Merry Christmas

I wish everyone a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year. I am excited to see what the new year brings to me and my family. I hope you are as well. I have to run but will return!

The Holidays Are Here

Oh where to start? There has been so much going on. We have started having the interior of the house painted but still haven't managed to get it all put back together yet. We spent Thanksgiving in Arkansas with Donald, Christie and Zach which was a first for us all. They usually go to Kansas City, Kansas to Christie's relatives but decided to stay home this year. It was nice for a change and it was especially fun to see them since it has been just about a year since the last time we saw them.

Then home for more interior painting and starting the Christmas shopping which I do mostly online. I am one of the odd women that doesn't like shopping. I am much more comfortable sitting at home browsing websites and buying than going out in stores. I dislike the crowds and long lines. Some things of course, you have to buy in person, but I have found that I can buy just about anything I need online. I probably do 95% of my shopping that way. Am I weird or what?

Henry, our grandson who is local, is going to be one year old tomorrow! It's hard to believe. Time has gone by so fast. It seems like just yesterday that he was born. My daughter is due to have her second child March 30 of this next year. As before when she was pregnant, they do not want to know the gender of the baby. We have all been taking guesses as to what day the baby will actually be born, how much it will weigh, and whether we think it is a boy or a girl. All in fun of course!

My daughter is going to have Christmas at her house this year. As I have gotten older I have tried to pass traditions along. Since she now has a child of her own, it is time for her to have the festivities at her house. I had already done this with Thanksgiving and I felt it was time. I will still have our traditional New Year's Day dinner at my house along with our traditional food, but sooner or later that may get passed along as well. I only wish my son lived closer so we could all celebrate together.

I am going to join a blog site where you are given a prompt to have a write a blog and post a picture in regards to the prompt (or not). I am not quite sure how all of this works since I am new to it, but I am going to try it and I am sure I will be up for the challenge.

Well, I am going to sign off. I am sorry I am not more consistent but hopefully joining this group will help me be more regular at blogging and have more interesting subjects.

I'm not very good at this blog thing............

I don't seem to be very good at this since I can't seem to get here everyday and talk about something. To be honest, I don't always have much to say! I have my good days and bad days like everyone else I imagine. I have lots and lots of thoughts rumbling around in my head, but who wants to hear them? I don't think anyone is reading my blog.

I have some happy news. My daughter is expecting again. She is due March 30. As with her previous pregnancy, they don't want to know the gender of the child ahead of time. I think that it makes it so much more exciting! I do hope for a girl this time but of course will love another little boy just as much. They weren't planning on another one quite so soon but her biological clock is ticking. She is 36 now and the older you are, the more chances of birth defects, etc. Little Henry just turned nine months old. He is such a good baby and so cute! I think he could melt the hardest of hearts!

I am so sorry my Mom is not alive to see and enjoy all of her great grandchildren. She never got to meet Zachary or Henry. Of course my father only got to know one of his grandchildren, my son Donald. My father died over 40 years ago before any of the other grandkids were born. Life can be sad sometimes.

I got a new insulin pump (it's pink!) and also am now the proud owner of a continuous glucose monitoring system. It is all a little complicated but I am hoping it will help me to better stay in control of my sugar levels. Time will tell.

Well, I am going to sign off for today. I'll be back! LOL

I've Been Busy

I haven't posted for a while because I have been so busy between working and goings on at home. Then I was sick for about four days with a nasty stomach virus. But, I 'm am up running again and finally getting my energy back.

I grew up in Tampa and went to one of the oldest and most prestigious high schools, Hillsborough High School. It was a beautiful school with large stained glass windows. You would have thought it was a church instead of a high school. I am attaching a couple of pictures.

I was in school long ago but it was a good time. We were really proud of our school. We had excellent sports teams as well. Our football homecoming game was always played on Thanksgiving Day against Plant High School. It was a real special time where all the girls dressed up and the boys bought us big pompom corsages. After the game everyone would go out for a nice dinner or party. We didn't mind missing out on the turkey (though sometimes we ate before the game).

