End of February

 Time stands still for nobody. The end of February is just a week away and that means in a month or less most of the snowbirds will be leaving. Some of them it's none too soon for them to leave. Some are kind and thoughtful people.

Our little Mandy was given a cute name by my cousin Patty. She referred to her are Miss Mandy Houdini Benton. Yes, Mandy is some escape artist. She got out of her crate last week by knocking the door off. Guess those cheap crates from Walmart weren't meant to keep her inside. Or any dog for that matter. She is so good overnight without being in the crate, but if we leave her alone, she goes nuts. Yes, we are still dealing with separation anxiety with her.  Since she is so small we do take her most places that we go. The exceptions being eateries, and stores. We don't shop inside stores very much nor do we eat out often anymore due to the trump virus. So she is with us the majority of the day. Yesterday she snuck out the gate with me, but didn't run away. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at me and turned to walk to the car. She loves to go for rides. I picked her up and just brought her into the house. It seems to me that she knows she has it pretty darn good here. 

Tis the season for fresh citrus to be at its peak. And we are getting our share of the fruit. Mark has been busy with his electric juicer making grapefruit juice, orange juice and lemon juice. Our freezer is  filling fast. The season comes to an end quickly so we are contemplating going for another run to pick up two more bags of fresh fruit. The groves are all selling at great prices to sell their over abundance from their groves. All of the fruit has been very good too.

Last of the indoor renovations.

 Today we are getting a new kitchen sink and faucet put in place of a shallow, narrow porcelain sink. The old faucets are all coming off of the sink since they were only put on with putty and the old sink is only 6 inches deep and 3 inches narrower than a regular kitchen sink. That made for difficulty in washing dishes especially kettles and plates. Water splashes everywhere but in the sink.

This should be the last of the major inside renovations of our new home. In 5 weeks or so sun screens will be put on the outside of our windows. That helped so much during the summer months in our last home. And since these windows are just single paned and no screens it will be double nice to have in place. 

A new addition

 Good morning on yet another cold windy morning. Well to me 53 is cold especially with wind too.

We had an eventful day yesterday. Morning started out as it usually does with the two of us having coffee in front of our computers. As usual we check out the Humane Society for small dogs incase one would pop up touching our hearts. Around 11 we headed to WM to pick up our grocery order. After quickly putting the cold foods away we headed to the Humane Society to check out a couple dogs with no intention of bringing one home. One they said was a Shih Tzu and one a small terrier. Well the Shih Tzu was not what they said and the terrier was a scruffy looking stray of mixed breeds. The stray, Mandy, was so loving and looked so lost that our hearts just went out to her. She loved being close, held and petted. So yep, she touched our hearts and we decided we would fit well together. Having nothing for a pet anymore, we told them we needed to do some shopping and then come back for Mandy.
Once the paper work was all done and she was microchipped, we headed home with Mandy sleeping in my lap for a bit and then watching out the window. We got her and her things situated. We found out she is a runner!!!! She jumped through and over the gate on the porch and took off. I in my stocking feet, without my cane, took off after her while Mark worked at getting the golf cart to help catch. Thankfully God had a man and his dog walking, close to the exit gate of the park and Mandy stopped to say hi to the dog. Another gentleman, he had to put on shoes, helped by getting to Mandy before me and bring her to me. By then Mark had caught up to us so I didn't have to walk back home too. Or I should say hobble back home. By then I could hardly walk I hurt so bad. But I had to keep Mandy in my sight so I just kept tailing her.

Today Mark will be going to Lowes for lattice to put up higher than what was previously here so she can be on the porch but not escape. It will take her some time to realize that this is a better place to live than on the streets. It looks as though she was once groomed and taken care of. Her teeth are nice and white, and her fur was just scraggly like she was over due for a groomer and not matted or snarled. Some people just around here just let their dogs go when they get tired of them or can't take care of them anymore. So sad. She was so good when I gave her a bath and cut some length off of her coat. Today I will call a groomer and make an appointment. No picture of her yet. She is so black that it's hard to tell which end is which unless you see her tail wag.  Mark will take some pictures with his good camera later.

When I woke up this morning, Mandy was not in her kennel but curled up on the couch next to Mark. She saw me and slowly walked over with her tail wagging at full speed. She is still cautious but happily accepts the affection.

Well that was our day in a nut shell. I hope that today has less active excitement.

Big steps to our home

 Since we live in Yuma full time there are adjustments that need to be made to most park models. The summer gets mighty hot and the AZ rooms are not set up for the intense heat summer can bring. And just like our last home the AZ room was not set up well for the cold nights either. Soooooo, we had to look for help in making our extra room more comfortable for us.

Tuesday we had a mini split put in the AZ room for supplemental heat and air conditioning. The men were professional and actually cleaned up their work area's. Meaning no mess left behind. I've found that is seldom the case and has been that way for quite a few years. Anyway the unit is installed. BUT, we can't use it yet. Some wiring was not up to code so they had to change some things and are waiting for 50 50 breaker for the new unit to make that and the hot water heater up to code. They also installed a more powerful bathroom exhaust fan. The one that was in here didn't exhaust it just moved the air around. So after a shower the towels were very damp and water from steam was running down the walls. Not what you want on sheet rock. The new fan works so well that there is not even steam on the mirro and you can almost feel a breeze when it is on. I'm thinking it may need to be turned down a notch. OH, it's adjustable too.

