Have a safe New Years Eve

No plans for this New Years Eve.  Just watching the puppies sleep and momma dog take care of them.

I sure hope I find a home for her and the puppies.

My New Years Eve activities will be; wash a load of clothes, surf the web and read the blogs and maybe finish off with a glass of wine before bed.  Not much excitement, huh.
Happy New Year!  Be safe.

100 Posts

  Today is my 100th post!  Dont know why that would be special but gee it is 100.
  Christmas is over,  the kids have gone home.  I will take the tree down this weekend and try to get everything back to normal.  If anything here is ever normal.  I usually have all the decorations and tree down by Christmas night.  Not even close this year.  I will be lucky to have it all down by new years.
  The puppies are growing so fast.  I think I have asked everyone I know if they want a puppy and haven't had any takers yet.  This could be serious.  Then there is the momma dog.   She has been abused and I don't want her to ever have to worry about that again.  Her eyes reach to my soul. There is so much pain there.  She will have to have a special home. I have 6-8 weeks to find 8 loving homes.  Wish me luck.

What a wild Christmas Day!

This has most  definitely been a Christmas to remember.  It's 4:30 and I am waiting for my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter to arrive.  It's raining and 33 degrees outside.  I woke up to Doug telling me the stray dog that had adopted us was back in the garage and had puppies.  We have 6 as of now.  I hope she is through.  I have made her another bed and as soon as I am sure she is done will put her in a dry bed.  Bless her heart she is exhausted!  Lord knows what I am going to do with a mom and 6 pups!  Christmas dinner was suppose to be with sons in laws but due to some uncontrollable circumstances, that was canceled last moment.  Doug and I found the only place open to eat, Chinese!  LOL  So this is a first for us, no Christmas dinner and puppies.   gee  what else!!!!

The rain has now turned to ice then snow. We got a white Christmas just a late one.  We still have electricity though many do not.

The best part of this is that my granddaughter is here and will spend the night with us.  I hope that your Christmas was everything you wanted it to be. Mine was most definitely a memorable one.  In a way, this Christmas is what Christmas is all about; family and taking care of whoever or whatever has been sent your way...
Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas EVE!

It's so quiet here today.  I can't believe that it's Christmas eve.  Christmas is so different when the kids are grown.  No one that is anxiously awaiting tomorrow.  No one begging to open presents early. No pity patter of little feet.  They grow up way to fast.  I am enjoying the peace and quiet now.  Later we will go to my sisters house and the entire family should be there.  Sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.  I can guarantee you it won't be quiet there.  I wish my youngest son and wife could be with us.  They are here in my heart.
I must say that it is good to be me.  I am living a blessed life.  I have a wonderful husband and family.  My sons are married to the most wonderful women. They are truly daughters of my heart.  I could not love them more if they were my own.  I have a beautiful granddaughter. She is the most amazing thing that has happened to me.  Watching my sons and their families live happy lives is all a mother could hope for.
Yes, I am truly a blessed woman.  As we celebrate the birth of our Savior, I pray that you too are blessed as I.
                                    Merry Christmas everyone.  May God bless you and yours.

I'm about as ready as I can be. Come on Christmas!

I cut way back on the presents this year.  I kept telling everyone that this was going to be a much leaner Christmas.  Less presents, less decorations, less everything.  Well I hope they were listening.  I  have decided that we all pretty much get anything and everything that we want or need all through the year and there really isn't a lot to buy.  I sure think that its silly to buy something, just for the sake of buying something.    Well this year I followed through with my threat, idea, strategy or what ever you want to call it.  This is the least amount of presents I have ever had under my tree.  But I really think its a good thing.

Remember the dog that showed up at my house.  This dog has obviously been abused.  It took several weeks just to get her to come up to us.  Then it took more time for her to trust us enough to let us pet her.  Well she is still very skittish and easily spooked but she is trying very hard to trust us.  Then the other shoe fell!  She is going to have puppies!  It seemed like over night she blew up like a balloon!  I have never had a dog with puppies.  I am totally lost as to how to care for her.  I did some internet research and found out that I should be feeding her puppy food to help with her growing belly and needed nutrition.  I wish that I knew how much longer she had.  I also found out the gestation period for dogs is 62 days.  I just don't know when day 1 was. LOL

Here she is resting in the garage.  It was cold today and I covered her up.  This is the first time she has ever stayed laying down when I walked outside.  She usually jumps up.  I let her come in the house today for awhile.  she didn't want to come in.  She was very timid.  I finally got her in and she laid down on the rug and I rubbed her belly.  Those puppies were playing basketball in there.  I could see them moving and kicking!  She stayed inside for about 30 minutes and then wanted back outside.  She laid back down on her bed and went to sleep.  She is so sweet, I hope after the puppies are born we can find a good home for her and the pups.  She deserves a loving family.

