11-29 Where is the sun?

It's raining again

For the last couple of days it's been drizzling all day. We didn't have any errands to do so we bundled up in a blanket and stayed home. I read and worked on our annual adventure books. Larry played with his new tablet and Flo slept.

We had bought Louise a new tablet for her birthday and it was so much faster than our old one that Larry wanted to buy a new one. The other day he ordered a Nexus 7 by ASUS from Amazon and received it the very next day, it wasn't suppose to arrive for a couple of days so he was quite surprised. Yesterday he updated the operating system to Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and then loaded all the apps. He is very impressed with the new tablet and the more he plays and reads about it the more excited he gets.

Nexus 7

For the last few days Flo has been wanting to go for a walk but it has been raining so I told her we couldn't. Since Larry had to chase her down the other day whenever I let her out I've been watching her just to make sure she doesn't wonder off. When I let her out after lunch she decided that she was tired of waiting for the rain to stop so down the road to the lake she started to go. I caught up with her and tired to get her to go home but she refused. I ran back to the house to get her leash and by the time I got back she was three doors down the road. I put the leash on her and she still refused to go home. She is old and her hips are very weak so I didn't want to pull too hard and make her fall. Instead I gave into her and we walked to the lake. The rain was coming down pretty steady and I was grateful I had brought the umbrella. We walked down the ramp to the lake but she didn't go swimming, she just sniffed around. We were there about a half hour and she just soaked her feet. She had a hard time climbing up the hill from the ramp but we took our time and she made it. By the time she got up the hill the rain was coming down harder and she was limping a little. When we got home she was soaked and she was exhausted, the rest of the day she slept.

When it was time for dinner I barbecued seasoned chicken and baked dinner rolls. Our back porch is covered excepted for where the grill is. I lite the grill before I put it under the covered area in order to barbecue. The chicken was delicious.   

Last night we watched a comedy drama starring Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche. It was about an art teacher and an English teachers rivalry about what is more important, pictures or words. It was a cute chick flick. This evening we watched a documentary called Murder of Couriers, it was about a group of bike couriers in Vancouver Canada, it  covered a three-year span. We also watched a documentary off HULU on Amy Winehouse titled Final Good-bye, it was about the life and death of a British singer and songwriter. It was a very good documentary. The last couple of days have been very relaxing.

Watching television      

Black Friday 11-27

Lets go shopping

It's Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. We woke up to another day of rain. Larry went out and got the paper and let Flo out. Flo wasn't doing her regular routine so Larry kept an eye on her. Good thing he did because she decided she wanted to go for a walk towards the lake. So Larry had to chase her down and bring her back in the house. We do have the Invisible Fence but Flo's hearing is about gone so I haven't been putting her collar on considering she can't hear the beep before the shock happens. Occasionally she'll leave the yard but usually she just goes on the lot next to the house to eat grass.

batteries we bought

After we had breakfast we loaded Flo into the car and went to town. The only thing we needed from the Black Friday specials were AA batteries. Off to Lowe's we went but before stopping there we stopped at The Home Depot to pick up a digital tire gauge for $4.88. Then we went to Lowe's and picked up a couple of packs of Rayovac 36 AA batteries for $5.97 a piece. That was our entire Black Friday purchases, batteries and a tire gauge.

Freshly baked bread

Sliced it

It rained all day and as the day went on the temperature dropped. Last night I put a loaf of bread from the freezer in the refrigerator to thaw. This afternoon I put it at room temperature to let it rise. When it was finished rising I baked it. The problem when I bake fresh bread is it's so delicious we eat the whole loaf in one day. In the evening we watched a movie called The Last Legion, which was about the crumbling of the Roman Empire. It starred Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Larry submitted two reviews for the Home Depot Seeds program. His review on the Ring Video Doorbell was fairly lengthy and out of all the reviews he has done over the years it was the first one where he said he would not recommend the item.

11-26 Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. We woke up with more rain this morning so we stayed around the house. Last Sunday we celebrated Thanksgiving with Louise and Autumn so I didn't cook a big meal today. I have a lot to be thankful for. My life is full of happiness and joy. I have been with my husband Larry for 38 years and I still thinks he's great. While hanging around the house we listened to The Village and one of the songs they played was Alice's Restaurant sung by Arlo Guthrie. It was the perfect song for the day because it was about a event that happened on Thanksgiving. I finished reading Red Knife and started Personal Injuries by Scott Turow. In the evening we watched a couple of episodes of TED TV and a couple of movies. One of the movies was The Secret Garden starring Kate Maberly, Maggie Smith and Heydon Prowse, it was about a British girl born and raised in India who loses her parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live with on her uncle's estate. It was a cute movie. The other movie was Song of the Sea, which was a cute cartoon for children. We had a relaxing day. 

