To find the area of a parallelogram, you can use the formula:
\[ \text{Area} = \text{base} \times \text{height} \]
In your case, the base of the parallelogram can be either one of the 8 ft sides, and the height is the perpendicular distance from that base to the opposite side.
From the information provided, since you have two sides measuring 8 ft and one side measuring 5.5 ft, we can assume that 5.5 ft is the height of the parallelogram.
Thus, the area can be calculated as follows if we take one of the 8 ft sides as the base:
\[ \text{Area} = 8 , \text{ft} \times 5.5 , \text{ft} = 44 , \text{ft}^2 \]
Therefore, the area of the parallelogram is:
\[ \text{Area} = 44 , \text{ft}^2 \]