The last two posts have been pretty long with a full week's worth of information so I'm going to try to post more often. Eventually, I hope to post on a daily basis.
We didn't walk again this morning because I wanted to get inside the house to start sorting some other things. I remembered the end tables have another storage area that folds out from the back that I'm pretty sure was full of magazines and such that I need to toss.
I removed all the drawers from the desk, dressers, end tables and night stands so they would be easier to carry to the trailer we will be using. I also gathered up other items, my stand mixer which Misti will be using, a floor lamp, and a few other decorative items to take to Misti's as well.
At 9, I called my Aunt and she said we could bring the desk anytime so we loaded it up and delivered it. It was about 9:40 when we returned. I checked with Misti to be sure she would be here about 10 to load the other items and she said she'd be here soon. When she arrived, we first had to move a HUGE, HEAVY, OLD TV off of the chest of drawers in our bedroom.
I don't know how Dean and I ever managed to get that thing up on that chest of drawers several years ago, but we must have had more muscle than we do today. Misti and Dean were taking it down when it pitched forward slightly. I happened to be standing in front of it and it bumped my head - fortunately, they managed to right it and they got it onto an adjustable table Dean uses in his shop, and then lowered it on down to my cedar chest and then to the floor. No harm done to my head or the TV! This was by far the hardest thing we had to do. I'm glad sons Heath and Brett will be here Friday to help Dean get it out of the house.
Once that was out of the way, the rest of the furniture was a piece of cake to load. We had to make two trips to Misti's. Dean also delivered the new headboard he made her. Here's a picture of it.
It looks great. We moved quite a bit of furniture to her house. While Dean put the headboard on the bed, Misti and I rearranged the furniture in the living room. I thought it looked pretty good when we were done.
By the time we got home it was time for lunch so we ate a quick sandwich. My son called and wanted to know if we planned to be in Parsons at all today. If so, he had a board he needed to go to my sister Cindy's husband, Elmer for a project he is working on; and he wanted to know if I could pick it up and take it to him. I had not planned to go to Parsons but after I got off the phone with Marc, I took a look to see if there was anything I really needed to get and once I realized how low we were on several things, we decided we would make a WalMart run after all. I also decided I would just buy a dessert there rather than make one since I have so much going on right now.
Since we were going to Parsons, we decided to also stop in Altamont on the way, at the storage unit we rented last week. Dean wanted to be sure that the two metal cabinets he had would not be too tall to fit in the unit---and we were happy to know they will work!
After getting the things we needed at WalMart, we drove to Marc and Jen's. Of course I never mind making the trip because it means we can also see the two munchkins - Kamron and Jaxson. We visited with both of them for a little bit and got lots of hugs, heard all about their Halloween trick or treating - Kamron went with her friends for the first time this year and Jaxson went with dad. They both said they had a great time. Their mom Jen, was in Wichita last week for training. I asked Kamron if they were glad she was home - with a big grin she said "Oh Yeah!!!" I know Jen was missing them too!
We remembered to grab the board we needed to take to Elmer as we left. We ran by Cindy and Elmer's when we returned to Oswego. They were not home so we left the board for them and I texted Cindy to let her know where it was.
By the time we got home it was 4:00 and we were both too tired to go back to working inside the house. We rested for about an hour and then Dean took care of dinner. He grilled cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries. They were delicious!
I took this picture of the mums in the backyard while he was making dinner. I planted these several years ago when we moved in and I've been trying to get them to spread. They have not quite filled the spot up, but this is the best showing they have had and for the first time are really loaded with blooms.
Tomorrow is my day to host my sisters, so I'll get up early and head into the house before church to get a few things done.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
This morning the clocks fall back an hour from this year's daylight saving time. I still woke up at what is yet my normal time - so instead of 4:30 or 5:00, I was awake at 3:30. After having my coffee, and eating breakfast I headed inside to straighten some things up after the mess we made yesterday moving furniture items out.
In addition, I want to set out things I know I am not keeping so my sisters and my daughter can look through them while they are here today. Anything left will be going to Chetopa and I hope this will be my last trip.
I intended to make a homemade cheesecake in my Instapot for our snack tomorrow but I was just too tired and felt I was stretching myself a bit thin to get everything done, so yesterday I bought the lowest carb cheesecake I could find at WalMart. One tiny piece has 20 carbs! - but most of them (much larger sized pieces) had over 45 carbs. I'll give everyone two slices because they are really, really small and I'll just eat the one. (By the way, it wasn't too bad for a cheesecake from a deli).
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| Small serving of cheesecake. |
After finishing my chores in the house I returned to Bentley, showered and got ready for church, then read a few emails until it was time to leave. I enjoyed the drive this morning - the countryside was pretty even though the sun was hidden by clouds. There was no fog but it almost looked like a haze that just gave the whole area a muted look.
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| Countryside on my way to church this morning. |
The Oswego Methodist Church held their annual chicken and noodle dinner today, so after church I ran by the Community Center to pick up meals for Dean and Misti. I decided to stick with my diet today and pass up the meal -- which was not easy, since this is one of my favorite meals provided by a community organization.
I visited with a few people while I was there and then hurried home as I knew I had a couple of hungry people waiting for me. I heated up some of the lasagna I made the other day for my lunch, and then Misti and I took our food and the cheesecake into the house so we'd be there when my sisters showed up. This will be my last sisterfest at this house, since it will belong to someone else by the end of November. Only sisters Cindy and Jody were here. Crystal and her husband will be taking Dempsey back home today. Unfortunately, neither my sisters or Misti took much from the stack of things I laid out for them to look through, so I'll be taking alot of things to Chetopa later this week.
