[Maggie]

♪♥♫GOOD AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS☺♫

We have been out and about this day buying things to spiff up the Jeep and having fun. All of the things we ordered to be done will be installed before we head out to Texas next Monday. New tires, black wheels, floor mats and bumpers to accommodate a wench. The new black wheels will look so great on the yellow Jeep.

My back seems to be getting better each day so I am going at things real easy to let it heal from it’s upset ~ whatever that was. I twisted wrong doing something.

Tonight for dinner we had a pulled pork sandwich from a new place that just recently opened here. All that we have heard about them has been good so we gave it a try. Everything on their menu really looks yummy but very expensive but we wanted to see just how good it was and it wasn't as good as the price. Really too spendy which is a shame for they may not last long here.

SUSAN OUCH ~ your poor leg. Hopefully the swelling will go down quickly and take the pain with it. My doc said the same thing about doing the twist and also said not to do any quick stops but to ease in and out of things. I know I must have moved wrong to cause this flare up and am doing my best now to settle it all down again.

JEAN We have the same types of temps here as you do. Shoes, I now have very few pairs of them now that I went through them awhile back. The ones that still look good but aren't that comfortable to wear with my brace saw the trash can.

DONNA FAYE So you are going to get a new car in 2017. That's only 4 years from now. We aren't planning on getting one for we think we will still be using the Jeep. We also have given up the notion of getting another motor home but instead getting a nice tent trailer to pull behind the Jeep. We had one before we had a pull type trailer then graduated up to a motor home and we had the most fun camping when we had the tent trailer. We just may come back from Texas next week pulling one.

Have a great day my Magnolia friends.

[gma22]

Good morning girls. It heated up here quite a bit yesterday, but cooled down overnight. We have been watching the weather and looks like we may be in for quite abit of rain to go to Florida. I know Cozymel is having a lot of rain over the last couple months. Our excursion is inside though so we can still enjoy it if it rains while we are there.

I am about ready to shave my head. It is driving me nuts. My hair appt is on Saturday morning and Jack told me to hold on just a bit more. Most of the problem is it has grown out and I have super fine hair that gets in my face and such all the time and feels like cobwebs on my face when the fans blow. It will wake me up at night and creep my out if I am deep asleep.

Today I tackle the countertops and stove and do the dusting since I have been dragging my feet. I really hate to dust. Give me a dirty bathroom anyday over dusting.

I finished my scarf and will block it today and well on my way with my friend's footies. I used sport yarn instead of sock yarn so they will be thicker and warmer as she lives in northern Indiana. I will make her a sock yarn pair too for spring and summer. They are super easy to make.

Susan: If I eat a few crackers, I will always have some cheese or yogurt or even a slice of deli turkey or lowfat ham. I have to fight these meds all the time with them causing me to be hungry and I eat a bunch of tiny snacks, a Lean Cuisine meal for lunch then dinner and I seem to be ok, but once in awhile I just cannot get a handle on the hunger. I just try to do the best I can. I guess what I do is working as I have lost about 65 lbs since last years cruise. Hope your knee is much better. We need our knees, but darn if they don't cause us such trouble when we get older!

Jean: I only take BP meds and the hormone so I don't have to worry about the grapefruit. Jack takes cholesterol meds but he hates grapefruit so it isn't a problem there. Right now he can't see his cardiologist until he goes on Medicare next October. They were bought by Methodist and Tricare won't allow it. He is seeing his regular doctor until then just to keep an eye on him then will see Dr. Anderson again once he goes on Medicare. My opinion such as it is, is that the dingbats in Congress shouldn't be getting paid when the other federal workers aren't. We got our Navy retirement check, but who knows about next month. They'll figure it out pretty soon as some of Congress is up for re-election!

Maggie: Sounds like the Jeep is going to be really spiffy. We are tackling the Mariner on Sunday afternoon. I am going to vacuum it out really well then Jack is going to shampoo the carpets and seats in the front only. No one ever sits in the back! I am going to really clean and shine everything including the windows inside then we will run the outside through the carwash. Have fun when you leave for Texas.

