THE END OF NOVEMBER

It's hard to believe we have been here less than a month, as we seem to have been busy, busy, busy.  I can't quite figure out what we have been busy at, but the days just seem to fly by.  I printed my December newspaper yesterday so that is off my plate until after Christmas. 

The weather has been great this past week, not too hot, and not too cold.  Nice and warm during the days and cool enough to sleep at night.  Today we finally had to give in and put the A/C on.  It's 97 out there and no telling how hot it will get in here once I start making dinner.  

It's the hottest day we have had since arriving and wouldn't you know, The Pool is closed.  Apparently the heaters on the fritz.  I would think we could do without the heater working in this heat, but they have closed it down anyways.  GGRRRR!

There is nothing I like more after a HOT day than an evening swim, to cool down before bed.  

NEXT CHORE WILL BE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

AMERICAN THANKSGIVING IN PARADISE

 Yesterday was our communities annual American Thanksgiving Dinner in our Park hall.  This is very much a community effort.  You buy your tickets and that pays for your Turkey, Stuffing and Gravy, then you decide which table of friends you can fit in with or who you want to sit with.  Then the volunteers take over.  Under the direction of a coordinator, a team of volunteers buys the turkeys and stores them to be thawed.  Then another team of volunteers preps the turkeys and bags them for roasting, puts them in the ovens and times them and takes them out to cool when they are done.  Then another team of volunteer carvers descend on the kitchen like vultures and strips those carcasses into pans for serving and covers them with turkey drippings and foil.  

Meanwhile there are other teams of volunteers rearranging and setting up tables, putting tables cloths on them , while another team of volunteers moves in and makes stuffing and gravy. 

At the same time, that table of friends, you chose to sit with get together among themselves and create a sort of Pot Luck team of volunteers to bring all the other mainstays, side dishes, desserts,  and even table decor etc.  etc., etc..

Every year since we have been coming down here to Texas it has all come off without a hitch.  Due to the wonderful teamwork of all the volunteers.  And we do this same thing for Christmas Dinner as well.  

 So after that wonderful dinner and being full of Tryptophan

from the Turkey, I came home, took off my shoes, poured my favourite "Texas Patio Drink" of equal parts vodka and orange juice over ice and filled with Sprite zero.   

AND SO ENDS ANOTHER WONDERFUL DAY IN PARADISE. 

THE CHANGABLE WEATHER

Boy of Boy, when the upper mid west got their first snow fall it is amazing how much it affected our weather down here in Texas.  

On Friday it was SO hot and humid here, I was feeling like a limp rag.  So much so that in the evening we went for a nice refreshing swim before bed.  

Not realizing that, the snow they were getting up north was going to give us cold north winds over night and Saturday morning, that chilled us to the bone.  Sunday Morning was even colder, but by late Sunday afternoon we were right back up to the 80s again.  




IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE IT CAN CHANGE THAT MUCH THAT FAST



  

IT'S BEEN RAINY AND DULL IN TEXAS

It has been rainy all week.  And even when it's not raining it has been overcast.  Being a Prairie girl I am never very happy without the sunshine.  It has been nice and warm, but dull.  It gives me the blahs.  I tried to capture the SUPER moon, but with the clouds and no tripod I was not very successful.  
 

Today the sun finally came out.  That brought on a better mood.  Our Marina friends Charon and Casey of "Loafhaven" popped by for a visit.  And of course with each of us being on opposite ends of the political spectrum, this US election had to come up.  But we are very good friends so this could never damage that.  Both the sunshine and the visit certainly helped my mood.  

The Monarch Butterflies are making their way back to Mexico and South America, and some of them linger here as we have all the plants that they love.  

My HummingBird feeder has been up for a while now, so I am getting my regular visitors again.  

SO THAT'S IT FROM TEXAS

GETTING BACK INTO THE TEXAS ROUTINE

Now that we are settled in, it's time to get back into our routine.  First order of business was to go to a "Board of Directors" meeting.  It was a well attended and "Lively" meeting.  

Now that I have some information from that meeting, It's on to creating my first newspaper for this winter season.  Not much on the schedule yet this year, but we are looking forward to Thanksgiving and that is just a couple of weeks from now.  So the headline is.....

Dan has been busy filling shortages on the First Responder schedule.  Not all responders are down here yet so the volunteers that are here are on call twice as often to fill in the gaps.  

 

Next week we will open up his brother Dwight's trailer, clean it up and repair the broken window and make sure everything is in working order.  

SO WE HAVE LOTS TO KEEP US BUSY

LEST WE FORGET

GETTING SETTLED IN, IN TEXAS

It's been a few days since we arrived here in Paradise Park. 

All the bins are unpacked.  We've dug out the patio furniture and cleaned up most of the weeds that tried to take over since we left. 

We are fortunate enough to have one of our favorite bands "The Classics" living here in our park.  So we took a break on Thursday afternoon and went to an impromptu Happy Hour on Ann Butler's patio.  

It was great.  It won't take long to get back into the swing of things around here.  

THAT SHOULD BE EASY

HERE WE ARE SAFE AND SOUND IN PARADISE.

Last time I blogged, we had stopped in Kansas City, Kansas for the night.  The next morning we were headed off across Kansas, which we thought we did, but I made the mistake of putting of end goal of Denton Texas into our GPS and "Gladys" (our name for our GPS) made a beeline for Denton , taking us off the interstate and into every small town and onto every two lane highway on that potential Beeline.  So, we had to do some map navigating to get us back on I 35.  Lesson learned!  Don’t give Gladys a destination, that is too far up the road, as she likes to cut corners. So, once back on track, we hooked up with I 35 in Wichita and 

 

down on into Oklahoma and on into Texas as planned.  

We made it to Denton, with no problems.  

The only problems we had, were with the motel we stayed at.  It is being crossed off our list.  Lousy Internet (what good is free if it doesn't work) and no hot water for my Tea in the morning, so they are DONE.  Some day I will do a Blog about how I feel the tea drinkers in North America are discriminated against.  If you don't drink coffee, you don't matter! 

We got up Thursday morning and pushed on through all the way down through Texas, from top to bottom.  As usual  all kinds of construction along the way.  It started just south of Fort Worth and never completely ended until south of San Antonio.  

And all day long, we went through bright sunshine, then cloud bursts, of torrential down pours. 

Each down pour lasting 5 to 10 minutes, then a sudden stop and back to bright sunshine.  

I am always so happy to start seeing the Palm trees along the road side as it means we are getting  close to Paradise Park.   We finally arrived here safe and sound around 4:00 pm.  

We have spent the entire day today, trying to get our systems all up and running.  No problems with the trailer, just the technical stuff.  Internet, TV and telephone.  It seems Time Warner is no more, and now they are calling themselves Spectrum.  They have to replace all the modems and TV boxes etc.  This started at 9:00 am and it's 6:30 pm and I just got my Internet working (fingers crossed) and we are still waiting for the TV and Telephone.  

So that is my update for now.  

IT'S HOT!  HOT!  HOT!  DOWN HERE.