Category: Florida Breaks

Life hasn’t been all about work, work, work, though it seems like it most of the time. Over the last three months we did get out of the house a few times, sometimes just for errands.

Movies

Late in January an old friend of Chelsea’s (a former boyfriend) called and invited us to a movie and lunch. Needless to say we were delighted to accept. After a lunch at a local Greek restaurant, we watched Sherlock Holmes in theaters. We’ve only seen movies in theaters twice since June of 2007 – hard to believe…! The last time we were in a theater was with Lynn and Hansford Hair (and Lea and James) in Lafayette LA when we saw the new Batman back in 2008.

We didn’t think the movie (Sherlock Holmes) was that great, but we loved getting out to the theaters. Lior, Chelsea’s friend, came back to the house afterwards and talked programming on websites with us.

Meanwhile we signed up for Netflix. For under $10 a month (we’re sharing it with Tyler so it’s only $5 a month each) we can watch unlimited movies online and we get one by mail. Chelsea and I have taken full advantage of that; we’ve caught up on a lot of great movies, watched many classics (all the Bogie movies), and seen some really, really terrific films. It’s our favorite way to end a long hard day, or to “veg out” on our few rest days.
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Weather

Like the rest of the country, we’ve had our fair share of unusual winter weather. We had an all-time record breaking cold spell in January, and one of the coldest Marches in memory – in fact, it’s been the coldest winter we remember in the ten years we’ve lived here. As if that’s not enough, it’s been the wettest winter in years.

Spring came really late, along with a record pollen year – I’ve never seen anything like it. To make matters worse, we had looong stretches of twenty to thirty mph winds, often gusting up to thirty-five mph or better. Not only did it wreak havoc with the pool, blowing an unending supply of pollen, leaves, and grit into the pool (which then had to be cleaned out), but it made riding really unpleasant.

Riding

Despite the cold and very dark mornings, we have kept up our riding, although intermittently. When the alarm goes off at 6:15 and it’s cold and pitch black in the room, it takes a supreme act of will to roll our feet out onto the floor and get ready to go. Once we get out the door we’re fine, because we really love the riding.

We’ve been so tired with our projects that awakening to a fiercely windy day, or rainy day, or 35 degree day didn’t inspire us to want to ride, especially since we had a huge backlog of tasks to do. We figured that when spring really arrived and the weather got better, or we got rested, we’d start our rides in earnest.
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What we thought was “pretty good” in our pool status paled in comparison to the real thing.

Yes, we finally got the money organized to get a new dirt catcher and filter. (Check out the before and after photos in the blog. It’s really astonishing.) Combined with two rounds of chlorine; running the pool pump with its new filter for forty-eight hours; and a last vacuuming to suck up the remaining bits of grit and leaves on the bottom – voila – a gorgeous pool.

The pool, with its sparkling blue water, looked like an ad for Florida, tempting us to leap in and relax on pool floats with a drink in our hands (picture tiny umbrellas and little chunks of fruit in the drink).

The bad news? We were thoroughly entrenched in a lengthy unseasonable cold spell, and being in the pool was the last place we wanted to be. We had hopes, however, that the weather would change soon. Meantime, Alex scheduled his second annual Eggs n’ Kegs party for St. Patrick’s Day, a month away.
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Remember I wrote earlier about learning the guitar? I’ve had major progress in that arena.

I finally got my guitar properly strung at Marathon Music (they were awesome); they even tuned it for me for free. Once home I dug out my books from the packed boxes and have been teaching myself chords. We’ve been so slammed with projects that I haven’t taken time to play, but I got an amazing device called a Grip Master to keep my calluses going and to strengthen my fingers.

The Grip Master is a squeeze device that strengthens the forearm, the wrist, the fingers together, and each individual finger, depending on how you squeeze. I bought the “Ruff Caps” to add to the Grip Master. Ruff Caps have lines which replicate the idea of the guitar strings, keeping calluses callused when it isn’t possible to play your instrument.

It works amazingly well – it’s light and easy to carry around, so it’s convenient to use it watching movies, sitting and talking, in the car, and so on. I can already feel a big difference in my hand strength. I got one for Amanda too; she developed carpal tunnel syndrome from her job. The Grip Master has been used for anyone playing musical instruments; for recovering hand strength after strokes; for arthritis; for those who work extensively at computers; and for carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s a totally clever and useful little device. I love it.
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My bedroom was originally a renovated garage, with no real closet and bath, so about four years ago I decided to have our rehab guy (he’d rehabbed a house for us in Ft Pierce) put in a cork floor, a real closet, and small bathroom with shower, sink, and toilet. Our guy promised a week-long job.

