Fall has arrived!

ok... So I left off at our arrival at my brothers. It was sooo good to be somewhere that was familiar to me. I hadn't seen my brother and his family since when they came to Maine way back in 2004. Before that I hadn't seen him since we left Florida to move back to Maine in 1999.
His kids have grown up so much! Between getting older and growing really tall it was hard to believe these were the same little kids I had seen a few years back!
So we settled in and as I said my brother wanted to take us out to eat. I love him for that as he is very thoughtful that way. But we said nope that we were tired and just wanted to rest. So we ended up having pizza delivered to the house.
The kids wanted to go swimming but I chose not too. I was to tired. My brother has a very nice pool which is of course heated. Most pools down there are heated and inside screened in areas. His pool has salt water in it so it's a little different then a Maine pool.

A few days after settling in we decided it was time to explore the area and see what else had changed since we left. The first place we went to was our old house. I was surprised to see it was still there. The trees around it had grown up a lot and some of the fruit trees were cut down. The place looked like it had gone downhill over the years. I missed living there and the way it was when we had it.

The next day we decided to take a ride over to HoneyMoon Island. It is a wonderful state park that has the pretties beaches and seashells up the butt! One of there beaches is all seashells. You can walk and find seashells of all different sizes and colors. We spent the whole day walking the beach and having some good family time. We were suppose to take Hunter with us but things got turned around and he didn't get to go. So we decided to go back over there in Chrismas Eve and take him with us.

The next day we met up with Monica and the kids at DownTown Disney. We spent a couple hours with them walking around and seeing the sights. Some things had stayed the same since I had been there and other things had changed. One area the kids wanted to check out was Lego Land. When I use to work at Disney I worked the Noon to 9 shift. Upon getting out of work myself and a couple of friends use to go over to Downtown Disney and hang out. We would go over to Pleasure Island and watch a movie or go over to Lego Land and play with the Lego's and see what we could build. Back then Lego land was a lot different then it is today. Back then it was all outside and they had the bigger lego's. You could sit there and really build with them. Upon going this time it was a little bit of a disappointment. Lego land had changed. No longer were there bigger legos, they had the smaller ones and there weren't that many to a work station. They did have an area where the kids could build a lego car and race it down a little slope. That was cool as Ash helped Sage, Rachel, and Hunter build there and we watched as they raced them down the little hill. Logan decided he didn't want to be part of it. He still is very shy and there were a lot of people there. I was surprised to see that they still had the lego sea dragon in the water area. They had also built so many more. Inside the lego store was pretty cool. They had all the different lego sets for sale. Anything from pirate sets to starwars vehicles. One wall towards the back of the store was all individual legos. They had about every color you could think of and every type you could think of. There was flower lego's, wheels for building cars, Fence legos and all other kinds. We filled up a large cup almost like a large soda cup of different legos. That way Logan has a better variety. Back here in Maine you can't find some of those legos unless you but them in some sort of set and you are going to pay a lot of money for that.
After Downtown Disney we decided to follow Monica back to her place and have lunch. It was nice to be able to sit down and have some time with her and the kids. We made plans that Ash would spend the night there so Monica followed us back to Paul's to get Ashleys stuff. We visited for a little bit at Paul's then she had to get going to get Andy from work. We agreed to meet that Morning and pick up Hunter and Ash and head over to HoneyMoon Island.

Hunter had a blast over there. He loved picking up seashells and putting them into his bucket. He found a dead crab that was still whole. He tried to put that in the bucket and bring it home but I told him that Mom probably wouldn't be to happy with that and that it would stink. So he threw it back into the water. He found some really big shells that he liked the ends of as they were a bluish green color and had like a rainbow effect if you held them a certain way. He found many of those and broke the ends off to bring home. We ended up building a sandcastle and he had a blast with that. We had lunch at one of the lunch areas in the park. Then played on the playground there. He had a blast!
It was a good family day over there. I really recommend HoneyMoon Island as it's a very nice place and quite affordable. It only cost $5.00 a car to get in and they have everything right there that you might need. They have a food area too where you can buy hamburgers, hot dogs, whatever you want. They also have a beach area for the dogs. So that's nice too. How many kids get to go to the beach on Christmas eve! We all had a good time.

