2012 January 07

Another Sunrise!  This is the day that the Lord hath made!

I really like the way that the sun is shining on this willow tree as it hangs over the frozen lake.  I think that there is a poem in this picture.

       Ella is working this morning at the clubhouse.  I'm at home puttering around.  I took the TV (old-big-bulky-before digital) out of the living-room and put it in the basement of the RV.  Then I took the TV (digital-flat-screen) and DVD player from the bedroom and put it in the living room.
      While I was putting the TV in the basement, I also put the Christmas items, that Ella has placed in space bags, in the basement also.
      I also brought the two burner, electric hot plate into the kitchen.  We bought this thing three years ago (I think) with the idea of using less LP during the winter.  That was the winter that the furnace went out in the Road Ranger 5th wheel.  That winter we used electric heat and LP stove.  It is nice to have backups.

2012 January 06

            Pretty sunrise this morning.  I took several photographs at different stages of the sunrise.

             We had a high of 64 yesterday and are supposed to reach the 50s today.  Winter in the Midwest!?!  Two years ago I had a six foot drift in front of my door.  I think I’ll believe in global warming (for a day or so … until next week when we’ll be back in the freezer.)

            Busy day.  Ella’s doctors appointment (check up) at eight.  Then breakfast at Denny’s.  Then to Aspen Dental to set up and appointment for Ella.  Then to Broadlawns Hospital to request copies of my medical records.  (Two copies: one for me when we’re traveling and one to take to the VA Hospital).  A stop at Sam’s club for a fill of gasoline.  Then to Dollar Tree to shop for Christmas stuff.  From there, on to Home Depot followed by Target for Christmas stuff and a few groceries.  Then to Dollar General for more Christmas gifts.  Before coming home, we stopped at the Camp office to pay for the repairs done on our RV furnace.  If you follow us on Facebook you would have been able to track us as we checked in  almost everywhere we went.

           Once home, I sat down to balance out the check book and update the budget.  In the mean time, Ella has been busy putting various things into space bags.  She is now sitting at the table and sorting her meds for the coming week.  I filled my pill cases this morning before we left for her Dr. appointment.

            I was going to take advantage to the good weather to empty grey and black tanks on the Hitch Hiker and refill the freshwater tank.  But they are a long ways from needing it so I’ll wait a few more days as the forecast is for this unseasonably warm weather to last through next Tuesday.

            Ella works three hours this evening at the clubhouse.  I’ll either watch TV or get caught up on reading some of the blogs that I try to follow.

2012 January 04

            The holidays have my time sense (which isn’t that good anyway) really messed up!  Yesterday felt like Sunday and today felt like Friday.  How can it be Wednesday?  For that matter, how can this be January 4, 2012?  We are snowless in Iowa and expecting sixty-two degrees tomorrow.  That ain’t raught!  It jess ain’t raught!  (Do you know how hard I had to fight autocorrect to write ‘ain’t’?  Let alone ‘raught’ instead of ‘right’?  It took ‘jess’ without trying to change it to ‘just’. Whadup wit dat? )

            Okay, enough with trying to write in conversational English.  If I keep it up, people will start to think I can’t spell any better than ninety-nine percent of the people who text and tweet.  It makes me rant and rave when I try to read what they’ve written.  Well, to be honest, I’d like to choke them like Homer chokes Bart!  I realize that there are these shortcuts like ‘r u 1 2’.  However, people that write things such as, “i wz 2 yr plc las nit an kodnt fin from the fron dr 2 the bak bcuz sombudy wz in the driv du u no what they doin there van smoke lik on fire codnt breate for lik 20 mints afer i got hom.”, should be neutered.  I don’t care if it is ‘nurture or nature’ these people should not be allowed to procreate.

            Well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about today, when I started.  It took a turn that I hadn’t expected.  I guess I had some repressed issues to iron out today.  That is now out of the way and I can go on with the rest of the blog.

            So, as I said so long ago now, I could not believe that today was Wednesday.  We were asked a few days ago if we could babysit the great-granddaughters today.  We, of course, said ‘yes’.  What that ‘yes’ meant was that we had to get up about five this morning so we could be in Ankeny by six.  
          I took Charlotte to school at eight-thirty this morning and then went on into Des Moines for our Men’s Bible Study.  I was just about fifteen minutes late for the study but it was a great study featuring Kyle Petty.  Now I’m not a race fan but I had at least heard of the Pettys.  He spoke about how his faith has guided his life since he was about fourteen years old.

            Then, I went back to my grandson’s and played with Lorelia until mid afternoon.  She is such an imp!  She will be four this coming spring, but she sounds so grown up when she talks.  Today she told me to take a nap.  I said I needed a blanket.  She said, "There is one in the ottoman."  I ask if there was a blanket in the hassock.  She thought a second and said, "Um we don't have a hassock."  What three year old throws around words like ottoman and hassock?

            On another note:  I’m so glad that the Iowa Caucus is over with.  I think I’d like to move to the state which has the ‘last chance’ to pick who the candidate(s) is/are. It is just because I would not have to live with the additional year of campaigning that Iowan’s live with.

            Well, I’ve rambled on for long enough.  Please leave a comment so that I know you’ve visited.  You can just say, “Hey!”

2012 January 03

The office was closed for the New Years holiday but the clubhouse was open.  So, Ella worked from eight to one yesterday. 

The fence around the front of our RV blew down in the 58 mph winds on New Years Day.  It also tore loose some of the insulation around the front.  The insulation has been held back in place by the handyman’s friend (duct tape).  I was going to try to put our fence back up.  However, I think I'll wait for the wind to die down even more before I try to handle those sections by myself.  It appears that Thursday is going to be just wonderful for outdoor projects, with a predicted high of fifty-four and wind speeds of less than ten mph.

When we went to Home Depot to buy Gorilla Duct Tape (I love this stuff), Ella found a set of solar patio lights with candy-cane stripes.  The set of six was less than ten dollars.  They match our North Pole pole just fine.

We have some running to do today, now that the banks and government offices are open again. I need to turn in licenses plates for the RoadRanger fifth-wheel, which will never travel the roads again.  I’m also putting our van (that hasn’t been driven in a year) into storage.  Then I’ll pay for the truck licenses tags at the same time.  I also want to stop at Veteran’s Hospital and get signed up for my prescription through them.  I tried to do that months ago.  However, I wasn’t able to prove I was a veteran because I didn’t know where my discharge papers were.  I finally received a copy of the form and will take it to them.