Warmth in winter

When I get up in the mornings and think "Whew it's cold!!" because it's 50-something degrees outside, I know better than to complain about it. When the sun comes out, it will be in the 70s, but back in Baltimore it's struggling to reach 20. I think I can handle this.

 Yesterday after a morning shopping trip at Walmart, I went to open my trunk to put my groceries in, and the key snapped off in the trunk lock.

 

Not cool.  It meant of course that I was stranded in the Walmart parking lot until Dan could come from work, 29 miles away, to rescue me with a working key.  Again... in FL, this is not so bad as it could be.  I sat in the car with the windows down, basking in some sun and listening to birds singing in the trees.  I reflected on an observation I had made in the Walmart:  There are about the same amount of people riding around on electric scooters in the Walmart in Mt Dora as there were at the Walmart in Baltimore.  However,  in Mt Dora the riders were all elderly people.  In Baltimore they were not; they were obese, or swollen and possibly diabetic, or once in a while in a cast, but often just joy-riding.

At Walmart I bought a cilantro plant to put in my kitchen window.  Whenever I need cilantro, I only need a little bit, and I have to buy an enormous clump and waste it.  I thought a little plant would provide me with just the right supply.

This is what it looked like this morning.  I hope when the sun comes up it will perk up.

Here is one of those songs that gets in your ear and stays there.  It runs all day in your head and you find yourself walking in rhythm to it.  Then at night the infinite loop makes you an insomniac and turns your thoughts dark and you feel like there is SOMETHING that you are missing deep in yourself that would make this song bearable and then you could sleep.  Or is that just me?

"Midnight City" by M83

A Week In

A week ago this evening we had just arrived at our little apartment at a retirement community near Orlando.  I simultaneously cannot believe a whole week has passed, and cannot believe that we have only been here a week.

Slowly I am getting used to things.  For instance, we get a storm of some kind come through every day.  Seriously, every day this week.  Sometimes it will just cloud up and thunder will boom for a while.  Sometimes wicked lightning storms scare me.  Sometimes there is a torrential downpour.  Sometimes the wind blows but no real rain falls.

At least the clouds bring a drop in temperature.  It is really, really hot here.  The sun blazes down with intensity that is different than in Maryland.  It's so bright that it still surprises me.  But when the sun is not shining, it actually can get relatively cool.  Evenings are almost always very pleasant, unlike Baltimore which remained hot and stuffy all night.

Thea has been in high school for a week and she really seems to be enjoying herself.  I had some trouble getting Faith and Holly enrolled in school, but everything has been worked out for them to begin on Monday.  Holly is beside herself with excitement.  Faith grumbles but I think she is interested in how it's going to be at a different and larger school.  I am looking forward to having all of them out of my hair at once so I can actually get some work done.

I still feel unsettled and transient.  We have another two weeks here at the old folks' home and then we go to our rental house.  Since we will be there for at least six months, I hope it will feel a little more like home.

Pictures next time.

Dog Days

July has been pretty rough temperature-wise.  The past two or three weeks have seen triple digits as a matter of course.  Dan, the cats, the dog, and I have been relatively inactive.

We did hit a productive spurt last weekend, though, and accomplished a bunch of things around the house in anticipation of the kids' return after spending nine weeks with their dad.  I cleaned up Thea's and Faith's rooms, we put a vanity in Thea's room, we put new lamps in our bedroom, my friend Carrie and I installed the long-promised chair rail in Faith's room and are painting the trim tonight, Dan and I cleaned hundreds of pounds of plaster, insulation, wood and other debris from the unfinished room, he worked on putting up drywall, and he installed a new sink and vanity in the downstairs bathroom.  Lots to be proud of.

My yellow pear tomato plants are in mutant mode.  They are busting out of their cages, climbing out onto the grass, choking out the other tomato plants.  Their branches go down to the ground, ROOT THERE, and then grow back up again.  I have yellow tomatoes everywhere.  It's almost scary.  Carrie and I made yellow tomato salsa one evening and I thought it turned out quite good -- the tomatoes gave it a sweet taste that hid at first the kick from the peppers that burned your mouth.  Speaking of the peppers, after chopping up two jalepenos (one was from my garden!) and a serrano, my fingers burned for two days.  Also, removing my contacts that night apparently transferred the pepper oil onto my contacts, and when I tried to put them in the next morning, my eyeballs nearly burned out.  A quick Google search showed me I am not the first person to experience this.  I rinsed the contacts with hydrogen peroxide and then milk, and let them soak for several hours in fresh solution.  This seemed to do the trick.

