It’s been quite awhile

Yes, it’s been quite some time since I last blogged.  Not a lot going on  really.  Didn’t want to bore everyone with all the menial stuff day things that retired people do. 

We are 3 weeks away from heading down to Panama City Beach for the winter.  The weather here has gotten quite nippy in the night time and wee hours of the morning.  The days have been, for the most part, beautiful, but still have that fall chill in the air.  Jackets are a must, that’s for sure.  This weekend is daylight savings set the clocks back time.  I wish they’d do away with that, it’s such a PITA.

As we will not here for Christmas this year, I have had to do all my Christmas chores way ahead of time.  I make all my own greeting cards, such as birthday, anniversary, and of course Christmas.  I usually send out about 40 or so Christmas cards, so they all had to be made up, envelopes made and ready to go.  As I don’t want to mail my Canadian cards in the US, I will leave these and my daughter will mail them for me.  I will take the ones for my US friends and mail them while I’m stateside.  Also gifts for any grandchildren and children that have birthdays while we’re gone.  This year only the kids will receive Christmas gifts, but there are 7 of them so that had to done also.  Four of them have birthdays while we’re away.  So I have goodie bags all ready to deliver to my kids for their kids. 

We will pick up ‘the beast’ next week so we can load up.  I have a nice pile at the bottom of the basement stairs that seems to be growing all the time.  This is my ‘for the rig’ pile of stuff.  As I come across something that is not usually the normal thing or not on one of my lists, I just cart it down to the bottom of the basement stairs. 

Rick and Paulette have already arrived and are all set up at their winter digs.  Katie and her ‘mom’ are in Zion but that’s just a little to cold for me, and now she says it’s snowing!!!!!!!!!  Time to get outta Dodge!!!  It never rain but it pours for poor Judy and Emma.   Besides all the rig and fridge problems she’s had over the past few months, now her back is acting up and she had to go to emergency.  I sure hope Murphy leaves her alone for awhile.  Much to Al’s immense pleasure, him and Kelly, Pheebs, and little Motormouse will be heading out very soon for the southwest.  Poor Al has been chomping on the bit for the last few weeks, just trying to get out of Dodge!!!!  Sam and Donna are off to Branson, but not with the rig.  Sounds like they are having a fun time there too.  And very shortly we will be heading out too. 

Well that’s it for now..more once we get out on the road again.

Take care…..

Closed..for the winter

It’s always so depressing when we close the pool.  I love to look out and see the crystal blue water and hear the gurgling noise of the skimmer running.  But unfortunately, close it we must.  Jackson shares my sentiments on that one too.  He just loves his swimming.  Over the past couple days, we have also cleaned out the planters and garden.  So sad not to have the bright coloured flowers everywhere.  All my little garden creatures have retired for the winter too and stored in the shed.  But I console myself by thinking that we only have about 8 more weeks, then we head south.

Pool Closed up

Empty Garden


All my flowers in the compost

Sad Frog Sandbox-no one to play with
The rig was washed, tidied up and winterized a couple weeks ago and we drove it over to the storage lot.  This week sometime they are going to install our stone protector flap on the back end.  Once they put it back in the lot we will head over to put the A/C covers on and cover the tires.  They also always seem to forget to turn off the master power switches so we have to do that so our batteries don’t drain.  We do have a trickle solar charger on the roof which we find does a good job.
As we won’t be here for Christmas this year, I have to go through some of my Christmas decorations and take a few things with me to decorate our rig at Christmas.  Not a lot, because as you know there really isn’t a lot of space and/or places to put things.  Some lights, a wreath for the door.  I’m thinking I want to cook a small turkey or chicken for Christmas dinner.  Except for 1 year, I have been doing that for about 40 years.  Not to cook one would seem very strange.  I wish I could talk my oldest daughter into coming down over the holidays, but that will never happen.  She’s a stay at home kind of gal.
A couple weeks ago my 2 sisters and myself got together at my one sister’s home near Kingston.  We even took my other sister’s cat with us as he is diabetic and needs his shots.  He was such a good boy, in the car and at my sister’s home.  Not a speck of trouble.  We had a really nice visit.  Now she is coming down here day after tomorrow for a few days visit and my sister with the diabetic cat is coming down for the day on Wednesday and bringing Nikki, her cat.  He is almost as well travelled as our Arthur. 
Here are my 2 sisters…

While we’re all together we will pop over to visit my Dad who lives in an retirement villa, he is 96 and going strong.  On his 3rd marriage, devil!! I’m sure he’ll make 100.
Well that’s just a quickie update…for now. 
Until later..take care.

