There were a few pictures I didn't have enough time to include when I posted our last entry, so I thought I would take a few minutes to do so now. Unfortunately, I was almost done (and yes I did save as I was going along) but all of a sudden, everything was gone and I am now starting over!
My dear friend Diane sent me this cute picture. She & Jim have those adorable Chihuahuas that were our house guests last week. I could just picture her Lucy in this outfit trying to drive their car. I looked everywhere trying to find a sweater and hat like this for her girls, but sadly to no avail.
Here are our two sharing Willie's bed. Yes, Millie uses her own bed, but they looked so cute cuddled up together that I had to take this picture.
I believe I posted a picture of Millie's bed in front of the storage ottoman under the window, but we have made some more improvements that I think look really nice. We removed the ugly, dirty window shade and replaced it with a room darkening curtain. Then I decided to make a magnetic tieback so we could look out the window. Willie liked that. Then I decided to add a panel of sheer beige curtain to provide a little privacy while still allowing the kids to see outside. As you can see, I have added a blue owl bell that is hanging above the dogs heads. He is, as yet, un-named since we just got him yesterday.
Another new addition to the owl collection is a lovely white owl that holds a tea light which can shine out through the cut-outs on the front.
He sits below the TV on a carpeted mantle, I didn't want to take any risk of fire, so we use a battery operated candle inside it. I liked it so much I went back and got a second one that I took over to my sister Donna yesterday. She was delighted with it!
There is something else that I should have shared the last time I posted, but I was not ready to talk about it yet, so here goes. My brother Michael, in Elmira, lost his battle with cancer and went to be with his Lord and Savior Jesus early in the morning on November 4th. Tony flew back in October and spent a week with Michael and our other brother Jeffrey and with Michael's son Douglas.
For those of you who don't know my brothers, Tony is on the left, Michael is in the middle and our baby brother Jeffrey is on the right. Part of me will always regret that I didn't go back to see him one last time. However, another part of me wanted to remember him as he was when we saw him in July 2015. He was not sick and was enjoying his life then.
The picture on the left was taken on the back patio of Michael's home while we were there.
The one on the right was taken at the reunion. He was enjoying life. He loved to go line dancing at the VFW hall in Elmira Heights on Friday nights and he loved sailing his boat on Seneca Lake. He took lessons and was learning to play the piano. He even tried his hand at learning to play the bag pipes!!! His former wife Judy has remained a true and devoted friend to him through all of this. God bless her for being such an amazing person.
The take-away that I would like to share today is that we have to live with the decisions we make every day. We are all so busy and all too often we put off for another day the things we should have done yesterday. Michael died on a Sunday morning. The night before that day, I had told Jim that I was going to call Michael on Sunday, but I never got that chance to talk to him once more. I never got to say good bye or tell him one more time that I love him. This is what I will have to live with. If I can spare one of you this pain, it will be worth sharing this today. Please don't put things off. Even difficult things that you knew you should do. None of us knows if we will get another day to do those things. Call your parents, or your kids and tell them you love them. Apologize to the person you have been feuding with for so long you can't even remember what the fight was all about. Please don't put things off any longer. You might regret it for a very long time.
