Sometimes, Things Are Put in Perspective

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida

 

We rarely have time for any fun when we’re back in Tampa, and this time is no exception.  I have been busy trying to  find some ways to help my mother with her daily life.  She will be 85 this month and is needing more assistance.

We signed her up for Meals on Wheels.  It’s only $4.75 a meal and she gets a nice hot meal delivered every day.  It takes some of the pressure off me and my brother.

After the last outing to the doctor, we decided to get her a “rollator.”     She’s pretty stable at home, but when we take her out of the house, she’s pretty wobbly.  I found a brand new rollator on Craig's List for only $60.   That’s one nice thing about living in Florida….lots of cheap stuff for the elderly.

We’re considering getting her one of those lift recliner chairs that gives you a boost when you get up.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many in the furniture stores that you can actually look at.  They can be ordered but who wants to buy a chair without trying it out first.

I recently became aware of the possibility of an additional financial benefit for Mom from the VA.  Many of you know Howard and Linda from Rv-Dreams.  

Howard recently wrote up an extremely helpful blog post about elder care, with links to many resources.  Read about it HERE.  Much of his post was geared to benefits for veterans and their spouses, but there is some information for elder care.

My Father was in the military during wartime, although he was never in combat.  When he died Mom was able to have his death considered to be service connected, so she got some additional financial benefits.

After reading Howard’s  blog, I learned that as a widow of a Vet, she may be entitled to some additional compensation for “aid and attendance”.   Of course, dealing with the VA is going to be a challenge.  I’m trying to get my ducks in a row if she should need to be moved to an assisted living facility in the future.  The average cost of assisted living care is $3700 a month.

So…..that’s what we’ve been doing, mixed in between annual doctors appointments for us.

 

Something happened yesterday that really brings home what is important and what isn’t.

Last week, when we went over to the beach, I bought a cute pair of crab earrings from the visitor center gift shop.  They were only $12, but I liked them.

Yesterday, we went  to Walmart.  I wore my new earrings for the first time and Al even complimented me on how cute they were.

While shopping, Al noticed one earring was missing.   We felt pretty sure I lost it in Walmart, so we retraced our steps in the store with no luck finding the earring.  We even went back to the truck, but still didn’t find it.  We kept looking as we finished our shopping, but had pretty much given up hope.

I was a little upset, but kept reminding myself it was only $12 and I could buy another pair if I wanted, but I really liked those earrings.

As I was looking down towards the floor, I looked up one aisle and noticed a man with two artificial legs standing next to the freezer cooler.  As I looked up, I also noticed he also had a prosthetic arm.  Wow.  That stunned me.  This guy had three missing limbs.  I assumed he was the Marine from Tampa that was injured by an IED while in Afghanistan in 2011.  A few charities got together and built him a special custom built home, and he was all over the news a year or so ago.  It appears he is doing pretty well and I was glad to see him standing there grocery shopping like everyone else.

Boy, that puts the missing earrings in perspective, doesn’t it?

He was standing tall and straight on metal legs.  It stunned me and immediately brought tears to my eyes.  

I saw no wheelchair.  He was walking and functioning with three prosthetic limbs.  I was surprised at how tall he was and that he had such great posture.

If I hadn’t been looking down at the ground for my earring, I might have never noticed. This man was functioning so well with so little.

I found Al and told him about what I saw.  We decided my lost earring was not important at all, but almost as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I looked down and there was my lost earring.  It was in the same area that  I had already searched twice.   I think the Marine was my good luck charm!

Unusual Finds at the Beach

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 80, low 62)

 

We’ve had several days of perfect weather,  so we decided to make a trip to the beach. We hadn’t seen the ocean for many months.

On Tuesday, we thought about going out to Big Bend power plant to see the manatees, but changed our mind and ended up at Honeymoon Island.  Most of this is owned by the state of Florida.  They had talked about putting a campground there, but there were too many people protesting.  It would have actually made a nice campground.  Not along the water, but there is quite a bit of scrub land that would have been perfect without much impact on the environment, I would think.  It would have been popular, for sure.  It will probably happen one day.

 

It’s a beautiful place with a nice visitor center with two very nice volunteers.

The island is being eroded from the ocean currents, so they are doing some beach re-nourishing.  The beach is rocky because the sand keeps washing away.  They keep adding more sand, but nature has it’s own idea of where it wants the sand.

It’s still a beautiful beach with a nice trail called  The Osprey Trail.  It actually should be called Poison Ivy Trail,  because that was the first place Al had picked up poison ivy since he was a little boy.  We walked the trail on New Years day one year many years ago and he got a raging case of the stuff.    We decided not to walk the trail the other day, since he’s still battling the current rash.

We hadn’t seen an armadillo in a long time.

It was a beautiful day for the beach.

There weren’t too many people, but everyone seemed to be having a good time with near perfect weather.

The usual seabirds.

We enjoyed a few hours at the beach and had such a good time, that the next day, we decided to head over to Tarpon Springs and Fred Howard Park.

No rocky beach here.

We sat in the truck a few minutes looking at this view while we ate our lunch.

Two couples parked next to us and were outside taking turns taking pictures of themselves.  They spoke Spanish and we’re guessing were visiting from another country.  They  were kind of dressed up for the beach with both women wearing heels. 

After a few minutes, I asked them if they would like me to snap a photo of the 4 of the together.  I took a few pictures of them with this background, then they walked off.  I didn’t think they’d go down to the water with the way they were dressed, but shortly afterwards, we spotted them down near the water.

They were still taking pictures of themselves, but I was pretty far away (used a zoom here) so I didn’t offer to take any more pictures of the four of them together.

I wondered about the high heels, but soon I spotted them sitting in the sand.  It was the strangest think I’ve ever seen at the beach, and I’ve seen some unusual things!

It made me laugh.

This beach wasn’t too crowded and everyone was enjoying themselves.  I hope this guy didn’t catch any flies.

This guy had the coolest octopus kite.

 

Can you see it’s eyes?

We walked all around and met a nice gal from New York. 

The day could not have been prettier.

This is Anclote Key, which was one of our old stomping grounds when we used to have a boat here.  We would go offshore about 24 miles, do a few dives, then come back to Anclote for some relaxing time.  This is the back side of the island.  The front side was beautiful white sand beach.  We saw a pair of eagles on the beach there a few times.

We enjoyed walking around and seeing all the beauty of the beach.

This starfish had washed up on the sand.  We think he was dead, but Al threw him back into the water, just in case.

After  waking around a few hours, I mentioned how nice it was not to have to pay for parking like at so many beaches.  About that time Al noticed this big sign.

Uh oh

After we saw this sign, we noticed a bunch of others that we had somehow missed.  How we missed all these signs, I don’t know.

We hurried back to the truck, expecting to see a big fat ticket on the windshield.

We got lucky.

Instead of paying $5 to park for the rest of the day, we cut our losses and headed home.

Over the causeway.

We wish we were in the Keys, but since the lot is rented, it would be a little crowded anyway!   Hoping to go in February, but as usual, we’re not holding our breath.