Home From The Outside

Here at last are some views of our new house, from the outside.  Here's the front of our home; the shrubbery nicely trimmed in front and one of my oak trees (off to the left) providing some nice shade.  Below is that very oak, which is either a "Live Oak" or a "Laurel Oak" - there are 19 species of oak trees that grow around here.  This one's pretty young; having very little Spanish Moss to call its own.

  On the right is a view looking up into my other oak tree, which is on the east side of the house.  It's much older and larger than the other one.  As I mentioned in the previous blog, there are many oaks all over the neighborhood, which actually provide a goodly amount of charm.

On the left you see that larger oak, which is on the east side of the yard, and to the right is my back yard which looks west.  It's rather narrow and is bordered on both sides by hedges; the taller ones on the right side divide my property from my northerly neighbor's and the other, shorter hedges provide a nice climbing opportunity for the squirrels to get up onto the roof of my Florida Room.   If you step just to the left of my back yard you find yourself on my tiny patio; just big enough for a table, some chairs, and my inherited barbecue, which is nestled in the arms of some shrubbery.  It's the thing on the left of the below photo covered in black.  We've never actually used it yet so for all we know there might be a stash of stolen diamonds under that cover!  Well, it COULD happen! 

To be entirely truthful, we don't spend a great deal of time outside in our yard - not only because of the famous Florida humidity but because there are a plethora of bugs, including wasps, to whose sting I am allergic! (I have my Epipen right next to my monitor in case of emergency).    We DO use the patio when Al smokes ribs or other meats and the side benefit of this is that the local squirrels (which, as I've mentioned before are very plentiful) are put off by the "burning wood" smell and since he started using the smoker they've stayed away much more than they did when we first moved in.  One for our side!!

That's pretty much "it" for the exterior of the house.  It's a small place - just a few feet shy of 1600 square feet.  When we downsized, WE DOWNSIZED!   The old house was over 2600 square feet so living in this much smaller place takes some getting used to.  I must say though, that there was a lot of space we nearly never used in the old house and here we're pretty much using every room.  Please keep in mind that we DO have a lovely, sunny Guest Bedroom (you'll see it in the next blog) all made up and ready for you to take a closer look!

Here are two of our permanent though nomadic neighbors.  Herons and other waterfowl constantly stroll around the neighborhood, sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups, no doubt eating some of the plentiful bugs I mentioned above.  The little lizard to the right was sunning himself right outside my front door the other day.  We see a lot of his family members around here, too.  There are also cardinals that probably live in one of our trees - we often see them lighting on our air conditioner but sadly, it starts up so often it scares them away!  They ARE beautiful, though.



So that's our neighborhood.  Not too bad, really.  Come on down and take a look!

Okay, Not Everything is Love-bugs.  Here's Some of the

Good Stuff About Our Neighborhood

A lot of you have been asking about what our area is like so I FINALLY went around our little gated community and took some photos.  I did NOT photograph the two golf courses within the neighborhood because if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen 'em all, and in this area it appears as though every spare inch of land has been made into another golf course.    Plus, you already know how well I like golf carts.  'Nuff said.

Here's the friendly gatehouse of our little "over 55" community at which the resident security people will stop you, and if I've forgotten to phone them to let you in, they'll be pretty adamant about figuring out who in blazes you are.  They mean well.  Forgive them.  I'll try to remember to let them know you're coming.   Interestingly, the neighborhood itself is laid out quite oddly; as though the guy who figured out where to put the streets was on some SERIOUS medication at the time.   I mean, take a look at this little map that I scarfed off Mapquest, showing the roads in our neighborhood:

See the roads just above the green area denoted "Links of Spruce Creek South"?  Look toward the right side where instead of being straight roads they're all kind of diagonal and swervy.  Yeah.  And it isn't done because the topography is forbidding or hilly - hell, the entire town is only 84 feet above sea level!  Wacky. 

We live on one of those  diagonal roads on the lower right.  Oh, and the little "4" in the purple circle is where our Community Center is.  If you start at that "4" and go to the left to where the road ends, there's a softball field there in the blank spot, and behind it is the gated area where we keep our RV.  Just thought you'd like to know.

These two photos show our community center which has meeting rooms, an exercise room, arts and crafts rooms, and so forth.  There's also a pool, a covered outdoor sitting area and a lovely pond with a gazebo, as well as some beautiful oaks; naturally festooned with the ubiquitous Spanish Moss, which is a parasite actually; preferring oak trees because of the iron content they derive from them.  Spanish Moss, by the way, is what "air plants" actually are.  See?  Reading my blog is EDUCATIONAL!

Here's the gazebo by the pond beside the community center - very pretty actually, and it attracts a lot of herons and other wetland birds.  The other photo is obviously our pool, and there IS a hot tub, though you can't see it from this angle.  The whole area of the community center is quite pretty, with flowers planted everywhere and of course many trees and a 2nd golf course sort of in the middle of the community. 

