Author: sistertex

This speaks a lot to Hound vs. Feline.  It is warmer in the house now, due to the sun.  I look up because I hear heavy breathing and it is Mandy.  She is laying with her body on the softness of the rug, but with a large part of her body on the coolness of the floor, she is still too warm.  Lemme, a black kitty, chooses the sunny spot on the rug because he feels one can never be too warm.

And then there is Fidget laying in the hall, because it is closer to the food AND he can watch everyone in case they want to feed him.

Nice day today, not as warm as yesterday and supposedly snow tomorrow and Sunday. Though I doubt we will see if up here, north of the cities, we’ll see.

Mandy: Did you just say S N O W? Bad Mom…Bad, bad, bad Mom!

Happy Friday!

A little sun, very little, is better than none.  Though the weather peeps are saying it will be sunny later. Fingers crossed.

A Wildlife Study:

Things start off slightly blurry and the subject seems a little suspicious.

Behold the magnificent beast!

Ruler of all he surveys.

 

 

 

Okay, maybe not quite ‘all’…well, sometimes…or not.

Whoa!

He’s either roaring, bored. or wants me to check out his tonsils.  Looks good down there Fidge.

We’ll go with bored.

Happy Thursday!

New day…

Mandy: Let’s do this!

Mandy: Are you ready for it….

 

 

 

Mandy: Well that was fun.

 

Mandy: I’m done, you can go away now. 🙂

That Mandy is *such* a party animal!

Happy Wednesday!

 

 

When my oldest daughter was in her early years, playing with her toys, you would hear her say to her them, ‘It’s morning time’ and then get them out of their sleeping places.

For some reason her little voice repeating this phrase showed up inside my head as I was looking at the sunrise this morning. I think always think it is weird how things just pop into my head like that with no rhyme or reason. They often provoke a whole line of thoughts and visuals that I would have never thought of at that point in time.

Here are the girls along with Freddy Bear, which she called Happy Bear.  Happy Bear went everywhere with us a lot of the time, along with Meow.  Youngest daughter had a yellow and white flowered pillow I’d made for her.  She would bring it everywhere. What she didn’t know is that up in the top of my closet I had a few of those pillows I’d made and would replace it if her current one went missing. (or was beyond being washed again).

A little walk down memory lane.

Speaking of memories, another set of them from our Florida trip:

After our few days at Fort Wilderness we went back to the RV park we were staying in to be by my Dad until he was settled back into his home and on his way to adjusting. When we got back they assigned us a new spot.  I didn’t like the spot because it was sandy and in between a bunch of park models.  I was not happy with the spot, mostly because of the sandiness and so we went back and forth about whether or not we’d go into it. Finally just decided to give it a shot.

Yep…that a photo of us trying to get ‘unstuck’ only partially into the spot.  What a mess.

The more we and some of the neighbors worked to get us out of there, the worse it got.

At this point nearly bottomed out, frustrated and concerned about possible damage to the coach we call in:

Optimus!

Wow…this bad boy was just frickin’ awesome. We were just in awe when this tow truck drove up.  It was huge!

But then it would need to be to pull out our 38 foot rig.  Diesel pusher…the heavy engine is in the back, which accounts for us sinking into the sand up to our butts. The heavy part of the camper was in the sand.

The guy was pretty nice and he controlled everything with a remote controlled joy stick.

He was very concerned about getting our rig out without damaging it because it was in so deep.  He gave us all sorts of nightmare scenarios, like windows popping out and twisting…well you get the drift.

My husband was smart enough to not buy into everything the guy said would possibly happen when he pulled it out. Me…I turned my back to the crowd and fought tears, I was pretty stressed out by that time.  Yes, I said crowd…half the park was out there, some in their golf carts, watching everything.  It was a Sunday afternoon, which for these folks meant nothing, they are mostly retired and nearly everyday is Sunday for them. 😉  One of the people there thanked us for the show because it was the most exciting entertainment they’d had there for years.

Well the guy got us out in no time and made it look so easy.  Not one bit of damage to the coach.  Course it cost us nearly $500.00, but still such a relief. Now the park was apologizing for putting us in that spot and moved us to another.  We wrote a letter to the owner to try recouping the cost and the owner ended up paying us back for the towing bill. Very nice of them, but I have to say that was a pretty stressful afternoon, being worried about our house on wheels.

We parked in our new spot, without fanfare and went to visit my Dad still in his rehab.

He was doing pretty good.

Then went to have dinner:

Love the crooked glass.

About a week or so later Dad went home:

And started adjusting very quickly.

That’s his buddy. Elvis, sitting next to him.  He doesn’t have a dog, but loves them.  This guy in particular just loves him. Dad carries treats for him in his pocket.

On St. Patrick’s day they have all sorts of stuff at the square near where Dad lives, Spanish Springs Square.  They had an antique car show there that is quite a bit of fun on St. Patrick’s day weekend.

We sat at the Margarita Republic there in Spanish Springs to see the sights.

 

The area is pretty packed during this event.

 

It was fun to see all the antique cars, some of which we drove back in the day.

That pretty much sums up our trip.  After Dad was in his home for a little over a week and doing very well, we left to drive home.  It was a good trip home, no problem.

Mandy: It wore me out!

Lemme: And now you are back!

Lemme: Fidget and I missed our human seat cushions!

Happy Tuesday!

“Monday Monday…can’t trust that day…” (Momas and the Papas, 1966)

Not a beautiful morning as you can see.

But yesterday, Easter morning, looked something like this:

 

 

And though there was rain early on, the sun was offering us promise for the rest of the day.  It came though.

In the morning we were over at our oldest daughter’s house for a Easter brunch. Then in the afternoon came over to our house for a little dinner.

