Those endless blue skies!

Just another tale from my little camper world.

    As many mornings as I have woken here in Florida I never tire of seeing the gorgeous sunrises….. or sunsets for that matter.  They each in their own beauty takes my breath away even from a camper window..

Another beauty of a sunrise!

    Today started out magnificently as ever.  It was cool for a Florida morning in May.  Cool enough for a sweatshirt to take the dogs out this morning.  Never thought I would say sweatshirt and May in the same sentence in Florida.  It was refreshing, and a great night sleep was gauranteed last night as the temps dipped into the mid 50’s….. in Florida…. in May.  Who knew, but we are very blessed. 

  Just as beautiful as the mornings, the evening sunsets don’t disappoint and are truly amazing in their own right!   I mean… who wouldn’t want to be sitting and just relaxing watching this happen?  I never want to miss a spectacular end of my day like this…  ever.

Simply amazing…. Gods handiwork is magnificent!!

We are in a holding pattern waiting to close on our home here and the days do tend to run together.  They can be very long and very boring.  Sometimes it is difficult to get through them so I do the best I can to keep busy.  There really is nothing to do here in this tiny little RV park we are in.  The wifi is horrible and never works, there are no amenities unless you count a laundry and shower house.  So life is very dull most days. 

The heat this past week has been really unusually warm and very humid. Not weather you want to be out in to walk the dog or take a noontime stroll. 

The nights sometimes have cooled down enough to turn off the air and open windows so that helps a little for this non-camper loving person.   

One of the things I have been doing is picking up my knitting to break the boredom.  I have manged to do a few of these and take my mind off things plus I will have a few new things for a new home.  A small win for me as I love knitting, knitting dish cloths and I love using these little beauties for lots more than just dishes.  

    They really do have a plethora of uses and they never wear out.  They last many times longer than store bought and they are very inexpensive to make.  You can find hundreds of free patterns on the internet for the too!

The lovelies!!

    Well that’s pretty much concludes my tales from a camper for today.  I’ve learned to bake, cook and keep my self somewhat entertained here in my little 28 foot world.  Until we meet again…. Be blessed, take care and be kind to everyone.  Trudy

Adventures in a Camper.

 Let’s just say I am not a huge fan of camper living.  I have always been a girl scout – in the forest-tent sleeping – cooking everything over a campfire- kinda girl.  I have never been one to want to go live in a camper.  Ever…..   

Perhaps it never just the right kinda camper.  I have seen many but all with mini everythings inside them. Unless you are in one of those -mansion size buses- tiny houses on wheels.     

 Perhaps it’s my claustrophobic nature.  Perhaps it is the iddy buddy stove and fridge that hold very little.  I mean seriously, I can’t imagine cooking a dinner of great quality in these iddy bidddy size of a matchbox ovens.  I just haven’t been a big fan.     

Today I looked over on my table and saw 2 very over ripe bananas.  Unfortunately I knew I had to take action.  I hate to throw out bananas because I absolutely love them but…..  that would mean trying to use that teeny tiny – my microwave  is bigger than that- oven.  What to do?     

So off I go, let’s do an experiment I suppose.   Was I crazy to think this…. to even consider trying to bake in an oven I didn’t even know how light?  Probably but what could possibly go wrong?  Worst case scenario I would just have to toss the end result and chalk it up to experience. 

Well I mixed it, put it in a pan that I generously greased and looked at that oven that i hoped was heated to the right temperature.  There is no oven light to let you know you are at temp.  In to the oven it went while I hoped, said a little prayer and tried to occupy my time for an hour.     

I peeked into that oven an hour later and pulled one out, tested it and amazingly enough it was done!!!!  It looked absolutely beautiful, golden brown and smelled glorious!! I took out the 2nd loaf and it was just as gorgeous.   I am simply amazed I would never thought it could be done!!!!  

    There is hope.  Perhaps I may be convinced just a wee bit that camper living might not be quite so bad if indeed I can produce some semblance of normalcy such as a loaf of Banana Bread!!!  I must admit I can’t do this over a campfire.  Perhaps it might be okay.  I must admit my curiosity is peaking….. what might I try to bake next in this oven???  Stay tuned .  I think I will make a cup of tea, have a slice it two of bread and milk it over.  Be blessed….     Trudy

We made it !

