What a Great Anniversary!

We are back from our weekend, actually it was only one night, but we had a great time. We didn't have to check in at the lodge until 4:00, this is where we stayed The Honey Creek Resort, so we went exploring, going up to a lake (Red Rock) that is on the Des Moines River about an hour north of where we were staying in search of eagles. We love to eagle watch.The back of my legs hurt from walking up a bunch of stairs to get to the top of an observation tower they had at another part of the lake. I wish I had taken a picture of it. Boy, was it tall!

We had never been there and got lost on the way back, but it turned out to be really good that we did. We ended up at the dammed end of the lake on the river and there we saw dozens upon dozens of eagles. What an amazing sight! There was even a nest there, but we're weren't sure if it was active or had been abandoned. Being that it was right on the edge of the river and the watch point, half of an old bridge, was on the other side, and the river flooded in 2008 when tons of water had to be let out of the lake due to flooding upstream; I would say that it was probably abandoned, but just seeing it was a thrill! This morning, we had a room overlooking the lake, we saw four more eagles fishing. We were wondering if maybe they were nesting pairs because we also found a fish hatchery south of the lodge.
 

 The Red Rock Dam

 The half bridge observation point

Here is a picture of some of the eagles and the nest in the upper right.

Another group. There were still more further down the river.

This one was near the lodge. Flying to the right of it was a sea gull. Yes Virginia, there are seagulls in Iowa.

If you click on the pictures, you'll be able to see a bigger one. I just learned this recently.

The food there was great, Dave and I both had prime rib for dinner last night. Too bad the meal was interrupted by the noisy kids in the group sitting next to us. This morning we did the breakfast buffet, guess who we got stuck sitting next to again, yep, that same group.

I now wish that I had one of the Belgium waffles that were being made behind me, but I think I have some frozen ones in the freezer that I can have for breakfast tomorrow. I know, it won't be the same, but they'll have to do. I think it's time we get a Belgium waffle maker of our own. Anyway, we had a table by a window with a view of the lake, so we were able to see one of the eagles we saw earlier while we ate.

The weather was great. Yesterday it was chilly, but the sun was shining. This morning it was windy, but with a south wind, so it actually felt pretty comfortable. The sun was also shining. We got home pretty early since we checked out not long after we ate and we ate around 9:00. We were home by a little after 12:30. It was only about a two hour drive to get there. Since we packed very light, only one duffel bag each, it didn't take long to unpack, something I always hate doing when we come back from a trip.

Now I'm sitting here relaxing with a heating pad on my aching calves, I think that's what the back of your lower leg is called, right? Anyway, I have some chocolate ice cream in the freezer and it's calling my name, so I will see you all later. Have a great night.

Happy Anniversary

Happy 34th Anniversary to my dear sweet husband, Dave.
Love you always.

More Adventures in Dogdom

It was so cute earlier, Max was (still is) laying in Dave's chair and he was looking at me. All of a sudden he started wagging his tail. I asked him if he was a happy puppy and he wagged it even more. He's so sweet at times.

He's been zonked out for awhile, they all have due to it being warm from the dryer running. No basement here, so when the dryer runs, it heats the whole house, which is good in the winter because it saves on propane.

We got a couple inches of snow last night and these guys love it. They like to go out and eat it and the ice that forms. Rolli really loves it when it's deep and there are snowdrifts around. She likes to dig tunnels. She's so cute when she's playing in it. We hardly use ice melt and when we do, we use the pet friendly stuff, but they stay away from those areas and eat the stuff in the yard or on the side of the patio where there isn't any ice melt.

Unfortunately around here, when the snow melts everything turns to mud, the back yard, the driveway, and even the road; especially the road. It's like that too when it rains. Because the back yard gets muddy in spots, thanks to Max, Angel, and Rolli's digging, their paws get awfully muddy and because of that, they have to get them washed off before they can come into the rest of the house. Dave washes  them outside, but I'm not that mean, I wash them inside the back door.

