Some Like It Cold

What a nice refreshing morning! Remember that map of New York State, when I showed you where I grew up? Well, when you grow up in an area where the mornings and evenings get pretty cold for much of the year, I guess you just get used to it. My husband, on the other hand, grew up on Long Island. I tease him about growing up in the “south.” So this morning when I got up and came downstairs, I opened the windows to let in some fresh air, like I do every morning!

The cats and I love it! I can feel the nice fresh air coming in, and our house will be nice and comfy all day.

Harry, meanwhile….

is bundling up like it’s the middle of the winter or something!!

He took this picture to explain his sweatshirt!!

Hey, where I come from, we don’t call this cold. It’s just a nice brisk summer morning.

Cool Evening

Evenings like this make me think of fall. Harry is already making “you’re not going to turn the fans on tonight, are you” noises at me!! I love fresh air at night. We have fans in the windows which bring in wonderful air pretty much all summer (and fall). I usually leave the windows open right into October – well, the one on my side anyway. I can’t believe that we are almost to the end of July. Where is the summer going? We may try to get a bike ride in this weekend if it is nice enough. Sunday is our better option as far as time goes, but scattered showers are in the forecast.

Speaking of  sleeping, Ariel can make herself comfy just about anywhere.

 

while Crookshanks likes to settle in on the “top bunk”

In any case, there is a relaxing weekend ahead, which I am very glad is here after the past couple days at work – they were VERY busy. Well, I do have to work for a few hours tomorrow, but I’m just glossing over that and going right past that to the rest of the weekend.

Word is Traveling

I ventured out once again for my walk this morning. I have to admit – I did glance toward the wooded areas a little more often than I normally do. The word of our visitor has spread among our little development. And people definitely take a concern in their neighbors – I was stopped 3 times this morning on my walk by people who live in the development to make sure that I was aware that a bear has been seen in the vicinity. From what I hear, he (or she) has been seen at dusk and dawn, so I will just make sure that I don’t take my walks quite as early. By the time I get out there, our neighborhood bear will hopefully be home tucked into his comfy bed for the day.

Another thing that I accomplished today…

Yay! Eight boxes of STUFF heading out tomorrow as our contribution to our church’s tag sale. Maybe if we had our own yard sale or garage sale, we could make a little cash. But I don’t want the stuff to just be hanging around until we decide to have a sale of our own. So out it goes tomorrow.

And welcome, to more new readers! Welcome to John, and Rod and Connie! I am glad that you are along for the ride.

Relaxing Day

So today was a nice day. Started it out with a walk that was cut a little short. I did two laps around my route. On my second time around I heard something in the brush. Didn’t think too much of it, as I often hear small wildlife running around in there – usually rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks. Although this did seem to be making more noise than usual. At one point I actually stopped and looked around, but I didn’t see anything.

So I continued around, passed my house again, and started on my third time around. When I got up to the corner, and started up the small hill, I saw a state trooper car up ahead. I was standing about where this picture was taken and the trooper’s car was not far from where the car is parked in this picture.

When he saw me, he turned his vehicle and drove toward me. (Hmmm, do I look innocent enough? ) He stopped his vehicle, and said, I just thought I’d let you know that we received a call from a house down the road that they saw a bear in their back yard. He indicated a house right down the way where I’d just been walking 5 – 10 minutes before and hearing the noises in the brush.  O….K….think I’ve walked enough for one morning. Yes, I know all that stuff about them being more scared of me yadda, yadda, yadda…but I just didn’t feel like testing that hypothesis out for myself. If Harry had been walking with me, I would have been braver, but by myself? NOPE!

My sister arrived around 9 am, and we took our field trip over to the RV place. It was fun; we looked around at the different models. The woman in the office gave me her key and I was able to unlock the doors and lock up after us. My niece Hannah enjoyed trying out the beds and couches, and checking out the shower. They had two Hitchhikers, but they were small ones. I think one was an LS and the other I think was a Discover America, but they were both smaller, 29, and I think 32 ft. We are looking at a 38 ft. one so it’s quite a bit larger, but at least it gave Denise an idea of what we’re looking at. She was surprised and impressed by the amount of storage space. It was a fun day. I brought my camera, but forgot it in the car – it didn’t do me much good there!!

