T-Ball Game, Not Much Else

Been a while since I posted.....but wanted to share a few cute photos of my great niece's first T-ball game of the season. They are so cute playing when they are only 4.




Not much else has been happening.....weather has been good and so is everything else!

Graduation Party, Birthday Party, Visitors Leave

Sure has been a busy couple of days. One of a good friend's kids graduated from high school Friday. We were invited on Saturday to a party at the community center. Lots of friends and food. We had a good time then came home to rest.

Today was my niece's birthday, she is 28. My Amanda would have been 28 next month. My sister and I were pregnant at the same time. The girls had a good time growing up together and played lots of sports when they were in school. What a fun time! Now her kids, my niece's (Cain, Cara, and Brenna), have already started playing.....Cara has a T-Ball game Monday afternoon and she made a special call to make sure we knew when it was. Can't miss that!

My mother and her husband left right after the birthday party. I think she had a good visit. She always enjoys going to the cemeteries and putting flowers on the graves. I watched Cara and Brenna Friday and they went with us. My mother had a good time this year telling Cara all about our relatives. I think they were ready to go home after 3 nights of not sleeping in their own beds. It sure is quite around here!

Visitors, Memorial Day Flowers

Wow! You can sure get behind with posting if you aren't careful. Just realized I hadn't posted since Tuesday and this is Friday. What happened to Wednesday and Thursday? Don't remember anything special about Wednesday but Thursday we went to Wal Mart to buy enough food for our visitors for the weekend, my Mom and her husband decided to come Thursday night instead of Saturday. And, I always have to do a little extra cleaning when my mother comes to visit; so, that took up most of the day.

Today we decided to watch the girls since Mom was here; so, their mother dropped them off this morning on her way to work. Sure do miss them but after one day together, I still do not want to babysit anymore. This morning I put a roast in the crock pot for dinner and we were off to visit a couple of cemeteries where we have relatives buried to put flowers on the graves. Took all morning to go to two. Came home for lunch and then the girls took a nap (I took one too). Roast got done and we had a pretty good meal....that's the kind I like to cook....no preparation required! Not very exciting but that's what's been happening around here.

Babysitting, Lucy

Well, I had the girls today.....boy, were they a hand full. They both had runny noises and the little one did not sleep good last night. As soon as possible after we went out to eat pizza, it was off to nap time for her. I needed a break! However, she woke up in a good mood and we had a good rest of the afternoon. Don't expect to see them again until Sunday when we will go to my sister's for their mother's birthday. What will I do for the rest of the week?????

Today was the day Lucy was to get a hair cut. We had put it off for way too long as you can see in the before picture.

Here's the after picture.

She sure does look different. Oscar was feeling left out so he got his picture taken also.

The hair cut was the biggest event of the day so I'll end with that!

No Babysitting Today, Yard Work, More Pictures

Today was the first day of not keeping my great nieces during the day. I will still keep them at times but not every day......what a great feeling. Almost like retiring again! I think we will definitely miss them but now I can do other things.

Like.....we still had some trees that the tops had broken out of from the ice storm 2 years ago. They really didn't look that bad so we had put off cleaning them up. But, today was the day. We had some branches that needed trimming so you didn't hit them while mowing. So, at the same time we decided to clean those trees up also. Boy, I sure could tell I haven't been doing anything but sitting in the house. I didn't last very long at carrying those branches. It sure looks a lot better and I was happy to get outside and do something. We still have a couple of other trees that have died and we need to cut them down but we'll do that another time. It was so nice today but if the wind hadn't been blowing pretty hard, I think I may have given out earlier than I did from the heat. I think we got up to 87 today. Yeah, summer is here!

I'm really liking this realtor....she stopped by today to take some more pictures of the house and we talked for a while. She thinks we will sell the house.....boy, I sure do hate to get my hopes up but she did sound hopeful! I'm already feeling better about this lady than the first. It took the first lady a month to come and take any pictures of the inside and they were horrible. I took pictures of the inside and gave to the new realtor to make sure I at least liked them and she actually came back and took more. So, it all sounds good....wish us luck!