Next week we will be getting a bid for sunscreens on most of our windows. They really help stop most of the sun from heating up and entering the windows. The windows are only single pane so we may have to replace them as funds become available. Which means we need to start saving for them.  A couple at a time works. I noticed last night, with the wicked cold wind, that it was cold sitting by a window. I think I need to order a quilt too. All I had are no more.

It breaks my heart to think that we just finished getting our last home the way we wanted and needed and now to start all over again. 😢 

Here we go again

Yesterday we purchased and set up a 20 gallon aquarium. It took some doing to make room for it because this home is smaller than our last home. But it's up and in three days or so we will add fish to the tank. The temperature and water chemistry need to be right before adding fish. We did start with bottled water this time instead of Yuma water, which killed too many fish. The water here is way too  salty for the fish to survive. I'll be testing each day to make sure it is stabilized. We are so anxious to have fish again.

A super nice surprise phone call to Mark yesterday made us both so happy. A dear friend from our home town is in AZ and wanted to see us. So today we will be sharing lunch and chatter with some very special friends. We never thought any friends would ever come down here and visit us. Mark is on top of the world. Thank you Ken and Julie.  💜

Made the call

 My darling husband finally made the call for help with some much needed repairs around here. He is used to doing everything himself, but not all things can be done that way anymore. Not just repairs but some areas need to be brought up to code. The AZ room is cold this time of year so we know that it will be HOT come summer. So Mark called a company to put in a heat pump in this room. They found some things that are not up to code so that will have to be fixed before they can even do the work we need done. They will be getting back to us with an estimate. Also a plumber is coming to look at and give us a bid on replacing the shallow, 6 inch deep kitchen sink and old faucets. AND.... the electricians will fix or replace the nonfunctioning exhaust fan in the bathroom. The exhaust fan in the bathroom does NOT exhaust, but just circulates the air. After taking a shower, the walls, towels, everything is wet. NOT good. We can't have all the humidity in the house, especially in the summer. It all make me wonder if the previous owners ever took a shower or cooked. About cooking, I've resolved to just putting up with the under sized range until it dies or needs repair. Replacing that will require new counter top and rebuilding that area. Geesh. I'll start saving now.

Mark put in a new RO system under the kitchen sink this last week. I drink quite a bit of water and the water was not tasting right when we moved here and it just kept getting worse.  So he was going to replace the filters. Not surprising, the filters were totally plugged and the water reserve tank was rusting on the bottom. We were lucky that we didn't get sick or worse. After a day or so of clearing out the new filters and tank, we had good water again. Many thanks to my loving, handy hubby.

The AZ room is so noisy with echo's and outside noise and cold  that we had to do something. It costs too much to replace the bogus single pane windows so we had to do something less expensive. We hung thermal, black out curtains yesterday. It made a big difference in the sound and it wasn't quite as chilly in here this morning either. It seems as though our time and money was not in vain. And the curtains look very nice in here too.

Considering we were told that everything worked well, we found that to not be the case. Gee, imagine that someone would not tell the whole truth. It's just one thing after another lately and we are tired and sore from all the extra work we were not anticipating.  Starting over at our age is no small feat. And it is too stressful with our medical issues. But with Gods help we will make it through this hurdle too. We have made it through much worse with His help.

Even though there was more work involved than we had hoped for, we do like our new home. It feels more comfortable each day. And it's beginning to look like our home with a few changes from other years.

Our first full week at home

 It's really starting to look like "our" home around here. Thanks again to donations from wonderful friends and family we have been able to not only get some much needed clothes and food, tools for must do chores, but also some items to help make our house feel like home. We had insurance to help with some things we lost but some items will never be replaced. We no longer have any family photos or photos of our travels etc., no more personal memorabilia of any kind. But we have tried to get our new home reflect us.

The bedroom has new curtains and bedspread. We are waiting for blankets that actually fit the bed so we both can stay covered at night. Some kitchen decorations to make it feel welcoming. We covered the worn old loveseat with a fitted gray cover to make it look nice and comfortable and added a couple throw pillows for a nice place to rest your back or head. The bathroom of course has to be purple so some nice rugs and new towels made the dark gloomy bathroom bright and clean looking. What was left here was tattered and stained. That leaves us with the extra room that we have yet figured out what to call it. Try as hard as we can we have yet found a spot for a much needed freezer. There is a nice queen size bed in there that takes up a lot of room. But the bed is nice to have when either of us has a bad night or by some chance someone would actually come to visit.

Friday we had to go and pick up the toilet we ordered. The one here was so low that we both had a hard time getting on and off of it. And with my back and arms it was also painful. As with any plumbing job for Mark it didn't go well. The pipes are very old and brittle and the main line into the bathroom snapped and broke. A mad rush to turn off the water and find old towels to sop up the water, left us in a pickle. Two trips to Ace Hardware and Mark had enough fittings etc to stop the flow into the house. But that left us with no true functioning toilet.  Just before dark Mark had to stop working, it was too dark to see anything while under the trailer anymore. So jugs of water were used to "flush" the toilet. Saturday we both were totally worn out so we pretty much took a much needed break. However enough energy was found to hang our large wind chime, Big Ben.

As of yesterday Mark planned on finishing with the plumbing job today. That remains to be seen. I wish he would just call a plumber. I know he can get it all to work, I just  worry about him crawling around under there. He believes that if you can do it yourself why pay someone else to do it for you.  Work smart not hard my dear. Hire it done. LOL