Before I sign off for the evening, I’d like to welcome new followers – Rick and Paulette, (Rick I have been enjoying your blog with the beautiful pictures you take of your surroundings, and the great computer tips. I’ve learned a lot from you – thanks!) and Al AKA Stargeezer. (Al, I’ve recently discovered your blog, and am enjoying your unique take on things!) Thanks for joining my group of readers!

It’s Over!

This was one of those days at work which, when you walk out the door, you just mentally shake yourself and think, Thank goodness it’s over!!! And, in the case of today, you also think, and tomorrow is my day off!! Enough said…I’m sure you have all experienced the same at some point.

Another beautiful night. Days and evenings like this are so great. I just wish the days would all be like this right straight through to November!

Tomorrow my sister Denise and I are getting together. We are actually taking a short road trip to Troy, NY which is about 15 or 20 minutes from here to our local RV dealer (well, one of them) – the one that we are planning on purchasing our Hitchhiker from, Imperial RV. Denise has never actually been inside a fifth wheel before, so we are going to go check out all the different trailers they have for sale there. They always have at least one HH fiver, so I am looking forward to showing her a sample of what our future home is going to look like. Harry and I are so glad that the local dealer is so close to our home. Not that we are anticipating issues or problems, but should any questions arise, it is nice to know the dealer is such a quick trip away. They also have a great reputation, being a family-owned business with a great record for service. There was another couple in this area who purchased a fiver from Imperial, and when they discovered a problem a few days later (I think one of the slides wouldn’t go back in, if I remember correctly), the owner actually made a house call and fixed the problem for them. Testimonials like this one are a big part of the reason why we are choosing to purchase through the dealer rather than ordering from the factory directly and picking it up ourselves.

Tomorrow will be my day for dreaming…   Have a great evening everyone!

Ahhh – What a Picture Perfect Day :)

If I could special order weather for the perfect summer day, today would have been pretty darn close. The sky is blue, the temps are in the high 70s, and the air isn’t at all humid. Of course, as usual, I spent it all inside at work, but I did come home on my lunch break, just to get outside for a few minutes. I had intended to make a run over to Walmart tonight to get some of those little tabs to label my contributions to the tag sale, but it is just too nice to spend the last bit of the day going shopping. So the shopping excursion has been postponed until tomorrow, and tonight we are going to go out and have a nice walk.

At the risk of overkill, I guess I’ll add my 2 cents to the ongoing discussion of what to blog, how to blog, content of blogging, etc etc. I find it so interesting to see how interconnected this “rv-ing blogging community” is. It’s so obvious when one person blogs about a certain subject and then all of a sudden topics on the same theme are popping up on the other blogs I read with that person’s particular take on the subject. I’m not going to say what I think a blog should or shouldn’t include – that topic has been more than adequately covered!! What I wanted to add is that I’ve found it very interesting to read what different people consider important, or the opposite!, in a blog. It doesn’t bother me – if I am or am not doing this or that, that’s just my style, and I probably couldn’t change it if I tried. As far as page elements, such as text and font, I did think about enlarging my print size, but decided the large print look just wasn’t for me. I haven’t taken anyone’s opinion on their blog personally though, it’s their opinion and they’re entitled to it. (That’s just my opinion.)

The thing I’ve found the most intriguing as the discussion has progressed is, again, the sense of that larger, RV community that inspired me to start writing this blog in the first place. And like any community, people aren’t always going to agree with each other, but isn’t that just life?

