Purty New Car and House Progress

I'm writing in red today to celebrate my BE-U-TI-FUL new car! It's a Saturn Outlook - red, as you can see with pretty light tan leather seats! It will pull a trailer to camp with and has enough room to pick visiting friends and family up from the airport!! When we ordered it the dealer said it would take 10 - 12 weeks - but since it's about the end of the model year they got it out in just 5 weeks!! So we got to drive it for a day, but now it will just sit in our garage in Northern Retirement State til we get there!! Oh well - it didn't make any sense to drive it all the way to So Cal for just a few weeks then back!

The contractor is moving right along on our remodel! On Monday they got the sub-floor down and he told me yesterday that the wall framing was up!! Can hardly wait to see that! It is sooo fun - it will be a large room with plenty of windows and lots of light!

It was such a fast trip - up on Sunday, back on Tuesday, but we got sooo much done! We registered the car, ordered all the windows, the back door and a new front door, confirmed the carpet, hardwood floors and counter tops and found pendant lights and a chandelier for the dining room!

I still have to get the sink faucet ordered - I sure wish Dishmaster made a prettier, more updated looking faucet - but I love the pull-out scrubber-handle-with-the-button-for soap SO MUCH I will overlook that the company has fallen a bit short in the faucet design!

Well, we leave next Tuesday for Paris, France! Hubby and I are spending 4 nights there to explore the beautiful city, then we'll leave Sunday morning to take the Chunnel train under the English Channel to London where we will meet Morning Glory and her hubby! We'll spend another 10 days with them in Southwestern England!! Then we'll come home to just a month before we pack the apartment and head north!! Boy!! This last 2 years has gone SOOOOO FAST!!!

Granddaughters Are So Fun!

We had so much fun last weekend - we got to babysit our granddaughters! Computer Guy and Darling Wife had a special date and we were only tooooo happy to drive down and help them out!


As we approached the door MissC greeted us with, "GrandiPoppys here! Mommy, GrandiPoppys here!!" at the top of her lungs! I love it!! Makes the drive worth it even if that's all there was!!!

We played while mommy and daddy got ready to go - they looked soooo good!! Then off they went and we played games, read books, told stories - all around had a wonderful time!! Because it is a long drive we stayed the night so CG & DW wouldn't have to cut their evening short.


Hubby slept on the blow up bed, and I shared the couch (quite comfortable actually) with Cooper the granddog! The guy cracks me up! It was hot in the afternoon - so here he is trying to stay cool, and this is one of the positions he was in when we were sharing the couch!! He really poses himself in these positions!!

Next Step - Foundation

Morning Glory just sent more pictures!! We now have a foundation!!










The bump-out will be a lovely breakfast room at the end of the kitchen - this is soooo fun to watch through her camera lens!


We can also see that our neighbors on both sides have finished putting their fences in too! We have met the folks on one side, but the big house on the other side (you can see a play house over the fence) was for sale a long time before it finally sold just a few months ago. We haven't met them yet, but I'm looking forward to that!

Here's a picture from the inside of the larger of the 2 guest rooms, the wall and door came out and a new entry will be built and the room will be enlarged to include the short wall that is just studs now. It will make it a really nice sized bedroom. The rest of the area behind that is all great room!


We'll be going up in early May for a really fast trip to choose lighting and windows! The framing should be started by then! I can hardly wait to see it in person! Thanks MG for sending us pictures!!

Gentlemen - Wield Your Hammers!

Oh my gosh!! They have started!!! Our contractor has done the excavation for the new foot print, and has started 'de-construction' of the back side of our Northern Retirement State home to add a 500 sq ft addition that will turn the 4th bedroom, small dining area and kitchen on the flat back side of the house into a lovely great room, breakfast room and expanded kitchen with views of the park behind us and the beautiful mountains in the distance! This sure doesn't look like that big of an area - but it is!

Here's what the kitchen looked like a week ago -( these pictures were actually taken the day we bought the house)!

Now here's what it looked like yesterday!! Morning Glory went and took pictures for me! Is this neat or what!! They took all the cabinets out and put them in the garage for the time being. Then when the outside is put together they will bring them back in and reset them in a little different configuration!!

Anyone interested in a nice gas stove? I prefer electric and will be buying a new one when we get there.

The guy doing all the ripping apart was sure we'd be horrified at what we saw in the pictures she was taking - but she assured him it would be ok! This is soooo exciting!!

