April 3, 2026 - Friday
Got a very good night’s sleep last night, thankfully. Attended my last water aerobic class and was happy to find Jose working in the area. He is the esteemed head of maintenance for the Stoneybrook community. Residents can’t praise him enough. I did not know that he will check your home when not here until Nora (fellow swimmer and dancer) told me he works for her. What a relief to talk to him about doing the same for me. He is able to fix a few items that I discovered at the 11th hour of our stay. One of those is a ceiling light bulb (10 feet up) has burnt out and we do not have a ladder that high. He said that while he has the ladder in the house, he will change smoke alarm batteries too. He only charges $25 each time he checks the condo, plus whatever fixes he does. Phew! BIG LOAD off of my mind.
A while back, I had mentioned this chore to Laura while we were swimming. She was happy to do it - lives here full-time just down the road a 100 yards. So I told her that I decided to have Jose do it for repairs. She was fine with that. As we chatted, she mentioned New York - where in NY? NY city - NYPD! Really? She retired young and moved down here to be near her parents.
Mary is her neighbor and we have spent many a moment talking after swim class was over. She is returning home to Maryland next week.
I got an Inquiry from Airbnb about a rental from May 1 to August 1. That would be so wonderful to have someone in here and get cha-ching in the pocket. He is stopping by to check it out today, so Rich and I ended up lugging most of our packed stuff down to the car. We did a good job loading boxes and bags over a few weeks. Hopefully, this prospect will LOVE it and fill out the paperwork.
Went for our last lunch at the Elks. Jimmy was sitting next to me and I heard him on the phone saying, “They have to catch him first.” He has a strong deep voice and loves to talk - I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I did ask him if everything was OK. He said there was a bomb threat at USF (University of Southern Florida) and they were letting him know. Why? I am a government interrogator and when/if they catch the perp, I will be called to interrogate them. He told several stories about his experiences. When he finished his lunch and was leaving, I told him we were leaving Sunday and is it ok if I ask him something. He said, Sure. When you speak of your wife, you always say, “When she was killed.” He said, “She was killed 28 years ago and it should have been me. My son always asks me why I can’t just say she died. I can’t! I don’t want to talk about it, but I had a driver when I was working full-time for the government. I wanted my wife to be my driver. They said she couldn’t because she would need to go to school for 30 days. So I said, ok, I quit. The next day they told me when the 30-day school started and she became my driver.” The things you find out when you take the time to ask questions!
Said all of our goodbyes there and headed home to meet the hopeful renter. OOPS! It’s tomorrow, not today…
Other than that tomorrow is reserved for cleaning and then resting up for Sunday morning 2-day road trip.
April 4, 2026 - Saturday
No walking today - no time / many steps were stepped packing, cleaning and scaling the stairs. Renter Christopher and 8-year-old daughter, Carson, came for a tour of the condo. This would be an ideal situation. They really loved everything about it, BUT the ^&%&^%&^% air conditioning situation may kill the deal. I called Air n Heat to let them know we were leaving early and find out the status of the replacement coil. Good thing I did, as they hadn’t exactly ordered it yet. They told me it would be 2 months before the company could BUILD it! Now that I have an interested renter, that’s not acceptable. So I will be calling them on Monday to twist some arms.
Rich called ahead for reservations for tomorrow night. The first motel was charging $160 before taxes = $210 after taxes! No thank you. Called another one and it was about the same. When he said, no thanks she quickly said she could help him find something more reasonable and proceeded to tell us prices of other motels in the area. Never heard of such a thing. We ended up paying $120 after taxes at a Red Roof Inn.
April 5, 2026 - Sunday Happy Easter
Happy to say, I slept a solid eight hours. After the last minute things you do, we locked the condo door and strapped into our overloaded, soon to explode vehicle. How did we get all of this stuff down here? We didn’t buy that much, did we?
