First, the plans. We have been waiting almost six weeks for our address plaque to arrive. Finally, it did! We are pleased with the results because the plaque is VERY heavy, is well-made, and the background is almost identical to the green on our front doors. We cannot wait to put it up, but we must have patience because we still have to finish the soffits on the front of the house before we can add anything else to Gladys' "face."
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| Although fairly plain, this address plaque will finally let everyone know Gladys' number. |
Soffits were first on our agenda today. While Rick put a second coat of paint on the north bedroom wall, I started to scrape the front soffits. Not fun, and definitely too much work for me to do all in one day. Actually, my doctor would have a coronary if he knew I was doing as much as I am, but I cannot sit around and watch Rick work all day either.
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| The soffits need a lot of scraping, patching, and paint before they look good. |
The front wall turned out well, but the soffits promise to be a lot of work. We could not scrape soffits too close to the fresh paint, so at a certain point we ceased work on the front of the house and moved to the back. Actually, we wanted to take the paint off the north side of the house next, but our neighbor was sitting in his back yard sanding paint off of an antique bench. (I know. Removing paint from an antique is not a good idea, but to each his own.) Since the wind was coming from the south, we were afraid that if we started to blow paint off the wall, we would be blowing both water and paint chips onto his newly sanded work. Doing that would not make us good neighbors, so we moved on to the back of the house.
Rick worked too hard and too long, but by mid-afternoon he had as much paint as was going to come off removed from the guest bedroom wall and the south side of the Florida Room. Rick came into the house through the garage, jumped into the shower, and left his wet clothes for me to deal with. I have long preached the benefits of simplicity, and Gladys came through with a simple solution once again.
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| The paint came off, but it was slow-going, coming off inch-by-inch. |
Many of our belongings here came from our camper, and my non-electric clothes drying system is a part of our camping past. The rack in the picture is one that we used to prop up in the tiny camper bathtub when drying clothes outside was impossible. Rick's socks and jeans were soaked, so they had the opportunity to bask in the Florida sunshine. Simple, free, and effective. After his shower and a change of clothes, Rick came back outside to sit for a few moments in the back yard.
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| Sometimes, simple is best... and free! |
Then I came into the house through the Florida Room, and my heart almost stopped. A pool of water was seeping out from under the low cabinets on the south wall of the Florida Room, and a second stream of water came from the living room corner, past the palm tree, under the new couch, and onto my new rug! Argh!!! As Rick power-washed the walls, Gladys peed! One step forward, and two steps back. I yelled for Rick to come in and help, and the two of us spent the next 45 minutes moving furniture, sopping up water with old towels, and flipping the rug so it would dry. Rick put the AC up to remove moisture in the house, so now we are in the "drying out" stage.
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| Water seeps into the Florida Room from a tiny opening in the concrete wall. |
Since our house was in total disarray, Rick suggested fish and chips at our favorite restaurant next to the bike trail downtown. While we have had wonderful meals there in the past, fish and chips are not their specialty. The fish were greasy, tasteless, and definitely overpriced. I ordered a "half order" and received half the food. That was fine (especially since it was not that good), but we were charged only two dollars less (rather than half price) for my entree. I have had better fish from a fast-food restaurant, and the food was definitely more reasonably priced elsewhere.
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| Our new rug needs fans to help it dry. Ugh! |
However, we learned from the waiter, much to our delight, that Dunedin was holding a parade through downtown to kick off the annual Highland Games festival. Dunedin, as the name implies, is a very Scottish town, and they are very proud of their heritage. This year, for the first time, they decided to have a bagpipe band parade. Bagpipers from New York, Georgia, and area communities all gathered to pipe and drum their way through our fair city. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole spectacle of the parade even though it was not very long.
So we have had an interesting day. Plans, progress, pools of water, and pipes. Where else but in Florida would we experience this kind of life?
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