What will happen to our freedom?

This is Foster. He is an Australian Shepherd and is pure bred. He is 1 1/2 years old and he needs a home where he can get plenty of exercise and lots of attention.

We can have him for free if we want and we have to decide if we want him. I vowed that I wouldn't have another dog when Willie died, but I know that both Mac and I love living with dogs and could use another baby.

Foster is currently being cared for Mac's nephew John who already has 5 dogs of this type of his own. We love John's dog and that is another reason that we are going down to West Palm again this weekend to celebrate Mac's birthday and get to know Foster.

It would be nice to have a dog that is already trained and sweet. I got one look at this photo and I knew that I was in love. Mac has to make up his mind yet. This is dog is about 40 pounds and supposedly a bit spastic. I'll be letting you know what we do when we get back.

Christmas in West Palm

We spent Christmas Day at Joann and Sid's house. She had a great meal for us and rented tables and chairs so that we (20 odd) of us could all sit down at one long table to eat. She really went all out.
Cathy and all of her siblings were there and we took a lot of photos. Unfortunately mine weren't of a very good quality.
We stayed for three nights at John's house with his brother Gene and wife Linell. We had a lot of fun. There were 8 big dogs there. Two of these 80 plus animals thought that they were lap dogs and we got a whole lot of dog love. That did not fill our need for a dog. It just reminded us of what we were missing.
Mac is always complaining that he gets left out when the Nielsens get together. It was good for me to be on his side of that for a change. I wasn't ignored but he got a whole lot of attention from the whole family. I needed to see this scene from his side for a change. Also, a lot of people have mentioned that I might as well not be in the house at all if my grandkids are around as that is all I have attention for. Well Jo was really taken up with her two cuties--Conner and Cody. I could see myself in her hostess and grandmother behavior.
I missed going to some kind of church service. I love the carols and rites at Christmas and never got to experience them this year.
The highlight of my day was talking to Sean on the phone. He tries to call at least 3 times a year. He said that Jo is taking drugs now to try to ovulate on a timely basis, and that they had both had their fertility checked. They are going at this conception business full swing. I hope they get their wish in 2008. Sean mentioned that his book sales aren't off the wall and we discussed some publicity stunts that might help the marketing. He said the pope was coming to New York and he was thinking of sneaking in and throwing his book at him to generate some press. I suggested he do the Dali Lama and Tom Cruise as well to try to touch some other religious bases. It was a fun talk.
I loved talking to Karen as well. She was really sick with a bad cold and did not get the job in Atlanta that she had interviewed for. She wondered afterward if she would have, had she not been so sick the day of the interview. Going to Hong Kong and Japan and then going to Atlanta three days after return was too much for her. It would have been too much for anybody.
I also got to talk to Landon at length--the other boys were too busy playing in the basement with Daddy and the toys. Landon was pretty excited about his big new fire truck and his computor. He also can't wait to see our airplane when we fly in to TC in February. We shouldn't have told him that we were coming as he will be waiting for quite a while. He we soo glad that the Christmas Tree was still there even though Santa had come. He is a happy guy!!
I haven't heard from France yet about their Christmas. Maybe I should check their blogs.
Love to all. Grandma Janet

I am happy

It was a great week here in Florida. Although the weather started out cool it became progressively warmer as it went on. On Tuesday I found out that I don't have osteoporosis yet, just osteopenia (its precursor). I have gone down a bunch of T-scores since 2 years ago when my bones were healthier than a young adult and I was on estrogen. Going off of it, really caused a big crash.
I had a wonderful hour long Skype session with the three Williams women that I adore on Wednesday. I followed that talk with a nice swim.
Today I played bridge and did well, went to a great Christmas party before hand at the club,and I got a new pair of Crocs that are really comfortable and cute. Mac and I got haircuts today too. I went swimming at 5:30 and the almost full moon was out, even though it was dusk, not dark and it was shining on the pool as I swam. This evening I watched 3 eplisodes of House on my computor. I have been giving in to the constant temptation of Christmas Goodies everywhere I go. I will have to get serious about a diet after the first of the year when things settle a little.
Tomorrow I am going to get the last two shots in my knees for my arthritis and maybe some cortisone in my elbow for a condition that isn't improving (I've had it since May.)
I shared with Shannon the five keys to a good vacation: 1: have some idea of what you are going to do when you get up each day, 2: be a lot more respectful of one another than usual as you will probably be living on top of each other, 3: try to do something new or different each day, 4: don't go off by yourself all of the time, but 5: try to include some alone time or space for each member of the party. I read these in the paper and they seemed like 5 good keys to living with another human being.
I am hoping to find a few woment who want to scrapbook with me on a regular basis here in the camp. I am setting up a meeting to see if I can find a kindred soul here somewhere. I think it would help me get a little more of my scrapping done, if I had a regular time to work on it. The club house would provide an excellent place to set up and work for a few hours. I hope it works out.

