with all the trimmings, and even cut up that pineapple too (and set the top aside for planting within the next two days) and we added that to a fresh fruit salad including apples and bananas.

Loneliness is already rampant and clutches at my heart.
How did this turn into this?

When we were young and callow fellows we knew not what to expect and had armies of loved ones all around us, but alas they have all moved either far away or perished by death, and that is why I am glad that holidays come in at only one day at a time.
More than a day of this and I fear it would consume me with tragic depression.

I do truly hope that you all have enjoyed this joyful week of Passover and or Easter; religiously they are so closely involved with one another that they are nearly one; you do know that one could not exist without the other?

Anywho, I am the last one to be telling you about any religious beliefs, since I am not at all that well versed in them, my Sunday School days are way behind me as well as any other education in that arena.

All I do know is that is many have been celebrating and I say more power to you for believing in anything in these hard times. I personally am always questioning.

Please dear readers let joy into your lives, and never ever take anyone for granted that you care about; life is way too short.

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

Throwing something?

Why are ‘throw rugs’, called that?
Don’t we actually place them in the locations that we want them to be?
Laying them gently in the most beneficial part of the home to attract people’s feet to be wiped off or better yet to leave those bacteria infested shoes?

I suppose if I were to be informal with my art deco designed small ‘artsy’ pieces I might find the urge or the need to surge and actually heave them into the air, but not in the near future, just that thought makes my arms ache.

If you haven’t guessed already… today I took it upon myself to enhance the cleanliness of our enchanting home, once again.
And I placed, with care, our darling colorful artful designed carpet sections into the washing machine to renew their sharp colorations.
Hubby was kind enough to take them outside for me and place them all on our clothesline. But of course, they could go into the dryer, but today with such low humidity and temperatures soaring into the mid eighties, and so why not take advantage of the glorious aromas that fresh air has to offer!

Even our large area wool rug, see now that is a logical name, it is a rug and it does take up an area, moving on… it was also washed but this time by dear sweet Hubby way down on the dock where it also would be drying due to its large size and heftiness when wet. Ah wool, you are all yelling! Yes, it is one hundred percent wool but I used to wash it myself in my healthier days for we do have it for quite a few years, but so long as the water is cold and the detergent ugh, there you go again, gentle detergent is appropriate and all that we have managed to do is make the aquatic pastel print that much more vibrant, truly! Consequently the big thing is still drying at this hour and may not be completely dry until sometime tomorrow.

Another thing we did tonight that we haven’t done in years, literally which does mean actually, we used our dishwasher to pre-rinse our dinner dishes, and we’ll fill it to full by tomorrow too, I hope!
Green clue: As we all know, a dishwasher uses less water than actually washing them individually in the sink.
But with just the two of us without our sons being home all these years I have been and so has Hubby been washing everything by hand in the sink, whoa, you all say! Yes, you are completely correct that was wasting water BIG TIME, shame on us.
Us with a rain barrel and composter and veggie garden and recycling peeps, etc, etc, etc… us hypocrites!
On our side of the story, yes we have now seen the light, but honestly we felt that we would run out of dishes before we could fill the darn thing up! So buy more dishes I hear you all saying, OK, I will send you all the bill, divvy it up! LOL We will be as careful as we can with our water since it is city water and quite dear in price, you betcha!

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

PS I was amiss in not mentioning the death of a handsome actor that we all knew and enjoyed watching for years, Mr. John Forsythe of Dynasty and Charlie’s Angel’s fame, not to mention all those major motion pictures. He passed away on April first at the age of ninety two; we should all live at least that long, you will be sorely missed; what a gentleman.

Come one come all, spend that money to make sure you got it all...

Yep, that’s just about what you could say we did today.
We stocked up on stuff that will last probably until the fall or at least till we run out, this summer maybe?

We went over to the warehouse club store and got those non-perishable items that last for a decade or so without causing foul odors or bacterial stomach disorders or anything negative and are very necessary the list included: toilet paper, facial tissue and paper towels plus an assortment of other items that are cost effective and could be stored. The social security check came this morning and once I paid the last of the bills in the bill drawer… off we went!

Even on our roomy compound grounds displacement and appropriately locating these items to their designated waiting areas is not as easy as one might think. Once the bathrooms depositories were filled as well as under the sink in the kitchen and the linen closet floor and top shelf, the garage closet and shelves were specified and utilized for the remainder.

Other items, that were of the perishable variety were divided accordingly put into marked freezer bags and frozen, since most were of the aquatic food species, although one clucker was also included in the catch, assorted cheese foods, forty pounds of chlorine for the swimming pool (best deal), and a couple containers of coffee, a beautiful fresh pineapple and lastly three pounds of tomatoes for $5.98, about the same as the grocery, but we do go through a lot and hopefully that will be the last purchase since our tomatoes are almost ready, not! But they are getting there.

The pineapple I must admit was a slight splurge, only in the context of not absolutely necessary since it is something we haven’t bought in years, but at $1.98 it really wasn’t too dear at all, and my plans are to try and grow the top and make some more! It’s supposed to be easy, we shall see.

Prior to leaving we did manage to get some spring cleaning done, our comforter, dust ruffle etc were all washed, even the pillows that hold our decorative pillow shams. Didn’t realize they could be but once stripped of the two cases encompassing each one their tags said they were machine washable and dryable, how about that? And so we did.

