SMITH'S BEST PART OF THE WEEKEND

SQUASHED  FROG


YUP !  A dead frog was the high point of my grand son's weekend with me !   Please don't think we had such a dull weekend that all the boy could get excited about was a frog flattened in the road in front of my house. NO WAY!  We were busy every minute from Friday afternoon when we arrived here till Sunday night when he couldn't wait to get home to see what his parents brought him from their weekend get-a-way to the Florida Keys. (The fact that they kept face timing him to tell him what treasure they had found for him might have had something to do with his desire to leave here.)

Kent and Kristen dealt out the 3 kids for the weekend and they escaped for a beautiful, fun filled weekend at Ilsamadora, one of the Keys.  They had a great time and so did Smith and I.   I can't speak for the twins but I'm sure Sandra had great fun with Grey and I know Laura enjoyed her Wynn time. As for Smith and I here are some of the things we got into. 

Lots and lots of pool time !!!  That included making at least 500 water balloons which we then drew faces on the tiny ones and made our own balloon fish aquarium! Smith loves water balloons and there are at least a hundred smashed ones all over the patio. Combine that with the ones clogging the filter and you will see just how many we really did make.

Friday I was at Smith's house watching him and the twins until the other baby sitters arrived.  Smith and I then packed up the dog and headed up to my house. We brought Mookie the dog to the house and we jumped back in the car to take a trip to the Dollar store to stock up for the weekend. Mac Donalds for dinner and then home to swim until it got dark.  Once dark we took a NIGHT WALK, one of Smith's all time favorite things to do.  (The boy LOVES being outside!) We had Glow Sticks for light, Mookie for protection and the tree frogs for music. We discovered a frog on the front of the house camouflaged so you could barely see it against the light color paint. When we found a frog on the back door Smith shot it with the squirt gun, (grand ma's idea) and it jumped off and almost landed on Smith, causing much screaming and running around!  I haven't laughed so hard in ages!

On Saturday afternoon we went over to the PLAYMOBILE store where we spent four and a half hours playing with Playmobile figures ranging from dinosaurs, to fire men, knights and dragons, a carnival and all sorts of other different scenes.  There are kid size tables all over a huge room where each different set is. At first Smith didn't quite know what to do with all these different things to choose from but it didn't take him long to figure it out.  His absolute favorite was the large green dragon with wings that went with the Chinese castle. Seriously, What's not to love! I was too busy playing with him so I didn't get a picture of the dragon. There were decorated pancakes for breakfast and chocolate chip cookies for snacks.
On Sunday Smith's second cousins, Meghan, Thomas and Hannah came over to play in the pool and have lunch with us.
By the time 4:00 arrived the boy was so exhausted he wanted to go home to see mom and dad and meet Marshal and Afraid, the two new hermit crabs that mom and dad brought home for Smith.
The only one who wasn't ready to go home was Mookie.  She was comfy and cool hanging out and did not want a ride in the car.

A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL !!

WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE ?

I feel like I am back in the 70's when the kids were little and I was trying to figure out how to get a few more dollars each month to make sure ALL the bill got paid.  I never considered going back to work as raising 3 kids was a full time job.
Now I'm living in paradise and wondering how I can cut back here and there to make my dollars stretch. Going to work at 70 is not an option ! Although I hear Mc Donald's workers are aiming for $15 an hour. "DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?"  Don't you know my knees would just love me to get a job where I had to stand on my feet all day. NOT !

Each day as I go to the mail box I am hyperventilating because there may be ANOTHER bill to pay. OR . . .  maybe there will be a check from some closed account that Ger and I shared. It's a crap shoot and actually the high point of some of my days. (Sad to admit but true!) When I got home from my trip to visit my NY friends and MD grand kids, (that's a whole other blog) I had a stack of mail waiting for me. As usual 98% of it was junk but that 2% of real mail was just itching to be opened. I took 3 days to go through everything and went from doing the "Happy Dance" several times to moaning when I found a bill. But the Happy Dance won out and there was only ONE bill in the pile compared to THREE checks for me to deposit!  I LOVE getting money back!  The one bill that was in the pile was a whopper thanks to my very own stupidity that I really don't want to have to tell anyone about. (Let's just say it involved a really stupid senior moment!) But the money coming in was more than the money going out so I guess that makes me still ahead of the game.

