Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts

24 April 2008

Florida Nonsense


Here we have yet another reason I can’t stand the State of Florida. An article on CNN this morning informs us the state is considering a new “I Believe” license plate tag for all those Christians who wish to express their belief on other people.

“Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.”

Yet again we have fundamentalists, the American Taliban trying to infringe on the separation of church and state. I have nothing against people and their beliefs, but no religion should be sanctioned by the state. I believe this is completely inappropriate.

08 December 2007

Heading Home


I can’t take this realm called Florida no more! I’m heading home in a couple hours. Again I am leaving later then usual, but such is life. It was good to see my mum again, but we are starting to bicker.

I love her and we accomplished quite a lot, but my work here is complete.

05 December 2007

Florida Continued

Today I scrubbed my mothers drive. Apparently around here no one may have a drive that looks as if it has been used. They are a bunch of lunatics, these people!

02 December 2007

Florida

I arrived around 8:30 PM last Wednesday. The drive took me 9 ½ hours to get to Fort Myers! I left Savannah later then normal and ended up in end of the day rush hour traffic in Tampa. It was bumper to bumper for quite awhile. Then it all came to a standstill in Sarasota.

Apparently there was an accident somewhere far up ahead on I-75. It caused traffic to come to a complete stop for a while and then it would start up again. Traffic only managed to go roughly 10 MPH, then stop, then start again, then stop.

This went on for an hour or so. By the time the traffic moved freely the accident was all cleared up and gone.

I have been rather busy since being here. I have been helping my mum de-clutter and get rid of things. I have removed all items from the garage attic. She may no longer use the attic. Recently she fell down the drop stairs. My siblings and I in a rare moment of solidarity declared the attic off limits.

One of the chores I have lined up is to clear out the garage and re-stain the floor. I never could understand why some people stain or paint their garage floors. My mother thinks it keeps the floor cleaner. I beg to differ. Her garage floor is messy like an unfinished floor. However since she chose to have hers stained she created extra maintenance because it requires to be refinished every couple years or so.

On Thursday I removed everything out of the garage and went through a bunch of things such as forty years of paperwork from my father’s corporation. Mind you my mum sold my fathers business 17 years ago. Apparently she is under the impression she must hold on to such items because something legal may come back to bite us in the ass. I think the legal threshold has passed.

On Friday I essentially had to clean the garage floor with some kind of noxious solvent and then I had to hose it down with water and let it dry. I had to use a large squeegee thingy to pull the water out of the garage. Later in the day we worked on more paper work. … So much paperwork!

Saturday morning I was up and early preparing the garage floor to be re-stained. You would think it would be easy, but NO! I was told I had to seal the cracks on the cement floor. What the hell! Goddess forbid our floors shows any signs of history. Essentially there is this stuff, which is rather like caulk. You squeeze it into the cracks and then use a putty knife to smooth it out. I had to do this to all the cracks and nicks in the cement!

I spent about a 1 ½ doing this and finally was able to start the staining process. My gods what an obnoxious odor that stuff has! It took me several hours, but I finished and it looks nice. If I do say so myself, but you know what? I can still see those damned cracks!
I was reunited with my wonderful scooter. I gave it to my mum when I moved here briefly after I lost my last mindless job. When I lived downtown it was the perfect vehicle to use, but now that I am Southside it just won’t do.

My scooter isn’t as pristine as it was when I gave it to her. Unfortunately my mum “crashed” it a few times. More or less she would fall off of it or knock it over with her car when pulling into the garage. It’s all scratched up now and both mirrors are broken and it also has two flat tyres.

She said I may have it back now. Wow, thanks mum! I won’t bring it back with me this time because I forgot to bring the hitch. So I shall be returning one more time before moving to North Carolina.

Today is Champagne Sunday … all by myself, but hey someone has to do it! It’s not all pleasure though because I did manage to caulk around a bedroom window and clean out a closet.

Now I am looking at replacement pieces of silver and china online while enjoying champagne in a Marie Antoinette glass. Life is good.

28 November 2007

Florida


I am leaving later then expected, but I keep telling myself it is okay. There’s no rush. I am leaving a day later because I was not feeling 100% and my mum was still in Seattle. This morning I'm dragging my heels too.

I’ve got the car all packed and now it’s time to crab the children and toss them into the car. Oh the joy! Claws are going to flail and I’m going to be bleeding in a moment. Once Nora-Grace and Tabitha are in the car they usually calm down in about 30 minutes. It’s usually at this point they realise they aren’t on their way to veterinary and then they know they are on their way to grandmas.

Eight hours from now I’ll be in Fort Myers. I really don’t like Florida… pray for me!

Well I’m off like a prom dress!

17 June 2007

Heading Home


Well I am heading home this morning and not a moment too soon. This place drives me CRAZY! It's always nice to visit with my mum and I always like to come back to Fort Myers to reconfirm the knowledge this town lacks soul.

I met a couple of Interior Decorators while visiting. They are going to make some drapery for my mothers bedroom. We hit it off rather well and they think I should relocate here because they believe I would be busy all the time. I know this would probably be true because people are moving here constantly and have money to burn, but I did not have the heart to tell them I don't really care for Fort Myers and Florida in general.

The cats had a good time. They enjoy having a full house to run around in and they definitely enjoy going out on the lanai. This morning a giant herrin flew down right in front of them which naturally sent them into a tizzy. Then a rabbit came by to torment them and just stared while it grazed.

Well I guess it's time to get the car loaded and head home to civilisation. ;) Hopefully the 8 hour drive will go by quickly and uneventfully. On the way here a stone flew up from the road and cracked my windscreen. I'm still pissed off about it.

15 June 2007

Fort Myers

I spent today walking around downtown and if I dare mention, I visited a Star Bucks Coffee House. I really don’t like corporate coffee, but there isn’t anything else here. Downtown has been cleaned up quite a bit from the way it used to be. Unfortunately there isn’t much to do. It’s mostly made up of restaurants and bars and shopping is limited.

At one time it was full of antique shops, but they are all gone. You used to find all kinds of kitsch things. The city planners ran them all out because they wanted to revitalize the area and in doing so the rents went way up. It’s really quite a shame.

It seems the people here prefer to frequent malls and strip malls, which is evident from the suburban sprawl. The downtown area is completely dead because of it. It’s odd to me because in Savannah the downtown or historic district is the place to be.

Of course Savannah has its architecture, history and an art school which breaths life into the city. Fort Myers doesn’t have a creative scene. I believe that plays a big part in its lifelessness.

Downtown Fort Myers has the potential, but they have not discovered it as of yet so there are empty buildings everywhere with For Lease signs.

Below are some photographs I took today. Most of them are in sepia tone. Enjoy!

















11 June 2007

Florida


I am about to leave for Florida this morning. I was supposed to go this past Friday, but Nicholas wasn't home from Texas yet and then I decided to go Saturday, but we partied too late and then Sunday, but I was wiped out. So now it is time!

It's time to clean the litter box and toss the kids into the car. (This should be fun) Generally Nora-Grace and Tabitha travel pretty well, but for the first 20 minutes or so they are kind of freaked out.

Apparently since the rains started to fall the fires in Georgia and Florida are about out. It is said they are 100% contained so this means I can travel I-10 without issue.

Well, I'm off!