Wednesday, January 23.

I missed the Super Wolf Blood Moon and eclipse on Sunday night because Tom and I were engrossed in mapping out our route for our summer travels. We came up with a ‘work in progress’ plan that would take us to parts of Nevada, Northern California, the Pacific Coast, and meandering easterly toward Minnesota.

Pat and Rog joined us for a Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner on Monday night, it was great seeing them again. Unfortunately, Tom was in Day 3 of this cold or crud that he had and he was feeling ok in the morning, but not quite up to par later in the afternoon.  He’s a trooper, tho.

I had cleaning jobs both Tuesday and Wednesday this week and haven’t done much else. Tom is still not back to feeling healthy and I have felt like I’m fighting off something but haven’t developed any of the symptoms that he is having.

Saturday, January 19.

Tom mentioned yesterday that he had a sore throat and that was followed by a poor night’s sleep and feeling pretty miserable throughout the day today.  I felt a bit under the weather too, but nothing that I could identify, certainly not the same symptoms that Tom is having. We shall see if my immune system can fight it off.

I took off for a while in the morning, hoping to spot some good garage sales, but I really wasn’t feeling much like doing that, so I headed back home and spent the rest of the day lounging around.

Here’s a photo that I took the other day, just forgot to post. These were lined up in the parking lot when we left the restaurant at Saguaro Lake on Friday.

Friday, January 18.

Tom and I went shopping this morning to return the poster that we bought for the trailer yesterday because it didn’t fit. After looking and looking, we both focused on this one wall sculpture, liked it, and bought it. It looks great in the space and goes well with the upholstery and wood in the trailer.

Geri  and Joyce came over in the afternoon and we sat around talking for a while, had a snack, then decided to head out to Goldfield Ghost Town.  It was fun walking around there, checking out the views and the old buildings, and did some shopping too.  I bought a couple of things at the Apothecary Shop - a salve to relieve sinus headache pressure and one for joint pain.  I thought the shop smelled yummy but it was overpowering for Tom, so he waited outside for us.

Rancho de Tia Rosa was our choice for dinner and it was a very good choice.  Tom and I both ordered the low carb entree and were served a huge platter of marinated beef (it had to be a pound), grilled peppers and onion, and half a head of lettuce (to replace the tortillas).  It was yummy but I brought a lot of it home.

This morning, we took them out to the Saguaro Lake Marina for breakfast and the views, food, and conversation were great.  We did get a glimpse of some of the wild horses off in the distance on the drive out.

 When we got back from breakfast, us girls headed out to do some consignment shop shopping and Tom stayed back at the trailer to check out the leveling jacks that arrived by FedEx yesterday.

First on the list was Sweet Repeats where I bought a Coach wallet for $10.50 and Joyce and Geri also made some purchases.  Our next stop was at my favorite citrus shop so Joyce could load up on oranges, grapefruit and lemons, although their lemons were very small, so a phone call to my friend Carmen (I knew that she was trying to peddle lemons), resulted in an invitation to come to her house and pick as many as we wanted.  We moved on to Turnstyle where I found a pair of warm boots for my upcoming trip to Minneapolis and Joyce found some things but Geri left empty handed.  Just a few miles north, at Highlands, we picked all of the lemons that Joyce wanted to carry with her back to Colorado. And then we came back to our park, said our goodbyes and they both left - Geri to go back home to Blythe and Joyce to her hotel and will leave again early on the morning.

We sure did have a good time and it was so nice to see the Kell siblings together.

Wednesday, January 15.

It has been a fun week so far and I’m expecting it to continue.  Back on Monday afternoon, we went to Val Vista Village and met up with Pat and Roger and some of their friends in the Courtyard to listen and dance to Dakota Kid.  Connie and Lois from Highlands joined us and we had lots of fun telling stories, joking around, having cocktails, and doing some line dancing too.

Yesterday after my housecleaning job, I went to Costco to gas up my car ($2.39/gallon) and get a few groceries.  Tom and I have been reducing the carbs in our diets and have been eating a lot of avocados (good fats). Costco has 6 large Hass avocados for $5 and it just can’t be beat anywhere else.

