Finally, A post!

Hi,

I'm not even going to apologize for being such a lame blogger. Life has been 0jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm n sorry about that, Jasmine needed to tell everyone hello. She was sitting on the window sill watching for lizards and butterflies and decided it would be much more fun to type a greeting.

Anyway, life has been busy just like everyone else's. I'll try and do a quick recap.

July...I turned another year older, go figure. Four more years and I can get AARP!! We went to The Peabody for the night. They have the most comfortable beds...it's like sleeping on a little cloud. We saw the ducks march into the fountain in the lobby. Before we left for the day one of the ducks laid an egg on the edge of the fountain, kind of cool. Andi threw a great birthday party for me and our friend Sherri...thank you Andi for sharing the pictures. We finally had our garden planted. So far so good, only lost one Mexican petunia. Since we had a lot of rain this summer we were lucky and didn't have to water very often.

August...I think this must be the longest month of the year. All I can tell you is not a whole lot happened. I worked on a new teller system at the Bank...what a pain. Something that is supposed to be so wonderful for the tellers certainly has a lot of glitches. My step daughter turned 20..that went by fast. I remember the first time I met her; she was a little girl with chocolate smeared on her face.

September...okay this is the longest month of the year...I'm over the heat. Good news is that we have started to have some cooler days. Jasmine just walked over the keyboard again. She was very careful...such a smart girl!
We took our first "family" stay-cation. The story goes like this....my mom and I decided to go to the scrapbook show in Lakeland. This would be a special outing because usually mom says she doesn't want to go. We got to the Lakeland Center and I commented that we must not have to pay for parking today. We also got a fabulous parking spot. We got to the entrance of the Center and there was a sign posted that said the show had been canceled...must have been for one of the hurricanes we didn't get, thank God! From there we went shopping and I didn't buy anything. We had a great lunch at Grillsmith and headed home. I got home around 4:00pm and Tom greeted me at the door and said ..."you might want to go back to your mother's house, the air isn't working." Not a good thing in September in Florida. It was 87 degrees in the house, which is too hot for me. The repair man came to the house at 7:00pm and said we would be without air until the part came in. So, we packed up our things and moved to my aunt's condo. The fun part was moving the kids. You would have thought we were killing them. It took two trips to get them moved 5 miles away. Coco was so scared, she cried and carried on. It was awful! I was afraid the neighbors at the condo would complain, but thankfully they didn't. By 10:00pm we were somewhat settled in and went out for dinner..healthy right? We decided to stay the week at the condo because the kids were settled and having a good time. Jasmine was into everything! We lost a couple of catnip mice while we were there. I guess the girls wanted to leave a thank you gift for my aunt. I'm sure she will appreciate the gesture, especially since she has two yorkies. On Saturday we packed up the cars and moved home...again an adventure with Coco. I now have a lovely scar on the inside of my arm from her back claws. She really hates the cat carrier. It kind of looks like I'm a self mutilator..I'm hoping the scar will fade soon. It's so nice to have a/c again. This is the third time the air has gone out and it is a new unit. Go figure. To say that I was annoyed would be an understatement!

I'm so glad that Fall has arrived. It's my favorite time of the year. Love the pumpkins, fall colors and slightly cooler temperatures. We are looking at busy month ahead.

I will be attending a 3 day convention in Orlando this week. Learning all about the bank secrecy act and anti-money laundering. Should be very interesting. Tom leaves for CT to see his children on Thursday and comes home on Sunday. The following week my sweet husband will turn 62 on Tuesday, we have a fund raiser for the Red Cross on Friday called dinner with the chef. Then on Saturday he will fly to Baltimore to see his cousin's son get his eagle scout award. He'll fly home Monday. With all of this going on my mom has decided that we should drive to St. Simon's, GA for the weekend. I'm debating on staying one night or two. I could use some quiet time at home but I also know that one on one time with my mother is limited. Any suggestions?

Yesterday I went to the Ridge Orchid Society show. It was really cool. I had one of my orchids re potted and learned that they only bloom once a year. I also learned that it's time to cut the stem where all my blooms were. I saw some seedlings and the man at the booth said that it could take up to 6 years for them to get their first bloom. At least I know I'm not killing my plant! I'm now on the lookout for an African Violet show. I've got one that hasn't flowered in 2 years...it did really well at the office in Winter Haven but when I moved to Lake Wales the flowers stopped coming.

It's nap time for my kitties..all except Jasmine. She's jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean. I would like half of her energy. Coco and Rajah are sound asleep on their bed pillows. What a life!

Have a great day!!!