It was the first time I have ever had an Easter dinner quite like this one.

Pizza, salad, fruit, Brazi bites and chocolate cake.  Very casual.  But was requested by everyone attending, a no fuss, fun Easter dinner. So that is what we delivered.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Neither my daughter or myself were feeling up to snuff. She is just a couple of weeks post surgery, still has another month of recuperation time ahead of her. So she was feeling pretty worn out by dinner time.

I made the mistake of getting a shingles vax on Friday that makes you sick for a few days. And mostly, all I wanted to do was sleep. Man, never felt quite so tired from doing nothing. 😉  It’s supposed to last for like…3 days. So hopefully as today goes on I will feel  more ‘with it’.

This weekend we got stuff for the patio.

Nothing big but just to make it so we could sit out there. A glider, two chairs and a fire table, oh and a plastic recycled rug…thing. I will have to provide a better photo, but it is raining and stuff is covered up. The rug is very light and so the wind picks it up as you can see on the right side of the photo.  I will get some of the ‘tacky’ stuff used to hold it down, though it is like a wind tunnel out there much of the time. But I will give it a shot.  We are also not done and still working on the ex-pen portion of it for Mandy, to make it look better.

Mandy: I am protesting the weather by not eating my breakfast no matter where Mom puts it.  Gloomy days wear me out.

Happy Monday!

 

Sunrise, sunrise, looks like mornin’ in your eyes, (Nora Jones lyric)

Last night our cats were having a pretty good time. Not sure what has gotten into them. Could it be that Spring has FINALLY sprung and is the CATalyst for them FELine so goofy?

It was like ‘boing’….sorry we’re crazy now! Except, if my cats could talk, they would never use the word ‘sorry’. 🙂

We have a toy for the cats that sits out all the time and I hardly ever see the cats mess with it.  However, last night it was a whole different story.

Ninja kitty…

Not…I still see you Fidget.

That’s Fidget the Maine Coon, very wide…he’s a BIG guy side to side.  But being partially in this tube makes him look very long as well.  You can see his backside hanging out and then if you look into the darkness of the tube way to the left of the photo you can see the white on his face.  Just looked a little odd to me.

When I was out and about yesterday I noticed the gate was open to the RV park we lived in last summer while we built our new house. It was right on the banks of the Mississippi River, if you recall.  If you don’t you can go back further in this blog and see all sorts of photos from when we lived there.

You can see, if you compare to the older photos posted back 7 months ago or so, we were there from May thru October, the river is a lot higher.  There has been trouble in MN due to flooding this year and the site we were on is in the flood zone of the park.

Though the water has already been going down for a little while, it was never that high when we were staying there.  They are also predicting another crest for the river, but not sure it will go back up again in this area.  If I think of it and am in the area, I will have another drive through to see.

The spot between the blue and white motorhome and the trailer is where where we spent last summer and fall.  Both of those folks were there last time as well. We paid several thousand dollars up front to stay there for 6 months.

Most of the people out there own their sites, and we were invited to purchase ours. But we didn’t get our Motorhome to stay put. At least not yet.  Maybe when we are older and are getting tired of roaming we will find a place we really like enough to stay. However, it is not in our game plan right now.

Looks like the folks who have the trailer that was next to us had something crush the roof of their shed. Wonder if they know about that yet?  Wonder if they will be able to just ‘pop’ it back out. Probably not. 😦   Could have been the weight of the snow that caused it, but I’m guessing the high wind in the storm we had a few days back caused part of a tree to fall on it.  In the earlier photo where you can see our spot, there looks like a pile of wood stacked next to a tree. That was not normally in that spot. So they may have cut up what fell and stacked it there.

The place opens April 15th each year. When I drove through I saw a quite a few folks out there bringing their stuff in and cleaning up their places. So this weekend or next will probably be pretty big on folks moving in.

Just a couple more photos of the shore.

It looks all muddy and gloomy out there now. But in a month’s time, if not sooner, it will look like this:

 

That is our RV…that won’t be there of course. 🙂

They take pretty good care of the place.  Most people are pretty nice too.

Mandy: I liked all the walks we took everyday there.  The ducks in the water would entertain me and people liked to tell me how beautiful I am. But then people tell me that every where we go. 🙂

Happy Good Friday!

Sunrise! Have a quick look because it peaked out then the clouds took over.

The sun just wasn’t around long. Now cloudy and will be raining soon. Perhaps some thunder, I can see on the radar it is moving in to our area.

That said I will continue with more photos from the our trip.

We also went to the other Disney parks, not just the Animal Kingdom. One day we went to Disney Hollywood Studios. Didn’t take many photos there either and the ones I took were of the Toy Story Mania ride.

When you are coming into the ride it begins to work on making you feel the size of the toys in that movie.  You can see the door dwarfs you and they did that with everything in that room.

Felt kind of weird, but was fun.

Long wait for that ride but again, Fast Pass is the way to go.

As we were walking through the streets we ran in to these guys:

 

“DA DA DA, da, DA DA, da, DA DA…” (a little Star Wars music)

 

 

Rey and Chewy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May the force be with you!

Happy Wednesday!

 

Up comes the sun.  Another day has begun.

 

Another lovely sunrise.

View through my window. You can really see the screen this morning.

Not much to report on today so I will go back to our Florida experience. When I left off a few days back we had gone to Fort Wilderness to stay a few days and enjoy the different Disney parks.

I talked about Pandora, which was the main reason we wanted to go. That is in their Animal Kingdom park. We really enjoyed Animal Kingdom and it also had my favorite place to eat during our Disney trip. The place is called Tiffins and it was most enjoyable. The service was great and they did really well in the gluten free food area as I am a Celiac and it is a medical diet for me. The food was great.  The decor was true to the park we were in and had fascinating art work.