11-25 The Rain Came Back

A Rainy Day

Got up this morning and it was raining but we went to town anyway. While in town we stopped by Aldi and picked up a Mama Cozzis pizza for dinner. During the day I read and Larry completed installing his wireless video doorbell. In the evening we watched a couple of programs from Amazon, the first was a documentary called Happy People - A Year in the Taiga, it was about trappers in Siberia Russia, we enjoyed it, there were some subtitles and I am not sure why it was titled Happy People. We then watched a short cartoon film called Room on the Broom.

We have had a SiriusXM satellite radio subscription for many years.  At one time we had three subscriptions but when Sirius and XM combined they removed our favorite channel, it was a folk channel called The Village. Each service had a folk channel but after combining they killed the Sirius channel and made The Village a online only channel. This caused us to cancel two of our subscriptions. Our other subscription is a lifetime plan that is assigned to a radio that we move back and forth from the pickup to the motor-home. Our new car has SiriusXM built in but we don't pay for a subscription. They are currently having a free listening session until December 2nd so as we were driving around town we had the radio tuned to a Sirius station. We were talking about how we really used to like The Village so later in the day Larry signed us up for the online service. If we find we are not using it we will cancel the service. Over the years we have tried lot's of different services for the house; Rdio, Google Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify and some that I don't remember, we always seem to go back to Pandora. We also have quite an extensive collection of our own music that we mainly listen to when we travel.

11-24 No Square Dancing

Let's go for a walk

 This morning it wasn't as cold, it was in the 40's. We didn't have anything planned for the day so we decided to beat the Thanksgiving rush and do our weekly grocery shopping. We loaded Flo into the car and off to HEB we went, for those that don't know HEB is the largest grocery chain in Texas. It is named after Howard Edward Butt (HEB), for many years they only had stores in Texas but have now expanded into northern Mexico. They started in 1905 and are one of America's largest privately owned companies, the current CEO is Charles Butt. After picking up a few things we swung by The UPS Store to get our mail. We had a couple of packages waiting but we could only pick up one because the other one was too long to fit in the car. When we got home I put the groceries away and then made soup for lunch.

HEB mascot

Larry is still doing The Home Depot Seeds Program and one of the items he received to do a review on is a wireless video doorbell. He worked with it for quite some time and couldn't get it to work so he called the tech support number, they had a system where you could wait on the phone or you could press a button and they would put you next in line and call you back, he chose that option. About 15 minutes later one of the support folks called, something had gone wrong and they had to have Larry use a secret process to reset the device and remove it from the computer and the Android phone, after that they were able to start over and got it to work. The support was excellent but it was unfortunate that he needed to use it. Once the device was working he had me help test it by standing outside and pushing the button, he could then see and talk to me from the computer. He plans to go ahead and install it temporarily but right now he does think he will keep it installed. In a couple of weeks he will write a review on it. Flo has been bugging me about going for a walk but I didn't feel like it but I finally gave in. We had a nice walk around the neighborhood. By the time we got home Flo was exhausted but she did great.

Stubb's Chili

When we were grocery shopping Larry decided he would like to try something different so he picked up Stubb's Chili Fixins. We also purchased the other ingredients we needed to go with the cookin' sauce. There were two ways to cook the chili, we decided to do it the slow cooking way. Larry and I both like our chili thick and with beans but Stubb's chili came out thin and didn't have beans. I added a can of HEB Black Beans with Jalapenos. I am sure some folks like this product but we will not be buying it again. Of course you must try new things, keeps things interesting and sometimes you find something you really like.

Cabin Fever finished product

It's Thanksgiving week and our local clubs aren't having any square dancing so tonight we watched a couple of videos via Amazon Prime. The first one was Caffeinated, a documentary about coffee and coffee growers all over the world. This was very interesting, at times there was subtitles but not many. The second one was Redwood Highway, it was about an elderly woman named Marie who decided to do a 80 mile journey on foot to the coast of Oregon for her granddaughters wedding. It starred Shirley Knight and Tom Skerritt. I really enjoyed the movie, it was a bit of a chick flick and I don't think Larry was as thrilled about it. After 25 days I finally finished assembling the Cabin Fever jig saw puzzle. After watching the movies I started reading a novel by William Kent Krueger. I read one of his books while on our fall trip and enjoyed it. Both of these books are part of a series about Cork O'Connor. The main character Cork O'Connor is part Irish and part Anishinaabe Indian, who is a private investigator.        

