Crazy World

God watered my little mailbox flower garden for me last night.  We went to bed listening to pounding rain and thunder as lightening strobed across the sky.  Being from the Midwest, I am not used to thunderstorms in January; the one last night was a good one!  At least we do not have to shovel rain, unlike the poor folks all up the Eastern seaboard who are getting pelted today with 6 to 10 inches of snow.  Another storm is forming across the Great Lakes, so I think that Stephanie will see snow from that front before it, too, races toward the East coast.  Ah, winter!  I am glad that I am where I am.

Lush palm trees offer shade at the Marina.

Yesterday afternoon Rick and I took a short drive down to the Marina just to get out for a while.  We sat on one of the benches and watched the palm trees sway in the ever-increasing winds ( a preview of our 25 - 30 mile per hour winds today).  The air was warm and the sun was welcoming.  I have attached two pictures: the first is of the palm trees right above us, and the other is of a tree with St. Joseph Sound in the background.  I will take this over snow anytime.

Storm clouds from the west foretell of coming storms
behind the pines at the Marina.

Today started with a fun Facetime call from Owen who was thoroughly enjoying his breakfast.  He is growing so big that Chris will soon have to take a second job just to feed the child!  We miss them all terribly and wish they could visit.  We are looking forward to seeing Stephanie in a few weeks.  I hope the weather holds out and that she can spend some time relaxing for a while.

Rick's next project is skim-coating the garage walls and painting them.  We went to the paint store yesterday to get some more Lemon Ice to put on the walls.  He started with the back and side walls since we have too much junk in the garage for him to do more than two walls at a time.  We both really wish we had the money to put up a shed, but that probably will not happen until next year.  Maybe we need to start to buy Lottery tickets. (Sadly, statistics show that Floridians are one of the highest purchasers of tickets but that they have one of the lowest winning rates.  Go figure.)

Rick sands the plaster before he adds paint.

Temperatures cooled after lunch, so a sweatshirt
helps him keep warm as he paints the wall.

Today he finished painting the back wall and is currently working on the side wall.  There is not enough room for me to work with him, so I gladly am staying out of his way.  Our goal is to finally get the garage organized enough so we can get both bikes down and actually ride them again.  We want to do that before it gets too hot outside (generally by mid-March) to ride comfortably.

Our crazy clock won't hang straight.

Yesterday the mailman delivered the wall clock that we wanted for the Florida room.  The old clock was ancient and finally gave up telling accurate time.  We debated on whether we should keep the new clock, though, after we hung it.  As you can see by the picture, the bezel is not in the frame straight.  When you look at the clock, the whole frame is off kilter to the right.  If the frame is hung straight, then the clock face is crooked.  At first glance, the clock makes me dizzy; however, we have decided to keep it.  Perhaps we are still under the influence of our visit to the Dali museum.  If he can have a melting clock, we can have one that's a little off balance.  It perhaps reflects the current state of this crazy world.