 

He was looking at the art work over my head:

Pretty cool.

 

If you are going, this place is a nice to stop at to eat and rest up.

While in the Animal Kingdom I also saw this guy walking around:

 

We have been to Disney so many times I really don’t take many photos any more. So the ones I do take are mostly odds and ends. Things that strike me.

We went to the Animal Kingdom a couple of days so we also ate at the Yak and Yeti.  Not real impressed, they did okay in the gluten free area, a much narrower list of choices. SO LOUD! Service slow.  The food not as good.  I was pretty disappointed. Very crowded as well.

So many people waiting to be seated and the majority of them had reservations.   We did. It was a pretty long wait to get in.

 

That is what I have for photos of the Animal Kingdom and Pandora (earlier post).

Hope I am not boring anyone.

Fidget: Well I can’t speak for the dog, but the cats in this house think you should shut your laptop and move on.

Mandy: Outside, outside, outside…Gotta’ go!

Happy Tuesday!

Sunrise is again visible!

 

My out of the window shot below.

So good to see the sun again! Hopefully we will get a few sunny days warming us up here.

The downside is that I can see the windows need washing badly.  We moved in during the winter and they didn’t really clean the windows. The builder’s crew wiped the inside, but didn’t do a great job.  I said something about it but they told me they never clean the outside.  Being that the windows are all on the first floor I will probably just wash them, but it is still really muddy and wet outside. New sod was put down the end of October so it didn’t really get a chance to fill in and so on. You really have to be careful about walking in the yard right now.

I’ll get to it, but right now I think about it every time I look out the windows.

Mandy went into the vet on Saturday for a full physical. The Vet just called me and said everything was just wonderful with her. All the tests they did, even x-rays came out with no problems for her.  The only thing is they found a little blood in her urine, so they want me to bring another sample.  It is a little worrisome but he thinks it will be fine with the second tests. So we will bring in another sample.  Fingers crossed.

She is 11.5 years of age (almost) and doing very well.

She got a new pink fuzzy bone for being so good at the appointment. Well…you know Mandy is always a good girl when at the Vet. She is nervous and wants to leave, but always cooperative.

Mandy: Actually, it is more like, hurry up and do whatever so I can get the heck out of here.

She’s looking pretty relaxed right now though.

Happy Monday!

Frozen screens in the window.  My view of sunrise this morning.

We stayed mostly inside yesterday.  The wind was just relentless and crazy. The sleet pellets could even be a little painful when driven by the wind. Items on the patio blowing away then freezing to the ground. The sound of the sleet against the windows droning on all day, so loud many times, you couldn’t even hear normal conversation.

When I opened the door to let Miss Mandy out, the door hit you in the face it would blow open so fast and SO hard.  The door she goes in and out of is positioned just right and the area is like a wind tunnel. It’s a new development and there is nothing really around the back of the house to break the wind. So I started putting my foot in front of the door  to fight the wind’s push. I would have to lean my body against it to close it.  A seriously weird feeling and lasted all day.

Mandy: Yeah. (sigh)

Happy Friday!

 

Remember when I talked about a winter storm yesterday?

That’s my sunrise shot for today.

And the roads look like this:

 

Schools are closed. Many offices are closed so working from home today.

The wind with this storm is really strong and you could hear how strong it was inside as it was driving the sleet to hit the house pretty hard.  Snow, sleet and rain is involved in the storm causing terrible road conditions.  It will continue throughout the day into the evening. It is much worse in the southwestern portion of Minnesota than here, north of the Twin Cities area.

Temps should be back into the 60’s next week so it won’t be hanging around for too long. Unfortunately, in Minnesota, this doesn’t mean the last we will see of snow.  One would hope it was over with this storm, but Mother Nature may decide otherwise.

Mandy: Dang, enough already of the cold bathroom!

(she was a blur to get back in the house…moving PRETTY FAST).

Fidget: No problem… just stay inside!

I’m just feeling like one of these are necessary:

Back to Beverly Beach.

Happy Thursday!

Was looking for a beautiful sunrise.

Peeking out JUST a teeny bit on the right side.

Still looking but the clouds are just taking over, though a little sun is sneaking a look on the left.

Okay – so by now you must get the drift, no sun today, later snow and LOTS more snow. Some high winds could be thrown in…hey that sounds like a Blizzard. We’ll see.

Perhaps the visitor below should be alerted:

This duck is swimming in a pond of water on the farmer’s field across the road. It is not supposed to be a pond, but alone and looking for friends, he has decided to make it his home. Will he vacate in the next 24 hours due to weather conditions?

Since the weather is on the gloomy side right now a pick me up would be to  talk about the vacation in Florida again.

SO….

Leaving the beautiful, tranquil setting of Beverly Beach behind we took off for our next destination.

Fort Wilderness at Disney World.

Now I didn’t take a lot of photos as we have been to Disney World so many times.  But we were pretty excited to see Pandora.

Unfortunately, Mandy could not go, no pets allowed.  So she was either staying with our camper or in Disney Doggy Day Care, which we have never used before.

It was nice but we kept our days short at the parks because of worrying about her being in a new place.  She did okay, but was happy to get back to the camper each day.

They had camera in the room she stayed in but she generally managed to stay in part of her room that the camera did not see.  The funny thing is that with the app. for this video thing they have there, I could talk to her and distribute treats and play music for her.  None of which she found helpful or amusing. Originally she wasn’t supposed to be with us on this two week trip that had been planned, but with Dad’s accident, the whole thing changed and we didn’t know how long we’d be in Florida, so we brought her with us.

ANYWHO:

Here we go!

Pandora!

 

Very crowded!  We had fast passes to a couple of things that had wait times of over an hour to get into.

