Longtime Friends

I hesitated to get on the scale. Yes, the 5 pounds I gained on our Christmas market cruise have been joined by new friends from our 4 days of cabin camping. Too much wine, desserts, and hearty breakfasts. My only consolation is the joy I had spending time with friends. This year we (Kristine, Diane and David, Donna and Bob, Scott, and us) were joined by Deb and Rob, Paige, Scott’s daughter Katie, and visited each day by Tina and Ken, members of themUU church when Steph and Mary were in elementary school.

Grant and I mostly lazier around (why I’m not shocked about my weight gain). One day, the others took the glass-bottomed boat ride. This year, no manatees. They had already left the river for summer digs. Another morning, the healthier ones rented kayaks. I’d thought about joining them when the option was just a float downstream. When they decided to take a shorter trip that involved paddling back upstream, I opted out. My shoulders just aren’t strong enough for that. next year?

I did take a  4.3 mile walk with David through the piney woods where I saw a pileated woodpecker, a yellow bellied sapsucker, and a red shouldered hawk, plus a gopher tortoise. The day before, Grant and I had walked the 3 miles river trail with Diane and David. Bad decision, because after 2 miles, Grant was absolutely miserable with pain in his back and neck. He struggled to walk, even using 2 canes I’d made from fallen branches. I left him leaning, in great pain, against a tree while I hustled back to the cabin to get our truck. Fortunately on the way, I met Jim, a park volunteer maintenance man, and convinced him to give Grant a ride in his golf cart, a big deal since against policy. While trying to get up and into the cart, Grant fell. Not hurt, not even bleeding, but scarring the hell out of Diane and Jim. 

Now our plan is to walk every other day, starting with a mile and adding distance each time. We leave in 3 weeks to bird in Costa Rica.

I painted each day, using my water brush. Medium successful. The more I paint, the more I know how little I know. 

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