Condo Photos

Some of my loyal BLOG followers have requested photos of the condo not covered in a red tent. Click on the panther photo to see more.

Expectations!

There are high, low, reasonalbe, adaptive, unrealistic and even Great Expectations. When you get ready for a vacation, you have high expectations that the weather where you are going will be great and you will do all kinds of exciting and fun things. Anticipation is high and you are excited. You get to your destination and oh, lets just say your baby is sick and has diarrhea all over your clothes. Your expectations take a nose dive because well....that was unexpected. So, you adapt your expectations. You have a sick baby, but the weather is really great. Now you have reasonable expectations. You can hang out and just relax in the nice weather. Then it rains. Now, you guessed it...low expectations and disappointment. Then out of nowhere the baby starts feeling better and the sun comes out. Expectations now jump to unrealistic because you want to do everything in one day. Alas, the baby projectile vomits on you and expectations are at an all time low. I believe that is what is referred to as an emotional roller coaster. (Kind of like me when I'm un-medicated). Anyway, What was my point? Oh yeah...the moral of the story is; keep your expectations low and you might never be disappointed. That's not really the moral that would be silly. What I believe is have great expectations, be excited and anticipatory. Maybe you'll be disappointed, but that's ok. The more emotions and feelings you have the more alive you really are. Plus a perfect vacation would make for boring stories that no one wants to hear, but telling them about how your baby had diarrhea all over the flight attendant on the way home; that's funny.

Oh I almost forgot. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME AND JOE! 8 years today. So far Joe's lasted longer than the others. Ha Ha! He's so lucky. Happy St. Patrick's Day too. Wear green or get pinched.

Missing the Indiana boys! and Sarah too.

Julian and Nicholas are wearing sweaters that I crocheted. I'm so talented! I love my boys!

Life gets in the way

It seems like life always has a way of getting in the middle of what you really want to do. Amanda, Brad and Jaxon are here which is great, but Jaxon is sick. Stomach virus type stuff (I won't gross you out with the details). I am watching him sleep right now which is definitely what he needs. Brad and Joe are fishing. Hopefully Joe will find his way back home. Amanda and I were going to go to Naples but thought better of it since Jax is still not feeling good. Amanda just left to go to the pool. So I guess its not so bad after all. We all get what we want....Brad fishing, Amanda relaxing by the pool and I get time alone with my grand baby.

Oh yeah I promised you a new saying. I heard this from of a guy on Oprah. "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

Blogs are like Christmas letters only better. You know the letters that some people send with their Christmas card detailing their life for the past year. They're great to receive if you actually know the person. I swear every Christmas we get at least three from people I have never met and Joe hasn't seen or talked to in 20 years. We don't care that Bubba is out of jail now and owns his own car wash. Who the hell is Bubba? Those letter should be reserved for people you know and love but just don't get to talk with often enough. Blogs are so much better than Christmas letters though, people don't have to read it if they don't want to and you get much juicier and candid stuff.
Brad, Amanda and Jax are going to be here in less than 24 hours. I can't wait.

My kids know that I like poignant sayings like: Everything you want is on the other side of fear. I have a new one, I'll share it with you tomorrow.

Home Sweet Home

We were able to get back into our condo this afternoon. I spent the entire rest of the day cleaning and putting things back together. I get to sleep in my own bed tonight thank goodness. Joe hurt his back lifting some boxes so he got out of cleaning. What a scammer. There is bad news though. There were some casualties as a result of the exterminating. Joe found some dead curly tailed lizards. We buried them and I said a prayer and we gave them there own little shell headstones.....just kidding, they did die but we didn't bury them or anything. Oh and our satellite tv died too. We think they moved the dish when they tented the building and so it messed up the signal. I don't really care that much but the satellite supplies not only us with tv but also our neighbors. They were none too happy about it! Instead of watching TV I am entertaining myself by blogging. I hate to sound stupid, but why is it called a blog? Does that stand for something? Did someone just say one day.....I want to reach as many people as I can on the Internet, I think I'll BLOG. God Bless my kids for commenting on my blog! If I told more than 3 or 4 people that I had a blog, maybe I would get more comments. Should I be embarrassed that I have a blog? Am I too old to blog? To blog or not to blog...that is the question.

Florida Life

I had no computer access for an entire day. Our Florida Condo is being fumigated for Termites! We had to remove everything from the condo that was either food or cosmetic and the condo is completely enclosed in a big red tent. I keep waiting for the clowns to come out. There are warning signs all around that say "Dangerous Toxic Gas, Keep Out". I don't know if I ever want to go back in. It gets fumigated for 18 hours, then the tent is removed and ventilated for 6 hours before we go back in. We should be able to be in by tomorrow afternoon. We are staying in a motel across the street from the condo. I HATE motels! We are however, sampling the local cuisine since we have no where to cook or store food. Most of it is not what I normally eat, so I will probably gain 10 lbs. over the next few days. No one serves Oatmeal! What's up with that? I don't think there is a carrot stick on the entire island.