Ninety Days until the Daytona 500

February 17, 2008 will be the 50th running of the Daytona 500 and the beginning of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Only 90 days away!

Yesterday's race was just a bit disappointing. Sure, Jimmie Johnson had a great season and probably deserved to win. But as a Jeff Gordon fan, I was just waiting for a wheel to fall off of Johnson's car or some other benign mechanical failure that would cause him to drop low enough in the points to let Gordon win. Didn't happen. What a season Gordon had, though! Makes one anticipate next year all the more!

And poor Little E. Could anything more have gone wrong this season than did? You almost feel he's like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons, with his own personal dust cloud following him everywhere.

I saw advertisements yesterday for Daytona 500 tickets. Daytona is an easy drive from Tallahassee. I wonder how much the tickets cost?

Home Sweet Home

Bill and I arrived home last night, road weary and glad to be back. It is an eight hour drive from Tallahassee to Fort Lauderdale and it does not seem to make much difference time-wise which route you take, Interstate or cross country from Tally to Ocala. At least the traffic was much less hectic yesterday than it was going down on Sunday, which was a good thing. I think our supper Wednesday night might have been loaded with MSG or something. I know I did not like my shrimp dinner and did not finish it, which is practically unheard of, me not finishing shrimp! But it just did not taste quite right and Bill said afterwards that his did not either. Whatever the cause, Thursday morning we both woke up with killer headaches and feeling very lethargic, like we were hung over (which we were not!). So that made for a very long drive home.

But the stay there in Fort Lauderdale (actually Pompano Beach) was very nice. I had a nice visit with a UL friend on Tuesday, Carol B. (Auntie Carol, for you ULers), and I took some cute pics of her granddaughter. Carol's whole family was very nice and it was great to be able to put faces to names.

Here are some pics from our hotel balcony:

The beach on Monday morning, around 9 a.m.

A sailboat I watched on Wednesday afternoon when I was taking a break from writing. I am thinking of making a series of several of these sailboat pics framed above our couch.

And does anyone know what these flowers might be? They were blooming in the pool / courtyard area. I think they might be a variety of hibiscus?

Whatever they are, they were very pretty to look at first thing in the morning while eating breakfast!

Our Morning Walk

I have never been a morning person. You would think that after forty-eight years of practice, the whole morning thing would be easier, but it's not. I really do not have anything against morning per se, it just would be so much more enjoyable if it would come later in the day! We could begin the day with afternoon (or even midday) and maybe then I would wake up with energy and the ability to speak in more than monosyllables. My husband says that will never happen, the waking up with energy and speaking coherently part. At least he has slowly learned not to ask me questions in the morning or tell me anything important and expect me to remember the conversations. Instead, he waits an hour or so and then e-mails me from work.

In the past, mornings have meant that I get up while Bill shaved, made my way to the kitchen, cooked his egg, packed whatever food he was taking with him that day, and gave him a kiss as he headed out the door to work. And then I would lock the door, turn the kitchen light back off and crawl back in to bed. I might just lay there, listening to the news, dozing off and on for half an hour or so and then get back up and head for the shower. Or I might have actually fallen back to sleep for an hour and then woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. That extra hour of sleep always seemed to help bring coherent thought to my brain.

That was the routine most mornings, until we moved here to Tallahassee. Here we live in an apartment and cannot just open the door and let our dog go out to the yard. Instead, the dog needs walking in the morning. Ugh. Even though a boy walked her just a few hours earlier, she seems to think she needs a walk at 7 a.m. And since I don't really want to clean up any dog messes inside, it's up to me to walk her. So, I do all the same routine, except now when Bill goes out the door, Penny (the dog) and I go with him, walk him to his car, and then continue on our morning constitutional.

Now if Penny could just get her business done in the first five minutes, I could easily find my way back into bed. But no, that does not seem possible. Instead, we walk and we walk some more, all while she sniffs here and there. I am never quite sure if she is still sniffing the armadillo she tried to chase the night before, or sniffing where other dogs have been, or just trying to find THE spot that suits her to get her business done. But by the time she finds that spot, I am noticing the freshness of the air, the blueness of the sky, the flower I didn't see yesterday. In short, I am waking up. Oh no!

