Good day in Yuma

Yesterday we went to the Arizona Market Place with Bettie and James, friends we met last year. It's always a good day when we are all together. We did go our separate ways for a bit since we each had our own agendas.

Mark and I like to look around at nothing in particular and things that we wish we had room for. Like the beautiful brass, finely tuned windchimes. We never miss a chance to hear them and wish there was a way. My favorite is to stop at Java Gypsy's for a white chocolate, caramel frappe topped with whipped cream. OMG, she makes the best frappe ever. Mark is quite adventurous and has a black coffee which always has a top that leaks. He says the coffee is good in spite of the leaky top.

There is a fresh produce vendor that we always stop at to get some fruit or veggie that is fresh out of the field/grove. This time we got 6 nice grapefruit for $2. Their cauliflower was the size of a soccer ball.

Around 1:30 we headed to The Eatery for a late lunch or early supper. The food there is always very good and the service is always great. The waitress we had today was really full of the dickens and we all laughed and shared in the jocularity.

After arriving home, we let Miss Lola out and loaded up our one empty propane tank to be filled. We filled the gas tank on the truck as well and then went for a ride on the other side of the foothills. We had never been in that area before and it was a whole other world. A lot more RV resorts and year round RV homes. Not much for towns though. And the towns that were there were nothing to invite you to the area. It was a fun drive and I'm sure Lola enjoyed a different view. She is a great traveler but most days it would get too warm in the truck to leave her is we should decide to stop somewhere. So sadly she usually has to stay at home.

Tonight is NYE and we have no plans of going anywhere. I will be making a special supper of some kind for us and maybe a few cocktails. The older we got the closer to home we have stayed other than having a nice supper out with friends now and then. Tonight is no exception. But either way the new year will come, with or without any celebration.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2019!!!!!!!

I don't mean to rub it in but.....

And the rush is on, 4 days after Christmas and it has turned into full court press as the Campers and Motorhomes take over the all roads headed south. Yuma I am told goes from a population of 100,000 to somewhere between 200,000  and 250,000 after the first of the year because of the influx of Snowbirds from Canada and the US.

And again, today taught me why I have chosen to follow a dream. I got up this morning to a temp in the 50s which by afternoon was well into the 70s.

The reason I bring this up is not to rub it in. Where I come from it was well below 0 most of the day with a high of 3 deg.. And they're predicting wind chills in the -30 to -40 for the weekend.

Now I don't mind missing that, nope not at all!

It's Always an Adventure!

Christmas Day

This year I decided I was going to have MY turkey gravy and MY stuffing so that is what I did. The turkey breast and stuffing are in the oven and smelling good. My stomach is growling already and it is still a long wait.

This is the first time I'll have made anything like this in our small RV oven.  I had to order a larger roaster than the one I had. It doesn't work so well when the roaster leaks. Good ole Amazon.com came through for me once again.  The new roaster just fit with minor clearance at the top and bottom of the oven.

Christmas day is looking to be a nice warm day too. Sunny and 45 this morning heading for 74 by afternoon. Back home our families and friends are suffering with -20 some degree weather. Sure am glad we don't have that. We will have windows open and shorts on sometime today.

Our Christmas cookies will be all gone today. That means I'll be baking sometime this coming week. Now that I have a stand mixer here, the job is much easier. If you can use the term easy when trying to do that kind of thing a small limited area. hehehe Sure tastes better than all the store bought cookies we had to endure.

Usually we keep our holiday decorations up until New Years Day, but this year it will all come down tomorrow. There isn't much up to begin so it won't take long to take down and put away. We do have outside lights on the RV that will stay up and lit until New Years Day. Such a difference from previous years where it would take me hours to decorate and hours to take down and put away. Yes, I do miss that, but now it's a lot easier. :)

Dinner turned out very good. A 5 course meal in my little tiny kitchen.

Merry Christmas

Here it is Christmas week. The birthday of our King. Everyone celebrates the the birth of Christ in their own way. Some do lots of baking, cleaning and decorating in preparation of numerous family and friends that will come to celebrate with them. That is what I did for years. It’s a lot quieter now, not as much fun and less work. I’m not complaining about the work, I loved every minute of it and I have to admit I miss all of the hustle and bustle. Times change, families grow and move to other areas as their families grow move.  But the real reason for the holiday is inside our hearts, or at least it should be. Jesus should be the reason for the celebration. He is, always was and always will be our greatest gift. So as we ready our homes, remember to ready our hearts.

Whether you are spending Christmas with many friends and family or spending it with a small number, remember that Christ is with you and that is all that you need. The glitter and fuss only lasts for so long but the love of Christ is with you always. 

