Our Room is Done!

We arrived at our place at Cedar Blue on Friday morning, August 15th, to find our room done.  We had a contractor enclose our covered deck into a 10'x19' room so we would have more living space.  The new covered patio, however, is still not done but there were a few more pieces of bracing for the cover.  So the work began.  John and I spent three days painting, finishing the electric hookup, installing the security system and adjusting the cameras, putting a computer desk together and putting up some curtains for the sliding glass door.  We were exhausted each night.  We had a window AC unit installed in the wall and hoped that it would do the trick cooling the room down and boy does it ever.  I have found myself covering up with a blanket!    

The girls helping assemble the TV stand

Tonight we are sitting in our new reclining loveseat watching our new 40" TV with our girls sleeping on the loveseat with us.  We are waiting for a TV stand that we ordered.  We left one end of the room open for a folding table that we can use for eating with friends or playing games and putting puzzles together.  After much internet searching for that perfect and affordable table, John has convinced me that he should build one.  I'm pretty excited about it.  We checked out wood at Lowes and found a nice pine.  The table is going to be 5' long with two 12" wide side panels and the center panel will be 16".  It will fit great along the wall.  Can't wait.  May just have to start this project this week while we are here.  We are sure hoping that the patio is done in time to enjoy some fires in the Fall.

Putting together the new gas fire pit

My biggest dilemma has been curtains.  I purchased some nice ivory curtains for the sliding door planning to order the shorter curtains online as they store didn't have any.  Of course, I could get just about any of the other colors for those curtains in the shorter length but not in ivory.  We traveled to Ardmore and Pauls Valley this week searching for stores that sell curtains and only found one.  They make them and were going to want $2,000 for six panels!  YIKES.  Not for a room at a camping spot!  So I have order six more panels of the same curtains I have in the long length and we will just shorten them.  Way less money!

Our unfinished covered cement patio

The girls seem to like the room as they have some more room to run around.  They especially like the loveseat.  Today I bathed both of them and cut their hair.  They were getting very scruffy looking and probably hot with the long hair.  They are so patient with me while I groom them.  

This summer (keep in mind it is now mid-August) we have only been out on the lake twice.  Once in the boat and once on the waverunner.  Many of the weekends we were able to go out it was raining.  Since we have several more days here this week we should get plenty of lake time in.  Our poor lake is 7' down from its normal level.  With all the rain the State has had, including the surrounding area of Lake Arbuckle, it just seems that the big rains keep missing the lake.  I sure hope the Fall and Winter are wet.

Our RV snug as a bug under the cover

Looking forward to just relaxing a bit now.  Maybe reading a book and doing some crocheting and getting in the lake.  

A view of the storm shelter, patio area and room

What a Week!

This past week has been a crazy and testing week.  After many months of prayer and discussion we made the decision to pull out of the DivorceCare ministry that we have been doing since 1996.  This has been a wonderful and rewarding ministry and we will miss it.  Among other reasons, I think burn-out plays into this decision as well and if we are burned out then we aren't much help to those who need us.  I pray that some folks will step up and take over so hurting people can continue to find help at First Baptist Moore.  In addition to that decision, we also made the decision to start attending church closer to where we live.  Since we are gone so much in our partial retirement, we are feeling a bit disconnected at our home church as well as having to drive about 30 miles one way every Sunday, so we plan to try out a Baptist church just 2 miles down the road from where we live.  I look forward to finding short-term projects to get involved in there. 

Last Thursday Bailey and I headed to the hospital to do pet therapy.  Upon arrival and while headed through the parking garage Bailey started throwing up.  This was the third time she had done that within the week with no rhyme or reason to why or when.  Obviously I couldn't have her doing this on the patients so I decided to just take her to the vet for a checkup.  I had noticed that she hadn't had much of a spark in her walk either so needless to say, I was concerned.  The vet did an exam and asked a lot of questions and came to the conclusion that there was nothing terribly concerning to her as her tests and exam were negative.  Her best guess was that she was dealing with some reflux.  So she gave her a shot and sent me home with some meds for a couple of days.  She seems to be much better and perkier and not throwing up anymore.  As I look at her this morning she is laying upside down in a bed on the dashboard of the motorhome with the morning sun shining down on her.  Her favorite spot in the mornings.

