Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[reallyitsmema]

29 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

Lisa also got this small gift yesterday. It is a blown glass business card holder, that came from Alaska.  If you remember my Alaska live cruise review, from a few years ago, we went to Jewell Gardens in Skagway. They specialize in blown glass and we took a lesson on glass blowing. Turns out  they have an Etsy store and they ship to Canada. 
 

It blown glass piece in the pattern of fireweed, and Alaskan plant which turns bright red as the summer progresses.  
 

 

In our house it will be used to hold recipe cards, similar to this idea below. I’m happy to see that it currently is holding the chocolate chip cookie one as it sits on the counter. 😋

 

 

That is gorgeous!  Nice to see Lisa has already posted a review on Etsy too. 🙂 We are headed to Skagway again in 2022 and have made a note to look into a glass blowing excursion while we are there.

[bobmacliberty]

16 hours ago, George C said:

Nice pool , we occasionally have to pump water out of ours, our filter automatically turns on when it gets below 40 so pool doesn’t freeze , so it been going last several days and will continue for the next week. Wife is from Buffalo so we are big Bills fans.

 

We have a fairly large pool at our house in Ohio.  When our kids were smaller, we got tremendous use out of the pool.  We also had what we called "Green Flag night".  Most Fridays, we'd hang a green flag in front of our house.  That was the signal to the neighborhood that people could come to our house for a pool party.  Everyone brought their own drinks and a snack to share.  Lots of fun.  As we got older, we used the pool less and less.  When the kids went to college, it hardly got used at all.  Lots of cost/effort to maintain for very little benefit.

 

We decided that we did not want a pool in our Florida house.  The house we found was perfect though and the real estate agent convinced us that the pool was small and would require little maintenance (which is contracted to a pool company), and that it would be great for cooling off during hot Florida days.  We moved in last November and I called the pool company about closing the pool for the winter, like we do in Ohio.  She said, "Sir, we don't close pools in Florida.  We swim in them year round".  You could almost hear her also saying to me. "Bless you heart".  Haven't had a chance to enjoy the pool at all yet, but expect that we will once the weather warms up.

 

Edit: Good to hear that you are Bills fans.  I grew up in Williamsville.  Bills Mafia is everywhere.

Edited February 15, 2021 by bobmacliberty

[h20skibum]

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

I grew up in Williamsville.  Bills Mafia is everywhere.

After my son got out of college, he lived in Orchard Park near the stadium, then bought a house in Williamsville.  There was a great deli (Marco’s) up on Maple Road that made the best muffulettas.  That is one thing I miss about going up there.  He only stayed there a few years before moving to the warmer climate in California. 

[ollienbertsmum]

3 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Absolutely true.  There will always be people who are either too kind or too ignorant who fall prey to these scams.  The scammers are continually improving their sales pitch.

 

There are some scams that just rely on you being distracted.  

 

We keep getting  missed calls supposedly from Austria and Switzerland.  They do the rounds of Gibraltar.  The idea is that you call back - then you are paying premium rates.  We have got wise, but in the middle of the night if you have a missed call it can be easy to rush and call back in case there is a family emergency.  

 

They are not from Austria and Switzerland obviously, the scammers hide their real ‘dodgy’ locations.  

 

😖 

[davekathy]

3 hours ago, island lady said:

At the Whitetail Deer cafe, we practice social distancing table settings.  

 

Very creative/clever on your part. 🙂

Edited February 15, 2021 by davekathy

[ollienbertsmum]

3 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

We have finally succumbed to cabin fever.  We've never been to Key West and always wanted to go.  A video popped up on YouTube about the high speed ferry that runs from Fort Myers to Key West.   Serendipity.  Maybe we could book or quick 3 or 4 day get away??  We looked at driving to Fort Myers and then taking the ferry, driving to Orlando and then flying (no direct flights from JAX), or driving the entire way in our car over 2 days.  We had a hard time finding anything affordable in the historic district and the whole thing starting becoming difficult to plan on short notice.

 

Long story short, we abandoned the Key West idea for now.  Easy enough to do that later with a little better planning.  We will instead drive 5 hours to Fort Lauderdale and stay a few nights at the Lago Mar Resort on the beach.  We'll leave Wednesday afternoon after a bed gets delivered and come back on Saturday.  Anyone else been there?  Looks like a nice place to relax and soak up some sun.  

