Confessions of a Grandma

Well we are certainly not in Florida any more.  I had to dig out my winter jacket, knit hat, and gloves this morning.  I was going to do a bit of yard work, but did not get very far.  I have been so tired and feeling blah in trying to recover from the trip home. Honestly, I think it would be better to take a slower trip and stop to sight-see along the way, but Mike is all about point A to point B.  I think it is because he had so much driving to do when he was working, and in that case time was money.  We are retired now.  We have friends and family we could visit along the way, but he says things like, "That would take us 80 miles out of our way." The house was pretty much as we had left it--except for all the dead cluster flies.  I had to vacuum before we unloaded the car.  ICK.  Also there was the typical wind damage.  I piece of trim was ripped off the shed and the chimney cap was blown off.  I held the ladder for Mike when ...

Generally speaking, Mike and I are quite compatible.  That doesn’t mean that we agree about most things, (HA! Far from it!) but we politely agree to disagree.  As I often tell him, he does have the right to be wrong.  So if he wants to watch some black and white movie about World War I with closed captioning, I simply watch something on my television with the sound on. Since it is grilling season in Vermont, he likes to have hamburgers, hot dogs, and steaks a whole lot more than I.  But he can grill his meat selection and I’ll make something heavy on the vegetarian side.  Right now, I am in a spicy lentil salad loop.  I made up a big batch—meal planning solved for the week. However, we are never going to agree about this: Our yard is pretty open and sunny.  About 18 years ago this tree was a little sprout next to the wood shed.  It is a box elder.  In my mind this is a weed tree.  I wanted to pull it up right away, but Mike said ...

It was a fairly nice day and I got out to do some yard work.  Mike went off for his exercise walk.  When I finished in the yard, I noticed that he hadn't yet returned.  That was two hours for a 2 1/2 mile walk.  I got a bit worried and went to look for him.  I should have realized he would have stopped at a neighbors for a catch-up chat. I decided to have a fruit and yogurt smoothie for lunch as a change of pace from the salads of the past three days.  I had the hardest time trying to find my blender.  This adjustment thing is going on a bit long this year. I noticed while sipping my lovely blueberry-raspberry-mango smoothie that the color matched my raspberry-pink shirt.  Then, when I was washing the glass and blender I noticed I was using a raspberry colored dish cloth.  I am just so matchy-matchy today. Note the cheery daffodils.  They are blooming beside south facing walls.  It is supposed to warm up over the wee...

Our trip went without incident and we are once again back in Vermont...where the rain has been steadily drizzling down and temperatures are hovering in the high 40's.  Our car was actually clean until we crossed the VT border on route 4.  It seemed like on cue that it started raining and the trucks passing by started splashing the mud. The house was pretty much as we had left it. (We have a new thermostat.)  The daffodils are starting to pole up and some have even bloomed.  I can see buds on the lilacs and the crab apple tree.  The grass is actually green.  We went through some gorgeous spring weather, in reverse from late to early, as we travelled north. I am getting quite bored with the long car trip between here and there.  We made it two extra times in the past year and maybe that accounts for my boredom.  Reading the bill boards felt like leafing through a magazine--ad after ad after ad.  I kept nodding off. A billboard for th...

Refrigerator magnets Message board magnets and push pins (not shown here) Bookends Or just decoration on the TV stand

I found these frames at a thrift shop and used them for two shell collages to hang in the spare bedroom. We are decorating with finds from thrift stores and yard sales.  The hunt has consumed at least one afternoon per week and several Saturday mornings since we have been down here. I found this oil painting at Habitat for Humanity on a half-price day.  It's large and hangs over the couch in the living room. I found this one at a yard sale in a golf community last weekend.  There was some good stuff at that sale--and cheap.  I paid $25 for this and put it in the office/TV room.  It is also an oil on canvas. Mike found this collection of ink drawings for $20.00.  It is also hanging in the office. We have managed a beachy vibe on a budget, but more importantly, we are really enjoying having our own place.

We arrived at our new home on Saturday afternoon and have been keeping busy getting settled in.  We have contacted Florida Power and Light and signed up with the county Water & Sewer Department.  We have been hitting the resale and consignment shops along with Target and Big Lots, but we are taking our time about making decisions.  Although, some of those decision come fairly easily.  Mike found a Lazy Boy recliner at the Goodwill store that is the exact twin of one that was already in the house.  He has put the new recliner in the office along with his closed captioned enabled TV and is relaxing a bit today. We looked down our street last night after a rainy day and caught a glimpse of the sunset. It reflected pink off the fence to the east. In addition to getting the house itself settled, I noticed that there is some weeding to do out in the yard. This tree was in the morning shade, so I weeded under that. I'll have to learn the pruni...