This week, since the vet said that Penny needs to lose at least ten pounds (and we won't talk about how many I need to lose), I have been taking Penny on a longer walk in the mornings. Instead of turning around and heading back to the apartment when she is done with her business, we continue on our walk. We head down to the pond to see if the alligator (or is it a crocodile) is visible in the water. We walk up the steps by the pond, admiring the blooms on the crepe myrtle. We walk around by the pool to see if anyone is there this early in the morning (not usually). And eventually, after about twenty minutes or so, we make our way back home. Penny is ready for her breakfast and I am ready to begin my day. It is really quite pleasant, our morning walk, if only it didn't come so early in the day!

The pond and one of the buildings in our apartment complex.

One of the weeping willows around the pond.

Part of the pathway around the pond. There are always cobwebs across the stairs in the mornings when I go up them!

The fountain comes on about 7:45 a.m. and is on till very late in the evening. It's very lit up at night and makes for a very peaceful and relaxing walk.

Mr. Alligator. Charles had told me there was one in the pond, but I had not seen him until my early morning walks this week. The pond area is fenced in, so he should not pose a danger to anyone.

A close-up of the crepe myrtle near the steps coming from the pond area.

One of the very large trees that grow between our building and the main road. This is the view from the stairs next to our door.

Visit Two

The boys visited The American Karate Studios. They had a quick private lesson to learn a couple of forms and then joined in on the evening Adults class. This dojo has a much different style than the one they visited Wednesday evening. Again, some things are similar to what they are used to doing at their old dojo and other things are very different. If they were to join, it would be the same as the other, they would need to begin at white belt and would work their way up the ranks as quickly as they were able to catch on. The cost of each place is about the same. I have not heard a final verdict yet, but I think the boys are leaning towards going with the first dojo they visited.

Visit One

Last night the boys joined in on an hour class at the Kenpo Karate & Kickboxing Center. They were assessing whether they wanted to join there and, at the same time, the instructor was assessing their skills and style. The style of karate seems very similar to what they are used to, but not exactly the same. Charles tells me that there is no such thing as a standard karate, that every dojo has it's own style. If they decide to join there, they will have to begin at white belt level, even though they both have black belts already. But Master Ingle (the owner) said that, based upon the skills he saw, they would move up through the ranks very quickly. They rank based upon accomplishment of skills and not based upon any time frame.

I was pleased that both boys said they should still try the second dojo we checked out, even though they were favorably impressed with this first place. It's been nice to listen to them explain what they are looking for and the plusses and minuses of each place we have visited. We have left the choice up to them, as they are the ones with the experience and knowledge upon which to base a choice. Tonight we will visit the second place and then the boys will make their choice.

I am still figuring out the traffic patterns here in Tallahassee and how to judge how long it will take to get somewhere. So much depends upon whether it is rush hour and how many red lights you hit. Tallahassee has the longest stoplights I have ever experienced. You can sit several minutes if you pull up to a light just as it is turning red. Tuesday when we went to first check out the two dojos, it only took us about 25 minutes to get to the first one. Last night it took 45 minutes, which meant that we were just a bit late. Part of that was because it was later in the afternoon and we got caught in rush hour traffic. And part was due to the fact that I took what appeared to be a more direct route, which was obviously a mistake. The side streets would have gotten us there much faster. I am still trying to decide how much time to give for getting to this second place tonight. It is further away, but there are fewer side street options.

On another note, Penny is feeling better. She is more energetic when she goes outside and less smelly inside. This morning we took a very long walk, going around the whole complex once. We usually take that walk in the evening, but I am trying to up her exercise level (and mine!). By 7:15, when we began our walk, it was already 78 degrees and 80% humidity. We have gone several days now without any rain, so this weekend's forecast of 60% chance of rain sounds good. Of course, that means thunderstorms, not just a general rain. Supposedly July is the wettest month of the year here, but like most of the southeast, we are still in a drought situation. So any rain sounds good!