Well, time to get morning chores started. Have a great hump day. Faye

[Jean]

Good Morning, Flowers! It's a breezy cool morning but supposed to hit the 85 degree mark this afternoon. Rain is predicted to begin tonight and for the next three days. It's a little late to help the crops and will keep farmers out of the fields. Bob just left for the farm and hoping to get quite a bit done before the rain, if it even happens. I have bell practice later this afternoon, laundry, and the usual clutter piles. I need to look at recipes because I am co-hostess for a meeting on Monday and have to provide treats which is a couple different choices of cookies and/or bars.

Susan -- I am so sorry about your leg! I hope the swelling is down and it is feeling better. I know you will enjoy the First Thursday Bee and weekend retreat. Have fun!

Maggie -- I thought you had a red Jeep! It sounds like you are all set for your trip. I hope you have a great time! I'm glad your back is feeling better, but continue to be careful!

"Gma" -- I had to chuckle at your hair feeling like cobwebs. Spooky feeling in the night I'm sure. You've worked hard to get rid of 65#s and should be very proud of yourself! Does Tricare limit the number of times Jack can visit a cardiologist? That just doesn't seem right! Are welfare checks going out during the shut down? I'm so sick of watching people pay cash for beer and cigarettes then use our tax money for groceries, and evidently now there is no regulations as to what they can buy. I know it used to be staples like bread, milk, cheap cereal, and macaroni.

I need to get busy and accomplish something today! Hope you all enjoy a wonderful Wednesday!

[Maggie]

♪♥♫GOOD ROCKTOBER AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS☺♫

They say this day will get up to 85°s and low wind again. I love it when there is just a breeze. I am a tad bit better this day and hopefully by the time Monday comes around I will be rid of this pain. If not, I can deal with it on the road by being careful if the pain isn’t any worse than it is today.

I am thinking of what to make for dinner and have decided on some oven baked au gratin potatoes with pork chops on top and a big green salad. I need to make another of that mix that I posted last for it was totally yummy. Will liked it so it was gone quicker than I thought it would be. He will eat them but doesn’t really care for mushrooms so I got the bulk of them. Next time I make it I think I will add sliced radishes.

Will bought me the cutest ger-prize when he went into the office store ~ It looks like a book covered in old fashioned paper with butterflies on it which is 4½ in. tall; 3½ in. wide; and 1½ in. thick. The front opens and it is a box filled with beautiful note paper with a Victorian scroll design on the top and on the bottom of the pages are little butterflies. I can use the box as a keep-sake box when the paper is all used up I do believe.

JEAN So you thought our Jeep was red. Well when we went to buy one we test drived a red one and didn’t like the fact it had 4 doors and was so long. I asked the man if they had a yellow one (safest color) and he said they just had one come in the back which had just a couple thousand miles on it but hadn’t been cleaned up. We asked to see it anyway and were jazzed to find out it was a Rubicon Rock Crawler and then it was ours. (The sales person (new to the lot) didn’t have a clue what the difference was between a Sport and a Rubicon so we were able to get it for Sport prices and saved a few thousand dollars that way.) Yellow is the safest color for a vehicle for it can be seen where all those road color cars blend with the road. Some vehicles just don’t look good in yellow though. There are a few things on our Jeep that are no longer coming on the new Rubicons; like locking axels and skid plates to name a couple of the items . If a person wants locking axels he is looking at $2500 each axel plus labor to get them installed. So now you know a little bit more about our vehicle.

DONNA FAYE I am sure your friend will love the footies you are making for her. You do such beautiful work. Oh dear, you come clean my three bathrooms and I will gladly do your dusting. Texas will be fun and so will NM ~ there is a place there that we like to buy western art. We have some other favorite places there to visit also. It will be a nice trip I do believe. Relaxing and fun. If all the new stuff we are having put on the Jeep aren't done on Friday we don't have to leave Monday and can leave Tuesday instead.

Have a great afternoon my Magnolia friends.

[gma22]

Good morning girls. Looks like lots of rain is in store for us driving to Florida. I just hope it all clears up and we have fair weather for the cruise. The Jamaica excursion is outside so rain would totall squash it, but the Cozumel one is indoors. Kind of hard to swim on the ship in the rain too.