My one and only jalepeno

I'm doing a little redesign of the photo album portion of my website.  I'm only.. oh, seven months behind in putting up pictures.  There are a couple of pages I did for 2012 already -- our May trip to Ocean City, and Thea's 8th grade graduation.

I must admit that I have kind of a music crush on Foster the People at this moment.  Which led me to this song that I am currently rocking out at my desk to -- check out the adorable Mark Foster along with Kimbra of "Somebody That I Used To Know" infamy and a DJ named A-Trak in a really cool collaboration on this song, "Warrior".  I love the video, too.

Enjoy and stay cool!

Stormy weather

So we got hit by that big storm that swept through the Midwest and then smacked DC/MD/VA.  I don't really have a terrible story -- we didn't lose power, nothing fell on our house or off of our house.  Lots of people have it really bad right now, but we don't.  We are very lucky and grateful!

So I'm really not complaining... but I was kind of sad about my tomatoes, our one casualty.  Here are my tomato plants on June 19.

They are almost as tall as me at this point.  Ten days later on June 29, they were way taller than me.  They were being barely contained by the tomato cages I had planted them in.  Then this "derecho" came through and flattened them.

All ten tomato cages blew over and left a tangle of twisted branches and wilting leaves.  So sad.  But we will rebuild!

We got some stakes and did our best to pull the cages back up and lash them to the stakes and to each other.  It's kind of a mess of wire, wood and twine, but it holds up the monstrous plants.  And, there was a silver lining:  Deep inside the hedge of tomatoes, I found two yellow pear tomatoes that had ripened!

I admired them for a while and then I ate them.  They were so good -- sweet and tangy.  There are literally well over a hundred more green pear tomatoes where those came from.  We're going to be popping them like candy!

In less tasty news, I cut the bejeezus out of my finger tonight.  Dan sharpened some of the knives in the knife drawer.  Imagine that!!  I am used to having dull knives.  So after I cursed a bit and bled all over, I sat down and held a paper towel tightly around my finger.... and then started to get light-headed and nauseous.  This is something that has come on in just the past 10 years or so.  I used to be able to donate blood at our office blood drives.  I didn't LIKE doing it, but I could, and it felt like such an important thing to do.  But sometime in between having Faith and having Holly, I got to the point where I could not donate blood without becoming faint and dizzy, having the Red Cross people get worried, and having to end the donation without finishing.  I was really disappointed in myself;  I felt like a huge baby.  And I couldn't really understand what the matter was!  I mean, I'm not queasy about blood, either my own or other people's.  It seemed like more of a physiological reaction.  Finally a nurse told me I was having a vasovagal response -- meaning that yes, it was a physiological response to stimuli and did not mean I was a giant wuss.  Basically a trigger causes a malfunction in the way the brain handles heart rate and blood pressure.  My blood pressure drops crazily.

Anyway, so I sat there with my bleeding finger, and got nauseous and dizzy, and had to go lay down on the couch and actually cried a little bit.  I felt pretty silly in a minute, when my senses came back, but HEY!!  I have a VASOVAGAL response!  I'm not just a big baby!

More Fun in Florida

Our second day in Cocoa Beach didn't start out sunny, but it was dry.  In the morning Sarah and I went out for a swim.  The ocean was a great temperature, no shock at all to wade right in.  The waves were pretty tame, and we floated in the water for about an hour.  I don't think the water is ever this warm in Ocean City MD, even at the end of summer.

We were pretty hungry come lunch time so we walked about a block to a little bar and grill on the water.

Mmm, fish tacos!

We did a little browsing around at the Ron Jon Surf Shop and a couple of other shops, then walked back to the condo.  The sun blazed.

After some lazing around and lengthy naps, it was time to think about dinner.  But first we really wanted to cruise around Cocoa Beach with the top down!  A storm was coming up so we rushed to get in some cruising time.

Dan's real excited!

But he put on his cool persona.

We're having a ball. Sarah is posting a picture on Facebook.  The fun lasts approximately eight minutes... then the rain gets too heavy and we have to put the top up while sitting at a stoplight.

On our third morning in Cocoa Beach I inexplicably wake up at six in the morning.  I wouldn't normally call this serendipitous, but I stepped onto the balcony just moments before the sun rose over the Atlantic.