Another Good Read and Other Stuff

I'd like to introduce you to someone I've referred to in my blog as "Darling Wife"! She now has a blog by the name of Sugar Free Cherries! Drop by and say hello when you have the time!

I had a jarring piece of news yesterday - I have 3 herniated discs in my neck! About a month ago we were coming home from Northern Retirement State after a visit, and I muscled my not-too-light carry-on suitcase up into the overhead on the plane. I didn't get it high enough, and it bounced back at me. I caught it a bit off balance and shoved it in again and at the same time felt my neck shift. I thought at the time that I shouldn't have done that, and turns out that I was right!

The pain started in just a few days, and has been relentless for almost 3 weeks! I started going to my chiropractor after the first week, and it wasn't getting any better. He scheduled an MRI for me this last Monday, and I started with an Acupuncturist the same day. I got the results of the test last night and am blown away. I have changed some things in my life forever, by my "I am woman, I am strong" act of hefting my own suitcase over my head instead of asking for some help.

My Chiro and my Acupuncturist both feel they can help, so I am going to continue with both. Actually, today is the first day I have not been in total pain in 3 weeks. I can still feel the tightness - but it has been a good day! Ladies - a word from the wiser - allowing someone to help with the heavy stuff is not a bad thing - does not make me less in charge of my life - and will make the guy in my life happy that he can help me!!

Pretty Exciting Weekend

We just got back from spending a long weekend with Morning Glory and her hubby in Northern Retirement State!! Boy! Did we have a fun time! We always enjoy staying with them and as usual had a great time! We even actually let the guys win at Canasta one night! One of the other reasons for going was to meet with our contractor about our remodel and they will actually be starting within a month!! He is getting bids from his subs and he is finishing up the changes on the plans,then he'll get the permits, and get started on it!! We went and picked out carpeting, wood floors and counter tops - - and we even ordered my new car!! We got so much done in a short period of time!!

Our renters have been smoking in there and the place REEKS!! They are leaving it clean other than that though, so once we tear up the old carpet the nasty smell will be gone. We chose a really neat carpet - it is a little bit shaggy, but not too long and has a few specks of a deep red, navy, green and gold - but it is basically a dark tan that will not show tracked in dirt. We also chose wood to replace the ceramic tile in there now - it's pretty - but we are not tile floor fans and since we are doubling the size of the kitchen we will need to re-do the floors. It's oak and has a "hand planed" finish so dents and wear won't show. In real life it looks really good with the carpet and with the cabinets in the kitchen - which we are keeping and adding more of!

We have granite counter tops now, and they are pretty - but they won't work for the new shape of the counters so we picked out a surface that looks similar in color, but isn't nearly as busy or expensive! I've always had laminates and I've had no issues with them - so since we have in the neighborhood of 90 sq ft of counter tops we went with that as a more affordable alternative! It's one of the new types, and it is beautiful!! We are doing the backsplash in tumbled travertine - with a pieced border - I'm sooooo excited to see all this come together!

We also went out to meet the Saturn dealer in town. I had been emailing him and told him I wanted to buy a car from him. I thought it would be a good idea for him to actually meet us to see that we were serious buyers. We looked at the cars with MG & hub and met with the salesman and ended up ordering my car!! Yippee!! It's a red Saturn Outlook and it will take 10 - 12 weeks to come in. That will be perfect for our move date!! It's all a bit scary - we got all this stuff arranged and ordered in just a couple of days!! It's really happening!! Wahoo!!

It's been sort of amazing how everything has been working out. We have really put a lot of prayer all along into this move and we've made our plans - then given God full "veto power"! So far the doors have opened and we just keep moving through them! One of the things that hadn't dropped into place yet was jobs. I had been given the go-ahead to reduce my hours and work from home and stay with my company. That is a real blessing because of the insurance. But there was the concern about what hubby would be doing, because we really don't want to start taking his social security this early. Last week, just before we left on the trip, his boss talked to him and wants him to also stay with his company - and work from home!! Wow - we stand in amazement at how God works!!! So we will both have 30-hour a week jobs, computers and phone lines from our respective companies and insurance!! That will give us the freedom do work in a bit of gardening during the summer and a ski day every so often in the winter and still get the work done so we have salaries!! Perfect!

I just looked at this whole thing on line! What is with the spacing??? I really do have paragraphs with spaces in between on this composing screen! Oh well!!