Enough history for today! LOL  

Happy Monday Everyone!

Here we are again, another Monday. I spent a very busy weekend doing laundry and cooking. Boy, the weekend sure does fly by. This blog is supposed to contain stories of my travels. I don't think I have put anything in writing yet. I truly love to travel. If I could do it for a living, I would. I used to be a travel agent before 9/11 but after that date, the world changed for travel agents. The agency I worked for which was just a small "mom and pop" agency, had to close its doors. We were used to doing a LOT of airline tickets and at that point, we were doing 'nothing', as everyone was afraid to fly or go anywhere. So, I had to go back to my bread and butter experience of being an administrative assistant. I loved being a travel agent and got to plan cruises, tours, and all sorts of exciting travel for others. We also had the opportunity to travel and do new and exciting things that were known as 'FAM' trips (familiarization trips). You can't sell it if you don't know about it.

Thadd (my husband, I'm sorry, I don't know all of the blog jargon that people use) and I love to take cruises. We think it is the best vacation for the money. You only have to unpack once, all of your food is included, and there is always something to do. We have taken 12 cruises so far and plan another in the future. Living in Florida, for the most part, we just do Caribbean cruises. We have been to just about every island in the Caribbean. My favorite cruise was when we went to Curacao, Grenada, Bonaire, Aruba, St. Lucia, and Barbados. These are known as the Windward Islands. There were all beautiful islands with such interesting histories as well. I would like to go back one day.

We took a Greek Isle and Adriatic cruise in 2010. That was wonderful as well but the trip there and back was a killer. It's a long flight from Florida to Venice, Italy. We did enjoy ourselves though and took some wonderful pictures. That is where we also met up with Lynne and Peter Mitchell who are from Great Britain. They are such a delightful couple. We really loved getting to know them.

I will try to post some pictures of some of our cruises tomorrow. I have to get them all in one place so they will be easier to upload. LOL

I'm Back

I haven't been on my blog for a few days. I've been busy and not feeling well to boot. I go through stages of tummy troubles but no one has been able to really tell me why. I have been to the doctor numerous times and had scads of tests done but they still can't figure out why I have these problems. Oh well, life goes on right?

I haven't told anyone I have a blog (Lynne knows) because I kind of like being anonymous. I can talk about what I want or nothing. Isn't that the way it works? One day I will get serious and start to talk about some of the deeper things that go on in this brain of mine like the death of my mother, living with cancer, and the parts of my life that haven't always been so rosy. My purpose of doing this is to get these thoughts out of my head. Is there a rule that blogs have to always be about happy things?

It has been so hot here the last few weeks. It makes it hard to even want to go outside for any reason. Here is a picture I took yesterday when I was leaving work to verify what I am saying.

Add high humidity to that and you can hardly breathe!

Well, I guess I have said enough for today. Here's wishing everyone a good day!

Thursday Already

You know time flies when you are having fun! LOL! Well, it doesn't always seem that way to me. I am taking tomorrow (Friday) off as I have a doctor's appointment and need to run some errands. When you work it is so hard to get all your running done on Saturday. You can just do so much you know? So, this will help to give me a head start.

Thadd has gotten some friends together to play golf on Saturday and then everyone (spouses, children) will come over for dinner. We planned a cookout but I am tired of hamburgers and brats so I am going to fix a nice ham instead. Everyone will bring a side dish and I will make some deviled eggs and some sort of veggie casserole as well. It is nice to get together but also a little tiring for me. I just don't have the energy I used to.

I know the Olympics has been a big topic all week but I am just not much of a sports person. I do like the diving and gymnastics but that is about it for me. My opinion is that all sports today are just not as much fun to watch as they used to be. It is all about the money and big business instead of the actual games. It's sad really. I know the Olympics are different but they used to be better when it wasn't all these pro players competing instead of your everyday Joe. My husband says nowadays that is the only way it can stay competitive because a lot of the countries that participate were using pro athletes before the U.S. ever started so we had to do the same. Oh well.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend if I don't hear from you (ha ha). Talk to you later!