Rolli will entice Max to dig, knowing he'll get in trouble for it. I saw her do it once and she was the one who got in trouble, the little instigator. She's always been good at that, even when she and Jake were puppies. She would get Jake to dig, but then she would kick him out of the way probably because he wasn't doing it to her liking. All you would see of her would be a little black puppy butt sticking up out of the ground. I even have a picture around somewhere of it. Now she just growls at him, poor Jake. I'll stand between them when she does it. She knows I don't like it.

Not much happening here in Dogdom at the moment. Would you believe that I'm sitting here eating ice cream? It's one of my favorites, chocolate. Yum! They're all still snoozing. Oops, Max just woke up, so did Angel. It's been a quiet day here in Dogdom. I guess a couple pups need to go outside, so I better go and let them out. Have a great whatever is left of the day.

The Last of the Christmas Stamps

Do you still have any of your Christmas stamps left over, because maybe you didn't send out that many Christmas cards and you just haven't had an occasion to where you've needed a stamp lately? I did until yesterday.

I finally used my last Christmas stamp. My sister was probably wondering " What the heck?" when I sent her a birthday card last month. It too had a Christmas stamp on it.

I guess I could have saved them until next Christmas, they were after all, forever stamps, but I'm one of those people who have to use up the old stuff before I open the new stuff. Yes, I had regular stamps, but I wanted to use up the Christmas ones first and to tell the truth, it never occurred to me to save them.

Things like that usually don't cross my mind until all is said and done. It's like when you have a conversation with someone and later you think to yourself or tell yourself, I should have told them this or that. I do that all the time too, sometimes I think it, sometimes I talk to myself and and tell myself I should have said or done it. Sometimes I do it years later, like that's going to do me any good, right? Better yet, I tell myself I'm going to do something, but never get around to it. I'm really good at that one.

Well, at least I accomplished that one little thing. I think I'm on a roll to accomplish more little things. What can I do next? So much to do. Maybe I'll just sit and think about it for awhile.

I Did Something I haven't Done in Years

I bought a bathing suit.

I haven't had one in years. I just didn't need one for one and I didn't want to subject others to me in one.

Why did I break down and do it? Well, Dave and I are going to a resort here in Iowa for our anniversary next weekend. The place has an indoor pool park that looks really fun, so we're going to take advantage of it. I hope the suit doesn't make me look too frumpy in it. I'm also hoping it fits because I ordered it on line. I hope I get it in time.

The last time I remember owning a bathing suit was when we lived in California and that was something like 30 years ago. I looked a lot better in bathing suits back then. Before I had kids, would you believe that I looked like this:

Okay, maybe not quite that good, but close. I was also 18-19 and weighed 99 pounds back then.

I'd like to say that I weigh close to that, but the last time I did was when I was working full time and smoking like a fiend. I did go through a period where I did watch what I ate and I lost a lot of weight. From doing that and the lifting of heavy boxes almost everyday helped. But then I fell off the wagon and went back to my old eating habits. Now I'm doing Weight Watchers, but what I need to do is to get off of my duff and exercise again. I've gotten lazy over the winter, I was doing so well last summer. The bad thing is that it hasn't been all that cold this winter, except for maybe the past few weeks, so I have no excuse. I'll admit it, I can't blame it on anything or anyone else, the culprit is sitting right here writing this.

I keep telling myself I'm going to start up again and I know that once I do and keep with it, then maybe I'll be able to get back to looking decent in a bathing suit again or whatever else I decide to wear.

Oh Why Do I Torture Myself?

The other day on Facebook, I saw that the local shelter had listed seven lab-mix puppies that someone dropped off at a farm outside of the town north of here.

Well, I did it again. Dave and I went to the local shelter to drop some doggy vests off that I made several years ago for the pups. They've since outgrown them and I made them new ones. Well, the girl mentioned the puppies they had shown on their Facebook page, so I had to go and take a look. They were so cute and growing. Their paws were enormous, but they were so cute, picture Marley puppy cute, that was them. I wish I could have brought one home, but Dave reminded me that we are at our limit. I knew he was right, but still...they were so cute.

