Home Again!

The view from our deck

We had to return the keys to our Sunrise Resort condo by 10 am yesterday.   Jim had noticed that we could reserve an Uber the night earlier so we scheduled one for 10 am even though we could not board our flight in Tampa until 1:15.  We got through the TSA checkpoint in Tampa easily.  What a contrast to the hectic, almost frightening situation in Newark two weeks earlier. As we walked through the terminal, Jim said, "I hesitate to suggest this but there are several earlier flights to Newark."  He knows that I am always eager to get an earlier flight and he is less willing to make changes.  I had not even given it a thought at that point because I was just so relieved to be through the TSA lines.  

We were able to change our flight to 11:35 and even got seats together.  The flight arrived in Newark before our flight would have left Tampa!  We found an Uber easily and were home by 3 pm.  The car (in our sheltered garage) started easily and we got groceries and picked up our mail from the mail room.

Our publications
in mail

It is now Friday and my suitcase is not yet completely unpacked.  There is a lot of laundry to do.  We have enough groceries for today.  Two weeks of mail have been sorted and mostly recycled.  I ran out of energy last night to do any more. 

It is very cold and I miss looking out at the beautiful bay.  However, we are very glad to be home.  Was that our last trip to Florida?  Will we fly again if we go or will we try driving there?  No decisions need to be made today!  

Now that we are home, I did make a few new year's resolutions.  I liked getting sun on my face each morning in St. Pete Beach--my daily dose of vitamin D.  Even if it is cold here, I can put on my warm coat and sit on our deck and soak in some sun on my face.   I haven't played my digital piano in weeks and should make that a part of my daily routine.  Music can lift my soul.  A few hymns or Taize songs or maybe a Bach invention would be good for my emotional state!  5000 steps a day as recorded on my Fitbit--not a big goal but worth doing.  Going up and down our steps several times for exercise--including three before breakfast--supposedly to get my metabolism going for weight loss.

I have expressed weariness in thinking about meals.  Laura and Michael gave us a gift certificate to try Sunbasket meal preparations so that will be a nice change in our routine.  We will start that soon--we waited until we were back home to avoid having to cancel for two weeks.

Jim Schaap on the 12Blog wrote today about a resolution of encouraging one person each day.  I don't want to hold myself to that strict goal but I can send an email or a text to encourage someone even without leaving home.   Maybe I encouraged the Tampa TSA folks yesterday by telling them how much better they were than Newark!