(The church always tells us that God will provide and the more generous we are in giving the more generous God will be to us. That really disturbs me because I hate to think God is "keeping score". That is just so very, very wrong ! But just in case I make sure I tithe my 10% to the church each week.)

And then there are all the little unexpected things that pop up in our faces to drain the dollars out of our accounts. I had a "wind mitigation" and "four point inspection" done on my house so that I could get a less expensive home owners insurance policy. Of course I had to PAY for these inspections but my lower premium would save me money in the long run. NOPE !  My roof and electric wiring didn't pass the inspection so I am stuck with paying $6,000 A YEAR for home owners insurance. Maybe I should sell the house and save some money that way ?  But the mental institution would get pretty costly too so I guess I'll just suck it up.

So far I have cancelled my newspaper, eliminated a bunch of cable channels, change my phone service, given up my monthly massage, stopped buying things for the grand kids every time I go out and not gotten my car washed or house cleaned in ages. (Both of which I could do myself but REALLY?)
I have really cut back on eating out and shopping. It's kind of fun seeing how much I can NOT spend in a day. But today I had to suck it up and purchase 4 new tires for my car. I figure since the car is now paid for the least I can do is keep it running smoothly and not wait for a blow out while I'm driving 85 MPH on Rt. 95 with all the other insane Florida drivers.

So the money comes in and the money goes out. It is not at all like my weight. I can so quickly add the pounds on but they take forever to come off. Money, on the other hand, is just ebbing and flowing like the tide.  I just hope I don't drown.

THE WORLDS BEST PINEAPPLE

I never know how to pick fresh fruit at the grocery store.  Should I knock on the watermelon ? Should I sniff the cantaloupe ? Should I squeeze the pineapple ?  HOW are you supposed to tell if these fruits are ready to eat ? I'm sure they have been picked weeks in advance of their ripening just so they will make the trip from the farm to the store without rotting in the back of a truck. So how am I supposed to know which one of the kumquats are ready for human consumption ? (And how am I supposed to know what the hell a kumquat is ?)

There I stand in the produce section of Publix sniffing and squeezing the fruit all to no advantage because I honestly do not know what I am doing ? Just what is it I am supposed to be looking for ?

I went to the farmers market with Keri while I was in Maryland.  She asked the "farmer" for a watermelon. He asked her when she was planning on eating it. Tonight ?  Tomorrow ?  Next week ? Then he started knocking on the watermelons and after playing a chorus of Yankee Doodle on a table of melons he selected one that,"would be perfect for dinner that night."  Sure enough, it was just right! The farmer apparently knew exactly what he was doing.  Did all the melons sound the same to me? YUP!  I couldn't tell one from another but there is apparently something to the sound of a ripe watermelon.

Now all knocking and sniffing does me no good when I am shopping for fresh produce BUT when it comes to picking my very own, home grown pineapple and knowing exactly when to PICK it, I am a PRO !
A couple of years ago I bought a pineapple at the store, brought it home and proceeded to cut it up so we could have fresh pineapple to nibble on.  It was OK, not a lot of flavor and not quite ripe but it  was tasty any way.  I took the top off that pineapple and placed it in a large empty flower pot in my back yard. Didn't bury it, didn't do anything special to it, just plopped it in the pot where I ignored it for several months. It didn't rot so I figured it must be growing. A few months later it sprouted large green pointy, sharp leaves that continued to grow larger and larger until I had a huge lovely green plant. By now family and friends were also watching it to see where this was all going. One day I noticed a bumpy round circle in the very center of the leaves and that continued to get larger and larger until it became the beginnings of a real pineapple. This pineapple grew and grew until it got as large as any pineapple in the store. Now I was back to square one . . .  WHEN DO YOU PICK A PINEAPPLE ?  Along comes "youtube" where you can find anything. Sure enough there is a video of some guy and his back yard pineapples telling me to wait until the fruit turns green and then yellow.  Every day I am checking this thing and I think it is turning green from its original brown but it is rather hard to tell. At this point the Gods intervened and set me up to travel for 3 weeks. I figured the worst that would happen would be the pineapple would rot or be eaten by local wild life while I was away. I left town and thought about my pineapple every day I was gone.
I returned this past Saturday morning at about 12:30 AM and promptly went into the back yard with my flashlight and VOILA ! There was my beautiful golden pineapple just waiting for me to pick it. I restrained myself until Sunday when Smith arrived with his family and the first thing we did was to go out and PICK THE  PINEAPPLE, take it inside and cut it open. (Smith has been helping me care for our golden treasure all these months.  He has watered it and talked to it and anxiously waited for just the right moment to harvest our prize.)