Cosmic Joke?

Bill's last day of employment at his previous employer was May 15th. We finally received the COBRA package today, July 11th. The very same day we received our new health insurance cards and plan information from his new employer. Good timing, eh? I guess we don't need to worry about the COBRA coverage after all! Now I can spend more time figuring out how to deal with the 401k funds! Will the paperwork that goes along with a move and job change never end? Tomorrow David and I have appointments to get our new Florida driver's license. Yup, that is what I said, appointments. Made online! I wonder if that will speed up the process any at the office? I'll report back tomorrow on that.

Doggie Spa

I had to find a new vet Monday. Penny (our dog) had an obvious kidney/bladder infection that needed attention. There is a veterinary just down the street from us, the Animal Hospital & Pet Resort of Southwood, formerly the Seminole Animal Health Clinic. After reading some reviews online, I decided to try them out. They were very nice and thorough. I do not think Penny has received that much attention from a vet in her whole life (she's ten years old). I know she has never had her temperature taken before! Penny did very well, though, only being reduced to a quivering mass of jelly a couple of times.

I was more than a bit shocked at the total bill. Our old country vet back home spoiled me, I guess, in not charging for every little thing he could think of. But then, he did not usually do much more than look Penny over and pronounce her a dog, so I guess I shouldn't complain about the amount of care she received. She is feeling much better already, so the money was well spent. And we go back in two weeks for a follow-up. I wonder how much that will cost?

What I found greatly amusing was the "Pet Resort" aspect. I brought home a paper detailing what was included in the price of a "Resort Stay" for your pet (you can see some of the features on their website). Bill and I found it hilarious. It's good to know that the pet will have a TV and DVD in their suite, in addition to a "Complimentary Bath" and "Daily Maid Service." But maybe I shouldn't laugh too much. Already we have discovered that having an indoor dog that needs walking every few hours curtails how long we can be gone from home. Should we all want to leave for an overnight trip, we will likely have to take advantage of that lovely Pet Resort right down the street!

Anniversary Update

So, did we do anything special for our anniversary? Yes and no. We got Chinese take-out for supper, not the cheap buffet places, but take-out from an expensive, sit-down restaurant, the Ming-Tree Chinese Restaurant on East Lafayette Street. That was where we went to eat our very first night in our apartment here. David likes it because they have lamb dishes. Spicy lamb dishes! Anyway, we brought our take-out home and watched the Daytona 400. What an ending to that race! Bill's brother was supposed to have been in the grandstands watching and it certainly would have been a good one to see live! But it was equally as nice watching it at home sitting next to my hubby of twenty-eight years.

Driver's Edge and stuff

David and Bill just left for Atlanta. David is signed up to participate in the Driver's Edge program tomorrow afternoon. They will spend the night near Macon and be back late tomorrow night. For those of you not familiar with Driver's Edge, it is a youth driver's education program founded and developed by a professional race car driver. Here's a quote from their website:

Young drivers are placed through this half day, four hour program at no cost, making the program accessible to young drivers from all economic backgrounds. With professional driving instructors at their side, the students … participate in customized behind the wheel driving exercises developed to address the most common driving situations that can lead to collision.

I'll post next week to let you know how it went and whether David found it to be worthwhile.

So what have I been up to this week? Mostly playing with Miss Munchkin. I drove up to Albany Wednesday morning and brought Kat and Miss Munchkin here for a few days. They were getting housebound. Not sure yet when I'll take them home: possibly either tomorrow (Saturday) or Monday. I could do it Sunday, but Sunday is race day and the four-hour round trip would cut into my race watching!

It appears like David is ready for Orientation on Tuesday at Tallahassee Community College He's spent quite a bit of time online and on the phone and visiting the college, trying to get all the needed paperwork submitted. He plans to take an English Composition class this summer and then begin full-time classes in the fall. We are hoping that this works out better than Evansville did last year.

