Coralville Lake

After being home for almost 3 months, we finally got the motor home out and are camping. Met Roger's brother at Coralville Lake to camp for 6 days. We have had rain and storms, and now heat and humidity. The TV reception is not all that great and we can not get ABC or NBC with our TV. Roger's brother (Larry) is parked next to us and he gets them. I just don't get this new digital TV thing. I told Roger he needed to get up on roof and cut some tree branches away from the antenna. Do you think that has anything to do with it. I am having TV withdrawal, good thing I have the DVR set at home to record all my favorite show. Will catch up this next week.

After attending our grandson's graduation last May, and seeing the zoom my daughter got with her camera, Roger decided we needed a camera with a better zoom. Well, we got it and have been playing around with it while we are camping. All the pictures in my new album will be from the new camera. It is Nikon Coolpix P90. It has 12.1 Megapixels, Wide 24X zoom, 3 inch Vari-angle monitor and vibration reduction. It is going to take some time to get use to it. As you can see from my pictures, we have a ways to go.

From Coralville Lake

We spotted these geese out on the lake our first day camping and got out the camera. Then we tried really zooming in on them. Remember, we have no tripod so found it was had to get a good focus. Here is a picture of geese with the zoom.

From Coralville Lake

Not too bad, but still working on the zoom. Be sure to click on either picture to take you to rest of the photo's.

Roger's daughter (Jenny) and her three girls came by campground for a visit. They live in Muscatine so we don't see a lot of them. They went to the beach for a swim and then back here for hot dogs. Roger's son(Matt) and wife (Heather) came by with his boat and gave everyone a ride. The boat use to belong to Jenny's father in law and had ran for 15 years, so Jenny was glad get to get a ride in it.

From Coralville Lake

From Coralville Lake

I then tried to get a sunset pictures. The sun was setting behind some campers in a distance, and here is what I got. Not too bad for my first try.

From Coralville Lake

Now I have the smart card in my purse and going to take it and Roger to Wal-Mart and show him how to get the prints made. He keeps telling me he wants prints to look at not just the computer. Do you think that has anything to do with the fact, he doesn't do anything on computer.

I must say, I like this new camera. We got it with the idea that Roger would like it and use it more. He needs a hobby and thought he would take more pictures this way. I think he is going to have to use it more to get use to it and learn the different settings one at a time. One of the things that is nice about it is, when I upload the pictures to Picasa, there is very little editing to do. Seems like the camera takes a great picture.

Check out the VUE

We are into August now and the summer is going by very fast. I check on the temp in Mission and there is no way we want to be there now. Sure hope it gets a little cooler before we head down there this fall. As of now, we are planning on leaving here around the middle of Oct. and maybe do a little site seeing on our way. There is so much to see and do and it seems we never really stop to do them. Roger says it is me and I say it is him. I guess it is alittle of both of us. I can plan all the stops and things and spend time looking them up, but I would like some feed back from him and some help with the planning. Seems to me, he has a free ride, as I am the one that charts the route and campgrounds, etc. Come on Roger, lets work together on this.

We did get most of our painting done. I posted a picture of our master bath last time, I took a new picture and I must say it turned out pretty good. I am not sure how many people will be happy with the color, but I like and they can always paint it after they buy the place. Here is the master bath now.

From Summer in Iowa

It was really had to match the green counter and we didn't want to redo them. We have gotten new sink to install and Roger is working on that as I am typing this. The trip to find the sinks was and adventure all its own. Roger had called a mobile home place and found out there was a place in Davenport that sold mobile home parts, after checking, it was in Moline. We took off last week on Monday for our trip to get new sinks, got there and they don't carry the kind or shape we needed. You will notice in photo they are sort of a square shape. They sent us to a couple of other places and still no luck. After returning home, I googled "mobile home parts" and opened up the first site that was listed, went to "bath and there they were our sinks, they were even in the color we wanted............and only $19.95 each. Wow, we should of down that in the first place. I placed the order and they arrived here on Friday. We are moving right along with getting this place fixed up for someone else and hopefully we can sell it.

