Happy birthday to my brother-in-law Mark Nading, my youngest sister Jody's husband! Hope your day was great Mark!
So today I had a list of things I wanted to get done. I got started right after breakfast . First on the list was to defrost the freezer. In the past I've used the hair dryer to blow warm air on the areas that iced up but it seemed to take a long time. I was reading an article in one of the RV blogs I follow that it is better to turn off the unit, leave the doors open and after 10-15 minutes it should come off pretty easy. It worked and while I waited for it to thaw I was able to do several other things - laundry (it's never ending - ha!). Once the freezer was done, we had some lunch. Afterwards, I took everything out of the refrigerator - a shelve at a time to clean it thoroughly inside, taking time to wipe down every container that was left inside. By now it was time to wash another load of clothes.
With that done, the vacuum came out and the entire RV looked much better when I was finished!
We invited Jack and Lynette over for dinner tonight. Dean is going to grill salmon filets, I will saute veggies inside (not enough room on the grill) and I made a salad of lettuce and tomatoes. It was nice enough to sit outside to eat which works well since we don't have much room inside Bentley for all of us to eat, although we can make it work if we need to.
Once we were done, I set the dishes inside and we walked to the clubhouse to play card bingo. What fun that was! A deck of cards is dealt to 4 people (typically two couples), for 13 cards each. There were 42 people playing tonight, so there was also 2 groups of 3 each.
Dorothy, the bingo caller, had a LARGE deck of cards that she called and held up for everyone to see as well. It was a lot more fun than just normal bingo. Diane and Steve played with Dean and I. All of them won ---- except me! It doesn't bother me though - it's more about having a good time and laughing with friends.
We are really having a great time here in the Rio Grande Valley!
Monday, February 18, 2019 - To-Do's, Another Evening Show;
Today I had a list of To-Do's that I needed to tackle. First of all I needed to call to order a prescription so I will be sure to get it before we leave - it should be here by Wednesday.
On Saturday after my Friday appointment with the chiropractor, I realized that I had a conflict with the 8:30 appointment I made with the chiropractor for tomorrow, so I was able to get it changed until 11:00 on Tuesday.
I made reservations for our next three stops when we leave here on Sunday, February 24 - at Rockport/Port Aransas; and Katy - both in Texas, and Kinder, LA.
I made phone calls to Microsoft to cancel Office 365 since I no longer use it; called SirrusXM to seek a better rate than the automatic renewal offers and was able to extend the current price for another six months.
I needed to mail a few things - a birthday card to Crystal, a few things we purchased for Cindy and Elmer, and also Heath (Dean's oldest son). I need to get some tape before we take them to the post office, but they are ready to go once we get it.
Next item - cleaning the shower. If you haven't tried using 1 part Dawn with 1 part white vinegar to clean your shower, give it a try. It's amazing how it cuts soap scum. I use it every 3-4 days, with a quick rinse in between. The shower sparkles when I'm done and it's a pretty quick job. Since our shower in the RV has a shower head with a hose, it sure is easy to wash it down too. I wish I'd had them in the sticks and bricks house. How much easier it would have been to clean the showers, and they will definitely be in any future home we have.
After dinner, (with Jack driving) the four of us left, stopping long enough for Diane and Steve to follow us as we headed to Aladdin Villas Ballroom to hear Jason Coleman, grandson of Floyd Cramer play music made famous by his granddad. What a great evening it was. Jason was a great entertainer, learning to play the piano by ear at the age of 3. At 9 he performed with his Granddad, Floyd Cramer, on the Ralph Emery Show. The entire show was great. If you have the chance to go see him - do it! It brought back memories of my stepmom Peggy. She loved Floyd Cramer's music and had several of his albums.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 - Bible Study; Chiropractor; Lunch with Friends; Updating the Blog
At about 7:30 we stepped out to walk - and it was raining, light enough we couldn't hear it inside, but enough it was too much to walk in. I hate missing a day. After my morning chores (dishes, making the bed, you know the routine stuff), I walked to the clubhouse for my last Bible Study with the group here at Val's. Fortunately, by then it was only misting, so I didn't mind the walk. I will sure miss this group and look forward to our return next year. Kim has done a great job.
My chiropractic appointment was at 11:00 so I left here at 10:30. I just had a couple of areas needing some small adjustments so I hope when I go back Friday everything is looking really good. I'm still doing my exercises every morning for about 30 minutes and I think they are really helping.
Once I got back to the RV, we ate an apple, and then we ran out to do a few errands. We are going to have an early dinner so we didn't want to eat too much but thought we needed something since breakfast was several hours ago. I had a list of things for Walmart - even though I prefer going to HEB for groceries, some of the things I needed I could not get there so the one stop shop won again. It was a matter of time savings today as we need to be back by 2:30 or so. We also stopped at the post office to mail the packages I mentioned in yesterday's post. I had to wait in line for about 20 minutes. I couldn't believe how busy that post office was. They had four tellers working, but I have to admit they move you through pretty fast and were very cheerful and helpful.
I tried to send a voice text to Pam through the truck's media system, as I was driving back, but it wasn't working, so I gave up and waited until I got back and called her. I told her we were home. She said they would be here in 10 minutes. They took us to an Italian restaurant in Harlingen - called Stefano's Brooklyn Pizza. Here's some pictures of our meal - well, except the dessert - it wasn't ours. The waitress saw me taking pictures and wanted to know if I wanted to take a picture of it too, so I did. It looked good and I would have loved to have tried it, but.....no can do!
