Catching up again

OK, so it has been awhile since I wrote, again I am just going to list what has been going on the last couple of weeks.

• Shonda and I attended Jenn's baby shower, on the 7th. She got lots of nice things, and I found out that you are not supposed to cover babies with blankets when you put them to bed, it is easier for them to suffocate. I made a comment that it is a miracle we “ the gandmother generation” made it to adulthood. I mean we didn't use seatbelts, or car seats, bike helmets, had drawstrings on our hoods, lead paint, no bottled water....

• A friend of Charlie's, the one he went to Oregon with a couple of years ago, called him a couple of days before his appointment and wanted to know if he wanted to go to Phoenix to do some work,. Charlie told him he could because he had surgery scheduled. He had his doctor's appointment on Tuesday, the 9th. There was a misunderstanding somewhere, because it was just a consultation and not surgery. The Dr. suggested that he wear a brace at night, that it works better wearing at night than during the day. He has to go back on November 3. So he and a couple of other men left for Phoenix on the 12th at 8 AM.

WARNING Complain mode- I had a miserable weekend:

• It started raining about 8:30 PM, Friday night and rained all night, the roof started leaking (are you ready for this) over the toilet, not into the toilet, on the seat. The kitchen sky lights have leaked before, but this weekend it started running along the ceiling to the wall, and running down behind the cupboard, water running on to the microwave, I had buckets and bowls setting on the floor, on the the bathroom,stool and on the cupboard. I rained all day. I emptied the rain gage at about 5 PM, we had 3.5 inches of rain.
  

• I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, because my CPAP had quit, because I had no power. GREAT.

OK done complaining - it could have been worse at least I wasn't in a hurricane or have several inches of water on the floor.

• Shonda and I went to see a movie Sunday, There was nothing elsed to do. We saw The Women, it was pretty good, but the critics didn't like it, I think probably because they are all men. We thought it was funny. I started working on my macrame chair, not very hard, a little tricky getting the first cords started, and the pattern on the back is a little difficult to count and doesn't look like much of a pattern at first.

• I emptied the rain gauge at 6:00 PM there was another 5 inches.
  

• When I called consumers abouut the power their projected reconnect time was Tuesday evening at 6 PM.

• N0w for some better news, I had a Doctors appointment Monday morning, and a I have lost 10 pounds (since April) not a lot but it is a start, and I do feel better, with more energy, and more rested. I even took the dog for a walk when I got home tonight (Tuesday). Only 15 minutes, but it is better than nothing, but it was all I my back could manage.
  

• The power came back on by 5:30 Monday. At least I didn't loose any of the food in the freezer like the last time we were without power.

Springport's homecoming is tonight (Friday) I don't know if I will go to the game, but I am going to the parade to campaign for the library millage for more information on that if you are interested see the library website

Labor Day Week-end continued

After thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided I needed to add a couple of things about this camping trip that we will probably remember for years to come.

• Charlie standing on the floating dock and Tom pulling him in.
• Kathy using the paddles on the inflatable boat to maneuver the dock around the pond.
• The frog that tried to eat a snake. I didn't see it and we have no pictures you will have to ask, Charlie or Michelle.
• Tom floating around on the pond for a long time using the inflatable sides of a kiddie pool (the bottom had a big hole so they cut the sides off).
  
• Little Benjamin toddling around falling down then having to crawl to something to pull himself up because he hasn't figured out how to stand up without some support.
• Benjamin being so overly tired and overly stimulated, and not wanting to go to sleep getting so upset he was sobbing, and then throwing up all over daddy Ben. Papa (Tom) was the only who could finally calm him down.
  

Actually we might not have remembered them for years, but we will now that I have put it in writing and posted on the web for all the world to see.

Labor Day Week-end

We used the camper for the first time this past week-end. We camped at my sister's property in Olivet. I know that sounds a little strange, but it is about 12 acres back off the road, they have built a pavilion, and although you can see a couple of back yards it feels more isolated.

