Hi Baby,
Had several occasions during the night when I had to wake up enough to add items to my list of things to do today, woke up feeling very pressed for time, so I got up early and started in as soon as I could. Managed to get a whole lot of packing done, thanks goodness! That includes the list of items recommended by the safari company. I was even able to borrow a pair of half chaps from Chelle! Art came and walked Lola, so that gave me some more time, then by mid-afternoon, I was feeling confident enough to invite Helen to dinner at Willards, with Art joining us. Feeling much more prepared than I thought I could be by the end of the day. Still haven't heard about the visa, but the safari company wrote that it could be obtained on entry at the airport, though I've heard that's a lengthy process, and I'll likely have to pay a second time if my online visa doesn't come through in time. Oh, well, in for a penny, in for a pound! Managed to get a hot tub in, showered and ready for another early night. I'm even feeling prepared enough to go to one more chiropractic session in the morning. Hope I don't wake up during the night thinking of another whole list of things to do! Though I'd rather have a list than try to remember in the morning! You know me and my lists! Other than the visa, my only other real concern is the weight of my bags, though I checked them on the scale today, and it looks like I might just squeak by, or be no more than a few pounds over, which astonishes me, actually. I thought they would be heavier. But then again, I'm not quite done packing yet! But with the list of things I'm supposed to bring, I honestly don't know how anyone could carry anything less. Ok, headed to bed. Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Woke up feeling tired, despite getting a full eight hours. All this activity is just getting bone deep exhaustion. Lola and I went for our walk this morning, I did a few minor extra chores, then because it was a cloudy day, I abandoned my list of things to do and went out to finish the waxing on the south side of the trailer. I got most of it done, then during a break I went online to finish by Tanzanian Visa Application, and what should have been a 10 minute job turned into an hour of frustration, as I kept getting almost to the end and then having it come back with an error code, and I'd have to start over. Very frustrating! I finally got what seems to be a positive response, so I went back out to finish the last of the waxing (except for the rear doors, which I ran out of time to do, and I'm not sure I have enough was to complete either), just managing to finish just after 3:00, which left me barely enough time to get to the airport to pick up Art. Then his flight landed half an hour early! I thought I was going to be really late, but they didn't have a gate open, so they ended up sitting on the tarmac until the usual arrival time anyway, so I arrived just before him, picked him up on my second loop. We went to a nice Indian restaurant on the way home, so I'll have leftovers (one less day of having to cook!), and dropped him off before 7:00. Got home, fed the horses, settled down after putting all the meat from yesterday's shopping in the freezer, did my Spanish lesson, watched one hour of TV, and am so tired, I'm going to bed really early, once again skipping the hot tub, which I'm missing! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin',
Woke up early to sound of horse squealing, evidently Flash was picking on Apollo again, until I yelled out the window at him, and he quit, thank goodness. It was the first time the overnight temps were nice enough to open the windows, so there's that. Worked on my shoulder and did some PT exercises before getting out of bed, which has become my habit of late. Got my chores and breakfast done, then headed up to Williston for my chiropractic appointment. Once again, a fabulous job on my shoulder, hoping we're finally making significant progress. Decided I had time to pick up a bundle of hay, which Chelle will need to feed my guys while I'm on my Africa trip, so a quick stop at Triple J farms, another quick stop at home, and very thankful for Chelle's husband Eric's help to offload my 21 bales quickly (nice to have a man around for burly jobs!), and still managed to make it to my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon's office who did my knee last year. All good on that account! Very impressed I could bend my knee all the way up to my neck, which is actually one of the exercises my chiropractic instructed me to do, as it would be good for my lower back! A quick stop to put some fuel in my tank (Aaargh! $5.59, and $100 only brought me up to 3/4 of a tank!), but at least the stock market went up today, I'm sure we're on the road to recovery pretty quick, now that a bunch of other countries have decided to send their navies in to help open up the Hormuz Strait. Next stop was Smart Style, where my usual stylist, Jan, gave me the very short cut I requested. She's having a mastectomy done tomorrow, and will be out for 4-6 weeks, so I was lucky to have made this appointment on her last day! Did a bunch of shopping at Walmart so Lola would be fully taken care of while I'm gone, then a quick stop at Tractor Supply for horse feed as well, and I think I'm all set now for my trip. I went ahead and cancelled both other airline tickets, having finally made the decision to go with the KLM flight, and made the reservation for the extra days at the start of my journey. Still have to reserve for my return, but figure I can do that when I'm there. Was glad to hear from the safari outfitter that no one was deterred by the prediction of wet weather, so it looks like a full house, though I don't know how many folks that is. Finally settled down to a couple of episodes of Continuum and the rest of my evening. A busy day, but quite productive. They'll all have to be this week in order for me to be ready to leave on Friday now! Ready for bed soon! