A New Adventure

So I get this email that Groupon is offering scuba lessons 52% off. $169 for Scuba Certification?

My hubby has been Certified for 10 years, so I thought, WHY NOT?

2 Weekends of class, with Dive Instructor Matt Coffey from the Venice, FL Scuba Quest, and I am pretty hooked! Although, I have to say, it is one of the more expensive hobbies I have taken on in a while.

Getting used to breathing underwater was an odd experience. The most terrifying part for me, flooding my mask and then clearing it out again. (I hate water in my eyes and nose). Alas, I survived. And have been diving nearly every weekend since.

I can't wait for my next adventure (Tomorrow!)

Playin' Hookey- Let's Go Fishing!

As you know, my family LOVES to fish. My husband, most of all, LOVES to fish.

I'm so happy and proud that he took his passion to the next level and got his Coast Guard Captain's License, so he can share his love with everyone else.

So if you are ever in the area (Southwest Florida), Take a day off, book a trip, and go fishing with Playin' Hookey Fishing Charters!

You'll have a great time!

What I learned from getting robbed...

September 17, while I was at work and my husband was out, thieves broke into my house and cleaned us out. What a terrible experience. Here are some things I learned...

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNTIL IT'S GONE... And maybe even not then.

Imagine if you came home today and it was all gone. Would you know what you had? They stole every single portable electronic device we had, along with chargers and batteries. 2 laptops, digital cameras, cell phones, dvd players. All gone.

They stole every piece of jewelry I owned, valuable or not. Every ring, every watch, every necklace, every earring. Could you count yours if they were gone? What did you have? Could you remember every piece?

They broke open my daughter's piggy bank on my bedroom floor and stole all her money, leaving all the glass and a few pennies behind.

It's painstaking to try to process in your mind the intrusion into your home, your personal life, and your things, while also trying to take an inventory while the police are taking fingerprints and your home is a crime scene.

Some things I didn't notice until much later. Like when I went to put on some perfume to go to a party, and noticed it was all gone. They stole my perfume too? Oh yes, and my nail polish too. I guess that's proof that some people will just steal anything.

So my tips:

1.) Make a household inventory, and take pictures. When you need to file a claim with the insurance company, you have to prove you owned all the things you claim are missing.

2.) Don't keep all those pictures on your laptop- what if they steal that too?

3.) Back up those photos and documents on a regular basis. For the same reason as above- when they take your computer, they take all the stuff inside. You won't get it back.

We had all the serial numbers for most if not all of our electronics, but that didn't change anything. They didn't find any of them.

4.) Don't assume it's all covered. There are limits on your insurance policy for jewelry and high value items. My jewelry limit was $1000, but I had well over $3000 worth of jewelry stolen. Check your policy, and see if you can increase your limit or schedule those items so they are fully covered. I take part of the blame for not having those things fully insured: I wrote my own policy. But I also felt the same way many people do, "It won't happen to me." Well It did. And that diamond ring my mom gave me in high school? GONE. The diamond earrings I had made for my wedding, using stones from my mother-in-law's original engagement ring? Yep, those are gone too. All I have left are the pictures.

5.) Get an alarm, and have it monitored. We finally did. It may not stop the crooks, but hopefully it will deter them a bit, slow them down, and maybe, just maybe, if they decide to break in anyway, the cops will get here fast enough to catch the crooks.

Not your typical day on the water

The day started out pretty slow, and we didn't get to the water until about 10. There was a front that was supposed to move in in the afternoon, so we were sure the weather would blow us off the water. We got out to the reef and caught a few fish, nothing really spectacular. Then the back pole took off. I grabbed it and started trying to get it in. It would take off, and I would get a little back. It would take off, and I would get a little back. After a while, it seemed to be stuck at the bottom, though it would still give now and then. If we gave the line some slack, it would go tight again. There was another boat over by us, and their friends were scuba diving. So we figured when the divers came up we would ask them what we had down there.
The guy drops down and comes back up to tell us we have his anchor line, but don't worry, they'll pull anchor and give it back to us. So they pulled anchor, and we hadn't actually hooked their anchor line, but our line was only wrapped around it. The girl motioned to Pete that he could reel it in, it was free, but there was something still making it hard. Whatever we hooked was still there!! After a few minutes it surfaced, a stingray!


