One of the things that bother us here in Florida is that church services are late. While we can go to a 5:30 p.m. Saturday service, the Sunday service does not start until 10:00. We are used to 7:45 a.m. services in Wisconsin, so 10:00 a.m. feels almost like mid-day. However, since today is Easter, church held a "sunrise" service at 7:00 a.m. We figured our little church would be packed since a pancake/ sausage/ fresh fruit/ eggs/ etc. breakfast followed at 8:15. Boy, were we wrong! We probably only had 25 people in total at the service; the place was practically empty. I guess the reason church holds later services is because the older folks down here do not want to get up early. I'll bet more show for the breakfast and then go to the services afterward today. That somewhat surprises me. If I were having family over to celebrate, I would want to go early and have time to prepare for guests; however, like us, many people have children and grandchildren elsewhere, so I guess they have no one to rush home for. We also know that many of the people in the congregation are Snowbirds like us, so they have already departed for homes in the north. We are glad to be home in Gladys now so we can Facetime with our children and grandchild when they roll out of bed (Central Time) and call.
We did not accomplish a great deal yesterday, but that is OK. We still are on track to finish the house before we go home in a few weeks, and that is all that matters. When we bought the house, we noticed a 20 amp outlet in the wall next to the Florida room door. The electricity to the outlet was run through conduit on the outside of the house. We still do not know if the outlet was added later to run medical equipment or if it was used for something like an aquarium. The placement of the outlet seems odd; the location is not centralized, and the dedicated line seems to be in an awkward position.
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| Rick works at removing the conduit from the wall outside the Florida Room |
At any rate, when we updated the electricity almost three years ago, the electrician cut the line and left it dead. The conduit outside was an eyesore, and the awkwardly placed outlet inside was not attractive nor necessary either.
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| This corner, which someday may be inside a lanai, will look much cleaner once the patches are painted and blend in with the rest of the wall. |
Yesterday, Rick took care of that problem by removing the conduit and wire on the outside, by plugging the hole in the soffit where the wire fed into the house, and by patching the hold left in the wall on the inside when he removed the outlet box. A second coat of spackling on the wall today should fully erase yet another scar that we removed from Gladys' exterior and interior. Like the long-gone and forgotten air conditioner that used to hang through the dining room wall, this outlet, too, will just be another little secret that Gladys will hide under a good coat of plaster and paint.
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| A second coat of spackling, when dry, will soon hide any evidence that an outlet used to be in the wall. |
Rick continues to investigate how to add a sprinkler system next year so we can hook up to the reclaimed water in the neighborhood. The more we learn, the more reasonable the whole proposition sounds. We have to make provisions now, though, so that any pipes we want to put into the yard are accounted for before we do any pavers or cement work. That means preliminary plans for the landscape also.
While I am not about to commit to a total landscape plan in the backyard, we can somewhat commit to an additional tree centered between the two oaks that shade our backyard, and two or three replacement trees in the front yard. We probably are going to remove the large palm tree that is planted too near to the house. I would like to plant new palms in the front yard along with a Florida elm to replace the dying bottle brush tree. Additionally, I have started to plan the front flower gardens.
Replacing our mailbox next year is a priority. The post that holds it is almost eaten through with termite damage and damage from our lawn service. Mike, the man who trims, edges, and power-blows the clippings, is a bit overzealous with his string trimmer. He has almost cut through the bottom of the mailbox pole! I would like to put in a new pole and then make a small flower garden around it just to keep the trimmer away from the new mailbox structure.
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| Colored-pencil sketches outline preliminary plans for flowers and shrubs for next year. |
To that end, I have started to plan the rest of the front gardens. Planning landscape here in Florida is fun because I have a whole new set of plants with which to play. Rick laughs at me because I always try to sketch out what a garden may look like. I want to keep the look tropical, so I plan to use red or pink hibiscus, blue plumbago, orange/green/yellow/red leaf crotons, yellow and green-striped ginger, various grasses, green and yellow ?? (I see the bushes all over, but I don't know what they are called!), green Fortune's Mahonia (which look like little palm trees), yellow bush allamanda, red pentas, and red Ti plants.
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| My "blueprint" for front gardens will help me when I actually go to a nursery to start selecting plants. |
Of course, once I get to the nursery or better define my gardens, some of my plans will undoubtedly change. For right now, though, dreaming and planning costs nothing.
We are to the point where we are starting to wind down on what we want to accomplish yet before we travel north. I am content to finish the painting and soffits. That way, we will leave Gladys looking bright and new, and she will be a welcome sight when we return in the fall.
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