I actually have several pictures of the oak trees in the neighborhood but this one's my favorite.  It's just before one gets to the "interior" golf course, and it's enormous, simply dripping with Spanish Moss, and quite an imposing sight.  Now picture many of these trees all throughout the area.  I have 2 oaks on my little property, though I'll save them for the next blog.

This little photo on the right shows you the other end of the pond

with the gazebo on it.  It's very "wetland" looking and quite pretty.  One often sees heron, ducks and myriad lizards and other critters (as well as the never-ending population of squirrels) nearby, though thankfully I've never seen or heard of any alligators in there (yet).

While the actual homes in the community are sort of monopoly-board houses, mostly looking pretty much like one another, and while they ARE set out pretty uniformly (which is part of why it's hard to find your way around here at first), as you can see, there are some very pretty places. 

Outside the actual gated community is very much the main street. Equivalent to "Northern Blvd" for my New York friends, and "Ventura Blvd" for my Californian friends.   If you look in the upper right hand corner of that map up there you'll see a dark yellow road.  That's Route 441; a major road around here, lined with stores, town squares, MANY medical centers (I've noticed that every time I see a shopping center I see a Medical center that appears to be somehow affiliated with it), and a great number of restaurants; most of which are mediocre to downright awful.  Yes, we're still looking for an excellent restaurant, and while we've found a few pretty good ones, we've still yet to find something wonderful. 

So this is the community in which we live.  Next time I'll share some photos of our house.

ATTACK OF THE DREADED LOVE BUGS!

Yup, that's them.  Plecia nearctica; one of the family of "March Flies", also known as the honeymoon fly, kissing bug, or two-headed bug.  These are the little critters that plague drivers along northern and Central Florida, as well as other southern states as far west as Texas.   You mostly see them in pairs mating, which they do in a large hurry, since the females only live for about three or four days, and the impressive thing is that their swarms, which occur two times a year (spring and autumn) include hundreds of thousands of these short-lived insects! (I'm told they may swarm a third time in southern Florida but thankfully I don't live there).

Around here these days it's easy to tell which cars have been on the highways for any length of time - the evidence is clear enough!  Not only are the car grills covered with the little critters, the windshields are, too!!                               Talk about the living, flying definition of the word, "Ubiquitous", as I drive around town doing my errands or whatever, no matter in which direction I look I'm guaranteed to see, if not at least one couple "in flagrante delicto", a few single insects looking frantically for a mate.  They seem to hover any and every place one goes.  I walk from the car to the grocery store's door and I'll see maybe three or four "sets" of them.  If I stop at a traffic light, one or two "sets" will rest on the hood of the car.  When I stand in the driveway chatting with a neighbor for ten minutes we'll encounter at least one per minute.  Then, if I stroll from my front door to the mailbox at the front of my driveway I'll see two or three sets.  It's kind of amazing, actually.  

These little critters are just one more detail Al and I had known about but forgot to consider when we decided to move here.  Well, they're just a small annoyance, really.  They don't sting or bite or draw blood.  Other than being everywhere you look, their "nuisance" factor has to do with the fact that their little bodies turn acidic after they die, and if they're stuck to your car they can literally etch into your paint job if you don't remove 'em!  Plus, they're so numerous on the highways that they can literally cut off your vision! 

Al and I had this experience long ago when we lived in Pennsylvania and went to Miami to visit family during a lovebug flight.  This photo is NOT our car but it just as well might have been!

Scary, huh?  They can get so thick that your windshield wipers don't even help!  Luckily, though they do light on the car these days, I don't see huge numbers of them committing suicide on my vehicle; especially since I don't go jamming down the road at 60 mph. 

Wikipedia informs me that these semi-annual flights last for about 4 - 5 weeks which isn't really bad unless you're a sales person who has to spend a lot of time on the road.  So we're now in the midst of Lovebug season.  It seems interesting that as soon as the Snowbirds start to migrate, the Lovebugs do too!!

Drive safely, everyone!

It's Never Easy, Is it??

You wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal, yet once again a simple task has turned into a comedy (or maybe a tragedy) of errors.

There's no doubt it's part of the "fun" of moving across the country, and it's also part of the fun of getting older and less healthy.

Oh, haven't I mentioned what I wanted to accomplish that's become such a hassle?   All I needed to do was renew a prescription for one of my meds.

The source of the problem - A small, white pill

Lisinopril.  I take it (among other meds) to control (or at least hold at bay) my resistant high blood pressure, which is ironic really, because accomplishing this renewal has certainly not done my blood pressure any good!

I had previously renewed it with no trouble but then came the infamous "you have no refills left" situation, and here I am, not seeing my NEW, Floridian doctor until a week from today, and taking the last pill I have tonight.

