Saturday, September 24, 2011

Birthday pictures - toolbox - can't believe we did this

As I promised in the last blog I have a couple of birthday pictures of Darrius's day.

Nothing like being on bummer cars to take out some energy

Anissa enjoyed going after her little brother


Here's Darrius with Dar-Rel his 16 yr old half brother

Larry had to take the air compressor back that he purchased this summer to Harbor Freight. While he was talking with them I found something I've been wanting to get. My very own tool box. Seems like every time I needed a tool I'd have to track it down in what ever tool box of Larry's it was in. So I now have my very own and I can put what ever "thing a bob's" or "what ya ma call it's" I want to in it.

Can you guess which one's mine


Larry and I are currently at Renee' (DD) and Brian's (SIL) home in Avon Lake which is just west of Cleveland. It was a last minute decision on Friday morning to drive down for the weekend. One we wanted to see them before we head south and two we wanted to see their new foster dog that they have. OK, so long story short we are now the proud and stunned owners of a 9 month old Jack Russel/??? puppy who won our hearts with her eyes.

Say hello to Pepper


I told Larry I won't do night duty and only on emergency moments poop duty. This should be a interesting learning experience for all three of us. So far she seems to be very intelligent and catches on fast on learning commands. Of course I'm not exactly sure who is teaching whom but for now we'll take the credit.

Guess that's it for this week. Till next time.....................

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Our birthday boy - Rainbow - Frosty nights

First off I want to wish our grandson Darrius a happy 7th birthday today. We had a party at the Zap Zone this afternoon which is his most favorite place to go. I have pictures but my cable is at the trailer (we're at the house) so will post them next time. But he sure was a happy little guy.

I do have a couple of pictures that I can share (what gr-ma doesn't)

What a cutie. That smile is going to win a lot of ladies hearts even tho he says yuk to girls.

A whole week has gone by and I'm not exactly sure what we did.
Last Thursday I helped a good friend with her garage sale. I didn't have anything to put in it but of course I could find a few things to take home with me. My nieces have decided that our place is a perfect location to have a garage sale. They both live out in the country and people just don't go that far anymore. And since our home is only a half a block off the main street into town they are already planning one for next summer.

We had a nice shower last week and the double rainbow was something else. I didn't see it (one of the disadvantages of living in town) but the niece out on the farm got some awesome pictures.




Mother Nature saw fit to send us a little reminder of the season that is coming this way. Had a couple nights of frost and some chilly day time temp's. Today was better, back in the 70's. We went back out the trailer last weekend but when they were talking 30's and windy it was time to head back at the house. We're at a point we don't know what's were.

Yesterday we watched the MSU game at Bob/Dianes along with my siblings (Larry/Stint, Nadene/Mike) and our great niece Candace, nephew Andrew & grgr niece Delilah. Or I should say the guys watched. The girls sat at the dining room table and went over a whole bunch of pictures that our parents had. Had some good laughs and memories from a long time ago.

Guess that's it for now. We've decided to stay here a little later this year. So we'll leave sometime in Oct. Till next time...............

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Getting Use to Sticks and Bricks

What is it with this weather? The East Coast is floating away with all the rain and Texas is burning up from lack of water. In watching the National News about the fires I hope things get better before we head south since our route takes us in some of those area's. Being stopped and told to turn around when your 84' long isn't the easiest thing to do, making a U turn takes a rather big U.

Well we've been staying at the house since last Saturday and there are a few things that will take some time getting use too.

One - going from a king size bed to a full size. As some of you know I prefer having 2-4 blankets on me, where Larry has just the sheet. With the king size I can arrange the blankets between us so they are easily available if needed. With the full size there isn't enough room between us and when I do use them they now partly cover Larry up, which wakes him up cause he gets so hot. I've suggested a duel control electric blanket but so far the reaction hasn't been favorable. He say's I wouldn't be happy with just the electric blanket, I'd want that plus all the others and he may have a point on that one.

The second "getting use to" is not being able to carry on a conversation with each other know matter where your standing. In the trailer I could continue talking whether I was in the bedroom putting clothes away, standing in the kitchen cooking or sitting in the living room. In the house they have these room dividers called walls and you actually have to walk to each of these rooms to be able to be heard. Actually now that I think about it I'm still getting the same response from Larry "sorry didn't hear you" and it doesn't matter if we're in the trailer or the house. I've always blamed this on his hearing but maybe I should re-think that excuse.

Number three "getting use to" is having to take so many steps while cooking a meal and cleaning up. In the trailer I can pretty much reach what I need with in two steps. Even tho the house kitchen isn't very big it always seems like I'm having to walk from one end to the other to get something out of the cupboards or put dishes away.

Number four "getting use to" would be the number of stairs. We have the steps going upstairs and the steps going down to the basement. In the trailer when I would mention to the kids about going upstairs they thought I was crazy, a trailer doesn't have a upstairs. Well I tell them yes it does, ours have two steps up to the bathroom and one more up to the bedroom, so actually if you think about it we not only have a upstairs we could say our bedroom is on the third level. But all I get my the kids is a "ya right". Now the house has 14 steps going upstairs and 14 steps going to the basement. Even tho we aren't using either of these places as a living space it seems like we're constantly having to either go up or down them. But they say climbing steps is good for the heart.