A couple days later we ended up going over to Christmas(Christmas is the name of an actual town in Florida.) We went over and saw Chris's old boss Jerry. Chris talked to him for about an hour. He offered Chris a job again. Chris told him that we are just visiting. Jerry told him to think about it and if he decides to come back down there to let him know and he would hire him back.

Tammy and the kids left the day after Christmas for North Carolina. Her parents have a place over there and they always go over for a few days after Christmas. Paul decided to stay home as it's his own time to do his own things. Usually it involves a get together with his buddies and catching a basketball game. So we got to spend a quiet dad sitting around the pool and swimming. Paul ended up taking us out to dinner to eat. We went to Outback. The food was really good! Paul got Chris good as he told the waiter that it was Chris's birthday. So the waiter and some of the servers came out and sang happy birthday to Chris. LOL!!! It was hilarious! Paul is known for doing things like that.

The next day we set out for Panama City Beach to see my parents. That is a 6 hour drive as it's up on the panhandle of Florida.


To be continued......

December was a very eventful month for us. Chris made the decision that since he was unemployed that it would be a good time for us to do a family vacation. The place we picked was of course Florida! He had earned a little bit of money helping out on a farm that he was trying to get a full time job at so we were going to use that money for our travel money to get down there and back. Gas prices had dropped so the issue of gas money wasn't that big of an issue anymore. Next we had to find us a house sitter as I have a dog, cat, fish and gerbils.
I sent a message off to my niece and asked her if she wouldn't mind house sitting for us and taking care of the animals. I figured it would give her a break from being at home with her parents. She is all out of school and has been for a couple of years now so I figured she was responsible enough.

We had made plans to leave on the 19th. We figured we would leave Friday after the kids got out of school. On the 18th our plans changed however as there was a storm coming in and it was suppose to hit New York, Connecticut and Massachuetts really hard. So we called Gina and told her that we were leaving that night. So we left instuctions with her on what to do. We left the house at 8:30pm. We stopped down to Waterville to grab some food for the ride.

We were making pretty good time as we headed out through Maine, New Hampshire and into Massachuetts. In Mass we stopped to top the tank off. We had one of our first bad encounters. A tractor trailer was beside us and he was moving along pretty good. He came up on a car and decided to come into our lane. He either didn't look or he just didn't see us. We had to lock the brakes up and go into the break down lane so he wouldn't run us over. That started a series of events of something or someone not wanting us to make it to Florida. At least that is how I feel. The next time we had another experience was again with a trator trailer in either Mass or New York and this time it was huge chunks of ice coming off his trailor as he was beside us. One chunk that I will say was at least 5 feet in length came down and hit us in the windshield. It's a miracle that the windshield didn't break. Then no soon as that one hit us another two came off his trailor and hit us on the cars roof. I could have sworn that it sounded like it was caving my roof in. Luckily there was no damage.
The next event came when we were on the New Jersey turnpike. We were driving and heard this bang noise. It almost sounded like some of the soda we had brought with us falling over in the trunk. We didn't think to much of this. Well about 15 minutes later we could hear this weird noise. Kind of like when tires run over bridges and it gives that thumping noise. It kept getting louder and louder. Chris felt the steering wheel and it didn't feel any different. With a flat tire you usually can feel the vibration and pull and there was none of that. We were coming up on an exit and Chris asked me if we should get off and take a look at the car or if we should continue on. I saw that the next exit was 22 miles so I told him to pull over. We went to pull off the turnpike and Chris stopped the car on the exit ramp. Got out and looked and the back left tire he said felt like mush. There was very little air in it. And just standing there talking the tire went totally flat. It was a miracle that we didn't ruin the rim. So we commenced to taking the flat tire off and putting on the spare dummy tire. What a pain in the ass as we had to unpack the trunk and put all our food, clothes, and other items on the side of the exit ramp. NOT FUN!! Let me just add too that it is 4:25 am!
So of course no tire place is going to be opened this early. And since we have the little dummy tire we can't continue to travel on.

