Wow, it has been two weeks since my last post; where does the time go? As you saw in the last post we are making strides in changing the looks of the old home front. This Saturday was spent working in the yard trying to make more changes. Also because our small group was meeting at our house today I needed to make sure things looked neat around the old homestead, bosses orders. The nice thing is that i really like working around the yard and making things look good, I just need a little motivation. What better motivation than trying to make the love of my life happy; and Fozzy loved the yard. Just kidding folks.

Actually it was great to hear Kim say that she could see my plan for the yard and it was starting to come together. I have some neat flower beds starting and if i could just get some grass to grow we would be finished. Alright we wouldn't be finished but that would be enough for this season. I am determined that this year we are going to enjoy the beauty around us and spend more time with family and wherever God may lead us.

It has been a wonderful couple of weeks since my last blog. Work has actually been pretty good. There is still enough projects going on that i am involved in. The stores are doing really well considering the economic times. Don and i are able to spend time together at work mostly doing moves and such, but at least we get to spend time together. I am looking forward to the nice weather when we will be able to ride our bikes together to work. The days have been great but the mornings have been a bit cool; alright i'm a woos.

On April 9 i went for my regular blood test, IVIG and checkup and i am still in remission. I praise God for the miracles of modern science and His grace. From what i have been told, ten or fifteen years ago i would not be a survivor at this stage of my cancer. Because the numbers were good i don't have to go for my next checkup, IVIG till July. I'll let you know where we are at that time and your prayers are definitely coveted.

We had a great day today. Our church service was wonderful and we were able to get together with our small group at our house and i don't think anyone even noticed the work i did around the yard. We had a great time of fellowship and i got to take a short nap in the afternoon. Of course there were many things i could have done, but name one that would have been better than a nap on cloudy Sunday afternoon. Besides, Fozzy was feeling neglected and he needed a little quality time, which for him is laying on your lap while you rest, read or whatever.

I am looking forward to another great week. I have a loving wife, a nice home, a job, great health, wonderful family and a God who only wants the best for me. We have a lot coming up in the next month with birthdays, weddings, family visits, pool parties and so much more. I will try to be a bit more diligent in keeping up with my blogs. I guess it doesn't really matter if anyone else reads these ramblings but it helps me to focus. If you happen to stumble on this non literary compilation of letters i hope it somehow brightens your day. Till next time.

It is Sunday afternoon and i am sitting on the patio wirelessly connected to the web on my laptop posting to my blog. Love this technology. Well to start off, if you remember my last blog i was whining about the changes in insurance companies and how to get new insurance i would need to remove the slide and diving board from my pool. I had a picture posted of the area where the slide use to be. Once again i will wait if you need to review or [gasp] read the last blog because you haven't read it yet.
OK, so as you can see from the picture here i made some changes. I am calling this my slide garden. A few dollars worth of plants, a bunch of pine straw, some rocks and voila' a new garden spot. I am looking forward to the flowers coming up, attracting the butterflies and hummingbirds.
Kim has been away the past couple of days at a conference in New Orleans with some of the ladies from church. As a matter of fact, as i sit here typing this she is on her way back expecting to arrive in a couple more hours. While she was away i spent two days working on the lawn. She hasn't seen the changes yet which include the completion of the slide garden and two more gardens i put in the front of the house. I will post pics of these at a future date. It was hard work and of course i overdid a bit but at least i was able to make the place look nicer.
Kim and i were talking last week and saying how we are getting tired of just working on our jobs and then working around here and really not enjoying the beauty of the place where we live. We realize of course that we need to do our job and chores and take care of what God has blessed us with but we are not getting any younger folks.
We were also talking about family birthdays and the ages of our grandkids. I was lamenting the fact that there are no grandkids with a single digit age. Now i know that i am still young [in my head] but there appear to be circumstances all around me that belie that notion. Like the fact that i have a grandaughter who is 23 and a great grandson who is two and looks like he is five. There is also the fact that i use to be able to work in the yard from early morning to late evening without a problem. I tried that the other day and about halfway through, i was hurting in places that i didn't even know existed.
All that said, we have determined that we are going to try and enjoy ourselves this summer. I am determined to make things look nice around here mostly with low maintenance plants and such and spend more time with my wife and family. People spend hundreds of dollars to vacation here and spend time on our beaches and yet i haven't gone yet. I am so thankful for all of God's blessings and want to try and get my focus right.
Well that is enough ramblings for now. I am pleased with the way thing are looking around the yard and looking forward to seeing Kim when she gets home. I am thankful that God has given me the strength to be able to do these thing and have a family that i look forward to enjoying time with. God is good.