Last Thursday night we headed to Cedar Blue hoping beyond hope that we would find the inside of our room that is being built completed.  There just seemed no reason for this not to be done.  Upon arrival alas, it's not.  The floor has not been installed, the AC has not been installed, the trim around the windows and doors has not been installed and the outside work has barely begun.....  Some of the workers showed up Friday morning and told us the floor would be done and they would put the door knob and lock on the door as they knew we wanted to paint and put our loveseat and chairs in the room as they had to be picked up from the furniture store.  Well by the end of the day they had most of the floor done but not all of it.  I went ahead and started to paint while John worked to hook up all the electricity.  I finished the ceiling and about half the walls in a really pretty lemon cream color.  Love it.  Then bam the first problem with the electricity.  John had it all figured out except for one set of wires that didn't seem to go to anything and 3 outlets that didn't seem to have any power.  Keep in mind all the drywall is up so we cannot see behind the walls but with this set of circumstances it probably means that the workers drywalled over an outlet that was wired in but we can't see it and we don't know where it is.  This is the only explanation.  So we punted it back to the contractor to find the elusive missing outlet.  John got the majority of his work done and he powered up some outlets but this just meant that he couldn't finish the job this weekend.  It also meant that I couldn't finish the painting if they have to take out some of the drywall.  So I finished all but one wall as we had at least narrowed down the area that missing outlet must be in.  Oh well, I can work around things on our next trip down and paint then.  We plan to return in two weeks and stay for 10 days and hopefully can outfit our 'finished' room.  We'll see.  These guys could have built an entire house in this time frame.  The patio is definitely not done but they have started the framing for the cover.  I can't find blame with this as they need several dry days to 1) let the ground dry out as it has rained every week all summer and 2) they need dry days planned after the ground is dry to pour the cement.  And yes, there is more rained forecast.

While at Cedar Blue this weekend, April had an accident.  Ugh!  On Friday night while John was walking the girls he looked down at April and she was holding up her front paw and it was bleeding.  She had not yelped or whimpered once so what happened?  Bailey somehow figured out that April was hurt (because April was not making a sound) and went nuts trying to check on her and wanting out to find the 'culprit'.  We cleaned her paw and bandaged her up for the night and then found a vet in the Sulphur/Davis area that was willing to meet us at the office.  We were very impressed with this clinic and they were so nice.  April had somehow pulled a nail off on her front paw so he put her on pain meds and antibiotics and told us the nail would fall off and a new one would grow back.  She was a real trooper and today is doing just fine.

While we were at Cedar Blue we had a visit from some of the Board members for the park to talk to me about running for the Board.  There are 3 positions open for 3-year terms and for whatever reason, nobody has turned in a resume.  I had shown an interest to the President at one point but because I could not fulfill the third year as John will be retired and we may be gone a lot, I decided not to run.  In the meantime, the President asked if I would be interested in fulfilling the 1-year term of a Board member that can no longer serve, which I told him I would.  Well these other Board members convinced me to run instead for the 3-year position noting that if I won and could not finish out my last year they could appoint somebody to fill that slot.  I have no idea why there aren't several resumes for these positions as there sure are a lot of park owners that gripe about what the Board is and is not doing.  Now they have their chance to make a difference and they don't.  At last count two of us have now submitted our resumes.  I sure hope that others step up to the mat.


Today (Monday) I enjoyed lunch and visiting with my friend, Priscilla.  We hadn't visited in a while so it was nice to just sit and catch up, which we did for about 4 hours.  She is such a wonderful and giving person and is always doing something for her extended family even while dealing with the loss of her wonderful husband at such an early age and her own health issues.  I pray that God watches over her and comforts her.  

Well that's a wrap on all that went on in my life this past week.  I dealt with a lot of stress but have a complete peace now and feel that I have done what God wants me to do.  I look forward to a great week.