Update on the Computer

Nothing much new since this morning. I’ve filled one box with “stuff” for the tag sale, and am working on box #2. I did forget this morning to give an update on Harry’s computer. It arrived back here on Friday afternoon. Harry opened it up, and before he did anything else, as he always does, he proceeded to download anti-virus software (Zone Alarm) for protection (well, after doing the standard “charge up, go through the startup” stuff that you always have to do). This time he planned to take it slow and load programs gradually instead of right away like he did before. Well, Friday evening, before I even got home from work….yup, you guessed it, it restarted itself again, right in the middle of Zone Alarm’s first scan. It did it several more times Friday evening and Saturday morning. The only thing Harry had put on the computer was the anti-virus software, which he has used for a number of years. But it looked like Zone Alarm wasn’t getting along with our new arrival. So yesterday morning, he uninstalled Zone Alarm and downloaded AVG instead. No more problems!!! It hasn’t restarted itself once since Zone Alarm was removed. Phew!! Too bad Harry was without his new computer for 3 weeks, but at least it looks like we have discovered what the issue was.

Sultry Sunday

It’s going to be another hot one today, so I am planning to get my walk in early this morning before it really starts getting steamy. It’s already 74 degrees – I don’t think that it got much cooler than that during the night. We didn’t get quite as much done yesterday as we planned – it was too hot. By the time I got home from work, and we had a bite to eat, it was already almost 3 o’clock. That’s the downside to working on Saturdays. Even though the day doesn’t feel so long, by the time I get out, it’s a little late to start a project at home. Harry did get the painting done in the guest room yesterday morning while I was at work – the walls are now finished, and the end of the carpet is in sight!

Would love to be in the waters of Fern Lake today…

Anyway, back to yesterday. We were getting woefully low on lots of things, so we decided it was time to make one of our shopping excursions to BJs. I love it and hate it at the same time. We bulk up on paper products and frozen goods, and we only have to make one trip every couple of months. Which is why I love it!! But when we make the major trip, it also entails a major charge to the plastic. Oh well. I was thinking yesterday when we were doing our shopping, about how much of this we will do when we are living in the fifth wheel. Even though I’ve seen the amount of space there is, and what the basement looks like, etc, I don’t have a really firm idea of how much room it will take to store our things, and how much space we will have to store things like extra paper products and stuff like that. It’s a good thing we will have our fifth wheel the year before we hit the road, so we will have time to figure out things like that! I could think about things like packing the fifth wheel or sample budgets all day.

Harry took this picture of a loon in Fern Lake

Today….well, we’re going for our walk very shortly, probably as soon as I post this. I have to get stuff together to take over for the church’s tag sale next weekend. Nothing like waiting ‘til the last minute. So that will be the next thing on my agenda. We still have to bring the flooring in – it was way too hot yesterday. Hopefully today we will get these things accomplished.

Back to Hot and Steamy

Hard to believe that after our relatively cool and rainy day yesterday, today we are supposed to get back up to around 90 degrees. So we’re already trying to hold those cool temperatures inside the house by closing the windows as the sun starts to creep around the back of the house. I like my slower Saturday mornings. Even though I do still have to head to work for a few hours, we don’t open until 9 am, so I get to spend a little more quality time with my cup of coffee.

This weekend, and actually the next couple of weekends, we will actually be staying home for a change. No travels in our near future. We will be getting back to doing stuff around the house. Harry is going to finish the painting on the upstairs guest room this morning while I am at work. After I get home we are going to bring in the laminate flooring for both the upstairs and downstairs guest rooms. The boxes have been sitting in the garage since January when we purchased them. Why did we buy them in January? I’m not sure. We kind of went crazy in January buying stuff we wanted to do in the house – in one 2 week period we purchased the flooring for the two rooms, the flooring for the kitchen and bathrooms, the vanity and mirror for the upstairs bathroom, and new stainless steel appliances for the kitchen. We were able to use “no payment, no interest for 6 months” promotions for the majority of our purchases, and I’m actually going to be making the last payments for everything this month. So anyway, since January, all of that stuff has been sitting in our garage. (You may recall the picture of that huge pile that I posted when we were cleaning the garage?) After we bring in the flooring, the only stuff left out there will be the pieces to upgrade the bathroom. We’re getting there!

