We are selling the RV (or "plans written in jello") and I'm a Grandma

We're fine, but it was a difficult decision to make. Originally we thought that we would travel with this RV for at least a good fifteen years or so, but some health issues have popped up for both of us that simply won't allow for this mode of travel...one is William's back. He hurt it in the fall of 2012 and it just hasn't been right since. He can still ride the motorcycle and his bicycle most of the time, but hooking up and unhooking the RV is something he cannot do anymore. Not going to write a list of maladies here, but those of us who are "older" will understand that some things you CAN do and some things you just CAN'T do anymore. For us, it's that simple. I think we were in denial for awhile. It's a hard pill to swallow because we've met some amazing RVers in their 70's and even late 80's who are still bopping around better than we are. 

We are still looking forward to travelling after the RV has sold, and hope to meet some of you at some point in time, but we will rent a condo on a beach(?), a cabin on a lake or in the woods or in an RV park(?), or stay in hotels/motels or whatever depending on where we are. We have new adventures to look forward to.  

We want to visit Florida and West Virginia again, see some areas of the east coast and the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Northern Michigan, maybe Minnesota and North and South Dakota and more...time will tell. We might even get an enclosed bike trailer to pull with this truck, or maybe a different truck if this one sells, and bring the bike and bicycles with us.

We spent the winter at home this year...brrrrr.  I became a Grandmother for the first time to granddaughter Layla, born in early November and to grandson Silas, born in early February. Lots of pics to come. Happy Nana here!

- Mary Ann

I have vivid dreams. What are yours like? Do you remember them?

When I am lucky enough to get some decent sleep, I dream. My dreams are usually in vivid color and sound, often with people I've never seen before, places I've never been and even understanding and sometimes speaking languages I don't speak, often revisiting some of the same places and people in dreams that I've had since I was a small child.

I've dreamed that way ever since I can remember. Anyway, for the past few weeks, I am creating jewelry designs and jewelry in my dreams. Sometimes I remember enough to scrawl them down in a notebook. Cool!

Now if I can only have the time, outside of family obligations, to actually make these things in real life. I'm thinking sometime in the next couple of months, since I haven't been able to for the past year and a half or so. That would make me really happy. That's my favorite part...the creating.

- Mary Ann

 

 

Folding Bicycles and "Biker" Bicycle

Back in May of 2012, I posted that we sold our old bicycles (click to see pics) but I didn't update about what we replaced them with, so...this is about our new bicycles and why we chose what we did at the time.

William loved his old "PeeWee Herman" bike, but it did have a LOT of miles on it....mine, not so much.  I didn't like mine at all.  It was too difficult to ride and steer because it just didn't work very well and it had been a quick, cheap garage sale replacement for a really nice bike that I had many years ago.

At the RV parks we have stayed at, we saw people happily riding some pretty nifty, lightweight folding bicycles, so we decided to check into it, thinking that they would be great for travelling with (they are) and easy to take to parks near home (the parks we occasionally like to ride our bikes at are actually between 20 and 70 miles away) and I really wanted something that would be much easier (and safer) to ride. The fact that these bikes can be folded easily and even carried in a large tote bag is a terrific feature, but we just haven't ever used them that way.

We searched online and eventually decided that we liked the Origin 8 bikes the best and it just so happened that a couple of them were available at a nearby bicycle shop. We didn't have a color choice, but we didn't care. Here they are: 

                                                                    William's bike

                                                                         My bike

 

These Origin 8 bicycles are really terrific.  I love the little basket on mine and it's so easy to just pop off and on if I want to take it into a store or whatever. We had cushier, bigger seats installed, too.

 

I still have mine, but another bike caught William's eye when he took his gold one into the bike shop for a tune up last spring. The Origin 8 bicycles are in high demand in this area and he was able to trade it in for the new "biker" bicycle even though he had put many miles on the gold one (I don't ride mine very often, but I'm hoping to feel more like doing so this summer). William likes to keeps things in excellent condition, so I'm sure that helped.  He really likes the bigger bike and it suits him better.  Here is his current Nirve bicycle:

 

 

Busy, busy, busy...

