Sunshine...for awhile

Isn’t the photo below glorious? Beautiful blue skies...for another hour or two and then a “wintry mix” is supposed to start falling. I choose to enjoy this while I can. Chloe and I went for a long walk around the airport this morning. I watched a helicopter take off and two planes practicing their touch and goes while we walked.  Then it was back home to start some laundry and catch up on blogs. It is sure nice to have running water again and not have to lug our laundry all the way across the park

This is my view right now, because don’t let that blue sky fool you. It is 18° F at the moment. Chloe and I are definitely enjoying the heat coming from that electric fireplace.

My mother-in-law told me she didn’t have any gloves or mittens. Whether that’s true or not, you know me. No one shall go without mittens if I’m around! I got some Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee yarn, just like what I used for my own mittens, made her a pair and mailed them off yesterday. They don’t quite match, but close enough.

I’ve also been working on this baby blanket for a couple of days. I am using Lion Brand Ice Cream Big Scoop yarn in the blueberry color way.  I have had this pattern for a long time and I can’t remember the name of it. I’m using an H crochet hook and really enjoying crochet right now.  This will also go into the donate pile. Sorry about the trashcan and the sink. Finding places to take pictures is difficult. I found a new doily pattern online last night that I think I’m going to try next. Most of my patterns are packed up somewhere in the depths of the storage unit so I’m going to try something new.

I thought this was funny and wanted to share with all of you.

We are set to close on the house in Omaha early next week. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday getting the utilities set up. We have a U-Haul trailer reserved for the beginning of May that we will pull back with some things from storage. We have also ordered a POD for the first part of September.  I’m getting excited as it is starting to feel that this is really happening. This is the fifth house that we’ve bought and it’s always a stressful procedure, but buying one we have not even been in before is even harder.  Well, I guess that’s not quite true. About 30 years ago or so, I walked from the front door into the kitchen with a plate of cookies and back out. That’s it! I don’t remember anything about it. We are very grateful for the photos that Mandy took for us when she walked through. And something I have also learned through our years of marriage and our moves is that you can make virtually anything a home as long as you are together and happy. We have so much work to do once we actually get in the house.  I’m trying to remember the following verse from the Bible. This has been an anxiety ridden year for all of us hasn’t it?

I hope you are all doing well and staying warm and healthy. 

Blessings and love,

Betsy 

Cold and snowy...Anyone else have the same?

Happy Thursday everyone! Well it’s Thursday evening about 10:00 right now on the west coast, so I guess for most of you, when you read this it will be Friday! Happy Friday! I hope you are all staying warm and dry and have electricity. Oh my, I feel so for the people in the south who aren’t prepared for this kind of weather. As miserable as it is for those of us up north and in the midwest, at least we’re fairly used to it. My prayers are with everyone who is dealing with issues from the cold and the snow. As for us, my wonderful husband was able to repair the parks water spigot and as of last night we have running water again. Almost an entire week with no running water taught me to appreciate every drop that comes out of the faucets. I am just so grateful that we did not lose electricity like so many have, so we were able to stay warm.

I decided to get the St. Patrick’s Day decorations out when I put away the Valentine’s Day ones. It’s not an easy task to take the decorations out of storage, so I just thought I would do it all at once. I don’t have very many, just this banner of crocheted shamrocks and the plaque.

And during our one day of sunshine this week I was able to take this photo outside by our door.  For those of you who haven’t discovered the joys of command hooks, I have to tell you they are wonderful. Especially in campers. You can put them anywhere and they have all sizes. They even have waterproof ones for the shower. We use them all over the RV for various things. This is a waterproof one that would usually be used in the shower, but I’ve had it outside ever since we moved in. It’s held fast through thunderstorms, hail and snow. But when I want to take it down, it is so simple. You lift the hook up and pull down on the little plastic adhesive tab on the bottom and it will come off without leaving a mark.  This is not a commercial, but they are a great invention! They even make soap dishes and all kinds of special little hangers. We have two key holders that are held up with command strips. I will try to take a picture of one of them during the daylight.