It is official, now.  We had the closing on the place in Florida and now have the papers in hand.  We own a winter home in Florida and we are very happy about that for so many reasons.  We will take a trip down again in the fall just to get a feel for living there and to figure out what we may need to make it truly home for us. It is in Venice, where we wanted to be--about four miles from the beach.  It is further away from the Sarasota County libraries.  I may have to get myself a bicycle to tootle around town.  My brother suggested a Florida car--you know, one where I could not see over the steering wheel.  Three thousand comedians out of work and he makes jokes. Maybe winters will get longer and longer, now.  Our Vermont house has been very good for us, but it is a raised ranch.  That means those pesky stairs.  (My black and blues are fading now, BTW.)  It also means windows that are a story and a half high.  My l...

I took it into my head to paint the bathroom.  It hadn't been done for about 18 years.  It needed and overhaul.  Actually, the first time I painted the bathroom, I started by stripping off wallpaper.  That led to the discovery that the bathroom had been through a remodel and that who ever had completed that moved the sink but left a hole in the wall where the pipes were originally located.  The hole was covered with wall paper, but that was the only attempt at repair.  I had to call my brother to bail me out on that one. Then there was my attempt to reattached a loose tile in the shower enclosure that resulted in many tiles falling into the tub and the discovery that the wall behind the tile was rotted.  My brother was called in once again. So this project took two days of my life but was relatively disaster free.  I did have to call Mike to help me remount the medicine cabinet on the wall (which wasn't easy or fun, but we  he did it w...

After record breaking rain during the month of April, the new month is off to a more promising start.  It was sunny today and buds are starting to pop out.  The grass is nice and green.  The town crews are all busy trying to get the roads patched up again.  Nobody wants to complain, though, because a detour around a washed out back road is nothing compared to having your entire town flattened. It was a good day for a bit of garden work.  The perennials are just starting to poke through, but the weeds have already gotten quite the toe hold.  There also seems to be a bumper crop of ants about this year.  Well, I'll have plenty to occupy my time for the coming days. I have to see about getting two windows replaced and the back doorsill needs some work too.  The front door was damaged by wind, so now we add that to the list.  Sometimes I question the wisdom of home ownership. Mike had a fairly successful trip to Pennsylvania and came home w...

Recycling and reusing were topics of Tabor's One Day at a Time blog Sunday morning.  I encourage any and all recycling efforts myself--and have for a long time.  We used a lot of space for bins--one for cans, one for clear glass, one for colored glass, one for newspaper--under our cellar stairs long, long before there was any kind of mandatory recycling.  I can remembering cringing when work mates tossed paper (special educators can generate a lot of paper) into the wastebasket instead of the recycle bin, and this was after mandatory recycling.  I believe this is the source of my high blood pressure, actually, not the other stresses of the job. Here in Florida, we still have to sort recycles--paper in one container and bottles, cans and plastics in another.  The city picks up yard waste, but not compost.  In Vermont, we have had all in one recycle for a number of years now.  We can take yard waste to the transfer station, along with compostible garb...

The weather predictors admitted that they were taken by surprise by the snow storm.  Travel four miles down the hills to the south or the west of us and there is only an inch or two covering the ground.  Travel north or east and you'd be gaining elevation, so I would guess it is more.  We have 16 to 24 inches.  During the cleaning up of the walkways and driveway, I honestly had to ask myself just how much longer we will be able--and willing --to keep up with the maintenance required by home ownership, especially a home in this kind of winter climate.  My brother now lives six months in North Carolina and six months in Vermont.  The wisdom of that is dawning on me!  Well, no, we can't afford two homes and I'm here complaining about the upkeep on one home, so I guess I'll just have to keep  looking for other options. Mike dragging the snow blower.  When he gets done, the street plow will roar by and push the road snow back into the dri...

Our deck is finished!! Now for the cleaning up. Ever notice how you spiff up one thing and three other things get dirty in the process. I'd wanted to wash the siding around the deck and wash the windows that were splattered by the pressure washer, but I woke up to a rainy, drizzly day. It was a good day to dust and vacuum inside. I guess it is just as well since my back is pretty darn achy from the painting on the stain, and my hands are sore. The sore hands bother me because I treated myself to some expensive merino wool to make a shawl and I'll have to wait to get it started. Old age, not for wimps, as they say. At least it teaches a certain patience.

