Another First for DeDe

My first haircut took place yesterday.  This was not my idea.  Apparently I have these hot spots on my skin due to the heat and all my hair.  Its so hard to keep my hair looking good day after day and I hate to go out when I am having a bad hair day.  I just don't feel like myself so mom thought the best solution would be a haircut.

When we first got to the groomers I did not like it at all.  So many dogs and then the clipper sound. So annoying.  They made mom leave.  Who are these people and why is there so much hair on the floor?

But a few hours later, mom came back to pick me up, I felt so much lighter and the bows in my ears were such a nice touch.  I might go out looking for a little something something after I get my nails done.  DeDe

PS - Mojo needs more than a haircut to get herself a little something something.  I'm just saying...

Loose Ends and License Plates

Today I have time to take care of a couple loose ends, like the master bathroom that Gary finished right before he left for Minnesota.  It is really hard to take pictures of a bathroom but you get the gist.  Gary put up a glass block half-wall for the shower enclosure, a first for him and we love it.

And since my MN license plates were about to expire I had to take the next step to become an official Floridian so I headed to the DMV first thing this morning.  After a few wrong turns I finally found the building.  After a few wrong doors, I finally found the right department and I actually brought all the right paperwork.  BAM.  They even have to come out to the car and make sure you actually own it.  WTF?  So after paying my $419 for a fairly small piece of tin, I got my Florida plate.

Maybe I'll start to fit in around here and quit getting the Minnesota-Hick looks from everybody.  And the best part.  I put the plate on ALL BY MYSELF.  I usually throw stuff like that at Gary and that's where my job ends.  I hope it doesn't fall off.  I haven't used my glue gun in a while but it seems to be sticking pretty good.  Keep your fingers crossed.  Mine are glued together right now.  M

I'll See You In My Dreams Instead

My older sister Noreen came to see us this past weekend.   I have three sisters and they are all special in their own way and I hope they would say the same about me.  Probably not.  But anyway, Noreen is very special and she traveled down to Florida with a group who assists special people.  The group is called Off the Beaten Path and it is a wonderful thing for anyone who wants to see the world but needs help doing it.

Noreen, Me and Shawn (part of traveling group) at Twins Game

Noreen and I were able to get to a Twins spring training game on Friday but I was pretty sick at the time.  Gary finally dragged me to Urgent Care on Saturday after 5 nites of coughing.  Turns out I have bronchitis, something new for me.  And its gonna take some time to get well.

Noreen, Gary and I got to spend all of Sunday together but in an easy way, we took her to Edison Estates to see the trees and then to the Pier for some ice cold beer and finally to see where we are living down here.  I think she had a good time, I know I did.  And I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye.

Edison Estate Gardens

I have said a lot of goodbyes these last few months, some feel like a bug bite, some like a toothache,  but too many have been like a truck ran over my foot.  Really really hurts.

And then Gary left today for Minnesota.  It came up fast, I have been sick, there's been lots of company, I've been learning a new job and then he announces he has to get back, the weather is too nice in Minnesota so he's going back to work and we have to get our MN house on the market asap.

Mojo sleeping in a shirt Gary left her so she could still smell him.

So right now I am feeling like a Mac truck is sitting on top of me.  No more goodbyes for awhile, I'll just see you in my dreams until we meet again....  M

PS - see FB for more pix.

D Bear and Teddy Bear

Teddy Bear showed up for the weekend with D Bear.  Her real name is Daria and she is originally from Bulgaria so we learned alittle about that country. Like its a long ways away.  She is now living in Philadelphia and Ted met her thru a mutual friend.  Its complicated.  But I learned a few other things as well.

Airboat Ride in Everglade City

After saying OMG and WTF a few hundred times the first day they were here, Ted told me about STFU.  I guess he was hinting that I should drop the initial-speak.

We also learned that sitting on the beach all day causes redness and pain the following day.

Fort Myers Beach

I also found out from Daria about Honey Badger.  Please check it out on YouTube if you have not.  It is now my favorite.  I might even hang a picture in my house in its honor cause Honey Badger don't give a shit.

Canoeing on Estero River

And the last thing I learned this weekend is that having a grown child coming to visit makes lots of dirty towels. No really, I learned that no matter how old they are, you still see them as your little kid, I don't think that ever changes and that's probably a good thing.