I took this photo Tuesday when I took Chloe to the dog park. This is really a pretty place that we’re staying in isn’t it? We have received at least another five or 6 inches of snow since then and it’s coming down again all night tonight and tomorrow. But then, we are supposed to have a big warm up into the mid to upper 40s by the weekend and the start of next week! Hooray!

Another view from the dog park.

I had to pick up my grocery order Tuesday morning and this is what I drove through on the way there. Thankfully it had just started snowing so there wasn’t anything on the roads yet. If I had scheduled it just an hour or two later it would have been a mess. As it was I had to drive all the way across town later that afternoon to our accountant and came back on the highway at 15 mph the entire way because the road was a sheet of ice. After watching four cars slide off the road into the median ahead of me, I called Dennis and told him to come home through town and not get on the highway. It was too late for me and I was committed. There were no more exits until my own! The other cars were all going the same speed I was.  Obviously I made it fine. It was pretty bad. Seriously, around here most of us are used to driving in this stuff and it takes a lot to cause multiple slide offs, because most everybody knows the rules of winter driving, but when it’s ice there’s not a lot you can do. Snow you can work with and drive in fairly easily. ICE, not so much.

I did get some mittens knitted since my last post.

And two more pair yesterday.

I even knitted myself a pair of worsted weight socks yesterday. I use them as house slippers around the RV. I made myself a pair in October and I completely wore them out. Even after mending them at least twice they were too far gone to repair again. I don’t know if it’s the hard floors or my feet that are so hard on them. I do have to say worsted weight socks are much, much faster than normal sock yarn. These were finished in just about three hours!

How are you all doing in the craziness of the weather?  It’s not only cold and snowy here, but I saw on the news that the UK has also had a lot of snow and cold. It’s crazy! I think we are all ready for spring.

My best friend had her second Moderna shot on Monday and about eight hours later started running a fever and had body aches, chills and a headache. She was off work for two days. Tuesday she had a fever of 100.8 all day and could barely move because her muscles ached so badly. I made a big batch of homemade noodles and took them chicken and noodles, salad, rolls and cookies for dinner so she didn’t have to worry about making anything. Tuesday turned into a really busy day.  They live fairly close to our accountants office so it didn’t add any extra driving in the snow!  I’m happy to report she went back to work today. We had Bible study tonight via zoom and she’s back to normal with just a sore arm. These vaccines aren’t for sissies.  I still have not been able to get Dennis scheduled for the vaccine yet. He’s had a strange cough for about a week, but he thinks it’s sinus. It doesn’t seem to be getting any worse but we’re keeping an eye on it. Mandy said he can’t get the vaccination if he’s sick anyway, so I guess it’s not a big deal if we have to wait a while.  I would appreciate prayers for him that the cough doesn’t turn into something worse.

Not a whole lot of excitement here this week. Just trying to get through every day without much water and making trips to the laundromat when no one else was there, kept me entertained all week. It has snowed at least a little bit every day. With the exception of Tuesday and the excitement of driving on the ice I’ve stayed home entire week. I hope you are all staying safe and warm.


Blessings and love, 

Betsy

Winter in an RV....

The last four days have been interesting to say the least.  But more on that later. First I have some fun things to share with you.  Following are several photos of birthday cards I have received in the last two weeks or so. I took the photos and forgot to show them to you in my last post.  Since then I have received one or two more!

Isn’t this first one pretty? The colors are much more vibrant on all of these photos than is showing up. It is such grey, cold and snowy weather that we’re having right now.

And of course Piper drew me pretty purple flowers because that is my favorite color and she knows it!

Look at these beautiful cards that I received from friends. Even from some of you!

This one came from Becky who is “GrandmaBeckyL” on my side bar. She sent me tea in a pretty little bag along with some stickers. The photo on the card is one that she took herself.

Connie from “Far Side Of Fifty”sent me this beautiful card that she drew herself. The snow has glitter on it!  It is so beautiful! I love red barns. The windmill and the weathervane remind me of the farms near my grandmas house in  Southeast Nebraska when I was growing up.

This beautiful Valentine arrived yesterday from Roxy who is “livingfromglorytoglory” on my sidebar. I apologize for the strange angle on this picture but I couldn’t get the glare off of it from the overhead lights and it is just way too dark to even begin to get the beautiful colors without the light on.