Well the first thing is never get off on exit 10 and expect to get help. First of all no one spoke good english. Second they didn't know where any walmarts where. Now you would think that this being New Jersey that there was be actual New Jersey people there. NOPE! Everyone that we saw were either Labenese or Muslim. We ended up driving around and finally found a girl who thought she knew of a walmart and how to get to it. Problem is was that no one knew when this walmart opened either. So we set out to find this walmart with very shitty directions. We finally see it and start to go towards it but are in the wrong lane. We go to what we think will bring us around and it ends up putting us back on the turnpike. GREAT!! Here we are with a dummy tire and now we are back on a 65mph road. NOT GOOD! So we finally find a place to get off. Mind you we have to pay another toll as every exit is a toll. So we had to pay to get off the turnpike for the flat then pay to get on it cause were lost then pay to get back off of it cause we need to try and make our way back to the walmart.
Well that was a joke! We are so far out of the way no we have no clue. This one person tells us that a business down the road can do it. So we pull in to this business around 6am. The place doesn't open till 8. We sit for a half hour and realize that this place is a brake place and doesn't do tires. GREAT AGAIN! So we leave and try to find a gas station to ask someone if they know of a walmart or a tire place. Once again no one speaks english! HELLO PEOPLE!!!!! If your going to live in my country then learn to speak MY language!!! UNREAL! So at this point Chris has had enough. Everytime he ask someone the question no one knows anything and he is getting more and more discouraged. So he tells me to do the next place. I get out and sure enough you could tell that they weren't americans. Another set of Lebanese. I tried my best to explain that we needed to find a walmart or a tire place. He just couldn't seem to understand me. I told him that I had a "Little" tire and needed a "big" tire. Hoping that perhaps he might understand that. Well he wanted to see the car so we walked out and he's like "ohhhh you have little tire... need big tire...can't run on little one." I was like DUH!!!!!! LMAO!!! So he had to talk to his boss. His boss came over and more talk started about the little tire. Then his boss said that we could stay there in the parking lot till the garage across the street opened and then he could probably help us over there. These people were nice enough so don't get me wrong on that. But to understand what I was trying to say was just unreal.
So we went over to the garage and decided to wait over there. Well 8am came and nobody showed up. Another 15 minutes went by and still no-one. We couldn't continue to sit there and to tell ya the truth I had to pee!!! VERY badly! So I looked at Chris and said this is stupid. We are losing time here. So we decided to try yet again and headed out and down the road. We came upon another gas station and this one had an actual american working at it! LOL! We asked the guy for a walmart or a tire place and he told us that there was a pep boys up the road about 6 lights up. THANK YOU!!! So we headed up the road and sure enough there it was.

So we take the tire in and tell the guy we need it replaced. He ask us if we want a used tire. We are like NO as we are traveling and have more to do. He says ok and gets the tires measurements and starts to look up the info on the computer. This man cannot tye. He is a one finger on this key then the same finger on another key while he trys to find the next key. I can tell we are going to be here for awhile. So he finally after 5 minutes finds the tires. He tells us that he was a 60,000 mile tire and it cost blah blah blah and with the New Jersey tax that is blah blah blah and to mount and balance that is blah blah blah... he goes on and on. Chris then makes the mistake of asking him what the other tire is... BIG MISTAKE! he has to put the info in all again and that one is an 80,000 mile tire and cost blah blah and with the new jersey tax cost blah blah and with the blah blah blah... OMG!!! So finally after 15 minutes of that we tell him we'll take the 80,000 one. SO then he has to get all our information. Well that takes another 10 minutes. They finally come and get the tire and go to put the new one on. We are thinking Sweet! 5 minute job then balance it and we can be out of here in 10 minutes. WRONG!!! The guy brings it in and pops the old tire off. He comes out and gets the new tire and brings it back in there. Sprays it down and pops it on. He then walks away leaving it. 10 minutes later he finally comes back. Then starts to shoot the shit with one of his co workers. COME ON PEOPLE! Finally 20 minutes has gone by and he takes the tire to spin balance it. Well we go to the checkout to pay and it's the same man who types with one finger. He has to enter all our information again. So we stand there for another 10 minutes waiting to check out. Finally 9:30am we are in the road again. We just start back out on the turnpike and the weather has turned shitty. We are driving into freezing rain. The traffic has slowed right down and it's very slick and scary watching these people pile up on one anothers back bumpers. We stay back somewhat as we don't want to get in the middle of a smash up. We lost some serious time now. So we finally enter into Delaware and are getting out of the freezing rain as it's changing over to normal rain.
So things go pretty good until we get into Virgina. It's still misting somewhat. This car in front of us suddenly decides to spit it's radiator. This sets off a white cloud of steam in front of us kind of like being in a white out. We have to lock the brakes up as there is no visability now. Finally we come out of the white steam cloud. Things start to turn around and go pretty good from there on. Yes, we had the usual back up of traffic cause people get in the left lane and decide to take their time and do at least 10 to 15 mph under the speed limit. Well we finally get into North Carolina around 7:45pm. We are exhausted. We pick up a coupon book at the welcome center and decide to stay at this motel a little distance down the road. Well it's now 8:30 and we can't drive anymore as Chris's back is killing him. So we stop at our motel and check in. We get into our room and it's not bad looking. Upon going into the bathroom well that is another story. Half of the ceiling above the tub is covered in mold. NASTY mold! We are so exhausted at this point having been up for over 36 hours with no sleep that we decide to stay there and just keep the bathroom door shut. Chris and Ashley decide to venture out to get food as there is a burger king down the road. Let me give you all a warning. In the southern states do not expect to go and get your food quickly. NOPE try more like 20 minutes waiting for your order. So needless to say we finally ate then went to bed. We decided to leave around 6am. Upon leaving we noticed that there was no fire hose either in the fire hose case. NO WAY WILL I EVER stay in a hotel again run by these people. Stay away from SUPER 9's.

