Vacation in October

My last vacation of the year is winding down. Did I do alot? Somedays.

Spent a few days over on Cocoa Beach at Terri's sisters condo. Nice being able to walk out on the beach whenever the waves called you. Enjoyed the storms rolling onto the shore everyday, loved the pace, long, lazy and slow. Dropped Terri off at the airport on Thursday and then back to the house to sweep and mop.

Our weekly survivor dinner was at Bonnie and Rob's. What a great orzo and salmon pasta Bonnie served and the goat cheese salad was tasty too. No one was voted off due to one of the Russel's going home due to medical reasons. Friday was spent catching up on the house stuff and gearing up a weekend of football, laundry and ironing.

Saturday was spent on Bear Watch Patrol 2009. As I was cleaning the front patio one of our neighbors walked by and asked "Do you want to see the bears?"  Who does not want to see bears, especially in your own neighborhood? So down the street, Hunt Club, and there the Mama and Baby Bear were, up in the branches of a tree. The police were on duty making sure traffic did not block the road. This was about 9am. I continued my watch during the day with updates to Cimi and Randy, (picture courtesy of Randy) all day. Around 5pm I decided to take another trip down the street as I was hearing sirens, and we all have the curious instinct to have a need to know what is going on. The local news was on site with a camera and did an interview with me, but alas I was cut for the guy who thought it was better than Disneyland for entertaining his kids on a Saturday afternoon. As dusk appeared I was doing my last watch and update of the day and over heard the sheriff say "the bears have skedaddled".

So now it is Sunday and all of the tasks are done and just waiting patiently for the last football game that I am interested in.
                                        Can we say Saints, 6 and 0?

october vacation

I am officially on vacation and Terri has arrived for her almost annual October vacation. We are off  to Cocoa Beach for a couple of days and sadly she will return to New Orleans to go back to WORK on Thursday! Will catch up when I return. Have a great week everyone.

LSU or bust

Well it was a bust for LSU, I am sorry to say. As a New Orleanian I congratulate the Gators and their consistancy of wins. I am glad that Tebo was able to do that run and get back into his groove. I congratulate all of my neices and family members that the better team won. And I wish that LSU wins next year. Go Tigers.

October 2009

I continue my memories. Today or tonight however to place it, I gave birth to Manny. He was about 10 days past his due date.
Since never having had a baby, I was not aware of how you should feel when the contractions started. The evening before I just started pacing up and down the hallway. It felt like bad period cramps, it's funny even after 9 months of no periods you always remember what cramps feel like.
I decided in the morning to call my mother in law, Joan and asked her what I should do, she immediatly said to call the doctor. Being past the due date the doctor told me to go to the hospital. YEAH, it was going to happen today. At that time, we did not know who we would be having. The funniest, not at the time, was while the nurse was prepping me, shaving, I asked her if she was an expert at this procedure, which she claimed to be and immediatly cut her finger. So much for being an expert.
All day in the hospital and it was a Sunday and only thing on tv was football, yes the Saints did win, which was really a miracle. The weather was wonderful, a first fall day in New Orleans and here I was just lying in a hospital bed all day long, eating ice chips. After about 12 hours the doctor said let's do an xray to see if you can birth this baby, and the other funny thing was the really BIG poster on the wall asking if you thought you may be pregnant, ok. After the xray I was induced and here came Manny with a major scream out of his lungs.
Happy Birthday Manny and I hope your last year in the 20's is great.
Thanks to all who have helped me in the journey of giving advice, taking care of and being supportive of me as a mother and as a friend and relative to Manny.