Number five "getting use to" is Mother Natures control. This would be when she decides that we haven't mowed the lawn for a few days so dumps just enough water on it to make it grow that 1/2 inch above the time that it needs to be mowrd length. She can't give us enough to make it look rich and green, nope only enough to make it grow and keep it a dull color. Oh and never enough to actually give the flowers and plants a good drink, noooo we still have to haul out the hose. Of course Larry's response to that is "don't plant any flowers or plants". And I take my response from our kids "ya right".

I'm sure there will be other "getting use to" events but one of the best things so far is when the last two nights it's gotten down in the 40's and the house has stayed at 69 without any heat turned on. I know there would be at least one space heater going in the trailer continuously.

Only have a few pictures to share. We worked on making some cafe curtains for the kitchen this week. Our darn sewing machine wasn't working right so I ended up having to use some of that iron on tape for the hem. It actually worked pretty good. We still need to make a valance and now that Larry has the sewing machine working we may get it done before we leave. If not, there's always next spring.

Here's our window treatment in the kitchen, valances to follow later

There are two other pictures I'd like to share. School started this week for our grand-kids and like their mother said she has two "S's". A second grader and a senior. Here's a picture of them all ready for their first day of the school year and for Anissa this will be her last "first" day of high school

Here's Darrius all smiles
And Anissa all ready to start her Senior Year
Guess that's it for now. Till next time.................................

Friday, September 2, 2011

Truck update- Nasty storm - Bedroom completed

Monday
Anissa (gr-daughter) and I had our summer lunch/shopping day. We normally do this around her birthday and she picks the place but this year she wanted to go to a restaurant that was open only for dinner so we took everyone. It's starting to get late with school starting so we needed to have "our" luncheon. Her pick was Cheddar's which is a nice place and I haven't been in there for several years. Before lunch we did some school shopping supplies and I wanted to check out some mattress places.

Once we were finished I called Larry and he headed for the KenWorth place to leave the truck there for it's appointment on Tuesday.

Tuesday
More shopping for a mattress and decided on one. This should be interesting. We're going from a King size to a full size bed. Larry got a call late in the afternoon that the truck would be ready first thing Wednesday. The guy wanted to keep it and do a test drive when it's cold.

Wednesday
Headed to the KW first thing and when we got there the truck wasn't even put back together. Seems the mechanic was called off ours to do another one. OK, it would take about a hour to put it together so I took off for the house as our mattress was to be delivered today. Pictures of bedroom set is on our webshots site.

Update on truck- Over head was done and found the injectors were way off. The good thing was they didn't have to replace any injectors. The not so good thing -it didn't solve the original problem. Back to good thing - the truck is running a lot better than it was. So I guess we're at a stand still. The mechanic is at a loss of what to do, all computer printouts show every things working great. He's been in - around- under- above -the whole truck and says everything looks good. We shall see if maybe driving it will help clear things up.

Thursday
Stint (SIL) and I went out to Frandor in East Lansing to a new store called HomeGoods. OMG - ladies in Retama - we could easily spend 8 hours in this store but my SIL is not a Retama lady shopper . I'm getting her there but it will take time, I figure if we can convert Jutta (love you Jutta) to a shopper anyone can change. It has everything from furniture to place mats for a home. Lots of neat gadgets and unbelievable prices. I've been wanting to make some cafe type curtains (ok I confess Larry will be doing the sewing) for the kitchen, when we're sitting at the table I feel like we're on display. I found the perfect colors in a table cloth so I'll (he'll) cut and sew (again he) a hem and hang them from a spring rod with clip on rings. See Larry and I have a great working relationship, I find what I like and he makes it for me and I stay out of his way. It's a win win situation.

Friday.
This morning around 5:30 the weatherman's prediction of 10% chance of rain opened up and all hell broke lose. The thunder and lighting would light up the trailer and rattle the windows. The rain was coming down so hard it sounded like a giant spigot was over head and opened full blast. Than the wind hit and it really did some rocking and rolling of the trailer. And we aren't parked out in the open, we are backed up to a huge cement block granary that helped to block some of the wind plus the KW is parked beside us. I'm not sure which direction the wind was coming (trees where whipping every which way) but I'm sure glad we had some cover around us. The storm didn't last long but brother Larry had a inch in his rain gauge from it. Not to mention several area's were without power.

Our poor happy hour pear tree pretty much got stripped of the pears. We've been picking up maybe 2-3 pears a day to either eat (yummy) or toss out in the field to keep the four legged critters away. But here's a picture I took this morning.
There's still some on the tree but not many.

Of course a little stormy weather wouldn't keep Stint and I away from a garage sale that was just down the road. So about 7:30 she picked me up and off we went. Luckily for the people they had their sale in a barn. But to be honest I don't think it would of hurt the stuff even if it was left out in the rain - maybe it would of helped it. They say one persons junk is another persons treasure - finding that "treasure person" in this case could be a tuffy.

Guess that's it for this week. Till next time........................................