Florida Living

Dean did some major yard work today (have I mentioned that my hubby is awesome!!). And the place is looking great.

However, when Natalie and I got home from the gym in the middle of said yardwork, Dean tells me that he found wasps nests in essentially ALL of our bushes. He pulls one out and there are eggs in the honeycomb. Aack!! He then shoos me inside.

You see, I am highly allergic to black wasps. And they are ALL over our neighborhood. I seriously  have less than an hour to use an epipen or get to a hospital before I will be rendered unable to breathe. This is frightening enough, what is more frightening is that I do not yet know if either of our daughters will have the same allergic reaction.

Sigh. I will never get used the FL creatures.

I am surrounded

Okay, enough already!

When we moved into our house in FL, you couldn't walk out the front door to the driveway and not see at least half a dozen lizards scattering about. I actually liked this then, and still do now. I enjoy watching them and Natalie loves to chase them.

When I found the lizard in my shopping cart, I impressed myself by my calmness.

However, when moving the couch in our living room today to try out a newly purchased rug from Costco, along with the expected dust bunnies, was a dead and slightly petrified lizard. ew! Thank god for Dean as there was NO WAY I was going to touch that.

I shudder to think what else, deal or alive is roaming in my house.

Cold Weather

We went through a cold spell here the past few weeks and I've been loving it. Cold weather is a luxury not often found in Florida. And by cold I mean down into the 20s at night (yay, fire time!) and 50s during the day. I know that is nothing to you midwesterners, but we are feelin' it here.

And Katherine looks so cute in her cold weather gear, I just wish she got to wear it more often. See for yourself...

Florida Grocery Shopping

This weekend I had the luxury of grocery shopping all by myself. Even though it was Saturday afternoon, and the store was crowded with everyone getting their Superbowl supplies, I did not mind. I was alone.

Or so I thought...

While reaching into my cart to throw in my first item, I notice one of Natalie's tiny dinosaurs in the cart. Thinking it must have fallen out of my bag I reach down to pick it up and it moves.

Oh no folks, that was no toy dinosaur in my cart. It was a live lizard. Yep. Good times. So while mildly freaking out, I do what any Floridian would. I calmly walk the cart outside, leave it and get a new one. All in a day's shopping.

So yeah, I think when all is said and done, I may have officially acclimated to living in Florida. Help me!

More Florida Fun

Okay, I think this beats my frog in the toilet story. Nice to know this occurred just a bit north of us.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352098,00.html

In other news, our neighbors lawn, which they just re sodded a couple months ago, is slowly being destroyed by a two foot long nutria (which is essentially a giant rat). It is burrowing under their lawn and apparently, according to google, can be quite ferocious. Joy! Upon discovering this, our neighbors called animal control. But oops, there is no animal control in Hillsborough County. Double Joy! Especially since we live right near a conservation lot, which is brimming with critters of all kinds.

Okay, who's comin' to visit? Come on...

You've Got Mail

Well, Dean actually. He was greeted by this big daddy a couple days ago.





Meanwhile, this afternoon I discovered that only in Florida can you be walking out to your mailbox to post a letter, startle at the lizard in the mailbox enough to jump and have a total stranger who happens to be walking by right at that moment say "lizard?" and smile. Gotta love the lifestyle here.

Found Today on Our Lanai

Okay, we have a screened lanai. With a wasp killer hanging by the pool as backup. And yet the above is what was hanging out on our lanai ceiling this afternoon. Might not look like much to you, but to me, that is the wasp of death that can kill me in a matter of hours. Inside what is supposed to be my sanctuary from the Florida bugs. Joy.

Did I mention how happy I am to be heading to California for ten days?

Fall in Florida

The weather is finally nice here. Unbelievable. I was beginning to become a complete grump towards the end of October when it was still getting into the high 80s. We now are enjoying lovely weather in the 70s and it's actually chilly enough to wear a long sleeve shirt in the evenings. Progress!

Natalie, Dean and I have been enjoying all this fabulous weather. After a summer of feeling trapped indoors or only being outside while submersed in cool water, we've been enjoying neighborhood walks in the afternoons and playing in our backyard again (I almost forgot we had one!)

All this new outdoor livin' has it's drawbacks though. We are still in Florida. Which means when you play outside and run around, you find these in your backyard:



That, my friend, is a photo of an actual ant from my backyard. And it is as creepy as it looks. If you look closely, you can see his eyes, aack! Yes, I now live with the biggest ants I have ever seen in my life. I realize there is no point of reference, so you'll have to believe me when I say these ants are almost an inch long. Ugh. I get the hibbie jibbies just thinking about it. When we first moved here, I tried to hide all my general freaking outness about all the insects and bugs here from Natalie. I didn't want her to be scared and pass along my fears. But you know what? Game off. She needs to be afraid of these things. I screamed, grabbed her and yelled some craziness about fire ants and ran. Sadly, Natalie knows first hand about the pain of fire ant bites. She's been bitten by several twice now. And those ants were like fire ant lite. They were less than half the size of these and left a nasty bite for weeks. Yes, be afraid Natalie. Be very afraid.