Good Question

Tuesday afternoon, while chatting with Petra at the museum, she asked me what I'd been up to for July and August. I drew a blank. Seriously, at that moment I couldn't think of one interesting thing I'd done. Good question Petra. Happily I thought to myself, self--you've got a blog to remind you! It's kind of sad though. There must have been something to report!

A few days ago I tried my best to do something with my jar of saved broken glass:

I agree with you--not all that great. No doubt I'll keep trying.

We now have a holding pen. Say what? Yesterday I made not one, not two, but THREE trips to my new nursery. I'll tell you what, the Element comes in mighty handy when you've got to haul stuff. My first trip we packed twenty 3 gallon plants in the back! Next trip the same. While unloading the plants into our holding pen, I could hear the phone ringing inside the house. Lorraine was calling to let me know they could get the other plants we were looking for sent up on a truck from Miami today if I wanted to come and pay for them. Well, that's just what I did. Three trips=30 miles total. Not bad huh? One trip to Lukas is about that. Because I went over budget on my tile selection I'm looking for ways to make it up. So far, so good.

The plants are so cheery; I just love them! I might as well introduce you to the cast of characters who will be working around here for the next three weeks or so. This way you'll know who/what I'm talking about.

• Mark is the general contractor who is working in Bruce's stead. He'll schedule the workers and find all the sub contractors. 
• Danny is the window guy. He's ordering the windows and will have a crew install them, possibly as early as next Wednesday.
• Mike is the tree guy who worked here a few weeks ago. He'll be removing the plants as well as  grinding the stumps of both the Spanish bayonet and the Schefellera tree. 
• Phil is the pool guy. 
• Bill and Lorraine are the nursery people. You well know that most times I can get anyone to reveal their life story don't you? Yesterday Lorraine told me Bill is 80--no wonder he's a touch cranky. As well, Lorraine had her own story to tell. Makes life interesting.

Here is what Mike will remove tommorrow:

Just a tad overgrown wouldn't you say? There is a house somewhere behind all that greenery that I've not seen for years. Actually, no doubt there will be an adjustment period being able to see the windows from outside, not to mention being able to actually look out the window and not be greeted by a jungle!  This photo may resurface as a comparison shot once things get underway.

Sadly I was mistaken about my swimming schedule. Today will be the final swim before next year. To the far right of the photograph there is one of the stumps that need grinding which will effectively ruin the plumbing, which in turn means that, although Phil won't be starting until a week from Monday, the pool will no longer have filtration after tomorrow. Obviously, I hadn't counted on that.

Remember how I wrote that I had a slew of canvases to sell. I wasn't kidding:

Fortunately three left me on Sunday. As you can see, I still have my green chair! Notice down the hallway into the back bedroom will you? Behind that dresser, a wall unit air conditioner lurks. For some unknown reason, the previous owners elected to leave two wall units in both this bedroom and ours. All these years I've arranged furniture to hide their ugly appearance. Guess what? Next week Mark has someone coming to remove them, fixing both the block outside, and the plaster inside. Woo Hoo!

Yesterday while heading out front with Baxter to retrieve the paltry mail, I found this on our porch:

As you can see, one torn wing, rendered this beauty somewhat helpless. HOWEVER, returning later for a look, it was gone. After observing it slowly scratching it's way across the planks, I've no idea how it went anywhere.

Earning those pesky continuing education points will take up tomorrow at Florida Hospital. At least I won't be taking any tests!

Until next time my friends..........

About This Time...

About this time two weeks ago I was packing the car with my prints, ready to give the Saturday market another chance. My how things have changed since then. Seriously, I'm in shock that it is February 5 already. January has flown right by me. Because I know you'll want to know--I had a long conversation with Karen, of the bleeding brain fame, and she sounds terrific! Each day she grows stronger and stronger, with her latest CT scan perfect! How about them apples?