Been busy, busy, busy. Putting our beautiful RV up for sale. It was our dream to travel a lot, but health issues have popped up in both of us that will prevent us from doing so now. I'm really sad about it, It has very low miles on it and is like brand new or even better with the upgrades we did, like the buttersoft leather Lazyboy recliner loveseat, new very comfortable queen mattresses on two of the beds, had a satellite system installed, etc.

Oh well, life goes on and I hope we sell it soon. I've got my first two new grandbabies to spend time with (I've been busy babysitting, too!), and lots of jewelry making supplies to get busy on. I have a shop on Etsy, but I've had it in vacation mode for a long time. I'm hoping to re-open when I have my stock built up again and photos taken. It will be a while yet.

Is anyone shopping for a 39.6ft fifth-wheel toy hauler RV? It has a garage, three queen size beds, a full size loft bed with tv hook-up, 1 and 1/2 baths, a fireplace, three flat screen tvs, hook-up outside for a flat screen tv, inside/outside stereo system, fuel pump, etc., etc.

I'll post soon more about the RV and my new grandchildren with photos as soon as I get a little time to gather some photos for this blog.

About My Dad

Dad was 4 years old here in 1934

Dad at 22 years old

Dad at 81

 

My Dad passed away July 22, 2012 in his own bed as I held him and heard

his last breath and felt the very last beat of his heart with my hand on his chest. 

I am so very grateful for that experience. I miss him more than I ever thought I would.

 

I'm not writing this in order to garner sympathy or condolences. We all deal with loss

of family members and friends. Life and death, joy and sorrow are inevitable.   

 

I've been thinking about where and how to restart this blog and I decided that starting

pretty much where I left off was probably best. So... this is the update. Thanks for reading.

 

-Mary Ann

What the heck?! Is anyone else getting ERROR REPORT bX-hg9hg2 ???

I've been seeing this (see below) ERROR REPORT for months(?) now, but sometimes it's not here or it goes away on it's own as quickly as it came.  I use IE (Internet Explorer) which I prefer, mostly because that's what I'm used to.  Anyway, this pop-up is very annoying and has actually prevented me from posting the past two days or reading other's blogs. 

I'm only here now because I persistently kept refreshing the page and clicking on anything I thought might help. Still baffled.  I really don't want to use Chrome, but should I for Blogger? Suggestions, please?
-----------------------------------------------

Here it is copied and pasted:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

• Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
• Provide the following error code.

bX-hg9hg2 This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.

Baffled by Google+. How about you? (suggestions/advice welcome!)

It appears that Blogger and Google have made a lot of changes that I have not kept up with and now I'm completely lost.  Everything seems to be integrated now, which could be a good thing...or not. 

Google+ seems like a good idea and I think that I would like to learn to use it and incorporate it into this blog the way I've seen Rick and some others do, but honestly, I don't have a clue how to go about it.

Like I said in my last post, I have a lot of catching up to do. Please tell me if you like or don't like Google+....and why?  Thank you!

- Mary Ann

Hello all! I'm going to try to revive this blog.

Duh...tapping my fingers on the table...I'm not sure where to start this blog again after having been away for so long, but I'll try. 

I see that we still have 74 followers, so a big thank you to all of you who didn't stop following...and I hope that those people that we lost (certainly understandable, due to my own fault of non-posting) and even more people (as word gets out that I'm back to give it another try), will return to follow this blog again.

So much has happened since I last posted. I've been agonizing over where and how to start again, but I just don't know. It is something that I want to do, not that I feel obligated to do, so at least that is a good thing. Chronological order seems impossible after all this time, so I've decided to just go with the most important and/or biggest news from the past year or two and then randomly post about what is going on in our lives now and along with that formula, probably very random posts with photos of trips we've taken and events we've been to. (Sorry, no photos this post, but those of you that read this blog before will know that they are coming...yes indeed...LOL).

I'm glad to be back and even though I have come here sporadically to read the main blogs that I follow, I know that I have a lot of catching up to do!

- Mary Ann