Last summer Roger put on vinyl siding and when he did that we closed off one of the doors to the mobile home. You see there were two doors in front, one to living area and one to bedroom right next to living room (I use that as my office). We really didn't like two doors almost right together and when we moved in here, we had a back door added off the kitchen, so didn't need the door in bedroom. After closing it off, we never finished it off on inside, only put some insulation up, now we have added paneling to back side and sides and are going to put shelves in the opening. It is an easy fix, but better for us then trying to sheet rock. Only one more fix to do after Rog gets the new sinks in, and that is the crack in ceiling from when they moved this mobile home here. That one is going to be hired out, hopefully real soon, as I want to advertise and have an open house to see about selling and time is running out before time to leave.

I guess I didn't tell the story about Roger selling his Mazda pickup. He had $750 on it and had some lookers but decided he needed to take it in and see about getting the catalytic converter removed or what ever it was he has going to do, it was clogged. The guy told him there was a problem with the brakes and it would cost him about $160 to fix. Well, he didn't want to put anymore into it, he wanted to get rid of it. He had a guy that had offered him $550 but Roger said he acted like a jerk and he would not sell it too him. He gave in and called the guy and in the end the guy jewed him down another $50. Ok, $500 in our pocket. A week or so later we had gone out to eat and were walking down the sidewalk when here comes his truck and pulls in a parking space right in front of us. It wasn't the same guy that had bought it so Roger ask the guy if he just bought the truck, he says yes and Rog wants to know what he paid for it, he tells the guy he just sold it. Well, the guy paid $1,100 for it. OUCH. After a long talk with this guy, and Roger is telling him some of the history of the truck and what needs to be done, we also find out the they guy is interested in the tow bar we have to go with it. We give him our name and phone number. He does call later and buys the tow bar from us. At least Roger gets another $50 for it.

Now Roger is feeling really low about loosing his truck so he starts thinking about what will make him happy and what he wants next. We start looking for a SATURN VUE. After some local looking I get on the computer and find one that he likes in Wisc, so we made a trip and bought a 2006 Saturn Vue. Here is a picture of it, now we have to get it set up for towing.

From Summer in Iowa

Now if any of you readers are interested in buying our 2001 Saturn SL200, let me know.

Some of the other excitement in our lives is our trip to Clear Lake for the family picnic, we just got back from that. We are going to get the RV out and go camping the next week with Roger's brother and wife for a week, that should be fun and a break from the work around here. If you click on one of the photo's I posted it will take you to the rest of the album and you can check out the rest of our excitement, 40th Ann. party for one of Roger's friends, visit with grand kids, painting and others. Check it out.

Remember: Love is a little word; people make it big.

What to write about??

Here it is the middle of July and I have not posted anything on here yet. Shame on me. I just have a hard time coming up with things to say and to share. I have never been good about keeping a journal, so why should this be any different?

I sent the hand scanner I got off QVC, back to QVC. I just didn't like it and they have a 30 day return policy, so why not send it back? It wasn't doing me any good sitting in the corner. I am still scanning and editing photos in Picasa, I am up to 1995 now, not bad considering I started with the years I was married and raising my three girls, that was 1966. I put those all in one album and burned a DVD for each of my girls. Now I want to make a cover for it.

My crafts..........I finished the cro-hook afghan I was making. Wanted to make one for two of the granddaughter's for graduation next spring. Had one done and needed to make another one. Now with that done, I have started on my beaded sun catchers. Roger got me the sticks when he went to Menards and I am now marking where the holes go and then will go to garage and drill all the holes. Have six sticks and there are 116 holes each stick............WOW I'm tired just thinking of it. I am sending in an order for more beads, it should be here about the time I get all those holes drilled. Roger did buy me a small drill press and that is a big help.

