Moving in…

Well friends, we’ve been staying in the apartment since Saturday night. Not everything is unpacked and my beautiful dining room table not only broke in the moving process, but it’s too big for the apartment. That seems to have been the only casualty in the move though, which is pretty good. Dennis will fix it and we’ll put it on Facebook marketplace to sell it and buy a smaller one. Otherwise we are getting settled in and I think we’re going to love it here, whether it be temporary or long-term term. We have been invited to a potluck here Monday night. Since this is our first one we get to go as guests. There is so much going on here every day.

In the second bedroom, yarn was unpacked and put away first of all. Of course. Actually it was the easiest thing to work on unpacking and organizing while Dennis was bringing up other loads. It was easier to just unpack things as we brought them in because we only had 12 boxes to move with and just kept reusing them.

It all fit!

This is the main bathroom. Both bathrooms are very big because they’re ADA accessible.

This is looking down the hallway. We haven’t hung very many photos yet. Just the clock so it wouldn’t be damaged. Dennis bought me that clock in the Amana colonies in Iowa for our 15th anniversary almost 30 years ago.

The kitchen is a bit of a mess. I don’t have as many cabinets and we had to cram our freezer in there too. Once the food is gone from the freezer, we’ll probably put it in our storage unit to create more room.

Again, please don’t look at the mess. This was the first day of moving in.

The dining room with the damaged table. It’s not bad though and Dennis think he will be able to fix it fairly easily.

Looking toward the living room. Piper made us a welcome home banner that’s hanging next to the balcony doors.

We also have a stackable, full-size washer and dryer in the hall. I love that washer and dryer. It works great!

Tuesday they did a musical at Piper’s school. It had four songs in it and both sets of grandparents were there, along with mom and dad. We all had dinner at Mandy and Brad‘s before we went. Piper is in the back row in the red and black plaid shirt. it was actually very good. She even had a solo.💜 There are so many students in the school they do each grade separately. 

Today was her Halloween Party & Parade at school, so I went up and watched it and walked home with her. It’s so nice to be close enough to do these things with her. She is dressed as Marie Antoinette. 💜

On Wednesday three long, long time girlfriends from church and I went out to lunch and then to the Durham Museum to see the dress exhibit from Downton Abbey. They were original dresses that were worn during the making of the show and movie. It was a lot of fun and we had a great time talking and catching up about things over the years. The first one is my favorite. Would you believe it was made from a tablecloth?

Sorry about so many photos but it’s been awhile and I just love these dresses and wanted to share. I wish we had the same styles now. 💜 I love the loose and flowing look. This makes me want to go back and rewatch all of the shows.

Hopefully I will be back on a regular blogging schedule next week. Not much knitting has been getting done. I’m still making the same toddler sweater that I was two weeks ago, although I now have the back and both right and left fronts done. I have just started one sleeve. It has never taken me this long, even to knit an adult size sweater.

The mittens are in the car to take to the school to donate. I’ll try to get that done next week sometime. With everything happening this year, I didn’t get quite as many done. There are 73 pair of mittens and nine hats.

Take care everyone!!!

Blessings,

Betsy

What? Not again!!!

Well, my friends, after me going on and on in my last post about how we aren’t moving until spring, was quickly changed to we’re in the process of moving right now!! This is where I am sitting as I quickly put this post together. The bedroom in our new apartment.

The night I posted my last blog post, there was another shooting just a few blocks from our house. Several people were hurt badly and they were inside their house doing nothing wrong. A woman was just driving down the street shooting!. Interest rates are going up and we thought maybe we should make the move now. The next day we went out and got an apartment. We listed our house about 2:00 on Saturday and had four showings with three offers. The other one was going to make an offer but they didn’t qualify. Five other showings were canceled.  In less than 21 hours the papers were signed accepting an offer on the house. We are frantically trying to get out because they want possession in two weeks.  Wow! We were fortunate that we had already chosen where we were going to move to if we sold the house while waiting for a condo, so that worked out fine.

Dennis and I have filled the car and the truck up several times a day since Saturday. We’re moving everything we can by ourselves. On Friday we’re getting a U-Haul trailer and a couple of friends are going to help us move the sofa, dressers and freezer. Hopefully the two of us will have moved most everything else by then. Two huge house moves in two months is too much for old people! This will explain why I didn’t visit most blogs last night. When I sat down in my chair, I promptly fell asleep with my computer open in my lap. I’ll get back with you all as soon as I can and show you pictures. I do think we’re going to love this place. It’s only about five minutes from Mandy‘s family and about 10 from Mom’s new place.