House Cleaning

Not much happened today.....just the normal house cleaning and laundry chores. I did manage to straighten up my shoes in my closet....I have way too many pairs (I got rid of half of them when I retired). Figured the closet would look better if shoes weren't all over the floor if we are going to have people in to look at it. Also managed to kind of make our sunroom more presentable as a sunroom not a storage room....that's what the realtor called it. Moved a shelf from the utility room to the sunroom to store the BBQ and deep fryer tools on instead of the floor and an old card table. Moved a couple of chairs and a table to make a seating area. Moving the shelf from the utility room also made it look bigger and uncluttered. Killed two birds with one stone! Still would like to buy some hanging plants to put in the sunroom so maybe I'll find some this week.

Nolan BBQ'd a pork roast for lunch it was really good. Ate too much and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the computer.

That's about it for today.

Listing, Relay, Best Friends, Longaberger, Old Cars

Well, it's finally done. Signed the new listing. Not sure we listed it for the right price but our realtor said we will try it for a couple of weeks and if no one is interested at that price we will lower it some. She said all the buyers are coming in with really low counter offers and that we needed to list it for $165K to have a lot of room to negotiate. We'll see. I guess I was really anxious about it all cause I sure didn't sleep very good last night.

Carla, my daughter, called at 7:30 a.m. on her way home from her first American Cancer Society Relay for Life event of the year. She usually calls me to talk so she doesn't get sleepy driving since she was up all night with the event. She was a little disappointed because they were $32K short of their goal and she gets her raises based upon how close they get to their goals. Of course, with any event of any size like this was, things go wrong and she spent the first 5 minutes complaining about how bad the DJ they hired was. Other than that most things went well and she couldn't wait to get home to take a nap.

It's also possible that I didn't sleep very well last night because I was excited that I was going to meet my best, best friend for breakfast who I haven't seen in several years. She was in the military when we became friends and then retired from the Army while she was at Fort Leonard Wood. When she retired they moved to her home town in Ohio. They were visiting the Waynesville area this weekend to attend the wedding of a daughter of another friend of theirs while they lived here. Boy, did we sure have a good time.....just not enough time. We used to go to lunch every Thursday no matter what and share all of our so called "problems" and go back to work happy. We really enjoy spending time together but the distance is just too far to do it very often. Hopefully, when we start travelling, we can spend some time in Ohio. I'm sure there's a lot to see there besides going to see my favorite place in the world to visit....the Longaberger Home Office and Homstead. This link will tell you all about my hobby/part time business to support the hobby and the place I love to visit.

To end the day, we went up the road to the local Lions Club building to a friend of Nolan's birthday party. Way too many people there I didn't know and way too noisy. But, free meal and I did get to talk to a friend that I don't get to see very often. After we got home, we set there for a while then walked to the local convenience store (Walts) where they were hosting a a Classic Car Drive In. Was fun to look at all the "old" cars that had either been kept nice or redone. Some of them really brought back some old memories. They had a red 1967 Camero.....my ex was always crazy about 1968 Cameros and we were always putting our last dollar into keeping one running when we were first married. Those were the days! I could go on forever but I won't. I'll just end with maybe those days weren't as bad as I thought they were at the time!

House is Listed, First Relay

New realtor called me back this morning and we set up for her to come to the house tonight after 7:00 p.m. I'll let you know tomorrow on the price we finally decided to list it for. I've been back and forth about how much to lower the price by. I don't want to lower it so much that we can't get started into the new life style but I also don't want to over price it. The market is so messed up right now, it's hard to decide. I did get pictures taken today so at least they will be better than they were the last time.

Here are a couple of the pictures of the inside

Dining Room

Looking into the Living Room from the Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Carla, my daughter, called on her way to her first Relay for Life event of the year. She works for the American Cancer Society (ACS) as an event coordinator. She supports five counties in Missouri that have yearly events to raise money for the ACS. This event will start this afternoon around 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. and continue through the night with various types of fund raising projects conducted throughout the night. It is also an event that remembers/honors those who have survived and died from cancer. There's lots of work that goes into any kind of event like this and Carla was really tired before it even got started. I think she told me her goal for this event was around $70K. Her raises every year are based on whether she reaches these goals or not. Last night she said she thought they would be about $25K short.....she was disappointed but still looking forward to the event. From now til the end of June, she will help with the other four counties that she is responsible for with their relays. A very busy time of year for her. I'm so proud of her.....I worked all my life and never contributed to the betterment of society as much as she is with her career. Maybe someday they will find cures for all types of cancer because of the work of ACS. That's something, when she retires after 34 years of working like I did, to be proud of!!!