Hello dear friends and readers,
I am sorry it has been such a long time since my last post. We spent two weeks down at Wilderness Lakes before coming back up here to Silent Valley for another month. We didn't get our favorite site (#400) but we got one at the four corners again, next to the one we were in last month. We drove up here last Thursday despite very bad Santa Ana Winds. Jim is an excellent driver and got us here safely. We got into our site and leveled the RV and then Diane & Jim Hubert came over to help us get settled in. I was so very grateful for their help because that day I had two brief but scary bursts of vertigo. We now do NOT call by name as we only refer to this disorder as IT. Our only problem with the setting up was that in the high winds (gusts up to 50mph) we couldn't get good reception from our satellite dish. Alas, we gave up that night. On Friday we heard about the tragedy of the shooting at the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks. Along with that, the Santa Ana Winds and very low humidity increased the risk of brush fires, and California suffered from two very bad fires. One called the Camp Fire completely devastated the town of Paradise in northern California. The Woolsley fire and the Hill Fire continues to do a great deal of damage to the areas around Malibu, Calabasas, Westlake Village, West Hills and Thousand Oaks. Sadly the death toll from the Camp Fire is about 48 and may go even higher. I believe there have been 3 deaths and many injuries in southern California. Last night another fire has broken out near Rialto and Interstate 15 which is only about 46 miles from where we are. They expect the winds to ease up today but the relative humidity is still very low, and that means there is still quite a lot of fire danger throughout the area. All I can ask is that you please pray for people who have lost their homes and loved ones in all these tragedies. It's hard to imagine Thanksgiving in the midst of so much destruction. Donations to help the victims are being collected by the Red Cross and other organizations. We saw them on the NBC news so one could check them out probably by going to NBC.com /California fires if you wish to make a donation.
We have been busy again with a few little home improvements. First, Millie started trying to sleep in her little bed, which was really only big enough for her toys, so we got her a bigger bed.
As you who have been in our RV can see, we have removed the chair that was in front of the window beside the house door. We put this storage ottoman there, and it still gives us more space in the room. We moved the folding tables so we could look out the window. The window shade was very dirty, and we have not had good luck cleaning them, so we replaced the shade with a new curtain for privacy. It can be pulled aside to permit looking outside. The dogs like getting up on the ottoman to look out the window too.
Diane and Jim are such fun people and on Friday I got this cute picture of them.Those are supposed to be sprinkled donuts...and after all we are all kinda nuts! Jim is wearing a deer head that's supposed to be mounted on a wall! Luckily, I was holding the camera, so I am not in these pictures. On Saturday Jim Hubert had to have extensive surgery on his shoulder, and of course Diane wanted to be with him, so we offered to babysit their two two adorable Chihuahua girls while they were away. It was so much fun having them in our house.
In this picture Millie is in Willie's bed next to the girls in their beds. At night Millie still sleeps with us in our bed, and Willie got to sleep in his own bed. I put the girls' beds up on the couch and they spent the whole night in bed. It was happy chaos when we took four dogs out to walk! We had a grand time, and the girls were happy here, although every time they heard noises outside they would run to the door expected Jim or Diane to appear at the door. I got to spoil two more girls with loving care and doggie treats. I was very happy when Jim finally got out of the hospital so he could come home and sleep in his own bed, but we were sorry to see these sweet girls leave us. Diane and Jim are always ready and willing to help us out when we need anything, so we were delighted to be able to do this for them so they would NOT have any worries about their beloved girls. That's what friends are for. We are so glad to see that Jim is recovering well with no apparent problems or complications. He has been through a lot with his shoulder, and we hope now his problems are over.
I'm running out of time to write now, so I will close with a brief message, asking all of you to be grateful for your many blessings and share your blessings with those less fortunate than yourselves. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
We usually don't come up to Silent Valley this late in the year, so I had forgotten how chilly it can get at night. In an effort to save our propane, we try to stay warm with our little electric heater. However, the one we had bought in Truth or Consequences back in 2013 was "on its last legs" and died a few weeks ago. We had planned to replace it but just hadn't gotten around to it. As a belated birthday gift, our very dear friend Joan gave us a couple Wal-Mart gift cards so we decided to use them to get us a new heater. We chose a Honeywell 360 degree heater and it has been amazing! Thanks again Joan, for your gift card that we put to good use. It is much better than the heater we had before. It's so good we usually don't even need to use the high setting!
Many of the campers here at this time of year go ALL OUT on their Halloween decorations. Here are a few pictures of some of the decorations
near us.
Another site near us is "adorned" with numerous skulls and skeletons. Yuck. Jim says it's very eerie at night when he walks the dogs, but I can't get a good picture of that.
Jim took Millie over to see our neighbor's display, but as you can see, she wasn't really interested.
