New Page----New Day

While I was basking in the joy of having my Grandson's here for a visit, a friend was devastated by death . It is not supposed to happen that your child dies before the parent. They just can't. Deep down, we expect the possibility that our spouse may die during our life time. Even a parent. But not your child. How can they. They are young and haven't lived enough. 

I can think of people who I don't think are good people. But they live. It just isn't fair. Why can't I find an answer to this why.

This is a reminder to me to do what I feel I need to do. I need to say how much I love certain people, I need to see more sunny days and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I need to challenge myself more. I need to be a little selfish and do what I want to do for me. Life is truely too short, and It is never too late.  Because sometimes it just is and we aren't ready for it.

We were finally able to see a sunset last night. It's what we do when we have visitors. We often wonder why we don't do this regularly .It is free, we see a gift of nature, and every one around us who is watching , is on the same wave length as we are. We should do this more often.

Instead , we would be watching the TV news and feeling depressed by what we are seeing .I will try to see more sunsets this year.

I wanted to know what time the sun was setting , so I went to Google. Amazing. There was a list for the next 3 months of the times of sun rise and set just for where I am. Is this not a wonder along with the sunset? 

Life is just so sweet when you can have two Grandsons, a husband and the internet share in the wonder of a sunset. It's never too late to appreciate what you understand and what you don't.

You would be correct if you said that I was in Grandma heaven. We have 2 out of 5 Grandson's with us. My refrigerator is brimming with their favorite foods.What's left of the brisket will get eaten tonight. If it is still there. I noticed that the contents of the container keep getting smaller . The Florida oranges that we buy just down the street are being put to good use. Our coffee brewer is working over time.

This picture would be perfect if the weather would warm up 30 degrees. They think it is warm, but we know better.

I know that I have influence on these grandchildren when I heard one ask the waitress if the Coke was real Coke. It wasn't. It's little things like this that are so meaningful to me.!

And smart. They discuss issues, social media,relationships and the latest situation TV program. Most of the time, I just listen.In fact that is what I do all of the time. I don't want to break this spell. 

It's never too late to once again be so proud of my children who produced such wonderful grandchildren. They don't fall far from their main tree.

It's not my fault. I never once said that it is so hot that I wanted to experience winter. Those people who complained about the heat, are making us all pay . It is just too cold for Florida. We have the next two weeks booked with family making long awaited trips to visit us. What do we do with them when it is so cold ? Brrr.

It's my turn to complain. I just don't like cold. OK. I've finished whining.

Now to make some plans on what to do when you feel like sitting around the fire place.( If we had one, that is.)

I thought that I understood global warming to mean we would get warmer, no one told me until yesterday, that it meant that all climate changes would occur. Hot would become cold, dry would become wet. My Grandson told me. I'm not happy with this plan. I recycle, I buy green, I eat in season. I do my part. It must be that I am still using airasol hair spray. I 'll not buy anymore and I will see if that helps the atmosphere and we go back to seasonal weather. It's never too late to help our weather pattern go back to what we expect. I hope.

I am reading a library book about how to get things done when you are mostly an introvert. I fit the label of introvert. I don't mind being alone. I don't get bored with me. I perfer writing to phoning. But I do play well with others.I am  comfortable with quiet time.

Sounds good to me. I will next look for a book that gives characteristics of an extrovert. I probably can find myself there too. I will take the best of both and just plunge forward. I can be a made to order person. Out going, decisive ,assertive when necessary and quiet,behind the scenes power when necessary. I hope that I don't get confused and mix the two me's up.

I'm almost finished my introvert book. So far,I like the " quiet time" concept best. I think I do that when I walk Cricket. I put my day in order when we go for our morning walk. That's why I always  turn Bob down when he offers to take her then. I just hope no one sees or hears me talking to Cricket as I tell her my plan for the day.  She's not a good communicater, but she does listen.

It's never too late to not confuse " quiet time" with " time out".Time out is good, but quiet time lets me visualize ,arrange and prepare for what may come this new day.It's all good.

The furnace just tuned on , again. Not a good sound, especially when you are expecting guest from " up north". That will present some change of plans. The good news is that no matter how cold it gets here in Paradise, it's still warmer than where they came from.

I like to people watch while I am waiting at the airport for our company. People wear the craziest outfits. Like flip flops and shorts . It's not that warm on planes or .in the terminal or in Florida just now. I wonder if they will wear those clothes on the return flight. Can you just imagine them wearing those same outfits, getting off the plane , in Minnasota. Brurr.Hope their car starts and the heater works.

Our cold will not last long, but now I have to think of what to do instead of beach and sunning. I think a trip to the beach to watch the waves might work.It's never too late to dig out some old jackets for our guests who never think we can experience cold weather down here in Paradise. However, that white stuff on our ground is sand, not snow. Hallelujah !! 

