Sandhill Cranes

Battle of the Bugs

Spiders in the garage, mites on my plumerias, ants in the lanai, and fire ants in the pool.  When will it end?  My empty nest is filling up with bugs and it’s all I can do to keep them out!

Sprayed with Raid in garage, several days later swept down the webs.  Now they're back again.  Picked up some yellow sticky traps for windows.  Will install this weekend to see if they work.

Can't swim in my pool at night -that’s when the fishing or raft spiders come out from where ever they live and monopolize the surface of my pool.  The occasional snake may venture into the pool at night but "I’m not asnade of frakes, but I am aspade of fiders.” (Say that one out loud!) 

A coarse spray from the hose has controlled the spider mites on the plants, for now, so I am left to deal with the ants.  I was actually getting bit by the fire ants while swimming.  I watched in utter surprise as they moseyed along submerged under a raft. Apparently, if they fall into the pool they don't drown!   Now we have a problem!

So off to the pool store to see about some Jack’s Magic Surface cleaner.  The guy at the store raved about it but said it won’t kill live ants in the water, but might help with the spiders by eliminating their food sources. So back out with a bug spray and sprayed around the hot tub and created a perimeter around the outside of the pool cage. 

Sat and waited.

Still activity in and around the potted plumerias.  Watched for 30 minutes.  Think that's where the problem is.  Put some different bug granules in the pots. Hope I don't kill my plants! 

Tomorrow is another day.

What is the Soul?

I believe the soul is energy made from memories of people, places, and things we have had an emotional connection to and we take a little bit of everyone or everything we influence and who influence us, with us through life making us who we are. 

 As I was having my morning cup of coffee on our lanai, gazing over my many potted plumeria, I wondered, “If something happened to me today and I was gone forever, what would my husband do with my precious plants? Would he move to a smaller house and leave them here? Would he plant them in the ground here or take them with him and plant them some where else? Would they bring him comfort or sadness?”

I was raised Catholic, but no longer practice or believe in a heaven or hell. I believe the soul is energy and is can’t be destroyed. Way back in college, I studied Physiology and Psychology. I have always believed that body and soul are separate.

 I recently watched an episode of Through the Worm Hole - Is There Life After Death?. One theory discussed on the show was that anyone who has ever influenced you has effected who you are, and therefore, has become part of your soul. The more emotion involved in the experience, the stronger the impression on your soul.

So, because I love these plants and because they have affected me, then pieces of them are "imprinted" on my soul. When the plant dies or I die, that energy which had influenced, remains within what was emotionally connected with.

 When someone close to us dies, perhaps there is some comfort in believing that the soul of the person you loved is still here; some of their energy remains in us and in those they influenced and loved.

Rocks and Violets

I'm a simple girl.  Not into jewelry, fancy clothes or fancy cars.  I like "pretty smelly things" like soaps and candles.  So when college boy came back from a flea market with a small vial of Violet fragrance oil, I was thrilled! Violet is my favorite scent and I had been looking for this hard to find oil to make some home made bath products.  It's not that he found it, but that he thought to look for it for me, that really touched my heart.  College daughter also couldn't wait to suprise me and called to say, she, too, had landed some ellusive Violet soap for me from her London Internship.

I like rocks. The kids must have remembered from their childhood that when we traveled up to N.J. to see the grandparents, we would go to a special diner that had medians in the parking lot filled with round river rocks. I would covertly collect and bring home the most beauiful and enchanted ones.   I think this small quirk has remained with the kids. College daughter excitedly SKPYed that she had "souvenired" some rocks from a castle in Europe. College boy recently returned from a trip to the Georgia mountains  and proudly presented me with a large, round, smooth white river rock  he hand picked for me from the river he had rafted down.

Simple things for a simple life.

Appliances are coming! Appliances are coming!

 I dropped the lid of a ceramic bowl from the microwave straight down onto my smooth top range!  There has been a gi-normous hole with exposed wires on my range since Christmas.   I've refused to shop for a new one.  After all, who really needs a stovetop anyway.  I hardly ever use it.  (I like to bake and the oven worked perfectly fine.)  I thought about what I really used the stove for- eggs, pasta, that's really all.  I have a microwave egg poacher and went out and bought the Pasta Boat.  (To anyone who has a college student who only has a microwave for cooking-- THIS is a great gift).  Any how, I can live without it.  Even when my mother-in-law came to visit and was horrified that I hadn't replaced the stove yet, I was able to deal.  UNTIL......

the dishwasher broke!  NOW WE HAVE A PROBLEM!  NOW we need to do something.  So husband and I shopped and appliances came today.  Husband just installed dishwasher after several hours of frustration with tubing and electrical cords not being long enough.
I can walk thru the kitchen now and not have to stop at the sink to wash dishes and I have yeast rolls rising to break in the new range!

New "Neighbor"

Web Abduction and the "Free Association" Game

My husband asked me if I had been abducted again.  Yes, I was gone for hours.  Started out in one place, hours later ended up somewhere else, way off course as to where I started, have no idea how I got there. Web Abduction.  It's the new "Free Association" game.  (Oh, I know that game-PICK ME!!! PICK ME!!!)  Started out on the computer with a general search for spiders, then Florida spiders, then spider traps and control (did you know "spiders" are something in your computer, too), sticky traps, how to make homemade sticky traps, where is there a local hardware store, google earth to see where exactly that store is, look up old neighborhoods to see the houses where we used to live, look up the old delapitated house on the hill from my childhood(- the one used as the setting for the paranormal book I wrote several years ago and never tried to get published).
 Took a nap and dreamt about the house, except it was being renovated and sort of was like the Winchester house- several stairways that ended at the top, weird rooms, hallways leading no where. 
The "Free Association"game is always fun.  I'll bet you are playing it right now and that's how you got here!!  Hope to see you again!

Spiders in the Garage

I am DONE with cleaning the garage.  Good news/bad news- lots of lizards, no snakes or snake skins FOUND this time.  However, each window on the garage door had it's own spider complete with web and egg sacks.  Took the college boy out to help identify them (I had never seen a spider like these - not hairy, but round shinny black bodies, orangy heads, tiny.  We looked them up and came up with a RED WIDOW, similar to the Black widow.  FREAKED ME OUT!!!!  Until later that night the boy happened upon another kind it might be, so I feel slightly better with the "dwarf spider" which is not poisionous.  Anyway, that was my day yesterday!  Not feeling so well today, up at 5am, dreaming about Cake Boss serving me a Philly Cheese Steak sandwiche! The boy was watching that strange Bizzare Food show yesterday and I'm guessing that that's where the dream came from!