I have accidentally discovered something wonderful and I want to share this wonderfulness with you!    The rainbow of socks you see here at the top of the page isn't just cute (and they are very cute) and they aren't just normal utilitarian socks, nope they are special socks.  Behold, I give you Compression Socks!

Compression Socks?  I hear you scoffing at me.  Like old person socks? Circulatory Problem socks? Medical issues socks?  Big Fat Hairy Deal, I hear you say.  And I know that's what you are saying because up until a couple of weeks ago, that is also what I would have said.

It began, as I said, a few weeks ago when I finally (FINALLY) got the okey dokey from my foot doctor to "slowly transition" from boot to shoe, which of course I translated as just wear your regular shoes. Sort of.  I did also agree to always wear the recommended orthotic in my shoes and since the orthotic only fits in one of pairs of shoes, I am, at the moment, wearing the same pair of shoes every single day no matter the occasion, circumstance or what the rest of the outfit looks like.  AND I also agreed to try to never, or at least almost never, go barefoot for the rest of my life. sigh.    This is by way of compromise, in my mind at least, with the doctor's instructions.

Me, wearing my one pair of regular shoes that the orthotic fits in. Nice to be in regular shoes once again though!!
​

For the past, I don't even remember for sure, many months I'd been clomping around in an orthopedic boot after carefully wrapping both feet with compression bandages. Every Dang Day I had to go through the ceremony of finding the correct end (there is a correct end as it turns out) of the compression bandage and slowly winding it around each foot, making sure it was not too tight, not too loose, making sure it was smooth with no wrinkles (coz they can create a sore spot), somehow, magically pulling a sock on over top without dislodging the wrapping and then strapping into the "boot" . To be honest, poor Tim often found himself roped into the wrapping part as he was far more patient than I and therefore did a superior job.

Oh it felt so good to be done with that nonsense.  On the other hand, as I awkwardly limped a little through my first few days in regular shoes, I felt like something was missing.  I did a little mental inventory. What did the doctor say in his post-boot instructions again?  Orthotic plus shoe ....,check, check. Nope, I didn't miss anything he said. but by the end of the day, as I was, once again, icing my feet because  they ached so badly,  I wondered what was going on.  Was it just adapting to wearing regular shoes again? Was it still just a part of the ongoing healing process? Was it the orthotic?  

I gave it  some serious thought.  It seemed to me that the achiness was remarkably similar to how my arthritic hands feel on the bad days. Hmm I wondered, do I now have arthritis in my feet?  And then the light in my head clicked on.

Years ago now, Tim bought me a pair of compression gloves for those bad days and they are a godsend!  I now have three pair, one pink and two grey and on rainy, cold days, such as we've been having lately, I find myself wearing them A LOT!  Usually only at night, but some days (such as today as a matter of fact) I wear them all day long and  they feel so good.

So I cleverly put two and two together and came up with compression socks. What a terrific idea. I've been wearing compression bandages on my feet for months so the 'leap' to compression socks is more of a hop than a leap.   Right away I went online to look up this compression sock idea, which I already knew was a thing even though, in my memory they were just so awful looking. I know, I know, how shallow of me to be concerned with looks. So sue me.

To my tremendous relief compression socks now come in all sorts of adorable patterns and colours! Yay!  My memory (admittedly a distant memory) of compression socks was of truly ugly beige or white, hospital grade, functional, get the job done but not done pretty and while I was certain that they would do the job, I dreaded the thought of committing to a lifetime of hideous socks.

Ok, side note, something else you probably don't know about me is that I used to make it a point to wear fun socks.  For literally years I looked for Colours, prints, ruffles, lace, anything that was out of the ordinary and jazzed up what can otherwise be a very functional piece of clothing. (Are socks clothing?) In fact, people referred to them as Sam's Jazzy Socks.  I often got fun socks as gifts from people because it was something relatively inexpensive and was something associated with me.  Then I grew up, got married, had children and didn't have the time or funds to indulge in fancy footwear. Instead I started buying my socks by the bagful, all white, at Walmart. They weren't pretty but they got the job done and I stopped thinking about my old jazzy socks days.