 

You are all driving me nuts.  That you can drive for 5 hours somewhere.  We cannot go for more than 20 minutes - anywhere.  And that is on foot.  

[ollienbertsmum]

3 hours ago, island lady said:

 

Those are beautiful!!  I also adore Skagway, one of our favorite ports.  And always buy earrings that are designed to look like Fireweed.  So beautiful to see them in full bloom everywhere.  They were "topping off" as we left last year...and indeed it was getting colder...even at end of August.  

 

I had reservations for the Glass blowing demonstration and garden tour there in Skagway for last August...naturally those were cancelled by their company.  Hope to try it again another year.  

I loved Skagway - we went to Yakutania Point in the morning and Dewey lakes in the afternoon - then we had a beer.  It was such a fun day.  I never got time to see the glass though and yours looks lovely.  

[Keksie]

9 minutes ago, ollienbertsmum said:

 

You are all driving me nuts.  That you can drive for 5 hours somewhere.  We cannot go for more than 20 minutes - anywhere.  And that is on foot.  

When I lived in Texas it would take me 5 hours just to get to the border.  Visiting my son in Florida would take 12 hours total.  Now we live closer and it is just a 1 hour drive to visit.  Heck it is a 20 minute drive to town to get groceries.  

[ollienbertsmum]

14 minutes ago, Keksie said:

When I lived in Texas it would take me 5 hours just to get to the border.  Visiting my son in Florida would take 12 hours total.  Now we live closer and it is just a 1 hour drive to visit.  Heck it is a 20 minute drive to town to get groceries.  

So I think you would find lockdown in Gibraltar quite hard going.  

 

The youngsters are starting to say ‘so this is what it was like when the frontier was closed!’ .  I only experienced 2 months of it.  I arrived in October 1982 and the frontier opened for pedestrians in December 1982.  It had been closed for over 13 years.  Must have been so boring tbh.  

[mo&fran]

28 minutes ago, Keksie said:

When I lived in Texas it would take me 5 hours just to get to the border.  Visiting my son in Florida would take 12 hours total.  Now we live closer and it is just a 1 hour drive to visit.  Heck it is a 20 minute drive to town to get groceries.  

It takes me 5 hours to get to the border with another state. Every other direction is water.

[John&LaLa]

4 hours ago, island lady said:

At the Whitetail Deer cafe, we practice social distancing table settings.  

 

 

 

No social distancing going on in Atlanta

 

The outfit should really say 2020 using my math

[John&LaLa]

Out for a cart ride

[dani negreanu]

4 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

The outfit should really say 2020 using my math

 

😁 My father used to say [assuming there was a wedding]: "the 1st kid arrives early. On the other hand, the 2nd arrives ON TIME.😉

 

 

[dani negreanu]

1 hour ago, ollienbertsmum said:

We have got wise, but in the middle of the night if you have a missed call it can be easy to rush and call back in case there is a family emergency.  

 

I have trouble sleeping at night, and sometimes I switch to "mute" my cell phone and take a nap whenever I feel like. 

 

In my experience, if someone is really interested in reaching you from a non-identified number, they leave a message.

 

"Missed-call" without message -- SCAM.

 

[ollienbertsmum]

Just now, dani negreanu said:

 

I have trouble sleeping at night, and sometimes I switch to "mute" my cell phone and take a nap whenever I feel like. 

 

In my experience, if someone is really interested in reaching you from a non-identified number, they leave a message.

 

"Missed-call" without message -- SCAM.

 

 

But when you are woken in the night, it can be so easy to forget.  

 

Not sure if they are just operating at a different time zone or they deliberately choose the night time to call (and immediately hang up).  

 

Grrr 

[island lady]

4 hours ago, grapau27 said:

There was a young girl from India who phoned about our internet on Saturday morning.

Pauline took the call and asked the girl why are you trying to scam us.

The girl was apologetic and said she doesn't like the job and felt guilty that they are scamming people but said it's the only job she can find and can Pauline say a prayer for her.

 

That is very sad about the young girl from India.  But we all have choices in life.  Quite the come back excuse she had.  

 

I am sorry, but I would rather live in box than to scam, lie, cheat, and steal from innocent people (and they do it to a lot of seniors)...no matter what the circumstance in my life would be.  It's not right to intentionally cheat people.  

