Fall in Florida

Yes, there are season changes in Florida.  Definitely not the same as Ohio...but as A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA, I can tell it is Fall in Florida.

• The snowbirds are coming back.  The neighborhood is busier and more there are more golfers on the course.
• The decreased humidity and cooler temperatures make it ideal to open up the windows.
• There were less people on the beaches.  Maybe after Brian and I have been in Florida a few more years, we will start to think 80 degrees is too cool for the beach...but not yet.

Here is New Smyrna Beach in June

Here is New Smyrna Beach in October

Florida doesn't have the colorful fall leaves like Ohio.  For a moment, I though I was in the Ohio, when I saw this tree.  When I looked harder, I noticed that the colors were not from the leaves...but from yellow flowers and red seed pods.  It is called a Golden Rain Tree.

I have one change of the season experience that has followed me from Ohio to Florida.  I have an Emerson SmartSet Clock Radio.  I bought it because it automatically sets the correct time after a power interruption.  My problem started in 2007 when Congress changed the dates that Daylight Savings time starts and ends.  This clock is programmed for the pre-2007 time change dates.  So each Fall, the Sunday before the official Daylight Savings time change, my bedside clock spontaneously "falls" back a hour.  This year, I was surprised when Brian woke me up at 4 a.m. to go with him to a motorcycle hare scramble near Ormond Beach, Florida.  The actual time was 5 a.m. (which was early enough). 

Each year, I start out thinking I will leave the clock set to the wrong time till the next week when Daylight Savings time actually changes.  But, it takes too much mental energy for A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA to keep converting the time.  So a couple of days in, I change the clock.  Now next week, I will have the same experience in reverse!  Next Spring, the fun begins again.  I think I will put a new clock on my Christmas wish list!

Lower temperatures play a big part in the changing seasons.  That got me thinking about the differences in the climate between Ohio and Florida.  Here are some comparisons between Ohio and Florida. (from climatezone.com and weather.com).

Some Differences 

 



Average High and Low Temperatures
 

AKRON         17 degrees (in January) to 83 degrees (in July)
ORLANDO    49 degrees (in January) to 91 degrees (In July and August)

Much bigger range of temperatures in Akron

Days with Max Temperatures of 90 degrees or higher

AKRON         7 days a year
ORLANDO    107 days a year (Oh My)

Days with Min Temperatures Below Freezing

AKRON         125 days a year
ORLANDO 2 days a year (And Even That Is Too Much)

Some Similarities



Average Precipitation

AKRON         37 inches with 47 days of snow
ORLANDO    48 inches with 0 days of snow

Close to the same amount of precipitation, Akron just gets it in rain and snow)

Cloudy Days

AKRON         28 Clear Days and 99 Partly Cloudy Days (238 Cloudy Days)
ORLANDO   89 Clear Days and 147 Partly Cloudy Days (89 Cloudy Days)

Just about the same "clear" days, big difference in the "cloudy" days

Believe It Or Not!



Record Temperatures

AKRON         Lowest was -25 degrees in 1994, highest was 104 degrees in 1918
ORLANDO    Lowest was 19 degrees in 1984, highest was 101 degrees in 1998

No way!  Akron beat Orlando for the record HIGH temperature!

Fall is my FAVORITE season...hands down.  I like the colors, the smells and the cooler temperatures.  I have some great memories of the Fall season in Ohio..colorful leaves, Summit County Metro Park Hiking Spree, mums and pumpkins.  Oh My.  Now that I am A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA, I have to make new memories of my favorite season



The Road Less Travelled

The REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA hits the off-road sandy trails of Florida

 

Let me tell you sand in Florida is not limited to the beaches.  It is everywhere, including the back road trails.

 

I have had my motorcycle license endorsement for over 5 years (from back in the day in Ohio).  I took the Ohio Department of Public Safety Basic Rider course at a local motorcycle shop.  The course involved some classroom instruction and a couple days of practice riding.  At the end, I took the test and got my motorcycle endorsement.  It was lots of fun and I highly recommend it.

 

My husband, Brian, is an avid motorcyclist.  In fact his love of riding was one of the many reasons for moving to Florida.  He wanted to be able to ride year round.  Most days he rides to work and on the weekends he does off-road events (hare scrambles and enduros).

 

 

I am an occasional rider...a few times a year.  I like gentle rides on back roads and some off-road adventures.   Brian and I have explored lots of back roads in Ohio, West Virgina, Kentucky and South Carolina. 