So next time you see Teddy Bear be sure to call him by his new name and if you're ever in Philly, look up a Bulgarian girl who goes by D Bear and she'll tell you all about Honey Badger.  M

Bronski Birthday Bash

Carol, Bob, Betty, Mary,  Gary, Me, Pat, Matt, JoAnne

We spent Sunday on Sanibel Island with all of the Bronski clan because it was a birthday celebration for Betty who is turning 60 and it was Mary's actual birthday so we got 2 for the price of 1.  We spent time on the beach  until they dared me to go into the water with my clothes on to get some shells.  I was totally wet in about a minute and the shells was the size of my baby toenail.  Really worth it and then Bob had a bird poop on him so he decided to pull up his big boy pants and take a ride in his rented grandpa car.  But we had a great supper at RC Otters and made it home in time for the dogs to go to bed.  At least I didn't get pooped on.  Margaret

PS Check out my facebook page for all the Bronski pix.

Lets Keep Going

Gary has been busy.  We slept in the living room for about a week which really was handy at nite, we just fell off the couch on to the bed.  Gary took out all the old disgusting carpet in our bedroom, tiled and painted, put up new blinds.  We moved back in a week later.  We even found some cute pictures for our room at the same garage sale. (I was able to talk them down.)

And just one more little note in case you were wondering, we just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Who says a second marriage can't work?  So far, its been an adventure, we are planning another 20 together, I have to keep supervising him otherwise he would get nothing done.  Duh.  Margaret

Too Much Going On

Office/Guest Room Before (Guest Bath was being remodeled at the time, no we do not use TP in the guest room.  Duh)

When I first started the blog, I was not very busy.  I spent my days watching Gary work and putzing around the house, walking dogs, looking for stuff for the house, etc.  Life is changing.  I am working part time with Hersheys now and also working in Naples helping my friend Adele during high season.  So who suffers?  My blog.  Today is all about pictures til my life gets back under control.  A picture is worth a 1000 words.  That really helps me out.

Room redone - tiled, new blinds, picture from garage sale.

Getting Caught Up

My blog has been neglected so time to do a quick catch up.  Gary finished the other guest room right in time for our company last weekend.  Paul and Carol and Rudy and Jan showed up for the weekend and we had to have a place for everyone to sleep.  We couldn't expect them to all stay in one bed,  DUH.  I didn't get a chance to do an "after" picture and now that guest room is full of our bedroom's stuff cause Gary  is working on that.  Does that guy have an "off" switch?

Our company drove down to Key West on Friday and Saturday which gave us an opportunity to take Betty and Jer (Gary's folks) to the Edison/Ford Estate Car Show.  It is so pretty there and we thought Betty and Jer might recognize a car or two from their early years.   Check out my facebook page for more pix.

We dropped the folks off just in time for our other company who returned Saturday nite.  On Sunday we had to drag them all to Edison Estate, esp. Carol who loves to take photos. She should be a professional. Then we're off to Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island and guess what, we ended up at the Mucky Duck again.  We girls took off for a very long walk on the beach while the guys drank beer.  Carol took about 5,000 pix.  She stops a lot. But we made it back to the Mucky before closing time and we were thirsty!!!  The Mucky Duck became Margaritaville.

Back to the house for the Superbowl PARDEE which included Jello shots and sliders.  That'll wake you up in the middle of the nite.  We had a great time and hated to see them go on Monday.  We did all this while starting my new job as a merchandiser/sales rep with Hershey's.  I'll be doing the same kind of work I did in Minnesota only I will be working with CHOCOLATE.   Who wants to be my friend now?

So, blog is caught up, no more slacking off.  I gotta go find some chocolate.  Margaret

Mucky Ducking In Sanibel

The blue bathroom is now history.  It is really hard to take decent before and after pictures of a bathroom.  So these are the best I could do.  You'll just have to believe me when I say it is much much better.

Mary and Pat came down on Thursday, we headed to the Mucky Duck on Sanibel Island and after a couple pitchers of Mucky Duck beer, Mary and Pat were ready to try out the new bathroom.  We wanted them to be the first to sit on the toilet and use the shower after the remodel.  Yeah, all works, no leaks. At least as far as the plumbing in the new bathroom goes.  So, come down, we'll take you to the Mucky Duck, you can have some Mucky Duck beer and sit on the new toilet.  Sometimes we get a little crazy down here.

