The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow .... Tomorrow

 Every day that song haunts my brain.  I keep hoping for a nicer day, but so far it alludes me.   The sun actually did come out yesterday for the entire 4 hours I was shopping deep in the heart of Tucson.  

OH LOOK ..... PICTURES!!  I was finally able to fix my phone when I returned.  More on that in a minute.

Guess who came to visit at 4 in the morning?  This doesn't look like Mom ... it looks more like one of her grown up babies.  This made me smile big time!!

Frustrated with the phone, I headed off with a list of places to go and stuff to get.  Sometimes being an early riser can be a pain in the pattoo!  I left at 9:00.  Things are open in my "other" town at 9:00.  Not so here it seems.  

I stopped in at Dollar Tree for a small plastic bin to use as a dishwashing tub in the rig.  Saving water and all that.  CLOSED.

Okay, I'll head on over to the fabric store.  They were open early because they were having classes.  I picked up a couple small pieces and headed off to the SECOND fabric store.  By now everything is open because it's such a long drive to get there.  Isn't this cute?  I folded and got the pattern, but no fabric.  I'm sure I have plenty of scraps.

On the way back, I hit the dollar store.  It was relatively clean, but all the metal bars on the windows were a little scary.  I found the perfect wash bin, along with two huge rolls of paper towels and a metal spatula (I keep melting those plastic ones) ... for $5.00.  You can't beat those prices!!

Next up Ace Hardware ... bird feed.  Lastly, Safeway for groceries.  Who knew these two little bags would hold $89 worth of stuff.  The good part is I saved $15 on sale items.  This pricey food thing is definitely eating into my fabric budget.

So here we have the results of the trip across country to the Sprouts store.  I thought I would try Dave's recommendation of Carbonaut bread ... gluten free.  Let me just say I love you Dave ... but this bread?  I sure hope the quail like it.

$9.99 a loaf .... but I decided it was worth it if it worked.  I toasted up one piece with a little butter and took a big bite.  Hmmmmm it kind of tastes like bread, but the mouth feel ..... I got about half of it down before deciding I just didn't need bread in my diet any more.  It's kind of gluey and stuck to my teeth like a tootsie roll!  Then there was the kind of greasy after glow.  

I'm laughing ... good try Dave!  I'll mail this loaf to you!!  Just kidding ...  maybe!

With the clouds coming over the mountains making it look like there was a lake to the left, I began working on the phone.  As with others, it started with all my junk mail hitting my inbox.  I checked all the settings available and nothing worked.  I'm guessing a hacker got in to Outlook (Hotmail).

What happened then was just a fluke.  If I get my finger too close to the phone screen, it will sometimes click on things I don't WANT to click on.  It clicked an unsubscribe button, which opened the flood gates.  That changed some of the settings on my phone and the fight was on!

It took me about three hours, but I was finally able to delete two of five email accounts, change a bunch of settings, then get them back on my phone.  That of course required multiple new passwords.  If that wasn't enough, I then had to change all the passwords on my computer.  

I discovered it was only Outlook, used to be known as Hotmail, and not my other accounts.  What a pain that was, but I can now send pictures via email.

The clouds came in and the rain began to fall once again.  By midnight the winds were howling like crazy.  It appears this will be the scenario for the next week or so.  

The rest of the evening we did this.  Sometimes Cooper gets so obsessed with this game I have to hide the ball.  After all, he's 13 (91 in people years).  I wish I knew his secret.  He didn't play this much even when he was a KID!!

The sun'll (I don't think that's a word, but I looked up the lyrics) come out tomorrow ... maybe ... just maybe!!  If not, that song will just keep repeating in my head.

If It's Weird, It Happens To Me

 I'm thinking my phone was hacked.  Not sure how they can do that, but weird things have been happening with my email accounts on my phone.  I can't send anything and all of my email suddenly appeared in my inbox ... including 279 junk emails.  

That's a big problem since I do everything with my phone.  SO ... there are no pictures today since it decided my password is incorrect, even though I can access the account(s) with that password on my computer.  

I've sent 15 emails and none of them are going through.  This is going to be time consuming, frustrating and downright screaming material!!!

This sort of thing isn't even to scam you out of your money.  It's just to irritate you .... and its working.

What else is weird?  I caught a poor gila woodpecker in a rat trap.  UNDER THE HOUSE!!  How in the heck does THAT happen??

The only thing I can think of is when the plumber had the hot water heater out of the closet.  But isn't it completely surrounded with wood?  I double and triple checked the entire outside of the foundation and there is NO place anything could possibly get in.  

It's just weird.  

