Snowing? But it’s in the 70’s here!

I’m just catching up on all the reading and email… and I see SNOW ! It’s snowing in the NW! It’s so pretty! So holiday-ish! It made it to our 10 o'clock news too! Here we are in FL, the high today was 77 and it’s 61 right now! Water temperature today is 60! Wanna go to the beach?

We had lunch outside in a courtyard with our shirtsleeves and sunglasses! AND there is SNOW that I’m missing in the NW!! OMG. Thanks to the technology. I can at least see the pix online. Thanks Mrs. Flinger.

Stakit's parents are still traveling back home. Hope they can get home safely tonight!

"Non-lonely" Thanksgiving

We are back online! Stakit’s parents came and spent the Thanksgiving week with us. That was great! If they didn’t come visit, we would have a very lonely holiday. In the past, we have been going to different families and friends for Thanksgiving. We miss that. This year, for the first time, we had Thanksgiving at our house! We shop, prep, chop, prep, cook, bake, roast…. everything turned out nicely! The way I wanted! I was very happy with it!

While Stakit’s parents were here, there were some network upgrades done in our neighborhood early last week too. After Stakit’s parents left today, I finally went to my network panel and power cycled everything. Sorry we missed your guys for a week but now I am back in business!

well...

Didn’t know my week was Still going down hill! Not a good day today. Not the builder dude, he showed up and did more than his share cause he felt bad to make me waited. It was a different business. I know I have whined enough and I’m tired of whining. Plus, who cares. So, let’s focus on positive stuff.

Stakit’s parents are going to be here soon! Sunday Morning! They are coming into Orlando …. and yes, you guess it right! We are going to Orlando for the weekend. They were going to rent a car to drive up here but it was such a great excuse for us to go to Orlando and play! Why Not?!

slowly turning into an introvert

I was just poking around (for some personality test on the internet) to see why I feel that lonely for this long. It's been over 3 months since I moved! It's very upsetting. Why should it be a problem? Is it because I'm (was) an extrovert? But then, since I moved, I have changed / adjusted a bit. So I took a short test "Are You An Extrovert or Introvert?" and it looks like I'm on the right track. As of right now, I'm an Intro-Extrovert. I'm guessing, pretty soon, I'll be an introvert and don't need to talk to a soul for the rest of my life.

24

Unlike the TV show 24, my 24 was completely opposite. There is no Jack running around and doing things for 24 hours. There is a Me stayed at home and waiting for the builder guy to show up to finish the “punch list”! He got behind yesterday and couldn’t come by. We rescheduled it for today. He was supposed to come by this morning but he called later and told me that it will be / maybe able to come by 2pm today. Bite me! I know he’s not going to show up this afternoon. Now we have set it for tomorrow morning, first thing.

I’ll see.

So he ruined 2 days! 2-24 hours! I could've done So Much! It’s one thing if I choose to hang out at home; it’s another thing that I have to Be here and be Dressed for these random people! 48 hours of boredom! It drove me crazy, even though I took care of a lot of stuff around the house. New 802.11g wireless printer is setup (mostly! still need to restrict the bluetooth access), new set of phones is also setup / programmed, organize & label kitchen cabinets, clean & polish all the kitchen appliances … clean! clean! clean! I was starting to get very tired of it. I turned on my computer and chatted! It was nice to catch up with friends across country. I felt better but still… I know I could have done something to cheer myself up but

why bother.

By the time Stakit came home, I was still pretty grouchy. He found out that I didn’t leave the house today again! He took me to get my favorite food AND I had 2 Spanish Coffee!

I finally have some real human interaction.

Tomorrow if he doesn't show up by 9am. I'm leaving! I'll be out doing things. Too much need to be done before Stakit's parents get here.

Baking season?

Every year at this time, I want to crank up the coffee shop jazz, drink a cup of tea, curl up on the couch, and stare at the fire. Or, drive to a coffee shop and pick up a Chai tea. Hmmmm…. Today, Highs, 80s, not so much. However the next few days, Highs will be in 60s! I think I will have to stop at my coffee shop tomorrow and get a cup of Oregon Chai!

Also, I have always dreamed about baking something this time of the year and I usually just stop at dreaming. This year, there is hope. I already have the urge to bake, even though today was pretty warm. Something tells me it’s not the fall weather that inspires me to bake. It’s the holiday, just one week away! I almost baked some cookies but I didn’t! Hope I will bake something this season!

Jury duty

Lived in the last house for a few years, never was called in for jury duty. Guess what happens as soon as you moved across the country? Yup! Jury duty from the former county that we lived in!! Let’s see… … I have to either fly back by Dec 5 or let them know that we are not a resident of that county anymore.

