Windy City

I enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this morning.  Although i hadn’t turned the clock backs before i went  to bed so i needed to do that :)  We went to Central Assembly this morning to church and it was a nice service.  They had 3 baptism’s and the message was titled “The Golden Rule”  Pastor Jeff did a great job and we enjoyed it.  I had talked to my friend (Mary) last night on FB and she said she thought their pastor was her old Pastor Jeff and sure enough.

After service we went to eat and then to Wal-mart as i had forgotten to buy Dog food and my babies were out … not a good thing!  Then it was back home to spend the afternoon watching football .. Rams got beat, talking on the phone and internet catching up.  Basically a day of vegging out and it felt good.
The wind is blowing and rocking us again today.  I’m come to the conclusion that we are in a Windy City.  This summer the wind tried to blow our awning off and finally we took it down and just left it.  This Fall the wind has rocked me to sleep more times then i can count or remember (with this forgettable brain i don’t know which .. hehe)

I got some new Grands pic’s and of course i have to share … hehe


Enjoying a beautiful Fall day in the leaves

Pumpkin carving

Finished results

Trick or Treating .. although my Tobe the builder is not happy

Here is my happy builder .. he enjoyed the candy, just not getting it .. hehe

Precious Lady Bug

Daddy pushing the builder
 
Enjoying Old Settler’s Day



The Ferry ride back home
 
A nice fall day to look at the river

All tuckered out .. i love this picture .. priceless
 

Oh It’s Windy!

I spent the morning being lazy and then it was time to get ready for friends 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Congrats Don and Judy!

Don and Judy renewed their vows, had a party …

Then left in a convertible! 

After seeing the happy couple off we headed to cry.  Look at diesel prices!

On our way home we stopped by Food 4 Less to pick up a few groceries.  Wow the wind is really blowing.  It’s in the 60’s but it’s cold with the wind blowing.

Tonight we have been rocked by the wind.  I have to admit this is a windy city .. hehe  It’s looking like were going to be rocked to sleep and continue rocking us all night long. 

Don’t forget tonight is fall back an hour .. yes i get an extra hour of sleep tomorrow but then i don’t like to fall back as it’s makes a day go by longer and less daylight hours :((

Friends Stopped to Visit

I got up and didn’t really do much today.  I ran to the post office and then after lunch i went to the Dollar Tree, Big Lots and Hobby Lobby.  I have been wanting to get to Hobby Lobby as i need a gift for 50th wedding anniversary tomorrow.  Of course all i got was a card :(

When i got home i had a nice surprise friends from Texas Vic and Nancy had stopped by to visit.  They were in town for an Alumni and had lunch with some other friends.  We decided to go out to dinner at Wendy’s and then they were heading to a basketball game.  Their staying in Branson on vacation.  I forgot my camera but here is a picture i took last winter.


As of Right now the decision has been decided on Florida as our Winter destination. Here is what our winter route will look like of course this is written in Jell-O.
 
 
Although i would like to change it from the above to this and include some what of our summer to be out East.  Since we will be so close I’d love to add PA, NY, MD, DL, NJ and Washington D.C. into our summer.  It would mean either not seeing family for a longer period of time or convincing them to come visit us.  Hmm it’s awhile off so we will see.  In June some lady friends are planning a trip to NY and I'd love to be apart of that.  Esp since my other half has no desire to see it.  I have all winter to work on him :))


 
My other half wants to return to Illinois and then head to IA and NE.  We spent the evening just relaxing and doing nothing!

Home made Noodles on a frightful Day!

Oh my we were rocked to sleep and rocked all night long.  The wind is terrible and this morning we woke up to still being rocked a very frightful cold morning!  The temps are 34 degrees and misting sleet and rain .. although it’s mostly rain.  We have our furnace running to keep the underneath bay warm.  Once it warms up a bit we will go back to using the heater.  I have to admit we are nice and toasty warm inside of the comforts of our home. 