Back Home Safe and Sound

Boy that was an experience!  We’ve been home for several days, but have had things to do around here and getting the rig spiffed up (still needs an outside bath) for storage.  That’s why I haven’t blogged for a few days.

There was a huge system that went through while we were parked at 50 Point Conservation Park.  Last Wednesday dawned bright and sunny but quite windy.  I brought all my awnings in.  But I had been watching the weather on the internet and the local news.  A very bad weather front was moving in and it was HUGE.  More tornado watches and warnings were predicted.  We watched the weather all day long and then the tornado warnings started to be issued all around us.  We were on a watch which is different than a warning.  They said a watch is just that, watch.  But a warning is ‘seek shelter’.  Needless to say we were getting nervous.  I had a quick exit plan formalized in my head.  #1- Grab Jackson & Arthur.  #2 – Grab purse, laptop, camera. #3 – Get the heck out the door and into the car and vamoose!  Fortunately it didn’t come to that, but we did have a tornado warning.  I stayed up till almost midnight watching the sky and the weather on TV until we had an all clear.  But we did get the storm.  OH MY!!!! What a storm it was too.  The lightening was everywhere, the sky was constantly bright and I have never seen lightening strikes so huge.  And the rain, that was something.  Thunder, thunder and more thunder.  Good thing, Jackson and Arthur aren’t bothered by it.  In fact, Jackson slept through the whole thing.  By around midnight the worst or it had passed through as I watched the radar I could see that we were now in the ‘normal’ rain category.  It did rumble, lightening and rain on and off during the night.  Thursday morning was sunny, bright and fresh.

That is as close to any tornado warning I ever want to get.  It was a little nerve racking.

The ‘beast’ is now parked in our driveway and very shortly we are going to give her a good bath and then winterize.  As we are not leaving until the end of November I just don’t want to take any changes of a freeze up.  After that is done we will drive it to the storage lot where we keep her.

Also very soon it’s time to close up the pool.  I really hate doing it as it does signal the end of summer and looking at a covered pool just isn’t as pretty as seeing the sparkling blue water.  And poor Jackson, he stands there and looks so forlorn at the covered pool.  He really loves swimming in there and I feel bad that he can’t.  But it must be done.  Can’t run it all winter!!!!  The nights are getting cooler too, fall is definitely in the air. 

We are going to have a rear guard installed on the rig.  You know those flaps that hang down from the back end of your MH that protect your car from stones etc.  We have had several stone chips on our brand new car (well it was brand new a couple years ago).  I investigated having a bra put on the car but can’t find one anywhere.  So decided that we need this flap installed on the rig.  We will have that done once we take it to the storage lot.  The company will do it for us. 

Well that’s it for now..take care.

Out and About Again

First, let me welcome a new follower.  Welcome americantraveler. 

We decided we wanted another wee trip out before we winterized and closed the rig up until the end of November when we head south.
We headed out this morning for 50 Point Conservation Park in Grimsby, Ontario.  That is just outside of Hamilton.  We came here last year and really enjoyed it.  It is located at the far west end of Lake Ontario.  It really is a beautiful spot.  There is not a lot of ‘kid’ things to do here so consequently it’s pretty quiet.  There is a large marina here also and some really expensive boats moored there.  Since the last time we were here, they had added a new campground which has 50 amp service and wifi.  Great additions. 

Last year we walked Maggie and Jackson down to the lovely beach they have and they had a ball in the water.  This year, unfortunately, Jackie had to swim by himself, but he didn’t seem to mind.  There were lots of other dogs there for company.

If you ‘mouse over’ the pictures there is a title for each one and if you click the photos, they open much larger.

I am really liking the new blinds we installed.  I think they give the place a little homier feel.  Once Ken figured out how to install the first one, the rest were not so bad, just a little difficult trying to install them under the existing valance.  Not much manoeuvre room.  I started off buying custom made blinds at Home Depot for the main living area.  I like them because they don’t have any little holes that let the light in.  But then I found these great Levelor blinds at Lowes that are cut to fit, and about 1/2 the price of the ones I had made at Home Depot.  And boy are they blackouts.  Very, very dark when closed.

These are the cut to fit Levelor

                                                              These are the custom made ones.

Tuesday – Had a nice quiet night’s sleep.  Very quiet and dark here at night.  This is a good thing!

We went for a nice walk down to the beach.  Jackson had another good swim.  No dogs down there when we were there, but that didn’t stop Jackie.  It’s a beautiful day here but they are calling for rain later on this evening.

Well until later then..take care.