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Had another long day of working on the exterior of the trailer. Started the day with a walk with Lola and Eric (Chelle was off at a yoga class), then got busy starting to wax the trailer. It was wet due to fog before the walk, but by the time I got out to start waxing the south side was already too hot to wax, so I started on the southwest and then the north side, which took me most of the day. Hard work, all this waxing and polishing! But I have to admit, it does look better. Kept hearing Mr. Miyagi muttering "wax on, wax off" all day! At one point, after Eric finished working on something on his roof, I asked for his help straightening out my awning. The wind here has been tremendous, and has fluffed my awning to such a degree that the arms were twisted and the vinyl was totally uncentered, so he helped me straighten that out, thank goodness! Once that was done, I closed it up, figuring I'll just keep it that was until I leave, or I know there's no wind coming in. It just sneaks up on us here! I managed to finish the south side of the trailer by a bit after 3:30, and I just had to quit for the day, I was so exhausted. Finished some laundry, checked the chemicals and cleaned the filter in the hot tub, and did some housekeeping before settling down for the evening, managed to get a well-deserved hot tub by skipping a party (I've been to more parties this year than I have in the last ten years!), before taking my shower and am now ready for bed. Another busy day tomorrow, though not physically, not working on the trailer. I need a cloudy day to finish off the south side of the trailer now. Hopefully, we'll have one of those this week, I don't want to leave anything for when I get back, I'll be busy enough as it is! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Had a good night again, woke up to a message from Chelle that the horses had defeated the new fence I had put up and were up to mischief. The fence was down, but I believe the culprit was her horse Levi, who was happily munching away in the "new" pasture, while my two guys were heading down the driveway. Fortunately, everything here is well fenced. She managed to corral them back into the old pasture until we fixed our respective fences, and soon all was right with the world again. After the usual chores and breakfast, Lola and I went for our walk, then around noon, I started the long overdue task of washing the trailer. I started on the roof doing it by hand, but when I saw the level of mess, I pulled out the pressure washing, which made the job much easier. It still took me until 5:00, with only one very quick beverage break, and I was pretty well whipped by the time I finished. Looks much better, but that's only half the job. The other half is waxing, which I intend to tackle tomorrow. Had a lovely hot tub and shower, and won't be long out of bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Babe,
Was woken up about 5:00 by Lola, pacing and panting, so I had to get up to let her out. Once she came back in, she was a bit quieter after awhile, but I still spent a couple of hours reading before I finally fell back to sleep. Once I got, did my chores, had breakfast, I set up my portable fence on the western part of the property, as the pasture they've been on is getting a bit overtaxed. The horses appreciated getting some fresh grass with their usual hay. Afterward, I took a walk with Lola, this time with Chelle and her two dogs. Her hound mix Fleury has been very aggressive toward Lola, biting her legs and going out of her way to be a bit mean, chasing her up the driveway and so on, but we figured maybe a few walks together might help, and fortunately, the walk was uneventful! Fingers crossed that a few more of those and they'll get along a bit better. Killed some time until I was to meet Jo at Apex, where we joined up and headed down to Tidewater to pick up the UTV the camphosts have down there, and headed out to clean up a few areas that are normally too wet to get into, but with the drought, are much more reachable. We cleaned up the swamp areas, and a few other places that are typically wet, and felt we got a lot accomplished. Got back home shortly after 6:00 and settled down for the evening, watching a few more Continuums, having dinner and a bourbon, taking a hot tub and shower, and soon to bed! Felt pretty productive today, even if I didn't get my taxes done! Still have a few weeks! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetheart!
If only... But no, it didn't work out that way. Meanwhile, that chiropractic session must have done me a world of good, because I slept for a solid nine hours last night! Happy to sleep in late, though, since the temps were in the 30's this morning. Sure hope this is the last gasp of winter! Woke up to the sound of Flash doing some self-exercising, thundering around the pasture! Love that sound! Spent some time working on bookkeeping, getting everything ready to do my taxes. I also communicated with American Airlines about scheduling. While they've taking Saturday, Mar. 28 off their schedule, they're taking reservations for Sunday, March 29, and I wanted to be sure if they actually flew on Sunday, I'd have a seat. It would get me in on Tuesday, but at least I'd have one night to recover. Probably better than arriving on Saturday and spending four nights there, but we'll see. They're not making any promises, other than to do their best when and if the time comes. Iran sent some missiles into Qatar today, so that's likely to keep the airspace closed even longer. Or else it's a last gasp, we'll see. Anyway, Lola and I took our walk in the late afternoon again, after it had finally warmed up nicely, and my evening included a nice hot tub and a couple of glasses of wine again. Shower done, off to bed soon! Love you, darlin'! Happy Birthday!