Things are Good Here

Saturday was a fun day. We shopped a lot in the a.m. and found smoked turkey drumsticks to bring home from the Deli for lunch. Eddie called and Evan's team won the first game of the hockey tournament they were playing in and Evan got 2 goals. We had lots of xmas cards in the mail. One, from the young Amish family that we are friends with, was just glowing about the fruit box that we had sent to them. Apparently that was one huge success.
Another Christmas Card was from a friend with breast cancer. She is feeling well enough to visit her parents in January and she and her husband are going to visit us too. They live in Seattle and we don't get to see them very often. We called them right away and they are going to a shuttle launch at Cape Kennedy and we may go with them too, on January 10th.
We went out for dinner with some friends from the park to a new restaurant and the meal was fabulous. I even ordered dessert which was called a Chocolate Slide and was of course brownies with ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. We all had a spoon and that was fun too.
Friday I had the second round of shots, and my knees are coming along fine with the treatment. I am still coughing from the cold I caught in TC or from Mac about the day after I arrived down here. Tuesday I find out what the results are on my bone density test. I am thinking that they aren't very good. At least that is what I was reading from the computor when I peeked at it after I was done. Boniva here I come.

Getting Set up in Florida

I just got out of the pool. I have done 20+ minutes of laps everyday since we arrived (Dec 2nd I think). We have had great weather and I am really glad to be swimming on a regular basis again.
It has been difficult getting everything up and running here because some nearby lightning strike this summer got into the cable line and blew out our modem and the network card in our computor. We also had some trouble with the LCD TV but it's working now and the computor fixes only came to $100. We have been grocery shopping three times. We keep making lists of things we need immediately after coming in the door with a bunch of things we thought was everything.
I didn't make any bridge dates this week so that I could help with all of the setting up. Mac and I have two huge suitcases full of clothes that we don't know what to do with. We have so many things here already that we hardly needed to bring anything and yet we did. Oh well, we will manage to find room for everything eventually.
I get my first set on knee injections on Friday. You get two shots (one in each knee) three different times-one week apart. My girl friend is going to ride up with me and we will have lunch with her daughter who lives in Claremont where my doctor is. I am really needing these shots but I did very well on the ones I got in March. I almost can forget that I have knee problems sometimes.
I want to find a yoga class but haven't gotten to that yet. I have arranged for us to go to two concerts and one play this season. We are going to hear Willie Nelson again and a few other country groups and the play is a comedy.
Speaking of Willie, we have been mourning him all over again as we keep finding his balls and leashes and poop bags and things all over this place. We got rid of all of that stuff in Gowen and then it all hits us over again. I saw a Schnauzer mutt today at Walmart and I wanted to take it home. It was brown and about Fritzy's size. I saw a Halmark Christmas special about a woman who said that her late husband had made her feel fullfilled. I thought to myself that that is what my dogs did for me. I'll get over this soon.
Next week is full of appointments and bridge. I am having a bone density test and a visit with a dermatologist. I will be playing bridge on Wed. and Thurs. and every Mon and Thursday after that I imagine. Tuesday night is the club house Christmas potluck and gift exchange.
We are going to Mac's nephews house for Christmas in West Palm Beach.
Life is seeming very good to me right now. I am even planning to go to the cypress Garden New Year's Eve Party with a water ski show and fireworks at midnight.