We're cooking and dancing in the rain.

It has been raining pretty much non-stop for two days and nights now.  Fortunately for us, they have been pumping water out of the park non-stop also.  So this time, we are not flooded.  At least yesterday, we weren't flooded.  It is still dark and I can't see outside yet, but it doesn't feel like we're floating.

We stayed inside all day yesterday and I worked at getting caught up on posting my tax receipts.  Unless, we get where we just can't stand being cooped up inside today, maybe I'll finish my tax sheet that I take to the accountant in April.  Yesterday afternoon, we just had to get outside for a while and we donned our galoshes with our tee shirts and shorts (you know that was a pretty picture) and walked up to the office to leave some mail.  Good thing we have galoshes now.  The streets in here were mostly under water.  It was fun because we were splashing in the water like two kids.  However, it started raining pretty good before we could turn around and return.  That's okay.  At least we got out. 

I've been cooking more lately.  I have a little more counter space now and I'm loving my kitchen.  Yes, it's still small but adequate.  Some of our friends here have awesome kitchens with islands.  They are beautiful but we, personally, prefer more living space than kitchen space.  Our island at home sure comes in handy.  Usually as a catch-all, if you know what I mean.

I've been making muffins for breakfast.  They're real easy and they only take 25 minutes to bake.  We usually eat one with our tea every morning.  (We have quit drinking coffee and started drinking hot tea.  I brought so many different kinds of teas with us and we hadn't been using them. We're not even missing the coffee.)  Now for the recipe for my muffins.

One box of cake mix (any flavor you choose)
One small can of pumpkin
(This is really all you need.  You just mix this up and put in muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes.  However, I add a few extra items.)
I add a few pumpkin seeds, some sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and some butterscotch morsels for extra flavor.
No milk or egg or oil needed.  These muffins are awesome.  (I used to make this as a cake if I wanted some dessert at home, using only the cake mix and pumpkin.  It was still really good.)
P.S.  yesterday, I used orange cake mix and it was delicious.

For dinner last night, I made some stuffed ravioli with alfredo and clam sauce.  OMG, it was good.
It was so easy.

One package of frozen stuffed ravioli  (I used cheese stuffed ravioli)
One jar of alfredo with mushrooms sauce (I used two because I wanted to get rid of stuff taking up room)
One can of clams, drained
(You could use shrimp or whatever you like-- even just use the alfredo sauce alone.)

I just boiled the ravioli (which took 4 1/2 minutes) and drained them.
Then in the same empty pan, I poured in the alfredo sauce and clams.  Then I returned the drained ravioli back in the pan with the sauce and let it all heat up.  (This way, I only had one pot to clean.) 
I toasted some bread with a little garlic powder and that was our dinner.  A small salad would have been a nice touch but I didn't have it. 
A nice glass of wine finished it off.  Yes, I take the easy route and do not usually make anything from scratch but it works.  I would love to find some spinach stuffed ravioli or lobster stuffed ravioli.  I'm slowly but surely emptying out my cupboards of canned goods.  That's my purpose anyway.  What will we cook today?  I don't know.  Maybe just a bologna sandwich. 

I woke at 4:00 for the past two mornings.  Mostly because I had a headache for the past two mornings because it's been raining non-stop.  So I've been reorganizing our cabinets for travel at the end of February.  I put that non-skid shelf paper on all my shelves which prevents things from moving around while on the road.  It works great.  So thank you, Lord, for the rain so I am inside getting much needed things done. 

Well, since my day is only beginning instead of ending I'm not chillin'. 

 

Dance, Dance, Dance

Because I'm happy

  

 

Downtown Punta Gorda

 

 

Some of the interesting things we have seen while in downtown Punta Gorda. 

 

 

 

See if you can find Mike in this tree.

 

I love how they paint old bicycles up in different colors and often use the baskets as flower pots. 

I want to do this at home. 