This is a panoramic view of the campers taken from the hill near the pavilion

We saw several deer and 3 or 4 wild turkeys, although no rabbits or raccoons.
They have a pond with lots of little blue gill and bass, and some that are getting to be decent size. We even saw a blue heron fly into the pond, but it didn't stay more than a few seconds, too many dogs and kids.

Friday and Saturday was just family, including some of the dogs. My great nephew will be 11 months old next week and is toddling around and has a fascination for anything on wheels that makes noise. He particular likes tires, and they have to watch him like a hawk, because as most babies, he wants to see what they taste like.

My brother brought his dog Otis, who is about 14 years old and has arthritis in his hips and cannot hear very well. One day I watched him take a few steps, stop and do this have crouch lunge thing for a second or two, take a couple more steps and lunge again. I made the comment that it looked like he was doing exercises. (see the picture to the right).

Every camping trip or family vacation has to have something special to remember, this one was no exception. Sunday night, a lot of friends and extended family came for dinner. there was probably 30 people. There were a lot of people there who were dog people so they petted and played with both his dog and ours.

At some point in the afternoon Otis came up missing and without a huge announcement half of the people were looking for the dog. In the pond, in the "tall weed" in the briars, in the woods, and down the road. For about 15 minutes.

Then somebody notices that my brother-in-law's propane camp stove is in flames. He had left it on to burn off some of the grease and in the process of looking for the dog, forgot about it and the grease caught fire.

About 8 of us were trying to decided how to put out the fire before it burnt the pavilion down. We did get it turned off, but the grease was still burning. I had said don't use water it will just make the grease fire worse, they didn't listen, flames shot to within inches of the rafters. Somebody tried opening the lid that gave it more oxygen, same effect. They tried beating with a dry towel (yeah like that's going to work). My niece got a fire extinguisher from a camper, (out of date and no pressure) finally Charlie yelled but a wet towel over it. duh!!!! Sorry, don't have any pictures of the fire. (sorry no picture of the fire we were too busy trying to put it out)

OK, back to looking for the dog. Which we found about 20 yards from the campfire ring, lying in the weeds in the shade of a big tree. See the large tree behind
Charlie to the left of where he is setting, that's about where we found Otis.

Like I said every trip has to have something to remember.

Repairs, News (good and not so) and Horse Clinics.

Well, I missed posting another week, I keep saying I am going to write ever week, but nothing seems to happen to write about.

Last week-end we decided we should check out the refrigerator in the camper before we took it anywhere to make sure that it worked. The electric worked, but the propane didn't. It looked like the flame was on, but when we unplugged it, the fame went out. Charlie took it someplace on Monday, we got it back today. It works!!! We plan on going to my sisters "lot" next week-end, Labor Day.

Shonda came into Jackson and had lunch me me on Thursday, I figured when she called me to have lunch something was up. There was. She told me she had a date that night, her first since she broke up with Brian. OK so she had a date, then she tells me he's 33, and what did I think about that. I said there is not much I can do about it, she is 21 and has to make her own decisions.
While we were on the way to lunch she also told me Charlie had flipped the tractor over on top of him that morning. The kid across the road was helping him tear down an old trailer and Charlie was trying to pull the roof off, it was heavier than he thought and the tractor went up and flipped. Luckily he was not hurt, a little sore but that's all. It could have been much worse.

Saturday we went to a horse clinic that Chris Cox was giving in Paw Paw. Chris has a TV show on RFD TV, his website is here. He uses a style that Charlie has found works well for him when he is training the horses. Those of you who don't know horses might not find this interesting but we did. Even me who doesn't ride or work with them.

We watched Cox, train 21 riders ( he says he used to train horses, now he trains people). I don't ride and I probably wouldn't get the technique right if I was out there on a horse, but I could tell when somebody was not doing something properly.

