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I think all the boxes are now unpacked but we haven’t hung pictures yet. Since some of you are anxiously awaiting details here’s a couple photos for you.

The leaves had peak color last week when we were actually moving. Rain and wind have since caused much loss but this it still not bad, eh?

And to give you an idea of how well I’m sleeping with all the stress of moving here’s another picture for you:

Yes, that’s sunrise this morning. At least we have sun today for the first time since move day.

TTYL,

Linda

Here’s another one of those novel starters that appeared in my head one day:

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When Ma called me Mary Margaret in that special tone of voice I always felt like she’d grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled me up in her face so my toes just barely touched the ground. Now you gotta understand, Ma didn’t have to lay a hand on me and, even if she had, since I was twelve I’ve been nearly six feet tall and Ma’s barely five feet so she couldn’t have lifted me up on my toes. But when she used that special tone of voice…

So now Joey’s using that tone of voice and I react as if he were Ma. First I flinch. Then I start babbling explanations. Then I realize it’s hopeless. So I just sorta dangle there waitin’ to see what he’s gonna say or do next.

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Anyone out there have any idea what Joey was going to do next? If so, I’d sure appreciate you sharing it with me.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Moving date one week from today. Full and empty boxes are having a convention in our living room.

I have several friends who are authors. Sometimes they say the characters in their heads just start talking with the author having no idea where they are going. That happened to me yesterday.

*********

“So, do you want to know what I did or not?” I demanded.

“Nor sure,” he replied. “Do I?”

I hate wimps who cannot make decisions. But, given my history his reply was not really surprising. Hi. My name is Stacy Ramone. Stacy short for Anastasia. Yes, I am named after the famous Russian Princess. What’s a girl to do when named after a princess? She either becomes a princess or the opposite. I chose the latter.

*********

It turns out I’m pretty good at writing opening sequences. But, since I have no idea what Stacy did or what she plans to do next this is probably another book I’ll never write.

Unless the voices in my head decide to continue the story.

TTYL,

Linda

I was ten years old.

Three families,including mine, decided to try a new adventure. The fathers rented camping trailers and we headed out.

The lunch stop along the way looked like this:

Yes, that’s the trailer my Dad rented. No that’s not me in front. That’s my friend who many years later became my step-sister. That’s her Mom on the left and her Dad in back. My Dad is on the right.

When setting up, each end of the trailer is lifted causing the ends to unfold from inside. Once those are locked in place it looked like this:

The canvas roll you see near Dad’s feet is one of the bunks waiting to be fitted into sockets on the ends. There were three on each side. It became my job to make up the beds–bed rolls made from folded blankets on this trip.

Dad snapped the tops of the canvas sides into place then my brothers helped snap the sides and bottom until we got this:

If you look closely you can see the awning that extended from the door end of the unit that had sides that could be clipped to the awning. It was just big enough to hold a picnic table which was good because it rained all weekend.

Here are the three units set up for the weekend at Giant City State Park:

The other family with three kids rented a unit just like ours. The family that only had two kids rented a more standard type–one that had a foldout bed on each side.

There was a creek right behind our rigs where we kids played most of the weekend. After all, we were already wet from the rain so why not play in the creek? The adults spent most of the weekend playing cards at one of the inside picnic tables.

Apparently, they enjoyed this trip as much as we did because the fathers all bought those rigs when we returned home. And we camped from Memorial Day to Labor Day every summer for the next five years. Sometimes with these same three families. Sometimes with members of the Central Illinois Family Campers, an organization we soon joined.

Usually the first trip of the season was at Weldon Springs, a park close to home where we could take a shake down cruise to relearn how to do this. We got so good at setup that we could have everything done and be sitting down to supper 10 minutes after Dad parked the trailer.

One summer we took the trailer and headed to California. We only made it to Arizona though before we ran out of time and money so had to turn back towards home. I have fond memories of that trip and many other shorter ones.

Many years later, after Dave & I became empty nesters, I talked Dave into renting a Class C motorhome to drive out west by telling him we could follow the Burlington Northern RR tracks as we went west then the UP tracks back east. We had a great trip!

Which is probably why I pushed Dave to go full time RVing after we retired. And I’m not sorry he gave in. We saw all 48 contiguous states in the 3+ years we were out there. So I added lots to my stash of memories to replay in my mind now that my body says I can’t travel like that anymore. It’s been hard to give up that addiction. But, it is what it is.

TTYL,

Linda

Dave is out of town. Our daughter, Alexa, is here keeping me company and well fed.

She and I have spent a week exploring what healthful foods we are willing to cook and eat. We’ve been researching recipes that are grain- and dairy-free. We each made a list of ones we’d like to try then we went through each other’s list and marked ones we’d like to try from that. Those recipes that made both lists got entered into a text document and printed out. We then divided those into manageable sized batches and Alexa went shopping for ingredients. Here’s some of those ingredients:

Then she cooked and packaged that batch, washed the dishes, and started again.

Mid stream we had both prepped ingredients and finished products sitting side by side:

And we sampled things and marked which ones we liked and what changes she made as she cooked.

About halfway through the process my freezer looked like this:

We weren’t done yet but already packages would try to jump out at us when we opened the freezer door. So we did this:

I now have seven shoeboxes of individual servings of lots of different food.

And Alexa is stuck with this:

All those dirty dishes don’t appear to be upsetting her much (aside from a passing comment about hiring a kid to wash them) because she’s planning to come back to spend two days a month repeating this process. Just so she can know I am eating well.

Aren’t daughters wonderful?

TTYL,

Linda