New Years in Orlando Area

On Friday we headed over to Marcia’s brother’s house to spend New Year’s Eve with Dean and Caryl.  This is a picture of their house, and yes, that is a for sale sign in their front yard.  They have a new house being built in DeLand, about 40 miles north of Orlando, and 20 miles from this home in Lake Mary.  Due to the selling, and possible viewing by potential buyers, we have not gone over to visit them since we have been home (although we met for lunch at Cracker Barrel nearly two weeks ago)…but on Wednesday we got the good news that the house is under contract, and they did not expect to show it again, especially over the New Year Holiday…so we went over.  It took two days to get there because we could not leave Tarpon Springs area until after 3 pm Friday, so we only drove half way and stayed at a Cracker Barrel where we had dinner, and also breakfast the next day.

We are going to miss backing into this long driveway…but there is no need to have such a large house with just the two of them living there now.  The place they are moving to is a 55+ community where they have a zero-lot-line.  (A zero-lot-line house is a piece of residential real estate in which the structure comes up to or very near to the edge of the property line.)  A bit like our Condo, except we have a common outside roof with four units…they have no common walls or roof with other structures.  Like our condo, there is no yard work, and in their case, the HOA dues include cable TV, Internet and water. From now on when we go to visit we will stay in a nearby RV park.

I have talked about Hattie before, the rescue dog that Dean and Caryl have had for a few years now, but I think this is my first picture of her.  She is very territorial, and we are always cautious with Skruffy and Bubba…so much so that we decided to leave Bubba with his Uncle Mike where he lives during the winter to keep the excitement down to only one other dog.  However, there were no problems with just Skruffy with us, and Dean was very happy that Hattie behaved so well.

Here I think she found where Skruffy might have been earlier in the morning.

Look at those eyes…she is just begging to come out and play…but I had pictures to take before we left on the 1st to head home.  We only stayed at their house for the one night, leaving at 2 pm on Sunday.  Thinking traffic might be high, we anticipated only driving part of the way Sunday…but the drive back was the easiest traffic we ever had.  Friday’s drive was just the opposite, and we barely made Cracker Barrel before sunset.

Wednesday, between Christmas and the New Year, we had our kitchen sink drain clog up on us again…happened almost two years ago.  We called out the Drain Team again, and the same Father Son team came out and cleared the drain.  The culprit was grease and onion peelings, much like the last time...just not as big of a clog.  The victim was my pocketbook again…and it has me wondering if I should invest in a 30’ drain snake. But so many of them are just garbage...and I am afraid to use the drain blowers because just my luck, the drain pipe in the concrete would burst open.

Today Marcia had her fourth of five doctor’s appointments … this time it was her Neurologist, Dr. Z.  She saw Dr. Z for the first time in a long time this past February.  Before that she was seeing a Neurologist who decided to retire.  However, she use to see Dr. Z many years ago, but then he had to stop practice while he was being treated for Cancer…which seems to be all clear now.  With Dr. Z it is much more a visit than a check-up per say.  He runs a few basic test to be sure she is still functioning, and they he asks and talks about various subjects…since she follows along just fine, it is more like two people visiting.  He then writes out a prescription she takes that helps calm down the effects of her MS, and then it is a “See you next year” goodbye.  One more doctor to see in February and technically we would be free to travel again…but it looks like we are staying through Easter before we head north.