New Realtor, TOPS

I called a new realtor today. It was around 3:00 and she wasn't in the office. I left a message on her cell phone; hopefully, she'll return my call tomorrow.

It was a rainy morning and I lacked motivation to accomplish anything of significance. So, other than the phone call to the realtor, nothing much got done.

Thursdays is our TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meeting at 5:00. I haven't been doing very well but tonight I lost a little. As a matter of fact, everyone attending lost this week so we had a "No Gain" meeting. That's really good! Our discussion topic for tonight was Portion Control. My goal for the week is to use a smaller plate (8") and weigh/measure at least one meal each day for the next week. Hope that makes a difference! Losing weight is so hard to do but we have a really good support group now and I enjoy going. I especially enjoy going out to eat (I ate a chef salad) after the meeting.....I really enjoy going out with the girls. That sure is something I miss about not working.....getting to talk to people. I love to meet new people and socialize! One of the reasons I want to start our new lifestyle.

Well, that's about it for the day.

Summer Job

I signed up to be notified of job openings under Greathires.org and received an email that one of the colleges that teach night school on Fort Leonard Wood was looking for a part time receptionist. I applied....we'll see what happens. Not sure what the hours are because it is for only 20 hours a week. I mainly just want something to do to get out of the house. Sometimes I sit around here and just feel sorry for myself and I've been thinking that if I had somewhere to go, I might not do that.

Not much else happened today.....I did not call the realtor....still at the top of my to do list....tomorrow's the day!

Job Search, Realtor

Spent most of the morning researching a part time job on the internet. Since my retirement on May 1, 2007, I have been watching my two great nieces, Cara (4) and Brenna (2), during the day. Aren't they cute!

However, babysitting is not for me....I do not have enough patience and I don't want them to remember me as the "hateful, old aunt" they used to stay with. So, I've talked to their mother and she understands. They will start staying with another babysitter the first of June, which brings me back to my first statement. I knew when I retired that I did not want to sit at home all day but our plans were to have sold the house already and be "on the road" full time RVing. Hasn't happened yet so in the mean time I need something to do for the summer. Didn't really find anything on line so I think I will visit the local convenience store sometime this week and see if they need some part time help. Wish me luck!

Yesterday kind of ended in a dreary kind of way. Was rainy again, did not accomplish much, and I ended up with another headache. I guess just a normal kind of day really.

Well another day has gone by and I didn't call the new realtor....thinking that if I keep writing about it here, I will get it done. Don't really know why I've been procrastinating. Still at the top of my list of things to do. I will surely get it done today.

That's about it for yesterday so I'll post this and start on today. One day at a time!

The Beginning!!!

Well, here we go!!!!

Accomplished one of the two things I decided to do after chatting in the RV-Dreams Chat Room last night. Probably not the most important of the two but the most fun.....starting a blog! Not too sure how well this will turn out but so far a fun thing to do.....and having fun/enjoying life is what the rest of our life is supposed to be about.

The other thing that I was supposed to do was call a new realtor today.....I didn't get that done. Goes to the top of the list tomorrow. I did take some pictures of the outside of our house that we are trying to sell. Our house was built in 2001, approximately 2500 square feet counting the finished basement, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, and on 2 1/2 acreas. Would like to sell it for $170K. So, if any of my readers knows of someone looking for a quite, rural area to live, have them look us up.

Will take pictures of the inside tomorrow after I call the realtor.

Also, managed to contact a few potential hostesses for Longaberger Basket Home Shows for this month. Another item off my "to do" list. Hope at least one will take me up on my offer!

Caught up on all my "blog" reading and would like to say "Thank You" to all of you.....if I didn't have them to read, I would have given up on this dream of full time RVing a long time ago.

I think this may be a good start so I'll quit for tonight and see what I can find to post about tomorrow.