And now life and the universe gave me an opportunity to, once again, indulge a wee bit.   Just a little.  There were some Very Expensive and far more elaborately designed compression socks online but I compromised, Fun colours at a much cheaper price.  I was not going to settle for ugly socks and that was that.  Tim had No problem with the socks and now I have an entire sock colour wardrobe to choose from ever day !  Huzzah!

That is of course, the superficial part.  The functional part is Aces! I cannot begin to tell you how much better my feet feel in these compression socks.  Where have these been all my life?  Honestly if I knew that they felt this good to wear, I would have been wearing them all my life. ALL  MY LIFE!  I think back to when I was running every day. That extra support would have felt so good while knocking out my daily miles. And then after running would have been like a little mini foot massage.  ahhhhh.  And then while racing around after toddlers?  Daily Farm Chores?   Mall Shopping?  Heck, grocery shopping on those miserable concrete floors....oooo that would have been so nice.  Hiking!  Walking around town, at work, at play, even while I'm sleeping and I'm not kidding about that either. I would never ever have thought about trying compression socks if it hadn't been for my broken foot and toes.  But now I'm wondering why nobody told me about this before! Which is why I'm telling you.

I think I have a new obsession.  I see a lifetime of cute compression socks stretching ahead of me.  And I think you would enjoy them too! Anybody who spends time on their little feets and ends up with sore, achey,  tired feet by bedtime would truly appreciate how much better they feel wearing compression socks.  Give it a thought and maybe give it a try. Let me know what you think afterwards.

Behold, the weather map from yesterday.  Looks like big time winter happened almost everywhere in the entire USA this weekend!  Well, except for Florida.  We are the holdouts.  While you guys were slipsliding all over the icey roads, losing power and bundling up to stay warm, we had an absolutely beautiful weekend of sunshine and gentle breezes and mild temps that invited everyone to spend time outside.

And I feel so dang guilty!  Which is crazy because it's not as if I created the storm that had me wincing at Traffic Cam footage and remembering snow and ice storms of my past nostalgically.  And it's funny how many years later and warm winters make huddling by a fireplace through the night because an ice storm took the electricity, teeth chattering, wearing layer upon layers of clothes, a memory that makes me smile now instead of having flashbacks.

At any rate, I know it doesn't help a bit but today, right now, it's 69 degrees and that number will decrease throughout the day. Yes our temps will plummet as the day goes by, falling like rocks til they bottom out somewhere in the 30's.  Which is not the same kind of cold that Most of you experienced, but it's very cold to us.  No snow or ice though and that is probably what makes the most difference. We don't have to shovel anything and any bad accidents on the road are strictly due to terrible drivers and not because of weather conditions.

I hope everyone out there is fine, warm and safe and if you did lose power, that it comes back quickly. I pray that the sun comes out and melts the snow and ice.  For those who got snow, I hope somebody made some snowmen in their yards. And mostly, I hope this is the only storm you get this winter!!

If anybody has a minute, please let me know how you are doing, that you are safe and warm and unbothered by the woes of winter!!  Reach out and reassure someone :) In this case, me!

Warm Hugs all 'round

Is it possible?  Could it be?  After nearly 3 long months, is this really a Photo Safari Report??

Well, it's Photo Safari-ish.  I mean, there are photos, and Joy and I were really out there in Myakka State Park but since I'm still in the boot and on activity restrictions, we didn't get out of the car.   Ok that's a lie, sorry.  I did get out of the car once, but only once and Very Very Carefully. (please don't tell my doctor!)

In truth, after me whining and complaining about being home bound and missing hiking, Joy took pity on me and suggested doing a drive-through "hike" at Myakka.  I don't think she even finish the sentence before I yelled YES!  We planned to head out bright and early, just past sunrise last Thursday.

But of course, it rained last Thursday.  Sigh.  Okay no biggie, we regrouped and pushed it off one day. Bright and early Friday morning, while the little birdies were still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, Joy and I set out, cameras in hand, eager and ready to roll.