Oh, and I found a great natural foods place yesterday. New Leaf Market.It has a deli, organic and local produce, and best of all, it's a co-op! I'll be joining after we get next month's paycheck!

There are also three different farmer's markets in the area, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. The one on Monday is less than a mile from me! I hope to get there next week. Last Saturday we visited the one downtown and bought loads of fresh produce and some cut zinnias. It's so nice to have fresh flowers!

Square Dancing in Tallahassee

Last night we visited the local square dance club, the Capital Twirlers. Brindlee Mountain Promenaders it definitely is not, but the level of dancing was better than we expected. Their caller, Elmer Sheffield, was good, the floor was just right for dancing, and the calls were challenging. The average age of the members is a bit higher than Brindlee, or so it appeared. But several members told us that many of the regulars were not there last night, so we will see. Maybe there will be a few more people closer to our age there next time.

A few of things of note …

The very first call in the very first tip we danced to was tea cup chain. Anyone who has danced with me at Brindlee knows that is my very favorite call. NOT!

The last song we danced to was "It's Only Make Believe," which is my all-time favorite. It was nice to hear it, but rather sad, too. No one can sing it as well as our favorite caller, Mr. Wayne Mahathey.

The group round dances in between the square tips, which neither Bill nor I enjoy. Not only that, but for two hours of dance time, it appears like the square dancing part only accounts for about 50 minutes. The rest of the time is round dancing and/or just visiting. The square dance tips are not our usual 15 - 25 minute sessions that Wayne put us through!

The Capital Twirlers dance the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Mondays (and 5th Mondays, if there is one), but sometimes they (for various reasons) skip one Monday and dance on the off Monday instead. Instead of an e-mail list or a website to announce these changes, it sounds like they just call around each week to see if anyone knows whether they dance that week or not! Sounds rather unorganized to me.

And they have not had new member classes in years. Which means the club will eventually die.

Next Monday is one of those nights that they normally dance but this month will not dance (I forget the reason why). So we will have to wait two weeks. But I imagine we will go back. Maybe if more of the regular members are there, the dancing time will increase. Who knows? But it sure looks like we need to stick to our plan of attending more of the specials that are on Saturday nights around the tri-state area here, if we want to really dance our feet off!

Am I Home Yet?

I know I have not made an entry here in over a month, but I've been busy! It sure would be nice to be able to stay at home for a few days and begin to settle in here in Tallahassee. Here is a brief recount of the past couple of months:

April 5th - Drove to Evansville to pick David up for Easter weekend.

April 9th - Drove back to Evansville to take David back to college.

April 11th - Drove to Tallahassee, Florida

April 12th - Bill's job interview in Tallahassee

April 13th - Drove to Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida

April 14th - Home again to north Alabama

April 18th - Bill received the job offer, but had to wait for all forms to be processed before giving notice.

April 19th - Bill accepted the job offer in Tallahassee.

April 30th - I drove to Tallahassee, looked at a lot of houses and apartments to rent, settled on one apartment complex and came home on May 3rd.

May 1st - Bill gave two weeks notice at his current job.

May 5th - Drove to Evansville to bring David home for the summer.

May 10th - Son-in-law (Shawn) received a promotion and notice that his new job was in Albany , Georgia.

May 11th - David went to Kat's to help her pack up her apartment.

May 13th - Shawn left for Albany, Georgia, to begin his new job the next day.

May 14th - Kat arrived, with Miss Munchkin and their cat in tow, to stay with us until we go to Tallahassee.

May 15th - Bill's last day at work.

May 17th - Picked up the moving truck.

May 18th - Loaded the moving truck. Discovered that the a/c system on my van was not working properly. Left it at the dealer so they could order the parts and fix it. Picked up a rental van to drive for the duration.

May 19th - Finished loading the truck. Went to the Hobo Dance and stayed up way too late considering how early we had to leave in the morning.

May 20th - Drove to Tallahassee. Shawn arrived in the evening to pick up Kat & Miss Munchkin. We kept their cat.

May 21st - Unloaded the truck.

May 23rd - Bill began his new job.