Forgot to mention yesterday that Harry’s computer has arrived back from its trip to Newegg. They reloaded the operating system, and returned the same computer to us. Harry could have done that himself – he was really hoping for a new computer. But hopefully that fixed the issue. Time will tell…

A Rainy Day

When we first got going this morning, there was still a blue sky hanging around in the sky. Harry’s schedule does not change from day to day, so he headed out to work at his usual 7:15 this morning. I decided to get out and walk right away, as the weather forecast for today was not promising. (although I guess that depends what you want to happen – for local farmers, today’s forecast probably was promising. We really have not had much in the way of rain – I don’t think our lawn has been mowed for several weeks.) So anyway, I got my sneakers on, and headed out for my morning walk. It really was beautiful – low 60’s and low humidity. By the time I finished my walk an hour earlier, the clouds were already moving in, and by the time I headed to work at 9:30, it was raining! Good thing I got myself going right away.

Ariel and Crookshanks watching some exciting thing going on in our back yard.

Then it was off to work. I was only at my normal branch for about an hour and a half. Then I drove to another branch about 25 minutes away to help out for the afternoon. I was supposed to get done at 5, but there was a last minute rush, and I didn’t end up leaving until 20 to 6. It was just stopping the rain when I got out of work, and now it is a very pleasant evening, with a nice cool breeze coming in the windows. I’m hoping to get a lot of fresh air in tonight, as tomorrow it is supposed to get back up near 90 degrees.

It hasn’t been a big day for planning or dreaming – too busy with work and “normal life”. But our adjusted plan for the future does seem to be sinking in to my mind now. I guess I’m getting used to the idea. That’s not to say that I’m not still very excited about our new plan. Because I definitely am! It seems so much closer now.

Racing In Lots of Directions

My mind, that is. After our thrilling discussion of last night regarding the sudden truncation of our timeline, my mind has begun to feel the same way that I feel after I’ve spent an hour trying to figure out a puzzling brain teaser. In a good way, definitely, but still, the reality that I’ve been planning on for a couple years now has suddenly shifted under my feet, and I’m still trying to recover my footing!

So the new plan is as follows: we are moving up our scheduled purchase of our fifth wheel to summer/fall of 2013. We will order our fifth wheel in the spring of 2013, and get it sometime later that year. I’m not quite sure how that works yet. We plan to order through a dealer in our area, but we don’t know how long it will take to actually have the fifth wheel arrive here from the factory. (Our trip to the factory in Kansas will probably take place in the fall of 2012.) We will now be purchasing our truck probably in June or July 2013. I’m not sure of much more about the truck purchase – that’s Harry’s department. I know he has a list of places that he is going to start visiting when he is ready to order the truck – to see who can give him the best deal for what he wants. Both of these purchases have been moved up almost a year since we want to get our financing while Harry is still working. His tentative retirement date is now fall of 2013. The winter of 2013 – 2014 will probably be our last one living in the sticks ‘n’ bricks. I say “probably” because the following year everything will depend on what happens as far as the house sale. If all goes according to plan, the house will be listed on the market in April or May of 2014. Wow! Then we wait and see what happens.

So now I have moved my attention to working on a sample budget. I’ve been pulling up sample budgets on the RV Dreamers website, and looked at the same kind of information on various blogs that I read. This weekend when I start filling some boxes with books and other items for our church garage sale, I’m going to be looking around with a new eye. This change in our timetable has completely adjusted my view of things.

Another very exciting development in the past couple of days has been finding out that the RV Dreamers 2011 rally is going to be on the east coast. That is a huge relief to me, as I really HATE to fly. I would have loved to go to the rally this past April, but Harry and I had already booked a cruise for April, and we couldn’t manage two vacations in the same month. We would have loved it, but it wasn’t a very practical option. So I was very happy to find out that we should be able to make the 2011 one.

It’s been a great couple of days! And tomorrow is Friday!