It was 39 degrees which is brisk for Florida. Not only was the heat on in the car but the car seats were cranked up as well.  Toasty Buns!  We weren't just being big old whiney babies, we were driving around with our cameras turned on and the windows rolled down so we didn't miss any quick shots. Joy drove slowly as we scanned the forest on both sides of the road. There was hardly anyone else around, which was not a surprise at all. Who else besides us would be crazy enough to be out there that day?  

It wasn't just colder than normal for sunny Florida, it was also more than a little breezy which meant occasionally Joy and I had to roll up the windows for a few minutes until our shivering settled down and then we'd open the windows right back up. It. Was. Awesome.

Not so awesome on the other hand was that the very first thing that I managed to do was break my glasses. Dang.  I need my glasses desperately for any close-up work and looking through a camera lens is very close up. This now meant that every photo I took I would be snapping almost blind. Or at least Realllllllly Blurry. All I can do is the best I can do.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, after I got back home and looked through the shots WITH glasses on to find that there actually were a few halfway decent pictures in the lot.  Yayayay!  (I do believe I deleted a record number however. Oh well)

Let's see what we have. And please be kind, bearing in mine that nearly every shot here was taken from the open window of the car which is limiting, my hands were nearly frozen from the cold, and I couldn't see what the heck I was doing.

I'll start with some scenery and botanicals if you don't mind:

Moving on to the animal we saw the most of this trip, Deer!  There were the adorable does and fawns, as per usual but this time, for the first time, also a stag!  He was moving fast so it's a slightly burry photo but still recognizable as a male deer. He was absolutely gorgeous. Pretend the blurriness is an intentional effect to simulate movement in a still shot:

And lastly, the birds.  Not a huge variety, sadly, but birds nonetheless.  I laughed when I realized that what was probably my prettiest bird photo that day was of one of the least "pretty" birds out there, a vulture.  Oh well, for a vulture he was handsome indeed.  Here is a sampling of a few different birds:

That's it, that's all I got.  In my mind, at least, while not the best Photo Safari report ever, I was so happy to be out there once again that my delight made up for the limited photos and so-so shots.

Hope you enjoy the Photo Safari-ish Report at least half as much as I did.  (Thanks Joy!)

It occurred to me recently that, once upon a time, I actually believed that crappola about age just being a state of mind.    It's more a state of body, I think.

I will admit, however, that there are varying sorts of being old.

For example:

 There is the grouchy old curmudgeon who only remembers the good parts of "the olden days" and refuses to learn anything newfangled and grumps their way through every day. They don't much like anything or anybody and spend most of their time watching television and complaining about it. Crankysaurous the dinosaur. 

On the other extreme there is the One in Denial who eagerly embraces new technology, knows all of the current bands and has favourites (the cute one of course).  They are fluent in current slang, spontaneously have nights out dancing 'til dawn and partying like it's 1999.  They make subtle criticisms of the rest of us showing our age (as if we weren't the same age). They wear the latest fashions and still see their much younger selves when they look in the mirror.

Most of us just kind of muddle along, getting through life the best we can.  Generally we are pleasant enough but like everyone we have bad days too; a little more tired, a few more aches and pains, a lot more doctor appointments and occasionally we are a tiny bit forgetful now and again.  We are older and we know that we are but we don't dwell on it.  It is what it is.  We learn new technology though we may not be the best or the fastest at it, we still manage. We are open to new ideas but not so open that our brains fall out.  We explore new fashion but only if it hides the things we aren't such fans of.    We will listen to new music but secretly still think our own prime era of music is the best one.

The question is, when are we officially old?

Certainly not when AARP thinks we are.  Doesn't AARP stand for American Association of Retired People?  Most retirees are up there in age. And that age of retirement keeps moving up not down. And yet, AARP keeps reaching out to a younger and younger group of people which seems counter intuitive. I remember getting my first "invitation" to join AARP on my 50th birthday.  And while at 50 I was certainly no spring chicken as they say, I wasn't anywhere near to considering retirement.  In fact, as I recall, I was mortally offended that AARP felt that, at 50, I was OLD.  I did not feel old at 50.