[dani negreanu]

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56069460

 

Great news about the vaccine' efficiency 👍

[island lady]

3 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We have a fairly large pool at our house in Ohio.  When our kids were smaller, we got tremendous use out of the pool.  We also had what we called "Green Flag night".  Most Fridays, we'd hang a green flag in front of our house.  That was the signal to the neighborhood that people could come to our house for a pool party.  Everyone brought their own drinks and a snack to share.  Lots of fun.  As we got older, we used the pool less and less.  When the kids went to college, it hardly got used at all.  Lots of cost/effort to maintain for very little benefit.

 

We decided that we did not want a pool in our Florida house.  The house we found was perfect though and the real estate agent convinced us that the pool was small and would require little maintenance (which is contracted to a pool company), and that it would be great for cooling off during hot Florida days.  We moved in last November and I called the pool company about closing the pool for the winter, like we do in Ohio.  She said, "Sir, we don't close pools in Florida.  We swim in them year round".  You could almost hear her also saying to me. "Bless you heart".  Haven't had a chance to enjoy the pool at all yet, but expect that we will once the weather warms up.

 

Edit: Good to hear that you are Bills fans.  I grew up in Williamsville.  Bills Mafia is everywhere.

 

Pretty cute about the pool.  We loved ours at the house we moved out of 6 years ago.  Bucky especially used it all the time.  When we went north for the summer, we hired a neighbor who ran a successful pool cleaning company to take care of it.  Worked beautifully, included chemicals and testing.  Also had a great lawn care company.  

 

Those companies are very, very popular in Florida.  

[island lady]

3 hours ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

That is gorgeous!  Nice to see Lisa has already posted a review on Etsy too. 🙂 We are headed to Skagway again in 2022 and have made a note to look into a glass blowing excursion while we are there.

 

You can make reservations with them online.  Easy to get to from town.  

[George C]

3 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We have a fairly large pool at our house in Ohio.  When our kids were smaller, we got tremendous use out of the pool.  We also had what we called "Green Flag night".  Most Fridays, we'd hang a green flag in front of our house.  That was the signal to the neighborhood that people could come to our house for a pool party.  Everyone brought their own drinks and a snack to share.  Lots of fun.  As we got older, we used the pool less and less.  When the kids went to college, it hardly got used at all.  Lots of cost/effort to maintain for very little benefit.

 

We decided that we did not want a pool in our Florida house.  The house we found was perfect though and the real estate agent convinced us that the pool was small and would require little maintenance (which is contracted to a pool company), and that it would be great for cooling off during hot Florida days.  We moved in last November and I called the pool company about closing the pool for the winter, like we do in Ohio.  She said, "Sir, we don't close pools in Florida.  We swim in them year round".  You could almost hear her also saying to me. "Bless you heart".  Haven't had a chance to enjoy the pool at all yet, but expect that we will once the weather warms up.

 

Edit: Good to hear that you are Bills fans.  I grew up in Williamsville.  Bills Mafia is everywhere.

Our pool was covered with ice this morning, last year was first year we didn’t visit Buffalo area to see my wife’s friends and relatives, our favorite place for Buffalo wings is a little bar in East Aurora , after Bills first playoff game Josh Allen said that was his favorite, place was super crowded most times even before he mentioned it.

[island lady]

1 hour ago, davekathy said:

Very creative/clever on your part. 🙂

 

Thanks!  My "girls" show up every day at around 7:30 and 4:30.   They get all excited when I walk out with my 2 qt. bucket of dried deer corn.  The leader does her little wiggle and snort and a kind of bowing to me.  She tries to stick her nose in the bucket before I can put it down.  Her name is "Notch Ear", she has had a torn hole in her ear for 2 years.  She travels with her daughter "Junior", her sister "Ginger"...and this year an interloper joined them from unknown parentage.  Her name is ...wait for it...wait for it... 

 

"Jane"....as in....Jane Doe.    OK...everyone can roll their eyes now.   🙄😁

[island lady]

40 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

Out for a cart ride

 

Oh but of course it has the Bulldogs logo on it.  😄 

[island lady]

22 minutes ago, dani negreanu said:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56069460

 

Great news about the vaccine' efficiency 👍

 

Did you have Moderna vaccines there as well?  

[A&L_Ont]

A little afternoon activity...

 

 

 

Portrait hung. 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by A&L_Ont

[John&LaLa]

17 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

Oh but of course it has the Bulldogs logo on it.  😄 

 

Drivers side has a Mizzou Tiger