Fun Day

We spent the day at Clam Pass Beach with Bill and Donna (and Grandma, too!)
Mostly lolling about beneath our big red beach umbrella and watching the shore birds and snow birds. (The favorite snow bird was wearing a thong bikini with a small ruffly skirt attached around the waist. Interesting effect!) Sorry, no photo.

Home again to clean up, then back out to a Ricky Skaggs (bluegrass musician) concert at the Phil. Great, high energy, super talent.

Grandma had already begged off going to the concert, but enjoyed the beach.

Big Cypress Swamp

This week the Longs are here with us. We spent a lovely afternoon wandering through Big Cypress Swamp on the less-than-a-mile-long boardwalk.

While we were standing at the water's edge - before we were actually on the boardwalk itself - a red-shouldered hawk flew down to the ground right at our feet and carried off what seemed to be a small rodent. Then he sat on a nearby branch to enjoy his lunch.

We saw only one alligator, but at least a dozen kinds of birds, including the bald eagles which have nested again on the tall tree not too far from the walkway. Karin and Sid and the kids saw the same pair (on the same nest) when they were here last year.

Today Grandma is moving over to Jim and Ann's house. It's been fun having her around. She will be there for the next three or four weeks, then back here again until we go back north.

Also today, our friends Bill and Donna from Tennessee will be arriving for a one-week stay. We have many activities planned for them while they are here ... first on the list will be asking Bill to help John install our new garbage disposal. I'm sure they will be hoping the excitement level will go up from there!

The disposal problem has been sort of exciting, though, all by itself. It developed an invisible crack in the plastic housing, which allwed a slow leak. We more or less let that go for a week or so, trusting that the bucket we already had stored under there would catch the drips, which it did ... for a while.

However, yesterday, the tiny little crack expanded to a 2-inch slit. Then, when we used the disposal, it sprayed the water (dirty water, of course) out forcefully instead of letting it drip. When I opened the under-sink cabinet door to see what was going on, it sprayed all the way out into the room. The effect was sort of like when you spit between your teeth to make the spray go further!

Wow. Nevera dull moment, huh?

We're still here!

Still alive and kickin', even if I don't blog often enough. I think I just get really, really lazy when we come down to the warm weather.

My biggest excitement this week so far has been Bingo at the senior center with Grandma.

There will be more soon, though.

And a good time was had by all!

Happy new year 2009!

Greetings from our house!

New Year's Morning

Never let it be said that we don't know how to have a good time at our house!

By the way, that is cranberry juice in Grandma's glass ...

PhotoShop Elements 6

Okay, I'm finally moving up to at least this decade. My "new" PhotoShop Elements is not the latest version, but almost. It was recommended by my friend Marlene, who does lots more than I with photos, and the fact that she has the same version will make her an invaluable asset for me.

For example, I have a call in to her right now to ask how to Save the friggin' files! I know it can be done, and I have in fact done it (once) with this program, but now I'm lost again. Soon, though, I will have this thing conquered and you can expect to see lots more photos on this Blog.

Oh yeah, and we are also arranging to get high-speed cable hook-up for the 'puter, too, which will make a huge difference in my enthusiasm level for uploading anything at all!

Mornings

We are pretty well settled in here. Now we wake up to bright sunshine and a view of our very, very green and leafy, and tiny, back yard. With the occasional bright, tropical blossoms the sight is a lovely welcome to the new day ... and the new year!

In Tennessee, we had been waking to our famous red sunrises, with the vista from our hillside home covering miles and miles of hills and trees and mountains, and songbirds' tunes drifting in to rouse us.

Very, very different outlooks, and yet both are heart warming and so important to me. It's impossible to be the least bit sad or depressed when your days start with such glory!

OK, I lied

I know I promised to post again when we got home from Texas, but obviously that never happened.

After Texas, we did drive home, and stayed there for a few days. Then the 800 mile drive to Albion for Christmas, including a drive from to Lisa and Jon's in the middle of the visit, then the drive back home with Grandma in tow.

Two nights and a day at home - just enough time to wash the cold-weather clothes and re-pack the suitcases with spring and summer stuff - then another 800 mile drive to FL.

Now we're here and we've had a lovely New Year's Eve. Off to the beach for firworks, then back for homemade vegetable soup for supper. Then we watched football till about 11. Just when we were ready to pronounce the New Year officially here so we could toddle off to bed, an amazing show came on. All three of us actually stayed awake for another whole hour or more so we could watch an idiot in Las Vegas drive his truck up an almost vertical ramp and turn it in a 360 back flip in the air ... then crash to the ground sideways and hard! Ruined the truck, but he wasn't hurt, just bummed out. (Last year he had apparently tried the same trick, but crashed - really, really hard - in his final practice run and almost killed himself. After four months in the hospital and/or a body cast, he decided he had to try again.)

Then, that fool was followed another, bigger idiot who drove his motorcycle up another almost vertical ramp ... 50 feet high ... and jump it to the top of the Las Vegas version of the Arc d' Triomph (sp?) which is 96 feet high. He landed on the roof, turned around, and drove off the edge, falling with his cycle about 50 feet onto a ramp which led him back to the ground. He, too, hit pretty hard, but not sideways, so he landed upright. Cut his thumb severely in the process, and probably broke his hand, but he lived (which outcome had been in doubt, which is why we kept watching, of course!)

Then a toast to the new year (with a small wineglass of cranberry juice), a few notes on our noisemaker tooters, a short version of "Auld Lang Syne" and then, finally, off to bed. Grandma is a great sport!

We had planned to have 11 people over for the fireworks and dinner, but each of the couples had some excuse (up to an including a small stroke by our friend Harlan, so he was in the hospital) so it was just the three of us. Worked out just fine.

Today, football on tv all day long!

Happy New Year to all!