This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Kissimmee Tourism. All opinions are 100% mine.

Growing up we used to go to Florida on an almost yearly basis during the summer to visit my grandfather and great grandfather. I still go to Florida on my own vacations either by myself or with friends although I haven’t really had a vacation in almost 10 years and that will just have to change now that my car will be paid for next month. We never made it to any Disney attractions but I took myself to SeaWorld one year. I loved watching the penguins and even got a front row to see Shamu. I was drenched at the end of the show but luckily I was wearing my bathing suit at the time under my clothes.

The last time I was down there we stayed in Kissimmee for week on a spur of the moment kind of thing at the end of August. Each day we did only 1 major event. The first day food shopping of course. Then one day was a movie, another shopping at a pottery barn. Some of the things I cannot remember it has been so long but after that one event it was always pool time and then dinner and lounging. One day we were supposed to go to the Animal Kingdom but I left a couple days early and missed it. I wanted to walk through the Animal Park and see all the wildlife from Africa to Asia as well as take a tour through the jungle paths and the Cretaceous Trail which holds living plants and animals that have managed to survive since prehistoric times.

Next summer for sure I am going back whether with friends or by myself again. I plan on visiting the Animal Kingdom this time and hopefully get to play with some of the wildlife like the monkeys. At the very least maybe they will have a petting zoo. Staying at the Walt Disney World Animal Kingdom Lodge would be ideal since that is the place I am most excited to see and would most likely go near the end of August again because I think most families are heading home to get ready for school by then. I’d recommend every parent take their child to Walt Disney World because I feel like I’ve missed out on something even now since I have only seen SeaWorld.

We’ve been rolling in hurricanes since the beginning of September. Now we have Igor out there with another system developing almost on top of it and wouldn’t it be our luck if they merged. Gaston is still swirling out there but it is just a rain maker.

Most of us are figuring around about this time one of these storms this year is going to nail us since we had snow and usually in this area of the alphabet too.

Weather map from http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

So about a week or so ago I was letting the dogs out and before I could even do that I saw these humongous water bugs on the screen door. They were as big as my palm if not bigger! And of course I was out of Raid which I promptly remedied the next day and proceeded to spray the entire back porch as well as the door frame inside and out. Now it is supposed to last for 6 weeks before I need to spray again.

Well, then a few days ago I let them out again. I decided I wanted a glass of chocolate milk, yes I still drink it, and out of the corner of my eye I caught something moving behind the kitchen faucet. Holy mother of god, this water bug looked even bigger than the ones I saw the previous time. I grabbed the can of Raid and started spritzing. It went left, then right and I kept spritzing. Well, I happened to have an empty Cool Whip bowl on the counter. The bug moved past that and went behind my knife set on the counter . I grabbed the bowl and took the lid off and covered him up for the night with the can of Raid on top.

The next morning I was getting ready for work and decided I did not want that sucker left in the house and have a chance it would escape its prison. I decided to cap it with the lid but how to do it. I got the junk mail the day before so I grabbed a sheet and shoved it under the bowl. I then had to get some tape to tape the paper to the other side so I could get the lid on it and made a nice little package out of it. I then tossed it outside in the big trash can. It just so happened that that was the day it got picked up too so it wasn’t anywhere near my place anymore should it have escaped its prison.

And that boys and girls is how you deal with nasty water bugs.

Hows that for ya USA? Every single state has gotten snow this year now except for Hawaii. Lucky lil SOBs. People down south can’t drive in snow. Hell, they can’t drive in rain but tack on cold weather, freezing ice on the roads and snow? Wooo boy look out. I read the paper this morning and there were between 60-80 accidents in a 12 hour period.

At least I didn’t lose power for any length of time. It did cut off/on about 5-6 times though. There is still some 40,000 odd homes without power. Of course the trees couldn’t keep attached with the snow and came crashing down. Heck, even some of the power lines didn’t have enough strength to stay up. I did get a few pictures though. Enjoy.

