Help for Haiti

A reporter and a photographer from my newspaper, The News-Press, were sent to Haiti yesterday to document the recovery and relief effort and to find people with Fort Myers ties.
Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. The devastation is astounding, and they are working around the clock to tell the story. They got to the Dominican Republic last night and were in Haiti about 8 a.m. today.

Here are Andrew's photos from today.

The photos and Rachel's stories can also be found on the page with their updates. Here it is.

Also consider making a donation to help the relief efforts. Maybe your company has company match, too.
I just made a donation to MercyCorps and made my own donation page. But the Red Cross and these others need help, too.

• Doctors Without Borders: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=86019&id=18575-6533137-1V_BUWx&t=1

• Oxfam America: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=85998&id=18575-6533137-1V_BUWx&t=2
  

Yéle Haiti: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=86026&id=18575-6533137-1V_BUWx&t=3

This hits really close to home because we have a lot of people from Haiti living in Fort Myers, and one of Scott's former students has family there that still can't be reached.

Snow in Florida!!!!

Yes, it did snow in Florida this morning! I'm in Daytona visiting Amanda and Evan Stinnett and woke up to the sound of sleet hitting the window. By 10 a.m., it was sleeting and snowing. It reminded me of NC-style frozen precipitation.
Here's some sleet the accumulated on Amanda's patio chair!

Snow in Florida???

There's a lot of hubbub about the cold weather here in Southwest Florida. Today was the first day it got above 70 since New Year's Day, I think. And today it was barely 70.

I know this doesn't seem cold to many of my northern friends. But I've never used my heat this much since I moved here almost 10 years ago. It's never this cold this early, and it never stays cold like this. I'm running out of warm clothes. At night it's been in the 30s all week, and I'm hoping it doesn't get as cold as they predict this weekend. I'm worried about my garden freezing!

I'll be heading to Daytona to see Amanda Stinnett tonight, and we're hoping for some SNOW! It's raining now and it's gonna get colder.

Tell Mel

Last November (2008) a coworker told me she had breast cancer. I was relieved to find out that it was stage 0, but it was still scary. I asked her if I could document her ordeal for the newspaper. She agreed as long as I didn't show any sensitive parts. She decided she'd do a first-person written account of her story, too.

Now Mel is one of the toughest women I know. She does the Tell Mel column for The News-Press, and she's not afraid to call out scoundrels in her weekly column. It's one of my favorite reads in the paper every week. It's a consumer advocate column where she sticks up for the little guy. It makes my bleeding liberal heart go pitter-pat. Anyway.....

We began with her initial appointments leading up to her first surgery, and I followed her all the way through radiation. Her story is very moving. I'm pretty proud of the way everything turned out. I did a photo gallery and two videos where she tells her story as the photos and video play. Hope you like it!!

Here's the first day's video.....

And the second.........

As a result of her diagnosis, a lot of others went to get mammograms. This is the only way her cancer could have been found. It was too small to feel. A few of her friends were also diagnosed in the following months, including News-Press Bonita Springs editor Betty Wells.

So GO GET A MAMMOGRAM! please!

Several months ago, my friend Amanda's mother Kathy was also given the news that her breast cancer had returned. She was treated for cancer years ago and had been feeling bad for a while. We're relieved that she if feeling better and gaining her strength and that the medication seems to be working. Amanda and I are doing the Race for the Cure in Kathy's honor to raise money for breast cancer. Join us! or donate to our cause!

Here's our team page......

http://southwestflorida.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/BNS_SouthwestFloridaAffiliate?team_id=123015&pg=team&fr_id=1645

Happy New Year

Well I begged and begged and was finally off New Year's Eve. Last year I rang in the new year taking photos of other couples kissing while I was working for the paper. This year was much better.

Scott and I had a great dinner at Crave, a little hole in the wall in a strip mall. We eat breakfast there a lot, (I always get the shrimp and grits) but this was our first dinner there. It was reeeallllly good. We didn't have to wait for a table and had the place to ourselves by 8:15!

So then we went to Publix, got some champagne and went home to watch the crazy people in the rain in NYC.

We tried to start a fire in the fire pit, but it quickly burnt out. All of the logs were quite damp and much too thick for the tiny fire pit. So we headed back inside and played a little Super Mario until Jack joined our "party."

By the way, we are totally addicted to the new Super Mario. Kylie, you should get it.....it's ab fab.

Not a bad new year's at all.

It was a beautifully bright full moon.

This photo was taken about 10:00 p.m. New Year's Eve.

Easy Bloomin' It

Well, the garden so far has had mixed results. The first few squashes formed and promptly fell off and rotted away. And then the plant came down with what I think is powdery mildew.

The lettuce has been a success and I have harvested a little for salads. The spinach just up and died overnight. And the carrots, I think, are going to make it.

So I was jazzed to open a Christmas package from Amanda Stinnett the other day. It was an Easy Bloom Plant Sensor. It will tell you when the plants need water, diagnose problems and help decide which plants to put in empty spots. (Thank you, Amanda, it's AWESOME!)

It's been hard at work since the day we got it. The first day it told me I needed to water every single plant. It literally beeped with everything but the banana trees. Then I set it to monitor mode for the squash. It determined that everything was fine as far as light, water and temperature. (But we have had the coolest week of the year here). The plant sensor is now monitoring the carrots. We'll see what the report is on those.

My lingering problem is getting the squashes not to fall off before they grow. After a little research I found that they weren't getting fertilized. I guess there aren't enough bees around. So next time a male and female flower bloom, I'm gonna have to hand fertilize them. Hopefully that will happen soon!

The garden finally grows!

We had a little soil snafu when we planted the original garden. All the squash and zucchini died and the lettuce and carrots sprouted, but never really grew at all. We figured it must have been the soil because another squash plant in a container was growing like crazy.

So we begrudgingly dug out half of the old soil and replace it with better -- um, more expensive

-- soil and replanted. Everything sprouted really fast and we planted some butternut squash plants that were in small pots. So far so good....

Then yesterday I noticed below one of the squash flowers was.......a tiny squash!!!!!!!!!

I was really beginning to think I'd failed on my first gardening attempt. Our window box lettuce has done really well, too. Hopefully in a few months we'll have carrots, too.

We also have watermelons sprouting as well as spinach, zucchini, and a plethora of pineapple plants.

spinach

watermelon