And after that beautiful show, I climbed back in bed and slept another three hours.  What could be better!

Later in the morning we went swimming again.

Me and Sarah wave hello!

This is the condo as seen from the water's edge.

This is Dan as seen at the water's edge.

We have to leave for Orlando in the afternoon, but first we go with Sarah to Jetty Park in Port Canaveral.

Apparently peacocks roam freely through people's yards in this part of the state.  Also apparently they enjoy posing for people who pull over on the side of the road and get out with their cameras going "Ooooh peacock!!"

Jetty Park has a long fishing pier that runs between the beach and the waterway that pleasure boats, fishing boats, and cruise ships use to get to Port Canaveral.  From the pier we saw pelicans, sea turtles, and dolphins.

Sea turtle.  Duuuude!

Pelican

Dan really wishes he had his boat with him.

Preparing for the march of the cruise ships!  There are three ships leaving today.

The Carnival Sensation

We have to leave Jetty Park, but right before we leave for Orlando, we get to see the Disney Dream cruise ship leaving port.  You can see that everyone on board is apparently already having a blast, especially the people on the water slide!

It's a quick drive to Orlando, but as evening approaches yet another storm comes up.  Welcome to Orlando!

I come back here from time to time

picture from http://rebeccasower.typepad.com/

October... It's my absolute favorite time of year.  Colors, warmth and chill, orange sunshine, the smell of wet earth and leaves.

On Saturday, after showering and dressing, I stood out on the back porch and let the sun and the wind dry my hair.  Being as that I live in the middle of the city, I'm sure there were traffic noises and train whistles, but I didn't hear any of that.  I heard birds, and I heard the wind in the trees, and I remembered other October days when I thought to myself, "This is my absolute favorite time of year." 

It was one of those quiet wistful moments in time that you feel like you might remember forever, but you know it'll more likely be forgotten in a matter of days.  If you're lucky, though, the elusive feeling will return to you in another time and place.

This was the song playing through my head on Saturday, and it captures that wistful, warm feeling of October sun and childhood memories.  Gosh, I love this band.

Scattered Black and Whites by Elbow...

Ouch

Seriously, really??

Why So Serious?

Rain and traffic that make for over a two hour commute on a Monday morning... not a good way to start the week off.

Waking up to find your three-year-old looking like the Joker is not a good way to start Sunday morning off either. She got into her sister's purse.

It may have been mixed messages for me to take her picture and then scold her and send her to her room...

And here is a random picture of the dog wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Enjoy!

Christmas In July

Overheard Holly singing:

"Jingle bells
Frosty melts
Jingle all the way
Old MacDonald had a farm
And ...unintelligible..."

Unrelated, there are ants all over the counter and the sink in the kitchen. I keep wiping and wiping but the little pests aren't going away. Usually we have two rainy periods a year and ants appear in certain spots around the house, but it's sure not rainy now. Maybe they were driven inside by drought this time?

Ugh

1. It is hot.
2. My truck died.
   
3. I don't have anyone to watch my dog next week while I'm away.
4. It is hot.
   

Cloudy With a Chance Of...

The little weather widget on my desktop shows a bleak weekend ahead.



Is it just me, or are we bracing for a cockroach invasion on Sunday?

Spring in the air

A two hour drive, all by yourself, on a sunny spring day, great music on the radio, sunglasses on, highway driving and no traffic problems -- priceless. I got two of those this weekend as I drove to and from a quiet girls' weekend "away from it all." Refreshing!



I hope the spring temperatures are here to stay. I'm hoping to get the garden area tilled next weekend, and I've got seeds that need to be started indoors. Trying not to be super ambitious this year with the garden, but I definitely want to do more than I managed the past couple of years. I'm planning to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and beans, plus lettuce and salad greens and then maybe one or two surprises. In addition I want to do some kind of landscaping in front of the house. That's definitely a big enough goal for this year.

Yeah It's Cold

This morning when I got into the truck to take Thea to school, the temperature read 16 degrees. Great morning to forget my gloves! The heat did not kick in until we were nearly to school -- by then my fingers were numb. Mornings like these I do love the seat warmers. I let Thea sit up front so that she could enjoy it as well.

Faith was sick today so I stayed home with her and kept Holly home as well. It was a do-nothing kind of day. Faith's much better so I assume she'll go back tomorrow.

It's really freaking cold and I hate it.