In Conclusion

Happy New Year's Eve or at Foxys in the Virgin Islands it was called Olde Year's Night. It's a world famous party that I was lucky enough to attend one year on Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. I was working on a yacht but the passengers wanted to party ashore. The captain dropped them off at the dock, telling them he had to go back to the yacht and help me work. We would pick them back up at 12:10 and if they didn't show up at the dock by 12:20, we would come back at 1:10am for 10 minutes and if they didn't show, we would come back at 2:10am and so on until we rounded them all up.

Instead he came back to fetch me as by then I had all the work completed and we went back ashore in our party clothes, not our uniforms,  to spend the evening ringing in the new year while dancing to the heart throbbing beat of live reggae and calypso music.Our guests were lost among the thousands of party goers parading up and down the beach. The captain and I were not a couple, matter of fact he had a wife and kids waiting on our eventual return to our home port on another island. So he went one direction and I went another, it was a welcomed break from our typical work.

Sadly Jost Van Dyke was recently devastated by hurricane Irma and Maria. When they say you can't go home again, it's true. It will never be the same. But they will rise up and be different, just not the same.

For many years I was a floating resident of Jost Van Dyke. I was rebuilding a sailboat I had bought that was damaged and dismasted by hurricane Hugo in '89 to refit her to her former glory. At the time I was also working for weeks or months on elegant sailing yachts. When I finished my contract or charter I finally had time off work... to do more work. Typically it was usually for a week or more that I got to spend "home" on my boat in progress. In those days crewing on yachts meant 16 hour days, 7 days a week for weeks or months working and sailing so I welcomed the time off to rest and repair. 

I would move back to my sailboat waiting on anchored mooring in St John (also recently devastated by Irma in September) and motor or sail over to Jost where I spent my days working on refitting my boat while my nights were spent ashore dancing on the sandy beach at Foxys to the tunes of their live bands. Because my charter work often took me to weekly visits to Jost, I knew many of the islands' residents. In those days their population ashore was barely 100. Over the years they watched the crazy girl and her ravaged sailboat go from floating derelict to looking brand new. 

 US tax deductible contributions can be made to https://onelovebvi.org/  to help Jost Van Dyke and other BVI islands recover from their catastrophic devastation.

Last year or year before, I forget which,  Foxys had a live feed streaming on the internet showing their Old Years Night party. I tuned in on my laptop in a campground in the US that miraculously had wifi working. It was surreal to see the party in progress and be able to pick out friends of mine in the crowd including Foxy. Fighting back tears, I felt so homesick for the islands, I just wanted to reach out and touch them.

This year I find myself spending New Years Eve outside of Bushnell in a very rural area of Florida complete with cows, horsies, goats, piggies, doggies, donkey and assorted other critters including a view of an old open air barn. Christmas eve I kept glancing at the barn whimsically to see if a traveling couple would show up and give birth to a child.

My small pooch likes to think he can heard cows and giddyup horses. Sometimes the horses or cows come poking their head over the fence where my wheel estate is parked. Harley dawg will race over giving them a bark-for until they shuffle along. Mostly they just like to stare at the little 6 pound fur ball who has the big ferocious bark giving him a withering look as if to say "Seriously dude?". After awhile they might trot off which gives the little mutt great satisfaction. He is lucky that the fence prevents him from being trampled. Sometimes he races up on top of the picnic table to look taller. So funny.

Over the years I've been fortunate to have had unique New Year's holidays. In my 20's  I had a lovely old home. I spent many happy new year eves by the fireplace celebrating with my pets and music. For all the years I lived there, I never owned a TV. I loved music.

In my late 20's I began working overseas mostly around the Caribbean on exotic sailing yachts. It was a complete 180 degree turn from my former career. My holidays were spent working on boats afloat in far flung ports. New years eve celebrations meant preparing gourmet meals for the guests or owners of the yacht and sailing them to their chosen venue. 

By my late 30's and into my 40's I was oscillating between working charters on sailboats and  running a unique private chef service that found me in various exotic villas perched high on the edge of mountains in the Virgin Islands overlooking exquisite views of clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean sea. My holidays and New Year Eve's were spent hosting parties for the vacation villa guests, catering to their every whim as both chef and concierge. Often one of my favorite musicians were booked to work at the villa providing live entertainment. My memories are of the fun hard work interspersed with the mesmerizing views and wonderful music. Every holiday season was a different yacht or villa with long days and nights of hard work for weeks at a time.