It's Really Almost Ours

Well, our renters have been given notice and they will be out by the end of March!! Yippeeeeee!! We've owned this lovely home for a little over a year and a half, and with the exception of the week we bought it, I've only been in it 2 times!! I have bunches of pictures of every conceivable nook and cranny and measurements of all the rooms, but I haven't really felt like it has been truly MINE!!

Every time we visit Morning Glory we drive by, take pictures, walk in the park behind, and take more pictures - just to have a connection with it. But now - - almost really ours!!

We are planning a bit of remodeling, so we had a contractor and his architect go in to look at it - they are friends of ours, and I think the end result will be wonderful! Anyway when they went in the place reeked of cigarette smoke - so bad his throat hurt by the time they left!! He let me know and hubby and I decided that the renters were done!! We were going to let them stay a couple more months - but the fact that they are smoking in my house - MY HOME just frosts me! I'm very allergic to the smoke, so my understanding was that our property manager would be making that clear to any renter - aahhh - assumptions!! Anyway, we want our contractor to be able to start when he is ready, so having them out sooner rather than later is good.

So it's really almost ours!! Ours to remodel and decorate and welcome friends and guests to enjoy with us!! We are doing the remodel because there is a very small living room in the center of the house - nice, cathedral ceilings, fireplace - but very small when you take the "pass-through" areas into consideration. Also if you stand out on the back porch, behind the dining room you can see the lovely park behind our house, and the mountains in the distance. Unfortunately you can't see anything from the living room because it has no windows!!! SO! We are going to take a 4th back bedroom, the dining room and kitchen, bump the back wall out and make a wonderful great room! I've drawn ideas for the architect to "jump off" from and we are really excited!! We'll have a large living area, breakfast room, expanded kitchen and the old living room will become the dining room - which will hold our new dining room set beautifully!

We found it in October when we were visiting - it's the hutch with the leaded top windows and a table and 10 (yes 10!!) chairs!! It is a 54" round table with 6 leaves that can extend it to seat 18!! The furniture store offered to store it in their warehouse for us for free - so what else could we do but say yes!! It is really pretty and will look great in that room. We have always had hand-me-down tables, and we loved them and will still use Gramie's table in our breakfast room, it was so fun to actually choose something we both actually love!!

Well, That's all for today! I'm almost not a landlord!! Yeaaaaa!!!!

This Makes Me Much Better

Aaaahhhhh - breathing through my nose again is sooo sweet!! I finally am feeling like this thing is going away! YEA!!!

To make me feel really good today I got several emails from DiL in Ohio loaded with pictures!! We haven't had any in a while and these were like water on parched ground!

This is our oldest granddaughter MissT with little sister (grandaughter #3) MissK! So nice that all the girls have names that have different first letters!!

MissK looks like she is quite a character! She is 9 months old but was born 3 months early - so she is up to 15 lbs, and I hear she is starting to crawl!
Last time we saw them in August she was only 5 months but was still acting only 2-3 months old. So it looks like she is watching big sister and working on catching up!

MissT is 5 3/4 and is also quite a cutie - she loves craft and art projects of any kind. She is totally horse crazy - and since I was a horse crazy little girl when I was young we have had fun drawing horses and coloring them together!


Yea! I love picture days!!

The Winter Cold

Is there anything nastier than the winter cold? No, not that winter thing that puts us in jackets and mufflers and might even mean snow. I mean that drippy, snuffly, coughy, congested winter cold. Hubby had it, now I have it - I don't want it and did not ask to receive it - but I have it. I have blown my nose til I have a charming red cold sore at the base of my nose and my cough sounds like my lungs are coming apart. Other than that I'm feeling better than I did over the weekend so I am back at work and trying not to sound contagious!

I don't think I am by now, the low feverishness was gone by Sunday - I think I'm just in the "mopping up" stage now. Hubby got it first, and he tried to be stingy with it, but it finally caught me.

I've taken Airborne (wasn't that supposed to prevent this?), vitamin C, Tylenol Cold and Flu (daytime and nighttime), Echanasia and Goldenseal (sp?), and Contac. I put Mentholatum on my nose and Vicks on my chest at night. I'm sucking on Vics Mentholiptus, more vitamin c, and Ricola, and hubby and I have gone through 2 family-sized boxes of Puffs plus Lotion tissues! I've been sleeping on the couch for 2 weeks, because we are both snoring, coughing and blowing noses at night and this way we won't wake the other up - just in case one or the other of us has finally gotten to sleep that is! (Gheesh - isn't that an adorable picture!!)