Changing the look

Anyone who has been in our pool or at least seen it will see from the picture that something is missing. I'll give you a minute to see if you can notice. OK, time is up, the slide and diving board are missing. Do you want to know why? Alright I'll tell you. After about thirty years of dealing with the same insurance company, State Farm, they decided they will no longer insure homes in Florida. This means that for the first time in thirty years I need to start looking for another insurance company. This is a subject for a whole different blog but suffice it to say that things have changed in the insurance world.

The new companies I have been checking with will not insure my home with the pool if it has a slide or diving board. Some will insure it for double the cost but since my kids won't pay the additional cost the pool now appears as you see it in the picture. What to do with the slide and board area is the subject of this blog. Updated pictures will follow.

Last weekend I started the transformation, which you should have read in my last blog. If you didn't read it yet stop here and go back and get caught up, I'll wait. OK, so now you know I moved two large ferns, tore up some wood and moved some stones. What to do from here.

Today I went to Lowes and purchased a bunch of plants for around the yard including the aforementioned area. We are looking at adding more low maintenance plants and maybe a bird bath or something to this area, along with a table or tanning bed in place of the diving board. Trying to figure out what to put there and make it all come together is half the fun.

This is going to be a short blog because I am getting tired and need to get my rest. I will continue to work on the changes and post updates as they are getting done. Remember that as a sixty something, full time working, motorcycle riding, when will I find time for that kind of guy this could take a while. I will do my best to update regularly and if not my loving wife who's other full time job is to keep me on the straight and narrow will make sure I do.

My Weekend

Just to be consistent I need to start out by saying that it has been a while since my last blog. I decided that only having Saturdays to get things done around the house just wasn't cutting it, so I took off Friday to do a little extra work around here. I got up early, read the paper and enjoyed my morning coffee unhurried while I waited for Kim to get up. We went out for breakfast, which is what we do when it is my turn to do breakfast, at a place we hadn't yet tried. It was very good and we will be returning again when it is my turn to do breakfast again.

After breakfast we went to K-Mart to pick up a few things we needed for the projects around the house. While there I got a call on my cell phone, some people seem to ignore the memo about me being off, and to make a long story short I had to go to work. Now in case you think this is a bad thing, I need to mention that the weather was beautiful and I do have a motorcycle that I love to ride. After returning home from K-Mart I fired up the Roadie and headed to work. After a great forty minute ride to work, I spent twenty minutes taking care of the work problem, and then enjoyed a relaxing forty minute ride home. Just think, if it wasn't for work I would not have gone for a ride at all. I love my job!!

When I returned home I started work with a vengeance. Well maybe not a vengeance, but figured I had better get something accomplished. Since the Roadie was all warmed up from the ride I figured I might as well do the oil change she was due for. I thought about doing some of the other work I wanted to do on her, but remembered that I didn't take the day off to work on the Roadie. Maybe another day.

Well back to the yard work which is why I was home and not at work. There are two fan palms that I knew had to be moved because they were getting to big and were crowding out my sago palm. Last week I had to remove my pool slide so there was a big open space that needed some attention. After removing the stones that were around the slide I dug up the fan palms and replanted them where the slide use to be. The wood walkway that went around the slide was deteriorating so that had to be removed also.

The wood is gone, the palms are in place, the stones are mostly forming a walkway and I am starting to feel my age. It is about time to start gathering up my tools and getting everything put away. The job is not complete but tomorrow is another day. It is getting near dinner time and since I didn't bother having any lunch my energy level was getting a little low.

Saturday was my turn to do breakfast again so we went to another place because the one we went to on Friday was not open Saturday and we liked this place also. After breakfast we went home and did a couple things around the house. We had an appointment with an optometrist for our regular eye exam at 1100. We figured in and out in an hour or so, but as things happen we were still there at 1400. By the time we went shopping and returned home it was to late to do to much with the yard projects. OK, so maybe we need to try this again another weekend. Between the rain and the unforeseen circumstances of the weekend I didn't accomplish as much as I had intended but it was a wonderful weekend nonetheless.