The River of Na’vi:

I took a few photos when inside, of course cameras don’t really do justice.  BUT I will also say that there was over an hour wait for this 5 minute ride, was not worth it.  Had I been waiting THAT long for this attraction, I would have been pretty irritated.  We had a fast pass and didn’t wait nearly that long.

On the other hand, we also had a fast pass for Avatar Flight of Passage so we didn’t wait too long for that one either, but the normal wait time was often close to two hours.  That is really too long to wait in line for any ride.  BUT it was just spectacular.  We loved it and would have done it again if it weren’t for having to wait so long without the fast pass.

The foliage and scenery of Pandora was really out of this world.

Weird flowers. (of course they weren’t real)

 

I have a lot of photos of the strange things growing in Pandora, but you should go sometime and see for yourself!

Mandy: I love my camper.

Happy Wednesday!

Sunrise progression.

Another lovely start of the day.

I understand we’d better enjoy it because after tomorrow we are in for some heavy, wet spring snow. Ack! Well perhaps it will miss us, but the weather folks are saying we could get up to 15 inches here with blizzard conditions.

Anyway, good time to share a little more about our FL vacation.

One of the things we did while at Beverly Beach is venture off to see:

 

The Ponce de Leon Inlet Light is a lighthouse and museum located at Ponce de León Inlet in Central Florida. At 175 feet in height, it is the tallest lighthouse in the state and one of the tallest in the United States.  Nope didn’t walk to the top, not crazy about heights.

By the Lighthouse was:

Beautiful area, relaxed and casual.

But even better…found this little jewel:

And Hidden it was!

It’s the building back at the back of the parking lot for the lighthouse, and is, as we found out by going in, on the waterfront.

 

It is very casual, not at all fancy and just kind of sucks you in.  Of course the first question was, do you do Gluten free? (me being a Celiac it is SO important)  The answer is yes and they were not kidding.

So simple and so yummy. Fish, coleslaw on top…with a little Swiss cheese to hold it down. I love pickles and corn on the cob as well. It was perfect. We both enjoyed the food.

My drink…keeping it simple.  It was almost like having a picnic by the water.

And though we had a lot of ‘friends’ joining us, they didn’t even give us a glance.  Every pole ended up having a Pelican, or occasional other water birds, flying in to hang out in the sun.

They would groom themselves endlessly and just take a break.

I will say, I didn’t see this sign when I sat down….

or I might have chosen a different spot.  I have kind of a reputation regarding my head being a target for birds passing over. I’ve had birds ‘hit (poop)’ me through the sun roof of my car. The sun roof wasn’t even ‘directly’ over my head. BUT nothing happened except good food and entertainment.

At Hidden Treasure Rum Bar & Grill they have a very unique weather station and it is really very accurate:

It was a fun spot and I will go back anytime we are in the area, I might pick a different table…. 😉

Happy Tuesday!

Gotta’ start with Sunrise this morning…lovely.  Enjoy it now because come midweek they are saying SNOW.  Yuck!

SO…back to the vacation portion of our nearly two month stay in FL. While we were staying at Beverly Beach we went a couple of places during the day. Most impressive was St. Augustine.  We also went over to Daytona, but didn’t really like what we saw there a whole lot. We didn’t really stick around Daytona for some sightseeing.  Maybe another time.

However, we did enjoy St. Augustine and after being there for just a day, we are thinking we need to get back and see more in the future.

Love the historical feel of the place.

Here are just a few street scenes from when we were driving around.

 

(above a moving car photo, lovely blur, but had to get the horses in!)

While there we did a couple of tours and really enjoyed them.  The first one was:

Loved the tour. It was really very fun and at the end of it was a sampling of the items they make there. Bourbon, Gin, Vodka, and Rum.  They do a bunch of other things and have them in a store also in the building. BBQ sauce, different honeys,  I mean, they do a lot of things with their liquors.

Some photos from the tour:

This is their cast iron syrup kettle.

It is in the waiting area to start the tour.  Mater of fact the next photo is as well.

Things that go into their product.

Portion of the tour below.

This guy was a great tour guide and his t-shirt says Eat. Sleep. Bourbon.

Different distilling kettles made from different materials, depending on what is being distilled.

And of course same for the aging barrels.

They are very community conscious and Eco based so for them it is all about giving back to the community. These barrels, in the end, are used around the city for other things once the distillery is done with them. They pull the majority of their resources from local suppliers as well.

And their rum is excellent! I am also told by a source very close to me that the gin is really good as well. 🙂

They also make their own mixers, all organic, gluten free and tasty.  A sample of  each of their liquors was made into drinks with several of their mixers and put into little plastic shot glass types samples for you to have.  And yes we had one of each.  They they have a bar in there and when you go in you can sample the bourbons…they have a few different ones.  I don’t like bourbon, and though they say distilling takes the gluten out of alcohol, I kind of steer clear because of my being a Celiac.  But I did take in the smallest sip of a couple of the samples…and may I say, cleared my sinuses and burned all the way down. Then there was the ‘beginning’ to sweat phase…;)  Yeeeah….sticking to rum in the future.

So the logical thing for us to do next was another tour at a different place.

Enter the San Sebastian Winery Tour.

It was a good tour and we tasted quite a few wines. I am not a big wine fan but I keep trying.  We did pick up a couple of bottles while there. One being a bottle of Port which I have had one glass of and I think we still have the wine I picked to get there. Though I do believe Bruce’s picks are gone, he is much more of a wine drinker than I am.

But the most important part of the wine tour was that it was next to the Chocolate Factory tour.  We ended up getting there 20 minutes after it closed. (sigh) But not to worry…the gift shop of the winery had some of their chocolate, so we hoofed it back to the winery and bought some of their chocolate. After all, Chocolate is MOST important when it comes to conscious dieting!  I must say it was tasty even if I don’t remember what the name of the chocolate place was.