I have upstairs bathrooms to clean today and I am going to start putting stuff in the hygiene bag so we can mark it off. Jack is going to the post office tomorrow and put in our hold card.

I decided to quit letting pride stand in the way and I got a folding cane for the trip. My right knee is giving me a lot of trouble and having something to lean on will help. It is a lovely blue pattern with a nice silicone handle so I won't get blisters. I may not have to use it all the time, but it will be nice to have on those days my knee is giving me fits.

I have my scarf done, but it won't let me post it. It says the upload fails for everything so don't know what is going on. If you are on FB, I posted it there.

Maggie: Sounds like you are going to have a grand time. NM is very beautiful but I really didn't like living there much at least nearly 40 years ago. Las Cruces is all built up now and would be a nice place to live, but back then there wasn't much shopping etc. Jack's sister lives in Lubbock and he has lots of family all over Texas. We had pork chops, green beans, and this boxed noodle stuff we really like. It is an olive oil noodle combo and it is really good and the pts aren't bad either.

Jean: We have never had a problem with the amount of times he saw Dr Anderson. We would always have to get a referral though and if Tricare ok'd the referral, which they always did we were good to go. They allowed all 6 of my d and c's. which you would have thought they would have put a kabosh on because it was only a total of about 18 months. No, I don't think they are going to provide welfare services, but I am not sure. I read this morning that Obama is digging in his heels and refusing to compromise and the Republicans are refusing too also so who knows. We pay our mortgage with his Navy Retirement so I hope they get on the ball pretty soon.

I guess I better get going on morning chores. They just don't seem to do themselves. Have a great Thursday!! Faye

[Jean]

Good Afternoon, Flowers! We got up to a few rain sprinkles this morning and now the sun is shining. It's 70 degrees and a light breeze is blowing. Nice! I went to get my nails done and decided to have my toes done too. This will probably be the last polish job this year for my toes. I've picked up the clutter and vacuumed, forget the dusting for today! Bob is working in the office today trying to answer Obamacare questions.

Maggie -- Did you ever have a red Jeep? Around here "they" say white is the most dangerous color because you can't see it against the snow in the winter time. We have a lot of car diversity around here: Iowa Hawkeye gold, or bright orange, lime, pink, and yellow. For awhile it seemed like everyone bought the sandstone color or silver. I've almost always had red.

"Gma" -- I think the cane is a great idea! I will have to check out your FB page to see your scarf. I think my dad had the right idea about politicians. Term limits for all and vote the whole bunch out of office! This morning when I was getting my nails done the reporter said the AZ congressman was donating his paycheck back to the state. Then there were four guys pictured who said they were keeping their's. I don't think I would admit I was a congressman right now.

I have a load of laundry to get downstairs so better keep moving. Enjoy the rest of a terrific Thursday!

[gma22]

Good morning ladies. It stayed fairly warm overnight, but I have the ac off for a bit. It won't last long though as I can feel the living room heating up already.

I have left the dreaded dusting until last so it has to be done today. I have a load of laundry in and a few pieces for another load. I hate it when the loads don't come out even, but what can you do? I never overload my washer.

I didn't tell you that last weekend I had water all in the bathroom again. Jack went over next door and told them and asked them to please check. He did and said it was dry so we got to thinking our wax seal on the toilet may be leaking. I kept using towels to dry it up under the linoleum (we have had to pull it back so much it has now torn, but we will just have to bite the bullet until we have enough saved to put down the new floors. Anyway, I got it dried up and put a towel under the linoleum to see if it was leaking when we flushed, but the towel stayed dry. I noticed they haven't used their washer all week so it must have leaked out under their washer finally. They are nice people, not like the other couple of families who did the washer thing. She has that washer going all the time. You can hear it agitate in the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs hall bath. I haven't heard a peep and the floor has remained dry so they must have figured it out.

I started a hat for my best friend for her bday. I have the footies part way done, the hat started and will start a scarf to go with it. That should keep my busy on vacation sitting around the pool or in their beautiful seating areas on the ship. Looks like sail away day it is going to rain all day. I think it is because it is close to this tropical thing going on in the gulf.

