Heart of Florida Homes - Central Florida Realtor

02/11/2025

Give Kids The World is a very worthy cause, and what they are offering with this fundraising contest is incredible! (I know that by sharing this post I am increasing my competition for this prize, but that should tell you how much I believe in Give Kids The World!)

Give Kids The World Village is also a fun and rewarding volunteer opportunity for those who like to donate time.

Give Kids The World is giving you the chance to win a Magical Celebration Vacation Package. https://give.gktw.org/castle

11/01/2024

Partway through Halloween evening, as soon as I stepped outside to greet a trick-or-treater, the mom pointed above my head and said "a new friend has come for some candy". I turn and see this fellow! Tried to tell him that he gets no candy unless he is in costume, but I was ignored. 😆

Never seen him there before, and he was not afraid (until I made barking noises to scare him off to prevent a potential problem with other trick-or-treaters). Yes, I really do enjoy the random wildlife encounters in Florida. Just wish this one hadn't been close enough to jump on my head if he decided he really wanted the last peanut butter cup!

10/31/2024

Mom really got into Halloween: always making sure we had costumes that fit, taking us trick-or-treating, and making sure someone was at her and Dad's house to hand out candy, too! She also dressed up, although usually not in anything scary or requiring make-up. One year, she sewed a vampire cape for me because I so wanted to be a vampire one year (and I still have the cape).

Last year, since she had moved to a 55+ Florida community with arguably zero kids, she asked if she could come to our house to hand out candy. THAT is how committed she was for Halloween! Since she is not here to hand out candy this year, I am doing it in her honor, using the same themed basket she used last year and for many years before that.

Happy Halloween, Mom! Hopefully, I'll be better at not eating the leftovers. 😁

10/30/2024

After Grandma died, we opened the fortune cookies left over from the last Chinese food we had with her. The photo shows the order in which we opened them, so be sure to read them from top to bottom.

To anyone who knew her, the first three are so applicable to her! They are meaningful messages she would appreciate and that accurately reflected who she was as a person.

Then we opened the fourth one, which is so random as to be laughable. 😆 Hopefully, someone besides us will have the "so sweet, so true, so Grandma... what the heck?" reaction we did!

10/28/2024

More words of wisdom found in Grandma's belongings. This, in her own writing, was on the back of the paper in my previous post about her. I don't know if she was the originator, but considering she grew up on a farm and raised four children, it's possible! 😄

10/26/2024

Words of wisdom found in Grandma's belongings. She did not write this, but I know she took the words to heart, being the kind yet realistic person she was.

10/24/2024

With all of our family losses over the past 22 months, receiving school photos of my nephew and niece is a ray of sunshine.

05/19/2024

Home of digital credentials

04/08/2024

I love my Grandma, who lives with me and whom I take care of each day. Air travel with Grandma, who is 108 and uses a wheelchair for anything but a short walk, has made me very aware of an unfortunate type of situation, one that happened repeatedly this past week: able-bodied adults not traveling with children or the elderly who use the limited number of assisted care/companion/family restrooms for their individual needs. The cumulative amount of time by which I have had to delay Grandma's toilet needs because of assisted care restrooms occupied by someone who has no apparent need to use such restrooms has been a disappointing reflection of the selfishness only SOME (but nevertheless too many) people seem to have.

Please, share this post with anyone who might be ignorant of the reason why assisted care restrooms exist, and encourage them to use the restrooms the rest of us are fully capable of using. Or, for the sake of all of our elderly, disabled, and families traveling with children and luggage, politely educate those you see someone coming out of an assisted care restroom they did not need to be using. The world would be just a little bit brighter if we all thought about others with special circumstances before making decisions that might be to their detriment.

(No, Grandma did not complain. 😊 She never complains. She has lived through the 1918 flu pandemic, WWI, the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, WWII, losing her husband, two hip replacements, COVID, and attending the funerals for two of her four children - she is tough, to put it mildly. But she has needs that I will defend on her behalf, always. She deserves that, at least.)