We had Chinese food the other night and I got a great fortune in my cookie. It says " suppose you get what you want". Isn't that wonderful ? It made me laugh. What if I win the lottery, like I say I want to do. What if everyone I ever invited to come and visit, did. What if I adopted every cute dog that I wanted. Maybe it is more practical not to get everything  that I want.

It might be a burden to have everything that I want. I would have to be much more thoughtful in what I want. I would have to be less materialistic and more philanthropic . I'm going to miss being selfish and just wanting what I want. This is becoming no fun.

How wise my fortune is. It makes me consider that maybe I don't really want everything that I wanted.

It's never too late to put this " getting" into prospective and be a little more judicious in what I think I want. Dang it, I do still want to win the lottery. 

It is known that I believe in signs. I take very seriously the fact that a rainbow is a covenant with God. I know that when I will see a Robin or a Cardinal, my daughter will sell her house. ( I'm sure that the horrible weather in Chicago is keeping  those birds away)

I bring this up because something happened that reminded me of signs. I was walking Cricket, thinking my thoughts and hoping to come up with some direction in my thought process. When I walk Cricket in the afternoons, I go one of two directions. The morning walk is set in stone. We leave the driveway and turn right. In the afternoon, we turn left, but then , we can go on two paths. I choose the path that took me nearer to an outside road. This is a favorite of Cricket's.

I was in deep thought, Cricket was busy getting her messages from dogs that were there before her, when a large black, SUV stopped next to me. It was one of the two Rabbi's in town.He was going to my house to bring me a Shabbat Challah ! Was that a sign? He had never done this before to me, although it was something he probably did  every week, to someone. Why me, why today, why did I walk Cricket this way today,why.

Was this a sign ? I don't know, but I felt better. None of my thoughts were spelled out any clearer, I didn't have an epiphany, but it was calming.

It's never too late to keep being opened to accepting signs. Sooner or later a rainbow will appear and maybe even a Cardinal. 

Yesterday we went to a resturant for lunch. We go to this resturant about once a year, now. We used to go much more regularly. In fact, even our dogs loved it when we would stop at this resturant when we were on the road . When we would drive to our cottage, this was our place to change drivers, go to the bath room, walk the dogs and finally, order some food to go. Our cars always had a scent of fries and burgers.

It's McDonald's. I don't care what the nutritionist say about the fat content, the preservatives and the empty calories, it hits the spot every now and then. I don't even remind Bob to wipe his mouth when we go there, because I suspect my mouth has some smudge of catsup on it, too.

My favorite is the fish filet and fries. Bob gets the double hamburger and fries, and our dogs liked the pancakes with a lot of syrup. Our dogs have a sweet tooth. Even Cricket. 

You see a cross section of people at McDonald's. This time, we saw an older men's baseball team come in .I think they had just played a game. They only got coffee. Then I watched a Latino family with a bunch of small children come in and get the Happy Meals. I bet it was a weekly treat for the kids. 

I saw a McDonald's in Israel, but I didn't feel the need to  go in and eat. I wonder if they serve cheeseburgers there. Even after not keeping Kosher for over 60 years, I don't do cheeseburgers.

There is a kosher McDonald's in Brooklyn. They have a sink in the corner where you can wash your hands and say a blessing before eating. They probably don't have cheeseburgers on the menu.

Where can you go for a clean,well run operation and for less than 5 bucks get a meal that makes you happy. It's never too late to think that maybe you should buy some stock in this chain. They seem  to be every where and here to stay.

You know the expression" it isn't over until the fat lady sings " ? Last night at services, I heard a new expression that I like. It is , and I paraphrase because , of course, I can't exactly,remember it, goes like this. " You can't die while a song is in your heart". I take that to mean that you can't let go of your dreams, that you have things yet to do! there is more to come ! , you can do it !

As I understand this, someone wrote this line. I don't know if it is a writer of novels or a song, writer, but I will check it out. I will add it to my list of " You don't know if you don't go " and " fake it until you make it".

Last night, I learned , was the Sabbath of Song. That's nice to give recognition to the songs we know in our service.It's in the Torah reading.  At the end of the Torah reading, the Rabbi held up the Torah so we could see how that was written in the Torah. Cool. I've seen the Ten Commandments in the Torah and now this. Double cool.

To add to the beauty of song, the visiting opera singer came to services and sang again with our Cantor. I don't think we sang any better or louder, but there was song in our hearts. It's never too late to know why I go to Shabbat services. I come away with not only that song stuck in my head, but now, a song is in my heart. Cool.