2009 New Years Eve was my first back in America but I was clinging to the edge of the rainbow, listening to doctors who were full of doom and gloom.  But that's a story for another day.

Today I woke up alive and tonight I hope to ring in the new year (sleeping or awake!)
HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!

Thank you for plopping by today and thank you to all the earthly angels for helping this fool and her dog live to see another sunrise. 


Life is goof!

RV Fun

It's been a wild and crazy year for this wild and crazy RVer.

Some days are tough and others are tougher but I have to just slow down, smile, be grateful I have food and bed and wish for the best. Life is good or as I like to say life is goof!

One of my bizarre challenges in continuing to write every day is the rapid rate at which technology keeps changing faster than I can keep up with my old equipment and programs. At this point and time it's just not possible for me to drop everything to cough up a tidy sum  for better hardware which would force me into newer versions of windows or Mac or all those new names floating around of Androids and Smart this and that,  which means my current old programs won't work anymore, so then it's buying new programs, learning those and then finding out I can't open up old files that contain valuable information. On top of that spend weeks and months to learn all new equipment and programs.

I don't want to lose valuable time along the way for smiling and rejoicing at another day alive on planet earth.

Maybe others can happily keep up with this foolishness, but I wonder, when do they have time to cook a pot of beans or smile and giggle? 

What's wrong with smiling and being happy? Do I need a new car fancier than the Jone's to make me happy? No. I don't even have a car, old or new.

I am happy about that because that is my current reality. Acceptance and move on to other happy things.

There is this transition beyond my control that working offline is no longer available for many mundane things that used to make my life simple and easier. Many programs refuse to work offline. Being connected 24/7 to internet is problematic for me. It appears the internet and computer usage is all being tracked meticulously with assumptions made by other computers and trackers that throw a lot of crazy chaos in my life because their assumptions are dead wrong.

It's wasting too much of my precious time. 

Suddenly I am locked out of my blog and to get back in, huge demands that I find ridiculously invasive to my personal privacy and security are made upon me to unlock the code to get back in.

I want to keep writing and posting and smiling. 

My bank sent me into a wild panic because they suddenly locked me out. It took hours and hours and loops and hoops and many lengthy phone calls spent listening to gawdawful "hold" music set to a volume to break the speaker in my phone before being handed off to 2-3-4-5 different people with assorted accents, some I couldn't understand and others couldn't understand me,  then me answering a long list of  bizarre multiple choice questions including who was my father's 3rd or 4th wife and 4th or 5th marriage (he married my mother twice, so that is confusing too) and do I recognize her  (supposedly one of the surviving ex-wives who has to be nearly 90 by now) and her new married name and the current state she live in.

State of CHAOS was not offered as a multiple choice answer. The person on the other end of the phone did not understand my answer. State of C-H-A-O-S.

Which both my parents have been deceased for a long time now and I found these type of questions super creepy and told the bank but they ignored me and wanted to know my favorite movie. HUH? I don't have a favorite movie and who cares?   All the while I was  wondering if some cyber crook had wiped out my last few dollars? 

I thought I was saving a tree by spending 8 years without the bank being forced to print out 96 statements and have those chase me around.

Apparently me traveling or living in a little old motorhome has caused my bank to have a major meltdown over this lack of a permanent sticks and bricks place.

If the banking system crashes and comes to an end,  you heard it here first.

It's all my fault.

Pardon me while I smile and giggle and be grateful I woke up alive.

THANK you for your patience while blogger and I dual it out over who has control of my blog... me or them.

Thank you angels on heaven and on earth for looking out for this simple happy fool.

I feel like the luckiest person alive. 

You rock my world.

P.S.,  I am very sorry if I caused the entire banking system to crash.

 

Oops

They were delicious!

Happy Holly Daze

From Our Home to Yours

Happy Holly Daze!

Woke up alive.
It's a great start on a beautiful day.

Note to self:
Be grateful.
Take a long deep breath and smile.
 (Sounds so easy so why is it hard?)

The world around me seems awfully fast and complicated.
I'm slow.
Getting slower.