Since our move to Florida, I have kept to the back roads because of the special skill (guts) needed to handle the sand on the off-road trails.  Finally I put on my Big Girl Pants and told Brian I was ready to try the off-road trails at Croom.  Here I am all suited up (including my Big Girl Pants/jeans, long-sleeved shirt, helmet, sturdy footwear and gloves).  My motto is:

"All The Gear...All The Time"

 

 

Lucky for me we have had a few afternoon showers last week.  Well, that is good...harder packed trails.  And that is bad...lots of standing water.   Sometimes we went thru the water, sometimes we went around the water and sometimes we turned around.

Still there were long stretches of high ground that gave me my adventure in the sand.  It may look like a flat trail, but I couldn't get the series of small hills (called sand whoops) in the picture, some hard-packed, some sand.  Kinda like moguls in snow-skiing.  This area was my favorite!

Sometimes we took the Trail Less Travelled.



First time I saw a tree in the road, I freaked out.  Turns out they were fun and easy.

A couple of times, I found I was going too fast when I hit the loose sand.  But my motto was:

It will hurt to fall ... so don't fall

In the end, I never fell, had a great time and gained some valuable experience in the sandy trails of Florida.  Brian rewarded me for a job well done with a margarita at our favorite Mexican restaurant, The Coyote Rojo in Bushnell, Florida.  I needed it because I was very sore the next day!

Like Mother, Like Daughter...Like Granddaughters

There is a very close bond between my Mom, myself and my daughters (Mallory and Michelle)

When my daughters were growing up in Ohio, my parents lived in Maryland.  Every summer, Mal and Chelle would spend time with my Mom and Dad (aka TwoMommy and TwoDaddy). They have some great memories from those visits.

Another connection we have is matching tattoos.  Yes, you read correctly...three generations of matching tattoos.

Our recent connection is STARBURST MIRRORS.  Mallory started the trend by making a starburst mirror and featuring it in her blog Our First Nest.

Then Mal found another one she liked better.

So she gave her first mirror to her sister, Chelle (Chelle promises to get me a picture shortly).

Fast forward a few months...  My Mom wanted something large and round to go over her new TV and I thought of a starburst mirror.  But she needed one larger than Mallory's design.  I searched Pinterest and found one at twenty-six to life, with great instructions.

Mom and I headed off to Michael's for the floral rings and mirrors...and Home Depot for the shims and Liquid Nails.  Of course it took a couple trips, more shims, paint, more paint, another mirror (I broke one, my bad).

Mom painted hers gold to match the collage of gold-framed pictures in the room.

And I varnished mine to work with the earth tones in my living room.

This project earned a thumbs up from both of us.  And another connection between the four of us.

I Just Had To Have It..Now What?

I have a hard time passing a thrift store and not stopping in.  Being A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA, I have lots of spare time to make frequent stops while running errands.

On one of my stops I found this lamp.  I liked it because it was so unusual.

I had all my excuses lined up...it doesn't exactly go with my decor, I don't need another lamp, it cost $75 (kinda high for my thrift store budget) and the wiring was old.  I left the store without it.  But, I thought about it frequently and a week later I returned to the thrift store to see if it was still there.  Yes, I was also surprised that I waited a whole week before returning.  I am working on building my will power...which evidently is not working.

It was meant to be mine.  I took it to a local lighting store to be rewired.  You have to understand, I LOVE LAMPS...ALL LAMPS.  So while waiting to pick up my lamp, I walked around the store looking at the most beautiful table lamps, floor lamps, hanging lamps, EXPENSIVE lamps,  Then I realized I needed a lampshade.  So I grabbed a nice lampshade.  But a few days later, I wasn't loving the shade.  I don't know how to measure for the right size shade, but going by feel...this wasn't working for me.

Several months later, I found a bigger lampshade, again at a thrift store.  It was the right size, but the bright white wasn't working for me...again.

I did some research and found a spray fabric dye.  I figured that changing the color would solve the problem.  Two can of dye later...and it still wasn't working for me.  Plus, I found out that fabric dyeing is not one of my successful crafts.  The shade didn't dye evenly and didn't look good when the light was on.  Honestly, what good is a lamp if you are embarrassed to turn it on.

The last shade I picked up was from Walmart.  Is is okay, but...still not working for me.