Summer Routine

I see I have a few new followers.  I hope I haven’t missed someone.  A big welcome to Mike and Pat, I’ve been following their blog for awhile now.  Then there’s Kitty, and Davender who doesn’t appear to have a blog.  If you have one somewhere else let me know and I’ll update.

Summer has taken on it’s routine, which is just fine by me.  We had our family BBQ last Saturday and the weather couldn’t have been better.  It was just my 3 kids and their families, which made 14 of us.  The grandkids spent the day in the pool, it was a hot one.  We all took a dip at some time or the other to cool off.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos as I was busy playing hostess, making sure glasses were filled and food flowing.  Couldn’t believe the amount of food devoured for such a small crowd.  I guess swimming really gives you an appetite!

Last week we spent a couple days up near Peterborough in a campground where our very dear friends have a permanent park model.  It was a great visit we had with them.  Unfortunately I can’t say the same about the campground.  The roads were really tight driving for our 38 foot rig and that’s with the car off.  The site was so uneven that even with our jacks down we were on quite a slant.  There was garbage in our fire pit, the utility pole was almost falling over and NO wireless and NO cable.  There was even an empty beer bottle on our site.  YUK !!  All this for the price of $42.  I thought that was a rip off.  I did write the management a letter, but so far have not heard anything back.  I doubt very much if we will go back again.

We had some extremely hot weather last week, and I think the rest of the country and parts of the US had the same.  It was a real stinker.  Had to really make sure that Jackson took lots of swims in the pool if he was outside.  He doesn’t do well with the heat.

We did some work on the rig.  The porch light burnt out and when Ken went to remove the cover to replace it, it crumbled in his hands.  Not one RV dealer had one that fit so I found one for $5 on EBAY.  It arrived and has been installed. One of the day/night shades broke it’s string.  I checked out how to restring them and it didn’t look easy and I hate them anyway.  So I ordered blackout shades from Home Depot and Ken installed them.  It was a bit of an effort working in such a tight spot because there is a valance there that we wanted to keep as it looked nice.  Any how they are up and look fantastic.  Now I’m thinking hmmmmmm, I should do the other windows.  I just heard a loud groan coming from Ken’s direction !!!! 

We want to put some kind of a gizmo under the slideout awnings as if we have a heavy rain it tends to pool up there.  We saw, when we were in Panama City Beach, someone has very cleverly created an little stand made out of plumbing white PVC pipes and it just lifted the awning enough so that the water didn’t pool.  So Ken is going to measure what height he needs to create these.  When he gets them done I’ll post a picture of them.  Tomorrow we are putting ‘the beast’ back on the storage lot for a few weeks, then we’re taking her again for another 4 day jaunt.  

Well until later then..take care.

A Successful Birthday

Welcome Donna who has a blog.. http://therapytravels.blogspot.com/.  Thanks for joining up. 

We had a perfect weekend, weather wise.  A little on the hot side, but not unbearable.

My sister practically lived at our MH for the 4 days we were up there.  But that’s just fine.  We had several good chats.  The spa day was a hit.  She had never been before and I’m afraid that I may have started something.  She loved it.  We also took her out for dinner one night.  The restaurant was just excellent, service was top notch and the food was oh so yummy.  It was a lovely evening.

The rig somehow seemed larger with only 1 big dog in it.  Didn’t trip over legs and tails quite so much.

We’re all slowly getting better.  Still miss Maggie like crazy, but so glad that we don’t have to watch her being so unhappy and so uncomfortable anymore.  That was hard. Jackson was a moping around abit, but he’s getting better too.  Places that were strictly off limits because they were Maggie’s spots, and he knew it, like a certain corner of the couch, a special rug etc.  he now realizes that he can use.  Perhaps being in them he feels and smells her.  I still expect to see her laying somewhere.  Or hear her bark, she was one hell of a watchdog.  Always knew when someone was around. 

Well the rig is back in the driveway and stuff put away.  We’re going again next week but just for 2 nights to visit some friends.  Then I don’t know what’s up after that.  Maybe not go anywhere until we leave at the end of November.  But I think we’ll probably go somewhere for a short trip before then.

Until later then…take care.

We lost our Sweet Girl – Maggie March 18, 2000 – July 7, 2011

My heart feels like someone reached in a ripped it out of my chest.  Today we lost our yellow lab, Maggie.  Over the past couple months she has not been herself.  We took her in today to have some x-rays taken.  A huge mass was found in her abdomen and x-rays also revealed that her hips were very, very bad.  Over the past couple days, she needed assistance even in walking.  It was time to let her go.

I’m sure she is running like the mad man she used to be, like she did before all her ailments, through the woods, with the biggest stick she can find, in her mouth. 

Run free my sweet baby girl..get those nasty squirrels.