Tuesday/Wednesday 1/15 and 1/16

We had a busy day at the store yesterday.  When we left we stopped for lunch and then took a lovely walk on the grounds of the Florida Botanical Gardens.  They had lots of lovely flowers, trees, plants, herbs, water features.  One of the photos of trees is of a thousand fingers banana tree and the other is a tree covered with Spanish moss.  We walked around a good part of the area and had a nice time.  We then went to the movies to see Django Unchained.  It was a good movie: about slavery with a love angle, lots of blood and a major comedy in places - very unusual.  I usually don't like the blood stuff, but there was so much in such large quantities that it looked fake!

This morning was the busiest day ever at the ReStore.  There was a ton of stuff waiting for us when we came in this morning.  We spent the first hours just putting it out!  Dave brought out an old wooden tool chest, about a hundred years old, filled with tools from the 20's to 40's.  A woman saw it and bought it immediately for $140!  She also bought a number of other items and gave us her number in case anything else old came in.  We had about 50 "grass" shades come in, brand new, and one person bought them about an hour after I put them on the shelves.  I sold quite a bit of furniture today, but we also had a lot of people dropping things off for donation.  Busy, busy busy!  We came home to have lunch and then I did some laundry before coming out to the pool area.  It is supposed to get cooler tomorrow - mid 70's instead of mid 80's.  I know, I'll bet you are all feeling sorry for us.  I promised some of the ladies that I would show up for Bingo again tonight so will get away from the pool and go make some dinner.

Sunday/Monday 1/13 and 1/14

Yesterday was a weak sun day - quite warm, but not a lot of sunshine.  We grocery shopped in the morning and on the way back, we stopped to see something that we learned of at the BBQ.  There is a person nearby who takes in endangered exotic animals.  Your can't enter the yard, but you can look through the chain link fence to see the animals.  There were a boatload of parrots, three beautiful tigers, a bear, and a baboon.  It was quite unique to see the animals in the yard of a regular home and right around the corner from a school!  The animals were well taken care of and looked very healthy.  We came home, did a bit of laundry, baked some banana bread (and a small one for Kelly) and then sat at the pool with our books for a bit.  We drove into Tampa and met Kelly at a mall.  We left our car there and piled into Kelly's car.  She took us for a tour of downtown Tampa and down on Bayshore Drive.  Most of the houses there were in the $1,000,000 range or better - huge homes overlooking the water. We drove to the restaurant, Bern's Steakhouse, and got quite a surprise as it didn't really look like much from the outside.  It had been a grocery store before it was converted.  The inside was magnificent!  Everything was fabulous - from the decor to the impeccable service to the fabulous meal!  Dave had grouper while Kelly and I had steak.  The steaks are aged and cut and cooked to order - it was so tender, you could cut it with a fork!  The meal came with French onion soup, a lovely fresh salad, garlic toast, onion strings, baked potato, veggies (although Kelly and I both opted for extra onion strings as the veggies were marinated in bourbon).  Everything was delish!  We then had a tour of the kitchen, which was enormous - they can cook up to 200 steaks on the grill.  They even had a separate kitchen for the seafood.  The wine cellar was next - room after room of wine, 100,000 bottles there and another half million in a nearby warehouse.  The oldest bottle of wine was from 1815 and sold for $2700!  They had a bottle from the 30's that commanded a small price of $30,000!  We then went upstairs to the dessert room - we sat in booths that looked like oversized wine barrels with one end cut out for the door. We listened to live music while dreamily eating our desserts.  There were many things to choose from, but I decided to have chocolate, chocolate, chocolate - a light chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and dark chocolate crust. Kelly had chocolate mousse and Dave had strawberry/key lime tart with raspberry/strawberry sorbet.  Needless to say, we were stuffed when we left - although, I confess, we each had a doggy bag with us.  It was a lovely evening and I highly recommend that if you get to Tampa, you try it.

Today we were wicked busy at work.  Someone had put away the books that came in Friday afternoon despite the note from Doug telling people to leave them for me.  I had to look through every section to find all of the misfiled books - it took me about 45 minute to put everything where it should be.  We had a lot of things in the back that had to be brought out and put in place.  I washed some appliances that came in on Saturday and then, of course, we had the usually buyers and individuals who dropped merchandise off.  We were steadily busy until 11 and the next hour was really slow, but it picked up again for our last half-hour.  We did the pool bit this afternoon as the sun was great!  We haven't decided where we will go tomorrow - I will have to give it some thought.

Saturday 1/12/13

We had a lovely day off today.  We did a few errands and then went to Indian Shores to visit the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary.  They take in injured birds here and rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild if possible.  We saw owls, pelicans, egrets, boobies, herons, hawks, vultures and assorted smaller birds.  We then walked out onto the beach and took a walk and picked up some shells. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  After lunch, we went for a dip in the pool and enjoyed the sun.  Tonight we are going to a BBQ at the complex.  You bring your meat, fish or chicken to grill and a dish to share and just enjoy the company.  Everyone here has been very nice and we have enjoyed chatting with many of the residents.  Most people seem to come at the first of the year and go back home in April although there are some who come for a shorter time and others who live here year round.  We passed a Tastee Freeze building on our travels today.  It dated from the fifties - shaped like an ice cream cone - very funny!  We hear that the weather will be turning next Wednesday and it will get colder - highs of 75!  Such a touch life we have.