Right now it stands:

• $75 for the lamp
• $25 for rewiring
• $49 for the first shade
• $5 for the second shade
• $30 for the two cans of fabric dye
• $15 for the third shade

So that's $200 and I am still hoping that somewhere out there is the right shade for this beauty.

Road Trip - St. Augustine

I have often said that for A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA every day is a vacation!  But sometimes I feel like taking a vacation from my vacation.

My favorite vacation...ROAD TRIP.  Brian and I make a great ROAD TRIP team.  We both agree on the destination, Brian picks the route and I take it from there.  I research things to do both at our final destination and along the way.  My motto is:

"The destination is just one part of the journey"

On a ROAD TRIP from our home in Ohio to Detroit, Michigan, I found so much to do along the way it took us 3 days to get there, instead of 3 hours.  You can imagine the fun I am having discovering adventures in our new home state of Florida.

Our latest ROAD TRIP was to the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida.  I knew very little about the city (history is not my strength).  Here are some interesting facts about St. Augustine from Wikipedia:

• The oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United States
• First explored in 1513 by Spanish explorer and governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de Leon
• Ponce de Leon was the first mate to Christopher Columbus in 1492
• Henry Flagler, a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil arrived in St. Augustine in the 1880s and was the driving force behind turning the city into a winter resort for the wealthy northern elite

Any more facts and my eyes start to glaze over.

I used TripAdvisor (my authority on travel) to see the lodging options.  I picked the Travelodge on San Marco Avenue.  The staff was friendly and most important the room was clean and comfortable.

When we arrived I noticed that there were two thrift stores next door.  For most people that would be a bad sign, but for me...it was a bonus.  I left Brian to take the bags to the room and I walked to the stores.  At the second store I found a major score, 6 glasses in a pattern I collect.  The glasses are Cameo by McBride and I rarely see them at thrift stores.


For first-time visitors like us, a trolley is the best way to get around.  Parking in the city is expensive and hard to find.  It is convenient to park at one of the free parking lots at the trolley stops and jump on and off the trolley.  Plus our tickets were good for 3 days.

The day we arrived, we bought our tickets, road around listening to the driver and getting the lay of the land.  We stopped at the Castillo de San Marcos, a fort that is now a National Park.  I won't go on about what I really thought about the fort (boring), but I will say you get a great view of the Matanzas Bay and the cannon firing demo was fun.

The next day, with a plan in mind, we hit the sights.  These stops brought the city's history to life (and that is saying a lot from a non-history person like me...with a short attention-span).

Saddie Mae showed us around the Old Jail, nearby was the Oldest Store Museum and the St. Augustine History Museum.

The Spanish Military Hospital made you happy to me in modern times! We also saw the Oldest Drug Store and the Fountain of Youth.

We didn't go in the Ripley's Believe It Or Not, but we did see some interesting things outside the building. There was a 4-room log house, made from a hollowed out Redwood log.

Also in the parking lot was an exact replica of Michelangelo's famous statue "David".  For many years the city of St. Augustine made the museum cover the statue until they surrounded it with a hedge.  You can walk in and see the statue, but you can't see it from the parking lot. 

I also use TripAdvisor to find good places to eat.  With our trusty GPS, we tracked down TripAdvisor's #1 restaurant in St. Augustine, The Back 40 Urban Cafe.  I stepped outside my comfort zone (pasta, burgers, seafood) and got the Shrimp Curry Salad...OMG.  I could write a whole blog on how delicious this dish was (using phrases like "visually appealing" and "depth of flavor").  While waiting for Brian to finish his Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie, I enjoyed a very tasty piece of Key Lime pie.

On the way home, we stopped in Gainesville to learn more about Florida's history at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida's campus.  The museum shows that there is lots more to Florida than theme parks.

Back to my regular vacation lifestyle...

GOLF...A Real Retired Housewife of Florida Style

I am A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA that enjoys golf. I enjoy it more when I don't focus on the scorecard.  It is a good thing that most of the people I play with don't expect golfing skills...just a sense of humor. This blog is about some of my experiences on the golf course (notice no mention of scores or handicaps).

In Ohio, I would start golfing in May and be winding down by September...more of a summer thing. Golfing in Ohio was a great experience. I miss the courses and all of my golfing buddies!

Becoming A REAL RETIRED HOUSEWIFE OF FLORIDA moved golf way up in my priorities. I live in a golfing community and have a house on the 12th green of the Crane's Roost course.

