The old legs are really giving me fits and now the hips have joined into the mix. My old bones and joints sing up a storm every morning at me. Oh the joys of getting old!! LOL I do keep up with the exercises taught me by the therapists. My number of visits have been met so from now on it is up to me to keep things moving and grooving. I try my best and my daughter says that I am pushing myself too much. I know she is right but I fear the alternative if I don't.

  Since I last wrote I have an amazing experience to share with you. 

For quite a while I have participated in doing surveys for NPDOR and at the end of each survey there is a little game that gets you points that you can use for prize drawings. I never have very many points but I plop them down on whatever prize catches my eye at any given time. 

Well about 2 weeks ago I got an email from NPDOR telling me that I had been picked as a winner. I was dumbfounded. Since Bill had taken all 4 printers we used to have here in Florida up to "his" place in Michigan; I had my son download the tax form and the affidavit and print them up for me and mail them here to me. I took them to my bank and had them notarized and sent off. Just 10 days later I had this big truck stop at my house and CEVA from Miami brought into the house and unpacked and set up a 42 inch plasma HDTV.... What a wonderful prize. 

Bill (when he had decided to stay in Michigan, unbeknownst to me... 

for he lied when I asked him why he was packing up everything and he claimed to protect the best things we had from hurricanes) took the only good 32 inch. TV that was here in the house leaving me with no TV in the living room and a small black and white in the kitchen and a 19 inch color tv for my bedroom. This new TV is so beautiful and I keep pinching myself to make sure it isn't a dream. Now when the old legs must be propped up above my heart level I can have entertainment that I can really see and enjoy. What a blessing for sure.

  Yesterday I declared my back yard a hard hat zone. There is an ad on TV for toilet paper that when a roll of it is tossed to a guy by his gal it is so hard it actually shaves a swath of hair as it grazes the side of his head. Well I am out in the backyard watering my plants and feeding the fish when a small melon sized mango comes down and grazes by my head. It is now peak mango season for my tree and those big juicy peach flavored sweet treats are pounding down to the ground like bombs during WWII. I found a bike helmet in the garage and from now on for the next 2 or 3 weeks I am going to make sure I am wearing it when in the back yard. I must have given away over 5 bushels of mangos now and the freezer is just crammed with frozen peeled and sliced mango pieces. Of course I am getting my fill each day while working to freeze as much as I can for winter enjoyment. This is the first summer since Whilma hit us that I have been here to experience the mango season. I also got a chance to eat 2 pineapples that ripened right on the plant before I ate them. What a big difference in flavor to have one of those that are plant ripened compared to those that come into the grocery store green and have to wait to ripen off the plant. Of course the tops of the pineapples I ate are now planted and in 2 years will be giving pineapples of their own. What a wonderful fruitful circle.

  Sorry to hear how dry you are. It is the same here. If I didn't get out in the garden every day and make sure the plants get a drink, all would be dead by now. It is supposed to be our rainy season but the only rain we have had right here is the 2 inches that Bonnie dumped on us when it crossed florida just about 20 miles south of here. Not much of a storm to say the least. Just steady 42MPH winds here and the 2 inches of rain and since then dry as a bone and hot. In the upper 80's and low 90's every day now. UGH!!! Feels like a steam bath out there. 

Within less that 5 minutes your eyes begin stinging from the sweat running into them. Stepping back into the house, whose air conditioning is set at 82 during the day and 80 at night, feels like such a relief. Hard to believe but all is relative to the humidity and heat outside.