We have had a few showings on your place here. It seems people have trouble getting loans for a mobile home. This last one seems like it was going to be the one, but we haven't heard back from her, she was going to bring her mother over on Saturday to look at it, but it was a no show. If we don't sell it this summer, will try again next spring when we come back home. We have been trying to get a few things done around here to make it better. Got some paint and decided to paint the master bath. It had a horrid rose wall paper on walls and really out dated. The bath room also has these green counter tops. It is really hard to match the counter tops (can't take them to store with us) so after trying a couple of times, decided to go with a light lavender. It was that or pink or yellow. I already had purple towels and rugs in there, so it was lavender. I must say it looks pretty good. Not sure how many other people are going to like it, but it is better then the roses. I am going back and doing touch up painting right now. I hate to rat on my hubby..........I've already told him this...........but he is a terrible painter. He wants to get in there and get it done in a hurry and the paint gets on too think and runs and then a mess. Even taping, he gets the tape on where it is covering part of the wall, so now it is back to touching up. Oh well, I have nothing but time. We are going to get new sinks and faucets for both bathrooms, but have to make a trip to Davenport for that. There is a place down there were we can buy mobile home items. The sinks are sort of a square shape and we don't want to replace counters so that is our best bet. I bet your asking, why not new counters if there is a green one in master bath.......let me tell you, it is a very odd shape and a lot of angle cuts and Roger is not good at that sort of thing............so just new sinks.

Ok, I did find this photo, it shows you the rose wall paper and the green counters, I will take another photo when I am all done with bath room and you can see the change.

Guess that is about all for now. Haven't taken any new pictures to send on to you, I could send you some that I am scanning, but they would be old ones. Maybe I will do that for next post. Till later, stay cool, drive safe and Happy Trails

Senior moment

Last Friday we went to the retirement party for my old boss. We made arrangements to meet another couple I worked with and ride with them as parking was slim. I had taken my camera and had it in the car with me and wouldn't you know, when getting into their van, I left the camera..............no pictures from the party and all my old friends from work. Hopefully, one of my friends will share with me, I have my fingers crossed. I was hoping to post some pictures here, I am sure everyone is ready for new photos. It is hard to come up with new ones when we are not traveling and no Keota to take pictures of. Guess I will need to do a better job of keeping camera ready to shoot.

I have been going thru all our photo albums and pulling out photos. Started scanning them and putting them on computer then, make DVD's with them. It is quite a job, but when one is retired, we have all kinds of time. Once they are scanned, I edit them with Picasa and label all of them. I can't believe all the photos that have no writing on back to tell you who they are when they were taken. I came across this a lot when doing the old photo's of Roger's family and I don't know the people so really hard to label them. I need to get him to sit down with me and go through them with me........like that is going to happen. LOL My scanner will not work with vista and that is what I have on my lap top so I am using my desk computer to do the scanning. I was going to get rid of it, but when I found out I could not get a driver for this scanner to work with Vista, decided to keep the desk PC just for scanning. I have two computers in office running all the time, one scanning and one for my other work. I saw on QVC a while back, a small photo scanner that you can sit on couch and do your scanning while watching TV. Wow, that's what I need. I ordered it and it was great till the plastic sleeve the photos were to go in to do the scanning got streaked from going thru the scanner. After awhile the scans were a poor quality, so back to my old scanner.

I really need to get out may crafts and see what I need to make to take back down to Texas for the craft sales. I made a list of what I had before I left and I know I will need to order more beads for my sun catchers. Should do that this week as it will take a while to make out the bead order and then have them mailed to me. The rest of the things I can do as I want, but the beads need to be ordered. Not sure about the craft sales in Texas, I like doing them, but it seems I don't really sell that much, wondering if it is worth it. But for those of you who know me, I love doing my crafts and I need to keep busy.

Not much more news around Stanwood, I go for my 2 mile walk in the mornings then stay in where it is cool and work on my computer and some house work and crafts. What more can I say. Happy Trails to everyone and stay cool and stay safe.