Wow – I’m Excited :)

I had a great day today. I got my walk in this morning, went for my massage which was awesome as usual. Other than that, it was a usual day off – did three loads of laundry, fixed dinner, nothing exciting. No, the exciting stuff came later, about 30 minutes ago to be exact. We were just sitting in the living room, watching the news, when out of the blue, Harry says, you know I think I might want to think about retiring when I’m 55. (Note: this is only THREE years away!!) I have known that he’s gotten very disillusioned with his job situation. Harry works for the State of New York, has worked for the state since he graduated from college. But our state government is very dysfunctional, and the state workers take a lot of grief. This year the Gov. tried to furlough them for one day a week, but thank God, his union was able to prevail in a court challenge. Now the latest to happen in Harry’s office is that his boss is leaving, transferring to another department. But due to hiring freezes, he won’t be replaced, and the work will be parceled out to the remaining personnel in the office, who are dwindling.

So anyway, back to this exciting evening…..after that exciting statement, and my saying, are you SERIOUS, you are really ready to retire at 55 instead of waiting? We have checked the numbers and found out that if Harry retires at 55 instead of 60, his retirement will be about $200 less a month. This isn’t really a huge difference! Oh my – I have to say I’m having a little trouble catching my breath at this turn of events!! To think that in 3 short years, well it would probably be 4, but anyway, in just a few short years that we could be hitting the road!!?? Wow!

Now we start really thinking about planning and financials. I hadn’t really gotten to the sample budget point, as, well, 8 years seemed to be a bit far off in the future to start putting numbers together. But now, I guess I’m going to start thinking about it a little earlier than I thought! I guess what sums it all up, is what I said earlier in this post – Wow, I’m excited!!

Relaxing Wednesday Plans

A big thank you to Rick and Retired Rod for inspiring me to check out the new Live Writer Beta. I love it! (As far as I know –the ability to insert emoticons is new – and there’s a huge assortment to choose from.) I don’t even know everything I can do with it yet, but I already love the new set-up.

On a boat ride on Fern Lake on July 4th

Today won’t be quite as relaxing as that boat ride, but nice nonetheless. I am going walking first thing this morning. My exercising has been somewhat sporadic for the past couple of weeks, but I am hoping to get back into the rhythm starting today! Then I am heading into Albany later for a nice 90 minute massage. Ahhhh!

A few more pictures from Fern Lake…

The rest of the day…who knows…maybe I will be super motivated and get all kinds of stuff done around here. Stay tuned!

Introductions

This morning’s blog is a fitting first part to this afternoon’s. In my post, I wrote about my gradual “release” of my blog to the public. :) One of my first readers was my sister, Denise. I wanted to get some feedback from someone that I knew before I actually put it out there for anyone and everyone. Well, after Denise started reading my blog, she also began to develop a favorite blog list of her own, and since then has felt the same pull that I did to join in the fun!  So as of a few days ago, she actually has started a blog of her own. So welcome to my newest follower, who was also my first reader!! :)

“Cool” Morning

That is relative of course. I think when I turned my computer on this morning it said the temp was 67 degrees. So while I wasn’t required to put on an extra layer by any means, compared to the 88 degrees it was last night, it was very comfortable. Having heard from Retired Rod in KC yesterday in response to yesterday’s entry, I am now appreciating much more our nice 60-something degree sleeping weather! :)

There have been several blog posts recently about the whole concept of blogging and “followers” etc. It’s gotten me thinking about why exactly it was that I joined the blogging world. Originally I was just a reader (follower) of blogs. Being in the planning process to sell our “sticks ‘n’ bricks” and hit the road in our still-to-be-acquired fifth wheel, I have so enjoyed reading about all of the various ways that people are enjoying the journey, as well as a few stories about some who still have retained a permanent home, and travel part of the year. But as I started to join in the comments, and then recognize the same names showing up on comments on more than one blog and notice that people were commenting on each other’s blogs, I started to get the sense of this community spirit that is so evident. And I discovered that I really wanted to join in! I thought about it for at least a few weeks before I actually wrote that first post. Since it will be at least 3 years before we buy our truck and fifth wheel, I wondered if I really had enough going on in my life right now that would be even remotely interesting to read about! :) Well, while I can’t speak to how interesting it is, I have discovered that most days there is something going on that I can take and stretch out into some kind of a blog post.