 

We didn't actually see this particular alligator but did see one here in this park we're in last March.  Yikes!

 

 

They have lots of eagles here.  We actually almost hit one in the car the other day.  It flew right down in front of us.  Can you imagine having to say, "We killed an eagle."?  That would be horrible.

 

We spent the day today walking around Fisherman's Village

It's full of neat little shops of all kinds.  We walked around the parks nearby and watched seniors playing pickle ball.  Mike and I think we would like to learn to play.  It would be great exercise. 
They have a pretty good size court here in Punta Gorda.  There were about six different games going on at one time.  It was fun to watch and talk with some of the players.  It's a mix between badminton and tennis and ping pong.  Lots of movement. 

Today was very nice, temperature wise.  We actually went walking this afternoon when we returned to the rv park in our shorts and flip flops.  Of course, the temperature is going down to 52 tonight but will be close to 80 tomorrow.  Nice.  Mike's planning to wash the jeep tomorrow, just in time for the showers and thunderstorms coming Wednesday and Thursday. 

Now it's time to chill.  

 

 

Back on Track--maybe

It feels like it's been so long since I took the time to sign on to my laptop.  It just sits here every night all alone on the shelf.  I look at it and I think, I need to get back to blogging.  Then I think, I'm tired and I don't feel like it.  For the month of January, we have been too busy.  It's been a good busy but when we come in at night, we're tired.  We sit and read.  I've read a lot of books in January. 

The weather here has been pretty bad too.  Of course, it's not nearly the weather our friends and family at home are having right now.  Wow!  We really feel bad for you guys and pray for your safety when you have to get out.  But if you don't have to--don't! 

The day after we swapped campers, it came a monsoon.  We had half of our stuff still in a storage trailer outside our camper.  Mike donned his crocs (because we didn't have galoshes) and handed stuff inside while I put things away.  This camper is 34 feet long.  The one we traded was 37 feet.  We brought way too much stuff.  But in our defense, we weren't planning on trading campers while we were down here.  It's just that we found the layout we wanted, the size we wanted, at the price we wanted and there you go.  Fortunately, for us, they also had the tow vehicle in the right color to match our camper, and at the right price.  So we were able to hook everything up, drive over to the dealership, drop it off and drive home something different.  It worked out great!

Then came transferring everything over.  That was a chore and a half.  Since then I have reorganized everything on the inside again--better. 

For the rest of the month, we have:

 

Seen our good friends Albert and Thelma from Canada leave for Okeechobee for the rest of the winter.  We will go visit them and ride our Harleys.

Had a block party with some Harley rider friends here in the park.

Had visitors to our new home.  Malorie and Ethan came to see us one Sunday.

 

Learned a new language.

 

Walked around downtown Punta Gorda enjoying the art.

 

 

 

 

Spent about two weeks buying this home and another week getting it set up.

 

Then we spent a week buying a piece of property in an rv park in Okeechobee. 

 

Now we are done with business and ready to get down to being retired again. 

 

Whew !

 

Now we can chill--literally.  (It's cold here.  Down in the low 30's last night.)

 

It's that time of day--time to chill.

I am bone tired!  We swapped rv's yesterday.  So what we did was, we borrowed a trailer from a friend of ours here in the park.  We unloaded our 5th wheel and we hooked her up to the truck and drove over to Palm RV where we had traded for a 2011 Winnebago motor home and a jeep to tow. 

Then we returned to the park just before dark and started loading our stuff into the motorhome.  We actually had another couple helping us.  We worked as hard and as long as we could after dark and we stopped for the night (maybe about half way through it all).  We put some stuff away just to get it out of the floor and went to bed around 11:00.  My back was killing me. 

I didn't sleep well for some reason.  So this morning we got up to severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings.  It had rained all night and didn't slow down until the afternoon today. 

Our yard

Our street

 Our door coming into RV.