Weather is great, we move on to the "office" / guest room.  Gary is already busy.  Keeping up on the blog with all the stuff he is doing is a full time job.  He needs to slow down so I can take a break.  He's a regular Mucky Duck.  Margaret

Let's Get It On - Vegas Style

I made it back in one piece.  We had a great time celebrating Jill's birthday.
Some of my personal favorites were:

Anne, Doris, Elvis and Me right before show

Elvis and the Circus Du Soleil (?) at the Aria Hotel (which is a new casino to me).  I had never seen a show like that before.  I think the performers are real people. They do acrobatic stunts to the music of Elvis Presley.  Why I question the authenticity of these humans is apparent to anyone who sees them perform.  Their bodies do things I could never even imagine.  I tried to do a somersault back in the hotel room after the show, I got stuck halfway.  So a job with this crew is probably out.

Jill's birthday party at the Mirage was a great time Saturday nite.  We tried to get her a boyfriend named Larry from the band.  He really wanted to get it on with her, he even sang that to her right on stage in front of everybody.  He was really really cute but Jill and some of the other girls had a problem with his name cause he really didn't look like a Larry. Apparently all Larrys are old, ugly and bald.  I did not know this.

Me, Jill, Doris, Anne getting the party started Saturday.

And we learned to play craps which was great fun even tho I lost big time.  But it really wasn't my fault.  Jerry and Paul don't know how to roll dice.  Wish they would have mentioned that before we put our chips on the table.

Jerry and Anne in their Vegas duds following us at Harrahs. 

We had buttery nipples downtown which were awesome.  Use your imagination.

Did lots of walking, the weather was decent, had a buffet which is a must when you are in Vegas, played slots, did lots of people watching and found $1 bottles of beer.  All in all, Vegas did not disappoint.  Gotta go practice standing on one leg.  Margaret

PS. Check out all my pix on Facebook.

Your Room is Ready Sir - Thank you very much

Ok, I'm leaving for a girl's weekend in Vegas in the morning.  Just got back from working in Naples for some billionaire who is having house guests for the weekend and God forbid there is a speck of dust on the floor.  I'm really starting to hate rich people.

Anyway, wanted to let anyone know who is reading this blog, your room is now ready!!!  Yeah.  Gary did another awesome job, with my help, of course.  We took out disgusting stinky carpet and tiled, new paint, fixed closet, new bedding, we are ready.  So what are you waiting for????  A formal invitation?  If you are reading this, we want you here.  Now.  Weather is perfect, you have a place to sleep. And our rates are quite reasonable.

Blog will be updated when I return from my adventures in Vegas but you know what they say, what happens in Vegas....  Margaret

Dueling Banjos - North Fort Myers Style

When we first got here last year, we had a completely empty house.  Craigslist and garage sales were my life, still are, hard to stop, bad habit.  Anywho, getting off track.  We found a "Floridian" sofa and loveseat at a garage sale, in good shape, cheap, we needed something besides camping chairs to sit on.  

Fast forward to this year, this "Floridian" stuff is very uncomfortable.  I have a lot of padding so it should not be a problem but even I couldn't sit on them for more than an hour.  Maybe you aren't supposed to sit in Florida.  Well, we got some more comfortable furniture and so I posted our "Floridian" stuff on Craigslist starting at $100 for both.  We thought it would fly outta here.  After a week, we went down to $80.  WTF?  My picture looked good.  Do other people know how uncomfortable this is? I don't think I put that in the ad.  Then we were at $50, a couple of tire kickers called who never showed up.

This was really getting on my nerves so we ended up giving it away to a newly divorced woman who was VERY grateful to get it.  She sent her ex-husband over in a small older Bronco along with some questionable relatives.  We heard North Fort Myers was full of rednecks.  Now we have proof.

When I saw them tying all the furniture to the Bronco, I just had to get a picture.  So with the spare tire swinging in the breeze off the back and all the furniture tied on, they started the long slow journey to the backwoods.  Do do do do do do do do do...... Margaret

Life Changing in Florida

So seldom in our lives do we come across life changing experiences but in the last month, I have had three.  I guess I'm just lucky.

In a previous blog, I mentioned my new perculator.  This is a no-brainer as far as life changing.