Jean: Our grand marquis was baby blue, which Jack hated and man were they popular here. The blacks love that car and you see them around town all the time and a lot of them are that baby blue color. White and Black big SUVS are popular here and the smaller cars a lot of them are grays and silvers. I don't know why, but blacks here will buy a 20 year old car, put on expensive rims that cost about $2 grand and up and then paint the car oddball paint jobs which are custom and cost a bundle too. Since I have flat feet my heel area always takes a beating, but I have started putting the Gold Bond foot cream on them every night with socks and when I got my pedicure she barely had to peel my heels. On Wed I am going to get my nails done and probably will have them repaint my toes so they stay shiny for the trip. Tomorrow is hair salon day finally and I am really ready to get this mess done.

Well, better get the dusting done. I have the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded so the laundry and dusting is it for today. We will finish the packing and getting things ready this weekend and clean the inside of the car really well so should be busy. Have a great weekend all. Faye

[Maggie]

♪♥♫GOOD ROCKTOBER MORNING MAGNOLIAS☺♫

Well folks we have changed our plans and will be heading out to NC on Monday to pick up our motor home which is a Fleetwood Pace Arrow. We got a very good deal on one out there that we couldn’t pass up so need to go pick it up from the dealer. It has all the features and more that we had been looking for in a MH so I hope it serves us well. We will be going to Texas and round about like we had planned at a later date but this trip to NC came up unexpectedly. We had feelers out all over for what we wanted in a used MH and this one just came last night so we made the deal this morning for the price was right and this one would go fast off their lot for sure. It is ours for they have our deposit and put a sold sign on it this morning. So off to NC come Monday morning. It is @850 miles to where we need to go. What cracks me up is the same model we are getting sells for double the price elsewhere plus the miles are also doubled elsewhere. Go figure ~ it certainly does pay to shop around. But it may be too true to be good so when we get there if we don’t like it for some reason we will get our deposit back and keep searching. We ditched wanting a tent trailer awhile back when my pains came back and decided it would be best to get another motor home. Besides in the motor home we can take the animals along instead of boarding them with the vet. I’ll just have to find a place for Cecil’s but hut ~ we kept Turns in the shower. It worked out well for we just lifted it out when we needed to use the shower. The shower in this MH has a door. I am thinking I can probably take the door off of one of the low cabinets and put his hut in there. I’ll just have to wait and see when we get a MH just how I can arrange it. Most camp grounds are pet friendly if you keep them on a leash so he will just have to learn to be on a leash if he wants to have any times outside. He is such an outside cat we will work something out for him when we are “out there.”

My back gets a bit better each wake up so hopefully all the pain will have vanished come Monday. I have been taking it real easy and watching how I twist or rather don’t twist. I just don’t have any ambition to do anything anyway. I did order 5 new blouses and 3 pair of nice pants and bought 3 pair of black double knit ones at Wal*Mart. Yep, broke down and improved my wardrobe in a smaller size. The ones I ordered should all get here within a couple weeks.

Will was out at the main park manning the museum display at the October Fest celebration. It is a big deal around here with the large German population we have. Lots of ump-pa music and drinking of the brew going on. The museum display is about a city block away from those festivities. It’s a huge park. I guess it goes on today and tomorrow.

I don’t have any plans out of the ordinary today so will just be doing the regular picking up and touching up around here. I need to figure out what I will be making for dinner today. We went out last night and I had some delicious skewers of BBQ shrimp and some rice and, of course, a salad. Yum.

When we do get a motor home we are going to have our neighbor pour a couple of ribbons of concrete in our back yard to park it on. He works with concrete and will do a good job. Will build his back railing for him and he wants to do something to return the favor so he can do this. We can make the back gate wider so the motor home can be driven down the alley and along the fence right into the back yard onto the ribbons of concrete. So when we get back with the motor home we can park it on the street out front until it’s place is fixed up in the back yard. Our back yard is quite large so it will have a nice home out there when we aren’t using it. We will get a cover for it so it doesn’t bake in the sun.

What fun I will have outfitting the inside of a motor home. I still have a number of the things we liked to have in our former motor home. My rule for myself was to have things in the kitchen that could be used for more than one thing. I have one of those hand blender thingies with the attachments that will froth, beat, whip, chop, puree, whisk, emulsify, aerate ~ actually anything a blender and mixer will do. It & its attachments all fits snugly into a nice case. I have several other appliances and kitchen things that do double duty also. Yep it will be fun.