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| Dennis' stromboli, and the rolls they served with marinara sauce before our meal came. |
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| Dean's chicken alfredo |
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| Pam's Cajun chicken |
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| My fish tacos. |
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| This dessert looked wonderful, but it wasn't ours! |
I definitely would like to come back to Stefano's next year so I can try the pasta. I do pretty good on this diet and I don't miss the bread/potatoes much, but I sure do miss the pasta and desserts. I'm trying to maintain it until I see my doctor in April and see the results. Dean's order was enough food we could have both shared it; in fact, he brought about a third of it home.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - Morning Walk A Little Cool, Window Mechanical Repair, Shopping Hidalgo Again, Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Even though the temperatures yesterday and this morning were right around 50, it was great for walking and we had our two miles done in about 40 minutes. Yesterday it never got much past 60, but today it is a little warmer - it might have hit 65-68, but at 4:13 it's already dropped to 63. People are out walking all times of the day here in the park and many set outside visiting throughout the day.
Earlier this week, Dean went to open our large window and the piece that you push/pull to open and close the window fell off. Right now he's cleaning the grooves where the glass slides, hoping to make it easier for it to open. If he can get the part that attaches to the window back on, he's hoping it will work, but we aren't sure if it will or not. The part seems to be twisted. It's always been hard to open but we've been able to do it, but now....well, life in an RV. What can I say? Even with all of this we do love it and hope to continue doing this full-time travel for a few more years. We'll still travel, we'll just have a home base at some point. (Update: Dean got the piece back on the window and it is now working better than it ever has! My husband can fix anything - that's what his boys always told me - and yes, he really can!)
Dean and I headed to Hidalgo again this morning to look for some appliances for daughter-in-law Megan and daughter Misti. We found everything they wanted - and I was really surprised. When I go I'm looking for what I want, and don't really pay much attention to anything else. I guess I should look more - but then again, I might want more! Only so much room in Bentley and I'm going to have the floor behind the table full again - but only for a month. I can live with that, especially for these two ladies!
I think I'm going to make a cauliflower crust pizza tonight for dinner. I hope it tastes as good as the one at the Brick Fire Pizza did. I'll let you know how it comes out.
Yesterday when we were at Walmart I bought some toothpaste. It rained off and on most of the morning and the cart was wet. Shortly after I picked up the toothpaste and put it in the basket, we walked on to the next aisle. A few minutes later I felt something on my fingers that was pretty slimy. I thought it came off the cart. I had some wet ones in my purse, so I wiped the cart off - where my hands would be touching it as best I could. When we got home I went to put the toothpaste up and realized that the toothpaste was the problem with the sliminess, not something on the cart. It will be going back to the store for a refund next time we go. Not only that, it appeared there were two packages for the price of one - but when I got it home, evidently they were just stuck together because it was leaking, so I paid for two packages, not just one. Both packages were covered with toothpaste so they are both going back. Ugh!
Our friends we met this year here at Val's, Diane and Steve, who are also from Kansas just bought a park model here in the park. I am really happy for them. They have been full-timing for 4 years. They will keep their motorhome, since they have a daughter on the Gulf Coast and 2 of their girls are still in Kansas, so they will move back and forth, as well as still make other travels around the country. I hope they get possession of it before we leave Sunday, so we can peek at it.
I walked up to the clubhouse to see if my medicine had arrived but it wasn't there. I'll probably get it tomorrow. On the way back, the UPS truck stopped at our site; our mail forwarded from Pittsburg arrived. As I went through it, I found mail from someone else for the 5-6th time now. It's the same person's mail we always get - someone who is actually here in the valley but we don't have time to make a run over to drop it off to them with the schedule we have right now. It just really upsets me since I've asked our mail service repeatedly to please be sure they double check it before sending it to us. I think we will definitely change our mailing address next year, even though it's a lot of work. This time we will go with a service that will scan the envelopes so we can see what mail we have, which will give us more options on what to send or toss, possibly saving us some postage - and the rate will be less as well.
Dean asked me at about 5:30-6:00 if we were going to have dinner. I had lost all track of time trying to get this blog post completed so it would finally be current. I stopped long enough to fix dinner. I decided to make a pizza with a cauliflower crust. It requires 1 cup mozzarella cheese, 1 egg and the riced cauliflower. I bought frozen cauliflower since I have no way to rice it. It actually tasted pretty good, but I will make it a little different next time. I will bake it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. It stuck to the pan which required a little extra elbow grease to get it off. I also would make sure the cauliflower was blotted better to make sure all the moisture was removed.
Later in the evening I was looking for a picture and ended up reminiscing in my old picture files on my phone. We sure do miss our grandkids. I sent emails to a few of them with old pictures attached. Our granddaughter Kamron responded to a picture I sent of her when she was dancing to a video on our Wii. It was so cute. She sent me a note that it made her laugh and thanked me for sending it - which resulted in several emails back and forth before she finally called me and we talked for almost 45 minutes. We had a lot of fun talking about the pictures I sent her from back when she was only 3 or 4. She's now 13. We look forward to seeing them all when we get back to Kansas! Pictures are really a wonderful thing!
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