Last year I posted several pictures of one site decorated with an over-abundance of weird and eerie things. Those people have done the same set-up this year, so I didn't bother taking pictures again. We put out a few little decorations, but we don't go overboard about it. It is fun to put up some seasonal decor, but we are limited to one storage box for all of our decorations, plus our fold-able Christmas tree that we store under our bed. As I said before, it gets pretty chilly up here. Although we realize there are many places that get colder than it does here, WE choose not to visit places like that. Even Millie prefers to stay warm and toasty, as you can see here.
I hope you can see the cute little owls all over her pajamas. Even with her nice warm jammies on, she goes under the bed covers at night. Willie has a wonderful dog bed with a sheep skin lining that is very nice and warm for him to sleep in.
We have been enjoying our month up here in Silent Valley very much. The first week, my brother Tony came up and stayed for three nights. The second week Joan came to visit. In my last blog I think I forgot to include pictures of the lovely flowers that Joan brought to us. Joan, you know you don't have to bring us flowers, but these were really special. The scent was amazing and the color was delightful. In case you can't tell, the vase is plastic, and when empty, it can be be flat so it doesn't take up much space. That's just one of the unique things we find when we go to Quartzsite in January.
Our third week here included going out to lunch in Beaumont with my sister, Donna & her husband George.
We went to a restaurant called Guys Italian Restaurant. The food was quite nice and Donna even had some spumoni for dessert. Unfortunately, before we left, a large party (of 14 people) arrived, and were so loud that we couldn't carry on a conversation, so we left. It was a nice outing but it ended a little sooner than I expected it to.
Last week I saw a tiny trailer and I just had to take a picture of it. We could never live in anything that small, but I still get a kick out of seeing the tear drop trailers. This one is quite unique.
If you enlarge the picture you will see that it is very rugged and ready for off road camping! Again, not something we will ever be doing, but still very interesting. We really prefer having more living space and comfort.
Many of us take our "creature comforts" for granted, and often forget about those who must try to survive without many things we all enjoy. Not only are the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas coming very soon...........colder weather is also coming. Survival for the less fortunate becomes even more difficult. There is always something we can do for homeless people and animals. How often do you stop by a coffee shop and spend several dollars on a fancy cup of coffee? Could you give up your high priced coffee to use that same amount of money to buy blankets for people living in homeless shelters? You can also buy pet food for animal shelters. You might volunteer to feed the less fortunate at food banks. You can also volunteer at a local veterans hospital. Another way to help the less fortunate is to sign up to make a monthly donation to a worthwhile organization. Examples of such would include The Wounded Warrior Project, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, The Shriner's Hospital or the Salvation Army. Most of these ask for a donation commitment of only $19.00/month, which almost any of us could afford. We have also made donations to the American Lung Association and the America Cancer Society. The Humane Society desperately needs donations to keep animals alive and safe. Please let this be the year that you commit to helping the less fortunate, be they two legged or four legged friends. God has blessed all of us with so much that it's only right that we find ways to give back and help others.
Have a great day and a very happy holiday season ahead. 😊
I'm sorry it has been so long since I wrote an entry, but it has been so great being up here at Silent Valley and we have been very busy.
Before we left Wilderness Lakes, we went to Camping World intending to replace our poor old microwave with a new Convection microwave. We bought and took home a box that we thought contained the above oven. Our friend Greg came over to install it. He had built a shelf and installed it, but it turned out to NOT be a convection microwave. It was only a microwave. I called Camping World back and they agreed to exchange it for what we had paid for. Once we got here, and got all set up in a wonderful site in Silent Valley, we took the first one back and got the right one. We came up on Monday, two weeks ago, and on Wednesday Tony came up for a visit. It had been several weeks since we had seen my brother, so that was great. He and Diane's husband Jim helped us to put in the new unit.......but it was slightly bigger than the old one had been, so they had to take it out yet again, and move the shelf forward to accommodate the bigger oven.
The original microwave had a light under it to provide light to the stove below. We replaced it with a light bar we saw on TV in an As Seen on TV. It works great, and provides an amazing amount of light. I love that we can keep it plugged in to charge it up, and if we have a power outage, it is all charged up to provide hours of great light!