JEAN Nope, never had a red Jeep although they are pretty. I am just partial to yellow Jeeps. I never did like the sandstone or silver colors for cars. But they are liked by a lot of folks for there are lots of them around. Good thing we had a choice. Back when the first Model T was built you were allowed to select any color you wanted as long as it was black. That was their advertisement and look how far we have now come with vehicle colors.

DONNA FAYE Oops waterworks in the bathroom are not fun no matter where they came from. Hope you can get it all resolved before you lay new floring down. So now you get to have your hair done. No more spider webs on your face at night. Your cruise is getting so close I imagine how excited you must be getting.

Have a great day my Magnolia friends.

[Jean]

Good Evening, Flowers! We are in a storm/tornado watch/warning right now. It is coming from Nebraska where there has been a lot of damage along the path. The Sioux City tv weather guys have been on constantly for the last three plus hours. I talked to Beth and they were heading to the basement because the sirens were going off. Fred, the dog is afraid of the siren and she was trying to coax him with food. He is a BIG basset hound and I don't think she could carry him. Right now it is lightning with thunder here.

"Gma" -- I'm sorry about the water in your bathroom. It's too bad "someone" can't figure out how to fix it. Enjoy your new "do" tomorrow!

Maggie -- It's a good thing that you are flexible! A motor home sounds a whole lot more fun, to me! What fun to have new clothes in a smaller size!

It's time for "the boys" to head downstairs to bed. The weather is making them nervous too. Hope you all have a nice weekend!

[gma22]

Good morning all. Today is the day, finally! I am excited to get it all done and see what it looks like. I have some errands to run for the cruise too so will get those done.

I weighed myself this morning and am down another 2 lbs. I am only two lbs from my original goal for the cruise.

As usual you pay for express then they don't deliver. Don't know which side was at fault, but I won't get the cane until Monday. I paid for express but they don't guarantee it so I have to way to complain. It was shipped FEDEX and it is on the truck for delivery Monday so I imagine I will get it before noon on Monday. On the other side of the coin, Jack took in our hold mail card and he gave it to the mail supervisor so fingers crossed they are supposed to stop it today.

Maggie: I am going to hang in the baggier clothing for awhile since I don't work outside the home and all. Next year I will buy new stuff when they fall off me! Have fun on your trip to NC, and wave as you go through Tennessee if you do. Sounds like you will have a great time with a motor home over the tent trailer. You get to our age and the joints don't like that sort of thing all the damp and such that can seep in.

Jean: Hope you guys came out of the storm all alright. My friend in North Dakota got a huge snowstorm so I imagine it warmed up and hit you guys. We are concerned how much rain is in the tropics. We may have a soggy vacation. The Cozumel excursion is indoors for the salsa stuff but then you are allowed to use the resort for the rest of the day and they have had none stop rain for weeks now. Jamaica is going to be raining two days before we get there so I hope it moves out as everything there is outdoors pretty much. I need to check and see if we get our deposit back if it is raining.

Well girls, need to get morning chores done and get showered and dressed. Have a wonderful Saturday. Faye

[Jean]

Good Morning, Flowers! It's a very cool 45 degrees but sunny in my neighborhood this morning. The storms missed us last night but lots of farm damage just to the west of us. Bob is out taking pictures; I relay messages as the calls come in. He is helping the adjuster by taking pictures and the farmers can start their clean-up. He and Jason had planned to remove the stinky fridge from the cabin this morning but Jason's area has storm damage too, so he started getting calls last night.

"Gma" -- I hope you will post your new hairdo picture on FB! on another 2#s gone forever! I know how frustrating it is to wait for something but as long as you get the cane before you leave it will be ok. I just got a box from UPS and it was so dirty I hated to even pick it up. I would have said something to the driver but he was long gone by the time I got to the door. I saw videos of the snow storm across SD yesterday. Jason was out there hunting last weekend; I'm glad it wasn't yesterday! Keep positive thoughts that the weather pattern will change by the time you are off the ship.

