about wedding gifts......

 When an older couple gets married, take it from me, they really mean it when they say no gifts.  See yesterday's blog for why.  However, if you simply can't resist, I do have some suggestions, and I must say, our families did an excellent job.  First pictures, we received a perfect framed picture of the two of us on the Christmas cruise.  We look happy and healthy, sweet memories.  We also received, from my niece and husband, an elaborate silver wine caddy with bottle of wine.  Neither of us has such a thing so that's ok.  And speaking of wine, we also received an elaborately painted bottle with initials, wedding date, etc. We are looking forward to opening that on our first anniversary.  But let me tell you, high on the list of appreciated gifts are restaurant gift cards.  Once I'm all better, we are really looking forward to dinners out with friends and family.  A gift that can be shared is the very best.  

a sufficiency....

 Now that I am awake more and more of each day, I am beginning to appreciate some of the complications of merging two households.  Even though I downsized eight years ago and moved from my big house in the country to a two-bedroom apartment, it seems I have lots of stuff.  You might expect sets of China (still trying to convince my grandson that he will need a 12-place setting with gravy boat, etc. when he marries later this year).  But think about this, how many pillows does one couple need?  And blankets? We seem to have a mega-sufficiency of those.  Also tea pots, sauce pans, microwaves, blenders (mine is avocado green and only 50 years old and it works just fine) and toasters.  After an unfortunate accident involving pouring cold cider into a hot crock pot (don't do that) we are down to only two crock pots.  But you get the idea.  Over the next few months many, many donations will be made.  

and speaking of January....

My last post was on January 6 and I wrote about what a busy month January was. Little did I know.  On January 7, I woke up so ill that I couldn't get out of bed.  For the next week I was in bed, miserably sick, subsisting on oranges and water and hoping to feel magically well, because on January 14 I was getting married.  With lots and lots of help, I managed to get through the ceremony (a family only affair) and the dinner that followed.  Two days later, I was admitted to the hospital with AKI (acute kidney injury) and COVID. No idea yet about what caused this.  They are still trying to figure it out.  But in the meantime my numbers have improved steadily and this past Friday I was able to COME HOME.  This was a big deal, especially for a newly-wed.  I am, as I said, steadily improving, but I will be so glad when I can trade in my very sturdy blue walker for my ever-faithful blue Fiat.  So that was January for me.  I am really looking forward to February.

What a month

 Everyone knows that we celebrate New Year's Day on January 1.  At least on some calendars.  But I was surprised to learn that January has many month-long celebrations. January is National Bath Safety Month (I'm sure you'll agree that's important), National Blood Donor Month (I must make an appointment), National Hobby Month, Braille Literacy Month, Hot Tea Month (I do like hot tea), National Oatmeal Month (my FF makes really delicious oatmeal) and, last but not least, National Soup Month.  All this rolled into one month, but today I'll focus on two events involving Braille writing that puzzled me. First let me make it clear that I have tremendous admiration for anyone who reads braille and I am by no means making fun of blind people.  My first encounter with Braille that made me wonder was some years ago when they built a new parking garage in downtown Fort Wayne.  The first time I parked in it and rode the elevator, I notice that the floor level numbers were also written in Braille, which made me wonder how many blind drivers had been parking there,  The second, somewhat similar incident happened when I was on a flight with friends in a private plane and we stopped at a small airport to refuel.  While we waited, my girlfriend and I wandered around the small building and were surprised to find that the chart room, where pilots could look at maps and plan the next leg of their flight, had the identifying sign posted on the door in regular print and in Braille.  I don't know if any of the charts were in Braille, but I suspect that a blind pilot would do better than a blind street driver.

Out with the old,

 In with the new.  Today was the big day.  The gentlemen from Wright Brothers Construction came and installed a new vanity in my bathroom.  My FF and I started planning this a few months ago and now it is a reality, just in time for the wedding.  Let me say here that I am a firm believer that one important key to a happy marriage is separate bathrooms.  In this case it will help even more that my new vanity is four inches taller that the standard bathroom vanity.  Since I am four inches taller than the average woman this works very well for me.  I am also pleased with the soft-close wooden drawers (I have always admitted to being easily entertained) and the beautiful set in sink, all one piece with the countertop.  

This is the old vanity, considering that it was original to the house, about 50 years old, and had plastic drawers, not too bad, although the workers said it basically crumbled as they were taking it out.            So long old vanity.