We have signed a lease for this apartment for a year and hopefully during that time a condo will become available at the complex that we want to move to. The condo’s are halfway between Mandy‘s and Mom‘s and exactly where we want to be. We prefer to own rather than rent and that will hopefully be our last move ever. I’ll be back as soon as I can! 

Blessings and love to you all, 

Betsy

Still knitting!

Good morning my friends! Once again it’s been a while since I’ve visited you. I’m going to try very diligently to get back into the swing of visiting all of your blogs again. My hope is that life will start slowing down a bit now. We had planned to go camping for the last time today and come back on Friday. We were going to spend the time winterizing and cleaning out the camper before we left the campground. However, the winds are predicted to be in excess of 40 miles an hour for the next three days. Pulling a camper on the interstate in conditions like that is not fun at all. Plus we knew we would just be sitting inside the trailer and not be able to be outside much with winds that high. We did have about 2 1/2 hours of a nice gentle rain during the night last night with lots of thunder and lightning and today is much, much cooler. Yesterday we spent most of the day working on the camper and got home just in time to shower and change then go to Chaela and Tim‘s 10th anniversary dinner in the Old Market. Tim planned it all as a surprise for Chaela and it was a wonderful evening. We haven’t been to the Old Market area of Omaha in over 30 years, since before we moved to Spokane. It’s a very touristy part of town, close to the Missouri River with lots of restaurants and little shops. We did have a fun time and the food was delicious too. I had my favorite, fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken. It is a diet food right? Ha ha!

I thought I would share Lizzie‘s Halloween costume with all of you. Any guesses as to who she is? Well, of course she is Marie Antoinnette! 😂 Piper is also going to be Marie Antoinnette. She just finished reading her biography and feels that she was just a very misunderstood lady! Her words, not mine. 😍 Piper’s costume is really sweet and I’ll have to get a picture of her in it too.  But Lizzies cracks me up. She is the most patient and long-suffering puppy. Zoey is just trying to figure out what’s going on with her.

At Mandy’s church on Sunday they had this cute little area for people to get their photos taken. Aren’t these both great pictures of Piper?

She has the most beautiful smile. I’m not exactly an impartial Grandma am I?

I took this photo of the tree across the street at Dennis’s cousins house this morning. The sky is such a gorgeous blue today after the rain, thunder and lightning last night. Leaves are changing all over the neighborhood.

This one was taken as we were leaving the campground last week. Zoey loves to ride as a copilot in both the truck and the car, but I truly believe she prefers the truck. She sits up higher in her little dog car seat and can see everything. She doesn’t miss a thing. Lizzie tends to lay down and sleep when she rides in the car with us, but not Zoey. She doesn’t want to miss anything. If you all remember, she was supposed to be my dog. Nope. She is a Daddy’s girl. Not that she doesn’t love me and she sits on my lap a lot, but if it came down to a choice between the two of us, it would be him every time. Lizzie is the same way with Brad. These two guys are hilarious with these dogs. Neither of them really wanted them and they both preferred bigger dogs, but these girls can get them to do anything now. 

And who wouldn’t do anything for the two of them? They are the cutest little girls.💜

I hope I don’t offend anyone with this following photo. I saw it on Facebook and just cracked up. It’s true. Isn’t this what we all want to do? It may be knitting instead of crochet, or even cross stitch or quilting, but the idea is the same.😂🤣😂

I do have a couple of things to share with you. First of all I finished another pair of socks but I can’t show them here. They are a Christmas present as you can guess. These two are gifts also but the recipients won’t be looking at my blog. One of these sweaters is for baby J in London and the other one is for her cousin who was born just three months later, but wears the same size clothes! They only live a couple of blocks from each other and are together a lot. I thought it would be cute for them to have matching sweaters. I just finished the second one late last night so they haven’t been blocked and I still have to get buttons for them. Today I’m starting a sweater for baby H’s older brother who wears size 4. I thought it would be nice to give them new sweaters for Christmas too.

I usually have a dish cloth on the needles and I just came to realize that my gift stock is almost completely depleted. So I cast this one on this morning and before I start the new sweater I’ll finish the dish cloth. I will try to keep one on the needles until I have another basket full for gifts. I really like this color. It is Hobby Lobby’s “I love this cotton” in the periwinkle colorway.