I also decided to replace the owl case I was using on my cell phone since it was pretty grungy, and dirty looking. So I ordered this one.
Jim picked it out and I do love it. Too cute!
Diane & Jim have been over often, which has been wonderful. It has been so much fun being with them.
I don't know if I posted this picture before or not, so here are Diane & Jim.
They have two adorable dogs that our dogs have gotten used to, so they get along very well.
Here's my Jim holding Diane & Jim's two little loves. On the left is Lucy and on the right is Daisy. It's so nice that our dogs like these two and get along nicely.
Diane shares my fondness for owls, so I have made her some owl jewelry, and she finds owls for me when she goes places.
This is one of the adorable owls Diane found for me. Can you see the golden brown glitter along the edges? I just love it!
On the right is an owl paper towel holder that I found online to hold toilet paper in the bathroom. Again, too cute, I think.
Diane & Jim shop at the Aldi market here and she found a bottle of wine she just had to buy for us.
Not only is the bottle adorable, but the white Zinfandel wine inside was very, very nice. We drank it while we played Mexican Train. I may try to make a decorative bottle lamp out of it. Maybe.
This past week my very dear friend (of over 35 years) Joan Minor came up here and stayed overnight with us. It had been over a year since we've seen each other, but we keep in touch by phone or emails almost every week. It was so wonderful to have her come visit us this week. Out of respect for her personal privacy I won't discuss all that she has been through, but life has not always been easy for Joan. Through her most difficult times, she has always been cheerful and helpful whenever I needed anything. She has a wonderful, loving husband, also named Jim, who has been very supportive during her difficult times. They have a small van camper that they enjoy traveling in too. I hope sometime, maybe this coming year, we can persuade them to come to Quartzsite, AZ when we are there too. Joan has promised to come visit us at Wilderness Lakes and stay two nights this time. It always seems like we run out of time long before we run out of things we want to talk about.
Diane and Jim live here at Silent Valley year round because he works a work camper job here. I don't know why this park has this rule, but work campers must move to a new site every thirty days, so last week they got to move over close to us! YAY!!!
Here is a photo of their 5th wheel and their car. That's our awning at the top of the picture, so you can see how close they are. I love that I can just run over to her RV whenever I want to.
We never had a chance to be parked this close before.
We don't do anywhere near the amount of decorating
some folks do for Halloween, but we do try to get
in the spirit a little bit. This guy has been hanging around for quite a while I'd say. LOL.
Here is Jim with the Furry Kids outside the RV enjoying a nice, warm day.
This is our Halloween flag stand with a Snoopy and a ghost flag. I like the orange solar lights in the side posts. It's fun being part of the spirit of the season.
I hope all of you who read my blog have taken my advice and suggestions to heart. I am referring specifically to advice about making your final wishes known, IN WRITING. None of us knows when our days in this life will end. It's very, VERY easy to say "someday I will write my will" or "I will call that person next week to apologize for the unkind things I did or said". Since only God knows when we will shake off this mortal coil, please don't put off doing the things you need or want to do. My brother Michael, who lives in Elmira, NY is in the last days of his life. His ex-wife Judy is doing all she can to help him in any way she can. Judy is an amazing woman with a loving Christian heart. She has kept me informed about Michael's condition. I cannot afford a trip back to Elmira to see him, and he told his son Douglas that he didn't want any of us to see him as he is now.
I prefer to remember him the way he was when we saw him in 2015. This is Mike at our Horseheads High School Alumni reunion. Sadly, he is angry towards others and refusing to see people who might want to offer him love and comfort. We pray he will find Peace in Heaven when he dies.