And that's a silly thing to say because I also remember that the very first time I said out loud that I must be officially old was when my youngest child graduated high school.  I'm sure I was being intentionally silly when I said it. The last child being a college student is a huge milestone, but I certainly wasn't old by any stretch of imagination.

I think the next time I said that I was old, was at youngest child's wedding. Once again, it was a milestone reaction.  I didn't look half bad.  I have a photo around here somewhere, hang on:

I was still working full time, had lots of energy and rarely needed to visit a doctor office for anything other than an annual check up. Tim and I had loads of friends, lots of projects going on, traveled often along with our jobs, literally climbed mountains, kept up the house and yard.  A marked difference from today and yet, back then I referred to myself as "officially old". Silly me. Perhaps I was joking.

When I retired, a little bit earlier than originally intended, I still was super energetic, always embracing a new idea, walking multiple miles every day just for fun and taking care of hearth, home and husband while still qualifying to collect social security and just shy of  qualifying for Medicare. But that was also when I started to occasionally walk into a room and then wonder what I went in there for.  So I guess that was the real beginning. Just the outer edges maybe. Not truly old yet but definitely heading in that direction.  But that new milestone of being retired made me say, "I guess I'm officially old now".

The year I turned 65, Tim and the kids surprised me with a trip together and it was absolutely still the best vacation I ever had. The best.  Being 65 is kind of a big deal.  Once again, the onus of being 65 felt officially old.  This was me then with my girlies:

That's less than 10 years ago, though somehow it feels a lot longer. There's been something about the seven years since then that have made me a lot closer to being officially old. Perhaps I've already arrived and I'm just not ready to admit it yet.   Since turning 65 there has been loads more medical stuff,  a distinct slowing down that I've noticed, and I have far more patience than I used to have (which is a good thing).  There are fewer adventures happening or at least more recovery time required afterwards, definitely more walking into rooms and wondering why, absolutely more writing things down so that I don't forget, more creaking, more aching and more naps.

But there has also been a lot more confidence, way more laughing, far more consideration, grace and forgiveness going on.  I think before talking more,  I am more honest with myself as well as other people and I give far fewer opinions. I suspect that while I may be doing fewer variety of things, I am enjoying  those things a great deal more and on many more levels. 

It isn't as though my age comes up a lot, it does not.  I don't think about it all the time. In fact recently I had to stop and do the math to be sure how old I was and even then it didn't seem correct.  But it does come up now and again.

Recently, while attempting with my clumsy arthritic fingers to put on earrings, I dropped one. (earrings not fingers).  Naturally the errant earring rolled under the bed.  Dang!  I bent over to see if I could reach it, but of course not.  I had to clumsily get down lower.  Bear in mind here that we have a small bedroom and there is not a great deal of space between the bed and the closet doors. So working around my booted foot in the narrow space,  I knelt on the hard tile floor (knees objecting strenuously). Still could not reach it. Double Dang!  I ended up laying full length on the floor and stretching as far as I could underneath to finally just barely touch the dang thing.  Once my finger tips grazed it, I pushed off the closet door with one foot, very carefully and shoved my upper body under the bed and at long last, snagged it!  Huzzah!  

Then realized, crap, now I have to get back out.  First, while still under the bed, I put the earring on, then with both hands flat (or as flat as they go) on the floor, I pushed and wiggled myself backwards without banging the booted foot on anything because that would really hurt and kind of curled into a half circle so that I would fit.   Somehow, with zero grace at all, I got back to my knees (poor knees) and was fighting my way back upright when I hear from the doorway, "Are you okay?" from Tim.  With one last push, I thrust myself upright, hair in my face,  a little flushed from exertion and without giving it one seconds thought I said, "I'm fine, just old".  Tim nodded and went back to work.

I supposed that means that now I actually am officially old.  Dang.