For the first couple of weeks, I kept my blog to myself. I didn’t check the little box that made it available to find in a search, and I didn’t put it out there for anyone to read. But then I discovered that having at least the possibility of someone out there reading, and perhaps leaving a comment, really does change the whole dynamic and make it seem like a conversation, a connection, with other people out there. It was like I was spending time each day just talking to myself!! And I also realized that, until I made the blog public, I hadn’t really joined the group! So I took that step and put it out there for public viewing. And now that I have, I’m glad I made the jump! :)

I’m enjoying this blogging “thing” and I really appreciate all of you who check out my blog and leave a comment now and then! And stay tuned, I promise it’s going to get more interesting “down the road!”

The Three H’s

 

Along with the rest of the country, we are stuck in a hot, hazy, and humid weather pattern. The temps aren’t completely intolerable – it’s been in the mid to high 80s. It’s the humidity that turns the whole picture into a sticky mess. The weather guy said on the news a few minutes ago that we are at 71% humidity. That is too humid for me! The nights have been pretty comfortable for sleeping, surprisingly. It’s managed to get down to the low 60s most nights, which is not too bad. We have three windows in our bedroom, each with a window fan, so it creates a nice cross breeze and brings that cooler night air in pretty quickly. We were supposed to have severe thunderstorms today which was going to decrease the humidity in the air, but they never did materialize. Not that I’m a fan of severe storms, but the change in the air would have been nice. I think there are storms in the area though, because the satellite tv keeps freezing up, and saying that it’s having trouble finding the satellite, which usually happens when a storm is in the vicinity.

All of the events that we’ve been planning for have now come and gone. We will actually be staying home this weekend, and gasp! we don’t have anything already on the calendar! Imagine that. I’m sure that we will have no trouble finding jobs/things that need doing to fill in the hours. We have so many things on our to-do list that we wanted to accomplish this summer, and I can’t believe that here we are already more than halfway through July. Oh yeah, that brings to mind one thing I want to do this weekend – our church is having a tag sale the last weekend of July (did I mention July is going by fast?) and I want to fill up at least a couple boxes to contribute to the cause!! No worries – by Friday, I will have lots of stuff in mind to keep me busy over the weekend!

Family Picnic

It was a beautiful day today – picture perfect really. We have had good luck for the past two years planning this picnic and ending up with a gorgeous day for it. It has served also as a birthday celebration as today is my mother’s birthday.

Here is Harry getting the drinks and ice situated on the back deck.

 

 

 

 

 

Then he got the sprinkler system set up on the back lawn because the kids have a good time running around getting wet.

It was a pretty relaxing day. We just sat around chatting and enjoying the opportunity to spend some time together. We don’t live that far away from each other but, even so, its not too often that we all get together.

Of course, because it was mom’s birthday, there had to be some kind of surprise! So in the afternoon, we all trooped out to the garage to see her “open” her present. The kids helped. :)

Then we went back inside for a few minutes where Uncle Harry entertained the kids until, too soon, it was time for everyone to head home.

It was a great day, and now it is time to collapse! and relax for the rest of the day. After all, tomorrow is…..NO I’m not going to say it!! But you know it anyway!! 

End of the Week

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I’m out of my “write in the morning” routine. On top of that, there really hasn’t been a lot going on around here. Let’s see…what is the latest news here? Well, we are preparing our house for the weekend. My mom and step-dad are coming tomorrow, probably around mid-day. I have to work until 2 o’clock so they will most likely get to the house before I do. Tomorrow night we are having steak shish kabobs. Actually, as soon as I finish writing this entry, I have to start making the marinade so that we can get the steak soaking up the juices! Yum! We actually had these on Easter this year. I think I have a picture…. (haha of course!)

Here is Harry cooking our dinner! Take note of shorts and t-shirt on April 4th!!! That doesn’t happen very often up here.

And here are our shish kabobs up close and personal!

Hopefully they will taste as good this time. We actually bought shish kabob holders that these will sit in which will hopefully make turning them a little easier.