So here's a pretty sunset picture while I go crazy trying to beat the scammer.  Wish me luck!!

Well ..... It's Raining

 I know I keep saying this, but I've never seen anything like it.  It rained quite a bit here last night, and it's still going this morning.  It's a quiet rain ... no thunder and lightning this time.  I guess our summer weather in the winter is going to stay gone for a while longer.

So I might as well get inside stuff done.  This is that fancy water filter I ordered to see if the expensive one worked better than the cheap one.  $57 dollars ... replace every six months!  Yikes!!!  Previously, I went for the $35 model.

It took some time to get the old one out, along with a nice big flood of water.  The directions don't tell you to put a bath towel under when removing.  It seemed just as hard to get the new one in, but I persevered.  The bad part was running water through it to the tune of one gallon before using.

I'm sure the cheap one worked relatively okay, but once the water in my cup sat for an hour, it tasted terrible.  This ..... THIS is heaven.  No more bad tasting water, even after it sat in my cup all day long.  YAHOO!!!  I guess sometimes you have to pay the price.

It was overcast and gloomy all day long.  I got dressed up TWICE to go to town, but never made it.  Sometimes, even if my list is long, I just can't get up the motivation to walk out the door.  

So I worked on this quilt most of the day.  Here's an interesting situation ... when I have the lights turned on and the iron turns on ... the lights dim.  I asked the electrician about that and he said it was because my iron was 1800 watts.  

Since it's not been steaming like it should, I ordered a cheap 1500 watt model.  Maybe that will help.  Nope ... not in the least.  The light still dims when it turns on and off.  Weird ... so now I turn the light off to iron in the dark.  Not a good solution, but it's all I've got.

Bored to tears ... I mean really, even grocery shopping is a nice alternative to staying in the house all day long ... I decided to whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies.  You'd be proud ... I only ate ONE.  Well, except for all that raw dough I ate, you know, just to be sure it was okay for human consumption.

There was one slight distraction in the afternoon.  Mr. Cooper decided there was something about his friend on top of the buffet.  He sat there and barked for quite some time while I tried to ignore him.  I'm telling you .. when there is a b-a-l-l involved, his little nose is NEVER wrong.  

Yes, I have a little black and white friend, who thankfully is made of stuffing and oh-so-soft fuzzy stuff.  Hidden underneath was you know what.  Sometimes when he's making me crazy, I hide them.  By the way, never say that word ... b-a-l-l.  He wasn't exactly happy that I gave him the critter instead of the b-a-l-l.

That tells you just how exciting the day was!!  Anyway, the clouds kept the landscape looking eerie and cold until it was time for leftover ribs.

That completely distracted me from the sunset going on outside.  This is NOT my image.  The sun sets in the West, yes?  My house faces North ... meaning I miss most sunsets unless my brain is in gear.  On this night it was muddied up with tasty barbecue.

This IS however, a picture of last night's sunset taken by someone else.  A beautiful ending to an otherwise pretty boring day.  Today should be better ... if the weather holds out.  We are off to Green Valley for some exploration.

Food Coma ... Oh Yeah!!!

 I awoke to perfect quiet.  That's unusual ... I jumped up to see if the world still existed.  Yup .. house is still here, Cooper is chasing his ball ... I guess we are still on the earth.  But what's this?  A Chinese balloon?  NOOOOO it's the SUN!!!!  I can't believe it.  No wind, it's relative warm and the SUN is out!  It's a miracle!!

Of course I was up earlier than that ... like 4:00 early ... to pick up the game camera.  This was taken at 7:30 when Cooper and I were lounging on the couch.  You just never know who is lurking outside the door.  Know what else is weird?  The dove are out at midnight getting a drink.  They are usually hunkered down in a tree.

This was another weird sight.  In all the time I've had this place, I've never seen this engine cruising by.  It has a little bit of camo paint on the back.  Has anyone see it before?  She's a beauty for sure, but I'm curious about the fabulous paint job.

I'm again in awe ... 50 degrees with crazy wind one day and a fabulous 70 degrees the next.  Today's high of 59 will see no wind and NO sun, so there will be no lounging on the patio in my bathing suit.  However ... yesterday, it was perfect weather for smoking some ribs.

As you know, I sing the praises of Trim Tabbs Pig Powder for my rib rub.  I've tried many other brands, and NOTHING beats this stuff for flavor.  I took these out of the fridge and let them sit for about 45 minutes.  

Adjusting the temperature of the smoker was a little hit and miss.  If there's any cold at all, you have to ramp it up.  With my other smoker, I've even been known to wrap it up in a quilt to keep the temperature where it needs to be.

