Winter Activities without Florida

We didn’t go to Florida this winter. Two days before we were set to leave home, Tim could barely walk. His knee has been a problem and he’d only recently visited the orthopedic surgeon. They’d given him a cortisone shot which wasn’t giving him much relief. It didn’t make sense for us to be on the road for three days and then worry about how he’d do once we were there.

So, we made the tough decision to stay home and focus on his knee. He had known he’d need replacement surgery, but he was trying to put it off as long as he could. That strategy wasn’t working.

It was also an expensive decision. As I’m sure you know, canceling a trip like that at the last minute is not likely to result in a refund. But it was the right decision.

That meant I would now be spending my winter in Iowa. How would I fill my time? If you know me, you know I have no problem filling my days. But I was able to do some things I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

I always take knitting and cross stitch on our trip and spend quite a bit of time on those projects. The knitting is what I call my “car project”, since I like to have something to do on our long days driving. But I also work on it while we’re there. And then I always cross stitch at night.

I did spend time on those while home, but I was also able to participate in the 24 hours of cross stitch weekend the end of January. I love being able to spend three full days in my sitting room watching TV and stitching. I got all caught up on Chicago Med episodes and made it through Big Little Lies, since I signed up for a year long special with HBOMax, which I got primarily so I could watch The Pitt. The weekend was a success since I also finished a project.

I’ve also been trying to teach myself to crochet. Last summer, my granddaughter said she wanted to learn to crochet and would I help her? I said sure, I’m game to try something new. So we started learning and practicing stitches and sent each other pictures to compare our progress.

Some people tell me crochet is easier than knitting, but I’ve found I prefer knitting. I have trouble recognizing the stitches in crochet and how to count them. I’ve read I need to use stitch markers, which I do in knitting too, but I still get messed up. So far, I’ve only made Woobles. Did you know there’s a Facebook group called Crocheters Against Woobles??? They are expensive but I learned a lot doing them. Their videos are great for learning the stitches.

Anyway, I wanted to make something more useful so I bought a crochet afghan kit, thinking that would be my car project this year. I started it and got frustrated, so I converted it to a knitting pattern instead. I’ve made pretty good progress and I’m happy with it. I need to find smaller crochet projects for learning. I love some of the basket patterns so maybe I’ll try that.

We usually have to miss our grandkids’ sports in the winter, so we were able to get to games this year. We went to basketball games at least once a week, and finally saw Carly play volleyball in her last game of the season. Most of her games were early Saturday mornings and since we have to drive almost 3 hours one way, we just can’t make an 8:00 am game. We’d struggle with that even if she played here in town!! We were also lucky to spend Carly’s birthday with her.

Fortunately, the weather wasn’t too bad. We did have one snowstorm, which I always enjoy from the comfort of my home. And we’ve had some warm days, so even when it did snow, it didn’t last long. We had a brutal cold spell, but those are the days I just stay home. Retirement is so nice.

The most surprising thing I did was play Mahjong a couple of times. Before this, I’d had some exposure to the game, but not enough that it made sense. When my friend Linda asked if I’d like to play because they needed a fourth person, I said OK. Why not? I have to admit, it wasn’t so intimidating this time. It actually made sense, if you appreciate the intricacies of gathering your tiles.

The hardest part for me was following the card that provides all the various mahjong combinations. I was thinking of it like gin rummy, but it’s more restrictive. Linda asked me to play again a couple of weeks later, and I finally started making the connection between what I had in my hand, and what was listed on the card. I even finally scored a mahjong!!

I was able to attend book club meetings during February and March.

We dealt with a false alarm on Tim’s surgery. It was scheduled for March 2, so I had my month all clear to take care of him. Well, a few days before that, they realized it hadn’t been three months since his cortisone shot, so the surgery was delayed 4 weeks. Had to scramble a little bit to make sure his PT appointments didn’t interfere with my April appointments. Fortunately, only one of his was a problem, and he was able to reschedule. He actually had the nerve to suggest that I reschedule my doctor’s appointment, but I said are you serious? This appointment has been scheduled for a year!!

I am making scrapbooks for the grandkids to give them when they graduate from high school. I organize them by year, with the end of each year being their birthday. I was all caught up on Brady’s (before he turned 13 last June), but hadn’t done anything yet for Carly’s. I thought with this unplanned extra time, I could make good progress on these.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw I had somewhat organized things for Carly’s, so the first few years didn’t take too long. But as she got older, there were MANY more pictures to include, and it slowed me down. She’s 11, and I only made it through year 7. I finally had to take a break, because I wanted to work on cards instead. Not sure when I’ll pick it up again. 😉

Speaking of cards, I was able to get caught up on the cards I need for April. I have three birthdays that month, plus Easter. But the best thing – I was able to sign up for Virtual Stamp Joy and participate live the first weekend in March. If we’d been in Florida, we’d be heading home that weekend. I always love Stamp Joy, especially Virtual, because I can do it from my own craft room.

If you look closely at the first picture, you’ll see I added artwork to my walls. That’s a small part of it. I’d only been planning to do this for a year. Ha!! Glad I finally found the time to do it. Really brightens up the room.

We also purchased two new recliners for our sunroom. We bought fabric upholstered ones to make our room look more beachy and light. Tim never did like his and I have to admit, I definitely missed my leather recliner. We were lucky enough to find a smaller La-Z-Boy recliner, and two fit perfectly in our room. If we hadn’t had to order them to get blue, I would have preferred that over what we got. But this color is OK, and we could get them right away.

I also started playing with AI. Not for writing but for featured images. The one in today’s post was through ChatGPT, but I’ve also used CoPilot. More fun than writing the posts!!

So that’s been my winter. We tried to make the most of it, but we also really missed Florida. However, I’ve been told that February wasn’t all that nice down there. Maybe we weren’t supposed to go anyway!?! Naw, we’ve already booked next year. 😊