Sunshine on My Shoulders

So today was just so pretty I couldn't resist. I packed up and moved outside for my writing work.



Ahhhhhh.....

Don't hate.

I even got some sun! Which is good, because people? I am WHITE. I am so white, I'm almost translucent. See these veins? I look like a vampire. But not in the seductive, stylish Anne Rice way.



Also, I burned myself the other day while putting a pizza in the oven. It wasn't my fault though! The stupid pizza broke in half while I putting it on the baking stone!



Cocoa butter stick seems to be helping quite a bit. It looks ugly, but it doesn't hurt.

Today, Davy Crockpot cooked a corned beef brisket in Guinness, and we had homemade reuben sandwiches for dinner. YUM. So easy to do! Pumpernickel bread, sauerkraut, corned beef cut in thin slices, and thousand island dressing. Put it together, grill it, and eat! Very tasty!

Also, on a side note, I submitted a sewing book idea to a publishing company today. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Mission Accomplished: Quilt!

This morning, after taking Noel to work at the chipper hour of 6 am, I came back and, turning on a book on tape (Agatha Christie's Tragedy in Three Acts), finished the binding on the quilt. It took several hours, but I managed to finish it 3 minutes before the audio book finished. Good timing! :)

I'm very proud of it - this was my first quilt, and it had been languishing for a very long time in my UFO pile (that's Un-Finished Objects, for those non-crafters out there). It required a lot of hand sewing, since I decided to do all of the quilting and binding by hand, but it was worth it. Sometimes hand sewing is really relaxing - simple, repetitive movements do that for you.



The kitties gave it their little fuzzy stamps of approval:



And it passes the ever critical nap test!



This was my Crafty Learning Activity for February, so it's finished a little late, but that's ok. My March project is also done, but I haven't taken pictures yet. I've also got April's project lined up: retro embroidery! Should be fun!

Alright, it's time to go pick up Noel from work. Bye!

La La Laaaa! Spring is Springing!

First, please bear with me for a minute.

You know what irks me? When you move into a campground and try to pay by going by the office, but no one's there, so you end up going back again later but still no one is there. And then the next day there's a snotty note on your door saying you need to come and pay NOW. So you go back to the office and yet again no one's there? And you go yet again a little while later, but still they're not there? And finally, on the FIFTH visit to the office, the manager is there and is rude, and when you say "I came by four times to try to pay but you weren't here," said manager then ARGUES with you about what exact times you came by to pay, to defend herself?

This did not bode well for my loving the last campground we were in. It had its advantages: super-close to a great HEB. Ok, so it had 1 advantage. Disadvantages? The spaces were EXTREMELY close to each other on all sides, so we had to leave the blinds shut all the time. Because the spaces were so small, we had to park the utility trailer (with all of Noel's tools and McBertha the Celtic Motorcycle) in a parking lot up front, which we don't like to do. The road to get to the campground was so riddled with potholes that it felt like you were driving over uneven speedbumps for a mile.

Also the manager was a JERK.

The good news? We found out that Noel's job (that started today) is not in Texas City (southeast of Houston) after all, but further north. We went back up to Baytown (northeast of Houston) and scored a nice BIG spot at the Casa RV Park, where we've stayed before, and it makes me soooo happy. Why?

Big spaces! We can spread out and have enough room that we can put out our lawn chairs and grill out and breathe! And also keep the blinds open!

See? A huge driveway (it's twice as long as in this pic) and our own little yard!

(It's the little things you appreciate when you live in an RV - like water pressure! It's always a crapshoot from one park to another, but good water pressure is something you don't miss until you don't have it!)

The manager is super-nice. He wasn't here yesterday when we arrived, but we had called and he reserved the best open spot he had for us, and he came by a little while ago to collect the rent and make sure we had everything we needed.

It's cheaper than the other RV park.

It's so much prettier too. We have trees here! Lovely lovely trees, giving us some shade and lots of pretty green grass. I'm SO much happier here. Even without the fancy HEB. I'll survive.

Ok, now to the title of this post. For those of you still in the frozen north....sorry. It's warm, sunny, and beautiful here. I went out yesterday evening to get some pictures of the trees around our space.

This gorgeous shade of green and all this new budding life can't help but make you feel a bit happier, really. Even with the pollen.

Speaking of, Dr. Rachel? I don't seem to be allergic to anything thus far down here. (My sister and I both have allergy problems, but to different places - I'm allergic to NC, she's allergic to GA).

The cats are loving it too - they enjoy when we can open the blinds up, because it's so much easier to find a sunny spot to lay in. I've got the windows and vents opened up too (no need for A/C yet) so they can hear and see the birds outside, and are enjoying that as well.

Speaking of nice weather, I think I'm going to go out for a stroll in it. Ta ta!

Cough...cough.....hack.....cough....etc.

I have been bowled over by a type of Victorian-Era type Consumption (not the conspicuous purchasing kind, but the Moulin Rouge kind, except with fewer sequins). There has been much coughing and wheezing and sounding like some kind of emphysematic old man who smoked cigars for the last 92 years. It's nice.

Anyway, that's finally going away. FINALLY.

And Noel's been working hard and calling on breaks to make sure I haven't swooned overly dramatically and hit my head on anything.

The cats have also offered their miraculous healing powers, which consist of sleeping on my feet to keep them warm (the feet or the cats? Good question) and reviving me with their own natural type of smelling salts, ie. frequent visits to the litter box. It works.

So hopefully now that I'm on the mend, more posting can occur, accompanied by the kind of high quality Things In Sky photography that you yearn for (humor me, I'm sick).

Have a lovely weekend.

Also, a big shout out to my siswad:

CONGRATULATIONS, DR. MILLER!

The Eagle Has Landed...Finally.

We're here - back in the Houston area! We got in today around 2 pm, which means we made really good time after yesterday's looooooong drive. The cats are thrilled to be on solid ground. They're sleeping in their windshield perches right now, bellies full of canned salmon, completely content with life.

We've settled into a campground where we'll most likely stay for a few weeks, in League City (just southeast of Houston). It's convenient for Noel's next job, and also is inexpensive and has trees! Can't beat it.

And yes, we've already been to the HEB. Ah, how I missed you, HEB!

OH! And we're only 1 exit from the Hobby Lobby. I am perhaps overly excited about this. :)

So, I'm going to go do dishes and then lay down for a while. One souvenir I brought back from Tennessee? A cold with a really brutal cough. Hopefully it'll go away soon. It better - I'm running out of cough syrup. Guess we might have to go back to the HEB again! Ha!

Hello, Miss Lou!

It took me a few minutes to figure out who Miss Lou was. Businesses on the Mississippi Louisiana border refer to themselves that way. We know this because we're in Louisiana tonight!

We're just outside of Alexandria, LA for tonight. We made a whopping 400 miles today.

The kitties were champs, and we're all happy to have stopped for the night. Tomorrow: Houston!

No Meowing But Also No Battery Power

Meet our little friend, Mr. Alternator!

We got the chance to become closely aquainted with Old Man Alternator this morning, when we left the campground. We got a whopping 13 miles down the road before we started having trouble. Sigh.

To sum up, 2 hours later, we had traded in Old Man Alternator for New Youngster Alternator and were back on the road again.

Thankfully, that was the only major issue we ran into (other than some heavy rain!). We're spending the night just outside of Birmingham, AL and boy are we glad for the good night's rest!

On a good note, the cats were absolute champs today - even Loki! I hardly heard a peep out of him! Amazing.

Tomorrow's Goal: Louisiana!