Good Morning Monday, January 19, 2015

Hello Everyone,

My friend Judy C is celebrating 31 years in the program today.  I think she came in when she was 19.  She was my first sponsor and walked me through the steps and then after a while she fired me.  I wouldn’t do what she said and I’m still not doing the things she asked me to do, but I’m still sober – found the way that worked for me I guess.  Anyway, congratulations Judy!

So now I love Mondays!  It’s the start of a new week and it’s the day after my 3 days off. I’m ready to go back to work.  I had a great weekend and the weather was just PERFECT this weekend.  I even rode Red a couple of times.  I went over to Polly and John’s house.  They were having a neighborhood garage sale.  By the time I got there, it  was all over, but I got a wonderful tour of their lovely home.  Met their dogs – Mia and (oops forget the name of the black lab) and 2 of their 3 cats – oh yeah, dog’s name is “Harley Dude” – appropriate since they both ride Harleys!  When they were having the garage sale – people wanted to buy their Harleys – ha ha ha!  Never happen!  I love their new place, it is beautiful and I’d die for those tile floors!  They have the nicest deck in the back of the house.  It backs up to a preserve and looks so inviting – kind of like being in the mountains of Georgia.  They painted their house a very bright orange.  Let me see if I can find a FB picture of it.

Here is the color.

This is a great picture!  Now I’m remembering that Polly is a BIG Cleveland fan and their color is ORANGE!  So guess who picked the color – I’m guessing!  Anyway – funny story!  John paints the whole house and goes back for more paint at Lowe’s and finds out he’s been using “inside” paint.  So he has to paint the place all over again!  Now that would be enough to make you want to drink again!  So if you look closely, you’ll see “Cigar Smokin’ John” painting with inside paint, outside!  Now that is really FUNNY!  Of course not to him!  But he did it again and now the paint will live forever!

So on with my weekend.  I went to church yesterday and it was a wonderful day and we had a “Pot Luck” afterward to raise money for our Care Team.  With our little church – they raised over $500.  The food was great – everything NOT on my diet so I didn’t eat anything – so proud of myself!  After church I drove over to the Botanical Gardens.  I sent in my membership money at the end of December and never got my card so I called them to be sure I was “listed” so I could get in for free!  I could so I went there on RED.  I wanted to try to ride RED with my tennis shoes so I wouldn’t be clomping around in my Harley Boots.  It was fine and I’m glad about that!  The ride is really easy for me – straight down Rattlesnake straight across 41 down Thomasson to Kelly Road (aka Bayshore Drive) and then a left on Bayshore to the entrance to the right!  What a wonderful way to spend the day.  There are so many nooks and crannies to walk through.  The night that Dick and Doug and I went there for the Light Show over Christmas was really cool.  If I were in the business of catering, I’d be doing all of my events at that lovely place.  I know they have fundraisers there all of the time.  The support groups are numerous with deep pockets so this place really is a “Hidden Gem”.  Here are a couple of pictures I took yesterday – I had no idea that there was such a large body of water in there that you can walk all around it and there is a Birding Tower – I didn’t go over there, but I could have spent hours there!

Officially a Member Again

Beautiful Lake at The Gardens

Path around Lake at The Gardens

I think I’ll try to get over there more often.  It’s in “my neighborhood” so a little ride on RED and I’m there!  Good excuse to ride her also and now that I’m OK with my tennis shoes – I’ll do it more often.  I have plenty of time after work to go there.  I’m going to take a picture of my favorite cactus.  I saw a sign explaining a little about the evolution of the garden.  They said that one of the reasons they have those HUGE trees there is that they were relocated from Old Naples when people were taking out the trees to build houses and condos so they had a tree mover move them to the Garden.  I remember when they were first developing the Gardens – it was pretty small.  Then Harvey Kapnick gave them something like $5 million dollars to upgrade the place.  Now if they aren’t on the register for Best Botanical Gardens, they should be!  They’re really smart too, they have “naming opportunities” for people to give money and name gardens after them.  So there you have it, generosity at it’s best!

Well time to get rolling.  Got to go “pack my lunch” and get ready to go to work.  It’s a WWW isn’t it!  Have a great day.  Thanks for visiting!