                                               I don't know nothin bout birthin no babies!

12-12-12

It seems there was a lot of people that took advantage of this "lucky day".  Some went as far as to plan something at 12:12 on 12-12-12.  Weddings were top of the list.  Should make it easy to remember.  I don't remember all the fuss for 11-11-11 or 10-10-10.  Maybe its because it will be like 89 years before we can start with the 01-01-01 again.

Buster came to see us again.  I use to think he came over because he just loved us so much.  Now I think he comes over to get some rest.  It seems he always sleeps the entire time he is here.  Hmm I guess I better rethink this "he loves us more" idea.

I do think I am beginning to see a pattern here.

Happy  12-12-12 day!

Today was Doug's last day at work!

Yep he is off the rest of the year. Doug will work one day next year and go on vacation til Jan 31st.  He goes in on the 31st and signs the paperwork for retirement.  I can't believe that he is done, through, kaput, finished!  I still have 53 days.  Bummer!
I am beginning to think I need to shorten that some, like maybe by 20 days.   I may need to think on that some.
Christmas will be here soon and I have just now started my shopping.  I have to be through by the end of the week.  I have gifts that will have to be mailed by thursday.  I guess I had better get busy.  I do love Amazon.com for shopping.  Order it and they will deliver! YEA!  Last year I did almost all of my shopping online.  This year I had some that had to be done locally but a majority of my gifts will be bought online and delivered out of town.  I love Amazon's wish list.  My boys and their wives can make a wish list and I just look and click.  How hard is that?  
 I am not buying as much this year as I usually do.  With retirement and just the economy in general, I have cut back.  I told the kids, I just hope they believed me.  If not, surprise!  I've told them not to buy us anything.  There really isn't anything that we want or need.  Just seeing them would be gift enough for me.  I just hope that I get to see them.  Life happens, and we don't always get what we want.  They both have their own lives, their own friends and seeing mom and dad isn't always at the top of the list.  And even when it is, life has a way of "getting in the way".  That's ok.  I was young once.  I remember how busy life can be.  Even though both of our sons live 10 hours from us,  I can see them when I want using Facetime.  Great invention.
I guess I have rattled long enough.  I have to work tomorrow.  Good Night!

It looks orange to me!

I  settled on a color for the front door.  It was called lucky penny.  It was a copper/brown color.  It looked like an old copper penny, thus named.  Well I got up this morning ready to get started.  Doug cooked me a great breakfast.  We had eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy.  Yum!  I caught him off guard, looks like the cat that swallowed the canary.  LOL  After eating I got busy with the door.

  After eating I got busy with the door.  It's all taped up and ready for paint.

First coat is on and it sure looks orange not copper.

Second coat is on and it still looks orange.  It should be a lot darker than this.   I am going to put one more coat on it tomorrow. If it doesn't darken up, I'm headed back to Lowe's so they can add more brown!  LOL   It looks like 1970's orange to me!

Then I had a visitor.  This sweet little dog has showed up looking for a snack.  I guess you can see the plate on the porch.  Yes, I gave her some biscuits and gravy.  Anyone want a sweet little dog? She just wants someone to love her.  She is very timid.  She either has never had a family, or she has been abused.  Anyone want a sweet dog?

Moved furniture and put up Christmas decorations

I had a busy day today.  First I moved all the furniture around in the living room.  Then I put up the Christmas tree.  Of course I had trouble with some of the lights not working.  I had to add lights to a pre lit tree. Bummer!  Libbie came over and decorated the tree for me! Talk about a good friend! She did a great job.  It's the best looking tree I have ever had.

She even decorated the mantle!