I drove the first shift from 4:30-8am. Yes, it was dark! I don’t like to drive in the dark, but with very little traffic and very bright lane reflectors on the roads, it was fine. I’d prefer that to very heavy traffic in the daylight. As soon as we got on I-10 with Rich at the helm, there was a horrific accident on the other side of the road. About 6 lit-up emergency vehicles with 3 more police cars coming on the scene, completely stopped the traffic. It had just happened - glad we didn’t see the actual event.
After listening to church, my second shift was from 11:30-3pm on I-95 N all the way. It was nice to drive in daylight, but it began to rain while on the miles and miles of construction. There were no workers (Easter Sunday), but it’s about all of the barriers and skinny lanes (in the rain). Pulled off at a Rest Area to hit the ladies room and change drivers - very brief, no gas needed yet.
On Rich’s second shift, the GPS lady (let’s call her Gypsy) told us to avoid crashes on I-95 by taking this detour… only 20 minutes on back roads. It was confusing as she said to stay on this route which was originally I-95, but now it took us on an exit which is the new route. Glad we listened to her, because when we went on an overpass we could see the “parking lot” of cars that did NOT listen to her.
Mr. Impatient started talking to the traffic via me. I pulled out the unopened bag of Caramel M&M’s and offered him some. It soothed him for a while, but eventually I was the only one eating them and they are almost gone. They are like a little PomPom with a colorful sugar coating.
Trying to find the “bright side,” I mentioned that if we hadn’t stopped, we could have been in the accident. He replied, “Or we could have been ahead of it.” Hmmmm… We’ll never know.
We’re getting tired and have 3 more hours to go…
April 6, 2026 - Monday
The motel wasn’t bad at all - not real posh, but for the number of hours we were there, it was fine. However, we did not sleep well - Ugh! Big day ahead of us which we started at 3:30am. I waited until daylight to drive. All went well. Rich did the rest of the driving as I was waiting for a call about my air conditioning. The arm twisting with Air n Heat wasn’t necessary since they informed me that the unit is old for Florida; parts are not available anymore; new 2025 regulations prohibit replenishment of Freon. There is a new product they use now. So I bought a new unit which will be installed on Wednesday. With that decision made, the rental deal is moving forward. After the background check, things will solidify.
Son-in-law, Dave, and grandson, Zachary, gathered this huge pile from the fallen tree branches in my yard. Notice the fence has been replaced as well. $$
My four grandchildren came after school to unload the car and put boxes in appropriate rooms. We did the annual height measurement, marking each pencil mark with initials, date, and height. Leanna, the oldest has reached her peak, Jacob grew another inch to 6’5”, Lily might pass her sister soon, and Zach is taller than me now.
April 7, 2026 - Tuesday
We both slept a solid 9 hours last night. Now to start putting everything away and settle in. Grocery list is done and I was off to the store. Took Mom to vet for Sadie’s (her kitty) distemper shot and check up. She did really well at the vet’s, but cries while in the car.
Snow fell and wind whipped - 34 degrees, 17 with wind factor.
April 8, 2026 - Wednesday
Well, it has been 5 days without a walk - taking a little break before the weather warms up.
Leanna and Lily asked me to go to the JV softball game this evening to cheer on their friends. I found a sunny spot to sit and watch them and the game. When the sun moved and I was in the shade, it was too cold so I left.
As I reflect on this, our first winter in Florida, I realize that we adjusted well to our new surroundings, new environment, and new people:
✅founded Stoneybrook Strummers
✅walked, water aerobics, and/or line danced every
day except 4 days
✅played/performed with Aloha Ukulele group
regularly
✅played NY Times’ Wordle Spelling Bee,
Connections, and Strands daily
-recently started playing Crossplay (like
Scrabble)
✅made numerous new friends through music,
activities and Elks
✅Blogged weekly
✅stayed in touch with friends in the Southwest and
New England
✅created 45 new pieces of art (Rich)
✅mapped out off-the-highways routes to avoid
traffic (Rich)
✅purchased new A/C system
April 9, 2026 - Thursday
It felt good to walk again today - it was crisp and windy, but Dee and I persisted. Lunch with Paula, Debbie, and Terry at 51 Park Street. I had a bowl of baked onion soup - delicious.
I will be posting this Blog monthly while in New England…