11-23 Sundancers Dance

Outfits we wore to the Sundancers Dance

Burr it's cold outside. This morning we woke up to temperatures in the 30's. Larry got up before me and turned on the heater to get the chill out of the house. When I finally got out of bed I noticed right away the heater was on, not only could I feel the heat but I could also smell the heater, this was the first time we have had it on this winter, sure felt good. What a guy always thinking about me. After breakfast we loaded Flo into the car and went to town to get more propane for the grill and run a couple of errands.

Round Dancing in between square dancing tips

Brad calling the tips

Angie, Rick (her dad), and Sherri promenading home

Square Dancing with friends

In the afternoon I worked on my puzzle, Larry finished a book and Flo enjoyed the cool weather outside. All day the temperature stayed in the 50's. TXDOT was going to have the interstate closed between 7pm and 7am for the next couple of days so Larry and I talked about not going to the Sundancers Dance but we ended up going and were glad we did. There were enough people for six mainstream squares and four for plus, even had two squares for A's. The workshop this week was a plus workshop. The move that Brad worked on was Linear Cycle in different positions, which was a lot of fun. We had a super time at the dance. After the dance Brad called a tip for the advanced dancers.

11-22 Thanksgiving Celebration

Thanksgiving Celebration

Larry and I have been sleeping with a sheet and a light summer quilt on our bed, mostly we use the sheet, last night it got cooler so I had to get out a heavier blanket. We got up early in the morning to finish getting ready for our Thanksgiving celebration with Louise and Autumn, in all honesty I got up early, Larry always gets up early. The other day when we were at our club dance Larry was talking to Eileen about Thanksgiving. She told him she does not like to deal with preparing the turkey on Thanksgiving so she cooks the turkey the day before. Then she takes the meat off the bones and puts it into a crock pot with broth and heats it up for Thanksgiving. I decided to try preparing the turkey that way this year, it came out perfect. Louise and Autumn showed up about 10am with a lot of goodies (fudge, sugar cookies, raisin cookies and chocolate bars). Flo was very happy to see Autumn and Louise. While I worked in the kitchen we snacked on the goodies Louise brought plus, deviled eggs and a relish tray (cheese, sweet pickles, olives, ham and salami). Our Thanksgiving dinner was ready about noon. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, homemade noodles and crescent rounds rolls. For dessert we had Jello cherry cheese cake. Everything was delicious. We had a super Thanksgiving celebration with Louise and Autumn. 

Chocolate cracker bars and sugar cookies Louise baked

Fudge and raisin cookies Louise baked

Larry waiting for the rest of us to join him for the big Thanksgiving feast

Look how pretty Louise looks

Autumn and Flo relaxing after their lunch

In the evening we watched a couple of documentaries. The first one we watched was Deli Man, it is about the history of delicatessens in the United States. The main character is Ziggy Gruber, who is a third-generation delicatessen man. The second documentary was The Magic Life, which was about three aspiring magicians. Both of the documentaries were good. Louise told us about a new channel she discovered on Roku that had some good documentaries, we watched part of The Magic Life on that channel but there were a lot of commercials and finally something happened and our Roku crashed, while it was rebooting Larry found The Magic Life on Amazon Prime so we finished watching it via Amazon, no commercials and we were able to fast forward to where we had been when the Roku crashed.

11-21 Getting Ready to Celebrate Thanksgiving

Cleaning the House

Each year we celebrate Thanksgiving with my sister in-law Louise, some years she has to work on Thanksgiving so we invite her and Autumn to celebrate on a day that she is off, this year it is this Sunday. In preparation I cleaned the house, first I dusted and got rid of the cob webs, then I vacuumed the house and mopped the floors. While I did this Larry blew off the back porch and cleaned the chairs on the porch. Flo spent the whole time in and out of the house. It was windy all day and Flo wanted to stay outside but she didn't want to be alone. After the cleaning was done I made homemade noodles and a Jello Cheese Cake. In the evening we relaxed and streamed a movie via Amazon called Seven Years In Tibet, a 1997 American biographic war movie based off a book written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer about his experience in Tibet between 1944 to 1951 during World War II. It was a good movie. 