ENOUGH!!!!

I am ready to talk to coworkers without explaining that my voice is gone but I'm feeling better; to quit coughing and blowing my nose; to answer the phone without wondering if all the sound will be there when I say hello!

On the plus side - I've lost 3 pounds because nothing tastes good! HA!!

Christmas Fun

I have not run across anything much more fun than granddaughters - and being with granddaughters at Christmas is just the best! We were blessed to be able to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Computer Guy, Darling Wife and the girls; Misses C & A! Christmas Eve we all dressed up to go to church then out to a wonderful dinner at PF Changs - (Oh my - wonderful food!!) then back to their house for bedtimes and the wonderful hot cocoa with homemade peppermint marshmallos!!

MissC had a special dress of black velvet with a wide pink bow at the dropped waist and black bows in her hair. The 3-mo old MissA wore a fetching dress with a black velvet top and a full-circle red plaid tafeta high waisted skirt. Both wore matching white socks with bows and soft black "mary janes". Are they just the cutest or what?!!

When we got back to their house after dinner DW & MissC put together a plate for Santa with cookies, carrots and a bowl of oats for the reindeer. It was all toooo cute!! Great Nana is in the background looking on.

Mom, hubby and I spent the night at a nearby motel, and came back first thing in the morning to see what Santa had brought - the doll house was perfect and it hadn't taken CG & DW toooo long to get it assembled after we left the night before!

Christmas morning always went by too fast when I was a kid, and that doesn't seemed to have changed! All too soon the presents were opened, oooed and aaahhhed over and we took ours out to the car to be taken home. We had a wonderful breakfast then we gathered everyone for the annual Christmas picture and as I look at it again, I realize again how blessed we are!

*****

The weekend before Christmas CG & DW asked if we would consider coming down to babysit for them, and we were delighted to do that! A month before MissC's 2nd birthday last spring she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes - and taking care of her insulin and food needs has added a whole new layer of responsibility to the regular job of being parents! The doctor had her on insulin shots for a while, and she was a very good sport about them, but DW set out right away to see if there could be a better way for her. She has had an insulin pump now for a few months now and that seems to be working very well for her. She is very patient when mom or dad needs to "talk to her pump" and when she is hungry she asks to be tested so she can eat! She is quite a trooper!

Anyway - since she was diagnosed, it's been a little harder to leave her for a "grown-up" evening out. DW's mom or sister are sometimes unavailable, so they haven't had many date nights in the last few months! We have been learning how to work the pump and just what she should be eating for her meals, so when they asked if we had the evening free, we were pretty excited! We had a whole evening of playing and reading books and hubby made up some pretty amazing stories about Dora and Ariel and Nemo that delighted MissC! MissA is cooing now and she was so fun to cuddle and play with! We decided to just spend the night so their date night didn't have to end early, and got up early the next morning and were back home in time for Sunday School! We had sooo much fun - we're looking forward to doing that again!!

Christmas Meme

I just read this over at Seeds From My Garden and thought it looked like fun!

