Bill's Blog

Our Days in Palm Bay

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from Palm Bay.

Betty Returning the Ball

Ready to Serve

Bill in the Pool

Florida Pine Cone

We don't live all that exciting of a life. This fact can be clearly seen by our past two months in Florida. When I think about what we have been doing, three things standout: (1) we made a couple of good friends; (2) we played a lot of tennis; and (3) Betty did a lot of knitting.

We got to know Rich and Kim through the Couchsurfing network. They live on Merritt Island with a navigable canal in their back yard. We shared a lot of good conversations. We talked about our lives, our families, and our travels. We shared several meals together and we played dominos a few times. They are great folks. We hope to keep them as friends long after leaving Florida.

Betty Knitting a Scarf

Max, the House Dog

Betty calls it playing tennis. Well, it sort of is. We mainly just try to get the ball over the net. We went out almost everyday, perhaps missing only three or four days since we settled in Palm Bay. We play for at least an hour and most days a bit longer. At first, it was real hard on my body. My knees hurt like hell. After the first couple of weeks, we got some advice from another couple who had learned long ago that a really good way to learn is to play the front half of the court until you get some control and adding speed and distance as you gain that control. Betty likes to count how many times she hits the ball before we miss the ball. I thing she got up to a dozen returns. We are now playing most of the court and our control has greatly increased. My legs and knees no longer ache. And I might have dropped a couple of pounds.

Betty really got into knitting. She has been making some beautiful scarves. She has tried several different patterns. She uses YouTube a lot, looking for instruction on how lefties do it. Yes, Betty is left-handed.

We have done a few other things. I took an online course at Udacity to brush up on my computer programming skills. There is a swimming pool at our house. Although it is not all that big, it has been great for water exercise. We went to several movies. The best was 12 Years a Slave and the worst, which we walked out of after half an hour, was We're the Millers. We enjoyed going to a comedy club in Melbourne. We watched TV shows most nights without the commercials, because we download TV.

We like doing house-shares. But twice now we have found nice homes, including here in Palm Bay, which are far from stores, libraries and any cultural life. The next time we get a place it will have to be much closer to all these amenities. We will be looking for living in more central locations. The hope is that life will be a bit richer when we travel.

We have missed our grandkids an awful lot. Joey is now in Kindergarten and is learning how to read. Lucy is still in pre-school, and she will probably be reading by the end of 2014 too. Betty knitted a scarf for each of them.

If you are wondering about the dog, you should know that Max was THE dog in our Palm Bay house. The first time we lived with a dog for more than a couple of days in many years.

Well, that is it for now. I will try to write a bit about the upcoming holiday season. We plan to go to Mexico this next year. We will let you know more about that later.

Pond by the Tennis Courts