Well it’s been a bit, a long road traveled, but we have finally made it back home.

We left Michigan almost 2 weeks ago. It seems so much longer than that already but no. We had moved back there 18 months ago trying to make a home and trying to regather our family together. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michigan I do. I was born and raised there. I lived over 50 years there. My brothers are there, and daughter and granddaughters too. We tried to make it feel like home. We bought a really nice old farmhouse in a big city to try to make it feel like home. It just didn’t feel like it to us.

Maybe it was the being too far from the kids. Maybe it was being separated by distance from my brothers and family. Distance not just in miles but relationship. I love my brothers so much. They are one of the reasons we moved back to Michigan. I had hoped to build a relationship with them again, but sadly I couldnt . I still feel distance with us.

Life sometimes has a way of twisting and turning our lives that sometimes fractures our relationship with family. I am sure the fractures are mostly my fault and it is burden I carry everyday. I feel guilty, I’ve offered apologies and I’ve asked forgiveness. I can do no more but the guilt still lies in my heart.

We tried to make Michigan home again with family, with us and a different home. I loved the home we choose. It was beautiful, welcoming and cozy. It was just in a wrong area, a much too big city for us. It was much too far from family. We felt like we had been living alone there. Perhaps we had been away from family too long to remember what family felt like. The husband wasn’t happy in the snowy north, I wasn’t nearly as happy as I thought I would be. I had been fooling myself I guess thinking all would be bliss if we just moved back.

So here we are again, in what now does feel like home. We are back in Florida. We lived here for 7 years the first time. This is where my dearest friends are. This is where tragedy struck and I lost my relationship with God for a bit when it happened. This is where God never gave up on me and helped me to find my church home and church family, and now my even closer walk with him now. This is where I found my purpose, my work for Him. This is where I found my happiness. It’s everywhere I look around me.

In Michigan, I thought happiness would find me, but it didn’t. I have learned that I can’t expect others or things to make me happy. I can choose to be happy or miserable. In Michigan I think I just never chose to be happy. I felt unappy and lonely and separated not just from family but God. I just couldn’t seem to find my relationship with my God in Michigan because I was miserable. But if I am honest, I wasn’t really looking. I was just wanting it to come find me!!

But now we feel like we are back home. Hubby is happy, puppies are happy in this warm almost always sunny weather. I feel so much lighter. Happy, relaxed and blessed. We have found a new home. We will close on it soon. We loved that home that was so cozy. This new home just happens to be almost a carbon copy of our last home here before we moved. It is in a beautiful old small trailer park that is cozy, quiet and feels just right. We are so delighted to finally be back home. God is so good. I fell like, I hope that HE is smiling down on us and telling us to be content. I know his plan is perfect and I know his timing is always true. I just have to remember to let him in, listen for his whispers and trust him to always take care of me like he always does. He has given me so many life lessons, he has never failed me and he is always by my side.

That’s all for today. I hope wherever you are you are happy and blessed. Take care. Trudy

It’s been so long.

It’s been forever since I’ve been here. Years.. I guess you could say that life happened, and this little blog went on the back burner. So much life has happened. Many moves, many gains, some losses. But now I see life slowly coming back into settled. It’s taken a long time for me to be able to find my “settled”.

When I last posted, we were in South Carolina, still my most favorite place I have been. Since Carolina we have been to Florida to Michigan to Florida and back to Michigan and back on the road we shall be in a week or two. Its a long story…..we thought we could find out happiness if we kept looking. Sooo here is the last chapter of why we are on the move again We made our 3rd move to Michigan 18 months ago. My husband are Michigan people born and raised. We had moved from Florida. We were going to move to be close to our kids but that just didn’t work out as we planned.

We thought we had settled in here, we bought a really nice comfy old home. We thought that this was our last stop in the road to retirement….. but I guess we we wrong.      We wanted a camper to do some traveling since we are now in our golden years. We wanted to become snowbirds and head south in the winter…. in our golden years… Except these years don’t feel so golden right now with Covid, kids and campers. We devised a plan, although not a perfect plan as you will see.      So a little back story.   We had a camper, our kids wanted that one so we sold it to them.  We in turn bought a much newer and more expensive beautiful camper to do some traveling. We then realized that we couldn’t really afford a house and camper payment easily at the same time.  . 

