Projects

I have ordered new tires for the Mazda and they will be put on tomorrow.  Then to schedule an oil change and air filters changed as well.  A good clean out and it will be ready for whatever my next trip turns out to be.  In answer to a question in the comments, I travel in the Mazda and only move the motorhome betwwen my summer and winter spots.

The motorhome has a few this and thats to be taken care of.  A couple of drawers need to be repaired and a cable looked after.  Mechanical stuff on it was done last year.

The rest of the projects involve sorting and getting rid of stuff and having what I use where I use it.  Ongoing project with no end in sight.

I bought a spiralizer this week and I've gotten some veggies to play with.  Cooking may be featured here again.  Depends on how it turns out.  Friends in MN also gave me a vacuum seal a meal so I can put leftovers into the freezer.  The plan is less commercial fast food in my diet and more home made fast food.

The baby blanket I'm knitting is slowly getting finished.  Pictures once it is presented to the Mom to be.

Summer winds down.  Will someone please tell the temperatures it is time to cool down?

Wait, its August already?

The trip up to MN for Phyllis' service was delightfully uneventfull.  The service was nice and the lunch afterwards was good.  Local folks were asked to bring a dessert that either started with Phyllis or that it was known to be a favorite of hers.  Phyllis liked to have desert with every meal so there were lots of offerings.

On the way home I spent a few days visiting family in MO.  It was nice to have time to just visit.

Once I got home it occurred to me that it is time to finish up all the projects I had planned for this summer.  Luckily there are over 2 months until it is time to head back down to the Valley.  To say I'm behind schedule is an understatement.  I still spend most mornings just sitting with Bosley cat and drinking coffee and knitting.  I am making a baby present that needs to get finished this week so it can get to the baby shower in time.

Mom and I changed cell phone providers this week and we are getting used to new phones.  This post will be a test to see how this phone works to make blog postings.

Heading East

I am watching the start of a nice sunrise at a rest area in Colorado. I'm heading to MN via family in MO. I've spent the night driving and napping in various rest areas. Kansas should be interesting on little sleep.

Sent from my Huawei Mobile

Phyllis Lundeen

Phyllis was referred to in this blog as Favorite Neighbor.  I try not to 'out' people who don't blog as they may not want to be known online.  This picture was from when I visited her at the rehab center where she was staying when I was up in MN in May.

Phyllis passed last week.  She was, I believe, 93.  During our visit she patted me and told me "You are still ours, you still belong to us."  Back when we both lived in Mesa, her as a snowbird, she always treated me as family.  Her son and daughter in law have followed suit, and included Mom once she moved into the same park.  On Tuesday I will again drive up to MN to attend her memorial service.  Mom is sending cookies to add to the meal served after the service.  I've been informed I will be sitting with the family.  I will be saying goodby to a good friend.

Rod Ivers, who we lost a few years ago, used to really enjoy taking Phyllis and I out for dinner when the two of them were living down here in AZ as snowbirds.  I still miss him and I miss the fun of trying different restaurants with him and Phyllis.  I remember he specifically bought a small step stool to help Phyllis, who was shorter than I even, climb into his 4 door Jeep Wrangler.  It is the simple things like that I miss.

In a twist of fate, Phyllis' memorial service is the same day as Norma Randle's Celebration of Life up in Canada.  I will be thinking of all of them, as Croft and Norma used to park right behind Phyllis' mobile home at the park in Mesa and we were all intertwined in various adventures as the winter snowbird seasons progressed.

Once was lost but now is found

My phone, that is.  I spent last night down in the Valley, and had fun visiting friends and shopping and spending the night at the casino, free for the room but very not free once I gambled.   I got a call while on the way home this afternoon, which I safely answered, and it was Mom's doctor calling my number (backup contact) by mistake.  I knew I had the phone at that point.  I stopped and got water at the water kiosk as I came through town.  Once I unloaded the car I started to call Mom to verify that the doctor had called her.  No phone.

A neighbor called my phone while I listened in the car and in the RV.  Silence.  I drove back to the strip mall where I got water, no broken phone where I had parked.  I asked in the closest stores.  No one had turned it in.  I did get lots of sympathy.  I honestly could not remember if I had locked the car while at the water kiosk, and the phone was on the seat in the busy parking lot.

I drove to Mom's house to let her know I was unable to be reached via my phone.  I called Consumer Cellular from her phone as we are both on the same account.  The customer service rep was very sympathetic and suspended my account so that it could be reactivated if I found the phone.  He also arranged to send me a new sim card as I have a couple of older phones I can use until I figure out what I want long term.