Sunday was just a great day of enjoying time with our church family and relaxing at home. After church Kim and I had a nice lunch on the patio and enjoyed reading the Sunday paper. Kim went and took a little nap and I paid the bills on line and spent some time working on the computer. After finishing this blog I am going to get ready for bed so I can get some sleep and prepare for another fun week at work.

The Ride

Alright, on my last blog I wrote about how cold it has been around here and for anyone living north of Florida I don't expect much sympathy. But come on this is Florida and one of the reasons I moved here was to be warm. No I don't consider 40 degrees warm. As a matter of fact I no longer consider 50 degrees during the day to be warm.

One of the terrible side effects of having temps this low is that I am not able to ride the Roadie. Those of you that know me know that I really enjoy riding my bike. The only problem is that I am a fair weather rider. I am not one of those diehards that you see riding all bundled up in freezing weather or covered with vinyl to protect from the rain. No, at my age I enjoy a little comfort no matter how much I love to ride.

The Roadie has been sitting in the Roadie shed for what seems like an eternity gathering dust waiting to be taken out and given a little exercise. Well today I decided that it was time to put all the other needs on hold and go for a ride. We went to church this morning and had our small group meet at our house afterward and around 1430 with an outside temperature of around 65 degrees I had enough.

I changed into my jeans, put on my Harley boots, donned my leather jacket and headed for the Roadie shed. After disconnecting the battery minder from the battery, I pulled the choke, turned on the ignition and hit the starter. Well, the Roadie was mad because I ignored her for so long. At least that is how it appeared because when I hit the starter all she did was grunt. You know, like not now I have a headache. Well after a little sweet talking, yes it works with motorcycles too, she decided to wake up and those 1600 cc's of power came to life.

After letting her warm up for a while, Roadies don't like the cold either, I swung my leg over the seat and hit the throttle just to hear the power. Pushing back out of the shed I positioned the bike next to the pool without actually going into the pool, I need to draw a picture sometime, and put her in gear to turn and get her out the gate. After putting the stand down I put on my helmet and goggles and got ready to ride. Even though it had been a while since I last rode I was feeling really good and confidant sitting on that bike.

There have been times when I contemplated selling the bike thinking that I don't really ride a lot anyway and maybe I should just sell it. Then I go for a ride! Now my ride today was only about thirty minutes long but that was a very enjoyable thirty minutes. It's a biker kind of thing, but there is something about hearing the rumble of the exhaust, the unobstructed view, and the feel of the wind and sun all around you. When I ride, any thoughts of not having a bike go right out the window or in the case of the bike right over the handlebars. I don't have to ride a lot I just need to know that I can if I want to.

I can ride with my son in law or with some of the guys at church. I can take a nice ride with my wife on the back along some quiet stretch of road and stop somewhere for lunch or just to look at the beautiful scenery all around us. A car is a closed environment but a bike allows you to become part of the environment. OK so you can only eat so many bugs or shift to only a few positions when your bottom gets sore but where is your sense of adventure?

When I pulled the Roadie back into the shed after my short ride, I was invigorated. This is no small feat when you get into your sixties. I realized that as long as God gave me strength and the ability to ride I would continue to be a biker. There is something about riding that gives you a sense of freedom. I have had good days and bad days and then climbed on the bike and after a nice ride arrived home with a smile on my face and Kim saying "is that a love bug in your teeth?"

Baby it's cold outside

Excuse me but this is Florida and tonight the temperature is expected to drop down to around twenty degrees. Twenty degrees is below freezing, and for the mathematically challenged that is twelve degrees below freezing!! What is going on here; is this part of the global warming everyone is talking about? I moved south from the northeast part of these great United States to get warm. Twenty degrees is NOT warm!!

I am sitting in front of my computer writing this and I am cold. In Florida HVAC systems are all about air conditioning not heating. Yes the summers are hot in Florida but I remember a bunch of sweating going on when I lived in Delaware and New York. For my geographically challenged readers, that is in the northern part of the States. Heating in homes in this part of the country is mostly done by heat coils, not gas or oil which is much more efficient. We won't even start down that road.