The house is getting a little more spring like looking.
And in the dinette, the seat cushion pillows were switched yesterday from the darker print Wedgwood blue ones with the matching tablecloth on that table to the paler blue and white striped pillows with the matching placemats, and a bowl of fruit was placed on the table too. All things I had but make a lighter springier look to the room.

Our home is never dark anyway, as much as I kid about having a family compound in reality our home is quite small square footage wise, so light and bright is the best way to decorate or otherwise dark, so-called warmer darker colors would create gloom and doom in my opinion in our home and who wants that? Bright and cheerful is how I see our place, and to be honest it makes it more joyful to stay home, especially since at times due to my ills I have no choice. But going out is a nice respite to my occasional boredom.

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

Come and get um before they are all gone!

H 1 N 1 Flu virus shots, but of course!
Whatever did you think I meant? Free Money, I bet.
Wouldn’t that be some great April Fools joke, eh? Not so funny you say, yeah you are too right this time folks! Only the rich get that surplus.
Actually, there is a surplus of shots not money, but according to the recent news, just tonight there has been a reinfection of the virus locally, and so you better get yourself protected as soon as possible.
Well, Hubby and I are still protected, I think?
We got both the seasonal flu shot and the H1N1shot last November, but no one told us when the expiration date was, does anyone know how long they are good for?

What concerns me is the fact that most of these viruses have the power to change into some type of super virus that is not easily killed by whatever arsenal of shots or medications that would be available to all who fit the high risk profile/criteria. Whew, I am sure glad that’s me! What?
It would be nice not to be in that group that’s one clique I rather not be a member of.

Have you had your fill of April Fools Day jokes yet? No more here, fresh out, sorry!

Our local NBC station is questioning what people think of the new IPAD coming out this Saturday, you also have the power to tell me too, so do if you wish to at the end of this Blog in the comments section. Who knows we could all learn something!

Today also was the last day to get those census forms in the mail or they will be coming to your house to find out what happened.
I do know that the race question was considered insensitive and difficult to answer in this day and age with so many multi-cultural and multi-race people here in our melting pot called America, well I agree that question has to be changed.
Too bad that the form didn’t have a space to give our opinions or suggestions on that topic and others, but I do believe that they are made simplistic so the computer can read them more easily. If humans were doing them who knows what would happen ...sensitivity could be what might happen folks, but that would be too much to expect!
More jobs would happen too, not just for those follow-up enumerators of yore, which I was back in 1990, great short term pay, by the way!

From the I gotta have one file, there’s “an app for that”, man got tired of his electronics getting stolen out of his car all the time so he put them all on the GPS application, and now he has helped the cops locate his stuff and of course the guy had stolen other peoples things too so he may have helped you too! If you got the power to apply that system do it sounds great to me.

On that positive helpful hint I will bid you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Off to the grocery we go, ho, ho,ho...and other more interesing topics...that we know,so...

Grocery shopping can be an adventure if you allow it to be, what, huh, eh?
You see when your life is as exciting as ours you take what you can get, LOL…
And we did do major shopping there today due to it being the end of the month when Hubby’s pension check has arrived.

Having two months that are so extreme in how many days they have with the least and the most allowed also does make you realize the cupboards were starting to look a wee bit bare; February having only twenty eight days and March with a generous thirty-one, check comes in the end of the month, and the state of Florida doesn’t care how many days in that month, got that?
Social Security comes in usually around the third of the month but makes allowances for holidays, weekends etc. So that should be here any day now.
What I usually do is pay as many bills I can with the first check whatever is leftover we go grocery shopping, get gas etc. and the rest with second also managing to put a bit away first for emergencies, and then what’s left is for joyous occasions, huh, what?

Still waiting, I have faith they will come soon or some day in our near future, I can feel it in my bones. (That’s another thing I am back to using my walker in the house, those bones and muscles are acting up again. I thought it was our rain, but now it’s dry as ever… for our dry season.)
Anywho, we do manage to find things to keep us busy and out of most trouble during the month.

Hubby still has a few projects in the works, like repairing the dock; perhaps adding on to the boardwalk in another direction, as it is now it only goes down to the dock from alongside of our swimming pool to the end of it then down about fifty feet with the diamond pattern containing the Tangelo tree in part of the remaining distance.

I personally have begun my own project; before we went into our Publix grocery store we went over to our Jo-Ann’s Fabrics and Crafts in the same shopping center and picked up the things needed for me to create my plaque for over Charlie’s gravesite.
My concept is to decoupage his picture of his image that I copied already onto paper, and then I will affix it to the oval shaped wooden plaque we found for a mere $2.97. Hubby has a Drummel type tool that he will be using to carve into the wood Charlie’s name and his dates of his life and death, his photo will be in the center and once done it will be lacquered with spar varnish, which we already had, to protect it from the elements, sound good?

I really do enjoy doing decoupage I have done it many times before, I used to do wedding invitations to send back to the happy couple as part of their gift, but since then I have done plaques for my cousins art studio, a trunk with Florida fish all over it in this room, our sunroom, the trunk was plain wood when we got it as a gift from our eldest son’s X-girlfriend when they were together that is. It’s really rather nice the top was done in a cherry wood stain the interior it is painted a beautiful Wedgwood blue, and the sides were first done in an off white crackle and then the fish were applied. Hubby cut them all out and I put them on!
Perfect for holding additional items that you may need and also does double duty as a coffee table in front of our sleep sofa in here, and we did put casters on it too, so it is perfect for us to move out of the way if need be.

That’s it for tonight, and yes, we did manage to get all that we needed at those two places and that is considered a success, right? You betcha.


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