Hey Darlin',
Woke up to much cooler temps this morning, though I had left the small space heater on overnight so it wasn't too bad in here this morning. Had to pull out my Alaska parka for chores again, though. I was hoping to be done with that jacket for the season! Spent some time working on Plan C for my travels, down to Turkish Air now, but I can't find decent price or connection that gets me home before midnight, so I may have to spend the night in Atlanta and come home the next morning. We'll see. Grrr! I just with Iran would surrender (it's inevitable, right?) and get it over with so things can get back to normal. Fuel prices are back up into the $5+ a gallon range, which is ridiculous considering we don't get a drop of oil from Iran. Oh, well. I went to Williston for a chiropractic appointment and had a fabulous session with Dr. Andrea, who took an excellent, whole body holistic approach. She even worked on my shoulder quite a bit, agreeing that it was part of the overall connectivity problem. Was much more balanced by the time I left, felt much better. Got home, did a little more computer work, then decided since it had finally got up into the high 50's, to take Lola for a walk. We did our usual 2 mile circuit, got back and had a nice steak dinner, followed by a hot tub, and finally settled down for the rest of the evening with a glass of wine. Got my steps in, and feel a lot better. Determined to use it, so I won't lose it! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Slept well, got my chores done, started some laundry, then Lola and I went for our walk. Spent some time fixing my computer. My CDRom hasn't been working, not sure if it ever did since I got this machine, but after some poking and prodding, finally decided to switch it out for the one on my old machine, and now it works fine! I had received a couple of DVD's as part of my Silver and Fit program, one is on Tai Chi and the other is 5 ten minute workouts. Trying to gain some strength, not that I'm that weak, just I don't want to atrophy. I copied them right onto my laptop, but I don't think I can get them on my tablet, but I may be able to download some others from Youtube with a trial subscription, but I haven't figured all that out yet. I did do one 15 minute Tai Chi routine I found online just for fun. Other than that, I had a pretty quiet day, intentionally resting as much as I could. It was supposed to rain but hasn't yet, though it looks like it might overnight. Finished off Monarch of the Glen and started a new SciFi series called Continuum, looks fairly interesting. Another time travel story! Won't be long out of bed tonight, with the AC running, but cooler temps are coming in, so it will probably be the heater tomorrow night! Always crazy in Florida at this time of year! Whoops! Rain just started! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin',
Had another lengthy night sleep, starting to feel like I'm regaining some energy. After my usual chores, I even got busy and did some housework, vacuuming and reorganizing my wardrobe a bit. Jo and I were supposed to go do some trail work, but it rained off and on during the morning, so we weren't able to do it, which was fine by me. I also spent some time online. I decided to break down and rebook another flight for Africa. The ticket price was considerably more than my original ticket, but at least it will get me there without going through the middle East, where there's a bit of a conflict going on right now. I'm pretty sure my ticket will be refunded, since there are very few flights going in and out of Doha, and in particular, none to Kilimanjaro as of yet, but if things do suddenly clear up, I bought a refundable ticket, so I won't be out any money there. More than what I wanted to pay, but it's either that or scrap the whole thing if Qatar doesn't reopen their airspace in time. My hosts Chelle and Eric arrived home before noon, so I don't have the place to myself anymore, and Lola's back on her rope. When I was feeding the horses this morning, I noticed Apollo had an open wound on his belly, about six inches long and maybe 3/4 of an inch wide, so I put some wound spray on it. I had noticed him trying to scratch his belly on the ground the other day, thought it was just itchy winter coat coming off, but instead found this wound. Naturally, I'll keep an eye on it to see how it progresses. Settled down earlier than usual in the afternoon, bingeing on Monarch of the Glen, nice to have a quiet day. Feeling a lot more refreshed. Good to have a rainy day once in awhile, everything turning so green now! More rain and cooler temps tomorrow, so we'll be walking early, something I skipped today because I thought I'd be out in the forest. Won't be long out of bed! Good night, baby! Love you!