I've been to the bank so I won't have to do the gift shop deposit on Monday. Other than that, it's laundry and making bars today. Hope you all enjoy your Saturday!

[Maggie]

♪♥♫GOOD ROCKTOBER AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS☺♫

It is in the 60°s here now and I feel chilled for the first time in ages. Will is at the park again today and I am sure he took a jacket along. My back is just about back to exact now and I am still taking it easy with it so it can get strong again.

I wanted to buy anther noodle/rice bowl to keep in the MH and went to the web site where I purchased my bamboo noodle/ rice bowl which I eat my stir-fry in with chopsticks and they no longer carry them and I couldn’t find them anywhere else. I ended up ordering a neat pottery type one that has a unique shape to it with a thumb hole and will work out fine for me for it looks like it will be very comfortable to hold. I ordered it from the Uncommon Goods folks. I’ll keep it in the house and put my bamboo one in the MH. The fewer breakable things that go in there the better. I have a nice set of navy blue speckled ware metal plates that will go nicely in there. They are the nice ones with the chrome edges on them and they know about living in a MH. They are the ones with the sloped up sides that hold the stew or like dishes on the plate. The oven in the MH is a convection oven. We have most of the kitchen things in a box in the basement that we used in our other MH so there won’t be a lot to buy to outfit the kitchen. Our Dutch Ovens can ride in an outside compartment.

Well we won’t be leaving as soon as we thought because the place where we are getting the new wheels and tires received 3 of the right kind of wheels and 2 that were totally different. Seems like some nit wit at the factory put those 2 in the wrong boxes and that will delay us a bit. But it takes what it takes and we can deal. Yipekio ~ our Jeep looks so spiffy now. I sure like having new floor mats also. Having the front and rear bumpers changed sure gives it a different look.

I have been looking at washers and dryers for RV’s and the price has sure come down a lot since I last looked at them. They have stackable ones which I prefer and also the ones that are one unit that wash and dry. The cost is about the same for the two different types. Will said he will take the measurements of the units while we are there and do the remodeling himself so they will fit then later have them installed. If the area will only take the unit that does both the washing and drying then I will settle for one of those. I just need a way to wash my clothes while out and about. I am older now and don’t want to have to hand wash everything like I used to, which was fine with me back then.

JEAN I certainly glad that you and your family were safe from that storm. Did she get that dog to go downstairs after all? That is sure nice of Bob to take those pictures of the damage to help the process move along faster.

DONNA FAYE Yep we didn't need to get a tent trailer at our age. We just had so much fun with one it seemed like a good idea that was fleeting at best. I'll have a great time fixing up the MH with my "stuff." I can feel your excitement! Hopefully the rain will cooperate with your plans. I think it is a good idea to wait to get new clothes for I waited till I lost 90 some and my things were kinda getting thread bare. But I held of long enough.

Have a great day my Magnolia friends.

[gma22]

Good morning girls. We will have thunderstorms and rain all day today, but I am going to get the inside of the car cleaned anyway. I can either pull it out and sit in it closed up or work the driver's side while in the garage then pull it out to get into the passenger side.

My hair is spectacular. I went in there and they were teasing me and when it was done everybody was saying, "She's back!" I will post a picture on FB in a couple days when I have it all styled and such. It is bright crimson and has blond pieces all in it all over. She cut asymmetrical so one side is longer than the other and did it at the neckline that way too. I just love it and Jack thinks it looks, "cute" on me so there you go.

I did not sleep well last night, have a sore throat from hair getting into my throat and hair up my nose. My hair is so fine that when she cuts it the stuff cut off flies all over the place. Of course, I never shut up so I apparently swallowed some, which I do a lot of times when I get my hair cut.
Combine that with some super duper fall allergies this year and I feel a bit miserable at the moment.

Jean: Boy sounds like your area got the heavy rain/tornado stuff. Jack says a lot of the heavy inclement weather is coming from the tropical storm that hit around New Orleans. Seems like everybody is getting a lot of rain right now or in the far north heavy snow. Hope Bob was able to get all his pictures taken and such for those folks to file their claims. What bars did you end up making?