So we get going on the road and about South Carolina Chris notices what looks like snow on the side of the road. Upon looking at it closer it's chicken feathers. It isn't just a few but like someone filled a pillow up with them and just decided to shake it up and down the side of the road. Upon traveling a few miles it didn't let up at all. That's when we noticed our first dead chicken on the side of the road. This was followed by at least 8 more. We figured someone had a chicken truck and these guys must have gotten out of the cage and sadly flew to their deaths.

We finally arrived in Florida. Hooray was I happy to be back!! Around 5pm we were only a few miles from my brothers house. Talk about changes in the area. Holy cow!! I couldn't believe how much everything had grown up. Now I am not a big fan of change so it was hard for me to see what this new Clermont looked like. I felt lost somewhat.
Needless to say I was happy to see my brothers house. It looked the same as when we left minus a few palm trees.

We ended up going inside and my brother wanted to take us out to eat. I had enough of traveling and wanted to just sit and relax so we settled on Pizza being delivered. The one good thing about where he lives is that just about everything can be delivered to you.

To be continued......

Since my last post was back around Halloween I guess I have a lot of updating to do! I really mean to post more but sometimes things just get put off to the side for a later date and somehow end up lost in the busy day to day shuffle.

We had a wonderful thanksgiving. Though we did end up having it about a week early. We weren't sure what to do as money was very tight. Chris was layed off from his job and there was no money coming in besides unemployment which let me tell you isn't hardly anything at all. Chris and the kids would ask me what we were going to do and I kept telling them that if it was meant for us to have a turkey dinner then a way would present itself.

Well a way did present itself. We were sitting around the house and heard the doorbell ring. Ash answered the door and it was the Madison Fire Auxillery with a Turkey Basket for us. What a blessing that was! The only bad thing about it was that the turkey was mostly unthawed and the blood had gotten onto the bottom of the box and onto the carrots and potatoes. So we made the decision to cook it that day. It was wonderful! Nice and juicy!

Then we ended up being twiced blessed as Chris ended up working the next day for Rick for a couple hours, and when he went to leave inside our car he found a turkey in the drivers seat. Ricks wife has stopped and left us and another worker a turkey. So that was another blessing!

We finished putting in the last window upstairs. So now the upstairs is totally finished as far as windows go. If I ever get the energy I might tackle the sanding in the last room. That thing is taking forever to get done. I blame it on Chris as I wanted to do it way back last year and he made me wait. See what happens when I wait LOL!!

I was waiting on grades and Ashley failed her English again. I knew it was coming. She doesn't hand in papers when they are due and she never brings her homework home to do. She just doesn't have the ambition to deal with school and her teachers.

