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