May 25th - I drove back to north AL to return the rental van and pick up my van. Drove back that same day (arriving in the wee hours of the next morning). Saw my dad, who had just gotten back from vacation, a vacation he cut short because he wasn't feeling well.

May 26th - Drove to Albany, Georgia to pick up Kat and Miss Munchkin. Life in a motel was not working out so well with a fifteen-month-old!

May 27th - Received a phone call from my dad that he had had a heart attack and was in the hospital, scheduled for a catheterization on Monday and possible installation of a stint.

May 28th - They were unable to do the stint on my dad as he had too many blockages. By-pass surgery was scheduled for Wednesday.

May 29th - Drove to north Alabama to see my dad before his surgery.

May 30th - Dad's surgery.

May 31st - Dad moved in to a private room less than 24 hours after the completion of his by-pass surgery. They did a triple by-pass. I visited with him there before heading back to Tallahassee; he was doing great.

June 2nd - Took Kat to Albany, Georgia, so she and Shawn could go back to north Alabama to move their stuff. Kept Miss Munchkin with us for a few days. Dad called to tell me he was back home, having been released several days early due to how well he was progressing.

June 5th - Drove to Albany to take Miss Munchkin back to her Mommy and Daddy and also to help unload their truck. A long and exhausting day.

June 6th - Today! Slept late. Have done little to nothing. Hopefully I will have more energy tomorrow. There are still boxes to unpack! And things to do! A new life in Tallahassee to begin!

Miss Munchkin the Water Baby

I am back from my housing foray. Will write more about that later. But we do have a place to land when we get to Tallahassee!

Took Miss Munchkin to the Gulf. Boy, does she love water!

Catching Up

I can see I should have set a goal for writing daily in April! Goals. Must have goals! And deadlines! All procrastinators work better when there is a deadline looming.

Here are some pics of Miss Munchkin from Easter Sunday. She had fun gathering Easter eggs at my dad's, even though she did not have a clue what was going on. Once she got one egg in each hand, she just grinned and watched all the other kids running about, picking up eggs.

And here's a pic of the handbag I crocheted for Miss Munchkin. I had troubles with the handle and will probably have to redo it, but she seemed to like it.

It's been a busy April. On the 5th I drove to Evansville to bring David home for Easter break. And on the 9th I drove him back. And then on the 11th we (Bill, Charles and I) drove to Tallahassee. Bill had an interview there on the 12th (his birthday!), which we are still waiting to hear the final verdict on. Hopefully we will get word soon.

Friday the 13th we drove to Jacksonville, just to see. There are more job opportunities there, but none of us felt at all comfortable there. It is just too big of a city. Way too many people. Way too much traffic. We drove right on through and headed for St. Augustine, spending Friday night there. On Saturday morning (the 14th) we visited Castillo de San Marcos and walked the beach long enough to get the beginnings of a nice tan. It was lovely. Saturday afternoon we headed back to Tallahassee and then for home, driving through some very nasty storms but arriving safe and sound in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It was very nice to be home. And it was a good thing we came home earlier than planned. Bill had turned off the power strip to my fish tank before we left. I had some very cold, hungry fish in dire need of some oxygen! The tank was down to 62 degrees and most of the fish were just lying on the bottom, slowly fluttering their fins / tails. But I did not see any dead ones. I think they must have been practically hibernating from the cold and lack of oxygen. By Sunday morning they were looking much improved, swimming around the top, waiting for their breakfast!

Dogwood Winter Sucks!

I hate dogwood winter. Just when you think that warm weather is here to stay, old man winter blows his icy breath and we get several days of cold weather. I know you all in the north country are thinking that fifty degrees and a north wind is not cold. It is, though, when it has been in the eighties for two or three weeks. It is not nice to have to turn the heat back on and bring all the plants back inside so they don't freeze.

Yesterday I drove to Evansville and brought David home for a few days. Two days driving (yesterday and Monday) so that he can be home three days. Crazy. But it is nice to have him home, even for that short a time.

I haven't posted here this week because I have been trying to concentrate on writing a couple of articles for my website. Almost done and then I have to convert them to HTML and get them all linked up to the site. I will post here when they are up.