Birthday

This past week has been a busy one. Started off on Monday going to Cedar Rapids and getting my physical. I didn't get one last year, so I guess you could call it my every two year one. LOL. I have been having a swishing sound in my left ear for about 3 years now and talked to my Dr. about it, she decided to send me for some test. On Friday I made another trip to Cedar Rapids and had a full blood workup done, then went for an MRI for my ear. After that went and got my mammogram . I always hate those, but I guess better safe then sorry. The MRI was no picnic either. Had to lay still for 25 minutes in the tube with loud noises. I ended up singing to myself and made it to 17 bottles on bear on the wall. After the 25 minutes, they moved me out, gave me a shot in vain and back in the tube for another 10 minutes. I also went for a hearing test that afternoon. When I got there, I was told the appointment was for 11am. Woops, someone made a mistake, I told her I had a card in my car that said 1pm and if she wanted I would go get it for her. I had the mammogram appointment at 11am. She ended up taking me anyway. Now that all the test are over with, it is wait to hear from my doctor and see what the results are.

The rest of the week was taken up with dinner in Iowa City with my friend Janis and her hubby Jim, then on Wed. our friends from Mission stopped by to see our place. That was Dick and Darlene, Dick went to school with Roger in Clear Lake so they go wayyyyyyyyyy back. We also went out to eat with them. I bet I gained a few pounds this past week.

I started off this post with a heading of "Birthday" so I guess I better explain that one. For those of you that read this blog but don't know me all that well, Thursday the 11th was my 64th Birthday. It was spent at home, Roger got up and gave me his gifts and Matt and family came over in the afternoon with a card and a gift card. Then my daughter Sandra along with her hubby Brian and daughter Emily and I can't forget the 2 dogs came for supper and grilled out and made supper for us. She also made we a Watergate cake. I got a nice E card from my sister and a phone call later. I also got nice calls from my other two daughters, Kim in California and Janis in Colorado. I also got a nice card from my high school friend Janis. Thanks to all of you for remembering me and the cards and gifts.

Happy Trails

Catching up

Yes, it is time to catch up on this blog. It seems like there is nothing to write about, Stanwood is not a very exciting place. This past weekend found us sitting in our garage trying to sell all the things we no longer want. The town of Stanwood had their "city wide garage sales". It was suppose to be on Saturday, as we found ourselves getting ready on Thursday afternoon, we decided to open one day early as we were all ready. It sure paid off, made close to $150 that day. Then Saturday was a great day also and made a total for the 2 days of $400. The left over things were loaded into car and taken into Cedar Rapids and dropped off at Good Will.

Roger put his 1990 Mazda pickup For Sale and we had quite a few looking at it, or knew somebody that would be interested, it is still sitting next to garage with the For Sale sign on it. We use to pull it behind our motor home and is set up for towing, even has the tow bar to go with it. We also placed a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign in our front and back yard, as we are going to try to sell this place. Have had some phone calls on it, but nothing to get excited about. Only one showing at this time. With the house up for sale, I have been doing some deep cleaning and decluttering. Roger says I watch to much HGTV and that is why I am doing all that. I say, what can it hurt. If we move we have to get all this stuff out anyway. Yesterday, I cleaned out our bedroom closet. I must say, the place looks pretty good, I would be interested in it if I were looking. Roger's worried people will not be able to get a loan on a mobile home, I told him, that wasn't his worry. If it happens great, if not, we will wait till it does. No hurry.

Every morning I turn on my computer and log onto the Internet, read my mail, go to the Good Sam website and sign in for free monthly giveaways........still haven't won anything and been doing it for over a year.........and then start reading all the blogs I follow. It is really fun to see where all our friends are now and what they are up to. I follow about five of them right now and I guess that is why I decided to write in mine this morning. Some of them do not write every day and I start wondering what they are doing, so guess I should keep mine up for the few people who read mine.

