Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays

 I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday today. I hope it saw you well and happy. 

May the New Year bring good health, happiness, and prosperity to you and your loved ones.

Merry Christmas!

 Merry Christmas everyone.

Do you have your tree up? Would you believe that I still don't. I plan on remedying that today, along with getting stockings up and garland around the mantle and other stuff like that. Oh yeah, also putting new lights on the two fake trees made from tomato cages that I have on the front porch. 

I can say that I do have my shopping done, just a few more little things I need to get.

Well, took a break to put up the tree. I got the extra lights on thanks to Dave, but I now noticed where I have to adjust them. Thankfully there are no ornaments on it yet. It's one of those pencil trees that we bought on sale after Christmas from Walmart. It's pre lit but unfortunately a big section on one side is bare of lights. I know that I have spare in with the ornaments, so I can fix it tomorrow. I just hope that I have white ones. I'm pretty sure I do though since I am one of those who buy that kind of stuff to stock up for "next" year. I will finish decorating the rest of the living room tomorrow too, but for now, I'm going to rest my aching back. I think I'll watch a Christmas movie too. See ya later.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving  Everyone. May you have a safe and healthy one.

What Are You Thankful For?

 This year has been tough on everyone. There has been a lot going on that hasn't been nice, from the natural disasters to Covid 19 which caused massive layoffs, the rioting and looting of businesses. I can't also forget all of the negativity surrounding the elections.

In what has been a very negative year, what is it that you are grateful for? I'm sure you can think of at least one thing.

As for me, I have lots of things to be thankful for. For one, we are all healthy. Dave and I have both stayed healthy and so have David, Kenneth, and our daughter-in-law, Kenneth's wife Elicia. We all have a roof over our head and food on the table, not only tomorrow, but everyday. I am especially thankful that Dave and I have lasted 40+ years. Not many marriages do.

I am thankful that all of my siblings are still alive. We are all aging, being in our 60s or older, so with each passing day that they are still here, I am thankful. I am thankful that my friends are still alive for that same reason. Some I've had since childhood or high school, some are new, some are renewed.

Yes, I am also grateful for our pets. They show us unconditional love that you can't get from most people. They are a very important part of our family, not just animals.

Lastly, I am grateful for each day that I wake up. Even with the aches and pains of growing older, I am blessed to wake up to see another day.

I Have a Pet Peeve

 I have a pet peeve, a very important one as far as I'm concerned. This concerns Covid 19 and mask wearing.

Everytime I go to the store, I see people walking around not wearing their mask properly or not wearing one at all. You may have Covid 19 and not even know it and are spreading it to others who also are not wearing a mask properly or not at all, thus spreading the virus even more.

Wear a mask! Everyday our Covid 19 numbers are going up and everyday I see more people doing the above. The county next to ours has almost as many cases as we do and that's just within the last month! Their numbers used to be less than half of what ours were.

If we want this thing to go away we need to take precautions and one of those precautions is wearing a mask, whether you believe it's real or not. That is called common courtesy, treating others as you want to be treated. Do your part and WEAR a MASK!

2019 and 2020 Review

Sorry I haven't kept up with this like I said that I would. But until this year, not too much has happened.

In September or October 2017, we did buy a camper after talking about it for several years. It's one that has a bunk room and two slideouts. I love it. We didn't have a truck to pull it when we bought it, but we were able to find one at the Ford dealer near here that fit our needs perfectly. The day it was advertised online was the day I saw the ad and we went to see it and bought it. It's a really nice older F250, red in color. We've taken a couple trips in it with the trailer, both back east. It was really fun and Dave did an excellent job of manoeuvering the trailer and parking it. We had a really good time each time. It was also nice having a home on wheels. That way we didn't have to worry about leaving anything in hotel rooms and campsites are a lot cheaper to stay at.

The first time we went, we took a trip back to the Burgh. I was able to locate a KOA campground in Washington, PA. and one outside of Indianapolis to overnight at. We really like the Indy one. The Washington one was nice for what we needed it for.

Our next trip was also back to PA, but this time Lancaster for our nephew, Michael's wedding. It was nice and the campsite was great. It was pretty close to things and we spent a week there going to the wedding of course, but also going back to Gettysburg to visit the spots we didn't see the first time. We were going to go to Hershey Park the day before we left, but I had a bad vertigo attack so we gave our tickets to the lady in the campground store which worked out because it was her birthday.

On the way there, we again stopped in Indy and the next day as we were getting ready to leave, I tripped getting out of the shower and cut my big toe on my left foot bad enough to where it needed stitches, five to be exact. It took us awhile to find the hospital which meant that we were late getting to Washington. I also ended up breaking a stitch when I slipped getting into bed that night. Thankfully I took an extra pair of shoes for the wedding because I couldn't wear the hills I took.

The trip back was uneventful except we did stop at the hospital in Indy to get my stitches out.

Back home, we had another crisis and that was while we were gone, Max our older pup developed glaucoma and had to have his eye removed. He took it like the champ he is. Earlier this year he had surgery to remove fatty tumors that were making it uncomfortable for him to lay down.

The year ended with me catching a really bad case of bronchitis and having a bronchoscopy to see why I wasn't getting over it and still coughing and wheezing. It turns out that the lower part of my right lung collapsed and I may have developed either asthma or COPD and was put on a twice daily inhaler.

That leads us to this year, 2020, a year that will go down in history.

The year started out okay, but shortly after the new year a pandemic, called Covid19 started in China and worked its way around the world and is still going strong, with millions becoming ill and hundreds of thousands dying from it. The  cases are even surging here in Iowa, but unfortunately people aren't heeding the warnings and are not following guidelines such as wearing a face mask in public. It is really frustrating.

On top of all of that, there have been numerous disasters from wildfires in the west to numerous hurricanes hitting the US causing millions in damage. If all of that isn't bad enough, there have been numerous riots and looting in cities all across the country which started out as peaceful protests over Blacken being killed by policemen and turning violent when other groups set on violence joined in.Some have even threatened violence if Trump won reelection. even though the counting hasn't ended, looks as if he lost to Joe Biden, who after what, three other attempts, finally made it.

Hate to say it but Trump is acting like a spoiled child over it. He apparently even declared victory in Pennsylvania with only 53% of the votes counted. I am truly embarrassed for him. But on the other hand there has been reports of ballots not being counted and republican counters being denied access to witness the counting of ballots. So, we wait of the official outcome, which has yet to be announced even though the media is already declaring Biden the winner.

Before all of this, the House impeached the President over false allegations that he colluded with the Russians to win the election drummed up by none other than Hillary Clinton and her people. because Hillary lost. She was afterall, promised that she would become president. There were those who even called for Trump's impeachment before he took the oath of office. Unfortunately Hillary may never be brought up on charges for it, especially with Biden in office.

I don't know what 2021 has in store for all of us, but I pray for our nation.