normal

I have had a good weekend. It feels nice to say that.

I know a lot of the reason for that is that I got to do something very normal this weekend; I got to swim and spend lots of time on our back patio.

We bought this house in 2000 right after Mr. T got a very good job, the best he'd ever had. We had sold our house in Virginia and didn't want (couldn't afford) to buy something in California where we were renting so, on a whim, we bought this house in Florida and rented it out for several years as a vacation property. All the houses in this area were marketed for vacation rental so they all have small pools in the back.

We could only spend 2 weeks a year here but when we were here, I swam every moment I could, even if the weather was not really warm enough to swim.

For the last 2 1/2 years we've been living here full-time and every weekend where the temperatures have been over 80, I have been in the pool. It's where I'm happiest. Mr. T wasn't as big a fan of the pool as I am, although he liked it, so he enjoyed my swimming weekends because it gave him a chance to putter around the house, fixing things and working on little projects. And from time to time he'd come into the kitchen where I could see him from my lounge chair. He'd come to the window and make goofy faces at me or walk outside and ask me if I needed anything. Sometimes he'd stand at the stove and cook something for us for lunch and bring it out to me as a surprise..

In early November the temperatures outside finally started coming below 90 and then below 80 and it wasn't as much fun to swim or be outside. Then the world fell apart and I didn't want to swim or do anything.

This weekend we had unusually high temperatures, more like summer, and although the water temperature was still low (62!) I went in the pool anyway. At those temperatures, you stop feeling anything in your extremities pretty quickly anyway so I found I didn't mind the cold so much. LOL

I splashed away in the pool and then warmed up again under the umbrella, enjoying a good book and the feel of the warm sun on my skin.

 

Charlie loves being outside as well and had missed it. She could spend all day out there sleeping on the chair while I read.

For just a little while, life felt normal again, just like every other Saturday and Sunday.

One of Mr. T's favorite things about this house was watching me enjoy it so much. I know he was smiling down from heaven this weekend.