Our park had an entertainer, “Ron E Cash” and a huge spread of food and free beer before the show.  We heard several Johnny Cash tunes and then a woman joined him on stage and sang some beautiful harmony on lots of old country standards and they entertained us for 3 very enjoyable hours of music.   My only complaint is that the dances were 2-steps and couples only tunes and since Tom doesn’t know how, I didn’t get to dance - well, we did dance a couple of slow ones.  And I love to dance! I will have to see what I can do about that.

Back when we lived at Highlands, the entertainers were more rounded, playing a wide variety of music that everyone could dance to, even if you weren’t the best dancer. All was accepted, and especially women dancing on their own. Many times, the women would get things rolling and we would have men and couples join in. As the liquor flowed and the men got happy feet, the dance floor would fill up and it was always so much fun!

We took my car for an oil change this morning and went to kill time by browsing the aisles at Hobby Lobby. We bought a poster to hang on the wall of the trailer (we’ve been looking for just the right thing), but found it was way too big for our space once we got back home. We will just have to go back and choose something else that fits the space better.

Tom’s sister, Joyce came for a visit today and will stick around for a few days and Geri will come in from Blythe tomorrow.  I think it’s great because these siblings are rarely all together and the more I get to know them, the more I like them. We had a nice dinner together and good stories, but Joyce headed back to her hotel early since she had driven here from Yuma this morning after having dental work done in Los Algodones over the last few days - she was tired.

Saturday, January 12.

I had my usual cleaning job on Tuesday and hung around the rest of the day.

I ordered new sheets and a mattress cover last week, so when the sheets arrived Wednesday afternoon, it was too late to launder them, so that project waited until Thursday.

We attended the weekly coffee and info meeting Thursday morning and were pleasantly surprised when there was a presentation from a member of the local fire department on how to respond to cardiac arrest.  It was very informative and served as a reminder to both of us, since we had training in the past and could use a refresher course.  We learned that if someone is down and they don’t respond to your questions of  “are you ok”, call or have someone else call 911, then start compressions of 100/minute at the center of the chest, pushing a full 2” and continue until help arrives.  She also went over the use of the fibrillator. The first thing we did when we got back home is to update our ICE contacts and make sure we each had those noted as such in our contacts list.

There was a lot of laundry to do this time, so we went to the nearby laundromat where they have the big machines.  I took the new sheets out of the package and just threw them into the basket, but when we got back home and put them on the bed, I found that there were no pillowcases.  That led to making contacts to Walmart to learn what to do about it and they refunded my money, gave me an additional 10% credit and told me I would have to return the sheets and reorder, since they were out of stock.  Needless to say, they can’t be reordered at the price that I paid and will cost an additional $10 or more. I’m not sure if I will return them or keep them and use other non-matching pillowcases.  Its just another negative Walmart experience that reinforces me like them even less. Grrrrr!

Tom had errands to run on Friday, so I went to see how the annual sale at Turnstyle was and after an hour or so, I walked out of there empty handed.  Since I was so near, I stopped at Highlands to see if Jan and Jim were around and had a nice chat with them.  Connie also stopped by, so it felt like old times.  I do miss my friends and activities.

Today has been an ‘at home’ day and I have felt very bored, even after doing a few chores and taking a few 3 walks.  I guess that boredom led me to take a nice nap and then to update this journal, so it’s not a total waste.

Wednesday, January 9.

Well, apparently I don’t have much to say lately. Life has been fairly routine and there are no big highlights to write about.  I spoke to both of my sons and a couple of the grandkids over the weekend. I made reservations for a flight to Minneapolis from February 14-24 and am looking forward to seeing those kids in person. It might even work out that we (Ben and his family or some of his family) can meet up with Pat and Tracey in Tomah or near there.  That is about the half way point between Minneapolis and Madison.

I went to Connie’s house for a nice visit on Monday after doing some cleanup at Karen’s house in Highlands.  It was great to see her and we had good conversation, as always!

January 1 - 3, 2019

Thursday, January 3.  We started the new year with a party at the clubhouse with some of our new friends and other residents of Shiprock RV.  A DJ played music from 8:00 until midnight and we managed to stay up and see in the new year, having a few cocktails, dances, and lots of good conversation and laughter.

We woke up with the joy of seeing snow on the Superstition Mountain peaks on New Yearks Day and we took a nice walk in hopes of getting some good views and this is what I came up with.  Later in the day, we drove to the mountains and got a much closer view.

I was back to cleaning Sylvia’s house yesterday and Jim and Shirley’s today.