Unlike my other smoker that uses preformed biscuits, this one needs hickory chips soaked in water.  Luckily this time I remembered that little fact.  The chips smoke much better that way and don't just burn up.  The smell is divine!

While they were on their first two hour trip sucking up all that delicious flavor, I hit the sewing room to start another quilt.  I think Patty and I bought this fabric something like 15 years ago.  It's been sitting in a box ever since.  Yes it's about time I put that fabric to good use.

In two hours I pulled the ribs out and wrapped them in foil.  No more smoke is required, only heat for yet another two to three hours.  No one ever said yummy smoked ribs were a quick treat.  This is an all day adventure.  

When you open that first package, the smell is sublime!!!  Really, you don't even have to open it.  You can smell the deliciousness right though the foil.

I hauled them over to the Chance household because there's no way I can eat FOUR packages of ribs.  Sharing them is my thing.  This was a joint effort.  Dan barbecued the corn and Patty made Cole slaw and WHAT??  Red Lobster biscuits!!  It was a delicious feast!!!

I came home to plop on the couch in a food coma.  Oh yeah!!!  To make up for the epic meal, I'm faced with smoker cleanup.  Scrubbing all the parts and pieces is not fun, but I'm sure will be worth it when I break into that one package I have left in my fridge, for breakfast smoked ribs!!!  YUM YUM!!

It's Good To Laugh!!

It's a big shake of the dice in Arizona.  Who knew the weather could change at the drop of a hat?  It's a lovely 43 degrees this dark morning, with a high of 70.  We absolutely FROZE yesterday with winds that made my RV cover swing 4" each direction.  That was a little scary!  

On the other hand, this kid of mine just cracks me up and makes for belly laughs every single day.  This is his pup language for YOU are eating something, so "I" need to be eating something.  Seriously, he does this every time.  What he gets is a tiny one inch piece of Beggan Strip.  I guess he has me well trained.

Just to show you how bad the winds were ALL DAY LONG, my whirligig got a kink in his what's it.  

It was a big surprise when the plumber called at 7:30 to say he would be a little late.  Wow ... no contractor I've ever known has done that!!  Upon arrival, he emptied the tank and got to work.  Come to find out, this is a "residential" unit.  It is against code to put them in a modular home.

Lovely ... if anything had happened ... fire or water damage, my insurance company would not have paid a dime.  NOT a laughing matter!  Out with the old .......

And in with the new.  It's a tight fit since the closet isn't very big, but he got it in along with two water shutoffs.  When I leave, I can shut the water off to the house and turn the heat down to pilot light only.  NICE!!  It took three hours, but he did a fabulous job.  He will definitely get any and ALL of my future business.

About an hour after the plumber, the electrician showed up.  What a hunk HE was!!  He went straight to work fixing my RV plug in the crazy wind that froze you to the bone almost instantly.  Thirty minutes later he came in the house to check out the plugs.

You know I love tools that make things easier to do.  He had the sweetest tiny little drill with a magnetic tip to hold the screws and a LIGHT so he could see.  I need one!!  He laughed at me!!

First we checked out why turning the iron on dims the lights.  Come to find out, it's a 1700 watt gadget that sucks the power right out of the 15 amp circuit breaker.  He said it wouldn't hurt anything, but if the breaker flips off, I better look for another iron.  No worries, I'm just going to order another one.  I like big machines and go-fast cars, but I guess I better gear it down in this case.

Then we headed to the kitchen to check the two plugs not working.  We looked high and low for another GFI, but none were to be found.  That's when he pulled out another cool little gadget.  He took the plug out of the wall, hooked up this gizzy to the wires (when they were HOT no less), then held another tool as he walked around the walls.  It kept beeping, meaning he was following the wires through the wall.  

When it quit beeping, he said there's the problem, as he stood in front of an outlet on the other side of the wall.  He took THAT outlet apart and found a very loose wire.  He tightened it up and VOILA!!!  My outlets work.  I jumped for joy!!!  So did he since now he doesn't have to crawl under the house, which was the next option!!  I'M BACK IN BUSINESS!!  To make it even better, we laughed a lot wasting an hour of his time, and he only charged me $120 for all the work, including the RV plug.

That's two big things off my mind in one day, thanks to some great guys!  They are now on speed dial!!

Since the weather is going to be perfect today, I thought I should smoke these ribs from Costco.  I know it's weird, but you smother them in mustard, which does not add any taste, surprisingly.