I need to get a Santa Claus picture for above the mantle.  I think that would finish it off nicely.  Notice that my elf fairy is riding the horse.  LOL
Now I guess I am going to have to go shopping and put some presents under that poor bare tree!
While Libbie and I were decorating inside, Doug and Jim were outside taking the slide out awning off the slide out.  I had a tear on one end.  They got it off and then gave it a good wash down with the power washer.  It is drying now.  Doug is taking it to the  upholsterer on Monday.  He can resew the end and then they can reinstall it.  If it doesn't work he can order a new one for us.  I didn't get any pictures of them working cause we were too busy inside.  sorry
Sorry the pics aren't very good.  I have ordered a new camera and it hasn't come in yet.  I used my iphone.  It usually makes good pics but with my shaky hands I just can't take good pics with it.  Hurry up camera get here! I ordered one from Best Buy on black friday.  I and getting a Nikon coolpic.  At least I think that is what it is.  Maybe I will retake the pics when it gets in.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Did you hit the madness and go shopping?

Not me! What I wanted to buy, I bought onine.  No crowds, no long lines, just me and my computer.  this is a much better way to shop.
This morning my neighbor saddled up her horse so that Ashlynn, my grandduaghter, could ride.  She was so excited.  "I'm a cowgirl now" she told me.

She had her first lesson.  She did very well controlling that huge animal.  She learned how to turn the horse, back her up and the most important one, how to stop him.

I even got on him.  I havent been on a horse in over 25 years!  My legs are reminding me of that now.

This was alot more fun than shopping in the crowds today.  Thanks Mary for letting us ride your horse!

Happy Thanksgiving

After a wonderful meal at my daughter in laws mother's house, our granddaughter came home with us to spend the night.  Her parents and other grandmother decided to brave the early sales at Wal-Mart.  Ashlynn decided that she and Peepaw should make a fairy house.   After much discussion a plan was made.

 They got straight to work with their design in mind.  It had to have windows for light and the ones in the attic had to be tooth shaped.

After alot of popsicle sticks, glue and paper, they finally finished the fairy house.

After it dries, Ashlynn says she will put her name on it and take it back to Texas.  At the rate she is loosing teeth, the tooth fairy needed a place to stay at their house.  She has been spending way to much time there lately!  I hope your Thanksgiving was as grand as mine!


                       Happy Thanksgiving All!!
  Hope your day was full of  fun, food, and family!

I love these short weeks!

  This past weekend Libbie and I went to the Holiday House in Little Rock.  It was at the convention center.  We spent 4 hours walking the aisles looking at all of the handmade items, pewter serving dishes, clothes, toys, food, Christmas decorations and just about anything else you can think of.

Yes it was that crowded!  I got a few Christmas presents bought.  My first ones.  I better get busy.  I like to be finished by the first of December.  That way I can enjoy the season.
After a long day of shopping, Libbie and I ate at The Olive Garden and headed home to rest our weary feet.
Sunday afternoon Doug and I went to see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall.  It was one of the better Bond movies.  I really liked it.  If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly.  Then Monday I was off work.  Love those long weekends.  Since I had such busy weekend, Doug and I just vegged out on Monday.  We never even got dressed.  Stayed in our PJ's all day.  
Next week is an even shorter week.  We only work three days.  If I could only get them to change the work week to two days then one.....
Doug is down to 14 days left to work.  I have 69!  I like his numbers a whole lot better.  I wonder if he would trade?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

 I went to work this morning as a cat!

 This is me and one of my co-workers.  We are a little catty aren't we?

 This is the rest of the crew.  Aren't we cute.  I am sure you would want to come see us

This is Doug.  He didn't look like that today.  Our son added the "stash" to a photo and sent it to me today.  He looks extinguished doesn't he?

A day of fun for the kids and adults.  Hope you had a good and safe Halloween.

Went on a shopping spree

Drove into Little Rock today to do a little shopping.  I needed something to wear for Halloween at work.  I really didn't find anything that I wanted so I settled for make up to make my face up as a cat and I got some ears and a tail.  Going to have to do.  We then went to Home Depot looking for  a new shower stall.  I want to remove the bathtub and replace it with a shower.  I am good at tearing things up but not so good a putting it back together.  All of the 48" shower trays have the drain in the wrong place.  We may have to use the 60".  I was hoping to use that 12" to add a small cabinet.
Oh well. whatever.  Then we headed to Sam's for some fruit, fresh veggies, paper products and just stuff.  We came back with all that and a new Blend-tec.  It's a blender, ice cream maker, soup maker and juicer all built into one.  Makes smoothies too.

