Month: May 2016

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Camping Out In The City

Chocolate Castles4 Comments

We have been in our house for 12 days. If I remember correctly from all the Bible Studies I have done, I remember that the number 12 (in Hebrew) meant “complete”. But in Mesa, apparently it just means, 3 more nights until we are out of the air mattress And into a bed. After these 12 days of having nothing but 2 borrowed lawn chairs to sit it, we have discovered how comfortable car seats really are. We go driving around just to sit in something besides the lawn chairs. We have also learned that around these many over 55 communities, couples have cards made with both of their names, their emails, phone numbers and last but not least, the couples picture. So Randy and I have been trying to come up with what our “business” card would say. We are thinking something like
Rickey & Trixie is our names, Bingo & Chicken Foot is our game!
Randy thinks we still need to work on it a bit. In the spirit of camping out, since our stuff isn’t here yet, we have been using plastic silver wear and paper plates. on Friday, because they delivered the stove top, we were so excited that we went and bought eggs and bacon and gave us a whole new reason for jumping off the air mattress Saturday morning. As I was using a sharp car key to open the bacon, I get my brand new Paula Deen skillet out that Amazon just delivered on Thursday, and began to fry the bacon. It dawned on me at that moment that I still had no toaster, but we wanted toast to go with our bacon and eggs. Well, they don’t call me little miss Pioneer Princess for nothing. I just got my other new Paula Deen skillet out, buttered the bread and proceeded to fry our toast. As the bacon began to cook on one side, I got the plastic fork out and began to turn it over to the other side. It would not turn over. As I began to get frustrated, I looked at my plastic fork and discovered that it had melted in the hot bacon grease. Well, it doesn’t take me more than 2 slices of bacon to learn that you cannot use plastic table wear for cooking utensils. I learned that if you use one fork to turn each slice of bacon, it does NOT melt. Bends a little, but it didn’t melt. I was planning on having fried eggs, but remembered that I had no way to turn the eggs, so we had scrambled. Note to self, Do not keep the plastic spoon in the eggs as they cook, as melted plastic does not taste very good with eggs.
As of Saturday afternoon, the plumber came to take the sink out so we have had no water in the kitchen. But for one morning, we had a home cooked meal, melted plastic and all. Was mighty good.

We have made a list of “friends” who have actually called or emailed us and told us they wish they could be a fly on the wall just to see us getting up off the air mattres in the mornings. Those so called “friends” will not be getting one of Trixie & Rickes new business cards, much less a Christmas Card. We want all of you to know that we have mastered getting off of the mattress very well, thank you. All you have to do is roll back a little two or three times, with your feet firmly planted on the floor, and then using your hands, push yourself up on the last roll. There have been only a hand full of times, when either of us have had to actually roll over on the floor on our hands and knees and pushing on the side of the mattress, push ourselves up.
When we were staying at the casita for the couple of weeks before moving in to our own place, the owner (and now new friend) told us about a drink that she had every evening when she came home from work. she invited us in one night and made us the most refreshing drink. She put 3/4 cup soda water, 1/4 cup organic apple juice and grated fresh ginger. Put it in a blender and pour over ice. It is so good. Randy and I have been drinking ever since. Also because of the grated ginger, it is very good for tummy aches. Plus, after the stress filled morning of picking out melted plastic our of the scrambled eggs, the drink settled my nerves.

We are already settling in, in spite of no furniture. Both of us have talked about how little we have had, the last few weeks but have still felt at home. It Has shown us that so much of what we have is probably unnecessary, but we realize how spoiled we are to all the “extras” that we have gotten so use to. Extras like, more than one towel, real silver wear, a refrigerator in the house and a television that you don’t need a magnifying glass to see. But by the end of this week, life will be returning to normal with all of our ‘extras” arriving on Wedneday. We will feel like we are living the American Dream, having a real bed to sleep in and a couch. Ah…..the good life!

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Dumpster Diva

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

We have quite a few things to learn about living in an over 55 community. This morning was one for the history books. We woke up feeling so “at home” in our new place, even though we do not get our furniture until the 24th. But we have grown accustomed to our borrowed lawn chairs and our air mattress which is, truth be told, not so bad. We keep telling ourselves as long as we are able to actually get up off the air mattress, it means that we are still spry young things that are still up for adventure. We haven’t once had to bounce up to get off, or even rock back and forth to get a jump on standing up from the mattress.
Last evening we went out for our first social. Four couples and ourselves had dinner at one of the couples homes and then went to listen to a band play oldies, following by standing outside during intermission at the Moustache Pretzzel food truck in 108 degrees to get a hot pretzel. Nothing is better in 108 degree weather than a eating a hot pretzel. But, like Randy says, the tickets were a gift so he told me I cannot complain. It was fun seeing old timers and young timers (such as ourselves) trying to shake, rattle and roll, while watching parts of your body take longer to stop shaking and rattling or rolling than other parts. But, we saw a couple who we had met at Starbucks a couple of weeks ago, out on the dance floor. Felt good to see some people that we already knew. We ended up exchanging numbers so we could get in touch when we got settled.

