Christmas 2021

Hope this Christmas finds you happy and healthy. 

It has been a good year for the Gryders though not particularly exciting since we are still not going out much in order to stay safe from Covid since Meade is diabetic. We have only gone to a sit down restaurant twice this year. We eat breakfast at Subway twice a week before grocery shopping.  I pick up takeout once a week. It has broken our habit of eating out six or seven times a week. Lucky for us Meade is a great cook.

I semi-retired on January 8th. It has completely changed my life. I no longer wake up to an alarm clock. I always thought that I was doing fine on 6 hours of sleep a night but since I no longer have to get up early I have been sleeping 8 to 9 hours a night and loving it. When I am home in Mississippi I work on Wednesdays and Thursdays for a total of 11 hours a week. When I am in Florida visiting  I work in the evenings after Mom and James have gone to bed. I have gone to Florida every quarter for two week long visits. I have not been able to do very much while there because I am still being careful about Covid. Even though Meade, Mom, Lee and I are all vaccinated I do a covid home test before leaving Mom's to be sure I am not bringing the virus home to Meade. So far so good.

As I expected when we first set it up, my she shed in the sun room at the back of the house is working out great. I have a tv to stream my movies, shows and sports, a tall table to do my jigsaw puzzles while standing up (it is better for you to stand than sit), a desk for my laptop to do my 11 hours of work a week and a desktop for my personal stuff, and a recliner to watch tv and do my cross stitching. I have been doing a lot of cross stitch projects. If you have anything you would like cross stitched let me know and I would be happy to do it. But my favorite thing about my she shed is the beautiful view of the trees and ivy in the backyard. There is a bird feeder right outside the window and I can watch the birds as well as the squirrel that will sometimes come up leap into the bird feeder and munch for a few minutes and then jump back down. There are also chipmunks running around the yard. I love it.

I read Dr Sanjay's book about brain health and it said that you should use your non-dominant hand to do things and learn something new to build more pathways in your brain. At first I started to learn Spanish but was not enjoying it at all so I stopped and started to learn to play the keyboard. I like it ALOT and definitely know it is stretching my brain. It has greatly increased my appreciation of musicians, it is a lot harder than I thought. I can play a few songs and will keep adding new ones. But I have discovered that I need to keep playing the ones I've learned or I have to learn them all over again. 

Meade bought his third guitar this year an AcoustaSonic telecaster. It is his first American made guitar. He is getting better and better as he continues to practice.

I am working on my autobiography. I found a website autobiography.com about how to do it. Mostly I am writing it to remind myself about stuff but who knows maybe Lee will want to read it in the future. I am enjoying writing. Unfortunately my memory isn't that great so I am having trouble with stuff from long ago. It is too bad I didn't start this when my sister Stephanie was alive because she remembered everything.

My first trip to Florida was in March and overlapped James' spring break. I played with him a lot and ended up with a sunburn and a blister from shooting nerf guns so much. I visited Lee in Orlando and stay at my friend Sarah's house on the way home. 

My next trip to Florida was in June and overlapped James' birthday. Meade came with me on this trip. He stayed at Mom's condo on the beach. Meade and I played "Happy birthday" for James with Meade on his guitar and me on the keyboard. It sounded pretty good if I may say so myself. We gave James a boogie board for his birthday and I took him to the beach and he loved it. I stay in the water with James but stick to areas where there is a lifeguard just in case. 

I also took James to Urban Air an indoor park with laser tag, trampolines, virtual reality, zipline and other stuff. He enjoyed it. 

 

We went to Orlando to visit Lee and went to his restaurant. He now works at The Uncommon Eatery a small but adorable restaurant on Curry Ford Road in Orlando. He does everything in the restaurant but cook and helps with the catering sometimes. He is making great tips and really likes his bosses. I visited Sarah too during this trip.

I started volunteering at a the local food pantry Heartland Hands in June. It gets a lot of food from different places and serves clients that come for their groceries. It also serves as a clearing house to provide food to a lot of other organizations.They have been in business since 2006. As you probably know I really like to volunteer and I like this one a lot.

My next trip to Florida was in September and overlapped Lee's birthday. I went over to Orlando twice to visit Lee. I took James to the beach again. I didn't do much else because Covid was flaring up and I was trying to stay safe. 

My last trip to Florida was in November and overlapped Thanksgiving and a week off from school for James. I helped Mom and James put up their Christmas tree. I didn't spend nearly as much time playing with James because he now has a bunch of kids in the neighborhood that he plays with. One afternoon we were playing and he heard a shout and asked if he could go play with them. I told him that was fine because I was sure kids his age were more fun.  The three of us went to Wild Florida, a drive thru safari park south of Kissimmee. James and I had a fun afternoon that included putt putt golf, Taco Bell and a playground. I also took him to the Viera Christmas parade. I stopped at Sarah's house again and helped her put up her Christmas tree.

 

We are still big sports fans including NFL and NHL and UCF football. It is amazing how much time can be taken up watching the games. My Tennessee Titans are leading our division but haven't been doing well recently. Meade's Miami Dolphins are improving they went from a record of 1-7 to being in the playoff hunt. UCF ended up third in our conference which was worse than recently but we have been selected to move up to a power five conference so that is exciting.

Meade and I are still playing fantasy football and have started playing fantasy hockey as well. We actually like fantasy hockey better because it requires more attention and effort. Now that we've got it figured out we're doing much better. Right now which is less than half way through the season I am in fourth place and Meade is in sixth out of ten teams. We aren't doing as well in fantasy football where Meade is in fifth and I am in seventh in an eight team league and this is the last week before playoffs.

I am still attending the Church of the Highlands. I can watch the services online. I am also co-lead for a small group of women that meets via phone on Tuesdays.  I just really love this church. The sermons are terrific. It is where I learned that the most important thing is to have a relationship with God through prayer and reading the Bible. I don't know if the churches we had attended before didn't teach that or I just missed it but I have definitely strengthened my relationship with God in the last few years and can't imagine living without this closeness. If you aren't attending a church or don't have a close relationship with God I highly recommend you check it out at www.churchofthehighlands.com.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.