I did finish the first Christmas gift for this year.  My goal is to knit 12 pairs of socks this year.  These are the Petty Harbour sock pattern, made with Lion Brand Wool-ease in the taffy colorway.  I believe the pattern is still free on Ravelry.  I haven’t washed or blocked them yet.

I also made two pair of mittens this weekend with a 5th mitten on the needles! These are made with Loops and Threads Impeccable yarn. It is actually more of a coral color than is showing up in the photo. The color name is Arbor Rose with plain white for the stripes.

Now for the story of our weekend. Thursday night I washed dishes after dinner as usual and Dennis went to bed at close to 10:00 after we FaceTimed with Alex for a while. I got ready for bed at 11:15 and we had no running water. Uh Oh! It had been working when Dennis went to bed, but an hour later, no water. Our first thought was possibly that our pipes had frozen in this extreme cold. However, Dennis got up and dressed and went out and discovered the parks water spigot was frozen from the ground up, which had in turn frozen our heated water hose completely. The heat tape on the spigot had blown the circuit breaker and tripped the GFI outlet. There was nothing to do except go to bed since we could not get it to reset and everything was frozen solid! 

Friday we borrowed some 5 gallon water jugs from our camping buddies Lori and Paul and filled them up at their house. I talked to the park office and they said the maintenance man is in Mexico on vacation until after Tuesday so we needed to “deal with it” in her words. So deal with it we did. Dennis was able to get a little bit of water into our fresh water holding tank, but then the pump he borrowed from Paul quit working. We think it was because it was so cold.  I felt so bad for Dennis. He spent hours out in this cold weather this weekend just trying to get us some running water.

We went to Dennis’s office and took showers on Saturday. This afternoon he strung up a hose to a neighbor across the street who had running water. He is one of the few in the park that still has water coming out of his spigot.  His wife made him fill up their freshwater tank too, because she’s afraid the same thing will happen to them! We were able to fill up our tank, so we should be good for five or six days at least. Dennis will shower when he gets to work in the mornings and I’ll just take quick showers here so I don’t use much water. That will save the rest for washing dishes and flushing the toilet. Honestly, I don’t think people realize just how much water we use on a day-to-day basis without even thinking about it. I will have to use the washing machine in the rec building though. It should be well above freezing by the weekend, so we’re hoping things are back to normal then. 

It’s been an adventure. It could be much worse. We have heat, we have food and we are very comfortable. We also have many friends who have offered to let us use showers at their house or even to come stay with them. But we are trying to just look on it as another adventure. It HAS convinced me that I am not a winter, cold, cold winter, RVer. I love my RV, but when it gets below zero wind chill I would rather be in a house. 😍

And that’s our adventure, so far, for this cold front 🌬🌬🌬that is affecting so many people. I know that we could have much worse problems. Many people here in the park have frozen pipes and burst tanks and just plain huge messes! We have been very, very pleased with how comfortable we are in the trailer and the high quality build that we have. Our insulation must be very good, because we’re not using much propane at all and just one space heater in the daytime only. I’m paranoid about not leaving the space heater on at night, so it’s just the propane furnace running all night long.

We are expecting about 6 inches of snow❄️ overnight and during the day tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes. I hope you are all safe, warm and well too. I hope you all had a happy Valentine’s Day, full of love from everyone you know.

The following photo just seems appropriate in this day and age. I wish more people could let go of all of the anger and bitterness they feel and turn it over to the Lord. When we dwell on our anger, it just makes it worse and then bitterness sets in.  Believe me, I know.  I like how this verse calls it unwholesome talk. We may think a few words won’t do any real damage to a relationship or friendship, but it can. Words cut deep. I pray we always think of the other person’s feelings before we say anything we might regret someday.  I love and care for each one of you.

Stay well, warm, and happy. 

Blessings and hugs, 

Betsy

It’s A Bit Chilly...