This morning before going to work I had to scrape the frost off the windshield of mine and my wife's cars. I had to wear a leather jacket, gloves and a hat to keep from freezing. Yea, I know it was -20 degrees in Minnesota but this is Florida and if I wanted snowmen, skating on the pool and skiing I would live in Maine or Canada or some other Yankee land.

Traveling to work this morning I noticed the usual palm trees, green grass, colorful flowers but they were all covered with ice. No it didn't rain but the sprinklers were on as they normally are to keep the beautiful Florida flowers and grass growing as they usually do in Florida in February. Exception to that rule of course is my lawn which you can read about in a prior blog.

This is an area where many "snowbirds" come to in the winter from the northern part of the states to get warm. Maybe going from -20 to 20 degrees is considered getting warm but it doesn't work for me. I am use to winter lasting for about two weeks in January and then getting the pool ready for the grand kids. Well, I guess it is time to get into bed and get under the covers and dream about warm weather. The weather report for the weekend is temps going into the sixties. Hopefully there is enough Yankee in me to hold out for two more days. We'll see.

The Pool

The other day I was cleaning the pool and got to contemplating this 20,000+ gallon body of water sitting in my backyard. If i had a choice there would not be a huge hole filled with water in my backyard. When we moved to Florida five years ago and were looking for a house we found the one that we thought would be just right for us. It was a nice size, right price and in a nice established neighborhood with a pool. Now, living in Florida a pool would seem like a great idea, right? Yes it is when somebody else owns it and you get to visit and go swimming on a hot summer day. Try taking care of keeping the water crystal clear on hot summer days.

Mind you I'm not complaining, alright maybe a little, but that beautiful swimming environment does not just happen on it's own. It takes a lot of work and a lot of chemicals. Not only that, now the liner is starting to rip. You don't even want to know how much that will cost to repair. We are not talking about a little wading pool here but a very large body of water with a diving board and slide. Kim keeps telling me she wants a house by the water; I keep telling her, "look out the back window".

OK, back to the pool cleaning story. While I was skimming the top of the pool and trying to skim up some of the leaves and debris that settled on the bottom I thought about actually swimming in this pool. Last year I think i went in the pool once, and that was to retrieve some fallen object that i couldn't get with the net. I am not a pool person or for that matter even a water person. To me water is for drinking, cooking, washing and other water things that God intended, not sports. Never the less, back to the pool cleaning. After completing the skimming and lower debris removal it was time for the vacuuming. Yes you have to vacuum the pool also. All the leaves, twigs, dirt, algae, critters and anything else that falls into the pool eventually settles to the bottom. Ergo, you need to vacuum to get it out of the pool.

After you vacuum you need to turn the pool pump off and clean out the filter basket which is now clogged up from all the junk you just removed from the bottom of the pool. You put your hand in the basket and pull out old leaves, dead spiders and lizards that you just sucked up from the bottom. Put everything back together and start the pump going again. And speaking of the pump, it needs to run about eight hours a day which requires electricity which means a higher electric bill. When the pump starts running again you look at the nice crystal clear water and clean liner at the bottom of your beautifully maintained pool and say to yourself, job well done.

A gust of wind kicks up and every leaf in the neighborhood finds it's way to my pool like steel to a magnet. In the five years I have lived here I have had at least six trees cut down. Now don't get the wrong idea, I love trees, but i do own a pool. These were ugly trees, whose only purpose in life was to put leaves and pine needles in my pool. So why with the removal of these trees does every leaf from every tree in the surrounding neighborhood find it's way to my pool? And so the process begins over and over and over again.

So why keep the pool? For one thing it is probably to costly to fill it in. And for a more important thing my family loves it. When Michele and the grand kids come down in the summer, the pool is used from the time they arrive until the time they leave. Kathy said my granddaughter Brittney wants to have her sixteenth birthday at our house with a pool party. My niece Beth and her family come over and it is a joy to watch all the kids sliding, diving and just enjoying the pool activities. If the time comes that the kids no longer want to use the pool and it is no longer a draw for gathering the family together for barbecues and poolside fun, it will become a costly, time consuming hole in the ground filled with 20,000+ gallons of water. Until then it is a labor of love that I will enjoy, but complain about because otherwise it wouldn't be me. Maybe I could raise sharks and alligators.