Christmas Letter

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

How different this year has been from the last. After a year at home, we are now comfortable traveling and meeting our neighbors, joining Orange County Audubon and the Windermere Tree Board.

 Through dumb luck, we learned about availability of Covid shots in our area, so on Jan. 7th, we got in line at the Orange County Convention Center for our first. Suddenly, we felt confident we would once again see family and friends. After our second shot, I booked tickets for San Diego. Everyone talks about missing grandchildren, which we did, but hugging daughter Mary, after not seeing her for 364 days, just about stopped my heart.

She and Ryan had artificial grass and a swing set with slides installed in their back yard, which was a lifesaver for Bella and Remi, since California parks were locked down almost all year. I helped them build raised garden beds, and Bella carefully planted carrots and radish seeds, while Mary added tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Remi “weeded”. Some veggies survived.

Spaulding took a management job with his company in Salt Lake City, beginning in July. He and a friend with granddog Emma drove across country, towing the vintage Jeep. Molly stayed behind, finishing her job until she could join him in August. She now works in math curriculum development with the school system. We visited them in October, seeing their new house and missing the snows that came the next week.

Grant and Patten had hospital stays: Patten for an appendectomy, and Grant for observation after he fell off his bike and had a small brain bleed. Both have recovered, and we are thankful their stays were during lulls in Covid so there was room in their respective hospitals when they needed them.

Stephanie has returned to her office in Lakeland, which means we occasionally get to take Clara to or pick her up from her middle school, a magnet Spanish program in Winter Garden.This summer, she went with us for a trip to Yellowstone, spending a week driving each way, and 2 weeks camping in the park. Bison, bears, wolves, geysers, mountains, trout fishing, and miles and miles of soybean fields. 

I continue in my quest for a no-grass yard but have had to stretch my timeline to another year. In my vegetable garden, I grew corn, lots of okra, eggplants, and currently, tomatoes. The squirrels have thwarted my attempts at beans by digging up my seeds. Brunswick Stew may be in their future.

If you are heading to Central Florida, we’d love to see you. There is always room for you at our house.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Month of Garden Club

Image
April seemed to be all garden club, all the time. I started with the zone leader’ walkthrough for Spring Fever on Friday, the 5th, then 2 whole days of that event. Whew. April 11th was the Windermere Garden Club’s monthly meeting, a field trip to Southern Hill Farm, a you-pick and wholesale blueberry farm. We were inspire to add blueberries to our garden. Friday, April 12th, I was the speaker at Bloom and Grow’s monthly luncheon, touting the value of becoming a citizen scientist, specifically, downloading the iNaturalist app and participating in the City Nature Challenge 2024: Orange County. I was pleased with my talk, the first one I’ve given in person in 5 years. I still attend EarlyBird Toastmasters, but we’ve been on Zoom since early 2020. Before that, we’d moved to Key Biscayne for a year, and I didn’t drive up to Fort Lauderdale often. On the 21st, we toured Jeanne’s almost-all native, completely grassless yard, a B&G social with the mandatory wine and lovely appetizers and d...
Read more

Relief

Image
I have been wild and exhausted with anxiety. Grant’s passport was stuck in limbo at the US passport agency, and there didn’t seem to be any way to break it loose. We had applied for renewal of our passports back in October, using a new online process: create an account at MyTravel.gov, fill in the form, upload a headshot from our iPhone, and pay $130 by credit card. Easy peasy. I finished mine October 15th, and got an email notification the next day my application had been received. Grant could not create an account at MyTravel.gov. I’m still not clear why, but after several days of his being very frustrated by numerous attempts to use his normal email address, he just couldn’t seem to make it work. I suggested a different email address. I ended up creating it for him using my address at Yahoo. Not really a big deal, except I don’t use that one much, and I can’t remember the password. Fortunately, I have it open on my cellphone, so I could check for any emails that came in.  On Oct...
Read more

Mindfulness

Image
Potato Vines   Using my preferred technique of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, I’ve gotten back to my ab workout now that I pulled my lower back while weeding. One would think that by the time one were 70, one would know that to keep one’s back from hurting, one’s abs need continual strength training, but one would be wrong. Two days of drugs and rest got me through the worst part, but not the frustration and embarrassment. Now, two weeks later, I’m in the habit of daily early morning ab exercise. What has made it easy is RPM, or Rise, Pee, Meditate. A benefit of our continued no-contact world is being able to attend the mindfulness-based stress reduction program presented by a couple from our former congregation. They had offered it previously but my schedule didn’t fit their timetable. Now...my schedule is more flexible. In addition to attending 8 weekly meetings and an all-day workshop, they ask us to meditate daily and listen to their guided body scans. ...
Read more