Maggie: Glad you were able to find what you wanted. I found several on etsy and ebay and this great online asian place. Have you ever heard of Bento boxes? They are Asian lunch boxes basically. Kelly swears by them for Thomas's school lunches. She has been using them for several years now. One of the great things about them is all the little compartments are pretty much a half or whole serving size so you can give your kid all kinds of things and they can't overeat. Of course Kelly doesn't put in junk food, but he takes fruits, raw veggies, leftover meat, seafood or such they may have had for dinner and stuff like that. I think it is cool because they get samples of lots of little things

I am going to work on my best friend's hat today and work on her entwined hearts scarf. It is going to be wicked because you have to knit by chart and make sure you don't loose your place and such. It has a 4 stitch seed border on each side and the pattern then between them. I marked off the 4 st border with my little plastic safety pin stitch markers so I don't forget the border and I think that is what I am going to do for the body of the scarf so I don't get lost. I will use the purple safety pins for the border and than the lavender for the center. Hopefully that will work out. I keep starting projects to take on the trip then get caught up in them and finish them here at home! For me, knitting has a calming influence over me. It helps me not to stress out about stuff with regards to anything, the condo, the trip, family, whatever. I make intricate things so I have to concentrate only on it. As usual, it teaches me real patience too. The hat I am making I started in another pattern which she had screwed up and was too lazy to fix so told everyone to ignore where it went wrong and just keep knitting. Bologna! I started and rippe that hat out at least 6 times and finally said, you are full of it this won't come out right no matter what you do and deep sixed it in the trash can and went looking for another one.

Time to go. You all have a nice Sunday and start to next week. The countdown is on. Faye

[Jean]

On our way to a football game . . . raining pretty hard close to home but not there, yet anyway. Too hard to type in the car and connection is poor. More later, maybe tomorrow.

[Maggie]

♪♥♫GOOD ROCKTOBER AFTERNOON MAGNOLIAS☺♫

Windy day in the 60°s and I am not doing much between church services. Will has gone down to the festivities to man the museum table for awhile and I am home alone with the animals and a pesky fly. There were just a few of us for pot-luck to day and I ate sparingly even though there was plenty of food I just wasn’t that hungry today.

Don’t you just love getting those emails that say “a good friend wants you to visit this website” and I just dump them. Any of my good friends would send me an email from their computer and recommend a web site and not put it through a tele-marketer. Duh.

Hopefully the correct parts for our Jeep get delivered tomorrow so we can hit the road soon. I am anxious to get acquainted with our MH. I had Will bring up a box from the basement that has some things I had set aside to put in our RV and I was happy to see that I have enough to make a good meal with or bake anything we would want while out and about. They are small baking pans for I will be cooking for just of the two of us most of the time when we are out and about and won’t be saving any leftovers. I don’t know the dimensions of the inside of the oven but these small items will surely fit inside with ample room for the convection air to circulate around them. One of my treasures is a cast iron smooth griddle on one side and ridges on the other. It is only a foot square and perfect for a camp stove and I can make Panini’s on the ridged side and pancakes on the smooth side. I had used it inside and out before. I have a larger version that I can use in my indoor kitchen here in the house. I like to have smaller versions of things we use most in the kitchen. It is different when we are full timing than when we are just out for a few days. I can plan the meals and make sure I have the proper things to cook or bake them in with us. I will not stock the kitchen nearly like I did when we were full timing. But I am happy that I saved all those smaller sized items and can use them all once again. If I don’t use something then there is “no use to lug it around the country” is my philosophy. Anyway I am having fun checking my old things and making decisions on what to put in the MH and what I need to buy. What we really do need to buy are a couple of nice lawn chairs for when we are out and about hunting artifacts I will need some times to sit down. If I sat on the ground I doubt if I could get back up. We do things differently when we get older don’t we for we have different needs.

DONNA FAYE Yes those Bento boxes are great. Wish they had them when I was packing school lunches. I got something similiar from WW that has room for veggies and dressing for take along. Or what ever you want to pack along ~ has a nice ring that you can put in the freezer to keep things cold. I got a couple of them for our take alongs when we are out and about. I am so glad for you that your hair turned out the way you like it and your main squeeze likes it.

JEAN Hope you didn't have any bad weather during your game and you had fun.

SUSAN How be you?

Have a great day my Magnolia friends.