I beg you NOT to put off until tomorrow what you KNOW you should do today. If there is someone you should make amends with, please don't put it off. Please do it now! If you feel there is someone who needs your help, call them today. If you feel you need to re-dedicate yourself to your faith, there is no better time than now. Jim and I believe that the only way to get into Heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. We have accepted Jesus and we KNOW that we have been forgiven of our sins. We know that when we die, we will close our eyes to this life, and open them to see Jesus. It is a wonderful assurance to know that our beloved Lord Jesus loves us and wants us to live with Him for all of eternity. We know that we are all sinners, and no one can get into Heaven based on any good deeds we do, so we thank Jesus every day for His sacrifice for us. I will pray for all of you, and wish you a wonderful week ahead, and life ahead too.
I don't know how much I will get done on this if my computer loses stuff like it has done recently, but here goes.
On Friday, the 7th, we reluctantly left Silent Valley to go to the Garden Grove Elks lodge for a three day visit. It had been quite a long time so we had forgotten what a NIGHTMARE the 91 freeway is, and it's much worse on a Friday. A drive that shouldn't have taken more than an hour took well over two hours!!! The site that was reserved for us was too narrow to get into and put out our slides, so Larry asked us to take #18 along the wall next to Newhope St. Unfortunately it didn't have working electricity, so we had to move, yet again to site #17. In order for the electric to reach us, we had to partially impede entrance into site #1 in front of us. Once we got in and leveled, we began setting everything up. That process usually takes at least one hour or more, but we had Pastor Paul and Aiko coming over for lunch in LESS than an hour, so we hurried. We were almost ready when they arrived. Again I forgot to take pictures, but we had a very lovely visit and lunch together. After they left we finished setting up.
Then we began getting ready to go into the lodge for dinner and dancing with Sherrie & Ron Parker. Sadly, the table that was requested to be "on the dance floor" was not that close to it. It was also disappointing to see that the prices of the foods have gone up, but quality has not. Sherrie had warned us and she had not been mistaken. Service was fair, but certainly nothing to rave about. We were disappointed by the band, which we used to like but now plays music we didn't really care for. We all left well before 10 pm.............which never used to be the case for us. We were happy to see a few old friends, but didn't know as many of the people there as we used to. Such is the way of life as we get older.
Saturday we had to go on a few errands, and were horrified by how bad the traffic had gotten, and how rude drivers in Orange County seem to be. OMG we miss New Mexico, and the slower pace we enjoy there.
On Sunday we went to church and it was wonderful to see so many of our beloved church family here. We do miss seeing them more often, but we can't "do Orange County" too often.
On Monday we thought we could take our time packing up to head down here to Wilderness Lakes, however, around 8:30 a.m. Jim saw a familiar site. On the second Monday of each month all the local school bus drivers meet at the lodge (we had forgotten about that!) and the parking lot started to rapidly fill up with school buses. With little time to spare we packed up and were out of there by 9 am!
The drive down here was uneventful and we found a fairly nice 50 amp site that was a pull-through. YAY. By about noon we were pretty well set up. Jim went down to check in at the ranger station and found out we had a couple packages to pick up. Whoopee! We have been using a paper towel holder in the bathroom to hold three rolls of toilet paper, and last week I found this online. I just can't get enough owls around here! 😉
The other package was our new combination washer/spin dryer in one. The ones I had before were separate, but we are very happy with this unit. It is a little bigger than we had expected, but still good because we don't have to keep the spin dryer unit in the closet anymore. LOL My dryer has come out of the closet!!! Next we have a navy blue laundry bag coming, maybe today, that can stand next to the washer or hang from the tension rod we hang wet clothes on.
Yesterday we had to go up to the Loma Linda VA to pick up some medications, so we made a little side trip to Camping World in Redlands. Our tired, old, decrepit microwave has been dying over the last year or so. It takes twice as long to heat anything up (and the dogs hate the long wait for me to warm their meals up). We had been shopping around for a new microwave...........that could withstand the rigors of RV travel. We ended up choosing a Dometic (made for RVs) combination microwave/convection oven that should fit the space of our old one perfectly. Greg came over and took measurements as he will be building us a shelf for it to sit on AND installing it with LED lights below it to illuminate our stove top. Pictures of that should be in my next blog post.
