WE ARE STILL HERE!

Monday, March 22 – Spring has returned to East Texas. It was a little cold Sunday but we are back to bright sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Marsha spent the day at the hair salon. I mean the ENTIRE day. Boy does she look “HOT”!!!

Tuesday, March 23 – Went to Houston for my first post-surgery check-up. I was hoping to get an early release from wearing this back brace. Instead the doctor said he wants me to wear it for 8 total weeks instead of 6. This is due to the amount of muscle that had to be moved, and the location of the fusion.....darn! Other than that, the doctor was pleased with my progress. He had ordered an electrical bone stimulator to encourage growth but my insurance company is refusing to pay for this device....hmmm? The x-rays looked very good and shows better than a 90% correction of the spinal offset.

Main Street, the location of Texas Orthopedic Hospital, is a beautiful road. As we turn onto the street, there is a mall with water-fall towers. The yard is perfectly manicured.

On the way home, we have to drive down a street that is shared by the Metro. The tracks run along the side of the road.  According to Carrie, who used it to go to the Rodeo….three times, says it is really a fast and economical way to get around the city. This is the first time we saw it, but only for a moment. We never heard it coming, and then it was gone.

So, we are looking at May until I am permitted to drive. My next doctor appointment is June 10. We are considering a trip to Red Bay, Alabama between these two dates to have some service work done on the motor home. We have to look at travel time and distance.

While in the Houston area, we did some shopping (I napped in the car....ha ha!). Marsha stopped at Target, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Pet Smarts. None of these stores can be found in Livingston.

Wednesday, March 24 - Back to work cleaning up winter debris at the activity center. We've already cleaned up over 30 leaf bags of trash, just in this area. I think we cleaned up over 10 additional bags around the laundry room. JEESH....this place needs a garden club!

The birds are driving Bella CRAZY!!! We put up two bird feeders. We have to fill them just about every other day. The squirrels are climbing up the pole and dumping the bird feeders. So, Marsha has to spray the post with Pam and they slide right down. We have a window bird feeders also. Birds fly in, and Bella flies up to the window. It is so funny to watch her tail go back and forth at 50 mph. She even tries to catch the birds but jumping at the screen. What a hoot!

Thursday, March 25 – Marsha has a friend here, Louise, who makes tons of quilts for her family. She is making what she so fondly calls her Memory Quilt. She explains that it contains squares from all the quilts she has ever made. Louise asked Marsha to help her lay out the squares. They went over to the Activity Center about 9:30 a.m. and Marsha got back about 11:45. How can it take that long to put some squares….whatever those are….on a sheet? I don’t get it. All that matters, is Marsha had a good time and said she learned some more quilting tips from Louise. They are going back sometime next week to look at it again. Glad they know what they are doing because I sure don’t.

The Memory Quilt.

This is Louise with her quilt.

Took the motor home out for some exercise today. We drove about ¾ of an hour to get the engine exercised, fluids circulated, slides moved, generator exercised, etc. Everything seemed to run smoothly.

Marsha gave the inside a good cleaning. It's amazing the amount of dust that blows in and settles on things. She dusted and ran the sweeper real good. Of course, she ran the sweeper just two days ago.

The rest of the day was spent doing nothing…..so we had planned. Marsha went in and put on shorts. As she was sitting in the sun, she looked down and saw what looked like…sort of….poison ivy on her leg. On her right arm, it looked like she had gotten bitten by fire ants. Well, off to the Urgent Doc office. Two hours later she returned saying, “The doctor isn’t really sure what I have. Since I don’t itch and nothing burns, she can’t believe it is fire ant bits. The leg stuff doesn’t resemble poison ivy either. So, we are just going to treat you with anything that would be poison. They gave me an injection, just in case. I went to Walmart to pick up a prescription for suave and a Presidion pack.”  So much for the rest of the day.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next time.

SPRING IS THE AIR

Monday, March 15 – The weather here has been beautiful! It is great to sit outside all day and into the early evening.