This was the very beginning of the snow. I had just left the gym from a class and was welcomed to that. I knew I still had to get to the store to get some stuff for the weekend since it was a long weekend for me. I needed to get stuff for the crockpot so I could munch on that all weekend and not leave my house. So far so good. Haven’t left at all today lol


This was taken at night before I refused to go back outside and look at the damage. You can see some flakes float on down in front of the lens as I took the picture. I needed a comparison for when I took snapshots in the morning obviously. Can’t really get a good feel of the depth because of the darkness but that’s all I had. By then the dogs weren’t too thrilled about having to walk through it much less pee or poo on top of it.

These few I snagged this morning. Obviously there is much more snow on the car than there was last night. Just now watching the news and they said we had upwards to 8 inches of snow overnight. Lucky me. I know my yard didn’t get quite that much but somewhere in town did. The walkway was covered last night though and thawed pretty fast in the morning.


Snapshot of a side view of the front of the house with some bushes. At least they are still standing.


Here are some shots of the backyard with one of the dogs out there. She didn’t like it much when the wind was kicking up and spitting some of the snow off of the tree limbs onto her. She kept hopping around and freaking out sort of and then ran to the door to be let in lol



This is the view of my next door neighbors backyard. She looks like she got more snow in her backyard than mine and as of now, most of it is still there too. There is a huge tree limb down in my other neighbors yard from the pine tree. Other than that, just watching me some Olympic games.

So we had a break in clinic the other day which prompted more talk about this crazy weather. My coworker lives in the house she grew up in which was built in the late 1800s or very early 1900s so obviously it is very drafty. She was wanting something to put under the doors to keep the air from coming in and mentioned that commercial with those weather stripping things. I couldn’t remember the name from the commercial so I just started searching for weather stripping and then finally decided to hit the ACE Hardware site, well, because I figure they have everything. They seem to since every time I go in they have what I need. Sure enough though they happened to have these things which are called twin draft somethings for $9.99.

Well, I decided if they had those I wanted to look up the Snuggies, one for me and 2 for my dogs because I know they make them for dogs now too. I watch TV too you know. And what do you know, they have those as well. I then read a review this morning about how this group tests out those As Seen on TV items and stated that the Snuggies weren’t worth it because they were even more enormous than stated and when you wash them there becomes bald spots on the Snuggies due to cheap whatever it is and that the dryer lint trap overfloweth with fuzz from them which prompts the bald spots. They don’t last apparently. I’m almost heart broken.

Well, what else might they have that I need? Mole poison. Of course they do not have that but they did have an experiment that I might try for killing them. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Yep, you heard me right. They have this tube that you connect to your vehicles exhaust pipe and put the other end in a mole tunnel and let her rip. Those moles will be dead within 10 minutes so it says. I passed this tidbit of information on to a friend who said that is very creative but he was going to go all Caddy Shack on his mole to which I told him that would be interesting to see too but I didn’t have a shot gun nor C4 lol

I love it when we have sponsored lecturers. Not only are we getting an informative lecture but we get free dinner to boot. Now that’s nice especially when we go to some of the more prominent establishments downtown and essentially is free bar. Last time I got gypped on dessert because the person I picked up wanted to leave early. I want my dang cheesecake you know. Sure I know I don’t NEED it but dang it I WANT it and you know it’s the good stuff. This time we are going to High Cotton. I know y’all are jealous

Now this little event will be in a couple weeks and I can only hope that the weather is NOT going to be as cold as it has been this week. This is insane. And I saw on a news story yesterday about North Dakota at -50 with wind chill. Who WANTS to live in that kind of cold? Are you people insane? Do you hibernate during the winter? Do you have enough wood to burn because I can’t imagine the A/C-Heat units keeping the place warm. It would be running 24/7 I would imagine. The weather peoples keep saying that bad word of snow here and the schools are already going to start 2 hours late just in case. What wimps.