Glad we went to have something to eat on the roof though. They had a live band playing up there so that made the atmosphere nice. Though my scenic view was of the town electric station with the two tours behind me…I really didn’t care. Now I don’t have a photo of that so I hope you aren’t too disappointed. 🙂

Mandy: Mom…take a breath!

Yes, yes Mandy.

ANYWAY, that pretty well takes care of the St. Augustine portion of our vacation. Then it was back to the beach.

Happy Monday!

 

Yup…rain. Didn’t see the sunrise today.

Didn’t see it yesterday either. But Thursday…

a gorgeous sunrise!

Spring has sprung with rain instead of snow, though it is dreary, we’ll take it! The area that looks like a little pond across the road from us is actually a farmer’s field…and is not supposed to be a ‘lake’.  But the flooding here from the snow pack, frozen ground and now rain has been a real problem.

On the plus side:

Things are blooming inside. My orchids are doing nicely!

I have three of them. Two of them bloom at the same time and the third blooms some time later. I have had them for years and they go in the camper with us when we are going to be gone for an extended period.

I’m not big on plants but these three have been pretty easy, so they are still around. 🙂

Now quickly back to our stay in Florida with my Dad, on the weekends we would sometimes take a drive just to see what we could see.

We often did that with Dad when we were visiting, he seems to enjoy getting out with us when we go on these little outings.

But since he was in the hospital we would take off for a couple of hours on the weekends, roam around and stop to eat.

One of the weekends we took Mandy over to Sumter’s Landing.

It’s a pretty area, nice and clean, goes along Lake Sumter in the Villages.

There are a lot of shops and eating places, but we stuck to the boardwalk area around the lake.  Stopped for some ice cream, but the seagulls were being fed by some people so birds were loud and flapping all around.  Mandy wasn’t having the ice cream.  It was pretty warm that day so it was melting all over the place. It was quite the mess trying to get her to eat it. We finally gave up and moved on.

One of the places we ate a couple of times was Bone Fish Grill.

This is on the bar side of the place, not the greatest photos when taking them kind of on the sly.

It is a pretty nice place and I do have a better shot of ‘that’….

Yes there was food too! Should have taken a photo of the other consumables.

But by the time the food came, I was all about the food and forgot about photos.  Guess I got photos of the most important part of the meal. 😉

We also took Mandy for evening walks each night. One of the nights on our walk the sky looked like this:

Yep, that is the Moon peaking though the clouds…a hole in the sky. Beautiful and very dramatic.

Happy Saturday!

 

Sunrise! Some rain in the forecast today and highs in the 50s. No complaints about that. We FINALLY got our gutters in yesterday.  This is a new area and the gutter companies were just overloaded with folks wanting gutters in.

We were in Chicago awaiting a new grandson when we first settled on the house, if you all recall, did a quick run back to MN to close, then back to Chicago. So some things were delayed just enough to not be done before the winter set in heavily enough to halt things until Spring.  Gutters was one of them.  But now they are on and we are looking for rain to test them out. Hopefully they are nicely installed and work well.  Gutters…there is something folks don’t get real excited about, nor even think about most of the time.

Though I would like to mention that ours has folding spouts so I will be running out to put them up when I see the maintenance folks cutting the grass. (I guess we will see how long it takes for them to run them over…and mash them).

Just want to share the progression of the sunrise this morning…pretty fantastic.

The view through my window:

For a short time it was a scarlet sky and the light washed across the kitchen.

Beauty!

So…moving on to our vacation week while in FL.

The first thing we did is went to Beverly Beach and camped on the beach with our RV. Something we had always wanted to do. It was just a little over an hour from where my Dad was doing physical therapy rehab so we still pretty close if I was needed.

Below you will see some photos:

Truly a beautiful place.  Very tranquil, especially in the midst of everything we were dealing with at the time. So glad we went. Would love to go back one of these days.

Mandy has been on the edges of lakes before so I really didn’t know how she’d feel about the ocean, she seemed to enjoy being out there with us.  The water a little cold so not much swimming was going on.  February is Winter in Florida too. 🙂

Sandpipers and other birds were following the ebbing and flowing waves, grabbing things to eat as the tide provided. They were fun to watch, almost comical at times.

There were a couple of foggy days:

Sunrise is there somewhere.

Now THAT is a foggy sunrise! The fog drifted away by late morning.

But most sunrises were absolutely beautiful! A great way to start the day.  In the lower right hand corner you can see part of the seawall we were up on. The camper wasn’t directly parked in the sand of the beach of course.  There were pads up on the seawall and steps down to the beach proper.

Due to the hurricanes they are always working around the area to restore the beaches. They added sand at the top portion of the beach and even planted some little plants to help with erosion.

Mandy: Ahhh…to feel the sand and water on my paws again. Yawn….

Happy Tuesday!

 

Hey….Fidgie…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Still the green eyed beauty you have always been big boy! Hope your day is a good one.

Now on with today’s post.

Sunrise!

Early on above.

A little time later in the morning this was the view our window…looks a little like mountains in the distance, though there are none. A beautiful pastel sunrise today.

I want to take you back to Sunday’s sunrise though.  It was gorgeous and very dramatic:

It had a bit of a flare to it as it rose.  Pretty cool!

This weekend my oldest daughter had surgery Friday morning early on and was released later that evening. She is doing well now, but it prompted our Grandson to spend the night with us because we weren’t sure if she’d be coming home Friday night or not until Saturday morning.  Her husband stayed over there with her so we took our Grandson out to see him Mom, then have dinner and come back to spend the night at our place.  We watched somethings he wanted to watch on Netflix, and then played some games.