​Oh well.

Happy New Year!

Here we are guys, 9 days into 2026. How's it going for you, so far?   

As per usual, I made Zero resolutions. I just don't need that kind of pressure, y'know?  We didn't go to any parties or stay up 'til midnight or anything like that.  The New Year rolls in every year whether we are awake to witness it or not.  I did hear some fireworks around midnight which was a tad bit alarming because we are in a drought situation here right now.  To be fair, every winter is a drought situation because it is NOT our rainy season.  But this year is apparently a bit more droughty than usual. And I don't' even know what that means.

So far our New Year is looking pretty good.  My feet are still slowly healing  (and that is not a typo, the injuries now involve both feet - sigh) and the house is fully unchristmassed.  I adore the sparkle and the twinkle, the glitter and the shine, the doodads and thingamajigs here, there and everywhere, the giant tree and everything else that goes along with Christmas decor, but I also love when it's all down and safely packed away. The house feels huge now.

Our toaster died. It was a long slow decline.  Tim and I found ourselves turning the "heat" up every time we put a slice of bread in. Initially I think I had my side set on 3. I like my bread, lightly toasted. Tim prefers his with a darker toast so I think his side was a 4.  But by the end we both had it cranked up as far as it would go and often had to put it through a second time for any hope of some level of toastedness, often just on one side.  So we knew it was time.  This time we opted for a toaster oven.

The very first thing I made in that toaster oven was cinnamon toast.   It had been a very long time since I had it and it was divoon which is at least one step better than divine.  Cinnamon toast always sends me flying back in time to childhood on a rainy or snowy day and Mother would sometimes treat us to the sweet, buttery, cinnamony goodness.  Mother was reknowned as a terrible cook in general but she made great cinnamon toast.  Some foods from childhood didn't make the cut as an adult but cinnamon toast is still awesome.

Right now it is unseasonably warm here. Today we are supposed to break some sort of record.  I just walked around the house closing all the windows. Very sad.  Monday the cool should be back and the windows will, once again, be open. Florida is known for it's lovely winters (see 'snowbirds') but not temps in the 80's.  Usually the highest we see is maybe mid 70's. I'm not complaining, it's still way better than August, so I'm not complaining. Almost nothing is worse than Florida in August. Except Florida in September.  Yeah, September is worse.

The hibiscus and bougainvillea are blooming like mad, the sky today is an endless blue, I'm sure the beach is packed with tourists and snowbirds, the kittyboys are napping. Tim is fully entrenched in his workday and I have a pile of ironing mocking me.   Yesterday I finished a big project editing a manuscript for a friend. I went through twice with my red pen and my sticky notes.  Tomorrow we'll pop by the post office and ship it back.

We have plans on the calendar to get together with our friends, the Minocks, in a couple of weeks and we're excited about that!  I still have my museum days to look forward to every week and I've begun re-reading the Outlander book series in hopes, desperate hopes, that the author will have finished the 10th and final book before I'm done with the 9th.  The books are enormous and I tend to read them more slowly than I do most books because they are so jam packed with not only exquisite writing, but history and all of the important details of the story that move it forward. Cannot miss a single word!  Most books aren't like that.  In fact, I dare say, that with most books, I can skip whole pages, sometimes whole chapters and still know what's happening. Or even accurately predict what's going to happen.  These books aren't like that.

I got a refund in the mail a few days ago from over paying a medical bill somewhere along the line.  That was exciting!  Money up!  That almost never happens.  Made me smile :)

Looking ahead to a weekend of various errands and possibly some down time, which is always appreciated.

So as you can clearly see, our New Year is about as exciting as our old year. But you know what?  I'm good with that.  Suits me just fine.  All I wished for was Good Health and Happiness.  We have both of those, yay! 

Hope your New Year is exactly what you hoped it would be.
​Hugs all 'round

We had an exciting and scary few minutes recently.  It was sort of like the movie, the Great Escape .  

Gotta back up first to tell the tale properly.