Hello new vanity!  Although the color is off a little in this picture. The cabinets are white.  The only little flaw is that the drawer and door pulls have not arrived yet, so they will be back to finish it off on another day.  Hopefully not on our wedding day. 

you never know...

 What to keep and what to throw away?  It's an age old question.  My FF is not a hoarder by any means.  He can throw away stuff with the best of them.  But every once in a while he does save something "just in case he might need it someday"  Well, that someday was New Year's Day.  We were having a family party in the afternoon and I made a quick run to Kroger's. Don't judge, we had only been home from our cruise for a day and we needed stuff.  While I was shopping, my FF put the pulled pork in one crock pot and pre-heated the other one (my old trusty 50 year old crock pot).  As soon as I got home he poured the cold cider I had purchased into the pre-heated crockpot.  Please note here (if you haven't guessed already) - you should evidently NEVER preheat a crock pot.  Several seconds after the cold liquid hit the hot crock, we heard an ominous cracking sound and quite soon after that saw cider flowing all over the counter,  But, tragic as that may sound, it is not the end of the story.  After we got the mess cleaned up and the broken crock disposed of, my astonishing FF said "I think I might have a crock that will fit in your pot."  He then climbed up to the attic and came back with a crock that was almost identical to mine.  He had kept the crock for many years, after the original crock pot was replaced when it died while still under warranty.  The cider (I had bought more that I though I would need so we had plenty) was heated and tasted fine.  The party was saved.  So think twice before you toss that potential replacement part.

pyramid or temple

 This is my final essay on our recent cruise.  In addition to the zip lining and submarine ride, we also took an open trolly ride around Belize City (interesting but not wildly exciting) except for one extra bonus.  In Belize my FF, who had not been feeling very well, was able to buy amoxicillin over the counter.  He felt better within three hours after he took the first dose.  Our other, and more exciting tour was of Mayan ruins in Costa Maya. Our guide was of Mayan descent and really quite knowledgeable.  I had seen a Mayan ruin in Guatemala some years ago but this was more interesting. In addition to one very large, completely excavated temple (correctly called a temple not a pyramid, according to our guide) we walked through what was the center of a large city and saw other buildings in the process of being uncovered and some still completely covered with dirt and vegetation.  The land was very flat so every mound we saw concealed something man-made.  All in all, a fascinating stroll through history. In case you're wondering, no, I did not climb the pyramid/temple steps. If those clever Mayans had invented escalators I might have considered it.

One side of the largest temple.

The foundation of a private home.

An undersea adventure...

 One of my favorite shore excursions on our recent cruise, second only to the zip lining, was going down in a submarine to see the coral reefs off Cozumel.  It was a well run outing with getting out to the submarine, on and off, and back to shore done very smoothly.  The only slightly tricky part was going up and down the steep ladder-like steps into the sub. The seats were arranged along the center of the submarine facing large windows (portholes) along each side.  Everyone had a good view.  It felt a little like viewing the coral reef exhibit at the children's zoo in Fort Wayne, except we were on the inside and the fish had lots more room to swim around.  It was a little spooky to sail past a sunken ship until it was explained that it was an old damaged WWII ship that had been deliberately sunk to form a framework for more coral growth.  The most dramatic moment was when the captain took us to the edge where the shallows near shore (we went down to 112 feet) dropped off.  Suddenly the light sandy bottom we had been seeing dropped off and all we saw was deep, deep blue. Very dramatic.  All in all, a great ride.  I highly recommend it. 

I had bad luck getting any pictures of fish.  They were too fast for me, so enjoy the blue.

About that cruise

 

Today we had an open house/delayed Christmas celebration for the majority of our combined families who did not cruise with us last week.  It was great to see everyone and, as you might expect, conversation turned to questions about the cruise.  I tried to share with them the excitement of my zip lining experience and how blissful it was, but some seemed skeptical.  My soon to be granddaughter-in-law shared that when she went zip lining as a child she had to lie on her stomach and go head first.  I agreed that that didn't sound like any fun at all.  In our case (my FF was with me on this adventure of course) we sat upright in a kind of harness or sling that went around our legs and waist with the ropes attaching us to the two lines going up in front of us so we could hang on to them. When we were carefully strapped in the guides told us to sit down and put our feet out in front of us.  Then they pushed us, one at a time, out into space.  It was the best feeling, like a long swooping ride on a swing, with someone at the other end to catch you.  We had ten long wonderful rides zig zagging down the mountain. After all my enthused descriptions, some family members still looked at me somewhat dubiously, but I know what I felt and it was wonderful.