That takes us to this morning. We hurriedly woke up at 5:45 to shower and get dressed as workers were coming over at 7 to take a soaking tub out of the master bath. So I showered, used the curling iron, put my makeup on, so the men would not get freaked out by my “natural beauty”. Since we were ready in plenty of time, Mr. I Have A Great Idea, says, “let’s take the golf cart and load up some of this bulky trash the previous owners left in the storage shed and haul it back to the bulk trash area”. Well, you don’t have to ask me twice to go riding on the golf cart, (in case you missed the announcement, the cart’s name is Wally). So feeling so prim and proper with my earrings on and my makeup freshly applied, (after all, you do not want to get caught out without earrings, what would my little southern Junior Leaguers say) we load up the back of the cart not and head over to the bulk trash area. For some reason, I turned around before walking out the door (actually I do know the reason; I never, never leave home without my phone because yes, my name is Trudy and I am a phone addict). when we get there the sliding door to the trash area is open as a gentleman is just leaving so we figure that maybe the door is open during the day. So we pull Wally into the trash area and proceed to unload boxes of trash. As we are climbing up the inclined walkway up to the top to drop over the last of the boxes, we hear a sound and look over. The gate door has closed and we are now closed in the bulk trash area behind walls that are about 10′ tall. We just look at each other and I said, “well, at least when we are rescued, I will have earrings on.” We see a security pad over to the side and realize that there must be a code to open the big doors. But, we neither knew what code it might be. Randy said, I don’t have my phone to call anyone, I guess we just sit here and wait until someone comes and opens it so we can get out. In my mind, I have already begun to plan an escape. I was already thinking that if he could help me get on top of the golf cart, I could possibly hoist myself up on top of the 10′ wall and yell at a passerby who has lived here longer than 3 days, who would know the code to let us out. Before I began my ascent to the top of the golf cart, with makeup already melting and running in my eyes, I looked over and saw that I had indeed brought my phone. We called our security guard and told him that we were stuck in the bulk trash area and couldn’t get out. After he quit his snickering, he quickly told me the code to push and we drove ourselves out. By the time we drove back up to our house, I had no make up on to speak of, my hair looked like I had slept in it and we both, well, let’s just say that we have smelled better.
Lesson learned: I might leave home without my American Express card, but I will never, no never,leave home without my phone or my earrings. One never knows when I might need to be rescued and if I am ever on TV I want to have my earrings on.

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Home Sweet Home

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

Last night was the first night in our new place. Of course, we are still without furniture, but thank the Lord, air mattresses have come along way since we first “”camped out” in a new house before furniture is delivered. We are the proud owners of a house in an over 55 community. We like to think of ourselves as being one of the “”youngsters who will bring down the average age of the community”. In reaiity, I have already seen some who make me look like the matriarch, guess I had better catch up on the latest plastic surgery technology. Some of the women here are walking around with frozen smiles,due to the amount of Botox on their faces, with eyes that look like they couldn’t
Close if they had to. But, this little Southern girl is going to let my hair blow in the breeze, as we drive our cute little golf cart around, allowing the wrinkles around my eyes to flap in the wind, just like the wrinkles in my neck.
Yes, we got a golf cart and named it Wally. I told Randy that since he had let me name all our cars in the past,with girl names, I would let him have this one and he came up with Wally. I liked some of the suggestions I had shared with him, such as Tad, or Oliver, but he just rolled his eyes and said, it’s name is Wally, no more discussion. So as soon as Wally arrives this afternoon, we will be on our first little trip around the community. It is street legal, so we will probably drive it out the gate and over to Starbucks. This opens up a whole new world to us. We have already been invited to our first social here in the community tomorrow night to go with 5 other couples to dinner and an oldies concert. (I’m not sure if we are the oldies who will be singing or if they have a group that will be singing songs from the past, guess we will find that out tomorrow night.) Then Tues evening, we are invited to go to Bible Study which is led by a pastor who comes here every Tuesdy night.
Everyone has been texting or calling and asking how the move is going. We so appreciate everyone who has been keeping tabs on us these past two months, as we zigzagged our way across the county. Since I haven’t had a stove or oven for 2 months, I have not cooked. That will be the first thing I do next Wednesday when our appliances are delivered. Randy will think he has died and gone to Heaven when I set something other than microwave mac & cheese in front of him.
There have been so many times these last two months of how God has showed His faithfulness to us. One Story I just have to share is this. We had set a budget for how much we wanted to spend remodeling the new place. We had a certain amount set aside for all new flooring. Two or three bids were as much as $5000 over what we had felt we should spend on floors. Wanting to be good stewards of God’s money, we had obtained several bids. Each one high then the last bid. We have been staying in an Airbnb for the last 3 weeks, close to our new place so we could go back and forth. The casita where we were staying is behind the large house of a dear lady who owns her own construction business. when we were sitting outside visiting with her one evening, werelayed that we were having trouble finding someone to purchase floors from,with installation, at a decent price, Diana says, “Trudy, remember I told you that I have my own construction company. Let me send one of the guys out to look at the house and give you a bid.” He came yesterday, called last night and his bid was $5 under the budget we had set aside for floors. He has been installing floors since 1969 and is sending his men out Monday to install the new flooring. All this to say, that we have felt God’s provision and faithfulness in not only leading us here, but who else but God would provide a casita, owned by a women who had her own construction company. She is also being so kind to send one of her guys out to remove the tub from the master bath.
Randy picked up some money a man had dropped the other day, and as we were sitting there enjoying our coffee, the man stops by our table and gives Randy a Starbucks gift card to tell him thanks for picking up his money and returning it to him. We have had strangers stop 3 times, offering to help us load large boxes into our car in the Home Depot parking lot. So yes, we are embracing the kindness which we know is a gift from the Lord. From our air mattress each night, we will continue to stop and thank God for the blessings He pours on us daily. This is truly becoming Home Sweet Home, very quickly.