BEST PINEAPPLE EVER !!! I have NEVER tasted anything like this. Sooooooooo  sweet and juicy it is like eating liquid heaven. Smith helped with the whole process and watched with fascination as we surgically removed the tender sweet center.
 He took his first bite and spit it out !     Guess who doesn't like pineapple !

I guess I will have to plant a cookie tree !

THE MOST DISASTEROUS DINNER

I am on my way home, hopefully. I am at the airport waiting for my flight home after a wonderful trip to Maryland to visit with Keri and her family. The kids are getting BIG !  KAELIN is 7 and Finn is 4. They are funny little bugs and I enjoy all my time with them. It today was just one day too much. Over the time that I have been here we have participated in the end of school year "FIESTA", mommy playing soccer, going to my church and to their church, numerous shopping sprees, Daisy Girl Scout end of year ceremony and sleep over. That last one was the thing that put us over the top. Five little seven year olds screeching and giggling till 11 at night and then up at 6 the next morning was pretty exhausting. We spent yesterday just relaxing but today I had to leave and that meant Keri driving me up to BWI airport, about a 45 minute drive. Finn was tired, Kaelin is beyond exhausted and Keri is holding on by a thread.
Off we went and 20 minutes into the ride Finn had to pee. Then he got thirsty so we gave him a box drink and then 20 minutes later he had to pee again. We planned on stopping at a Mexican restaurant just outside the airport but had to stop for a pee break five minutes from the airport. Kaelin was in the back seat telling us how STARVING she was so we hurried on down the road. We FINALLY got to the restaurant and everyone had to pee!  Great fun so far.
We ordered dinner and Kaelin and Finn got tacos, rice and beans, something they always eat and love. Not tonight. Finn was wired and kept screeching and bouncing, Kaelin decided she didn't like the food, even before it arrived. Once it was placed in front of her she decided she wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat. (Lately she has been very anxious about food due to her food allergies. Anytime she is eating anywhere other than at home she worries that there will be something in the food that would cause her an allergic reaction.) that's when the upset began. Kaelin then realized that if she didn't eat her dinner she wouldn't get a goodie at Wawa when they stopped on the way home for Finn to pee. That really started the tears !  Finn started getting louder and louder because Kaelin was getting all the attention and Keri was about to get in the car and leave us all.
I have no idea what I ate. I recall it was quite tasty but it was a crazy meal.  I gave the waiter my credit card to get the show out into the car since things were going down hill fast and he came back telling me my card was denied !  WHY NOT !  Perfect ending to an insane dinner.  By now Kaelin was hysterical saying she just wanted to go home, Finn was telling his mother he had to pee yet again and grandma just wanted to fall asleep in my own bed.