It was the first time anyone had stayed with us at our new place so we let him pick where he wanted to sleep. Instead of picking the guest bedroom, he chose the futon in the sunroom. He is always so much fun to have around.  We don’t get to spend as much time as we used to with him, as he is older and has plenty else he wants to do, so we value the time spent with him. It was a lot of fun!

When coming back from being with my Dad in FL, we decided to stop in the Chicago area and spend a day with our youngest daughter and her family.

The stay was, of course, way too short, but we enjoyed our time with them. Some photos follow:

Oldest Grandson on the roof deck, not sure why he decides to wear his goggles, but he sure was having a good time.

This is my daughter and the little guy… he was about 5 months old then. He is so big for 5 months! Lots of smiles and giggles from this little guy.

Looks like Grandpa is having a pretty good time as well!

We then went to dinner at a Kurdish place, one of my favorite places to go when we are there to visit.  The kids are always so good when we go out.  All of our grand kids are.  It is always a huge pleasure to be with our daughters and their families.

Fidget: Yawn….Give it a break, Mom…nuff said! Besides, you are making Mandy sleepy.

Happy Monday!

Here comes the sun!

View through my window this morning as the day begins.

Been a busy day so far, just catching up from being gone for so long. A couple of long conversations with my Dad, who is VERY happy right now as he seems to be getting his life back on track after his accident.

He got his golf cart back yesterday and he is a happy guy! He says he is doing much better and sounds like it too on the phone.

He told me that they were making a movie about him and someone was filming him while asking him questions.

Then a little later this video clip arrived in my inbox. Short and sweet…filmed by the folks there at Elan, where he lives. Very, very nice!

About Dad.

Pretty cool…he is a movie star now. 😉

Mandy: This is my hobby!

Happy Thursday!

 

As the Sun was getting ready to say ‘hello’, the Moon was saying ‘have a good day’ as it was getting ready to set.  It was pretty pronounced in the sky with the help of the clouds.

The Sun, not wanting to be totally upstaged by the Moon, decided to peek out of the clouds.

So I will start from the beginning regarding our FL trip.

We stayed at the Recreation Plantation which is close to where Dad was located. We always stay there when we visit my Dad.  They have been pretty good to us for the most part.  Back when Hurricane Irma went through nearly two years ago Dad had another accident the day after the Hurricane hit. We needed a place to stay and they were not open, so we went to another spot which was out in the middle of an unmowed field with no elec, or hookups. We were pretty concerned about the heat and humidity as we had Mandy with us.  So we went ahead and drove over to Recreation Plantation, they really weren’t fully opened, but they accommodated us right away on the only loop that had Elec. because it was on the same elec. line as a little medical center next to it. So that was pretty nice, we went, picked up the camper and moved in.  So they always manage to fit us in someplace when we need it most.

I will also say, they have some pretty nice sunsets. This is February 2019 in Lady Lake/The Villages, FL Lots of campers there.

Husband worked from the camper while we were down here. We are pretty lucky he is able to do that!  His company is just great with all of this kind of thing!

I spent most of my time in the hospital with Dad as he was in one of the worst hospitals in the area.  Before we were done I had reported the entire staff on the 5th floor and met with the director who had only been there for three weeks. So much happened during this time, regarding Dad and his care, I just don’t want to go into it all.  I will say that they sent him to his rehab facility about two weeks after his admission to the hospital.  And the rehab sent him BACK to the hospital because he was in such bad condition. Apparently had a heart attack that no one caught.  But when he went back to the hospital they were much better with him as he was put into PCU…which is one step less than CPU. They had only 3 patients to 1 nurse and the nurses were wonderful there.  Plus I was around all of the time so maybe that helped some. I don’t know…

Ever seen so many wires…this is where they just got him to move into a chair.  But the worst thing is that he was moved to a different floor after a few days…and just like the weeks prior to being sent back from the rehab  he laid in bed with next to no PT (for 3 weeks total he was in the hosp and received PT twice)…which was moving him from the bed to the chair or the pot). During his hospital time they moved him 8 times. The man was clear and physically able when he went in and was reduced to a non-mobile, confused, depressed person with what became Hospital Dementia in that amount of time because of lack of caring by the hospital. At first I was afraid to complain about the things that were happening, that if I did it would get worse for him.  But just couldn’t let things go as I was growing more concerned and they were becoming ever more casual with the care.  This is a hospital in a MAJOR senior citizen area that everyone is afraid of and doesn’t want to go there.  You would think that because there is a lot of money in the area that this place would be the BEST…but now after the fact, I just read a news story about the people in the area bringing the management to task because it was just released from Medicare/Medicaid that it was one of 237 hospitals in the nation that only has a 1 star rating…so doesn’t get any lower than that.  Of course I don’t live down there, and Dad was admitted before I got there, so I had no idea. 😦 But I sure figured it out pretty quickly.  Totally frustrating having to deal with them.  AND they sent him to the rehab without telling me (the first time), I have POA and also for the health portion, HIPPA permissions and so on.  They were supposed to let me know what was going on because he wasn’t ‘with it’ any longer.  But I went to see him in his room after dinner one night (and I’d been there during the day)…and he was GONE.  They said Oh yes, he went to rehab 40 minutes ago.  Somewhere in there, he’d had the heart attack which they never noticed.  But they did at the rehab when they were receiving him and some fire paramedics showed up, right after I got over to the rehab, to put him in the ambulance and take him into emergency…back to that danged hospital. Fortunately he was in a different part of it this time. Thank goodness. And it was a cardiac event so in he went…no waiting.  We sat in the waiting room for sometime before we were allowed to go back where he was at.