Is the glass half full or half empty?
I don't know.
I am just grateful I have a glass!
Life is goof.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Thank you to all the wonderful awesome angels and saints in my life.
I feel so honored and humbled.

Every single day is a gift of life. 

Thank you!

Chirp Chitter

I just want to wake up and be a better person.
A short request but a tall order.
It's daybreak.
All is quiet except the birds are singing.
Nature is awesome.

You probably thought the human wrote that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Holi-Daze!

Shop Amazon - Hot New Releases - Updated Every Hour  

Funny stuff at the traffic light.

 

Giving Thanks

A quote from my May 16, 2011 post:

Even though I feel positively drained, I am trying to push myself to get up at dawn, plowing through each glorious day. I am just so super lucky to have shelter, clothing and food. That's all we really ever need.  And companionship. The rest is superfluous. 


I think of it as the 4-C's;  
Cover, clothing, cuisine and companionship. 


If you can have the four basics in life, then you are filthy rich and faring far better than many folks who struggle and juggle to barely keep their own basics together, often losing out on one or more. 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's all still true today.  

Every day I try to write. Some days are good and some are even better. 

I am trying to wake up grateful, plaster a smile on my face and think positively. 

Sounds so easy, but can feel like a struggle some days.

I woke up alive, and that's a really good start!

I owe so many many THANKS to all the wonderful people and angels in my life. 

Thank you so very very much for plopping by.

My neighbors looked in on me today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anytime you shop Amazon

with any of my links, we sometimes earn a small 

commission that helps us in a big way.

THANK YOU!

 

A Fool and A Full Moon

What's the use of waking up if you can't laugh about it?

Full Moon

Well this fool cut her hair on the full moon. I should say trimmed it. My hair is still down to my waist.

A few moons ago I made a mistake trimming it and by the time I got that straightened out, well it was much shorter than I intended. I'd love to keep it longer, as long as I can't sit on it. Once I start sitting on my hair it's a pain in the butt.

The dog and I don't do groomers.

Part of our efficient budget.

Oh sure we'd love to sit down and have someone else pamper us for a change, but we don't and that's that.

If we look goofy, now you know why.

More to laugh about!  Giggles are so good for the soul.

Am I trained in cutting hair?

No.

Will I cut or trim your hair?

No.

For some strange reason I've been asked this quite a few times.

I taught myself to trim my own hair because I love comedy.

So where are the pictures? I took some before and after, but they are very blurry. I thought the camera was broken. Later I discovered it was not broken. PHEW!

Some idiot didn't check the camera first and the little point and shoot dial was dialed around the wrong way. Oh wait. That idiot was me.

Life is goof.

Anytime you shop Amazon

with any of my links, we earn a small 

commission that helps us in a big way.

THANK YOU!

We are very grateful for your thoughtfulness. 

Gorgeous!

It's a beautiful c-c-cold day. My neighbor just walked by with shorts on and a long jacket while dog walking. Meanwhile I am trying to assemble boots, long pants, under shirt, outer shirt, sweater and jacket to open my door and venture out with my critter. I am dead tired and just want to crawl back under the covers.

All those years working in the tropics and I still get frighteningly cold at 50F degrees. Well that is what my outside thermometer says. The weather report online says 59F on one site and 55F on another. Three different temps.

Yet I am still cold.

I am trying to pinch pennies every which way I can, but I am so c-c-cold I am going to turn on the heat for a little bit and try to thaw out, then turn it off again.

There are times like now when it seems so much is going wrong in my life and I just want to sit down and cry. But NO! NO! NO!

NOTE TO SELF:

You woke up alive! Life is AWESOME. Do not complain. Slap a smile on your face and GIVE THANKS!

Angels everywhere have helped me in my journey to wake up alive today.

Thank you. THANK YOU! I am blessed, I am lucky, I must remember to slap myself silly and be grateful.

No complaints. JUST SMILES!

Phew. I feel better already.

It's a gorgeous day to be alive. 

 

Tiny Home Living

I discovered magnet hooks that stick to the underside of the coffee pot

provide extra drip drying room  which is why the scissors are dangling there. 

Anytime you shop Amazon

with my links, we earn a small 

commission that helps us (Doggy and I)

in a BIG WAY!

THANK YOU!

We are very grateful for your thoughtfulness. 

Right or Wrong?

Why does doing the right thing cost more money?

Inquiring minds want to know...