So that's it anyway for this blog!

Later days!

Halloween has now come and gone. The kids had a pretty good time of it. Logan ended up dressing up as a carpenters helper. He wanted to be Link from "Legend of Zelda" but I just didn't have the time to make him a costume. Chris came through for me and gave Logan his tool belt to wear. He loaded him up with tools such as electrical wire, scissors, level, t-square, screw drivers, mallet, hammer and other goodies to go into it. Chris brought out his knees pads and adjusted them so Logan could wear those as well. Next came the hat with safety goggles and to top it off a dust mask. He was quite the handsome carpenter! It just goes to show you that you don't have to spend money on oufits. There is always something around the house that will work just fine!
Ashley dressed up in the pirate outfit that I made her. She walked Logan around for a bit. People felt for her and gave her candy as well! lol...
We ended up coming home by 7:30 so she could go with Arthur to a party his old youth group leaders were having. It was a pretty good night and the kids had a good time.

We have been busy trying to winterize the house. We went out and bought 4 more new windows. Three of them are now in. We had to rent staging as they were all going up on the second floor. We have one more to do and all the windows upstairs will have been replaced. We should see a huge difference in the temp in the house. Last winter we had a couple windows done in two of the rooms and you could feel the difference in there immediatly.
All that is left now to do is to put in the bedroom doors and get the last room ready for painting. I will be glad when it's all done up there.
I think the next project we might tackle is the cellar windows and redoing the water lines in the basement. We will leave the first floor for last.

I am feeling a lot better now. I still have a cough every once in a while but at least now I can talk without hacking up my lungs. I would say that I was about 75 to 80% better. I am trying to avoid people as I don't want to come down sick again. One cough or sneeze is all that I need to come down sick again.

Chris is still jobless. Rick doesn't have any work and hasn't called for him in two weeks. We took the dump truck back down to Skowhegan as we really don't need it sitting here.

School grades have now closed so I am waiting to see what the results of this quarter are going to be. I am not worried about Logans grades but I am about Ashleys. This is her senior year and she has to pass. It is more critical now then ever.

Monica and I are creating a new blog. It will be for our favorite recipes. I have one that she can never remember the recipe for. I have given it to her like 5 times now at least! LOL!!! I figure this way we can put all our favorites on line for easy access and to share with our friends and loved ones. The url for it is http://mondikitchen.blogspot.com/

I believe that is all the news for now!
Cheers,
Di

Well I am finally starting to feel better. All in all I would say I was about 25% better. Each day brings a little less of the coughing. I still go into spells where I cough so bad that everything comes back up.

After talking with Chris and with Dad I decided not to go back to work. I was suppose to start today but I still am not well enough to talk on the phone with customers. I start talking and go right into a coughing fit. I can't be doing that on the phone with people.
So I guess this is someones way of letting me know that I am not suppose to work right now. At least not for LL Bean.

Most of you know that Chris is once again layed off. He has been doing work for Rick on and off. Rick hasn't called at all this week so that tends to tell us that there is nothing still going on. The dump truck has been sitting in the driveway and if he isn't going to call then we are thinking about taking it back down to skowhegan and letting it sit down there. We could use the driveway space that it takes up.

The weather hasn't been that great so we haven't been able to put the windows in. Tomorrow it is suppose to be better so we are looking at going down and getting some staging tomorrow and beginning then. Friday is suppose to be good also so we will have plently of time to get it done. Saturday is Chris's hunting day so nothing will get done Saturday morning.

I have an appointment in a couple hours. Have to go down and sign up for Heat Assistance. I figure it wouldn't hurt to try and get it. I don't see why we wouldn't qualify now. I haven't been able to get it for the last 6 years as we made too much money. Funny how things turn around.

Logan still hasn't decided what to wear yet for Halloween. He needs to hurry up and get his butt in gear! Ash wants to go to a school Halloween party. It starts at 8pm Halloween Night. So she would have plenty of time to go around with Logan and then head over there.

Mom & Dad made it safely to Florida. That made us all feel better as dad has been so sick lately. The warm air will be good for him down there.

My anniversary is quickly approaching. There are no plans for it so far. Last year I had to work on it so I was kind of disappointed.

That's it for now!
Ciao