11-20 What a marvelous day!

What a marvelous day!

In the morning we loaded Flo in the car and went to town. We started off by taking the motorhome back to storage and then we headed to the car wash, with all of the rain we have had the car was really dirty, we had wanted to wash it for a bit but it seemed that every week we had some rain so we had been putting it off. While in town we did a few other errands. Larry always wonders why Flo wants to go with us when she will end up spending all of her time in the car, I tell him she doesn't care as long as she's with us. When we got back to the house I made lunch and then I laid down for a few hours. I wasn't feeling well and I thought if I took a nap I would feel better but it didn't work. We were going to go to Killeen and dance with the Killeen Kickers but I wasn't up to it. Instead we hung around the house and watched a movie called Dear Frankie. It was a 2004 Scottish movie about a single mother who would do anything to protect her son from the truth about his father. It starred Emily Mortimer, Gerald Butler and Jack McElhone. It was a very good movie.

11-19 Central Texas Lone Stars Can Can and Graduation Dance

Left Alemande

We woke up to another gorgeous morning in the high 40's. In the morning I had an appointment for my annual physical, wasn't sure how long we would be gone so we didn't take Flo with us. It didn't take too long to get there and checking in was quick since I was just there Tuesday. Delia took me back to a room and gave me a flu shot and a tetanus shot that is good for ten years. The nurse practitioner came in a little later and gave me my check up. My lab work was waiting for her on her e-mail. She told me that my cholesterol was a little high. She suggested that I should change my diet by eating more vegetables, low fat meat and cut back on caffeine drinks such as soda. She also recommended exercising. So this afternoon I worked out for an hour with Just Dance for a half hour and Gold Gym for the other half hour. For lunch we had a bowl of soup and a couple of tostada shells.

Rachael one of the graduates doing the right and left grand

After lunch I baked some sugar cookies to take with us to the dance tonight. In the afternoon we hung around the house. I worked on my puzzle and Flo went outside and laid on the porch. The Central Texas Lone Stars had a Can Can Dance, dancers donate canned goods for the Temple area. If you bought five cans you got in the dance free. The club members decided to combine the Can Can Dance with the Graduation Dance. The club provided Subway sandwiches and chips and the members of the club provided dessert. The dance had three mainstream squares and two plus squares. We had a very nice time with our friends.  

11-18 Sun Shiny Day

Sun Shiny Day

Tuesday it drizzled on and off most of the day. I had doctor appointments for lab work and a mammogram so Larry and I went to town and left Flo at home. Our office chair is broken, it’s still usable but Larry’s afraid that someone’s going to get hurt so in between my appointments we stopped by Office Max and Staples to look at chairs. We found one at Office Max but Larry wanted to read the reviews on it. When we returned home Larry went online to read about the chair, the reviews were excellent. In the afternoon I baked a loaf of bread. It came out perfect. Our club has been having lessons on Tuesdays but they're finished so in the evening we watched a movie via Amazon: Lovely, Still, starring Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn. It was supposedly a romantic drama about an elderly man that finds love for the first time, it was a cute movie up until the end, wouldn't recommend this one. Then we watched Alpha and Omega 3.

Loaf of bread I baked

New office chair

Wednesday we woke to a cool sunny morning with the temperature in the mid 40's. Larry went outside to get the paper he saw a nice size deer walking through the front yard so he distracted Flo until the buck was on his way, she just thought he was paying attention to her. When I crawled out of bed I thought it was going to be cold so I put on a sweat shirt and jeans but when we went to town to do our weekly shopping I found out the sweat shirt was a little warm. After we did our grocery shopping we picked up our mail. This morning before going to town Larry went online to order the chair from Office Max, on their website today today there was a online coupon to save an additional 20% if you ordered online. The chair was already on sale price so he didn't hesitate, he ordered it. We picked the chair up in the afternoon and when we got home Larry assembled it. He used it for a little bit and then decided he needed to air it out. The chemicals that were in the cloth were bugging him so he put it outside and used the old chair. We'll let it sit on the back porch for a couple of days.