Marsha is having the biggest time seeing everything blooming in the middle of March. She takes the camera everywhere she goes and snaps the trees and flowers in bloom.







She even takes the camera to Walmart!


Thursday, March 18 – Took a ride today and happened upon a Chain Gang working along the road. Maybe that's one of the reasons Texas has such nice roads....cheap labor! Marsha made me take the picture way before we got there. She was afraid they might get us….LOL


Marsha has been cleaning up the leaves around the Club House about everyday. She even made announcement at the Social Hour last night trying to convince people to come and help her. She got lots of laughs. One of her friends, Louise, did come and help her for two hours. That was so nice of her. 

Marsha                       Louise

Before

                                After

Of course I am left holding the bag…..so to speak.

We finally got to play Mexican Train. Peggy, a good friend, Dottie, Fran, Marsha and I had a good time talking and playing. We are going take over organizing Mexican Train on Thursdays at 6:30. There are few other people who want to join us next Thursday.

Friday, March 19 – Went up to Palestine, TX to watch high school softball. Our daughter, Kelly, is the head coach. It was fun to see high school softball again. She has some really nice girls. They played hard. They lost 3-1, but it was a fun game. We are very proud of her.









After the game, we took Kelly out to lunch. We enjoyed catching up and talked about what she wants to do in the future. She's considering moving to a different school district next year, and we talked about different options. She has some decisions to make!

Got back home (Livingston) and settled down to watch March Madness basketball.

Another week, more beautiful weather! Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again soon.

MARSHA HAS TO BE DOING SOMETHING ALL THE TIME!

Thursday, March 11 – Marsha is getting antsy looking at all the leaves and weeds. She went over to the office and ask the Campground Manager if she could do some weeding. The Manager had to check on liability but told her later it would be OK. Matters of fact, she told her anything wanted to do around the campground would be appreciated. Marsha came back with a big rake and tons of big plastic bags. Away she went to the laundry room to weed the front. It was a mess. I wish I would have taken a picture of the bed before she started to weed. Here are few pictures of her weeding.

The weeds you see around the fern were everywhere in the flower bed.

 

One part of the bed looking soooo good!

Saturday, March 13 – Kelly came down to visit today! It was good to see her. We last saw her over the Christmas holidays. We took several walks around the park to show her the different area and to get some daily exercise. We then took a ride around Livingston to see what little is here. Next it was dinner time, and we grilled some sausage and Marsha prepared some fried potatoes and glazed onions. Very good.

After more talking and visiting, we watched a movie in our new DVD player and it was time to hit the sack.

Sunday, March 14 – Carrie arrived pretty early this morning. Surprise! We had a wonderful day just sitting around and talking with one another. The girls wanted to teach Marsha something new on the computer. They had more fun laughing than teaching.

We grilled some chicken and Marsha made her potatoes the girls like. Lee stopped over to meet the girls. They really enjoyed his visit. Kelly hit the road around 2:00 and Carrie around 3:00 so they could get their home chores done before work on Monday morning. Actually Carrie will be the only one going into work. Kelly is on Spring break.

We sure have two wonderful girls. They are so delightful to be around. We sure enjoy visiting with them and miss them when we're gone. Marsha made plans to go to the Rodeo with them next weekend, and we made plans to get together for Easter. Sounds like some more fun coming up!

Kelly                          Carrie

Monday, March 15 – Marsha is working out each day at a place called the Sweat Shop. She takes two classes, one for toning and one step aerobics. She hopes to get her youthful figure back. Of course, I think she looks just fine as is but you know woman! Before she got back to the motor home, she stopped at the office and came home with another rake and 15 bags. I said, “Oh no, now what?” She was in the leaf raking mood. She raked and I held the bag. We did all the laundry area and all around the motor home. When we were finished we had 4 huge black bags filled with leaves and 6 clear bags. Dwayne came to pick the bags up and told Marsha to slow down. He had to make three trips on the golf cart to get rid of all the bags. It sure does look nice!

She also took this picture of me. Can you guess if I am reading or sleeping? I will never tell.

Thanks again for stopping by. Hope to see you again soon.