Things are Progressing Nicely Here at our Home

We are very VERY happy to report that our new carport was delivered, as promised on June 18th.  We were enjoying a cooler morning, sitting outside on our beloved glider swing, looking over to our beautiful view of the mountains, about 45 minutes before the delivery, when I had a sudden realization......if we have the carport put out front where we have been parking our car for the last four months, WE WILL LOSE MUCH OF OUR BEAUTIFUL VIEW.  OMG we don't want to do that!   Jim and I went out behind the shed to measure to see if we could have them put the carport back there.  It looked very possible, so I called Janice to ask if we could make the change.  She had to come check to make sure there would not be any problems with electric lines, etc.  She said YES, so when the driver got here we told him of our change of location.
We took many pictures from the arrival of the"parts" on the truck through the stages of the set-up, but decided only to include these two pictures.  We couldn't be any happier with the finished project and the decision to put it behind the shed instead of out front.

 Here is a cute picture of Millie helping Jim get his exercise on our mini-trampoline.  On the right you can see the glider swing that we enjoy whenever we can.  As you can see here, it is sitting on the dirt and gravel.  Not a good idea.  Millie sometimes likes to get down off the glider and we DON'T want her lying in the dirt, so we have ordered another outdoor rug to put under the glider.  It is exactly the same as the blue swirled rug you can see at the bottom of this picture.  It should arrive today or tomorrow.
Earlier this month Diane had a birthday.  I won't say how old she is, but now she is eligible for Medicare!  Her family had a party for her, and she seems to be holding up pretty well for her age.  And as always, her "girls" are looking great!
Our friend Mary has been here in her site in Arrey since last November, and has been busy working on her home, both inside and out.  Here are some pictures of what she has been doing.  She has a 19 foot long travel trailer that she and her two dogs live in.
Here is an arbor of "flowers" she set up.
On the right is her porch area, also decorated with "flowers" and license plates from states she had lived in before now.

This is her small dog, Matsi.  She is cute, energetic and very friendly.   This WAS a bird bath, but Mary cleaned it out and wants to put a wreath of "flowers" inside it instead.

On the left is one more picture of her "garden".   In case you can't tell, the only care her garden needs is to occasionally wash the dirt off it. She never has to weed it, or feed the flowers, or anything else because all of the flowers are artificial!  Isn't that a great idea, for those of us with a less than green thumb?


Now back to a few more pictures from our site.This is part of the amazing view we would have lost if we put the carport out in our front driveway.  

These were taken one evening, looking east toward Interstate 25, one mile away.  This last one, on the right, was taken one evening, obviously looking west to watch one of New Mexico's amazing sunsets.  

This is the new custom welcome mat we ordered from walmart.com.  I worried until it got here that they might misspell our name, but as you can see, they got it right!   It was a little bigger than we had expected, but all is good.  On the right is our main patio rug at our front door.  The rug for under the glider will be just like this one, only it will be 4 feet shorter.  

We had a wooden sign with our name on it, which Jim painted gray, and painted the letters in blue to put up on the shed.  It turned out VERY nicely.  I just love the personal touches.

I don't remember if I posted this picture before or not.  I have FOUR tomatoes on my little plant.  Yippee.
Here is one more picture I want to share.  I was thinking that I would like to get a nice wine rack, but I couldn't figure out any place here in the RV where we could place or hang one. I was ready to give up when I found this, and knew that even though it's NOT a wine rack, we had to have it.  Jim says it's a wine rack for one!

A dear friend, VickiJo has asked me if we are happy about our decision to live here.  She and her husband Jim live in southern California, and have family and friends there.  I have one brother, Tony, still living in CA, and my brother-in-law George is still living in Yucaipa.  I do have some very dear friends living in California, that I will miss seeing.  Tony is already planning to visit us here....when it cools off, either late autumn or in the spring.  Almita & Rueben, from Menifee, have a motorhome, and just might stop to visit us if they take a trip out this way.  I'm pretty sure Diane & Jim will visit us again next year too.  But to get back to VickiJo's original question, YES we are happy to be here.  After we decided on this move, last year, I felt like we were just biding our time until we could take care of business and move out here.  I would NEVER have put semi-permanent structures like the shed and carport up if I had ANY doubts about living here.  I don't think we would ever be happy in a huge RV park, with so many people we didn't know.  This is a small park, 23 sites if I'm not mistaken, and we are like family here.  Because of this cussed covid-19 pandemic, we have not been able to get together with the other residents as much as we would like to.  There haven't been any pot-luck dinners, or movie night get-togethers, but if this pandemic ever ends, we are looking forward to socializing a LOT more!  We enjoy our church in TorC and it feels like a family there too.  So yes, VickiJo, there are people and places we will miss, but we ARE happy, and we do NOT regret our choice to live here.

Last week on our news we heard a report of a huge spike in covid cases in California, so of course I emailed many friends and family to remind them to practice social distancing, wear masks and stay safe.  Tony is being very careful, and still keeping his sense of humor.  He sent me a cute picture that I'm going to try to share here. 
Many states have rushed to open up businesses, and have seen serious spikes in new cases of covid 19.   Tony says when he puts on his mask to go out, there are people who try to tell him that he doesn't need the PPE because the threat of covid is over.  These people are WRONG.  We also see people who come into stores like Wal-Mart wearing their masks around their neck instead of over their mouth and nose.  Please don't be mislead by such people.  On our news there are projections that until there is a proven effective vaccine, the threat will NOT be going away.  Some people refer to this as the "new normal".  I don't know if social distancing and wearing PPE really IS the new normal.  I sincerely hope NOT.  I like to hug friends when we meet up.  I like to smile and see others smile.  I hate having to wear masks.
BUT we will do it because we don't want to become infected, and we definitely don't want to be the cause of others getting infected.   We want to do our part to keep everyone we meet safe.   Still, we do have to maintain our sense of humor so we don't go screaming bonkers.

Life goes on, and hopefully, most of us WILL survive this nasty pandemic.  Please don't ever forget that God is in control.  He is watching over us, and He always will.  This is NOT the time to move away from Him.  It is a time when we NEED, maybe now more than ever, to read our Bibles, and grow in our faith as we deepen our personal relationship with Him.  He will get us through this difficult period of time.  

Have a great day, and stay safe and well.  Keep in touch with friends and neighbors.  Do what you can for others less fortunate than you are.  Somebody sent me a cute joke recently.  If you watch TV commercials it will have more meaning for you.  It said "I'm so bored I'm thinking of calling Jake from State Farm to ask him what he's wearing."  Hang in there everyone.  Hugs and smiles to one and all.