Middle management

After all the weekend work, I need to go to a Yoga class badly, My back, my legs, my arms….ah. I missed my morning Yoga class at the gym but I saw Pilates class on the gym schedule for this afternoon. I have heard a lot of great things about Pilates but I never had done it in a class before. I was a little curious.

So, I went to the Pilates class. That’s a popular class! I did OK’er than I thought I could do; however, I know I will be sore tomorrow. I can see how Pilates really can help my back and (hopefully) will help my tummy. I meant my ab! I hope I will be benefited from this “middle management" class.

Landscaping

The weather is finally nice now (70 degrees today). It was a fine Fall day, down here in the South. Since neither of us are hunters, that pretty much meant that it was a nice day to do some yard projects. We concentrated on two items - lighting and a flowerbed around our mailbox. I would like to say that I helped immensely on the lighting project. My total involvement on that project pretty much entailed standing across the street after dark, looking back at the house, and helping KC adjust the lights. That's it - KC did the rest. My arms are tired just thinking about it. Actually, most of my time was spent on gardening. We had to remove a pretty large area of grass, smooth out the area, and then plant the flowers. The cable guy gave us a head start on the project - remember when we didn't have cable for a month because the boneheads forgot to run the cable under the driveway - well, when they finally put the cable in, they managed to rid us a lot of "unneccessary" grass near the mailbox. Actually, when I was pulling out the grass with the shovel, I almost cut through the cable - the boneheads only buried it an inch below the ground! Anyhow, the flowerbed looks nice, and KC did a spectacular job on the lighting.

We blink and Christmas is here

In fact, it’s everywhere!

We were running around today to take care of things. We donated a full carload of stuff. Boy, we finally have our front room back! Before that we were looking around for a place to recycle cardboard. We found where to recycle glass, newspaper, aluminum, clothes… ... but not cardboard. We had to take all the flattened boxes back home. I’ll research some more and start over again next Monday. Later on we stopped by some stores and noticed Christmas decorations are up everywhere. Coffee shops are using their holiday cups, Christmas trees are up, and holiday trimming is everywhere. Christmas is Here! is Everywhere!! But we are barely there… … we are trying to get ready for Thanksgiving. Stakit’s parents will be here for the Turkey week, we went to the store today to get stuff to brine our bird, which I yet need to “hunt”. We are pretty excited that they are going to be here. We are going to have a feast!

Since Christmas is everywhere, we have to do something about it. We bought a holiday CD and listened to it on the way home. We are ready! Well starting to anyway!

Something Missing

I was planning to put in the low voltage lighting outside today. When we got our lights, we were still pretty overwhelmed with the move. We kept it simple and just got a box set deal; it will have everything to get it going. So, I was going to get all the lights ready last night, did I have everything? No! That’s my luck! Transformer, check! Wire, check! 15 fixtures … ... um, no, there are only 11.

So, I took it back to the store today and exchanged it for another one. Even though I didn’t take the 4, I worried that the store won’t take it back. But they were actually all fine with it. I just got a new box, checked everything right there and off I went. That wasn’t so bad.

We put all 15 fixtures together while we are watching movies at home tonight. They are really ready to go. Ooohhh but it’s the weekend! We will see.

My arms are shaking

We have a winner! We finally decided on our bedding. It’s about time! It took us about 3 months. We paid the deposit last night and they should start crackin’ here. Hopefully we will get them before spring.

I had been working in the garage for days now. Garage shelving from the old house, is finally up and all the Stuff has been organized. It’s done! It takes care of mostly everything in the garage, i.e. camping, recreational, seasonal, coolers, tools, MY power tools! gardening tools, painting stuff…. all went on this one wall! not too bad huh?! Oh, almost forgot, my favorite, the stuff that made my arms shake, the Extra tiles & grout that the builder left for us. They. Are. Heavy! I just moved them from the middle of the garage to this garage shelving wall, on the ground though. My arms are still shaking! Well, I guess that was pretty good weight training!

Now all the smaller stuff in the garage is all organized, there're still the bigger stuff. I still have 2 bikes and all the stuff that directly "goes" on the wall. But still, I am pretty happy.

Tomorrow, outdoor low voltage lighting and hope I can work on the rest of the garage too!

So, how’d you like America?!?

Um….How do I??? I paused… I had been enjoying it for years, and years…until NOW!

Today is just… really not my day. I just got off the phone not too long ago with the lighting company that charged us “shipping and handling” on our credit card for our Free shipping and handle chandelier that we ordered a couple months ago. They also said they don’t keep credit card numbers and somehow they know magic. They charged us a month later. The phone conversion didn’t go too well but it’s ok, we have nothing to loose; they do.