I am done with the American Girl doll clothes for a while. I have a couple of patterns that I bought, but I have been adapting them to get a better variety. I have learned quite a bit about patterns and alterations through this exercise. I'm sure my grand daughter will appreciate it although I do expect she'll ask why I didn't make underwear. She's like that. Between sewing and my sanding duties on the deck, I managed to tidy up my two clothes closets. Up and down here are two shots of the closet I share with Mike. He uses a very small section, but he actually has more clothes now that he is retired since his work wardrobe was entirely jeans and tee shirts. There is little call for anything fancier in the antique motorcycle business. He had to buy "normal" clothes when we started doing some travelling. Mike will have to do some wardrobe sorting himself very soon. He has lost about sixteen pounds. I've lost a whopping three. There are some thi...

I have been sewing away and finished some American Girl doll outfits and a couple of aprons over the past few days. I am not by nature a very mechanically inclined sort of person. I like to sew, but I have been known to put off the taking apart of my machine to give it it’s life-giving elixir. If I spend an afternoon in my sewing area, Mike is bound to ask about the last time I gave the sewing machine a good oiling. Now, I hear his voice in my head, so I try to be better about that maintenance responsibility. Whenever I expose the guts of the machinery, I am totally surprised by the amount of lint that accumulates so I’m telling myself I have to get more committed to the care of feeding of an old machine that has served me well. I learned the hard way with an old car that machines really do require oil to keep running. During the gas shortage back in the ‘70’s the lines for gas were always so long that I never felt I could ask to have the oil checked and hold other people up. Unfortu...

Oh. boy! It looks like we are in for some nice weather in the coming week. I skipped the deck today and mowed the lawn instead. Mike spent the two plus hours it took me to do that scraping the deck and helping me "help" him. First, I could not get the lawn tractor to start. I checked the fuel; I tapped on the carburetor; I tried again and again; I walked away and then went back and tried again. Nothing. I finally went to get Mike and told him I couldn't start the lawn tractor. He stopped his scraping and went into the garage--that darn tractor started with his first turn of the starter. He went back to his job; I could not get the tractor to move. Once again, I interrupt him. The parking brake was on. I did not even know the lawn tractor had a parking brake. After a half hour of mowing I went around the lilac bush in the back yard. It's on a small but fairly steep hill. I tipped the tractor into the bush and got it thoroughly stuck. I couldn't back out and I could...

What a beautiful day we had even though a bit on the chilly side. It was so spring like with green all around, crab apples and lilacs blooming, a bright blue sky. I woke up to the sun shining and the birds singing and was just in a good mood all day. Our shared activity for the day was a ride to Graniteville, Vermont. Mike had seen a pressure washer for sale on Craig's List and he was the lucky one to be first to call about it so we went to pick it up. It was certainly obvious today why Vermont is nicknamed the "Green Mountain State." This means, of course, that we will be starting a deck refinishing project soon. Sometimes I really don't understand the attitude of some folks who are determine to stay in their "own home" no matter what. I mean, fine, as long as we can keep up with the maintenance requirements (physically and $$$wise), but I'm quite sure at some point the effort involved will totally lose its appeal. I expect at some point we'l...

At one point in our lives (before retirement) we were seriously considering a full time move to Florida. We have some land and we had met with a contractor and come up with a design plan, even made a down payment. We applied for the appropriate permits but then our plans were pretty much sank in the swamp of bureaucracy. For reasons we do not comprehend, the woman at the Army Corps of Engineers decided to make our lives a living nightmare. A process we thought would take about six weeks took well over a year. Since this was in the midst of a boom time the estimated cost of construction kept going up until a house we could afford with the money from selling the house we already have became way out of our range. Finally, in complete frustration, we pulled the plug on the project, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I would be seriously grand children deprived if we had moved down here year round. Now we get to come down for the winter, but can enjoy what we like abou...

Okay, after my family Christmas gathering a few years ago, I was loading up the dish washer. It was quite late. I was quite tired. I had been planning, and shopping, and cooking for a few days. The party was pleasant. I enjoyed a glass of wine (or two, or maybe even three) throughout the evening. Mike was going to bed, but I wanted to get the dish washer started. He watched me squirt the Dawn dish washing liquid into the dish washing machine and apparently had the thought that something was not right but only managed to say, "see you in the morning." I went downstairs (we live in a raised range style house) to sit by the dwindling fire in our den, sip that last glass of wine, and reflect on the satisfaction of a family that can get together, share a meal , and have a nice time enjoying each others' company. I remember that the 11 o'clock news was coming on when I started to hear "drip, drip, drip." I went to investigate and saw water dripping from t...

I have not pulled out all the Christmas decorations and have decided that some are just not making the cut this year. Simple is my theme--a basket on the table, some touches of green and red, my Santa collection and lights at the window. That's enough!