I boiled some Chicken Breast in the crock pot the other day.  I saved the broth and a few extra pieces of Chicken that was left so i decided to make some home made Chicken and Noodles.  Hubby has been craving them and he doesn’t like the dry noodles in the store and i refused to pay $3 bucks for a small bag of frozen noodles!

 
Since it’s such a frightful day and a day of staying inside i decided today was the day i was going to make my own.  Their really not hard to make just a pain letting them dry.  All you need is 4 eggs, 2 C. flour, 1 tsp salt and 2TBSP water.  Mix up and roll onto a good floured surface and cut them with a pizza cutter (i find i like it) or a knife (my sister has a noodle cutter) to slice your noodles.  I put mine on a cookie sheet to let them dry and then i either cook them or freeze them. 

Another great tip is if you put them on a cookie sheet and use wax paper to layer them with after a few hours you can remove from the cookie sheet and put them in a freezer bag or container and freeze them until next time.  I’ve done this numerous times and they always taste fresh.  When i use to do big Thanksgiving and Christmas meals i would prepare my noodles ahead of time and then come the day of cooking i took them out of the freezer.

We thought it was going to be a day to stay inside but our plans changed.  I received a phone call around 10.30 AM from Anna (she was suppose to fly out to Colorado Springs for a few days of visiting the grands and I was going to feed her hubby dinner tonight while she was away) well plans changed and Jackson is going with her.  They wanted to know if we could give them a lift to the airport so they wouldn’t have to leave their truck there.  Jackson called around 11 AM and wanted to know if we wanted to do a early lunch at Pizza Hut.  We agreed although that left me with 15 mins to get dressed and ready to go.  No time for cleaning up my mess.  We had lunch (it was great) dropped them off at the airport and then we drove their truck back to their rig next to us. 

Since we had gotten dressed and already out I needed a few things from Wal-mart and i had seen some material i thought would match a quilt i am making and it was on clearance so I wanted to go before it was gone. We got in our truck and headed to Wal-mart. They still had just enough of the material and it matches the butterflies that i wanted.  This material is going to be used for the outer backside of the backing and the binding on a baby quilt I'm making. 

It’s now almost 3 PM and i have my noodles cooking in the slow cooker for dinner and it’s only 42 degrees!  The rest of the day is going to be spent snuggled up and staying warm inside.

Fall is in the Air

 

The past couple of days you wouldn’t know Fall is in the air.  Temps have been beautiful and in the 70’s.  I’ve enjoyed having my door and windows open.  Unfortunately it’s not going to last.

   

As you can see the trees are all losing their leaves and the evidence that Mr. Winter is approaching.  Hopefully we will be long gone before he officially arrives. 

 

 

It’s 10 pm and the wind has picked up, temps are dropping and rain has found us.  Tomorrow is suppose to be a dreary day with a chance of snow showers!  Temps are to be a predicted high of 46!  Can you say brrrrrrr!!!!! 

 

My poor flowers don’t know if it’s summer or winter.  I have brought them back inside to keep them from the weather.  The middle flower is succulents and a couple of them don’t know what to do.  A couple have lost a lot of it’s petals.  I was worried it might die but today i found this.

 

See the stick looking that is bright .. it has a new leaf growing on it.  There is still hope.  My rose bush leaves are turning colors and falling off but as you see the other is still blooming.

Not really much going on were just sticking around until it’s time to head home for the holiday.  Tomorrow may be a indoor and cuddle on the couch day.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!  It's hard to beleive today is the last day of October!  Wow it's went fast.  Here is our afternoon view.  When the kids get out of school they head to practice (if they don't have a game)

I love being able to look out my window and watch the kids practice football and track.  We have a great view for this.

   
We’ve had great weather for enjoying the outdoors and i love having a blacktop track next to me as it’s great for walking.  Well it was until i fell again and re-injured my ankle/foot. Several weeks back, I was sitting outside and got up to get something and didn’t use my cane and stepped on rock and lost my balance and down i went and so I’ve been doctoring a badly bruised foot/ankle for some time and this week i did something silly again. 

