Emily Birt

It must be strange for people to suddenly have to change all their routines. Luckily, we do not.

They came down from New York with their two teenagers, and we had fun while they were here, even though it was cold.

We found a very large Florida Woods cockroach on our walk, and I picked it up. It was very docile and allowed us to handle it for several minutes, and I think at least several people felt less squeamish about them after the encounter.

We’re always tweaking things. Now we have 16 informational boards for people to look at (made from recycled cardboard boxes), and I made a chalkboard to label and display the fluorescent collection.

Trav got a night vision scope for his birthday, which should be very interesting during the walks. We gave it a little test run last night and it’s really neat. It takes pictures and video. Now to find some critters to observe!

For the past month, I’ve been stumped by a programming issue where I couldn’t get any error message or figure out the trouble. But today I fixed it, and it’s a huge load off my mind.

We saw three dolphins, some manatees, a few turtles, and lots of birds on our four mile, two hour trip.

This morning I had a very vivid dream that I failed my current 30 day sober challenge. Trav was so disappointed and I felt horrible. I was so happy and relieved when I woke up!!

We have a big stack to work through. Today we’re trying Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken, a recipe I got from my trial of New York Times Cooking. Sadly, I can’t link to the recipe because it’s a subscription service. Hopefully it turns out good!

Trying to break the habit of drinking every day. I did make an exception for Thanksgiving, but still feel I accomplished the goal. I feel better and we’re saving money, too. Going to try and keep it up, just having an occasional drink instead of daily.

Our lawn guy has become a friend, which is nice. He likes to play Cards Against Humanity.

I worked a full time temp job at the elections office for six weeks, but that’s done for a while and we can go back to doing our regular stuff.

The tasks are varied and the system is very interesting – there’s a lot to learn and the people I work with are great.