Afternoon of Crafts and Pot Luck Dinner

Saturday Afternoon Crafting

We had a nice afternoon of painting Halloween ceramics. Each of the girls picked out a couple items that they would like to do. All of them had done ceramics at different bases that they had been stationed at, so all were familiar with the task at hand.

We laughed as we tried to make the tiny details complete, as our hands are not as steady as they were many years ago when we all enjoyed this craft, and decided starting again on Halloween items was a good choice. We blended colors and came up with some interesting items that we thought our grandchildren would get a kick out of.

One of the girls does hand made cards and she shared her talents with us. All in all it was a very interesting afternoon, and we broke up that session and all hurried home to fix our dish for our pot luck dinner.

That is always a great success and we had a nice variety of foods and the conversation was lively, as these dinners are. What stories these guys tell about each other and Lou got on his story of the money names Pisquielly. I had heard the story before, but the guys all remembered it with much more detail. That gathering didn't break up until about 8:30 and then we came home quickly and gave Estee her medication and a potty break and we went to our friends, Doug and Connie and spent some time with them visiting. Lou and I are very fond of them, they are some of the first people Lou introduced me to after I met him, so they have been very special to both of us. They have been leading a caravan of RV's and had been gone for three months. What stories they have to share.

Now we just have one more breakfast to prepare and then pack up and take everything back home and then start the big pack up to get ready for the new RV.

Second day - Adamstown, PA

October 16th - Saturday, beautiful sunny day - 54 degrees

Our day started before the sun came up this morning. In fact this Blog Post will be in sections,as our day is divided into sections today.

Lou and I quickly readied ourselves for the day and took our supplies for breakfast to the clubhouse. Steve arrived earlier than us and had the coffee started; however, we blew a circuit breaker and had to work that problem out before we could finish breakfast. All worked out and breakfast was served as each member sleepily appeared at the clubhouse. Everyone seemed to enjoy the hot breakfast. We all chatted until 9:00 when we held our business meeting, electing new officers for the upcoming year and signing up as sponsors for the monthly Musters starting in April. We are all in agreement we would like to visit other places in Pennsylvania and perhaps, neighboring states, so should be an interesting upcoming year. We also decided that we are going to meet for a Holiday Luncheon in December before we all set out for the sunny south. Our National Muster will be in Oklahoma and we have several couples that will be traveling to this and that will be held in September. Thankfully, our group doesn't have to work this year, we get to enjoy.

After breakfast, I brought the leftovers and dirty pots back to the RV and scrubbed them all up for the next outing. I also needed to prepare my dish for the potluck tonight. I am making a spinach quiche. While I was doing all of this Lou and Steve made a quick trip to an appliance shop to seek equipment to repair Steve's RV radio and Lou needed to pick me up some acrylic clear spray, as are going to paint ceramics this afternoon for a special craft. Krista poured us some Halloween and Thanksgiving items that I thought the ladies would enjoy painting and taking home with them. So that is the next thing to do. You can see from the pictures it is a beautiful day here and I am in hopes I can get out and walk a bit, and take Estee out.

Lou and I took Estee to the vet on Wednesday prior to leaving for here. She has had a raspy sound and drinking excessively and I was concerned about congestive heart failure. When I called the Vet we have always seen, she did not have an opening in the Wellsboro office and suggested I see one of the new doctors in Mansfield, and we agreed. I was very impressed with this new physician, Dr. Suresh. He went all over Estee, which will be eleven years old this month. As he listened to her lungs he was shaking his head telling us "not good". At the end of his examination, he explained it could be a number of things. Our last visit to the Vet had ended with Estee being placed on Prednisone (a steriod) for an allergic reaction? This being done, our new physician could not do any lab work, as there might be false positive results, so we agreed to give her an antibiotic for two weeks along with Benedryl and then call him with her progress and if she isn't improving we will do lab work and chest x-rays to confirm the CHF. I knew I would feel badly, but I was not ready for Lou's reaction, he has become very attached to Estee and told us he couldn't bare the thoughts of not having her, so............. Thus far we haven't seen any improvement, she still loves to play ball with Lou and sit on his lap whenever his bottom hits a chair. Estee even has to go to the bathroom with him. It is surprising that the majority of our SMART people travel with dogs and most of them are large dogs, but Lou and I prefer these small no shedding dogs.

