Happy

While our family and friends are dealing with horrible sub zero temps we have been enjoying some very nice 75º weather. A few days in there it has been pretty windy but for the most part it was great to be able to be outside without a jacket. Today Mark is talking about going to the pool. Not me though, it needs to be warmer and not so peoply. As much as I don't want to wish the great winter weather away, I can so looking forward to the snowbirds leaving this spring. My tomato plant is starting to get tomatoes on it now too. I was so happy to see the first one yesterday.

Little by little I added some of my crafts stuff to the back room. I have things covered in towels, when I'm not working out there, to keep the dirt off of everything. Nothing of great value is out there, just the small stuff. It made us realize that the room really isn't going to work for both  us. It will need to made bigger if/when we make it a permanent room. Lincoln gave a security camera for Christmas and we have that mounted out there. It works great. We can see and hear what is going out in that area whether we are at home or not. In fact it works so well that we ordered another one. 😀

Yesterday it was laundry day, and then we went out for lunch with our dear friends James and Bettie, from Utah. As usual we never run out of things to talk or laugh about. After lunch Mark helped James fix a leak in his propane line. That left Bettie and I to do some serious chatthing. 😉 She is so easy to talk to and never judges you, but gives you good advice and support. She is my closest  friend here. And when they leave in March, we will miss them terribly. They aren't just friends, they are family to us. Uncle James and Auntie Bettie. 😍

Last night Mark and I finally talked about staying here staying here. He is a fly by the seat of his pants person and I am a planner. I needed some answers. We  agreed we are not moving back to MN. The cost of living there is way too high, the summers too humid and the winters too cold. So that being said, we will be bringing our stored items back with us when we go to MN for Lincoln's wedding. By then we will either have a bigger place, or added on to here and have a larger shed. We can then go through our things and decide what can go and what will be used and stay. Kind of hard to do that when everything is not here. Mark is very anxious to get his motorcycle here. I'm debating on keeping my Helix or selling. And it will be nice to have some of our personal items "home".

Time now to write out the last check to Lisa for the storage unit.

A sickly January.

The new year started out a little rocky for us or should I say sickly. Just before Christmas Mark came down the horrible bug that had been going around. We did manage to get to the wonderful candle light service at our church and had a nice quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  The park has a Christmas dinner for all at the park. Each person brings a dish to share. But I enjoy cooking so we had a nice ham dinner at home. Mark, not feeling well, spent the afternoon resting and I watched Christmas shows on Hallmark.

It was several weeks until Mark felt better. Even though he wasn’t feeling well he still went to work. That is until his cough was so bad that they sent him home from work. He rested for the several days he had off and back to work he went. The cough was still with him but it not as bad as it had been. He is a wonderful provider, husband and father. He never lets his family down and works through a lot of tough times.

Not but two weeks later I was the unwilling recipient of a bad cold. My job is to keep things running at home, so I still have work to do too. We made it to church Sunday and on Monday knowing that I would feel worse for some days to come, I did the laundry. Meals still got made and lunches packed, but other than that I’ve rested as best as I can and did only what I had to do. Mark made sure that I had plenty of filled propane tanks for the little propane heater in the house. So I was plenty warm all nestled in my recliner with Lola on my lap to help keep me in the chair. hehehe Instead of using the furnace, which is electric, we use the propane space heater whenever we can. It kept me nice and toasty. Lola enjoyed having me sitting and willingly kept me grounded to my recliner. 

Someone messed up the scheduling where Mark works so he ended up with 6 days off in a row. He never complained so he enjoyed having some much needed down time. Tuesday was his first day back and he said it was very busy and he was shot when he got home. With all the winter visitors here in Yuma, most days are very busy and he comes home quite tired. I do my best to stay up until he gets home no matter how tired I may be. If he can work all night the least I can do is wait up for him. That also means making him some eggs and toast each night.  That guy sure loves eggs. hehehe

It has been another cool week and the wind has been horrific as well. But it’s still better weather than our family and friends have in the winter. With luck I’ll feel well enough to go out and get milk on the warmer day of the week, which won’t be for a few days. Not sure the milk will last that long though. So Mark may have to bring some home or I grab the tissues and just do what needs to be done. I sure hope next month is healthier than January has been.

Now what do we do.

Yesterday we put up a sunscreen as a division on the porch. To kind of mark and get an idea of how much room an Arizona room would give us. We set it at just over the halfway mark on the porch. After reorganizing the disarray the porch side looks quite nice and comfortable now, better than before the division was made. The craft/work room side is still in the process of being set up, but we can see now that it should be ample room for us both to share the space. One end would be for my crafts/cards and the other end for Mark to be on his computer or watch a movie undisturbed or keep from driving me nuts. 😜😜

This is the before picture:

Here are the after pictures

After the two "rooms" were set up Mark mentioned that he may want to take the for sale sign down from the front of our home. We like our park model and the location. We drove around and found this park to be more in our budget and not many bedrooms could accommodate our king size bed. Plus it would be harder for us to move this time without any help. We have accumulated more items that would need some muscle, that I don't have, to move.  My hands don't hold and grasp very well anymore and hey, lets face it, we aren't getting any younger. We could add an extra room ourselves or hire it done. It doesn't need to be anything fancy, just add more space for us during the hot summer months when we don't do much of anything outside. It would also make room for some of our things that are in storage in MN yet too. So right now we are weighing our options and trying to work the extra room into our budget.

A new year

The new year came in even though we were not awake to be it's escort. It's amazing how the new year will enter whether we are helping it or not. Mark worked new years eve so by 11:30 we were in bed and fast asleep by 11:35. He was shot after from  busy holiday shoppers filled the store each and every day. Yesterday was no exception.

Today the sun is shining and the wind is blowing as is very common in Yuma. Last night it got down to 39º and tonight it could get mighty close to freezing. The new year is blowing in hard and cold. Back in 2007 the northern part of Yuma and Mesa it actually got below zero. We are so glad that we weren't here then. The pipes and such are only about two feet below ground. That would mean a lot of frozen pipes in most if not all the homes and for sure in the park models and RV's. Who would think that heat tape would be needed in Yuma. That being said I'll be bringing my tomato plant up onto the porch tonight, if not before. The wind is doing the young plants no good at all.

The Christmas decorations inside are down and put away. I have no Valentine decorations here.....yet. Tomorrow we will take down the outside Christmas lights and then try and find a place to store them for next year. Things will then be back to normal, whatever that is. There is a park model just a few down from us that will probably take two to three days to take all his decorations down. It is really overdone. I'm glad I don't have to find a place to keep all of that stuff!!!! Although some people keep things like that under their home.

Prayers that the new years brings many blessings to your home and ours.