Friday 1/11/13

We had another busy day at work today.  I spent some time straightening out the art sections.  They have a lot of donated art and posters in frames and they were all willy-nilly.  I was able to put them into the racks by size so now you can flip through and see what you are looking at.  We had a lot of glassware come in, some old decorated screens and a stained glass window.  The screens went in the first hour.  Someone also bought an old frame that came in this morning - she is going to spray paint it gold and I'm sure it will look fantastic!  We had two 60 inch HD TV's come in and one customer bought it right off the truck as it was being unloaded!  After work we drove up to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  We were a bit underwhelmed with most of the aquarium, but we did get to see Winter (of the Winter: a Dolphin's Tale fame).  She lost her tail and was fitted with a prosthetic.  (see photos)  They do a lot of rehab here - turtles, otters, dolphins, pelicans.  The other photo is of a spotted moray eel who seemed to be smiling at us.  They have a trolley that goes across the causeway to another building that features the film.  This building was in much better shape - full of movie memorabilia and showing clips of the films.  They did have a hurricane center which was kind of cool even though the wind seemed like it was blowing less than 50 mph.  The sounds were pretty awesome - electric lines snapping and the sound of rain.  We came back and sat by the pool for a bit before dinner.  Kelly texted us and we found a meeting place for Sunday night.  We will meet at a shopping mall and she will drive us to the restaurant.

Thursday 1/10/13

Another beautiful day in Paradise!  We were busy again today at work.  We had about 20 of the small TV's go out today along with some of the larger ones.  We sold a lot of tile and some cabinets.  Dave and the guys put out 20 or so counter tops today that came in from the manufacturer and we sold two of them in an hour.  I spent an hour or so straightening out the cabinet doors and drawer fronts.  They were a big hodge-podge and I organized them by size and design.  The display looks so much better now and I even sold a pair of doors to a customer just after I was done.  We came home and after lunch went to the pool to swim, relax and chat with some of the other residents.  There are a lot of people here from Canada, but we chatted with a man from Long Island, another from Chicago, some ladies from Ohio, and a fellow math teacher from Kansas City.  We had leftovers for dinner tonight - yummy!  We had a near disaster last night as Dave and I realized that we had each come away from the condo without our house keys!  Fortunately, there was a lady playing bingo who had a key to the office.  Everyone leaves a key with the office in case of an emergency and this certainly was one!  It took quite a while to find the key to the lock box where all the keys are kept, but we finally located it and got in okay.  I dropped the extra keys through the slot in the office door on the way to work this morning as the office is only open from 9 to 12.  We now ask each other if we have the keys whenever we leave - we might not be so lucky the next time!  We talked to Kelly last night and we may go out to dinner together this weekend.

Wednesday 1/9/13

Another beautiful day!  We were busy at the ReStore again.  We got in 40 13 and 1/2 inch TV's in carrying bags.  I'm not sure where they came from, but at $15 each, I'm sure they won't last long on the floor.  Dave helped a woman put a huge flatscreen TV into the back of a Cadillac - he hoped she would have help getting it out when she got home as it was heavy.  I helped some people pick out tile and find some wood for shelving.  We also moved some of the merchandise out that had been around for awhile.  After work, we stopped for a salad and then drove to Fort DeSoto.  There was hardly anyone there!  We walked around the fort (Spanish/American War vintage) and then down the beach to a pier where we watch the fishermen for awhile.  The greatest populations on the beach were the gulls and oyster catchers (see photo).  We came home and I got in the pool for a bit.  It got up to 89 degrees at one point this afternoon.  We had seafood casserole for dinner.  They seem to be setting up for bingo at the club so I may join them for a bit.

Tuesday 1/8/13

Wow!  It was a perfect day!  Bright sunshine and in the low 80's.  Dave and I spent the first part of the morning dealing with a truckload of donations that came in.  There were a lot of chairs and a huge assortment of paints, weed killers, and grout from Home Depot.  We then rearranged the tile area.  It was a huge sprawling mess.  We lined up about a dozen pallets and put the tile in categories by type, size and color.  It looked so much better when we were done, but we were both hot and sweaty!  We came home to find the repairmen waiting for us.  They discovered that the oven was wired incorrectly - it only was getting 120 volts instead of 240 so they took care of that.  Obviously, the owners of the condo have never used the oven.  I spent some time in the pool this afternoon, but not too long as I don't want to get burned and the sun was hot.  I made quiche for dinner.  I think we will head to the beach for a walk tomorrow after work - it is supposed to be lovely for the next week.