Good morning my friends. It’s a bit chilly here, how about where you are? I realize our chilly weather is nothing compared to what a lot of you are enduring. Particularly Connie and Gene with no furnace. I am definitely praying for you two to stay warm in that frigid below zero weather you’re having. I know Mandy in Omaha and Alex in Japan are up to their eyeballs in snow. Mandy has certainly had a crash course in using their big snowblower over the past several weeks. Meanwhile, here in Spokane, we blessedly don’t even have a flake of snow on the ground right now, but it is cold! Particularly when you’re living in a trailer and trying to keep the pipes from freezing.🌬🌬🌬

I had a couple more valentine decorations that I hadn’t shown you. I got both of these at the dollar store one morning about a month ago. I was there when they opened and there were no other customers. I had to pick up some birthday cards and a few other things that I get there so inexpensively like foil, plastic wrap and sandwich bags for Dennis’s lunch.

Isn’t this a sweet wall hanging? We have said this to each other since we were dating and always write it in our cards, notes  and letters to each other. I couldn’t believe when I saw it hanging in the dollar store and I had to get it for the RV. It even has the perfect long and narrow wall for it. 💜

Remember the cute little red truck I had hanging on the outside of the RV by the door that said Merry Christmas? Well, they had one almost like it for Valentine’s Day. Perfect! The children next-door love it. Every time I change the decorations they come over to see what I’m doing. Of course, candy is involved too! They are really good kids.  Praise the Lord! In a campground you never know who you are going to have for neighbors, and we have been blessed to have the same people on either side of us since we moved in last August. Both of them are great neighbors.

Look what I made yesterday in just a few hours! The cutest little bunny ever. She’s made with Walmart Mainstays velvet yarn in the “ballet slipper” color way. I learned about her from Angelia on the “Crocheting House Mouse” YouTube podcast. She gives you the link to the pattern on her video and it’s free!  Angelia is the sweetest lady ever! She’s working on a scrappy shawl right now but she’s also making some of these bunnies at the same time. Her bunnies are much cuter than mine, but I feel that for the first attempt in a long, long time at making an amigarumi, it didn’t turn out too bad. It is so, so soft and squishy. I’m going to put it on the bed in the guest bedroom at our new house for Piper to play with when she visits us. Oh, I can’t wait!💜

I also finished one sock last night and cast on the second. I’ve learned that no matter how late it is when you finish the first sock, you must always start the second sock to avoid the dreaded “second sock syndrome.”  I’m using the “Petty Harbour” pattern, which is free on Ravelry and Lion Brand Sock-Ease in the “Taffy” colorway.

I am also still working on my squishy blanket. It is a paid for pattern on Ravelry and it’s called the “Bits and Bobs” blanket. I am really loving it. I think last time I showed it to you I was just a few rows above the pink stripe. It slow going on this blanket as you knit it on size 6 needles, which is pretty small for a blanket. You’re also using leftover balls of sock yarn and we all know how thin that is. I honestly don’t care if it takes me a year or longer to finish this blanket. It is such an enjoyable knit and it takes no thinking at all. I can even knit on this in the dark.

My Bible cover was falling apart and Sunday afternoon when we were reading our Bibles together, Dennis noticed it. He suggested I get a new one if I wanted to, so I went on Amazon and found this one. I love it. It has one of my favorite verses on it and I love the color. Inside there is a place is for pens, highlighters and notepads. It even came with some bookmarks. Would you believe it arrived yesterday morning? Sometimes Amazon is so fast it’s scary!

As you can see, my Bible is taped up in several places. Mandy, Jamie and Alex gave it to me years ago for Christmas. This Bible means the world to me. I would venture to say it is my most precious possession. Not only is it the Holy Word of the Lord, but my children shared their favorite Bible verses at the time and in doing so,  a piece of their hearts. This is precious to me.

I pray that those of you who are experiencing this deep freeze are staying warm, and for those of you that are in summer time... think of the rest of us!