Then another life changing thing happened to me.  I got a new set of pans.  Now this may not seem like a biggie to you but its major to me.  I have gone thru lots of pans and mainly its because they are cheap, garage sale pans that look useable and for a dime, how bad can they be?   Things were bad when Gary had to eat his eggs right over the stove with a fork and chisel.  I always thought it was my cooking.  My new Green Pans prove otherwise.  I looked and looked on the internet for a good set of pans.  After lots of research, I found Green Pans, they are so good that you can't even tell you used them, everything just slides out, sometimes even before I'm done cooking.  These Green Pans are truly life changing. (Does anyone need any old pans?)

And then there's just one more, yesterday Betty (Gary's mom) and I went over to Old Time Pottery in Fort Myers.  Never been there before but I got an ad in the mail and the sale looked awesome so I thought we better check it out.  My life is now changed.  Again.  Who needs Craigslist?  This place is unbelievable.  There is so much really cool stuff and it is so reasonable.  I couldn't even sleep last nite.  I didn't see any pottery except for my little new friend.  This will now be our restaurant fund.  If we fill it up, we get to go to either Taco John's or McDonald's.  Life is good.  Life is changing.  Margaret

Road Trip to Naples

So yesterday was a road trip to Naples cause Mama found a couple of bathroom vanities that she wanted to look at.  Where did she find them you ask?  Craigslist of course, this is where she spends most of her day when she's not reading a book or playing on her Ipad or looking for cookies in the cupboard that we can't reach or watching Ellen.  Her excuse is she is looking for stuff for the house, I think she's just trying to play on her Ipad so Dada thinks she's busy and doesn't ask her to help him grout or paint or tile or clean.  She's a sneaky one but I've got her number.


So I look at her, when are you doing another blog and she's acting all busy on the computer so I says to myself what the heck, I'm gonna do it this time.  Mojo is too busy laying on the couch pretending she's sleeping.  Everybody is telling me to be quiet so I might as well write the blog.

Naples is about 30 miles south of us, Dada put the trailer on the car just in case we got serious and we took off.  First we checked on a bathroom vanity that was pulled out of a rich guy's house cause they just wanted to remodel and the carpenter who was supposed to throw it away decided to put it on Craigslist list. This vanity was like new cause it was in a bathroom the rich guy didn't even know he had. At least we know where our bathrooms are even tho we can't use them.

So then we headed to a rich lady's house who wanted to remodel her bathroom and was going to throw her vanity away and we got that one too.  It was nice enough except that Dada had to take the plumbing off and remove it from the wall.  The rich lady had two weiners, Nemo and Leo, they were nice but very nosey.  Talk about smelling butts.  Theirs weren't bad but come on now, we're here on business, save the butt smelling for after hours I say.

So we have some bathrooms to remodel now that we have some vanities, more work for Dada, one less thing for Mama to find on Craigslist.  But give her time, there's always something she can dream up to look for.  Happy tails, DeDe.

The Suspense is Over

Check out the old kitchen, the closet is gone, the built in can opener - it be gone. (Hiding behind paper towels here.) And as much as I loved the wallpaper, out.

The upper cabinets extended beyond the kitchen wall.  WTF?  The little counter with the coffee maker moved when you leaned on it. Obviously this was done so you move the whole cabinet if you got sick of walking around it.

All cabinets are permanent and end in the kitchen, thank you very much.

We are happy campers now, I have my kitchen back, Gary can relax for a day or two. Maybe.  Margaret

Making the Moes of It

Happy New Year everyone.  We have new neighbors from Minnesota as of yesterday.  Gary's mom and dad arrived safe and sound about 2 pm yesterday and have decided to rent a house about 4 miles from us.  They used to winter in the Phoenix area but due to circumstances, they sold their place there and now are checking out our area.  We are very happy to have them here, who knows it may be permanent.  From all the stuff they brought from Minnesota, I thought it was.  The pickup was completely loaded, I think they may have had to stop at weigh stations along the way.  I think they came down here so they could be in the blog once in a while.  Some people will travel for days to be in my blog.

The kitchen is near completion, we have moved out of the garage now and have a fully functional kitchen.  Some minor things need to be finished but the main part is done.  So it was a little less than four weeks from start to finish.  I didn't think it would take that long, its a small kitchen.  Gary pretty much worked on it everyday but usually stopped by late afternoon.  I think he could have worked into the nite.  But that's just me.


Did you kiss someone special on New Year's Eve?  If not, check this out.  What goes on in my new kitchen when I'm not looking!  Margaret