A couple days ago I climbed on a chair to reach something and lost my balance and went to grab a hold of the molding on the slide out and me and the molding both came tumbling down.  I hung on to the molding so it wouldn’t break but my ankle/foot didn’t fair as well.  yes it is my good foot.  So it looks like i will once again be spending several weeks limping around and nursing a ankle/foot when i walk causes me lots of pain.  Hubby put the molding back up and so sometime this week we need to run to Lowe’s to get some finish nails so he can secure it better.  Unfortunately he couldn’t fix me, but he did growl at me for doing something silly and not waiting him for him to get it for me.  He told me that the slide outs are not my own personal monkey bars :)) 

That is one of things with MS and a back injury.  My right side is my week side and I have no balance anymore and it doesn’t take anything to make me fall like a weeble only this weeble ends up falling down!

Decisions

The past couple of days have been much better.  The sun has come out and it’s been in the mid 60’s.  I like those temps better.  Of course their not my favorite temps as mid 70’s are but hey .. i will take them.


We’ve been tossing around some decision about what our Winter plans should be.  We have been asked to return to Texas and thought that was where  we were heading but things in life sometimes make you re-think those plans.  This will be the 3 rd year in a row we’ve been to this same area.  We’d be stopping about a Month or 2 at each place.  I find that after a month in one place I'm ready to move on.  The hitch itch really takes over on me.  My traveling partner enjoys settling in and staying in one place for like 3 months! 


Then there is AZ and i have been wanting to experience the Quartzsite and Slabs for sometime.   I read about Salvation Mountain built by Leonard and would love to some day see it.  I would love to try the boon docking experiences of living off our own and away from the crazy of being around people all the time.  My traveling partner on the other hand doesn’t like to go without the power from the grid.  He enjoys his TV and all the things electricity provide him.  Yet, he enjoys the solitude and i really believe if he would give it a try he would enjoy it.  Just getting him to say YES.   I do not want to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do.  Yet, i earn for a AZ winter.  We made a deal last year if i could go 6 months without returning home to the grands we’d do the AZ trip and my faithful travel half would honor that but ….  I don’t want to do it and he isn’t happy with it.  I don’t have any real stops planned as we’d spend most of time just stopping for a week or 2 and then packing up camp and moving on.  We’d most likely spend most of time on BLM.  We would stop and visit some RV Parks and friends along our way. 

 
So last night we were discussing what we wanted to do this winter.  Last winter we had decided to leave Mississippi and head toward the Keys!  I have always wanted to see the Keys since i was a little girl.  I’m not sure what it is about that area but when i see pictures of it .. i drool!!  Things occurred and our plans changed and we headed back to Texas for almost 3 months.

We spent some time looking at RV Parks and prices online tonight .. wow … but as hubby has said we live once and why not splurge once in awhile.  The state parks are booked of course you can take your chances on arriving early and getting a first come first serve park .. but .. yes that word again .. you may not get a site.  I have seen the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf but I’ve never seen the Atlantic Ocean and one of my goals before i die is to see all 3.  So if we decided to do our initial plans last year here is what we would be doing.  I would be knocking several states of my map of seeing the entire USA. I would get to see Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.  That would add 5 more states to my list of States I’ve seen so far.   Plus we would not be staying more 3 weeks in place, most our stops would be around a 2 week stay.  Plus we’d get to see friends we haven’t seen in several years along the way.

We are still pondering and have plenty of time to decide what we want to do.  We do have a place in Miami we can stay at and drive to the Keys each day if we want and for us getting up early and driving a few hundred miles seems to be nothing anymore for us.  Although i would rather have a place to park but I'm not going there as my faithful partner reminds if we didn’t have dogs we could just rent a motel which i despise!!  So for now we have agreed to think about it and be honest with the other what we want to do.  As you can see the fuel difference is about $400 if we don’t go to AZ but if we only went to Texas there is a much bigger savings.

Decisions decisions .. hmm what will we do?  Either way AZ and FL out weigh Texas as both parts are warmer then where we’ve been in Texas!!  Guess you’ll have to stay turned and see where we end up for the winter.