Line dancing at Skirts 'n' Shirts dance

Weaving the ring during lessons

Jim Hayes teaching the lessons

 In the evening we went square dancing with the Shirts 'n' Skirts club. The class had seven or eight squares and the dance had five for mainstream and four for plus. I line danced with Martha and friends in between square dancing tips. We had a great time dancing with the Shirts 'n' Skirts. 

11-17 No More Snoring!!!!

ResMed S9

The CPAP Mask Larry got

Do you sleep with someone that snores? I do, Larry has snored forever and as he's gotten older it's gotten worse. There have been times where I have had to sleep in the other room. Normally I wake him and he will roll over on his other side but even that doesn't always work, sometimes I have to wake him up multiple times a night. Some mornings he gets up with a sore throat. He had heard about CPAP machines that are used in the treatment of sleep apnea. CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure. Some of our friends use a CPAP machine to treat their sleep apnea issues and they swear they eliminate snoring. He started to do some research on CPAP machines and found there were many different machines to choose from. The machines aren't cheap and you need a doctors prescription to purchase one, to get a prescription your doctor will send you to a sleep clinic for an overnight sleep study, the clinic will send the results back to your doctor who then writes a prescription and sends you off to purchase your machine. He did a ton of research and decide on the machine and type of mask he wanted then he started watching Craigslist for a used one. Lots of people end up getting these machines via their doctors and insurance and end up not using them, some of them end up on Craigslist. He found a used ResMed S9 with a full face mask. The seller came by and Larry checked the machine out, it only had about 40 hours of use and was like new, it had all of the manuals, original packaging and the carry bag, he bought it and has been playing with it for a week or so and it works great. Not sure how much it helps Larry but I certainly love it, no more snoring. After all the years of hearing him snore I now catch myself checking on him to make sure that he's still breathing. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

11-16 Where's the sun?

Rainy Day

We woke up this morning to a drizzling day, it continued through out the entire day. After a busy week of square dancing we stayed around the house and relaxed. I worked on my puzzle, unloaded and vacuumed the Minnie and took a nap. Flo played a game with me called in and out the door. She kept wanting to go out on the back porch and then a few minutes later wanted back inside. Larry caught up reading his three newspapers. In the evening we went to Sun City to dance with the Sundancers. Before the dance started there was a half hour workshop. We worked on tag the line in all positions such as a wave and we did some left tag the line. Brad had seven mainstream squares and six plus squares and some round dancers. He called four mainstream tips and two plus tips. We had fun doing follow your neighbor with the girls leading the move. It was a great dance.

Brad doing a singing call during class

Square dancing class dancing to Brad

DeAnn taking a picture of me taking pictures

Round dancing during the dance

 

11-15 Seven Days Straight of Dancing

Camping in the RV Park at Promenade Hall 

This afternoon we finished our seventh day of dancing in seven days. Monday we danced in Sun City Georgetown with the Sundancers to Brad Caldwell calling. Tuesday in Temple with the Central Lone Stars to Dale Smith calling. Wednesday in Georgetown with the Shirts 'n' Skirts to Jim Hayes calling. Thursday in Gatesville with the Coryell County Squares to Ed Lauder calling. Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning we danced in Tool with the Log Cabin Swingers to Jerry Story.  Sunday afternoon we danced in Waco to Dale Smith and Wendell Moore. We had a super week of dancing, eating and socializing with friends and meeting new friends.

Saying good-bye

Sunday morning gospel Dance in Tool

Dale Smith calling

Dancing with friends

In the evening we relaxed and watched a new PBS series called Murder on the Home Front, it is a detective series during World War II in London. Then I watched Father Brown. We had a super day.  

11-14 Saturday of Square Dancing

Saturday workshops with Jerry Story

We were busy all day square dancing with Jerry Story. There were round dancing workshops during the day with Walter Brewer. We did an hour and a half workshop in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Both workshops were very high energy, Jerry did a lot of DBD and kept it challenging. It's was amazing that the workshops had enough people for ten squares. After the workshop there was a DBD Dance and I danced one tip. We had such a great time. In the afternoon we had to take a nap.

Dalbert and Lu Ann doing the right and left through

Harold, Paula and Dalbert weaving the ring

In the evening Larry and I went to the dance. There were 13 squares and a lot of round dancers. After the dance they had an ice cream social where ice cream floats were served. We had a super time dancing and visiting with our friends. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

round dancing to Walter

our floats

Dale and Pam enjoying their floats

Lu Ann enjoying her float

Larry having fun with friends

Harold and Connie dancing to Jerry