Last but not least was a small project that Greg helped us with. The year before last we had Greg take out the carpeting in the living room, dining room and the hallway back to the bedroom and install oak-like vinyl flooring. We are very happy with the results except for one small thing. The strip of carpet in front of the couch and dinette that is attached to the slide-out room hangs over and can get caught when the slide room comes in. We found a carpet tape at Home Depot. I was a little scared of cutting off the excess, so we got Greg to do it for us. He and Jim did it and attached the carpet tape over the edge and secured it to the top and the bottom of the carpet so it won't fray.
It's not easy to see but at the top of the picture is the front of the couch. The light colored strip is the tape on the edge of the carpet. In front is the oak like vinyl flooring, and the small item on the left is the edge of the area rug that is under Jim's recliner....the rug with the lighthouses and sailboats on it.
Here is an older picture of Millie that shows a little more of that area rug. As you can see, we used to tuck the edge of it under the carpet edge that is now no longer there. We think it looks much better now!!!
While we were in Wal-Mart this week I was forced to realize it was more than time to replace my July 4th owl towels on the front of the oven door............so we got these. I guess after Thanksgiving we will HAVE to get Christmas owl towels next!
I'm not sure if I posted this picture before, so please forgive me if you've seen it already. The handle area on the door to leave our motorhome is all black so often visitors can't see where to take hold to open the door............so I did the ONLY thing I could do to help them find the door handle.
I guess the message here is "Owl show you the way to go home."
I haven't talked about the vertigo in a while, because we do believe God has showed us the way and given us the means to cure it. It has been over two weeks since I have had to deal with the terrible, debilitating dizziness. Thank you God. I was even able to dance as much as we wanted to the night we were at the Elks lodge! My feet gave out but I wasn't dizzy. The truth is that I still get occasional brief episodes of dizziness, but we know how to deal with it. Although vertigo is a very unpleasant thing to experience, maybe God wants me to remember that millions of people in this world suffer with much worse afflictions than vertigo. It's very easy to feel sorry for yourself and say "why me?" But it's a little harder to put it in perspective and realize that despite whatever we might have to cope with, most of us are much more fortunate, and yes, I do mean Blessed, than so many other people in the world, even in our own cities. Despite the affluence of many, there are many MORE people who go to bed hungry every night. Despite the pain some of us live with, many others live with far worse pain than we can imagine. Despite most of us not having the money for things we would love to have (and maybe think we really NEED to have) there are so many people living lives of abject poverty without any roof over their heads at night. Millions of people right now are without electricity or clean water because of hurricanes and typhoons and fires both here and in other countries.
In places with colder climates than here in southern California, winter is fast approaching, and some people may die from cold and exposure during the winter. Please think about what you might be able to do to help at least one person to have a better future this year. Maybe you can donate food to a homeless shelter, or your time to help feed the homeless. Maybe you can donate warm blankets to homeless shelters or animal shelters. Maybe you can invite someone less fortunate than yourself to share a meal in your home. Remember to do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. I hope you will ask yourself "What would Jesus do?" and try to act accordingly.
Have a grand day and spread a little love around!
We are still up at Silent Valley and having a grand time. Somehow I just lost everything I had written, so I will try again.
I'm sure you know that I have been through a nightmare-ish time with vertigo for two and a half months. The wonderful people at the Hill Top church here at the park prayed for me to have this vertigo taken away, and God healed me. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is to KNOW that God healed me. He loves me, and also each of you. He wants to take care of us if we just ask Him to. I always tell you to pray daily, and really talk to God. We all need to have a real relationship with our Heavenly Father. There is only one God, and He is an all-knowing, merciful God. Please take time each day to ask Him to show you the way, and He will because He loves you.
We have been able to spend a lot of time with our dear friends Diane and Jim Hubert. Again, I must praise God for the chance meeting that lead to this wonderful friendship. Her Jim works in the adult snack bar five days a week, but on his days off we get to do things together. One week we went to see a movie called Crazy Rich Asians. It was a good movie, but my Jim called it a "chick flick". When her Jim is working, Diane often comes here and we have fun playing games and talking. I will really miss her while we are away from here, but I will talk about that later.
