Full Time Lake Living

Hello my friends. What a whirlwind! We have the house completely empty and clean. The only thing to do now is keep up the yard until closing. We have been told the house is in underwriting now so hopefully it won’t be too much longer. We are moving from the lake to the RV park closer to town the middle of August. We need to be settled before winter because there are a lot of preparations that have to take place when you live in a travel trailer during the winter time. Especially when you get as much snow as we do. I hope we’re not crazy leaving our beautiful home for this adventure!  Just one more step toward retirement and being closer to family.  I have to keep remembering that. Remind me of that this winter, won’t you?

I finished Miss Piper‘s blanket and the two washcloths that she requested and I mailed them to her this morning. I really like how the blanket turned out. I was able to use up some scraps of yarn that I had and I didn’t have to buy anything. Woo hoo! My goal this year is to not buy any more yarn than I need for specific projects.

I did have to buy yarn for this. It is a prayer shawl for my good friend Debbie who is having surgery to remove a mass next week.  She has survived ovarian cancer before, 15 years ago.  

It’s hard to tell, but it’s actually a strand of yellow held with a strand of cream colored yarn. In the photos it looks like it’s just cream.  It is a time consuming stitch to be sure. But I do think it’s pretty.

These are the geraniums that I overwintered last year. Believe it or not they were both a deep red color.  When they bloomed this year one was white and the other one is more of a pinkish red.  The statue is one that I had in the front yard at the house.

I was sitting outside tonight watching the moon rise through the trees. I thought it was beautiful.

Watching the night fall at the lake is one of my favorite times of day. Especially when it’s as hot as it has been. Since our humidity is so low you can always open the windows at night and sleep with no air-conditioning. Tomorrow is supposed to be 102°F and Friday, even hotter. That is so unusual for us.

The lights on the right are next to my bright red geraniums planted along the bank behind the trailer. The lights you see on the left are strung through the trees down on the swimming beach.

I don’t know why I find these photos so pretty.

And one final photo looking across the lake.

Now that I have the house packed up, I have to work on packing up the trailer and getting ready to move. We have a lot of canned goods in here that will have to be taken to storage so there’s not so much weight in the trailer when it’s moved. If I had known we would be moving, I never would have stocked up so much before the virus hit.

I received a surprise in the mail today. I will be sharing it with you in my next post. Take care and stay healthy.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

Busy Days

It’s the weekend! I hope everyone has had a good week and stayed healthy. We have had a busy, busy, busy week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I spent at the house all day packing, cleaning and patching nail holes. Dennis had today off of work because we had originally planned to leave for Omaha today and he just kept this day as a vacation day. He and Larry moved all of the outside furniture and the few remaining things from the garage into storage. All that is left to do is wipe down the bathrooms one last time and vacuum and scrub the floors.  I cleaned everything very well before the house was shown and we haven’t stayed there since, so not a lot needs done. All of the curtains have been washed. 

I’m so pleased at how much the two of us old people have done. Until today we have moved virtually everything in our house by ourselves, besides the help from Alicia getting it ready to stage for showing. I never could have done this before the medication the neurologist gave me for my back. Had we decided to do this three months ago, I could never have begun to lift and carry boxes and furniture the way I’ve done in the past 2 1/2 weeks.

And the house appraised at the higher amount! This is such a blessing.  It is now in underwriting and if the bank approves the amount, we will get significantly more than we were asking for the house!  That will definitely help with the rent we have to pay monthly at the RV park. Our house has been paid for for many years and it will be a new experience to make a rent payment.

Miss Piper asked if I would make her a blanket for her babies. She would also like two washcloths. She was very specific in her colors. She wants a gray blanket and one gray and one blue washcloth. She takes very good care of her babies and I have made her lots of blankets in the past but she likes to have each of her babies have their own blanket.  Of course I said yes! When we were at storage Wednesday night, I located my totes of yarn and I found these partial skeins of gray yarn and the blue yarn too.  I sent this photo to her for her approval and Mandy said her answer was “yes, exactly!”  Now I really hope this is enough gray to make the entire blanket, because my goal is not to buy any more yarn until I use up what I have.  Maybe I could get away with a few stripes of white if I start running low.

Cindy of the “Delighted Hands” blog over on my side bar made these four beautiful masks for me.  They have this pretty gray floral print on one side.

And the other side is a surprise! Tie-dye and a nice blue print fabric. These came at the perfect time. Dennis only had one mask for work and I had to wash it every night. This way I have a little more time to get each one washed as he’ll have one to wear one day and another the next. Thank you so much Cindy. My sewing machine is all packed up and I was having difficulty finding elastic anywhere.

And this meme just plain cracked me up. Any husband worth his salt knows better than to answer the question like this.  😂😂😂

I did finish a baby blanket today to give to the hospital once they’re accepting donations again.  It’s not the greatest photo since I took it just now, well after dark, but it gives you the idea of what it looks like.  The angle is wonky but it’s actually square, 33 x 33 inches.

I have hung my crocheted summer flowers garland on the island in the trailer.  It makes it feel more like home.

I baked a coffee cake for breakfast today and we shared it with Larry and Nita.  I also baked from “scratch” some chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. I love the oven in my new trailer as it is easy to light and works great for a travel trailer.  I rarely used the one in the other trailer.

And now it’s 11:15 and I need to go to bed. Take care my friends and stay safe.

Blessings,

Betsy

So far, so good

Just popping in to let you know things are so far, so good with Dennis. It’s been eight days since his one on one meeting with the person who has tested positive. The bad news is, four more people have tested at his office and have not received their results yet. They were all in a meeting with the gentleman who tested positive and none of them had masks on at the time. Two of the four have been sick since Friday and two have had no symptoms as of yet.  Believe me, the rules have gotten much stricter now. Dennis was careful before, but now everyone is being especially careful and staying away from everyone else as much as possible.

Our house appraisal was this morning, so I drove into town about noon and started taking all of the pictures off the walls and patching holes. I have another load to take to the Goodwill tomorrow when I go back to the house to finish packing up the last of the pictures and the decorations that we had out for the appraisal. We took two loads of furniture to friends from church, plus our mattresses to storage after Dennis got off work. Tomorrow night we will take the kitchen table to some other people.  I have a few family pieces that I am planning to take to Mandy‘s house in Omaha that will go to Larry and Nita‘s house tomorrow evening for storage until we are able to travel.  The rest of the furniture will go to our neighbors from Afghanistan.

It has been so hot the past couple of days and tomorrow is supposed to be close to 100. We hope to be done with most things by the end of the week, although our closing isn’t for a couple of weeks yet. We just want to be done with most of our responsibilities.  Dennis will still be doing the lawn care, but hopefully the inside will be ready to go.

Sunday Dennis put a new kitchen faucet in our little trailer.  The old one was a cheap plastic.  Doesn’t this one look nice?  We’re planning to take this small camper to Omaha when we can travel, so we can avoid hotels and restaurants.

Chloe and Sophie were working on their suntans on Saturday. Sophie still thinks Chloe is her mama.  I love how she lays with her back legs out like frog legs!

And now I need to go to bed. It’s been a long, hot and busy day. Take care everyone and I’ll check back in with you in a few days. I think I was able to comment on everyone’s blogs tonight, but I was very late in doing so. I’ll do my best over the next couple of days.

I do want to thank you all for your wonderful comments and prayers and good wishes on my last post. I am continually amazed by the wonderful friends I’ve made here in blog land.

Blessings and love,

Betsy