I love seeing deer and turkey when I walk with my friend Ciel on her block! Today we saw these baby deer and they are so adorable, I had to take a photo!! I've had a busy month of August so far so I will catch up on my blog posts when I have a chance, hopefully soon!!! Tomorrow is Nova's 7th birthday and I can't wait to celebrate with her. Jim is in New Mexico taking care of his mom so he won't be here but I'll send him some photos so he can be a part of the fun in spirit.
August is always a great time when the kids go to Montauk for camping right on the beach! Jim and I love to go out for the day and hang out with them and just enjoy the water and the beautiful summer weather. I love the rocks and all of the colors we see on the beach and it is great for them to find some rare beach glass, Jack sure had a knack for finding some!
It's been fun to spend time with Jack and Nova this summer and I took them to the movies this afternoon to see "Paws of Fury". These kids can eat popcorn, let me tell you!!! When I took them to see the Minions movie I got them a medium and that was gone halfway through! So today I went for the jumbo bucket and they polished it off!! We enjoyed the movie and I look forward to my special time with them.
This afternoon I had a great time going to the Long Island Ducks game with Amanda and the kids, I'm so glad we got to do this while Robert was working and Jim was at his Barntique Village shop. We only stayed through 4 innings but I really enjoyed spending time with them.
What a beautiful time I had in Milwaukee with Jesse, one of our baseball trips for this season! I arrived at 9:45am on Sunday and I spent several hours waiting for Jesse because his flight wasn’t due in until 2:15pm, that’s just how the flight times worked out for us. I had a lovely lunch in the airport and then waited at the gate to see Jesse walk toward me with a smile on his face and another passenger with him also smiling, she looked at me and said “You have a really nice son” I agree 100%!! We had several choices near the hotel for meals and after walking over to Walmart for some drinks and snacks we had dinner at Noodles & Co and then just hung out and relaxed in the hotel for the evening.
On Monday I had us booked for a ballpark tour and we really enjoyed it, I learned so much and neither Jesse or I knew about Bud Selig and his fight to keep a baseball team in Milwaukee, we really only knew him as the Commissioner of baseball for many years. The tour was fantastic and so was our tour guide.
After the tour we walked quite a ways so that I could see the Fonz statue by the Riverwalk, it was almost 4 miles and Jesse was in a bit of pain after that but we had a nice meal at a restaurant nearby called Rock Bottom and while we were having our food I found amazing seats on stub hub 6th row behind home plate and couldn’t believe that they were only $45 each, I snagged them up quick and we took an Uber back to the hotel to get ready for the game.
We met up with my friend Paul Rodriguez from my ballpark stampeders group and we stamped our books together and then he went to his seat and Jesse and I went to ours, we had a great time as we always do no matter the outcome of the games.
On tuesday we went to a couple thrift stores nearby and that was fun!! We saw another game tuesday night and then again on wednesday during the day. Wednesday night we had dinner at a restaurant about 2 blocks from the hotel and my friend Paul joined us and it was nice to sit and chat with him.
Thursday morning Jesse and I packed up and left the hotel and went to the IHop in the parking lot of the hotel for breakfast and then took an Uber to the airport and we both flew home that day, I had a long layover in Baltimore and got home late that night but it was a great trip and I look forward to another one in September where we will be hitting a couple California ballparks!!
This weekend I will be honoring the memory of my mom, after several years of not being able to attend the Race for Hope due to the pandemic and also Nancy's heel injury we finally made it back to DC!! We had a great time and I hope to continue to do this race annually now after a few years off.
We are having some crazy weather and while I am grateful to be safe in my house, I was startled out of sleep by something hitting the window in the bedroom and now I can't fall back to sleep!
The winds are gusting to about 60mph and since we are surrounded by very large trees it is a bit unnerving for me right now, I hope I can get a little more rest once things calm down a bit. I think it was probably a small branch but I can't be sure. I just looked out the window and I see the screen from one of our other windows laying on the ground so that got yanked off by the wind!
I have continued some purging of my craft supplies and other things and making a little bit of money while I wait out my social security which will start in May, I finally got the letter with the approval and the amount I'll be getting every month. :)
I am leaving for my winter trip to Arizona soon and look forward to warmer days ahead.
I just wanted to post photos of the blizzard we had at the end of January and boy did we get a lot of snow and there was so much wind that the snow drifts were crazy big!! Thanks to some rain and warmer days we have lots of melting now and hopefully we won't see anymore of this white stuff!!
My meal planning has been going well so far!! I have 2 weeks worth of meals on my list and I've only gone to the store twice since the beginning of the year!!
Tonight we are having macaroni and cheese in the crockpot with some roasted broccoli or cauliflower on the side, I have not decided yet which vegetable I'm going to use, will all depend on my mood closer to dinnertime.
The next one I did was this Mickey & Minnie one and it went very fast because while the custom one was square diamonds this one was rounds and that goes so much faster for me!! It turned out super cute and I'll probably hang it in my office or craft room, not sure yet!!
Last night I read this entire book in one night, I just could not put it down and I finished at 1:07am!! Thank goodness for being retired, that's for sure! It was a great story with a couple of new characters to the series and of course all of my old favorites from Moonbeam Bay!! Looking forward to the next one in this series that is due out March 22nd.
Oh my gosh it was so cold today!!! I think the high was maybe 18 degrees but the wind chills were below 0!! This is the time of year when it can be brutally cold like this that I am so grateful to have a home and heat because I can't imagine being homeless and having to be on the street, I pray for all of those people that don't have a place to rest their head at night.
I've started reading now my 5th book since the beginning of the year!
I have done some purging in my craft room of supplies that I don't use anymore and just trying to make a few dollars on Ebay and whatever I don't sell I am giving away to friends or donating to the local thrift store, Savers.
Finally, I wanted to say today that it's been 4 years since my spine surgery and I am so grateful to still be doing well!
Reading goals for the year
Now that I am retired I've started to read more and more and really enjoying the quiet time! In 2021 I know I read tons of books!
I've started a new series by an author named Rachel Hanna and I'm enjoying it so far, they are very quick reads and I love being able to follow the same characters over the course of several books!
Well those best laid plans don't always work out the way you think! I started off 2021 hoping to blog more but I just logged on and noticed I never posted another blog entry last year at all so I'm not going to sit here and type out that I'm going to blog in 2022!! I have continued to journal as much as possible however so that was a positive for last year!
The coronavirus pandemic is still very much affecting us over 2 years later!! The current variant called Omicron is so contagious that here where I live 1 in every 4 people tests positive for it!! 25% rate of positivity is crazy!!! I am staying home more and not exposing myself!
I have started meal planning so that I can shop once and have meals for an entire week plus some days of leftovers!! Tonight we are having turkey chili. I will freeze some and then we will have chili hot dogs later in the week.