Once that was done, I started thinking about what all I had lost.  All the pictures from my trips, all the many pictures of the elk around here.  My games, since I don't log into facebook to keep track of my progress anyplace other than my phone.  I've played some of them for 3 years.  I don't buy any extras or pay any money for the games.  Google Play has no record of any of my credit cards, good for a lost phone but no way to track ownership.  sigh.

I used to work on computers.  I know how hardware can just stop working, get lost or stolen or just break.  I preach backups, constantly.  I just don't listen myself. 

I also started thinking about the financial websites I have set up to remember my logins from my phone, as well as two email accounts of my own and also Mom's.  The phone was locked, but I used to run around with computer hackers.  I know that nothing is un-hackable.

I came home and started changing passwords from my computer.  Once site wasn't playing nice.  I started looking for my other laptop to log in to see if I'd changed the password or not. I turned around and saw my phone on the counter, black phone on a black stove cover.

I will still change many passwords.  I may even start logging my games into facebook.  I will definitely back up the pictures, and continue to do so on a regular basis.

And, I may fix myself a drink.

Summertime

This older cow elk is almost the park pet. We have a herd of between 6 to 8 cows and a couple of juvenile bucks that graze around the neighborhood. Yesterday I saw 3 babies with the herd of cows. This cow seems to be old and on her own.

Sent from my Huawei Mobile

Picture for Al in Bayfield

I'm in MN and saw a local solution(?) to the squirrel in the feeders war.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

I'm in MN

Mom and I got to my Aunt's place. There are a couple of stories, but I don't want to go into it right now. Forgetting about the second hour of time change when looking at radar and planning to out run a storm by less than an hour makes for an exciting trip.

I got into my friends' place about an hour ago and am soon to be fed. I'll stay here for a few days and then go back to MO and visit more with family before heading back to AZ.

Sent from my Huawei Mobile

Plans and Progress

It is a cold, rainy day here.  I have the furnace cranked up.  This is better than 100* days.  Mom and I are heading back East at the end of this week.  Mom is already packed.  I'm getting there.  A neighbor is going to feed Bosley.  I have a couple of cases of his food already here, and I got 7 gallons of filtered water from the water kiosk today.  He should be good to go.  I also have a newly opened box of litter for the fancy automatic litter box.  I'm clearing and cleaning the motor home.  Laundry was done yesterday, hand laundry is drying as I type.  What few important or valuable (to me) things I have are being put into the storage unit while I'm gone.

The progress is that the car will be packed with 'good stuff' to take to younger cousins.  A nice set of dishes that are too big to use in the RV, some of my smaller professional clothes, a few art supplies I'll never get around to using going to one of my cousins who is showing a lot of art talent.  It is a start, and a cut deeper into my stuff in storage.  A younger friend here asked why I'm spending so much time getting going through my stuff and getting rid of things rather than doing 'fun' stuff with my time.  I guess the answer is that this is what I feel I need to do right now.  A bunch of fancy skin care stuff I haven't used since I quit working hit the trash last week.  Other expired things are following suit.  It feels like progress.

Breaking Radio Silence

I'm up in my summer spot.  I was immediately knocked to my knees with allergies for the first time in my life.  I blew my nose non-stop for 2 weeks and it took me awhile to get over all the allergy medicine I took trying to control the symptoms.  I have never had to take any of that stuff before.  Anyway, then I had to get back to doing all the stuff that I had not been doing for 3 weeks.  I'm almost back to what passes for normal for me.

I'm doing this post from Blogger rather than email (my preferred way since Live Journal died) as I'm going to have to do some major renovation of my blog.  Photobucket has locked me out of being able to deleted the pictures down to the number they allow in a free account.  I'm going to upload the pictures from May of 2009, when I learned how to insert pictures, until I started using Live Journal which put the pictures in the post without the Photobucket middle man.  Most folks started reading after Live Journal, but my Honduras pictures will have to be re-inserted.  I have the pictures, I just have to get them back into the blog.

It is difficult for me to go back and read my blog.  I have a lot of less than optimal lifestyle decisions going on in there.  I ended up ok, but boy, was it painful at times.  I guess that is the good/bad of having a blog for over 10 years.  I need to get the pictures thing sorted  before June 1 when the pictures become blurred unless I pay them ransom.