Adamstown, PA SMART Muster

October 15th Friday Cool and Sunny

We left Wellsboro yesterday as it was beginning to rain and it continued to rain all of the way here and continued during the night last evening. This morning we awoke to sunshine, however, we have lots of wind.

Our SMART group met in the clubhouse for a welcome supper of homemade bean soup and a variety of homemade breads and for dessert we enjoyed a birthday cake to celebrate all of the birthdays in October.

We enjoyed chatting with everyone last evening and catching up with all of what had happened since our last meeting at Centre Hall in September.

We were up early this morning and got breakfast ready for our group. We are fortunate to have a club house to meet in, as it is a bit chilly outside to use the pavilion. After we cleaned up from breakfast, Lou and I got ready and drove into Reading to Vanity Fair Outlet, both of us enjoy shopping there and neither of us have been there in years. Lou was anxious to get some new jeans, he has been wearing four pair that I had gotten from Penneys and he was in need of fresh ones. Once I got him going he got right into it and I think he ended up with six pair of jeans and four pair of shorts along with new shirts, under clothes, belts, wallet and a couple of odds and ends. We really had a good time and took a little extra time and had Chinese for lunch and arrived back to the RV in time to walk Estee and meet the rest of our group and out for dinner.

We all drove to Ephrata for dinner, we ate at Bright's and found it to be a wonderful place to eat with great homemade food. Lou and I enjoyed a shrimp dinner with pepper slaw and for dessert we split blueberry crumb pie. We ended up having 24 people in attendance. After we returned back at the RV, I started preparing the sausage gravy for breakfast. I have two crock pots full of gravy sitting on the kitchen counter keeping warm for an early breakfast.

We had a friend drop by this evening, Fred Winner. He is a wood carver and he wanted to show us his latest project. He is carving a Puffin and you can see from the picture, he has done a wonderfully good job. Lou had a private showing of a black capped chickadee that he did some time ago, and Lou surprised me with it for a special gift. Fred had entered in a talent show and had won with it, so this is very special treasure for me. Not only that Fred is such a loving, gentle man, Lou and I have so much respect for him. I will have to take a picture of the bird and show all of you what a special gift this is.

Well tomorrow will be a busy day also and we will have to be up very early.

Changeable Weather

October 12th Beautiful early and then..............

Lou and I have been using the great weather as a time to get some of our odd jobs done for the winter months, not knowing that winter was approaching so quickly.... See above pictures.

Lou spent the day at his house cutting the grass and doing a few things that had long been neglected.

I took advantage of the good weather and got our grass cut and the weed eater run, and then feeling bad to think I hadn't even purchased any mums to plant for fall, went for a walk around our yard and found many items that would look good in our plant boxes for fall, surprising the beauty that is just awaiting some attention.

After the great feeling of knowing the house was all fall cleaned, I worked on the outside. Got all of the windows outside washed and scrubbed both decks and the sidewalks. Worked on the windows in and outside of the garage and ran the sweeper in the garage and mopped the floor, so things were really looking up. I got the leaf blower out and blew all of the leaves away from the back area. Estee and I were watching some black clouds approaching so I quickly grabbed the clothes from the clothes line, as big drops started to fall, followed by the hail stones that were about the size of a pea and they just kept coming, then the rain fell, I believe Lou told me that we received over an inch in the hour.

I had fixed a baked ham dinner with fresh winter squash and homemade apple dumplings for dessert. We both enjoyed our dinner after all of the hard work and cooler temperatures.

The next day, while Lou went to a friends house to help him with some paper work, I went to work in the kitchen. This weekend Lou and I along with our friends June and Steve are in charge of the SMART Muster in Adamstown, PA. I made two crock pots of homemade bean and ham soup along with 12 dozen home made baking powder biscuits to have with the sausage gravy I made for our breakfast. I also stirred up a batch of peanut butter cookies for Lou. He loves his cookies after each meal, so try to keep fresh ones at all times. Good thing I enjoy cooking and baking, and I have missed having the time to do it in the summer.

We had our great-granddaughters come after school to pick out their pumpkins to carve. This seems to be a tradition that was started when their parents were little, and it has just carried on. Lou and I had purchased a special winter squash in North Carolina last year and it was so good that we saved the seeds and we planted this year and they grew to be numerous, so Lou harvested them this week also, so now we just have to clean up the vines and await spring to start over again.

Now we are off to Adamstown in the morning.