Mike has been wading water half way to his knees trying to hand our stuff in while I put it away.  It is now 4:32 and he's still outside doing something.  I have everything put away in here so it actually looks like a home.  My back is killing me. 

 

The living/dining area

 

The kitchen.  As you can see, I have a little more counter space however, at the moment I have it covered with appliances, like coffee maker, toaster, and tea pot. 

The bedroom, well, the bed.  There are closets at the foot of the bed.

We can now walk all around our bed, cool.  Eventually, we will get everything where we want it.  But for now, it is put away--somewhere.  We have way more living space.  It's nice, and it's all on one level--no more walking up stairs to do anything, except to get inside.  Everything is power and we are loving that--like power shades, power awning, power leveling system. 

Anyway, Mike is in the shower and we're going to go out to eat and then pass out in front of the t.v.

So . . .

It's been a while but . . .

we've been very busy.  This has been a most inspired and knowledgeable week.  We were inspired to trade in our fifth wheel toy hauler and get a class A motor home.  That's where the knowledge came in to play.  We had a lot to learn about class A's and towing a vehicle and a lot to learn about our wants and needs. 

This is the motorhome we're trading for.  It's a Winnebago Sightseer.  It's silver with a gold swirl on the sides and it has three slides so there will be plenty of living space.  It's a 2011 with only 19,000 miles and it's been taken good care of.   It's 34 feet long and that way we will be able to get in State Parks because most parks won't allow longer campers due to their spaces being too small. 

 


 


 

 

 

 

This is the jeep we're buying to tow behind the motorhome.  We wanted something easy to tow and rugged and 4-wheel drive.  We have learned from lots of other motorhome owners that jeeps are wonderful to tow.  Thank you, Lord, for these blessings.

So you can see, we have been most busy this past week.  We're out all day and tired at night.  Plus it's been pretty chilly down here.  I've been wearing jeans and jackets all week.  This next week is going to be colder, I think--down in the 40's at night.  I know that's not still as bad as our friends and family in the 20's and 30's with a possibility of snow.  Yuck! 

Still celebrating anniversary

 

Today we took off to Ft. Myers Beach.  It's huge.  We walked the streets, visited all the little shops, had lunch, walked the beach, and had dinner on the way home.  We saw many neat and pretty things while there.

 

a shark

A pretty large sand castle



Lots of people and lots of color

 

A Pirate Ship



One of my favorite birds - the pelican

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016

This is where we spent our New Year's Eve.  Downtown Punta Gorda.  It was beautiful after dark.

The same downtown picture from afar.

 

We sat in this area overlooking the water for a long time after watching the sun set.

 

 

To start the evening, we had dinner at Trattoria Limoncello Italian Restaurant which is just a couple miles from where we're staying.  It was the first time we had eaten there and it was wonderful.  We actually had three people who were attending to our every need.  Our meals were scrumptious.  We will definitely return.  It was a little pricey, but, hey, it was also our anniversary. 

I have to say, other than the night Mike and I got married, this was the best New Year's Eve/Anniversary we have ever had.  Usually, we may go to dinner and come home so as not to be on the road with the drinking partiers.  We were not very far from home at all last night and it was after dark when we returned, but we were still back home and in bed for the night by 9:30.  Yeah, we just never get real excited about sitting up until midnight and toasting the new year in.  Some of the people here, were planning on meeting at the pool around midnight for that very reason.  Don't know if they made it or not yet.   Best New Year's Eve ever for us. 

We walked around part of the downtown area last night and there are many restaurants downtown Punta Gorda.  We actually walked up on one hidden in an alley.  It had such a pretty entrance.  They had some seating outside as most restaurants here do.  The owners were from the Dominican Republic.  We had already eaten or we would have tried it out.  They had just opened a week ago but we think they will do well when people learn about them.  We will go back during the week to give them a try.  Very nice people.

Well I think we are going to take off today for parts unknown.

We hope you all have a wonderful day today, this first day of 2016.  May God richly bless you all this coming year.