Not sure if you remember or not, but shortly after the kittyboys came into our lives, Tim bought these windows hammocks for them.  And of course, they adore the hammocks. Hammocks must have been invented with cats or people behaving like cats, in mind.  Relaxing, napping, resting, sleeping and catching a few Z's are what hammocks are perfect for and cats excel in those activities (or perhaps non-activities) like no others.  It's absolutely normal to find both hammocks occupied.  One hammock is in Tim's office window and one is in our bedroom window.  

Here is an example of Brysco lounging in the bedroom hammock.  From this vantage point they spend hours napping and spying on our lovely neighbor and her dogs.  They can also nap and see cars drive by, bicyclers, walkers and of course any random bird, squirrel or lizard that happens by.  Mostly they nap.

 
Sometimes the guys get really excited about something happening outside the window and both of them crowd the hammock, of necessity pressing against screen.  Neither Wyatt nor Brysco is especially large so even their combined presence at the window never crossed my mind as being possibly problematic.  

Which, I suppose, means it was my fault entirely.

It happened last Wednesday, Museum day.  I was still at work but my day was nearly done  and Tim was about to get ready to leave to pick me up. He was trying to finish one last thing before  he shut down when Brysco came running into his office, meowing.  Tim reached down to pet him but Brysco jumped up into the office hammock, still sounding distressed.  Odd.  So Tim went to the window and looked out.  He saw nothing alarming, just the usual stuff.  So he petted Brysco, grabbed his wallet and keys and zoomed out the door.

Luckily, the museum is only about a 5 minutes drive from home so the entire round trip was less than a quarter of an hour because as we approached the driveway, Tim noticed something worrisome.  He pulled into our driveway, tossed me the keys and leapt from the car.  I stood sat for a second wondering what on earth as going on, got out, walked to the door, unlocked, walked in and heard a cat meow. The sound was coming from my right, which means, Tim's office or our bedroom.  

As soon as I turned down the hallway, I immediately saw a cat in the window but it didn't look right.  It took me a second for all of the marbles to fall into their proper holes in my brain and to realize that the thing that was wrong was that the cat was on the wrong side of the window!   Sometimes I'm not too bright. What??  I hobbled as quickly as possible to the window murmuring reassuring words but Brysco was panicked beyond reason.

I turned and hobbled outside as fast as I could (not all that fast sadly) and moved to that side of the exterior of the house just in time to see Tim loading Brysco into the house through our bedroom window.  The screen was laying on the ground.  What on Earth?    Tim quickly assured me that both boys were inside now, freaked out, but safely inside.

While Tim replaced the screen, I went back inside to check on the guys.  They were wide eyed and terrified! Poor Babies!   Wyatt, as always, dived under the bed in the guest room for awhile. Brysco clung to us like a limpet.  Eventually Wyatt crept slowly out from under the bed and joined us.  After much reassurance and a few kitty treats, they calmed down a little bit but didn't let us our of their sight for the rest of the day.

As best as we can reconstruct the situation.  Both boys must have been in the bedroom hammock, crowding the window when the screen gave way and Wyatt fell out.  Brysco ran into the office to alert Tim who, when he looked out the window, saw nothing amiss and left to pick me up.  Since no human was of any help, Brysco also jumped out the window to "help" his brother.  Tim's guess was that they were just going from window to window, hoping that we would see them and let them back in when we returned.    At least they panicked correctly and didn't run away!!

Tim spent part of the weekend screwing some sort of screen locks into place so that we have no repeats of this by the way which eases my mind tremendously!

Now that it's all over and everybody is fine, traumatized but fine, I have to chuckle a bit because when we selected these boys at the Cat Shelter, we were told by the workers there that since Brysco and Wyatt were a) ferals and b) at 6 months a little older than most,  we shouldn't expect them to bond with us. HAH!  Loves wins again.  Those babies are so bonded to us that it ain't funny.  They had a perfect opportunity to make a dash for freedom or at least an adventure but all they wanted was to be back inside with us.

So ends the tale of The Great Escape, Kitty Edition

​