I golf 3 days a week, but instead of 4 months of the year...I golf all year round.  I even golf in the summer (and yes it gets pretty hot out on the course).  This is the temp reading from my golf cart.  Good thing I didn't look at it until after we passed my house.

I golf with a neighborhood group and two ladies groups...lots of casual play and one group that plays by the rules, oh my.  As much as I miss my golfing buddies in Ohio, I have met lots of fun people in Florida.  Here is some of the golfing humor:

     FISH - F*ck, It's Still Here (for when you whiff the ball)

     SBU - Shitty, But Useful (bad hit, but somehow it ended up in a good place)

     Rule of 4 T's - End with Titties To The Target (advice I got when
                                 I wasn't following thru on my swing)

     If You Think...You Stink - Meaning...don't think, just hit the ball

     You a Little Devil - You have 3 6's in a row on your scorecard

I swear I am not making these up!

My favorite

Have you had one of those days when you can hit the ball from the tee, but can't follow up with a second shot?  A friend, Carole, has a saying for that:

A good drive is for naught, when you f*cketh up your second shot

Some fun golf cart bumper signs:

Here are a few pictures of my golfing experiences:

This was a fairway shot that landed in a palm tree about 4 feet up.  I was aiming for the fairway, but the tree got in the way.

Can you see the alligator?  Good thing this guy was on the other side of a large pond.  According to the Florida Wildlife Commission, there are 1.3 million alligators in Florida...gulp!

Just because our course is named after them, the sand cranes think they own the course.  Sometimes it takes patience and skill to avoid them. 

OFF TO GOLF...

So Many Paper Beads...So Little Time

My current craft project/obsession is Paper Beads.   What a great craft...the raw material is FREE (when you use junk mail, newspaper inserts, magazine pages, posters).  You can use scrapbook paper, but I go for the free stuff.  I find that I don't look at paper the same way.  The colors catch me, I check the thickness and the feel of the surface.  Then I am hooked.  Flyers, menus, magazines...nothing safe around me.

I keep a bin in my office to throw the paper in.

It is best if the paper is colorful, with no much white space.   These papers are good because they have lots of color, no white borders and little white space in the page.

This page is not good because it is not colorful and has a white border.  The top and bottom show the most on the bead.  Once you make a few beads you will understand.

Next comes cutting the paper.  There are several ways to cut the paper...by hand, freestyle. Or using a cutting board and either a cutting wheel or utility knife.  But my favorite (for now) is a paper cutter.  I can cut several pieces at once. 

I cut triangle strips, with the wide end less than an inch, tapering down to a point.  The length of the paper (and how many sheets you stack together) will determine how fat the bead is.  The wide end will determine the length of the bead.

On to rolling the paper.  I bought a bead roller online, but when I started sharing my love of Paper Beads with others, I came up with a homemade roller using a cotter pin and polymer clay.  Both versions work great.

I stack several cut sheets together to make a bead.  The pieces don't have to be the same size in width or length.  This is where the "art form" comes in.  Sometime it is 3 sheets, sometimes it is 6 sheets.  It depends on the thickness of the paper.  Newpaper ads may take 6 sheets, while magazine pages may take 3 sheets.  I pick the paper with the most colorful tip to be on the top (because this tip ends up making a center band).  When I get close to the end, I put some white glue on all the sheets and complete the wrap.  Pull the bead off the roller and on to the next.

I finish the bead with a glaze.  My current technique is to hand glaze each bead with 2 coats of Mod Podge.  I put the bead on a bamboo skewer and paint a coat of Mod Podge with a brush, put the skewer in the knife holder, wait 30 minutes and repeat.  For a while I was dipping the beads in polyurethane, but I ran out so I switched to the Mod Podge.  I also tried coating with thick embossing powder and melting with a heat gun.  This technique created beautiful beads, but was very time consuming. 

I do a lot of these steps while watching TV, one night cutting, another rolling, another glazing.  Do you think I watch a lot of TV?

So Many Paper Beads...now what?  Paper Beads make nice jewelry.  Pinterest and Etsy have lots of paper bead jewelry for examples.  But paper beads can be used for so much more.  As I showed in my last post, I filled shadow boxes with Paper Beads.

I have strung Paper Beads with glass beads on fishing line and attached the line inside a frame.

I enhanced a wire tree with Paper Beads.

So Many Paper Beads...So Little Time