   Soooo…. We had to make a decision and we decided to sell the newly purchased home 6 months in and become full time rv’ers. We had decided to sell our home thinking all was well with the kids and things were going great for them.    Things happen though and life got in the way.  The kids couldn’t keep the camper and keep paying on it so now we had 2 campers and a huge payment.  Excuse me a minute while I deep sigh… So now more we had more decisions to make.       We sold the older camper and we in turn had sold our house to do our traveling but now our kids wanted us to stay close.  Trying to buy another home in these days and times is a major headache and something we are not able to do easily with today’s housing market.  Homes sell as fast as they are listed and for much more than they did 6 months ago we are finding out .     So over the road we go in our nice new camper and I am not sure where we will land this time but we are heading for warmer weather for a while for a much needed vacation.  It’s been a long cold winter and we need some sun right now.    One thing I forgot to mention, I am a puppy raiser for Southeastern Guide Dogs in Palmetto Florida.  I have raised 2 pups already and they are now certified working guide dogs.  

    I am now raising my 3rd pup and he will be joining us in our little camper adventures.  It’s not exactly how I wanted to do this but hopefully Saint will enjoy it.  He most likely will be my last pup to raise unless we are somehow able to find a home for us somewhere.    I invite you to follow us along on our camper adventures to see where we end up.  Will it be a warm or a cold climate?  Will we be able to find a home or be rv’ers forever?  Let’s see where life takes us!!!  After all….. Life is an adventure. 

This weather, oh this weather!

One day  warm , one day rainy. One day blue sky no clouds and a gentle breeze, the  next day cold, gray and  a  blustery north wind.  I wish there  was a button  to make it  all stop and  just  turn on the  good  weather but  I know that  is not  possible.     I  know  it is supposed to be  winter,  I get that.  I live in South Carolina,  and  we  usually  do not  have  such up and down temperatures.  It  is not just  us  either  the  whole  country  is  having  this.   I  just  look forward  to  spring and  steady  temps.  My  allergies  will  be  grateful as will  I .   All this up and down  is  making  my  head and  nose  hurt and  I look  like a squirrel  packing away nuts  with all the  kleenex I have  stashed everywhere.    I  live  very  close  to  these  mountains and when you come out my  street to the main road you can see them  a bit.

                                                                                                        

Well  welcome  to my  little blog  all about  me , my life , my  family and my  yarn  addiction.   Yes  I am a  yarn addict, I freely admit that and  I love  love love to use  it  for  all types  and kinds  of  projects.  I  knit , I crochet and I use  a loom  sometimes.  Nothing gives me  greater peace  then after  doing all my chores  for the day then to sit  and use  some of that  yarn to make something  useful , warm and  fun.    I make all kinds  of things , really.  I  can spend hours and hours  just  traveling the internet for patterns  for all kinds of things.  I  love to knit for my grand daughters, and their  dolls and bears.  I love to make hats , mittens , blankets  , sweaters, and socks.  Nothing  is  a waste of time if you love  learning how to make it  and  if it adds to the person that  you become , right?  I will try  just  about any  kind of project  and even if it takes  months  to learn it  and finish it  that  makes  it all the more grand I think.

Some  of  the  things  that  I have  done  for family and friends  include  slippers , fingerless mitts, dish cloths and scrubbies, sweaters , and  baby  items.  Lots and lots of  baby  items  for my newest  little angel  Alyssa Jean.    She is now almost  6 months old and  getting more adorable everyday.

                                                                                                            

I am a stay at home mom to  puppy dogs and  chickens.  I raise  chickens for the eggs , no  roosters  on this little farm.  There  is  not much tastier then a  farm fresh form the nest  little brown egg in the morning  to go with the  homemade  bread freshly baked.   I try  to cut  corners where ever I can and save pennies  so I do a lot  of things  myself like baking bread, making  laundry soap, and  lotion bars  for my hands.  That is where  knitting and crochet  helps too as  it  is much cheaper  to by  some  good old redheart yarn and make those  adorable mittens then to pay  upwards  of  $10 bucks or more for cute ones off the shelf.  That  is what  I tell my self  each time anyway.   It  makes  me  feel better when I buy more  yarn .    That  is my story and I am sticking to it .  Well  time for me to go , I shall return soon and  often with  more  stories and  pictures of my  yarn adventures and  goings  on here in the south .  Take care and we will see you when we see you.