remembering still

so as we begin a new week, accomplishments were completed by Dago. He has become such a handyman. When we purchased the new FULL size washer and dryer a few weeks back, Dago discovered that the dryer vent that went through the walls upstairs and out into the attic was totally clogged and hard as a rock lint. He cut the wall, removed the venting, bought a new venting system. replaced the insulation, put in new sheet rock, blended it into the existing wall and painted. And now we are done and I just have to clean up the DUST. Thank you Dago for doing an awesome job. I celebrated a birthday this past week, thank you Cimi for the great Snoopy t shirt, silver garland and my favorite Mardi Gras Crown candle holders, Mary for the china jewelry basket, Pat for taking me to lunch and Susan for the Anthropologie gift card. The AB cake was great. I guess I continue to look back and just wanted to share some fun stuff that I discovered during the mess in the room that Dago created, now you see how it all comes full circle. Favorite Record-Tea for a Tillerman; Cat Stevens Favorite TV show-Rowan and Martin's Laugh In Favorite Actor-Clint Eastwood Favorite Car-Jag Favorite Colors-Blue, Grey, Green and Yellow Favorite Bands-Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Neil Young, Carol King, Janis Joplin Favorite Clothing-Jeans and Halter Tops Oscar Winner-The French Connection-Gene Hackman-Jane Fonda Live band at the Warehouse-Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Who, Allman Brothers, Joe Cocker, Stephen Stills, Jethro Tull, President-Nixon, VP-Agnew How much things cost-Movie $2.00, Football Game $.75, Hamburger $.80, Milkshake $.40, Men's tie 4.00, gallon of Gas $.31, Jeans, $6.00, Socks $.70, Records 45 $1.00-33 1/2 $3.75, Shirt $6.00, Skirt $5.00, Shoes $10.00, Sweater $10.00, Posters $2.00=about $50.00 to have all of the above, of course I was only earning $1.20 an hour. and on the last page of this Senior Year Remembrance Book my saying was "just to keep on truckin' " Hope you enjoyed.

the 70's

So as you can tell from the previous blog my thoughts have been running backwards, is it cause my birthday is near? Most likely, I think most people think of what has happened and what is to come when they are near their birth day. So my thoughts turned to the 70's, so much happened during that decade, I graduated from high school, married for the first time, started a career, even if at the time I did not know that it would be one, saw my family move thousands of miles away from me but did not realize the importance of family at that time, lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans and had some really interesting experiences, strippers on Bourbon Street with your husband playing drums while she dances on an electrical spool in front of him, turning 18 and having my first legal drink at the Warehouse at a Bob Dylan concert, pretty cool getting carded on your B'day, having my first apartment, moving 6 times in 5 years, why?, buying my first house, learning how to drive and buying my first car, it was a van with curtains and a sofa, and collecting money for gas, cause it had gone to $1.00 a gallon during the first gas crisis, voting for President for the first time, learning how to crochet from my mother, learning how to make a roux, loving white platform shoes in my little pink double knit polyester mini skirt suit, it was so professional, never going on a vacation that did not include a visit to family, I guess I did realize how important family was, always planning on partying on the weekends with friends, hating that I had to work on Saturdays cause the career turned out to be retail, loving my life and the no stress that we all seem to have today. So enjoy a couple of Peter Maxx paintings and remember the follies of your youth.

Mother

I know that all of you are aware of the recent activities surrounding Mother. So my thoughts went to things that I did with Mother. One of the best memories I have was the time that I was getting married back in 1972 and she and I went to Canal Street, via the Algiers ferr.We were going to shop for fabric for my wedding dress. It was a great time. We wandered up and down going into every fabric store that were there. We stopped in one and found the perfect material, satin and the overlay, poi di soi and made our choice. It is a good memory. I hope you enjoy the picture from the past.

Princess Diana

Just a great dress and a great pic.

Rest in peace, Diana, Princess of Wales, 12 years ago tonight.

Diva Dresses

Diva Dresses is a charity for breast cancer awareness. I choose to support this charity this past week by viewing the dresses that Princess Diana had worn. If you know me you are aware that this is one of my small obsessions that you learn about me upon visiting my powder room. I had not seen this exhibit before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are the only pics I could take as none were allowed inside. My favorite was the taffeta dress worn by Diana during one of her Christmas's at Balmoral.