Next Thursday is Bill's birthday and also, coincidentally, the day he is scheduled for a face-to-face interview for a job in Tallahassee. So he is going to use a couple of vacation days and we will spend Thursday through Sunday in Florida. Most of that time will be in Tallahassee, but I think we will try to get in at least one day in Jacksonville. There seem to be many more job possibilities in Jacksonville, so we would like to see the area before we decide whether to submit a resume to any of those opportunities. Hopefully this interview on Thursday will work out and we can get under motion, begin to get out from the limbo of waiting and actually begin moving and living again.

Today was pay day and I should be paying bills instead of updating blogs! Bill paying is always so much fun. NOT! Wouldn't it be a blast if just once there was a huge surplus of funds left over after ALL the bills were paid?! I am sure that is just around the corner for us!

December update

I just checked when I last wrote here and can't believe it was so long ago. Where did December go? It's been a month of ups and downs and not one I'd like to repeat for a long time to come.

Mr. Algae-Eater seems to have recovered nicely. I bought some sort of aloe juice medicine that was supposed to be for sores on fish and added it each day for a week. It seemed to do the trick. He's back to his old self.

We did take a trip to Tallahassee last week and Bill interviewed for a position with a company there. He liked the company, so now we are just waiting to see if they liked him enough to hire him. Or if they thought they needed his experience enough to hire him, as they have a huge mess to clean up. Hopefully we'll hear soon. Bill and I really liked it there. The sunshine, the warmth, the beach, the seafood. It was very nice.

Christmas was a quiet day. Several of us have colds, others have been stressed and working too many hours. So we just watched movies and played with Miss Munchkin and tried to keep the wrapping paper out of her mouth. The best gift seemed to be the Flexible Flyer horse we got her. It didn't take long for her to figure out how she could move to get the horse moving. It is going to be a while, though, before she'll be able to ride it herself.

And I bought her a stocking that had the head of a cat at the top of it. I was going to make her a stocking. I got all of 4 rows done on it. I'll have to finish it next year. But the cat stocking was a big hit. Miss Munchkin loves "fluffies" and all day long she'd carry that stocking around and put her face right down into the cat's face and make her "kitty cat" noise, which is sort of a cross between a meow and a purr and a dinosaur growl. Very cute. That's what she's doing in these pictures, in addition to trying to eat the nose of the cat!

Fish update

Well, Mr. Algae-Eater is not looking very well. Sunday he has what appeared to be open sores on his skin. I bought some stuff to put in the water that is supposed to help. Maybe it is; I don't know. The sores do not look as red, but today his tail does not stick out behind him like normal. It curls and definitely looks shorter, like he has lost some of it. But this afternoon he did scoot around quickly into the weeds when I turned the light on, which was the fastest I had seen him move in several days. Maybe there's hope?

Kat says that Miss Munchkin walked across the kitchen on her own this afternoon and then stood there longer squealing about it. I need to take some more pictures. I haven't taken any since early November and they are still on the camera. Tomorrow she will be 9 months! I'll have to remember to take the camera with us dancing Friday night and get some pictures of Miss Munchkin and I doing Cotton-Eyed Joe.

I talked with David for a short bit today. Today was a "reading / studying" day in preparations for exams, which begin tomorrow. Next Wednesday he will be ready to come home for semester break.

I continue to declutter, cleaning out more books and videos. Some I am selling; many more are just being given away to the public library or being Freecycled (new verb there, like Googling!). I do not want to have to box all these up and move them with me! The more I get rid of now, the less I have to move.

Speaking of moving, it sounds likely that we will have to soon take a trip to Tallahassee, scout the area. Kat & Shawn announced Sunday that it is 90% likely they will be moving to Pensacola by the first of March and that Shawn will be manager of a store there. We had already been looking in that direction, in addition to the Nashville area, but now being further south takes on new meaning. Plus, after the cold weather this week, Bill and I are both looking at each other and saying "and we want to move to Nashville? Further north?"