Naturally I phoned in the renewal to my local drug store several days ago because I didn't want to run out.  A few days later they let me know they had to contact my doctor to approve the renewal so I gave them the Californian doctor's phone number, fax number and all of that and trustingly (what a dope!) left it in their hands.  Yesterday when I checked on it they told me they hadn't heard back from the doctor via the fax they sent so I sent a fax over to the doctor in California begging them to comply.  In checking with them this morning they weren't sure they even received my fax!  Great!  Okay, so I verbally explained my dilemma and they ASSURED me that they had faxed over the approval to the pharmacy.

With hope springing eternally in my heart I phoned the drug store.  Nope, they never received anything.  "Well," suggested I, "can you possibly phone the doctor's office and have them verbally okay the med?"  "No," they said.  "We're not allowed to do that."  Okay, I'm back on the phone with the doctor's office asking if THEY can phone the drug store.  Nope - they don't have long distance on their phone lines so that's impossible.  Okay, let's see if I can conference the two together!

After several frustrating minutes with the phones going haywire Al was finally able to connect Points A & B and we got the doctor's office talking to the pharmacy.  Well, you didn't think it was going to be THAT easy, did you?  It seems that the drug store can only accept the verbal authorization if the doctor calls them directly.  How would they be able to tell?  You got me!  Anyway, I explained that the doctor's office in California didn't have long distance and we had more or less reached an impasse when the wonderfully helpful gal at the doctor's office offered to phone the prescription in to a Californian location of the drug store chain so that they could transfer it over to the local store.  Brilliant!  We disconnected the conference call but not before the drug store told me they'd need to know which location the prescription was phoned in to.

Okay, I can do that.  Once more I phoned the doctor's office and interestingly enough, the gal there had the phone number of the pharmacy they'd contacted but not the name of the town it was in!!
Well, I'm a decent enough detective so I went onto the drug store's website and figured out the mystery.  Figuring the pharmacy was either gonna love me or hate me by the time all this gets resolved I called them once again and gave them the store number and the town they're in.  They promised to contact that store so they could transfer the prescription here, and then phone me when it was finally ready for me to pick up.  The store's only about a mile from here and here I sit writing this to you, still breathlessly awaiting their call.  I've also asked them to call me if they have any trouble at all with this process... Oh, my friends, this has been SO MUCH fun!!!!!

February - Chocolate Lovers' Month!

From Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Pirates of Penzance': For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February,
	twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty."

While some people dislike February as not only the dead of winter but the hardest month in the calendar to spell, I've always liked it for one significant reason.  I was born in February.  I turned 62 this year, which age is especially marked by my new ability to receive Social Security  payments.  I anticipate receiving the first check in April.

On my birthday (the 9th) I was treated to a lovely visit by Heather and a very pleasant lunch with her and Bobby.  They brought me a special gift - "Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book."

 If you haven't seen this fun and whimsical book I heartily suggest you treat yourself to it - or at least look it up.  Just like some people keep flowers pressed into a book, Lady Cottington collected fairies - creatures not entirely willing to be pressed into her book! 

Since Al had to work all day we postponed any further celebration for dinnertime, when he surprised me with a huge bouquet of flowers and an amazing Chocolate Ganache cake!  Well worth the waiting for.

It took over a week to eat this thing!

Much of the rest of the month proceeded with no more than the usual pandemonium and slow but steady unpacking.

Lovely Flowers!

Al succeeded in unraveling enough of the chaos in our office to be able to put together his desk and start working from in there full time.  Though we still have boxes in the living room and our shelves aren't up yet I anticipate actually being able to put together my own computer any day now, and the living room shelves can't be far behind that.

The undoubted highlight of the month began last week when niece Toby came to Florida with her family for a vacation.  Since her in-laws have a time-share in Orlando they've been visiting also.  Their first few days were spent in Orlando seeing Disney World and that sort of thing, then they came up here, where Andrea and Max (the in-laws, who are also dear friends) stayed with us while Toby, Cliff and 2-year-old Ozzie stayed with Heather.    We had enjoyed a dinner with Heather, Bobby, Andrea, and Max earlier in the month but they had returned to Orlando then (it's only about an hour south of here) but this time they stayed for a few days.

Since Toby and family wanted to see the sights of Central Florida during this visit, yesterday we went to Silver Springs, a beautiful park which is famous for tours of the marshland in glass-bottomed boats.  The park is full of animals as well and a beautiful scene was available in every direction no matter where one wandered.  In fact I took so many photos I don't have room here to post them all so I'll put them in a new album on Facebook.  Do take a look at them over there!

It was a long but lovely day, after which we stopped for dinner.  Al and I enjoyed spending the evening with Andrea and Max, and though they're leaving this afternoon we'll see them all once more this afternoon for an early dinner at Heather's house.

More than that one can't ask of poor, maligned February.  I hope yours was pleasant and filled with mild weather.  Spring isn't far behind!