random updating

So I know that it has been at least a month or less since I have posted anything. Just a few thoughts. The month of July was a busy one with the beginning of August being the same. We live in Florida and people like to spend their vacations here. We started out the month with Dago's sister and her family, kept the middle with Terri and ended the month and started August with Dago's parents who just left this past Monday. His parents were wonderful while here. They always like to have a project of some sorts and this time was no different. All of my white baseboards, doors and trim were painted during the beginning of their visit. The last weekend was spent painting our bedroom. Tried to take a couple of pics, hope you get the feel. We had it painted "Ocean Tide" thanks Brenna. It really is a beautiful and relaxing bedroom. We moved the TV out and have not missed it. Only have the bed, our chiffarobe and Rocko's sleeping headquarters. One of the You will also notice a few pics of the BEAR that visited the Friday prior to their leaving. I always wondered where they came from and where they were going. We have had several sightings of bears since living here. This was actually the closest that I have gotten. He was across the street in Norm's backyard, preceded to climb the fence, meander across Hunt Club, climbed another fence and was gone. Rocko was going nuts inside of the house. He looked as if he wanted to wander on down to Cimi and Randy's but decided not to. Work has been work. We are still in the midst of becoming mymacy's, a little stressful at times, but it is all good. Dago has been staying busy at his job. My one enjoyment of the summer had it's last visit today. Erinn was cleaning the house weekly and is now on her way back to Gains ville for her last semester at school. I will miss her and her talents at keeping my house clean. So that is about all for now. Hope everyone is well and enjoying the last of summer.

Friends

What a joy it is to have a friend that you are able to do absolutely nothing with. Terri flew into town Thursday after work. Dago had Tijuana Flats for us and of course you can never have a vacation without doing a grocery run. We choose Pub lix of course and anyone who has ever had carrot cake knows that Pub lix does have the best one out there.

Then Friday morning we got up with Dago to wish him a happy day and it was off to Cocoa Beach to spend a couple of days with Terri's sister, Cindy and her beau Brian. Cindy and Brian have a condo right on the beach. Could life be any better?

And two hours later we were set up on the beach for the day. Terri had given Cindy a "beach table" like the one that Cimi and Randy had given to Dago years ago for his birthday and Cindy had chairs, umbrellas, towels, snacks, water and great chemo stories for us that afternoon. We had a great time just sharing memories, getting bit by fish, sunning, lots of sand and just enjoying the simplicity of life. Dinner was fish tacos down the road when Brian came home. Then off to the condo to watch the lightning storms. Saturday was a repeat of Friday, with a sunset included in the day.

On Sunday morning I got up with the sunrise, which was great. As i strolled along in the surf I made sure to pick up whatever did not belong so it would not get washed back out when the tide came in. It is amazing that such

small things can really mess wonderful things up.

Middle of July

Wow, hard to believe that July is already half over. So much has happened this month. We started it off at Captiva with Bonnie and Rob. Came home to enjoy a week with Sandra, Marc, Gianna, Elaina, Emily and Sarah. They did the whole theme park thing and we enjoyed their company each evening. Then last weekend we got to celebrate Erinn and Andrew's engagement weekend festivities with the Virginia folks, Chris, Ashley, James, Jesse and of course the great nephew, Jackson. We were also able to catch up with some Fairhope Alabama friends, Tom, Nancy, Elizabeth and Andrew. What a fun weekend. Can we say nonstop? Hats off to Cimi and Randy for hosting a great weekend with Randy burgers and Dago always knows how to pick out a great cake from Publix. Talk to all soon. Oh, and can I say this weekend Terri will be in town and then the following weekend Dago's parents will be here. As I always say it is summer and we live in Florida.

Captiva 2009

So another year in Captiva has come and gone. This year we spent an entire week there and needless to say, did not want to come back to city life. This was the 4th year that we have spent the 4th with Bonnie and Rob. This year their daughter, Olivia joined us. As always a great time was had by all.

Just a few of our thoughts on our last night there, live star fish, dolphins swimming 20 feet from us, and a manatee passing by, a bat flying for Bonnie, cockroaches on the patio under our feet, can we say JUMP, multiple lizards named George visiting, spiders and webs through the foliage, crabs telling us good morning, and then a crab biting Bonnie on the butt in the ocean, she freaked out cause she thought it was seaweed, the crab had gone postal, Rob finding the best shells on Bowman's Beach, Rob-Marco, Polo with Andrew his new man friend, painting coconuts, flying kites, shelling every day, boogie boarding, shopping, some body surfing, Olivia fishing and catching a big snooker, rain showers in the afternoon, Mexican food our last night, bad margaritas, screwdrivers, wine, great dinners, excellent lunches, great company with great friends, cute little cottage (Bette Davis had it built), no Shell Museum again, Michael Jackson on TV, 6am morning walks along the beach, real rough water, no floating in the ocean, water shoes, cut feet, how many corona beer boxes were down the street, five million dollar after dinner drink house, tikki torches, Dago and new swim shorts, torn up pedicures, sun poisoning, sitting under the umbrella, long sleeve t shirt, not swim suits, but sunning suits, guide dog on the beach, mutts on the beach, sand exfoliation, sunsets, dirty sunglasses, Olivia passed out on the beach, driving down to setup everyday, breaking in, who's got the key, outside showers, early bedtimes, Captiva 2009 sand and shell sculpture on the beach, ice cream, big red chair, are there any limes, where are my sunglasses, head wraps, keys and of course the mesh bags, towels, where's Dago, great laundry and sheets, "TIGHT", aggravating phone calls, Dago always swimming, Bonnie and Olivia being cold in the cottage, calves that hurt, hamstrings hurting worse, feet worn out and doing quads daily, Captiva Stoop, and then the long drive home. Hope you all enjoy the memories. Next year can not come fast enough.

