another nice e-mail

It always makes me want to write when I get an e-mail from someone who says they read my blog.

  I heard from and old friend, Barbara.  She and her husband Dick lived near us in the apartment complex with cousin Alice and Jack. . . eons ago.  She asked to be remembered to Alice and hopes she remembers her.  Since Alice reads this, Barbara, consider it done. 

Yes.  We've been having cold weather (for Florida) recently.  I went to church without a sweater and felt rather cold.  Bob and Paul both had jackets with them.  (I know all your northerners feel sorry for me.)  I have one sweater down here but it is not suitable for church.  It keeps me warm on "regular" days. We go to the contemporary service which is held in the fellowship hall at 9:00.  We sit at round tables, have coffee and it's nice.

 A couple of tables over from us were our old friends Carolyn and John who rent in Venice. They're  from Bath Presbyterian, retired teachers like me.  We went to the same church together.     Their son, Seth was there with them.  Seth's family would come to visit his folks  each year, driving all night long and all day long, from Bath,  to get here as quickly and as cheaply as possible.    After several years, Seth and Kelly liked it so much, they moved down here. He's teaching at the high school.  He also attends Trinity Presbyterian church  and his younger teenage daughter sings in the Contemporary Choir.  You know, I have a feeling I may have mentioned this before.  If I repeat myself, it's age related.  If I repeat myself, it's age related.

Took a walk with Paul and Gracie around the circle.  It was windy, cool, but sunny.   I was glad I wore my only sweater.  Paul had a wind breaker on.  We walked past the clubhouse pool and a couple with grade-school aged children were in the hottub having a wonderful time.  Poor things.  We always hope for warm weather for visitors.    We didn't say a thing to them about it being against the rules for kids to be in the hottub.  We're glad we didn't.  As Paul said, someone will probably say something.  Glad it wasn't us. 

  Because it was Sunday, there were two Open Houses so we went "touring" on our walk.  Nice homes.  One was near the water with a beautiful view of the lake. Prices were good too.  We're always looking to see what people have done to their homes.  We're excited about getting our lanaii done.  Soon. 

Heard from Nancy yesterday and she's still hanging in there.  If this keeps up, this little guy of hers will be completely different from Vincent and Evie early arrival into the world.   There's only a couple of days left to be judged early.  Nancy's feeling okay.  She's presently getting contractions from 5-9:00 PM and then they disappear!  (Barbara expressed her good wishes for her.  See. . .she does read my blog!)

 We got a phone call last night at 10:00 and expected it to be about Nancy, but it was from Bob wondering if we were going to church in the morning!

 BTW   I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only grandparent calling to see how she was doing.  I didn't' want to be a bother.   Nancy said the other two sets have all been calling. 

Paul is loving our new sound system with the streaming video captions.  Yea!  It's so wonderful that he can enjoy those movies also. 

We had such a nice day yesterday, Saturday.  We took Gracie with us to do several errands:

The Shoemaker:    Paul got a pair of sneakers that he ordered online and one needs a lift, as usual, so we went to the shoemaker to have that done.  It cost as much as the sneakers!  Okay.  He needs to make a living, just like everyone. 

From there we went to Habitat for Humanity and dropped off the old blu-ray machine, and some clothes.  Nice to walk around there.  Florida has so much better second hand stuff.   As they say - you can't take it with you. 

Then I suggested we go to the jetty and have a hotdog for lunch.  We did that.  It was very very windy and the water was choppy.  Lots of white caps.  We sat and ate in the car, facing the inlet side and watched a lot of the sailboats put down their sails before going out into the gulf.  Gracie'd never been there and she was very interested in looking out the front windshield at all the birds flying by, the boats going past, the people walking.  There were a lot of people on the jetty in spite of the weather.

Our lawns are looking a lot better since we had some rain this week:  Valentine's Day and yesterday.

Lina, Brenda and Eric's exchange student, sent us a note asking if she could come to our home for Christmas.  She has three weeks off.  How wonderful!  Next year our plans are to  be home in NY since it'll be our daughter Nancy's family and Brenda's family year to visit.  I know the cousins missed each other this year.

Showtime practices are going to speed up this week - since it's dress rehearsal on the 28th, and then three performances: On the first and second of March -  one on Friday night, one a Saturday matinee, and then the evening performance. 

I've got wash on.  Gotta go.  Hope you're all well.  Heard from Lue.  She sounds good.  She's having a lot of company this winter.  Good.   Forgive if there are errors in spelling, english.  It's now late. 

So - how're things going in your neck o' the woods?