I'm tempted. Several people in my community have asked to rent my condo. I'm tempted. Yesterday , I heard how difficult it was to find a winter rental. I'm tempted.  But where would I go.? 

Oh, well, vision of dollar signs still don't answer that question. I guess I have to wait until I have some place to go before I consider renting my unit  for the winter. Renting my condo is just a fantasy that I have. It would pay my living expenses for that same period while I was in Israel. The best of everything. 

The only hitch that I see is that Israel experiences winter and I am not used to that. When the thermometer goes to 70 , I get cold. I would be doing a reverse trip. People come to Florida to get warm . Would I want to voluntarily go some place cold. Sure, if that place was Israel. Just consider, no crowds, you could check out of the grocery store quickly, you wouldn't need reservations at resturants and you could make a Doctor's appointment in a reasonable length of time. These are things I have learned about while living in a place that everyone wants to be when the weather turns brutal " up north". 

These are some of the things I think about early in then morning. Maybe if I could sleep later,I would  have  different thoughts. I'm cursed with being an early riser. I guess I just don't want to miss anything.

It's never too late to let my thoughts go wild .It's a free service that  comes with starting your day  at 5 - ish AM.

I am meetinged out. 3 meetings in one day is more than I want to do again. The first meeting of the day was fun, the second, less fun, and by the third ( with many of the people from the first and second meeting )I just wanted a nap.

I made a private study of men's ears by the third meeting. They protrude and since the men were mostly bald, I had a good look. Men' ears seem to get larger as they get older.

I was fascinated with the variety of ear shapes.I haven't   had time before to think about this but some ears were fleshy, some elongated. Can ears tell you anything about personal traits? 

i'm going to keep my ears covered . I don't want anyone to pass judgement on me because of them.

It's never too late to bring my knitting to the next meeting on my schedule. It would be more productive then ear watching .

I was watching a commercial on TV and it reminded me that you really can drop an air conditioner out of a window. The commercial was from an insurance company. It happens . My running partner in Chicago lives on the third floor. Yes, it happen. I still don't know what pocessed her to try and put the AC unit in the window by herself. She could have killed someone. Then when my daughter moved into her house, she decided she didn't want a window unit and tried to move the AC herself. She's that kind of gal. It was months before anyone moved that shattered AC from her side yard. A daily reminder that you can't always do every thing by yourself. 

We had one air conditioner in our old Victorian house. It was in Bob's office. When it was really hot enough to need it , we all gathered in his office. Sometimes the kids slept there. We had the ritual of taking it out of the window and putting it back in the window at the appropriate month.   We did that for years. We never dropped it.

It's never too late to miss these experiences and be so happy to know that all I have to do now, to cool off , is press a switch on our thermostat.It's much safer this way.

I deep cleaned my fridge yesterday. When I bought it, I didn't realize that I was short. My height has never been one of my issues , so I didn't consider that I wouldn't be able to see or reach the back of the top shelf. That is why when I went to do this deep cleaning, I found some things of interest.

Hershy's Chocolate Syrup was a suprise. If I was in Israel, I could put it on bread and have a sandwich . Kids do that there. Maybe some adults do too. Then the two opened jars of white horse radish was a good find. One had an expiration date of 2012. I threw it out. I usually have two jars of horse radish in the fridge. One is the white and the other the red. They are not interchangable. They each have their own function. It's tradition, I guess. Only red for gefilte fish and the white for beef.I like a glump of horse radish in my veggie soup.

I made an executive decision to throw out some blueberry preserves. They were a disappointment . No need to be reminded of that every time I saw the jar, still filled to the top with blue gunk.

I rearranged the position of the shelves, I moved the butter drawer down to where I could reach it. It never occured to me that I could do this. 

My fridge is organized and Better House Keeping Approved clean. You could eat off of it. Wait, that's the floors thing.

It's never too late to feel really good every time I open the fridge door. Just remind me not to stand in front of it and eat with the door opened.

Our orchestra conducter was following the wrong schedule and he was a no show at  our usual Saturday morning rehearsal . Being professional (?) ,the 12 of us who were there, decided to rehearse anyway. It was a great way to get into our playing after being off for the winter break. We sounded good. We made suggestions on how to play the music better, on playing faster. We played together. Our conducter would be so proud of us. He brought us to this level.

It was a special experience for me, because I realized that I was able to jump in and play. I felt good.

I'm still the one with the least experience and I felt as if I really fit in, sight reading the music,understanding the timing. It was all good.I was happy.I've come a long way, too.

It's never too late to keep on plugging away at something that you know you have to try harder to accomplish. You don't know if you don't go and I believe in going.