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate with Darling Wife's homemade peppermint marshallows!
2. What is your favorite holiday dish? My mom always makes a prime rib on Christmas - YUM!!
3. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Gheesh - it's hard to choose! - Ok - the toffee squares in the See's Candy box that always appears on Christmas!
4. Candy canes? Yes - the old fashioned peppermint kind!
5. Wrapping paper or gift bag? Bag when I'm lazy - paper if I find just the right one!
6. Easiest person to buy for? Granddaughters - I have to slap my hands to make me stop!
7. Hardest person to buy for? Someone with no hobbies or interests
8. Have you ever regifted a Christmas present? I think I may have - something nice though, not junky!
9. Do you remember your favorite gift? When I was 17 I had an old Studebaker Lark -with no heater - that year my dad took the car for "service" and had a heater put in it. I cried it was so sweet!! Every cold morning after that he would start my car and turn that heater on for me so the car was warm before I went to school.
10. Do you open a gift Christmas Eve? No - I always waited as a child and the few I have opened on Christmas Eve just didn't have the same "wonder"!
11. Does Santa wrap presents? Yes - but usually in different paper from the other gifts
12. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Wait - what truth?
13. Which do you prefer… Giving or receiving? Unashamedly - Both!
14. Do you mail or email Christmas cards? Postal mail - and they have to be Nativity cards!
15. Real tree or artificial? I always loved the smell of real, but the kind and size I like got sooo expensive a few years ago we bought an artificial - it's a good one though, and you can't tell the difference without touching! I usually use real wreaths and boughs so it still smells good in the house!
16. Colored lights or white? Hubby likes colored and I have always done white on the tree - but more and more I think my next year's tree lights may be colored!
17. What tops your tree? A leaded star hubby fell in love with a long time ago.
18. How do you decorate your tree? With white lights, and loaded with lots of toys, old-looking things, colored wooden beads - very country and very happy!
19. When do you put your decorations up? The weekend after Thanksgiving
20. How do you decorate your house? Mom gives hubby a nutcracker every year - we have a large collection of them and really enjoy placing them around the house. I collect a Santa every year so we have lots of those too - they are all so festive looking! I love them! I use fresh greens for the fragrance and of course the Nativity sets get special attention.
21. When do you take your decorations down? Usually the weekend after New Year's Day
22. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. I have a couple of them - and they are always special to set out
23. Do you hang a stocking? No, not for hubby and me. I have them for my kids and the grandkids I see on Christmas though.
24. Do you hang mistletoe? Sometimes - just for fun!
25. Favorite tradition? A new one for this year and last - Spending Christmas Eve with Mom and Computer guy, the granddaughters and Darling Wife's family. We go to a Christmas program at their church, then out to dinner. We spend the night then have early Christmas morning with son and his family. Then after brunch we drive back to Mom's house for the wonderful afore mentioned afternoon prime rib dinner! Mom is a collector of people, so she usually fills her table with friends who have no other family to be with. It is always an eclectic group and a lot of fun!
26. Favorite Christmas song? Oh - I love the old traditional ones, and I also love some of the newer ones - my radio station on my computer plays them for the whole month of December and I just love them all - um, except "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by the Pretenders - I know they are pros - but no one on the radio should sing that flat!!!
27. Favorite Christmas movie? A Christmas Story
28. Snow. I have not lived in it - so I love it! We've been in it when we ski - it is sooooo pretty! I know - once it is slushy it is not nice - but I still think it is beautiful!
29. Can you ice skate? Not well - I took lessons several years ago - my goal was to skate backwards - I finally accomplished it, but I don't think it was pretty.
30. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Midnight Candlelight Christmas Eve service at our Lutheran Church. Having home made eggnog in the kitchen in the morning and waiting for Gramie & Grandpop to arrive early on Christmas morning - that signaled we could finally go into the living room where the "opening" would commence! Mom would hand the gifts out 1 at a time and we would all watch it being opened - it made the gift opening last longer and everyone could ooh & aah - and you could see their reaction when they opened the one from you!!
31. Least favorite holiday memory as a child? I had peeked into packages in mom's closet and saw a beautiful robe with matching slippers. On Christmas morning I kept waiting but it wasn't there. I couldn't say anything though. Later in the day we went to my aunt's house, and there, in the display of gifts on my cousin's bed was the beautiful robe and slippers! Auntie had hidden them in mom's closet so cousin wouldn't peek and spoil her surprise. That cured me - I have never peeked or shaken since!
32. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Remembering that Christmas is celebrating the fact that God's only son, Jesus the Christ came to earth because He loves me. All the other things - no matter how fun and special - take 2nd place to that gift!

Way to go Mom!

My mom is an artist - a really good one! You've met her before - she was the 83-year old lady zip-lining through the rain forest in Costa Rica last March with us!

She has been drawing or painting and creating as long as I can remember, and she starting taking oil painting classes at least 25 years ago. The Senior Center in her town has several excellent classes and the teachers are professionals. She started with light houses they had visited and little English cottages and has grown in skill and widened her scope to encompass pretty much anything that takes her fancy!

A year ago she was invited to do a month-long 1-woman art show in the Center's art gallery and she got busy preparing for it. The opening reception was Oct 5th and the show has received great reviews! Hubby and I and went down to help her set up all the food for the reception and a lot of people came and ate and oo'd and ah'd over all the artwork! It was a lot of fun and a great success! (The only bad part of this was my total lack of thinking ahead that I may want to use these photos I took - they are not at great angels or in perfect lighting, but you get the idea!!)

I'm really proud of her - at an age when a lot of folks just sort of curl up and wait to die, she is excited about her life and about truly living every day of it. She is a widow now, and although she misses daddy every day, she doesn't want to miss anything that might be new and interesting. He didn't want her to stop living life just because he wouldn't be there to share it with her.

I'm proud to say she is my mom!