Merry Christmas, God bless and keep you all safe this holiday season and throughout the new year.

This and That day

Yesterday Miss Lola met her new groomer. Get this, the groomer comes to your home with her trailer. Wow, that was neat. Lisa did a wonderful job grooming Lola too. Yes, it cost more for door to door service but driving the one ton dually through the traffic and trying to find a place to park the beast is a pain in the butt. So this worked very well for us. And the main thing is she was good to Lola and did a great job. Lisa put a pretty poinsettia  on Lola’s collar for Christmas. 

While Lola was getting all pretty we made what is called a “sparkle ball”. It’s a lighted ball that many here use as a decoration for Christmas. But with clear lights it can hang all year round. It’s made with 9 ounce plastic cups, a string of LED lights and lots of staples. It was so nice to do a project like this together. We hung the ball in what we call the Arizona room. It’s our sun shade porch that is like a whole other room to the 5er. The ball lights the steps nicely too. Not sure where we will store it as we travel from place to place, but I’ll worry about that in March. 

The 4 kinds of Christmas cookies are all baked. As is the cereal crunch, peanut brittle, cream cheese mints and popcorn balls. Even with that done, it doesn’t feel like Christmas for me. I miss all my Christmas decorations that I used to work my butt off to set up and all my special decorations on the tree. But I guess there is always something to be missed at sometime in our lives. Now we start new traditions. Change is a part of life.

The weather has been just about perfect with the days in the mid 70’s and the nights in the mid 50’s. Can’t ask for a better winter than that, in my opinion. Even with no snow around here the Arizona folk decorate for Christmas just like a snow covered Minnesotan. We enjoy walking around the 4 parks around us and look at the lights in the evening. It’s obvious that most RVer’s are not full time. You can tell by the kind and amount of decorations they use. No full timer would have room for all of that.  The drives around town to see the lights is just as much fun here as in Minnesota. I do have to say that is is so funny to see inflatable snowman on the sand covered desert yards The Christmas spirit is alive, even without the snow. But Christ had no snow on his day of birth either.

Wow, almost Christmas already

My goodness where has the time gone. Here it is just a couple weeks until Christmas.  We have been enjoying the warm weather of Yuma. A week or two was too warm for us to enjoy too much. But the evenings got cooler so we could open the windows and sleep relatively comfortable at night. The upper 80’s is NOT our cup of tea. 

We  frequent the Arizona Market Place quite a bit. There is always something to see. They have great country music, if you are into that. I’m not. But still fun to snoop around. We have purchased a couple side pieces of sun shade and what a difference it makes in the wind flow and the heat of the Arizona sun on the west side of the 5er. It really feels like a screened in porch out there now too. Mark loves to sit outside and now he really enjoys the time outside.

Our friends Bettie and James got here on the 27th of November and we were very happy to see them. We have sat outside and chatted many times, and were invited to have Navajo taco’s with them one night as well. They were quite delicious. :) As always, we have a fun time with them.

I’m happy to say I have found a nice orthopedic doctor in Yuma. He gave me a shot in my left elbow and checked other aspects before doing so.  Nice to see that he was thorough and I know I’ll have to see him again in the next couple months. The shot did help my elbow and shoulder but I do have to be more aware of repetitive  actions with the arm. Guess I won’t be going full bore on my projects anymore. But I’ll need to take more breaks. Such is life. Next is to find a primary doctor. I’m not real anxious to go to the primary care here in the foothills. I just didn’t get a good feel there.

Today I made my Christmas roll out cookies. Most of them I just sugared with colored sugar since it’s our favorite way.  Which means I need to get more colored sugar to proceed to the frosted ones. I’ve made the spritz, teacakes, and pecan roll ups. Tomorrow morning I plan on making two batches of peanut brittle. I do plan on sharing some of my Christmas goodies with our friends here in Yuma. I know that they will appreciate the gift. The little gas oven made the job quite time consuming. I can only use a small cookie sheet which only holds about one dozen cookies and the oven can only hold one cookie sheet at at time. Plus they have to be watched carefully so I don’t have burnt offerings. The challenge was met with success and the cookie  baking is completed. Because of a stand mixer that Mark got me, the cookies were much easier to make this year too.

Mark put up ice cycle Christmas lights in the front of the 5er and there are two revolving lights on the side of the 5er as well. It really looks Christmasy out there.

 We have a small fiber optic tree and some garland strung around on the inside. Nothing like we have had in the years past. But it is still nice. We just don’t have the room to store all the decorations we used to put up.

Until next time…

as always, it’s an adventure