I also need to make another pair of socks because I miscalculated how many I had finished. I need one more pair for Christmas. Happily I have a lot of sock yarn, so it will just be a matter of choosing another skein and getting started.

I’m truly hoping that life will begin to slow down a little bit for us. We have been going back-and-forth on listing our house for sale. We have tried to talk to various experts in the area and also watch the world news to see what’s predicted to be happening. There is a condo building between Mom‘s new apartment and Mandy and Brad‘s house that we are very interested in. Almost all are owner occupied with no stairs in the units and an elevator in the building. I think that’s important as we are growing older and I have problems with my feet and back. However, they rarely come up for sale. Until this morning we were considering putting our house on the market and moving into a 55+ building until a condo became available. However, the apartment is very expensive and we would have to sign a year lease. With the economy as it is and all of the uncertainty going on right now, we’ve decided it would probably be better just to wait. Our plan had been to sell our house so we would have the cash to jump right onto it when a condo became available. However, although our neighborhood is not the safest place in the world, we feel it’s wiser to remain here for the time being even though housing prices are sure to fall and we won’t get as much for our house later. It has truly been a very difficult decision. We both feel a peace about staying here, at least through the winter unless something happens with a condo. And honestly? I don’t want to move twice again in just a few months. 

After moving from our house in Spokane into the camper for a year, then into this house last spring. Moving mom last month and all of the work with her house, we are both exhausted. We’re still trying to get her completely settled into her new apartment with the caregivers that are taking care of her there and it just seems almost too much to add one more thing.

Thank you all for being so understanding with my sporadic appearances here for the last month or two. You are all such blessings in my life and I hope that I can be a bit of a bright spot in yours. May God bless each and everyone of you throughout the coming days. I hope you all feel just a little bit of the love that I have felt from each of you. Take care of yourselves my friends. I’ll be back soon.

Blessings and love,

Betsy 

Camping

Hello my friends. Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been commenting on your blogs the past couple of days. That’s because I don’t have my laptop with me and we are out camping. We sure do love this camping as retired people. You can camp during the week when there’s no one else here! We have been at Lewis and Clark State Park in Iowa for the past couple of days. It is so pretty here. Our cousins and good friends Curt and Barb are camped right next to us. We’ve been having a great time sharing meals and taking walks. Today we drove to our church camp that is across the lake and wandered around there. Dennis has been there for several workdays, but I had never been to the camp before.  When we lived here before, Mandy and Jamie went to a church camp south of Omaha, this one is about one hour north. It is a beautiful place. Dennis and I have already booked three more nights here at the State Park very soon before the season ends. We’ve decided that will be our last trip out for the season, unless we’re lucky enough to go south at some point this winter.

Here we are sitting outside Curt and Barb‘s camper. They just bought it this spring and have been out a lot in this little trailer this summer. It’s very cute but does not have a bathroom in it. I love having my own bathroom. I don’t have to worry about the cleanliness of public bathrooms. This is a pop-up, but without the typical canvas sides. They like to camp in the mountains like we do and so they needed a hard sided camper because the bears, mountain lions and cougars.

There’s our truck and the camper. The sites here were very, very large. There was plenty of room for us to spread out. The first two nights there were only two other campers in the entire campground.

Did you notice that gorgeous red tree above Curt and Barb‘s camper? The fall colors this weekend are absolutely perfect.

This was our campfire last night. Zoey enjoyed it as much as we did.

Gorgeous beautiful golden leaves.🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁

And just look at the trees across the lake. The church camp it’s just to the right of this view.

And this was our campfire tonight. We played trivia and Family Feud around the fire. By the time we came inside at 10:00 it was down to 57°F. Tomorrow night is supposed to be below freezing. Brrrr.

I did manage to finish a pair of Christmas socks. They are made with a simple 2 x 2 ribbing down the leg and then a plain foot. Before we left yesterday, I finished a new cardigan for Miss “J” in London that will be part of her Christmas gift. I have also begun working on another prayer shawl identical to the one I finished last week. I need to buy yarn when I get home to make Miss Piper a new sweater for Christmas. Technically I have finished everything I was making for Christmas, but decided to add a sweater for Miss Piper and Miss “J” because I have time and I know Piper loves the sweaters.

We are absolutely loving our time in the trailer and enjoying the beautiful crisp fall weather. We are so thankful that God has blessed us with a beautiful place we can come camping. We also have wonderful people who volunteer to watch our house for us while we’re gone and we really appreciate that too.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week. Take care and stay safe.

Blessings and love,

Betsy