BACKA PACK

Hi, it's me, Cath, the geriatric version of Dora the Explorer. You do remember Dora don't you?
When Abby, our first born grand child was born she was a huge fan of Dora and her adventures. For Abby's first birthday her parents got her an official "Dora the Explorer" back pack. There was little Abby toddling around with her BACKA PACKA on her back ready for what ever adventures came her way. The back pack came with MAPPA and compass and maybe binoculars so Abby would be prepared for all her adventures. Now Grand ma is the one with a back pack filled with who know what and I'm off having my own adventures.
I've always been a fan of back packs. It's so convenient to have EVERYTHING I need strapped on my back leaving me totally hands free to drink coffee and eat a bagel as I wander through the air port looking for my gate. Pocket books are lovely but digging through a purse trying to find my boarding pass and drivers license at every security check is a pain. Forget putting these things in my pockets as most pockets are for show and not for stuffing things. And anyway, you now have to empty your pockets to go through security so the stuff has to go some where.
In comes BACKA PACKA ! The handy dandy carry all with pockets all over the place!  (Sort of like parachute pants but without looking like you just came out of basic training.) There's a pocket for my cell phone, a pocket for my wallet, a pocket for tissues, a pocket with a clip for my car keys and a pocket for the boarding pass, ID and credit card. I'm like Katie Kangaroo on speed !
The world of fashion is finally getting savvy to travelers like me who want to look fashionable while traveling. There are all sorts of really jazzy back packs on the market these days ranging from Vera Bradley prints to gold sequins. There is something for everyone!
And this leads us to my question . . .  Why do men insist on slinging their back packs over ONE shoulder instead of putting both arms in to the straps like a BACK pack is intended to be worn? It is, after all, called a BACK PACK, not a shoulder pack. I took a survey at the two airports I have been at these past 2 weeks and I only saw one guy wearing his pack on his back. ALL the rest had packs hanging off one shoulder. Husband used to do this and I was forever asking him WHY? ! I never did get an answer that made sense. He was always grabbing at his pack as it slid down his arm and then pissing about the "Damn Pack". I would try suggesting he wear it ON HIS BACK as it was intended but he would just complain some more and sling it back up on his one shoulder. Wearing it this way it would smack people as we passed them giving rise to a lot more grumbling. He would get so frustrated that he decided he didn't need a back pack. And that is how my back pack doubled in weight. Husband thought nothing of asking me to hold his book, his keys, his water bottle, (that he NEVER drank out of but insisted on carrying), his newspaper, his wallet, his sun glasses, his jacket  and anything else that he decided to bring.
I couldn't believe how light my pack is this trip as I travel alone !

IT WILL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE !

How many  times a day do you tell yourself that something will only take a minute or have someone say that to you when asking a favor of you ?  It is one of those wonderful little catch phrases that are nothing but a HUGE LIE !

I tell myself things will "only take a minute" about a hundred times a day and then find myself into something that has me working on it for hours, days, weeks or even months.  The old "I'll just stop and do this real quick" lie we tell ourselves when we know for a fact this is something I REALLY shouldn't start right now because I am going to get side tracked by it and not get another thing done for the rest of the day.

But then there are those times when I honestly believe something will "only take a minute". Really! This is so simple, I can just whip this off and be on to something else in a matter of minutes !  HA !
Like the button I have been meaning to sew on to my new pair of shorts. It's just a matter of cutting the button off from one place and moving it over an inch and sewing it back on.  How Hard can that be ?
I have only owned this new pair of shorts for about 5 years. THAT'S how hard it can be ! Well, to be honest, I did buy them when they were a little tight but the price was right and "I'm going to loose 100 pounds." Because they were a little tight I didn't hang them in my closet with my clothing that actually fit but rather put them on the shelf. When I gained 10 pounds rather than loose 10 the shorts got moved from the shelf into a box under my bed. And there they had sat for a couple of years. Since H died I have been pulling things out of closets and drawers and down sizing my Stuff. I found 2 boxes full of clothing I had not been able to wear in years and among them were these shorts. I tried them on and surprise, surprise they actually fit. Except for one small button that held a skirt type over lay in the front of the shorts they looked great. I just needed to move that little button an inch and I would have some new skorts to add to my wardrobe. So the shorts went from the box under my bed to the rocking chair in the corner. (My "to do" rocker.) There they sat along with some things that needed ironing and there they stayed for about 2 months. Until today when I actually told myself, "Why don't I just sew that button on and then I can wear the shorts today. IT WILL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE!"
An hour and twenty minutes later I have just finished my project and am so exhausted from sewing on a button I had to sit down to rest.