slow to update

Sunday look for a current update. Captiva vacation, back to work and a deep dive.

Weekend in Virginia

So I decided that I needed to go to Virginia this past weekend to visit Mother. I spent 3 full days with her at the hospital. Chris got a much needed break. I also got to spend some time with Jackson, Ashley, Craig, James and Jim. Not alot of time with them, more with Mother. The beginning of the trip started out really crazy as the pilot of the plane did not want to fly the one that was at the gate. The flight ended up being cancelled and I ended up flying out Friday morning. Chris picked me up at the airport with Jackson and I was chauffeured by Chris to her house and then made my way to the hospital. I was surprised at the change in Mother from January until June. I guess that is what major surgery does to a person. Spent the next 2 days with Mother. Went to Chris's and Jim's each night for dinner. Got to eat the infamous fried stredel do not know how to spell that, someone please correct. Other than that it was time with Mother. Enjoy the new pics of Jackson.

1st week in June

The 1st week of June is now over.

Exciting to meet the trio finally. How cute are they. Hudson was busy with duplos. I remember Manny being just as busy as he was. Bennett was cranky from lack of sleep, so his mom said. And Miss Kate was just busy. What a precious family. Carey and Stephanie are blessed and I know their Gamma just loves it all. Come on Hunter you need to be a part of this too.

During that vacation in May I rearranged some of the garden elements to the front area. One of the items that was moved next to our door, was my fountain. Dago reminds me to make sure there is always water in it as he has spotted birds coming to drink and play in it. Tonight as we were eating dinner, we again noticed this small bird with a piece of something in her beak. Dago said that she was building a nest somewhere next to the fountain. After I finished up the kitchen I decided to explore the potted plants to see where this nest could be. It is being built in the middle of a pot of Mother in Law tongues (that is what I know the plant as). This is why we know that this bird is female cause she must be getting ready to lay eggs in this nest. Check it out, how cool is this? So leaving you for the week by saying "stop and enjoy what is given to us freely. "

my latest time robber

i love it!

wrapping the vacation up

I did do everything on my list to some degree so you could say that i was not all that lazy during this vacation. Saturday found me scrapping with Cimi. I thought that since everyone started out the week with a photo of bad hair and no makeup, but we did have pie, that you should have one with decent hair, some makeup and chocolate pound cake. I finished up the wedding album, 3 years and 2 months after. Just have to do some journalling. I think the next photo project will be Janet and Todd's wedding vacation trip that we took almost 10 years ago to Colorado. I did do a memory book for her, but nothing for us. Tonite we go to Bonnie and Rob's for the Survivor ending. Jacki just called and Dago is on his way to pick her up so she will be joining us. What a surprise. So tomorrow back to the world of Macy's at the mall of Millenia. Everyone have a great week.

May vacation

So what does a girl do when she doesn't have a vacation trip planned? (in no order)

1-clean house?

2-cook?

3-iron?

4-catch up the shows?

5-visit?

6-shop?

7-decorate?

8-lay by the pool?

9-do some work?

10-play with Rocko?

11-nap?

12-read?

13-scrap?

14-organize messes?

15-gardening?

16-all of the above?

So here is a pic of what I have done besides #1,2,4,7,11! I am only into day 3 of the vacation so I most likely can do some other things on the list. The bigger question is why? Do we always have to stay busy or can we focus on the important things in life? Something that I have been asking myself for a long time. I believe that everyone makes choices, but we all always forget about the most important choice and that is what makes and keeps YOU happy! So have a HAPPY week and I will let you know Sunday how the May vacation turns out, who knows?