Now there is a new plumber in here to follow up a small leak for the new faucet while I’m look at Better Business Bureau. I answered the door. First thing came out of his mouth was…. “How are you? How’d you like America?”….Well, I paused for a little while… “ummmm… great…. I …umm like it?” “Wow, no one had asked that questions for Many years!” I was still very shocked. He responded, awkwardly, blah. blah. blah, oriental.. blah. blah..…amazing…blah. blah… is great.... are you married? blah blah...

I didn't pay to much attention to what he said and it doesn’t matter what he said. Whatever.

Savannah with our out-of-town-friend

We had a very good weekend. Spent some quality time in Savannah, hung out with our friend and caught-up.

Apparently, Savannah is the sister city of New Orleans. We went to the seafood festival, walked around many different parks, toured the Cathedral, and checked out beautiful architecture elements everywhere. When Grace was done with her work, we met up and went out for a seafood dinner. After dinner, we wanted to have some festival action. We wandered into a candy store (or 2). I am not a huge candy person but we had a blast, with the live music going on, we’re watching them make candy, sampling the freshest candy, and yes, we actually bought some too! Now that we had sugar, we are ready for a drink. We went to a bar (outside on a balcony) that was Very close to the live music stage! It was pretty fun except a little cold (maybe around 40s or so). That concluded our Saturday.

Sunday morning after we checked out of our hotels, we found a breakfast place to try. It was Good! (I usually don’t have much luck with choosing somewhere without a referral.)
Before we have our breakfast, we had some of their world famous Beignets. It was good but I was even more impressed with my breakfast. My Seafood Omelette…. ooo…oooo…ooooh! That was Good, fluffy, tasty, and just perfect! I can see going back there again!

Sunday afternoon, we came back home with Grace and showed her our new place and also walked around Amelia Island. We had dinner at the place that we went for my birthday. As usual, they made everything well.

One morning left before our friend needed to head home. Guess what we discovered Monday? We went to Jacksonville and tried a place called “Original pancake house!!” (back in the NW, that’s my favorite breakfast place!!) Is it real?? So, I couldn’t help it. I asked “Where is the original-Original-Pancake-House?” “Oregon.” “OMG!! That’s where we are from!!” However this is a franchise. There are about 10 to 12 of them here in FL!! I kept telling myself, “don’t expect too much, don’t expect too much..” and good thing I did. Not that is very, very bad. It’s good. For a food-person that hasn’t really been going out for breakfast much lately, that’s not bad. I didn’t mind it. For sure though, we had a Great time before I had to take her to the airport.

New Neighbors?!

All the houses right around us are Done! We are glad that the contractors are off to build other houses somewhere else. We start to see people moving in around us! We are looking forward to meeting our new neighbors!

Simpsons tonight

If you want to hear one of JB daddy's favorite songs, tune into the Simpsons tonight. It's in the beginning part of the show!

Go Ducks!!

Touch Down!

While we're waiting for Grace to finish work. We caught part of the UO & UW game in our hotel!

Meeting up with Grace this weekend!

Grace just flew in to Savannah, GA yesterday for a National Association of Boards of Pharmacy conference (Friday and Saturday). She will be speaking in this conference! They are very lucky to have her.

Since Savannah is only a couple of hours away, we have planned to meet her there. When she is done, we are gonna Par-tay! We booked our hotel awhile back. Good thing we did that, there is a big festival going on this weekend in Savannah. Most of the hotels are BOOKED! It will be fun though, food, music, drinks, arts, and by the water! So we will drive up to Savannah in the morning and hang out. We will meet up with Grace tomorrow evening when she’s done. Sunday at some point we will all head down to our place and Grace will fly out from Jacksonville Monday morning back home.

Even it’s going to be just a weekend, Stakit and I are really looking forward to see her.

P.S. Savannah… where we went to spend my birthday weekend too! You haven’t seen the pictures? I know! My bad. I’m working on it! I’m working on it!

Upgrading Master Bath

We have a plumber (hee hee) here today working on our bathroom faucets.

I usually try not to say plumber…. cuz it makes me giggle. (I know, how old am I?!) AND I can’t help it… I always have to check their “belt line”. The one came over today, nothing there for me to giggle. I figured; he’s about 140 lbs and 6’3”!

Ok, enough of That. I am very happy that he showed up today and installed the new faucets in the Master bath. I love the new faucets so much better. Now we are just waiting for the Roman tub trim and shower trim.

Now, I better head over to the gym and work off the candies that I had for the last 2 days!

November already

Time flies! Daylight saving, Halloween, and boom! November is here. AND apparently it’s National Blog Posting Month! I’m going to give it a try and post everyday.