I recently took a look at our savings for the truck and fifth wheel. At this point we are 27% of the way to our goal for savings. We have made major advances this year so far. It has helped that we have been able to sell some major items this year, which have really increased our totals. For the rest of the year we just have the normal amounts of money that we are putting aside each pay period. It’s strange, because in one sense 2013 seems like a distance away, and yet, when I look at our rate of savings, it will take that long to put aside the amount of money that we want to have when we buy.

We have all but decided what we want for a fifth wheel. It is a Nuwa Hitchhiker Champagne – I even know which  floor plan – assuming that they still have these floor plans in 3 more years. One thing on our agenda is a trip to their factory in 2012, so that we can see these models for ourselves. But barring some new information, or seeing something we don’t like about this model, this is our future home!! :) So exciting!!

Well, I guess it’s about time to get my marinade put together. With company this weekend I should have some opportunities for taking new photos and something new to write about!

Another Fast and Busy Week

Well! I can’t believe that it’s already Thursday morning! Where has this week gone? Yesterday was my day off, and it went by way too fast. I had a doctor’s appt. at 8 am, so I was out the door bright and early at 7:20. This is my third follow-up appt. over the past few months, and although I have been diligently walking and watching my salt intake, the result of yesterday’s appt. is that I will, at least for a while, be adding a high blood pressure pill to my daily routine. I am hoping with the continuation of exercise etc that I will be able to stop taking it at some point.

So anyway, after that, it was off to BJ’s and a local farmer’s market to pick up items for this weekend’s barbeque. By the time I got home from errands, it was 11 am, and I was ready for some relaxation for the afternoon. So the rest of the day was mostly quiet. I did do some laundry and pick up around the kitchen, but other than that, it was a uneventful rest of the day! Those are nice once in a while! :)

Getting Ready for the Weekend

Haha – it’s only Tuesday and already my mind has moved ahead to the weekend. We are going to be having a family barbeque at our house – our second annual. :) Last year we originally scheduled it for this weekend because the 18th is my mom’s birthday. Then this year we just decided to keep it around the same time of the month, so we will all be gathering on Mom’s birthday again. Since it is at our house, tomorrow I will be picking up the house, getting things ready and going grocery shopping! I am really loving my middle of the week day off. So far it has worked out so well. Sunday is supposed to be a beautiful day, mid 80s and sunny. So it should be a great day. We will all be sitting out on our back deck enjoying the gorgeous weather!

Another Monday Over :)

Today was a very fast, very busy day at work. One of those days where you just add work to your pile to finish later because there isn’t time to finish it before you move on to the next person! It was a good day in that it went by SO fast. But I have a lot to wade through tomorrow morning.

Then it was home for a quick supper before I headed out to a Lia Sophia party at a friend’s house. I have never been to one of those before. I have to admit, I had no idea what to expect, but it was a lot of fun. I bought a really pretty bracelet, a pair of earrings, and a ring. I will post some pictures when I get them. I just got home about 15 minutes ago, so that was it for my day – and now, Monday is over!! :) Now to enjoy the rest of the week….

Relaxing Morning

I love Sunday mornings. It is the only day of the week when we don’t set the alarm clock, and it is so nice to let ourselves just wake up whenever. Of course, we usually wake up early anyway, but at least we don’t have to wake up on demand!

Last week this time we were up north. We left after I got out of work on Saturday. When I got home, Harry already had the car packed and the bikes loaded.

The trip was uneventful, although I tried to see it through my new “blogging” eyes. :) I took so many pictures on the way home. I thought to myself that I probably looked like a tourist!

We stopped in AuSable Forks, which is the VERY small town where I grew up, to pick up some pizzas that my mom had ordered for dinner. We parked on Main St. and I took a couple pictures. :)

Yup, that’s Main Street.

Then we headed up to Fern Lake.

This is the little cottage where we stayed. It was such a nice weekend. You can see the lake in the background. By the time we had dinner, it was starting to get dark, and the light in the clouds over the water was so beautiful.

 

 

 

We started a fire, and the warmth felt good in the cool evening air.

It was a great evening – so relaxing.

Today should also be a relaxing day. All of our weekend work was done yesterday, so nothing much on the agenda for today. The extreme heat and humidity is gone at least for a short time, so we will be enjoying the day. :)