For the price it should take call in orders.  This is suppose to help you eat more fruits and veggies.  We'll see.

The To do List

   Back home and things are back to normal, whatever that is.  Everyday life is kind of boring so I haven't written anything.  I can't believe that its almost November.  This year has passed by so fast.  Doug will send in his paperwork next month and everything will be "official" as far as his retirement is concerned.
I have a list of things that need to be done before our trip next year.
1.  the surge protector needs to be installed
2.  the roller on the slide needs to be replaced.
3. I need to clean the carpet again.  There are a few spots that keep coming back no matter what I do.  It looks like they come out but I guess there still is some kind of oil still there that attracts dirt and back they come.
4. Time for an oil change
I wish we were as talented as some of the bloggers that I read.  They could handle all of this to do list in no time.    The only one that I am sure we can handle by ourselves is the carpet cleaning.  The rest well.....  I do think that Doug is going to give the roller a try.  Let's hope he can fix it.  The oil change wouldn't be so hard but we don't have a container to hold that much used oil.  Well, we will start on the list next weekend. Not necessarily in that order.  I have room for another motor home if some one wants to stay at our "campground " and help.

We are home!

We left Tunica around 11 today.  The weather was fine but as usual in this area, it was very windy.  Back in Arkansas is sure is hot and humid.  Time to put the coats and sweaters up for awhile.  Monday will be here way to soon and back to work we have to go.  It was a great week.

We heard some good music.

Saw some elk grazing in a field.

And beautiful mountains and streams.  Although we didn't get to see Nashville or ride in the Nascar go- karts, we had a wonderful time.  We will just have to go back again and stay longer.

I have to say that Zipping with Libbie was by far the best time EVER!

We are on the road again.

We left Loretta Lynn's Ranch this morning around  10:30.  We had a  good storm roll through during the night.  Lots of rain and lighting.  It sure makes for good sleeping though.

We had a nice site.  It included a deck with table and chairs.  Unfortunately because of the rain we didnt use it.

Right across from us was a General Store

 and a Laundry and Showers.

There was also a game room in this building.  A nice place really.  It was $36 a night for full hookups.
We had an uneventful trip to Tunica today.  We will spend the weekend here resting and then head for home.  This was a great week, just too short.  Makes me eager to retire.  I could get use to this lifestyle real quick!
We are sitting outside with our iPads, Macs and iPhones.  Jim says this is our ETime.  (Electronic Time).  He bought a new toy for his iPhone yesterday.  It is the new Bose Sound Link.  You tether your iPhone to this little square speaker that has more sound in it than you can imagine.  That's Bose for you.  I tethered my Mac Air to it and played my music for a couple of hours and it sure sounds good.  This might be a good christmas present.  :)
Its getting a little cool out here.  Time to go in and warm up.   We have had the heat on all week and when we got here this afternoon we opened all the windows it was so warm out.  Crazy weather.  Temps are dropping now.  It's more like we have had.... Night ya'll

What a day!