But after all that he went into the highest rated Rehab center, which I did have time to do some research on.  And did pretty well there.  Those folks were SO nice to him, no complaints there. He started coming out of his Hospital Dementia, which had been terribly upsetting to witness him developing and was beginning to try and make sense of everything happening to him.

When he went into rehab, there I saw he was being taken care of nicely.  SO we went ahead and left for a week to take a portion of our planned vacation that we’d paid for in advance.  I had Dad’s friends coming by every day we were gone and they were letting me know how he was doing.  I also called in to check on him.  But I have to say, at that point, we could really use this break.  So the next few posts will highlight the week we were on the vacation portion of our stay down in FL.

Mandy: Yes, it was nice having a warm bathroom and warm walks in the middle of February!

Happy Wednesday!

Sunrise! This is what it looked like when I first opened the shades.

View out the window looks like this right now.

No alteration of the colors. Quite the beauty this morning.

I haven’t posted for a while because we have been gone for nearly two months. It was an unexpected trip to Florida due to my Dad’s accident. He ended up having a number of complications after his Golf Cart accident and was in the hospital for a little over three weeks and then in rehab 3 weeks, then we stuck around another week while he was adjusting to living back at his home.  We left to come home because my oldest is having a surgery this week and we wanted to be here for that.  But Dad (age 88) is doing okay, still adjusting, but getting there.

The last day we were there with him we took him to his and our favorite place to eat in his area, Eaton Beach.

Mandy came to visit him too.  He loves dogs and always carries dog treats with him. Especially for his little friend, Elvis.

This little dog is truly special.  He is just a love. He and my Dad are pretty tight…though he belongs to a neighbor, they just can’t seem to get enough of each other. 🙂  Elvis really missed Dad while he was in the hospital and physical rehabilitation. Pat is his owner and she was a big help in letting Elvis visit him in rehab and hanging with Dad as much as possible to help Dad emotionally while going through all that happened.

When I picked up Dad’s clothes from the hospital to wash them, he was in a hospital gown, I turned his pants upside down when folding them…a bunch of dog treats fell out of the pocket all over the foot of his bed.  Like I said, he loves dogs, but won’t own another, though I have mentioned several times he should get one.  We had a dog much of my childhood life.

A lot happened while we were down there and so as time goes I will be posting portions of our stay.  We were supposed to be going down for about 2.5 weeks for vacation the middle of February, but Dad’s accident changed all that.  We went early and stuck around for a lot longer.  Because of not knowing how long we would be down there, we took Mandy with us instead of putting her in a kennel for a couple of weeks.  She does well in the camper, but doesn’t like the ‘driving part’ of it.  So normally it is easier, depending on the vacation, on her to leave her at her favorite home away from home.

She seemed to enjoy being with us most of the time we were ‘still’ and not moving in our camper. She owns quite a bit of real estate when it comes to the camper, considering the total square footage vs square footage for Mandy.  Above is her bed in the ‘bedroom’ of the camper.

Mandy: Yes, sleeping in front of the fireplace in the living room of the camper and having a bathroom where it is in the 70’s and 80’s instead of -20s is not all that bad!

A benefit of being down in FL when needing to be with Dad is that it got us out of a LOT of snow in MN and is at least 70 degrees warmer during Feb and March.

Huge thanks to my oldest and her family for babysitting our kitties while we were gone. Love you guys!!!

(yyyeeeahhhh – that is supposed to look like me…so funny.)

More to come.

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday’s sunrise. Though we kept the shades down, I still peek out to catch the lovely colors.  Today, not seeing it yet today, it is hiding so far.

Weather looking a little better.  Well to us here in Minnesota anyway, my Dad down in Florida still things we are all crazy for living here.  He was in the military all my life, a lifer. From 6 years of age all the way until I moved out on my own at the age of 19, we moved occasionally more than once a year.  That is how I got to Minnesota in the first place. But he has experienced winter here, so he knows.  We didn’t stay here long, less than two years.  But it is where I graduated High School, and though I had to go with them when he was stationed in Japan, Minnesota is where I returned.  Got married a year or so later only to have my husband move us to the Washington DC area.   BUT when we had a daughter, we moved back to family…yep in Minnesota. We have been here every since.  I can tell you it was Not the weather that caused all the ‘returns to Minnesota’. It is the people.  Though a beautiful state, the weather can be a bit on the brutal side…but every place seems to have its form of brutal weather.

That all said, I have been talking to a lot of folks down in Florida for the past 3 days, and not one of them, even the police department, has missed a chance to give me grief for living in Minnesota right now.  Makes for a great ice breaker (pun intended) when needing to talk with them. I tell them I am in Minnesota and they start giving me grief, a good rapport is established and then we get down to business.

Mandy: You’re killin’ me Mom….enough babbling!

Okay, Mandy, I hear ya.  But…I will also mention that the reason I have been in contact with so many Floridians is because my Dad was involved in an accident down there, a Golf Cart vs car accident.  He is currently in the hospital, though very sore and has a cracked pelvis….he is doing pretty well.  He wasn’t driving, but was a passenger, in his own cart. So it has been a hard few days for him. Still finding out things here and waiting to talk with him today, but hoping it is good news (well considering the circumstances).

Happy Friday!

Keeping the shades closed today as there is a thermal property to them and last I looked it said it was -29 outside (that does not include the windchill).

So then, this morning, I started seeing sunlight on the shades and just had to venture a peek.

There’s is:

Sunrise, though anemic.  Not delivering a lot of heat today….so the shades are still down to help keep the furnace from running all so much. Maybe we will save a little on the heating.

Mandy: Oh sure, save on heat, but does she let me do my business inside…NO! She just yells at me, ‘Hurry, Mandy, Hurry!’  I will say that I am no longer taking my time out there. Dang!

Lemme: Hey Mandy, got a box for ya! Heh Heh.