So we laugh a little, unhook the little guy and go on. While Pete was bringing in the ray, I caught this slimy little guy called a sand diver. Pete caught a barracuda, and we caught some other stuff. It was heating up so we decided to start heading in. I looked off into the distance and saw this huge boat. Pete said he thought it looked like a Coast Guard Cutter. We watch it for a little while, and all of a sudden there is smoke coming out the back of it and it is MOVING! There is a small boat in front that it looks like it's chasing.
AND it looks like they are heading in our direction. Pete, thinking that we want no part of this, fires up the motor and we start heading away. But the little boat seems to be getting away from the bigger boat, and they seem to be following us.
We head back towards the reef, because there was a bigger boat over there. If we're gonna be involved, maybe they can help. We go hide behind them.
But the smaller boat turned, they WERE following us! Oh CRAP! As they got closer, we realized the smaller boat was ALSO a Coast Guard boat.

They pulled up to us to do a safety inspection. They asked us what the heck we were doing, adn we told them we thought they were being chased and we were trying to get away! They said they thought WE were acting weird and wanted to check us out! Here's the mothership, watching over.
We laughed at ourselves, as I'm sure they laughed at us too. On the way back in, we saw our little beggar dolphin friend. He said hi.


So, all in all, it was a good day. Lots of fun stuff. The weather was Beautiful, as you can see from the still water in the pics. And, the best part is, there's still one day left in the weekend!

Suicide Mower

We bought our first mower when we bought our first house in 1999. It was a Poulon Push mower from Home Depot. Nothing fancy really. Our yard was pretty modest, and it suited us just fine. We sold that house in August 2003 and built a new one on a much bigger lot in 2004. The mower was just about kaput and I didn;t think it would hold up to our half acre much longer so for Father's Day that year I bought Pete a John Deere riding mower, and the old Poulon was parked in the shed.

That John Deere served us well. It went round and round. It took kids for rides. It chopped up crazy tall weeds and vines when we needed to clear the way to park the boat in the yard. It slowly died...Parts fell off, the cover broke in pieces, until suddenly KAPOW!!! Bye bye... :(

Poor Petey back to the pusher. I had forgotten that the choke on the mower had broken some time ago, until I hear the VROOOOOOOOOOOM........
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM...
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
as it revs high and low. I just had to laugh a little to myself just to hear it (hehe).

But after sitting idle for so many years, that thing had a mind of it's own! Pouting and throwing fits, breaking down and spitting out its pieces one at a time.

It vibrated SO much, that the bolts holding the top part down would wiggle right out. We lost a couple and Pete had to improvise with new bolts. Perhaps that's why the gas cap would pop off occasionally. So he used a piece of wire or a stick or something to hold it down. Perhaps that was attached to the piece of wire that was holding the choke open so it wouldn't stall out at the end of the revving cycle.

One day I came home to a halfway mowed lawn, and thought hmmm.... Wonder what happened today. Apparently, the mower SPIT OUT the spark plug. KAPOW! Pete says, hmmm... I wonder what that was? Tried to start it again and looked around to see what was wrong. Wow, I wonder where it went? COULD NOT FIND IT ANYWHERE!!! HAHAHAHAH!!

SO- after he figured out what kind of plug to replace it with (It is a 10 year old mower by now), he used some kind of new contraption to make sure the spark plug would not fly out again.

The deck on the back started to rust out, so he covered that with some duct tape so that the mowed clippings didn't fly out the top and catch fire. It was all holding together. I think he got a few full mows out of it.

Saturday, he went out to play with the lawn again. I was back in my sewing/soaping/scrapbooking room, tinkering with some new goodies I got. He made a few rounds past my window, (Vroooooooooooooooooom....vroooooooooooooooooooooooom...vroooooooooooooooooom) and suddenly it stops. (hehe) Part of me expects it to just start up again, but this time it does not.

About 10 minutes later, Pete goes by the window, and starts pushing the (dead) mower across the yard. I open the window to have a chat.