It just holds the Pig Powder on while it helps tenderize them in the fridge overnight.  This morning they'll go in the smoker.  Maybe I'll even put on some shorts and hang out on the patio.  That will be a first for this trip!

And so another crazy weather day ended with dinner at the Chance house.  I took a salad bar and Patty whipped up one of her special casseroles.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect day of flushing TWO worries down the drain!!  

Throwing A Hissy Fit!!!

Hoooweeeeee it's chilly in Arizona.  In the twelve years I've been coming here, I've never seen Mother Nature throw such a hissy fit!!  "Feels like 23" should read Feels like 10!!  It actually got a little lower before the morning was over.  

I bundled up, grabbed my camera and ran outside just as the sun was coming up.  The blue/gray sky was casting a shadow over everything.  

When Mother Nature's heat lamp came up in the sky, it all began to melt.  Not fast mind you, since the temperatures stayed really low all day.  How could you not love a view like this.

At the same time, Mother Nature makes everything look gorgeous so you won't mind the snow so much ... in the DESERT ... where it's supposed to be WARM!!

Everywhere you look, it's amazing.  

This tree was fabulous in its crystal white dress.  In no time however, it all disappeared.

Except my SNOWMAN!!  He hung in there the longest ... although I actually do STILL have snow on my back lawn.  Yessirree ... that's how cold it's been for the last couple of days.  The snow has NOT melted.

Even my poor hummers got frozen out.  It's never been cold enough to do this.  I had to thaw it out and make a fresh batch for them.

In other news, I felt like throwing a hissy fit yesterday too.  No surprise!!  My level of patience for incompetence is getting shorter the older I get.  Is it just me?

All this craziness trying to get those medical tests done .. all that worry .. waiting for 8 months to get this taken care of ... and there is absolutely nothing wrong with me.  If that doesn't make you scream and throw a hissy fit, I don't know what will.  

Apparently the previous tests were NOT done correctly.  No surprise, considering the level of competence in that area of the state.  Just to be sure, they did even MORE tests.  I passed with flying colors.  YAY!!  I'm going to hang around and bother people for another ten or twenty years!!!

The plans for dinner were NOT interrupted.  We headed out for fried deliciousness to Red Lobster.  It's so nice to actually have choices of places to eat.  I bet you can tell whose plate this is!!

Patty and I could never eat that much food.  We opted for the smaller appetizer, coconut shrimp!  To offset the calories, we each ALSO had a nice green salad.  What a meal!!!

Stuffed to the gills, we went back home where I completely forgot to take the ribs out for the smoker.  Considering the winds to be 25-30 mph all day long, I'm not sad about that.  I'll try again tomorrow.

It's going to be a good day though ... I've got not one, but TWO contractors coming this morning.  The electrician to fix my RV plug and the plumber to put in my new hot water heater!  It's going to be a high priced day, but there will be no hissy fit throwing from me!!!  

I can't wait to be worry free ... if only for a day or two before something else breaks!  You know ... home ownership stuff!

SNOW!!!!!!!

 Heavens to Betsy!!  It's a lovely 28 degrees outside with a soon to be 22 degrees before I'm done typing.  Woohoo that's some chilly weather!!  I'm pretty glad I'm in a nice warm stick house instead of my rig boon docking somewhere.  

The snow quit falling about 7:00 as the sun came up over the mountains.  I do love the snow, as long as I'm not driving in it.  I'll have a few more images tomorrow.  I was in a big hurry to get up and about because the electrician was due at around 9:00.

Here's my sad little snowman!  My excuse is the dry snow.  It just didn't want to stick together.  Before I got the head on, the two bottom pieces fell over.  Once back up, I plunked the head on, to have the bottom piece break in half.  A snowman builder, I am NOT!

His head fell off once and half of it disappeared, which is why there is a big lump on the right wide.  He fell over once again about three seconds after taking this picture.  Oh well ......... I tried.

Neither Cooper nor I were keen to go outside, so I started this quilt while waiting for the electrician who called about two minutes later.  Hwy 10 is still completely closed, so he wanted to reschedule to Friday.  Luckily that worked for me.  Can you imagine having an entire freeway detour around five miles of surface streets for three days?

Since Jonathan has been without his usual Hawaiian banana bread for over a month, I whipped up a batch just for him.  Okay, I admit it's my favorite also, so he will just have to share.

Hey .... I've got a little time on my hands ... why not get frustrated with Frigidaire!  The first filters I ordered just do NOT remove the taste of the water.  I ordered one of their fancy dancy ones to see if it made any difference.  For $57.00, it BETTER!!

