2009

Well, this year has started off pretty good.  Weather-wise we have had a really beautiful winter.  More rain than usual in November and some in December.  The temperatures have been cool in the evening and the days have, for the most part, been sunny and nice.  A few "northers" blew through here, but nothing major like in the past.

I got a new stove, have been able to bake my heart out and even do some entertaining.  We entertained  friends the first part of the month along with a couple that are building their house here and had a pleasant afternoon.  Wind cooperated, i.e., very few bugs and the sun shone plus, dinner was a success!  I had guests the following week to celebrate a friend’s birthday and, again, a good meal and great weather.

We had a wonderful Saturday last week at Manati Restaurant.  Again, the weather was great and there were about 17 sailboats in the bight.  The big plus this time was that some of the sailors were musicians.  There was a piano player (who brought his own keyboard), a guitarist/bongo player and a drummer.  Those men, along with my husband on harmonica and Claus on Bass, entertained us for several hours.  The piano player’s wife sang (and quite well), so the entertainment was complete.  The music was a mixture of tunes, all with a “blues” beat.  Lots of people, lots of fun and good food.

We were than most graciously invited to view Super Bowl Sunday at the home of our friends.  My husband, before coming to the island, never missed a Super Bowl and loved football.  Of course, without TV on the island he has missed two Super Bowls but it has not affected his outlook – thank goodness!  I’ve never been one to watch football as they seem to have too many rules and they were constantly adding more.  Besides, the sport took forever to watch.  I mean an hour game could take 3-4 hours!  However, now that I don’t have to view it every weekend (as we did in the states), it is sort of interesting to see the one big game of the year.  This year was a great game and even had me excited.  Plus, it took place in my home town of Tampa and, occasionally, they would give us glimpses of the downtown area where I once worked.  So, it was kind of our friends to include us in their viewing day plus sharing wonderful snacks and a lovely dinner after.  Since it was late, we slept over and left early the next morning.

I hope to do more entertaining in February as we have a friend and his brother coming down here for 3 weeks to work on the house he is building and, of course, the woman who gives me incentive to do some quilting will return for a couple of months.

To keep out of trouble and occupied in my free time (ha), I have been painting my upstairs “craft” room and rearranging furniture to allow me to have a larger sewing area.  A local carpenter is making a sewing desk for me along with a replacement door for the upstairs porch.  We had new windows ordered from the states and they are now installed.  Where I had louvered windows before, I now have vinyl Pela windows which really make it bright up there!  We have had a leaking problem on the porch of the second floor causing several leaks down in the front room on the main floor.  My husband has now repaired that and I can move my futon over to sit under the windows so that I can have a large table for a working area for my other craft projects (cards, driftwood projects, bamboo items, etc.) against the wall.

I have been on a crocheting kick and have downloaded free patterns from the net.  I made a stuffed seahorse for our friend’s daughter who celebrated her 7^th birthday last week and now my daughter wants one for each of her boys for their respective birthdays in March.  I have some other 2009 Christmas projects going on for family and have just delved into filet crochet – something I’ve never done before.  I have some sewing projects to complete (a quilt) before a friend of mine arrives on the island for a two-month stay.  She introduced me to paper-piecing and now “thangles”, another form of quilting and will work with me and my friend, Linda, to finish our projects.

We have been cutting away at the brush and overgrowth up on the hill behind the house and planting during the wet season.  Everything is coming along and looking great.  Heck, we even got the “big” boat tilt motor fixed and we are now a two-boat family again.

So, we have started the New Year off with a lot to do, some fun with friends, good food, an HD TV experience and our water transportation is back in order!  Sometimes, life is good and sometimes it is really good!