One of the riders said he had a 2 year old at home that he was having trouble with, every time he tried to ride it, she would buck for 4 or 5 minutes then they would be fine. Cox told him to go get the horse, he'd look at and tell him what he was dong wrong.

After he finished the clinic for the day they brought out this horse. The first thing he did was take the bridle off, (the rope around the horsed face with a lead rope) before he put the halter (the bridle with the bit and reins) on. the horse took off and they had to chase it for a couple of minutes. Cox told the guy the horse didn't respect him and didn't think the person was boss. Within 1/2 hour that guy was not only riding the horse, the horse was standing perfectly still and the rider was standing on his back. Amazing

His big thing is that the horse has to know you are the boss and has to respect you. He trains the horse by making it work then giving it "relief" as soon as he get results.

Lots of stuff-

I can't believe it has been almost 2 months since I posted anything in this blog. We just do not have a lot going on in our household.

Let's see if I can remember every little thing that has been going on since I wrote to you last.

I went to the Dr. for a regular check up- and told him the CPAP was working OK, but I was still tired and had awful bags under my eyes, and was retaining fluid. He sent me to have a thyroid test done.

Yep- I have an sluggish thyroid. He has since increased it a little because it was still a little low after a couple of weeks.

So last week I woke up feeling dizzy, so I called his office they got me in that day. My blood pressure was up to 166 over something ( I can never remember the bottom number) Apparently a side effect of having a normal metabolism. He also told me to walk at least 15 minutes everyday. I haven't made the full 15 minutes yet, but I have started to park at the far end of the parking lot so I have to walk farther. I do feel much better, I can function well on 7 or 8 hours sleep, I used to sleep until 9 or 10 on weekends, and I think I look better.

I think I wrote about Charlie having a part-time job. He's working for the guy down the road, cutting trees. It started as part time, but after the storms we had a couple of months ago, he was working 50-60 hours a week. It has slowed down some but he is still working 40 hours a week, at least until yesterday, when he left because the “boss” flew off the handle for no reason. Charlie had threatened about 3 times before and finally had enough. Check back to see what happens.

He has also completed an arena for some of the local kids, and himself to train and practice various activities on their horses.

Charlie finally went to the doctor because his arm has been bothering him, he has to have carpal tunnel surgery on his left arm. (He had it on his right hand years ago, I think right after Shonda was born. That is scheduled for September 9^th.

Shonda's birthday is Friday, (the 15^th.) It is almost unbelievable that she will be 21. She is going to take a couple of online classes this semester so we bought her a second hand refurbished computer for her birthday.

For those of you that don't know, My cousin's husband died suddenly last week. He was only 53 years old. The funeral was huge. It is hard on the family when anyone dies but when it is so suddenly, and so young it is even more difficult. It always makes me want to reach out to my loved ones and let them know I am thinking about them and how I feel. So to all of you out there I'm thinking about you and hope you are all well and happy. Luv ya.

For years I have been saying I am too old and my back hurts to much to tent camp and sleep on the ground. Well Charlie mus have finally decided that he is too. He came home about 6 weeks ago and asked me if I thought we would use a camper if we had one. He saw one on his way to work. We went and looked at it, but after I checked the Internet and with the credit union, he was asking twice as much as it was worth.
We looked a couple of others, but they weren't in very good shape one a '98 and they was $1000.00 more, and the credit union would only loan about 2/3 of what they were asking. One we looked at was over 30 years old and they were asking $2,500 for it.
We drove back to check on the first one, (Charlie really liked it) but it had been sold. On the way home we passes one that had a for sale sign. So we turned around to look at it. It is a '94 but in really good shape, it is 26' and sleeps 4, it has a real bed, and a dinette table that can be taken out. They were asking less than the other 2 newer ones. I have been spending the last couple of evenings going through all of our camping stuff, and cleaning it up (I think it has been a couple of years since we used any of it)

I think that's all for now. I'll try to write more frequently. I thought I didn't have any thing to write about but this post suddenly seems a little long.