Funny, I had not received any shipment notice, so I called them.  It took three calls to figure out the first part of their phone menu.  I finally got a human who put me on hold for 15 minutes, then hung up on me.  I tried to call back and it said they were just too busy to take my call.  

Ok ... I'll try the CHAT thing, but by then I wasn't in the best of moods.  At least Shaquanda was nice about it.  Do you ever wonder about the history of the names people have?  Maybe it's just me.  Anyway, after quite some time (this is only part of the conversation) she gave me a tracking number.  I tried it immediately and it didn't work.

WAIT ... don't hang up ... that number is not working!  She finally said I would receive it by Feb 18.  So bottled water it is until the filter arrives.

Time to put another quilt on the machine.  This is that one of crazy small pieces I made at the request of Patty.  The pattern is called Bear Claw, so appropriately, I used the bear claw quilting pattern.  Afraid if I leave the room something will happen, I usually get down on the floor to play with Cooper.

You can't tell he's obsessed, right?  There are two pluses to this activity.  One, I stay fairly limber crawling all over the floor.  Two, I'm constantly picking up pieces of thread that magically appear out of nowhere, meaning I don't have to vacuum quite as often.  It's a win-win situation!

At last it was finished, ready for Patty to sew on the binding and ship it off.  This one is going to ALASKA!!

I kept looking outside, hoping it would snow some more, but the sun came out and eventually melted it off, except for right in front of my patio.  I got to enjoy it all day long ... and it's STILL there this morning.

Dinner was meatloaf sliders.  I recently learned the trick of squishing hamburger completely flat in a small zip-lok bag, making it super simple to defrost and a small enough amount that I don't have to eat it for a week.

Oh and by the way, I've started my new cholesterol diet.  I ate a small salad for lunch.  It had lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, bacon and some leftover chicken, smothered in thousand island dressing.  Take THAT cholesterol!!  

Yeah I know ... leave out the cheese and bacon ... but SOMEBODY has to eat it up!!  After all, there are starving children in the world, as my Mom said a million times.

Wild and Woolly!!!!

 Wow ... it could not have been a more wild and woolly day in Arizona!  Let's start with THIS!!  The winds came up last night like a tornado!  Honestly, it sounded like it was going to rip my house from the foundation and send it off to Kansas!  

That was followed up by rain ... a really big drip drip drip that I'm praying was OUTSIDE my window and not inside.  I'll check that today.

After several crazy nightmares, I finally woke up to that excruciating quiet of .... SNOW!!  It's so quiet you could hear a pin drop!  Even the trains are not running.  The little black kitty kitty is a metal one that fools Cooper every time he goes outside.  

My thermometer reads 34 degrees and it's snowing continually.  I'm sure it won't last long, so I'm getting pictures as fast as I can!

Next up, we are all okay from the HAZMAT spill down the highway.  When you get one of those screaming messages on your phone, you quickly pay attention.  

There's some construction along this section of the highway, causing people to slam on their brakes because they just drive too fast and ignore the signs.  This is nitric acid ... not something you want to breathe in.  

Luckily there are no houses close to this and it's about 12 miles down the road from us.  They closed the highway completely.  I'm sure they got it all cleared up before the big winds came.  The West is still a wild and crazy place to live!!

Back to the NORMAL part of the day, after getting a flooring estimate that's WAY over my budget, especially with electrical and hot water heater issues looming, Patty and I took off for the quilt shop.  She gets 20% off everything she buys on her birthday.  Lucky for me, Patty includes me in the fun.

On this day, all I needed was the backing material on the left.  Patty also found some backing for the quilt I made for her, to eventually be sent to her friend in Alaska.  

Then we went to Joanns.  Why?  Because she had ANOTHER coupon for 20% off everything bought, including sales items.  Woohoo!!  Patty got several more pieces of fabric and I picked up this fabric box along with a $65 packet of blades for my cutter.  I never buy them unless I get at LEAST 40% off, which I did, thanks to Patty's discount.  

So THEN it was time to treat Patty for her birthday.  We go to Coldstone Creamery every year ... it's tradition ... for a coffee lovers sugary treat.  Oh yes, Patty had a coupon for THIS too!!  Buy one, get one free, my treat.

Okay, I inhaled mine, as you can see.  There is NO ice cream better than this amazing concoction of coffee ice cream, Heath bars and nuts.  Next time I'll bring a candle!

It could not have been a better day ... we laughed a lot and had a great time, not to mention scoring lots of fabric at sale prices.  

It looks like the snow will only last a couple of hours before melting away.  It's going to be sunny all day, with 15-17 mph winds.  I guess if I'm going to build a snowman, I better go do it NOW!!!