I’ve been working on a writing prompt for my writer’s group. The prompt is “what would your older self tell your younger self?” I’ve been struggling with this one. How to format it, what to talk about. I finally realized that it was not a conversation with the younger me. It is older me, the current me, giving advice to the younger me. The group is meeting tomorrow, so I finished and edited what I had written. But I’m not sure I am happy with it, which I will have to be before I will publish it here. So, we’ll see. It’s been an interesting exercise at the very least.

We have been spending time on our boat, and the other day bought and installed a TV in the cabin. It’s a smart TV so we can run the wifi off of our phone’s hot spot. It’s so great! We get Amazon Prime, Netflix, Youtube, and anything else we want to watch. It’s so nice to lay on the boat, rocking and watching TV. Nice benefit after a day in the sun.

Speaking of a day in the sun, earlier this month we took a ride out into the Gulf, rather than staying in the bay that this town is situated on. It was a lovely calm day. But suddenly the boat seemed to stall. Dan started it up, and it started right up but as soon as he put it in gear it stalled. I told him I was pretty sure that something had fouled the propeller. One of us had to go in the water to see, and since Dan recently had rotator cuff surgery he was unsure that he could pull himself up on the swim ladder. So I went in. The water was pretty cold, about 62° or 63°. I jumped off the swim platform and came up gasping for breath because it was SO cold. I started trying to unwind it but it’s under the swim platform, and I had to hold my breath each time I worked on it. Finally, I gave up, realizing that the line was wrapped way too tight to undo by hand, and climbed back in the boat. By now we had blown in toward the beach and were getting nervous. We threw the anchor out, and by then we were in shallow enough water, Dan could just stand up in the water, and take a knife under the boat and cut the line away.

Adventures in boating, lol.

Boating here is so different. The bottom almost everywhere is sand, not rocks, not grass. Sand. And it moves, and the channels can be so narrow in places, and the water so shallow. Suddenly shallow. The saying down here goes something like this: There are only two kinds of boaters here. Those who have run aground, and those who lie about it. We’ve not gone aground, and I sure hope we don’t. But apparently, if we do, we will be in good company.

We also have joined the St. Pete Shuffleboard club. Yeah, really. (My son says I am starting to sound like an “old” person, lol.) It’s where shuffleboard was invented and is the oldest club in the country. As a member we can bring up to 6 more people, enough to fill 2 courts. Membership is $60 a year. The club has about 80 courts, with bleachers and seating. We can go play anytime we want, 24/7. They give us the combination to the equipment shed and showed us how to turn on the lights. We can bring our own food and drink, even adult beverages, and just enjoy a nice relaxing evening or afternoon.

We took a couple days last week and went to my sisters. We haven’t been all winter yet. Dan has been recovering from the rotator cuff surgery, which is a real bear. 6 months later he is still in some serious pain at times. Then my brother-in-law has had a couple of surgeries, one major and two for cataracts, and we’ve all had colds this winter. So finally we managed to find a couple of days where everyone was healthy and feeling good and take a run down. It was really nice to see them, and enjoy the pool and the good food! Plus we got to go to a neighborhood party, which was fun.

So life has continued to be rich and full. Still go to open mic though not every week, and I still meet with my group of “Spirit Girls” every other week. Life is good.

Love and light to all.