There is probably nothing quite like dismantling another home to make one realize how much they have neglected their own home. On Wednesday I spent eight hours working in Zellwood cleaning out drawers, the pantry and cupboards. When I'd called the food bank last week the nice woman mentioned that oftentimes older people have a pantry full of expired food. Aside from a few boxes of Jello, there really wasn't all that much to throw out due to an expired date. It seems as if Mom had made a recent trip to Costco, so she did have thirty cans of V-8, twelve rolls of paper towels, 3 lb. bag of Crasins, you get my drift. What most puzzled me in the pantry was a 48oz. unopened container of Nestle's Quick. I totally wondered if she drank that much chocolate milk.

For Christmas I'd given her new dish towels from William-Sonoma, exhorting her to throw out all the old stuff and start fresh. I found the towels in their original packaging. The kitchen drawer was still jam packed with old towels and potholders. Check out the great shape these are in:I suspect most everyone reading this narrative will recall the great feeling of satisfaction after making one of these beauties!

So now I know where Bruce's amazing storage skills came from--his Mom. It is astonishing how creative she was at storing things. Every little nook and cranny was put to good use. Another thing that made this job easy was that everything was clean; I can honestly say there was not one thing that made me say ICK--I don't want to touch that. Instead it made me admire her all the more.

Thus, I was inspired to clean out my own cupboards. From the moment I awoke (aside from occasional computer use, tea making, and eating), I worked feverishly dismantling my own kitchen--trashing, cleaning, and re-organizing. This took hours and hours. I'm pleased.

The guest room, formerly Bill and David's bedroom, is decorated in a peaceful, and I hope, sophisticated style. That may be a bit of a stretch, but that was the intention. Most of the curtains in our home are wild prints except for the ones in that room. They are white tab curtains. Floor length, like white sentries on either side of the windows. Looking at things with my new eyes, I realized that I'd never washed those curtains in the, I'm ashamed to admit, six years they've been hanging. Let's all just think ICK right now, shall we? Adding to the shame, I moved them a bit, discovering, with horror I might add, that a bug had left a trail on said curtain panel. Pathetic!!!!

You're probably one step ahead of my typing aren't you? Yes, I washed, bleached, and ironed those babies today. This makes me feel better. Poor, neglected house...

I was thinking today that dust is not my friend, and who, pray tell, invited it into my home without an invitation??? Still working on that...

We've had more rain this winter than I can remember, but I guess that's not saying much. Today we received a statement detailing a transaction that Bruce cashed in some stock options in April. I gave him a call at the office, asking him if he remembered what we did with the money....he can't remember either. We're quite the pair in that department!
Tears from heaven is what I'm thinking about this...

Finally, our former book editor at the Sentinel has begun blogging about, you guessed it, books,Nancy Pate. If you need a fix of good grammar and punctuation, go there!

Baby Steps

We have taken baby steps all along the way in this venture. Here's another one--when I returned home from school this was in the mail. I bought it on Ebay which I've only used about twice before. The plate with our name--Out & About Photography will arrive separately. Have I even told you our name before?--I can't remember. This is the plan--when I get approved for the PayPal virtual terminal, we'll swipe the card at the market, and then when we get home log on, entering it for payment. Bruce has a laptop, and there is WiFi, but it is not reliable enough for us to feel comfortable with it. At least this is the current plan.

Immaculate Collection is playing on Itunes right now--so many of the songs hold up wonderfully. I just heard "Justify My Love", good stuff.

Speaking of memory, thanks for the tips friends. Laura suggested I sing it--cool idea, as I'm sure you are like me and remember lyrics like nothing else. I stopped on the way home and bought some note cards--I'll need them for future speeches. Our professor is very lively and fun, but today was painful. She played something from "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and groups had to get up and move to it. If you can envision a weirder thing for me to have to do, I don't want to hear about it! Picture a room full of 18-25 year olds, here is yours truly having to dance in front of the class. I'm hoping the cute young things in my group were commanding the attention.

I've got a film quiz to take online about Stagecoach which I dread, but here goes. I'm so not into analyzing what seems to me as just a story. Museum duty tomorrow. It's supposed to be a rainy weekend, hopefully the weatherman is wrong per usual.