12 Oakdale

Sunday, we met Kristina, Bryan and kids at Bonnet Springs Park for our annual Christmas visit. An easy drive for us from Orlando and those in Tampa and Plant City. Too far for Patten this year since he has joined the hurt back club. We chatted while the kids played.  With Kyle’s parents with dogs Rio and Vader in town, Stephanie was hosting Christmas dinner. Because of Aiden’s schedule, the main celebration was to be Christmas Eve, with our having a smaller, lighter meal the next day. Exact details TDB. That got changed when his mom flew out last minute Monday to visit her mother who was not well, so he and his dog Minnie were added back into the mix. Much anxiety. Patten was going to be alone on Christmas, however his back was killing him, so the thought of his driving up was not appealing. Perhaps Grant and I should bail on the Orlando crew and go south to cook. Much hemming and hawing. As things fell out, we floundered back to the original schedule. Patten toughed it out, drivin...

Anthony, an online watercolor teacher, had a set of free lessons for the 12 Days of Christmas starting December 27th. With this and that, I have just finished my paintings using his images and colors suggestions. I’m pleased 1) I finished the project, and 2) my paintings are recognizable, some I even rather like. I am getting better with water control. I tend to have too much in my brush, so I end up with the dreaded cauliflowers. Now I’ve started a 100 little 3”x3” paintings in 2025 with another online water colorist. I have even paid the $5/month Patreon app fee for her set of instructions which includes her live tutorials twice a month and other paintings several times a week.   Before I start adding the little paintings to my blog, I’ll have to learn a way to make them into collages. Always something.

  Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year                                                               December, 2024   We hope you are well. As our doctors say, we are both in good shape for our age with just the expected aches and pains that come with being old. With that in mind, we have begun our Last Gasp Tour and were   remarkedly successful. Looking at my calendar, I realized that November was the only month we did not visit family, go birding, or both at once. Our big trip was in August and September to see sister Betsy and husband Keith in New Zealand. We started at Wellington’s Zealandia, a 500+ acre sanctuary where we heard, but did not see, kiwis. We then spent 4 weeks helping my sister Betsy and her husband Keith in their garden or being ferried around the North Island to see kauri trees, Pacifi...

We are home after spending the night at Sally’s. Saturday, we drove up to visit and attend Gainesville’s 2nd annual Fly Pig parade, organized by the man who created the King Mango Strut in Coconut Grove 40 years ago as a protest to his not being allowed to participate in the King Orange Parade.  My first memory of the KMS was 1989. We had a 9 passenger Suburban, and Grant had long gray hair. He; Betsy with Kristina and baby Emily; Sally or Marjorie; and me with Stephanie, Mary and baby Patten were heading back to the car, Grant leading the group of women, kids and strollers following. Traffic was slow, and someone yelled over “Where you in the parade?” “Yes,” Grant answered, “we are the Polygamist Society of South Florida.” And so we called ourselves whenever we did a group event, mostly because often Grant was the only husband to attend. There was talk of a flag, but no one ever made one, The Flying Pig was cute, but not as political as the Strut. It may evolve. The next morni...

  December 14: I have about recovered from our overnight flight to Basel, Switzerland via Atlanta and Paris. All easy plane rides, but we went almost 24 hours without sleep and are 6 hours ahead of Orlando. Now aboard the Viking Tialfi  river boat for a cruise along the Rhine, visiting Christmas markets as we go. After being swept up by Viking reps and transported to our ship, we met Bryan and kids at the Christmas market in Basel. Glühwein and walking around, then Bryan helped us buy tickets for the #11 tram back to the boat, cheaper and quicker than the taxi we’d taken to meet them. Lunch on the boat, then I went on the shore excursion back to the same market. Grant opted for a nap instead. Back on the boat, we had a drink in the lounge, chatting with a couple from Georgia, he a U of Georgia grad; listened to the welcome by the captain and the cruise director; participated in the safety drill; and ate dinner, meeting more of our fellow cruisers. We may have dozed off during...

Because of our cruise mid-December, I haven’t been enthusiastic about putting up much of any Christmas decorations, or at least that’s the excuse I’m using. I did make the gingerbread house kit I’d bought pre-Thanksgiving, cutting window holes for pieces of vintage Life-Savers I melt into window panes. They’d gotten so sticky from old age, they were almost impossible to crush into powder. Not my best work. I also tried putting some cinnamon and nutmeg next to the lightbulb to see if the heat would make them be more aromatic. Meh. But in any case, done. That was inside. Grant hung lights on the front of the house and around the lanai. That was the outside. I did get out our Christmas shirts. December 6th was Holiday Hoopla, a games and food event exclusively for Town of Windermere residents. People like Steph who have Windermere in their address but don’t live inside the town limits were uninvited. To that end, there need to be people to check in attendees. Nancy’s daughter Brynna, a Ho...