If you want to see them, go to the Iowa Clarke County Animal Shelter Facebook page. They have pictures of them there.

When we got home, we were joking Max and telling him that he'd better be good because we know where some puppies are that can kick his little puppy butt. He must have heeded the warning because he's been good all afternoon. Right now he's sleeping on the couch.

Oops, now he's awake. He heard me talking to Angel. She just jumped down from the chair she was in, went through dining room and kitchen, came in and stood beside Dave's recliner until I lowered mine so that she could get through to go and get back into the chair she had originally gotten out of. She does this all the time. It's a little game that she plays. She refuses to go back around the way she came. Can you spell spoiled? If you look it up, you'll see a picture of Angel, not really, but you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, Max fell back to sleep on the couch.

Wow, I Didn't Know I Could Do That!

It's been snowing all morning, so not knowing how much snow we were going to end up with, I went out to the van to get the boots I got for Christmas, the ones that are guaranteed to -50 an are higher than my other boots. I figured that they would do me better today being in the house than being in the van. I had my UGG type boots on to go and get them. The one thing I don't like about my UGG type boots is that they have no traction on slippery surfaces.

Okay, so now picture this, I'm coming in from the car, hands loaded down with not only my boots, but my farmer overalls and David's boots which were also in there. I had been meaning to bring them in earlier because a mouse had decided to take up residency somewhere in the van. I even put out one of those humane traps with a cracker topped with peanut butter and the little rodent not only figured out how to get out of the trap, he somehow managed to figure out how to get the cracker with peanut butter out as well. I'm guessing he had accomplishes, but have no proof.

Anyway, got off track there for a minute. There I was at the back door after making it through the gate and managing to close the gate with arms full and opening the storm door and back door and stepping inside. Still having everything in my arms, I went to shut the storm door which by this time caught a burst of wind and had flown all the way open, meaning against the house open. No problem and without thinking of the boots I had on, I stepped out to grab the handle and close it also forgetting that the landing was slippery from the little snow that had accumulated on it since Dave shoveled it.

So I reach out, trying to reach the handle on the door and my foot slips out from under me and I do a full split and fall sideways, hitting my right shoulder on the landing. I must have also hit my left shoulder on the door jam because it's the one that's sore. The back door was wide open and Rolli and Max were standing there wondering what the heck happened to me. Luckily there was a pile of snow from Dave clearing a path on the patio that my head landed on and not the cement of the patio.

Don't ask me why he didn't push the snow off of the patio, but at that point I was glad that he didn't. I laid there for a few minutes thinking that if Dave saw me, he was out in his workshop and could come out at any minute, he would run up and make sure that I was okay and I could milk the slight pain I was in for all I could get out of it. Pitiful, isn't it that I would use it to my advantage? I then realized that was a stupid plan because I could be laying there for quite some time and because the door was wide open, one of the cats such as Oreo could get out. He had sniffed by the back door before, curious as to what was on the other side, so I was worried that he would jump at the chance and over me to get out. Thankfully he didn't, but I thought that he might, so I slowly pulled myself up, making sure I didn't hurt anything else but my pride and stepped back into the house, after grabbing the handle of the storm door that was. I was a little sore, but nothing serious. I hung up the overalls and put the boots down on the floor by the door and by that time Dave did come in. I told him what had happened and told him that I was a little sore when he asked if I hurt anything.

I'm still a little sore, sitting here in my recliner typing this, but I'll see how much I actually hurt when I get up in a few minutes. I figured that after sitting for a bit, when I get up, I'll see how much pain I'm in then and take it from there. I don't think it'll be that bad, but if it is, I have some pain pills in the medicine cabinet left over from when I had that oral surgery last year and I'll take one of those. I already popped a couple aspirin for a headache earlier, so that's out. I doubt I'll need to though.

I'm thankful it wasn't more serious than it was. Today is not a day to be out there on the roads and it would take quite some time for an ambulance to get here, if they could even find us at all.