The first night that Natalie said I could sleep back in my own bed, instead of sitting upright on the couch, Diane sent me this cute picture. I loved it.
These are some owls Diane got for me. On the left is a purple glitter owl with eyes that light up. The copper colored ones are about as pretty as any owls could be. The gray one in the center she gave me for my birthday. It is beautiful and regal looking.
This glitter covered owl is about 12 to 15 inches tall and has the most adorable eyes. He is another owl that Diane gave me. I can't believe how cute he is!
While we have been here, we have made some small improvements on the motorhome. The first one was under the kitchen sink. The storage space was limited, and we had things stacked on top of other things. It may not seem like a big deal, except we always needed something in the back and had to take everything else out to get to the item we needed.
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The cabinet had a raised floor that we decided to remove. There was a perfectly good tile floor below which gave us an additional six inches of height for storage. We purchased a chrome shelf with a basket on the bottom to keep things from falling over. We added an open front storage bin on top of the shelf to hold smaller items. It has worked out very well.
Our next project was in the bedroom. There was a vanity with a bench across from the foot of the bed. We NEVER used it as a vanity. We tried to store things under and on top of the bench. It was really a poor usage of the space, but we kept doing it. Last week I gave the bench to Diane and purchased a shelving unit that was sold as a shoe rack. We got four covered storage boxes to be on the shelves. Now Jim has a place for his shoes AND some space for several of his tee shirts that were overflowing from his drawers.
YAY!!! It also sits back three inches farther than the bench did so we have a little more room to walk past the foot of the bed. All good.
Last, but not least was the storage ottoman for the living room. Whenever we have a guest stay over night we have to open out the couch to make a bed. However, it's not long enough for a person to be comfortable. We bought the ottoman to extend the length, and put an air mattress to lay on top of the couch and ottoman to make a full size bed. Here's Millie, she has taken over the ottoman as her personal seating space, but I have told her she will have to share it when we have an overnight guest. LOL.
We stopped at Ray's RV in Banning when Jim had to pick up a part for the coach. I couldn't resist taking a picture of these cute campers.
I couldn't live in anything that small, but they are cute! We even saw a tiny teardrop trailer for sale up here yesterday. The inside is only a bed, and the back opens up to reveal a tiny kitchen, cute but not practical. We older folks NEED a bathroom close by, and at night, I do NOT want to have to go outside to find a campground restroom!
It's time to sign off for today. I wish everyone a grand day and a wonderful week ahead filled with many blessings. Life is a gift, but the next life will be heavenly, if you have truly let Jesus into your heart and into your daily life. Please realize that being a Christian is not just about going to church on Sunday. It's about the life you live. If Jesus is the center of your life, He will help you to make better decisions and have a better life.
When we leave here on Friday we are going to the Garden Grove Elks lodge for three days. We are looking forward to seeing Joan & Jim, Ron & Sherrie and Cindy as well as going to see our church family including Pastor Paul and his lovely wife Aiko. Then we will be at Wilderness Lakes for 16 days before coming back here for 30 days. Bye for now. Love and prayers to all of you.
I believe I posted a picture of Millie's bed in front of the storage ottoman under the window, but we have made some more improvements that I think look really nice. We removed the ugly, dirty window shade and replaced it with a room darkening curtain. Then I decided to make a magnetic tieback so we could look out the window. Willie liked that. Then I decided to add a panel of sheer beige curtain to provide a little privacy while still allowing the kids to see outside. As you can see, I have added a blue owl bell that is hanging above the dogs heads. He is, as yet, un-named since we just got him yesterday. 
The one on the right was taken at the reunion. He was enjoying life. He loved to go line dancing at the VFW hall in Elmira Heights on Friday nights and he loved sailing his boat on Seneca Lake. He took lessons and was learning to play the piano. He even tried his hand at learning to play the bag pipes!!! His former wife Judy has remained a true and devoted friend to him through all of this. God bless her for being such an amazing person.