"What's going on?" I ask.
"I don't think I can fix it." He says.
"What Happened?"
"The gas tank fell off" he says. "FELL OFF!"
"hmmm...." as I look out the window at this sad contraption that has been TRYING to die.
For all the stuff holding it together, I can't see much of the original creature, but it looks pretty sad.

So the spark plug spitting, super revving mower is dead. RIP Poulon. RIP.

Monday on Wednesday, and other Pet Peeves

Monday on Wednesday, and other Pet Peeves

I love 4 day weekends. LOVE them. Like a mini vacation. However….The day following is positively terrible. Its Wednesday, except it’s really Monday. First day back. Lots of stuff to catch up on. We have this crazy receptionist. She seems to think that 1) If you are able to take a day off now and then, it MUST mean that you have nothing to do. So if you give her any kind of advance warning before you happen to be taking time off, she makes damn sure that you get your fair share of calls the day before you go. 2) While you are gone, she does not encourage people to leave you a message. Instead, she encourages them to call you back AS SOON as you get in, the day you get back. So, when I got back from my “mini-vacation”, and only had 4 voicemail messages, I KNEW this was not the end of it, and the phone has been ringing ever since. AND apparently, those that did leave messages were encourages to ALSO call back, so I guess it saves me the trouble of calling them back. And 3) EVEN THOUGH she knows how many people called while you were gone, and knows she encouraged them to call you back, she STILL seems to think you have nothing to do because, You ALSO get all of the NEW calls! Which is not so bad except…..

(Refer to my other blog about how everyone should have a blog) Last weekend, for everyone else was a 3 day weekend. It was Labor Day. EVERYONE in this building had Monday off. I just happened to take Tuesday too. WHY does everyone think that I am interested in giving them a play by play of my entire weekend, only one at time. I took the day off so I would not have to be around you people. WHY Does this make you think that I wanted to come back and share each exciting moment with you? Hence the Blog…If I wanted to share some of these details with you, I could put it on my blog, and tell you to go read it. I don’t really think it’s any of your business, and furthermore, I don’t think you REALLY care, you are only trying to stop and bother me in an attempt to prevent yourself from having to do what you actually came here for- WORK!

Pet Peeves seem especially prevalent on days like these.

WHY am I the only person that knows how to put paper in the copy machine? It has 2 drawers- one goes 8 ½ x 11, and the other 11 x 8 ½. Now I will admit that I am a little more OCD than most. AND the copier will change your 8 ½ x 11 copy to the size paper that is in the machine. BUT- It takes its’ sweet time doing so. So you go to make copies and suddenly it’s taking like 30 seconds a copy cause some other idiot couldn’t open the drawer and fill it with paper (Yes, I know I’m seriously OCD. It’s okay, I accept it)

AND

This voicemail system we have- if you get a message that does not belong to you, you can send it to someone else. You are given the option to record a message in front of the message you are sending to the person, which is all fine and dandy. BUT- if you get a message that belongs to me, you do not need to record an introduction telling me that: you got a message that did not belong you you (duh); You are sending it to me (also duh), who it is, why they are calling, and what their phone number is. NEWSFLASH!!! I AM GOING TO GET ALL OF THAT INFORMATION WHEN I GET THE MESSAGE! So just send it, when I get it, I will know who it is, why they are calling, and what their phone number is, and my phone also tells me that YOU WERE THE ONE that sent it to me!!!

UGH. So Happy Monday. Or Wednesday.

Whatever. Is it over yet?

Facebook changed my life- Really!

A few months ago, I had gotten to a point in my life where I felt like nobody really "got" me. I have a very specific point of view. I realize that. But, I was surrounded by people that did not appreciate how out spoken I was about the things I felt strongly about. Next comes facebook. Through facebook, I have reconnected with some people from my past, the people who were my best of best friends. And talking with them, I realized that there ARE people who get me! After 23 years, I was able to pick up and chat the night away with my best friend form 3rd grade! Emails and chats miles away from another friend revealed painful moments in our pasts that we could both understand about each other- feelings that had previously been undescribable. The words flow freely with these people I have had real connections with. For me, it was like a huge weight was lifted, and I see the world in a whole new light. There ARE people who get me. I need to find more of those people to surround myself with, instead of trying to make myself someone I am not for people that can't connect with me.