I am thinking that today may qualify as a snow day in Florida. I am not sure, but I have a feeling that it is unseasonally cold outside. That's as close to a snow day as we get. That means that I am obligated to do at least one chore that I have put off until we have a snow day. It better be a good chore. I was thinking of taking some clothes from the closet to Good Will. That way, I can glean my closet and buy more while I am there !

It must be cold outside because Cricket is curled in a small  ball, in her bed. She is in no hurry to go out. When we lived in Chicago, I don't remember it getting so bitterly cold. It did get cold, but not the figures that I am hearing today.I thought this was supposed to be global warming, not the other direction.

I am glad that I kept some winter clothes. I was wearing a hat when I walked Cricket yesterday.  A dog walker passed me and said that she wished she had my hat. I also had on  pair of fingerless gloves that a daughter made for me. When she gave them to me, I remember saying to myself, that I will probably not need them. Was I wrong .  Not only are they practical, but I am making a fashion statement. Something I don't often do, shopping at Good will.

I wonder if Good Will sells doggie sweaters? It's never too late for Cricket to be on the best dressed list at Bird Bay.

Last night , at our Friday night services, I had my eyes closed during the part of the service where we meditate for a few short minutes. I was literarily blasted from my thoughts by this magnificent , deep, male voice, singing the refrain that ends this portion of the service.When I opened my eyes, on the Bimah, along with our cantor, was a young man who comes to services when he is in town. He is a professional opera singer. What a treat for us. Some members actually applauded when they finished their duet.

We can't wait for him to be old enough to retire, so he can join our Congregation. Too bad for us that he is many productive years away from retiring. 

For many of us who grew up in a more traditional syngogue, hearing a rich sounding male voice, brings back comfortable memories. Our wonderful Cantor can put me in a state of complete relaxation when she sings some of the service. There are a few melodies that I just want to let linger when she sings them .

It's never too late to appreciate the gem we have in our Cantor, and still get that cozy feeling when we hear that deeper male voice we grew up with. The best of both.

There are many things in life that I don't understand . One especially bewilders me, especially since I am a Florida resident. It's the mystery of Key lime Pie.

It's made with sweetened condensed milk !. I don't want to be so personal, but how can anyone like something made with sweetened condensed milk ? I'm just asking.

Years ago, there was a popular dessert made in a similar way. You put a can of cherry pie filling on top . It was a hit with everyone. Thank heavens, that went out of style. 

There must be other desserts that you can make with these wonderful key limes. Is there such a thing as key lime meringue pie? I bet that would be wonderful.

I am starting a campaign to promote the famous key lime , but not in a sweetened condensed milk base .It's never too late to enjoy a great dessert .I'll let you know when I get it right.

At the end of the news, they showed news worthy people who have died in the past year. We were astounded. We didn't know that many of these people were either alive still or had died. I feel so out of the loop.

If we still got a newspaper, would I have known ? I'm sorry that these people are no longer alive, but their being gone hasn't affected me at all. That's too bad. I hope someone remembers some good deeds that they did.

What if everyone , on the same day, did one good deed. Universal Good Deed Day .Terrorist ,displaced third world hungry and starving people, over fed people, billionaires, every one ,could do one good deed.  

I've been on the receiving end of at least two good deeds from a stranger. One was a mysterious man, dressed in black, who stopped to help me change a tire when I was driving home from colorado. Actually, if my dughter had not been in the car with me, I would have thought that I made this up. He appeared out of no where, dressed in black, asked if he could help, didn't speak again, fixed the tire and before I even offered to pay him or buy him breakfast at the next exit, he was gone. Like the Lone Ranger, who was this man?

Then there was the trip through the toll booth when someone before me, paid my toll. How these good deeds just changed my day. And I won't forget either event.

I will make today my personal good deed day. It's never to late to change one persons day into a really good day. A random act of kindness can do that.

Yesterday, I finished the old year, and today, I get to start fresh.It's particularly meaningful for me, because it was also my birthday.  I keep meaning to change my birthday date. I really want a more intimate day. Not one where the world celebrates. One more thing to blame on my Mother! July might be a good time to celebrate a special day. The crowds are gone, the weather is usually good,you don't need reservations at resturants. When I moved to Paradise, I planned to change my name to Leah. That didn't work. Maybe celebrating my birthday at a different time will be easier.

Wait! Here it is 7 hours into the new year and I am complaining already. I will change that right now.  Here goes.

I love being Jewish because I get to make amends twice in one calendar year and I get to have two names, my Hebrew name and my generic name. How good is that. 

This new year gives me hope. Hope to get past just looking at my Hebrew language books that are under my bed. Hope to finish that sweater that I started months ago. Hope to start running again.Hope to be nicer( if that is possible) Hope to be more humble.

It's never too late to keep on trying. I'll start tomarrow.