Brrrr, it has been 45° the last 2 nights. During the day, in the sun, it is comfortable, however in the evenings and early mornings, it has been chilly. Our Connecticut friends were not impressed. Fortunately, we finally finished repairing William’s hut the day the temperature dipped. It had been sitting in the garage all summer. Nothing like just in time inventory. Gracie helped while we decided what to do. To keep it warm, we had built it with a reptile heater big enough for an African spurred tortoise. It had to be hung on the ceiling of the hut because it is too warm for a small turtle. However, it was the only heater that could be outside. All the smaller ones weren’t waterproof. Overkill, but what was available. We took the sides of the hut off, and I cut them the same height. Originally the top had a slant to let any rain run off, but it doesn’t need that since our house eave protects it from drips. We added 1x4s on each side and along the back to make the structure more stable....

October 28: 172.5#   For my birthday and Christmas, I’ve decided to lose 1 pound per week until December 31. There will be one week while we are on our river cruise that might set me back, but 9 pounds lost between now and 2025 should be easily doable. I’m planning the eat-less/exercise-more approach.  I will keep track with this page.  November 4: 168#  So far, so good. My mantra has been, “It’s okay to feel a little hungry.”  That’s all I’ve been: a little hungry. November 11: 169.5# Mantra this week is, “Concentrate on the big picture, not any one day. The trend is down.” But still… November 18: 171.5# Well, not surprisingly, since I over-indulged at Nehrling Garden’s Owl Prowl, with wine, Prosecco, turkey biscuits, and cookies from local bakeries. Back on track. This will happen. November 25: 168.5# Keeping on eating less. Still can’t quite add exercise more. We did walk over tomTown Hall for Light Up Windermere on Friday night, however the beer at the brewe...

We celebrated Epiphany by putting away our Christmas decorations. We were supposed to be ambassadors at LAWD, but it began raining in the night and continued all morning. Not weather that encourages first time visitors. I had my own epiphany: rather than put away all the decorations with the idea that I’d go through them in the fall (hasn’t happens the past 2 years, even though on the calendar), why not decide which ones I want to keep and box the rest up for donation? Aha!  I cleared our dining room table for the discards. I was ruthless. Out went all the shiny balls, even the ones from the 50’s and 60’s I’d collected. We aren’t having Christmas trees anymore so they aren’t needed. I had a moment of possible tears for our past, a brief wish we were still young with children at home. Sigh. We aren’t, life is good now too. The martini glasses with hand-pained Rudolph’s: gone. Box of large jingle bells I have used once: out. So on and so forth.  By the time I was done, we had on...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!                                            2023   Our newest family member, Theodore Grant Basham, was born November 11th to Molly and Spaulding. All are well. We will get to meet Teddy in person when we visit right after Christmas. We are excited see Salt Lake in winter, however a little anxious about the cold and ice. In February, we birded with old and new friends in Belize, led by Glen, a native of the area. With his guidance, we saw 183 bird species, watched howler monkeys fight over territory, and learned about prehistoric and modern Belize culture. In December, our birding was local, with Orange Audubon’s North Shore Birding Festival at Lake Apopka. Patten joined me slogging through a saltwater marsh to hear black rails; Grant and I opted for dry-land trips to see raptors and Florida scrub jays. Early June, we flew to Calgary, Al...

We drove to Bonnet Springs Park in Lakeland to met up with Kristina and her family who are visiting her in-laws for the holidays. Peg came over with Robert, Patten and Ryann drove up, and Stephanie, Kyle, and Clara joined us. An early Christmas picnic lunch in this brand new park. After sandwiches, my deviled eggs, a salad Peg made from veggies picked at Robert’s school garden, Patten’s 7-layer dip, and way too many cookies, at least on my part, we walked around for a while. (6,283 step according to my phone, but who’s counting?) I hadn’t realized most of my cookies were white and chocolate, until I put together plates to give away and bring to the picnic. Definitely need to plan better there.  Baking them is another project I must spread over more days. Trying to mix and bake on the same day is too much. Plus my attitude towards fancy decorating goes way down. I’d thought I’d make many-colored iced sugar cookies; they ended up all white. N the other hand, the pink and green pinwhe...