orlando

The year 2016 came and went in the blink of an eye and here I sit with a clean slate of possibilities for 2017.  All the 2016 resolutions will roll over to the new year in order to start anew. The year 2016 completes our first full year in Florida and there are a few things of note that you don’t think much about when you are living in the midwest.  Here are few things I have learned this past year…

• The palm trees in the yard need to be trimmed quite often.  I only trimmed the trees in the north when a branch was sickly.  Here the fronds begin to droop and brown. Ours (queen palm) produces a fruit bundle that weighs 40 to 50 pounds, which if not cut soon begin to drop the small balls which kind of stink up the yard.  It also produces a long spear that can provide a nice puncture wound or rip one of the screens on the lanai. Which brings us to the next item.
• The lanai. I always called it a screened in porch growing up in Illinois, but here it is a lanai. Either way I’m not complaining.  It does sound more relaxing when you say “I’m going to hang on the lanai” The origin is Hawaiian so there you go.
• It’s easy to weed the flower beds or anywhere for that matter. The whole yard is sand.  Hidden under the grass is sand… and lots of it. Many times when Dad had me digging holes in Illinois I would mutter my dislike for the clay soil that seemed to be everywhere in our yard.  In Florida the muttering is at a minimum when I break out the shovel.
• There is a reason the retired folks head south in the winter.  It is downright beautiful weather in the winter months.  Those months when I was shoveling snow, chipping ice, power sliding in the school parking lot (I do miss that), are forgotten when you are debating whether to wear the white shorts after labor day or bring a jacket to the park because it might get a bit chilly when the sun goes down on a beautiful January day.  For comparison… here is a shot of our Indiana driveway after a January 2014 snow and a Walt Disney World Monorail shot from January 2015.

• There is a reason the retired folks head north at the winter’s end.  It gets smokin hot in the summer. Heat and humidity are both high. It makes it hard to breathe sometimes for new runners like myself, but moderation is the key with lots of liquids.
• Walt Disney World cannot be done in a day, a week or even a year.  There is so much to see and do.  The World is huge and depending on the current “stage” of your life not everything may appeal to you, but there is something for everyone. You may feel you have outgrown something, but rest assured there will be 20 things waiting to take its place.  You may outgrow it, move on, and then come back years later appreciating it from a different perspective that can only come with your increased years on planet earth.
• It is hard to work for a living in the vacation kingdom of Orlando.  There is so much you want to see, activities you want to do, but one still needs to earn a living, mow the lawn, trim the palm trees, and maintain the house.

They say you can’t do it all, but this year were going to get as close to “all” as humanly possible.  Here is to a Happy and Healthy 2017 wherever you may find yourself.