The Calming

The atmosphere seems to have parted around us this first year full timing in Panoply. More times than a reasonable person could expect, threatening weather skipped hauntingly past us to throw lightning, hail, or winds at someone else. To say we were grateful would be the cliché understatement.

Do I dare hope for 2012 to go as well? How about I hope the same for you?

Done.

Yes, I do!

Also, note: My brother rerecorded his single, “I’m Coming Home” – to put the emphasis on the words rather than be drowned out somewhat by the music. The song is on my sidebar. Good Job, Bill!

Also, I am introducing our Granddog, Nelly, who I call Nelly Belly. She is a Brindle Boxer, full of love and a bit headstrong. What a combination.

It was a great 2011 for our family, adding a new Granddog and a new Granddaughter, just topped it off.

Leon and Marcia

May your sunsets lead to star filled nights and promising sunrises.

We have a new grandchild. Our first! As soon as Leon finishes up his workamping at Amazon.com, we will go meet her! Yes, there is a lot of pink in our future, hers, too! Don’t expect us to have a princess for a granddaughter, though. Her mom has well adapted her tomboy side with her all girl side. I am quite sure her daughter will be as adept! I am sure our son will play his role in helping to round her out, as well.

Yes, our granddaughter was born on December 10th. Is not that the greatest thing?! I have been lax on my knitting, getting used to this RVing life style, and not having access to the yarn and needles I wanted when I had time and patience to work on the booties and hats. And there is the ‘issue’ of new places, new people, new gorgeous views to distract me.

Patience, you ask? It’s like this, I am not a person who can concentrate on anything other than the internet or a good book, lol. I am so easily distracted that I miss a stitch in the pattern, discover it way down the piece and have to rip out. Of course, I do not know the correct way to do that, so invariably I am untwisting or twisting stitches on most or all of the row when I start knitting again. It IS a labor of love, but….

(Hmmm, I had to edit it, you could not read some of my strange typos, lol. It shows up in black on HTML page, but not on visual page. No time to research the problem now!)

I leave you with a vision of hope for good days. I absolutely love this sky – it is the reflection of joy radiating from despair.

Today I am grateful for blue skies and white clouds. That is one nice thought to share.

We have to walk to see this:

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Guess I need to post the shower curtain pic next. It is an awesome curtain!

Leon changed out the extremely low faucet to one he could get his oversized hands beneath. A Moen, purchased at a box store in Michigan. What a difference it makes. I can fit a small plastic box with a lid beneath it to run off cold water when boondocking.

Today is another day to make the best of – or waste. The choice is ours.

I'm going swimming! - Not

I have put off posting – in part because I wanted to wait until Leon really started blogging with me as planned, yes, that is why the title change – a play on Bogie and McCall, but I don’t LIKE “Bogie” and exercised my veto rights, lol.

He will join in, I know, if I start blogging again, so, before I rush off to work:

Plan on more pictures as we did start full time RVing on April 21, 2011. A tad bit late, RV still unfinished inside, but we are loving our new life style. I am doing my best to stomp out that thought, “Why did we NOT do this twenty years ago – or more?”

Lots to catch up on! An RV Lifestyle and Safety Seminar and a driving class in Bowling Green, Kentucky; Organizing our RV, Dumping our TV for a …., exciting news from the home front, our first workamping job at Thunder Bay Golf & RV Resort in Hillman, MI (we love it!), our new bikes, and our travel plans – and – how living in 26.5 feet minus the motor is working out.

And, if you read this blog before, you know I do have opinions! As does Leon. And no, my values have not changed!

My extended hiatus from blogging is over! I hope you enjoy our banter.

Many, if not all RVers, use at least a sediment filter on their incoming water line. Some prop it in a bucket so it does not fall over, one ingenious RVer used a PVC pipe cap attached to his bumper to set the filter in. Leon did not want to mess with Panoply’s bumper. Instead, he used a bungee hooked to the window frame to hold the sediment filter off the ground. It worked fine. However, he added a carbon filter, as well, so lately he has just been using a bungie to hold both of them to the post that the water is connected to. Keeps them off the ground – and away from the RV.

We also have a good filter beneath our kitchen sink – and use a Brita for cooking and drinking. Overkill? Perhaps, but it makes us happy.

But, I don’t like not being able to hang most of our clothes… What to do?

It was a simple solution since we had opted out of using the cabover as a bed. Leon simply screwed and bracketed a heavy wooden dowel closet rod across the opening of the cab. The other advantage was when getting in and out of cab seat from within RV was simple for me to grab the bar to make it quicker and easier!

When we are parked, the clothes go there, over the driver and passenger seat and behind the heavy blanket curtain that we put up to separate the cab from the RV. The cover that wraps around the cab windows and windshield prevent them from being visual clutter from outside the RV. It worked brilliantly for us! I took, of course, way too many clothes for the two of us…

Yes, it looks sloppy, in that picture; I had been rummaging through the clothes. Normally, when parked we had a tall plastic set of shelves rolled in between the seats. I have no idea what that blue is on the floor. Dropped something?

During travel the clothes were moved to a thin dowel rod that was installed in the hallway right before the back living area. It was so close to ceiling it kept the hangers from flying off.

(Note: having trouble with this theme, cannot figure out why pics won’t show up in proper place…. Sorry.)