Happy Wednesday!

 

The sun is coming…but will mean next to nothing in the weather department today. I mean it is good to see the sun and all…but…just sayin’.

So supposed to be even colder as the week goes on. Maybe breaking a record here. But then probably most of you all can commiserate as you are feeling the cold as well.

Mandy wants me to share something with you….

Mandy:  Pleeze put in plumbing for an indoor doggy potty station!!! (see my bathroom above).

Mandy:  Purdy Pleeeezzzzzuuuhhh!

You know, she goes out there and messes around when I am yelling ‘hurry Mandy…hurry!’ Then she starts spinning around and runs in without doing anything.  Only to have to redo the entire act 10 minutes later because she didn’t go.  I try explaining it to her but I am met with this:

which leads to this:

Then in a short time we are back to this:

Rinse and repeat.

Fidget: Mandy Schmandy, the litter box is a cats only facility. Heh heh…cats rule, dogs have to pee outside. Sucker!

Stay warm and Happy Tuesday!

 

 

Looking for that beautiful sunrise this morning but seeing nothing but clouds. Looking off to the left you could see the sun was up, but that is all I have been able to see of it. (below)

I hope the clouds ease up today and let the sun have a little face time.

A friend of mine sent us some photos the other day, THANK YOU!

Pretty cool, so I will share them.

These are my girls way back when.   Now they are 40 and 37 years old.  The oldest is holding Happy Bear (she named it).  Above is not taken at our house, but I can’t recall where it was taken.

And there is Grandpa Ralph with the girls.   He passed a little over a year ago – Ralphie we sure do miss you!!!

Here we are out hiking with a close family friend.  Youngest daughter shown here I believe and that is her God Mom in the Navy top…we won’t discuss the other person holding her hand, but Dad is bringing up the rear.  My guess is that oldest daughter is out in front with the person taking the photo. She might even be taking the photo…??

There she is! Over Dad’s shoulder.  Looks like it was a fun time!  Thanks again for sending the photos.

Today it looks like this, and we are hitting a very cold streak of weather. So we won’t be hiking for a while.

Mandy:  I am pretty unconcerned about it all most of the time however, my bathroom is a awfully cold.

Happy Wednesday!

Sunrise!

Not the sun…meet Mr. Moon.

Full moon last night and it was The Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse.  The lack of trees and city lights gave us a pretty good view, though I should have gotten out my good camera to capture it, it was very cold and I am pretty lazy, so I used my cell phone.

They came out ‘okay’ not great, so please bare with me here – there are much better photos and videos online.

Anyway, you get the drift. We thought it would be a little more dramatic but not so much at least from our vantage point.  Plus the camera doesn’t do it justice, but we did see the slow eclipsing of the moon and it did turn in color to more of a rust.

It didn’t start until the moon was pretty high in the sky and the night was very cold, like below zero, so we didn’t set up outside. It was in and out of the house all night to view it.

You could see the stars all around the moon, the sky was nice and clear. That is what the white dots are in the upper right quadrant of the photo.

Moving on to wild life around here….

Yes, the four legged kids provide some pretty wild moments on occasion.

This is Fidget who managed to find the automatic hand soap dispenser when he got up on the counter in the kitchen.  Since it is a definite NO NO!! I kind of feel a sense of justice in the whole thing, but am wishing I would have had a video camera set up.

I didn’t know he was up there until I heard the sudden crashing and yowling as he tried to escape the kitchen sink that the pump hangs over.

The photos were delayed due to a freaking out cat who thought he was being attacked by something wet and foamy.  I will add that no animals were harmed, but I did laugh so hard I nearly sprained something. (just kidding) Took a while to catch him so I could clean him up.  (Plus I had to get photos.)  I will also add that he hasn’t been up there since and I might get more of the soap dispensers to keep him off other places he goes to cause trouble. 😉

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and a Happy Monday!

 

And now the Amazing Mandy presenting us with a new Yoga position:

It’s called the pissed off dog.

Mandy: It is so fricken’ COLD outside…how would you like it if your bathroom was 8 degrees below zero!

Happy Sunday!

Fire in the distance?

Nope – just sunrise!

Clouds are impeding the beauty, but we get to see a little of it.  That was pretty much it this morning.

Mandy, time to rise and shine!

Mandy: Ugh, Mom, so early. You’ve got to be kidding.

Mandy: Okay, okay, I moved, so back off.

🙂

Happy Friday!

Lemme always chooses the smaller box.

 

Fidget chooses the couch on Mom’s lap.

And….

Mandy is just ignoring me…hoping I won’t make her get up.

Mandy: Go away, Mom!!!

Happy Thursday!

Sunrise.  Something we have been unable to see for the last couple of days due to clouds and a very grey overcast sky, though it was warm for January in Minnesota.  And now we are in for an extremely cold spell.

Meanwhile:

My kids – living in Chicago are on vacation in Mexico and send me photos.

Nice.

Happy Wednesday!

New rug in the front room!  This is a big deal to one individual in our house.

Mandy was like…what have you done with my old carpet, I had it smelling just right. (yep that was part of the reason to give it up.)

And apparently she decided to take matters into her own paws.

 

Well Mandy, I see you are making it smell a little more like you…is it soft enough?  Is it going to pass inspection?

Mandy: Hummm…still deciding.

Mandy: Okay, not bad, nice and soft, but I will have to work on the lack of odoriferous dog odors.

So far so good with the new carpet!

Something else I will mention we saw yesterday:

Target just remodeled our local store.  There must have been some event or something because when we arrived to do a little grocery shopping this truck was pulling off the sidewalk and employees were directing it trying to get it out of there.

The weirdest part was who was inside….

I believe his name is Spot? Thank goodness he wasn’t the driving.

Happy Monday!