We were in Cedar Rapids on May 19th and at Menard's (home improvement store) and decided to get us a counter top ice maker. It was on sale $98 so we got it and took it home. After reading the little book of instructions that came with it, we decided to get some distilled water to put thou it the first few times. After getting the water later in the week, we plugged it in and gave it a try. I say try as that is what it was. The darn thing kept coming on with a red light telling us to add more water. Well the book said to turn it off, wait 3 min. then turn it back on, the water was working its way up into the machine. So this we did.......and did.........and did.......and did.....and did. You get the idea, we did that for over an hour, then called the help phone number in the book. The tec told us to take it back, it was not working. This we knew, that's why we called. We took it back to the store and they didn't have any other ones so they credited our debit card back. They did call the store on the other side of town and they had one. On our way home we stopped at the other store. They had one left however.............it was not for the same price we paid before. I asked the clerk about it, he said it has never been at that price. After much go around with them, and a number of people to talk to, they gave us that one for the same price we had at the other store. There should of been a flash of light go off for us, why was it so cheap at other store ( didn't work). We took the new one home and tried it right away and guess what, it made about 4 ice cubes then started doing the same thing the other one did. WE TOOK IT BACK TOO. We won't buy one of that brand again........EMERSON.

Roger is so excited, he went to a foot DR. place in Cedar Rapids on Monday and they did measuring of his foot and told him they think they can get him in regular shoes. He won't have to wear the Frankenstein boots. He goes back next Monday and they we set him up. They had to get approval for new shoes from his DR as he is diabetic and Medicare pays for a new pair every year. He only has one pair of shoes to wear and if they get wet, or something happens to them, he is out of luck. Hope it all works out for him.

I will keep reading all the blogs and if any of you get close, please stop by to say hi. Till later............Happy Trails

Home

We arrived in Stanwood on Sunday afternoon. While stopping in Des Moines to fuel at Flying J, we had called Roger's brother (Larry) who was camped at Saliorville Lake and he met us at Flying J and we had a nice visit with him while we ate our lunch.

I can't believe all the things one has to move out of RV and back into the house. I keep telling myself that everything is duplicated so no need to move it........ya sure. There just seems to be things that still have to move. Like food, dirty clothes, laptop, printer........and the list goes on. I don't know how people keep an extra set of clothes in their RV, it seems like there is always something left in RV that I want to wear. We take out all the food also, as when we leave here in the fall, we can't leave anything that is going to freeze so have to make sure we have enough room in RV and if we had duplicates of everything, it would never all fit.

Getting set up at home wasn't all that pleasant this year, first while hooking the water back up, there was a leak under our mobile home............so a phone call and some time later the guys came to fix that. No cost and they are the same ones who blew out our water lines last fall....so sort of their falt. The next challenge was getting our DirectTV set up. The dishes are set up on side of garage and I called to get our local channels changed from Mission to Stanwood. Guess what, still can't get them. They lined up a service guy to come tomorrow and fix that problem. I spent 2 hours on my cell phone (no land line telephone) and that's what I ended up with. While in Texas we changed to a DVR and that takes two satellite cables going to it. We had three dishes installed here last fall, so do to the fact we cancelled one of the boxes, we decided we could just take that extra line and run it to the DVR that is located in the living room. Roger got under mobile home and found the cable running into the bedroom where we will no longer have satellite and cut it and ran it up the hole into living room. Then he had to put a new end on it. Okay.........now I hook it up and it won't work. That was part of the 2 hours I spent on phone with tech support. Matt (our son who lives a half a block away) came by last evening and showed Roger how he goofed putting on the new end........fixed it and I now have the DVR working, just no local channels.

We made a trip into Cedar Rapids this morning. I had gotten information from the school district about my health insurance and needed to make a trip to get it cleared up. Then it was off to do some shopping. We had tried to eat most of food on way home................makes the RV lighter going over the mountains............LOL. We needed to stock up. We live about 30 miles from Cedar Rapids so try to stock up and not have to make that trip to often. There are stores closer and sometimes we go to them.

I am keeping busy catching up on laundry, had all the sheets I use to cover TV's and other things while we are gone and our other clothes. It will take awhile to get caught up. Hope this finds everyone enjoying the spring weather and if you are planning any vacations or trips......................Happy Trails to you.