It was a classic case of "rolling snow ball".  First I had to find my sewing box. I spent about 30 minutes in the garage looking for that when I finally realized I had efficiently moved the sewing box into my closet. DUH !  Got the sewing box out and found some matching thread but couldn't find a needle. What sort of sewing box doesn't have needles ?????  I knew I had some but where the heck were they? (Obviously these are things I have NOT organized yet!) Back to the garage and another 15 minute search for the missing needles which were stored with my sewing machine. (They are now moved to the sewing box.) Okay, pants, button, needle, thread . . . . now all I had to do was put the button on the pants. Except that I couldn't get the damn thread into the damn needle !  I tried everything but the eye on that needle was so small not even a dust mote could get through it. So the search resumed for the little piece of thin metal with a loop of wire on the end that helps thread the needle. I figured it HAD to be in the sewing box so after I had dumped out EVERYTHING there it was on the very bottom. STUCK to the bottom in a pool of something sticky. That lead to me WASHING out the sewing box, re-grouping everything that was to go back into it and organizing it all into a some what neater mess.

An hour and fifteen minutes have now passed and I STILL have NOT sewed the damn button onto my shorts. That took all of about 2 minutes, tops !

I think I now know why we live in a disposable society. It just takes too long to fix things! It's easier to throw them out and go buy new. I could have been to the mall and back with a new pair of shorts in the time it took me to sew on a button !

HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW ?

Did I tell you about my next door neighbor stopping over last week ?  I was just settling in after a busy day, got comfy, (you girls know what that means, off with the bra!) and had dinner cooking on the stove when my door bell rang. NO ONE ever comes to my door unless it is a delivery so I gave a quick thought to just how low I was hanging and figured I was OK to open the door.  There stood my neighbor, tears in her eyes saying, "Well, we have something in common." I immediately knew she meant her husband had died so I invited her in, gave her a stiff vodka and apple juice on the rocks and sat down to hear her tale.

She and her husband are renting the house next door and have been there for about 4 years. We have never shared more than a hello in all that time, probably because both of us were busy taking care of husbands. Gerry used to speculate all sorts of tall tales about why we never saw this couple out and about. He would keep track of the few and far between cars in their drive way and also would keep track of how often they missed garbage day and put their trash out on the wrong day.  Ger was quite entertained by these two neighbors and quickly established, (from the items in their recycle bin), that they drank A LOT !  The word in the neighborhood was that they were both in their 80's and had moved here from one of the wealthier communities near by.

And now I am sitting in my living room with a sobbing widow who I really don't know and I am learning way more than I ever needed or wanted to know.
It seems that my neighbors were married for 58 years, she came from Brooklyn, just a few blocks away from where Ger grew up and he came from Queens, not all that far from where I grew up.  They met young, married quickly and partied on Long Island with the well to do but not so famous folks. They moved often and never had children. It seems they also spent every cent they had on the party circuit and never saved for a rainy day or retirement. And now, 77 year old neighbor, (she let her age slip), has buried her 89 year old husband and is left with NOTHING !  And I do mean nothing !  They rent the house and she says she won't be able to afford to stay there. She drives an older car, has no retirement, (even though she worked for years and years), had no life insurance on her husband who also had no retirement so her only income is her Social Security check.

How could you let that happen ??  Did she never lie in bed at night thinking how she could survive without this man she married? Had she never considered that he might die or leave her? Had she never thought about leaving him?  Is she not human ?

I can not believe there are women out there who are so dependent on their husbands that they have no idea what their financial situation is. That just blows my mind!  For my entire marriage I always handled the money and had a contingency plan in case husband got sick of me and threw me out. Thank God he never did but I think I could have survived if he had. I wouldn't be living in Paradise like I am but I could have survived.

As for my neighbor, I haven't seen her since she stopped in,  although I know she is still there because the garbage was out on the wrong day and her news papers keep getting brought in. I think I'll give her some space in case she is thinking about moving in with me.