Blessings and love, 

Betsy

Bits and Bobs

It’s Wednesday evening and we had an absolutely beautiful day today. I walked around outside with flip-flops on and a light sweater. But by the weekend it’s supposed to be around 10°F at night. I enjoyed the day while I could.  I took the comforter off of our bed and walked up to the laundromat here in the park. My little RV washer is just not big enough to handle a comforter. It was the first time I used the laundry room and I was pleasantly surprised with how clean it was.  I had to walk back-and-forth several times to switch it to the dryer and then back again to pick it up when it was dry. Good exercise and lots of sunshine! 🌞

I have some decorations up that I thought you would like to see. Just like I had at the house, I have the garland of crocheted Scandinavian hearts hanging on the island along with my valentine wreath. If you’re interested in making some of these hearts out of crochet thread, you can find the pattern free on Teresa’s blog. It is “Teresa Kasner” over on my side bar.

The twinkle lights are still cheering up the RV and now they have hearts hanging from the lights instead of Christmas cards. The gnome that Meredith sent me at Christmas is still hanging around keeping an eye on things.  Please excuse the insulation pillows in the skylight and vent on the ceiling. It’s amazing how much cold air they keep out in the winter.  This trailer is so well insulated we haven’t even used 1/2 of a tank of propane yet this winter. That’s a very good thing.

Here is the other side. You can see the willow figurines that Sam sent to me on the window valance along with Connie’s beautiful hand-painted card.

I had picked up a grocery order Monday morning and included a little piece of cake for Dennis and I to share. I think I told you about that in my last post. Well, before the day was over, two more people had stopped by and left entire chocolate cakes on our porch steps. Not only that, they ran out of the small pieces of cake in our grocery order, so they upgraded us to a full-size cake at the same price! So here I was, the person who is trying to lose weight with three huge chocolate cakes for her birthday! I took one cake to the family next door where they have three children. My goodness those kids were excited to see that chocolate cake! Then I took another one to the office for the campground staff to share. That still left Dennis and I a full cake. We each had a piece and I cut the rest into big pieces and put it in the freezer. Happy birthday to me!🎂💜

Along with one of those cakes was this beautiful red rose. I have some very sweet friends don’t I?

And there is Cindy’s snowman sitting by the bamboo plant that Jenny gave me. She also made me a tote bag.

I dug this project out of the depths of a tote bag in the back of the closet last night. It is my Bits and Bobs blanket that I started months and months ago.  I set it aside to work on Christmas things. It is a paid for pattern on Ravelry. I forgot just how pleasurable this blanket is to work on. It is the squishiest, softest blanket I have made in a long time. And I just love the project bag that I have it in.

After dinner tonight I cast on a pair of socks. It is the Petty Harbor pattern which is free on Ravelry.  I’m using Lion Brand Sock-Ease yarn which is a 75% wool/25% nylon blend. It is the Taffy colorway. I’m not sure why it’s named that. It doesn’t look like any taffy that I’ve ever seen before.  I have found this to be a very hard wearing yarn and it’s not too bad to work with. Dennis‘s mom really likes socks made out of this yarn.

I took this photo out of the back window of the RV this afternoon. It really was a gorgeous day. You could hear children’s voices all around the campground for the first time in several months. It was wonderful! I love the happy sound of children playing.

Dennis and I have been talking and trying to make some (more) decisions. As much as we absolutely love, love, love this RV, we will probably be selling it this summer. We will keep our smaller 25 foot trailer to travel in. We realize we will have to live in the small one for several months before moving, but that’s OK too. We believe it will be easier to sell it early in the summer rather than later in the year.  We have gotten very spoiled having almost 40 feet of living space in the bigger RV.  Our summers are so gorgeous here though, that we spend most of our time outside. We could pull the bigger trailer with our truck with no problem, but we also know it would be hard to do the kind of camping we want to do with such a big unit. We want to go to national and state parks and also do some boondocking where there are no amenities. That will be much easier to do with a smaller trailer. And we do love our smaller trailer too. My kitchen island and the washing machine and dryer will be sorely missed though, while we’re still living full-time here.  I will be visiting that laundromat much more often.

If you remember, we had originally bought the bigger RV thinking we would be at the lake for several more years. We are retiring a couple of years earlier than we had planned. Mom needs us at home and we want to be with family too, so plans have changed a bit. Life is always full of unexpected surprises isn’t it?  We never know what God has in store for us from one day to the next.

I pray that each one of you is doing well and staying healthy. Wishing you all the best and I’ll be talking with you again soon.

Blessings and hugs,

Betsy