We finally made it to Loretta Lynn's Ranch and Rv Park.  It only took us an extra hour and half to find it.  It seems that Jim and Libbie's Garman likes to go the long way around.  I wish now that I had taken some pictures, but I have to say that at the time, pictures were the last thing on my mind.  I knew we were going the wrong way as soon as we turned on the road.  It was narrow.  I just didn't realize that in reality, that part of the road was as good as it gets.  The further we went, the more  narrow the road got.  There were no shoulders, no place to turn around and very winding roads.  We twisted and turned for what seemed like 30 miles.  I called to Libbie.  "I don't think its going to get any better, this can't be the road."  "yes, just 4 more miles and it says we'll be there."  I took a deep breathe and Doug drove on.  Then horror of all horrors, there before us was a one lane very narrow bridge.  Will it hold us?  I am so nervous about this bridge that I didn't look ahead to what was on the other side!  A MOUNTAIN!
As soon as the bridge ended, the road made a hard left very very sharp! And what is on what should have been a shoulder?  A wall of rock!!! Keep in mind that both of our motor homes are almost 40' long and behind them are our toads.  Now remember this is a ONE LANE bridge.  We don't have the luxury of swinging wide.  The only place you could swing would be off the bridge.  We were mere inches from the rock wall and still had the car that had to clear the bridge.  This was horrible! I told Doug, I don't care where this road leads us but I'm not going back over that bridge.  Besides, it would be a right turn and right turns are a doozy even when you have two lanes.  I don't think we would still have a car behind us if we had tried a right turn.  Needless to say, as soon as we got to a straight bit of  road we stopped to regroup.  Now during all this time we hadn't seen any traffic.  Now that we stop to  regain our composure, there is suddenly traffic everywhere and we have the tiny road blocked.  Only good thing about that is that we had captive help.  We asked our captive audience how to get to the RV Park.  The one I asked said, turn around your way off.  The one Libbie asked said take this gravel road it will take you through the ranch property.  The last one happened to be a Game and Fish officer.  Yea!!! He not only told us how to go but led us there.   Yea we  made it!!!  Our hats off to the young man, he was our hero!  So what should have taken us 15 min and 7.7 miles from our turn off, took us through countryside that we never would have seen.  Places that really were pretty, if I had not been so worried, I would have enjoyed.  It was just another experience.  It was .....  well anyway, I'm tired and I am going to sleep late tomorrow, I think I deserve it.

Just wanted everyone to know I survived THE ZIPLINE!!!!

I needed to come back to the motorhome to freshen up, so I thought I'd let everyone know I am indeed alive and I did do all 7 zip lines at Fox Fire Mountain.  Yea me!!! I will post pics and even a movie later. Libbie wanted me to take her pic between lines and I was holding the camera trying to steady it and well, those that know me know thats near impossible on a good day.  Needless to say, one of the other zippers took the pic for her.  I am glad that I did it.  I had said no way and then watching some of the others do it I just told myself to "go for it".  Libbie was already headed to zip school.  She said when it came over the speaker that one more was coming, she couldnt believe that it was me.  Though I was scared, I am really glad that I did it and would do it again, maybe.

This was before my first zip.  Boy was I scared.

Libbie is the brave one.  She was ready to zip!

This was Jacob the hound dog.  He loved following all the vehicles around, barking the whole time.  I wondered why he was so thin when I first saw him.  He runs all the time.  Up and down the mountain! He sure loved it though.  He had a couple of little friends that would join him every once in a while.  But those two dogs were so small they didn't last as long as Jacob.

This is me coming in on one of the last lines.  The hardest part was stopping! I was trying to slow down.

We survived!
After resting a little bit we were going to drive the cars at the Nascar racetrack but we all so tired from the last few days that we just checked out some more stores and different parts of the area and then headed for supper.

This was the Old Mill General Store.   Tomorrow we head toward Nashville.

Busy day today

What a great day we had today.  We left early this morning and headed across the Great Smoky Mountains.  Boy were they pretty.

The higher we went the more color we saw.  There was a stream that followed the highway that hand some fly fisherman out there trying their luck.

We stopped at an old mill that had been built in the late 1800's and had been restored in 1933.

Doug and Jim took their time in the old mill until they had it all figured out exactly how the mill worked and just how to build another one.  The original one cost $600 to build.  That was alot of money back then.

It was very pretty and peaceful there at the mill.  We left there and headed up the mountain.  It wasn't long before we crossed state lines.

Here is Doug standing on the state line. Notice the fog behind him.  It was getting real thick by the time we headed down the mountain.  We saw one wild turkey and a small herd of elk grazing on the side of the road.  When I first saw them at a distance I thought they were horses.  LOL  My first thought was, Oh dear, all those horses have gotten out and are going to get hit by the cars.

Wish that I had a zoom camera so that you could see them better.  I didn't get a pic of the turkey.

When we got off the mountains, we went into Gaitlinburg.  This was on the main drag.  The song, Save a Horse, Ride a cowboy, was playing.  It was real cute.  After walking up and down the entire main drag (which took half the day), we decided to eat at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co.  It was real good.

We finished off the day by stopping at the Leather outfitters.  After trying on lots of hats, Doug got this one.

I think he looks distinguished!  It's been a long day and we have another busy one planned for tomorrow.  Libbie is going to Zip thru the trees.  I think I will just watch.