Six weeks later I was still sleeping on the recliner in the living room. Four years later the tile in the bathroom wasn’t finished; the door wouldn’t close; the drywall wasn’t finished; wall plates were missing; the shower didn’t have a drain and had a dismal shower head; the door molding inside the bathroom had been tacked on lightly and fell on us at the slightest provocation; the closet and outside bathroom molding hadn’t been put up at all; the sink was dangling from the wall; he’d left holes gouged in the ceiling from his various maneuvers; and he was long gone.

We’ve been living in a construction zone for four years. How often did we think, “If only we had a real towel rack!” The various annoyances grew from a rumble to a roar, especially when we cleared out the shed and re-discovered the tiles, closet doors, molding, drywall paste, and paint.

Chelsea began agitating to finish the job. I wanted to write. Then Tyler arrived. On his first tour of our room (he’ll be taking it as soon we leave), he suggested that we could finish it up, assuring us, “Wouldn’t it look nice; it’d be so easy!” Telling us that he’d brought all his tools, and that he’d worked in construction a bit, he offered to help with whatever we needed.
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Television, computers, data, and monitor challenges

When we left in 2007, Chelsea and I cleaned off our hard drives (mostly) and put the data on two 40GB external drives (they weren’t big enough). We came back in 2008 for a few months and started using our computers again, rather than use my laptop. In the wildness of those days – packing frantically and getting ready to leave again, we left some data on each of our hard drives, mostly music and photos.

In our absence Alex’s computer died so he started using Chelsea’s. Then hers died so he used mine, but mine died immediately. He was forced to head back to Computers Direct and get his cleaned up.

When we returned for this break, Chelsea’s and my two computers were dead, and both our monitors were gone – Alex had gone through his monitor and one of ours, and had appropriated the last remaining monitor for his own use. To make matters worse, his computer died within weeks of our return.
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We were on such a roll after our efforts to get ready for Tyler that we kept on going. Everything needed to get done anyway, so why not do it all now, we figured. Of course, we’re paying the price these days because we’re totally wiped out, but at least we feel fantastic about all we got done.

Window cleaning

How often do you clean all your windows, inside and out? Most folks I know cringe at the thought. I’ve even had cleaning ladies who won’t do windows. We have a lot of windows, too, so it’s not a small job. But I felt so good seeing Tyler’s windows clean that I spent a few days in mid February, during gorgeous cool weather, cleaning all the windows myself; yes, inside and out.

It’s not in memory when they were last cleaned, and the dust and grime had slowly accumulated, so the amount of light in our rooms increased by a dramatic factor when they were finally clean and sparkling. We’re still enjoying it.
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Stained glass project

Twenty-five years. That’s how long I have dragged around seven boxes of gorgeous glass pieces, all sizes, with equipment to create the stained glass projects. When Chelsea was born I was making stained glass windows, and was in the middle of a particularly beautiful piece for my dad when he died suddenly.

A few days after he died, I tried to finish his piece, but couldn’t see the glass through the tears in my eyes. I put the piece away. Some months later we moved, but our new house didn’t have a place to work on the stained glass, then Alex came along, and my life took another path.

All these years, the boxes of glass have been in storage or have been in the shed, collecting dust and bugs. Two years ago, on our break from the first part of our trip, Chelsea painstakingly washed every piece of glass and packed them in boxes. However, we knew when we packed the glass that it wouldn’t survive being transported by anyone other than us.
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Before Thanksgiving we met Tyler, a friend of Alex’s who was down from Boston visiting. He’d been living here for a few years but had chosen to move back home for several personal reasons. In late January he got in touch with Alex to see if Alex would be willing to have him as a roommate – Tyler wanted to move back to Florida to work and finish his schooling.

After talking it over, we decided to say yes. Tyler needed a place to live; the rent money would be great for the budget; we’d all adjust somehow.

We didn’t know until late in the game that Tyler came with a Min-Pin/Pekingese, year-old dog; so we got two roommates in the deal. (A min-pin is a miniature Pinscher.)

The room Tyler would have was Chelsea’s old room, but Alex had painted it in creative and wondrous ways (probably not what Tyler would choose for a décor), and we had loaded the room with all our boxes and some of our furniture we gotten from storage. The room, in short, was a disaster area.
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Will it never end? Chelsea and I asked ourselves that question daily during January and February – in fact, right through the middle of March. Every time we finished a box, two or three more stepped up to take its place. At times we suspected they multiplied overnight.

It’s not been a matter of disorganization; rather it’s been a testament to our deeply-held desire to get our lives as streamlined as possible, getting ready for seven or more years out of the country. We know that we have no idea what we will be like when we return, much less what kind of lifestyle we’ll want.

Will we continue on doing more cycling adventures? Will we move to some awesome spot we discovered on our trip? One thing’s for sure – our lives will never look like this again. That bit of awareness has been driving all our decisions to keep or move things on, and the longer we are doing this, the more we are choosing to move things on.
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