After everyone left, I headed to Bentley to find Dean watching TV. He was getting ready to turn the channel to watch the Chiefs play the Cowboys. Something about football makes him hungry for popcorn and he was getting out the new popcorn popper to make a big batch. When we were in Joplin last week we bought some liquid popcorn butter to try and it tasted much better than just melting butter and pouring over it.
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| New microwave popcorn popper. |
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| Collapsible |
We are really enjoying this popper - thanks again to Mark of Our Future in an RV for mentioning it in a post awhile back and how much they liked it. We learn so much from other RV blogs!
Once we finished off the popcorn and while he was enjoying the game I decided to get some chores done: cutting up romaine lettuce for us to use in salads this week, making hard boiled eggs in my Instapot, separated the ham and turkey sandwich meat I bought yesterday in to 3 packets each and put them in the freezer to keep them fresh, and cut up some celery for us to snack on over the next few days.
We were too full after the popcorn to have dinner so later in the evening we just had a dessert of Jello white chocolate pudding (no sugar, no fat) while we watched the newest Hallmark Christmas show tonight, "Miss Christmas". Since starting this low carb diet I learned milk has carbs but whipping cream does not - so now I use 1 cup milk and 1 cup whipping (heavy) cream to make the pudding. Amazing how much better it tastes! Who knew?
Monday, November 6, 2017
I've been writing some everyday since Saturday for the blog but have not managed to finish them in time to post, but will do so after this one. I'm writing this on Tuesday morning - now Tuesday night, and I'm determined to get it finished.
Monday is my laundry day, so before we walked this morning, Dean and I carried all of the laundry inside the house. I sorted it and put the first load in before we headed to Riverside Park. It was pretty breezy along the bluff as we walked but once we were out of the wind it wasn't bad at all. We walked 2.2 miles with an average time of 17:09 min/mile. It's the first time we've walked since November 1! It felt good to be back at it.
I took several pictures this morning on our walk. Oswego is very fortunate to have beautiful trees and our park is just loaded with many of these beauties. I wanted to get some pictures before they lose their leaves and of course I have to share them with you.
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| The city's RV Park |
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| Entrance into the park. |
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| Overlook on the bluff with Neosho River below. |
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| From the bluff overlooking farmland to the northeast. |
We are having another community meal today and at 11:00 I headed to the Labette County Courthouse to pick up meals for Dean and I. The Labette County Relay for Life Team is having a fundraiser. They are serving chili with all of the fixings, a vegetable tray, and dessert. Of course the food was great and I enjoy not having to cook a meal, especially with so much going on.
As I've been thinking about things we need to get done before the house sale is completed, I realized we are almost out of checks. While we don't use near as many as we used to since we have debit cards, we do still need them and with only 3 left I need to do something soon. However, before we order any new ones we need to determine what our new mailing address will be, so we decided to drive to Pittsburg, KS to set up an address through "The UPS Store". This is a mail forwarding service that will collect our mail for whatever period of time we want, and will send it to us at a location where we know we will be staying while we are on the road. I will call them to determine what mail needs to be forwarded to us. They will hold the remaining items if we want and we can pick it up when we are back in the area - or we can choose to have them throw away items we know we do not want or need.
The UPS address will not be our physical address. We will continue to use Oswego as our home base, since we will spend 3-4 months here throughout the year. We will stay at the RV Park owned by my cousin and will utilize it as our physical address for the purpose of driver's licenses, voting, etc. The mail service is only for the purpose of having our daily mail forwarded to us as needed. We do not want to burden family members with that chore.
Once we returned home I continued to work on getting the laundry completed and moving some more things between the house and Bentley. This will probably be an ongoing thing for awhile as we decide what we really need with us in the RV. I've already determined there are more things I will be taking out of Bentley. If I find that we need them when we return here in April, we can put them back in. I expect if the truth is known we'll take more things out of Bentley when we return in the spring than we will be adding. If it's not used we do not need to haul it around!
I received a call from the buyer of our house this afternoon letting me know an exterminator will be out one day this week to inspect for termites and we discussed a closing date. Dean's two oldest boys, Heath and Brett, will help move most of our stuff this Friday to the storage unit we have rented. After I talked to Dean about it we felt we would be able to have any remaining items out of the house by the following weekend so we agreed Monday, November 20 would work for a closing date. Wow, I can't believe it - in just two weeks we will be full-time RV'ers. I know the young couple purchasing it will be thrilled to get in it before the holiday since it will give them a long weekend to get settled in before returning to work.
When I think back on how we reached this point, it started when I ran across a few RV blogs sometime between April-June 2013, shortly before I retired. This is when I first learned about people actually living in their RV full-time as they traveled. I was intrigued right from the beginning. We knew that we wanted to buy an RV and travel, but the thought of living in it full-time had never entered my mind, let alone Dean's.
Just thinking about being able to travel and experiencing the beauty of so many places here in our amazing nation has always been something I've wanted to do, and fortunately Dean likes the idea too. We have traveled somewhere every year since we've been married but one or two weeks does not always adequately provide the time needed to enjoy everything we'd like and get in much relaxation. We were often tired and ready for a vacation of rest when we returned home.
Since we've been traveling in Bentley - starting in March 2014 after we retired, we have enjoyed slowing our travels down and really enjoy many more of the sights in the areas we have visited, rather than those short vacations previous years provided us. As we have spent more and more time in Bentley, and with the decision to winter in the south for an additional 3 months each year it no longer made much sense to keep a house that we are using for only 2-4 months out of the year. We love Bentley's small space that requires little upkeep, we enjoy spending time together, and we enjoy being in nature and all of the beautiful scenery we have experienced. We have met so many like minded friends as we all share the common bond of the RV experience. At this point we don't know if this will be something we do for a few years, or we might find we enjoy it so much that we continue it for many years. Only time will tell, but we intend to make the most of the adventure!
I hope you all will continue to follow along.
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