I wasn’t going to write a blog tonight because I figured you were tired of hearing about our back-breaking efforts to clean up our small house mess. It will be several more days before we will be able to see the light at the end of the powdery dust that gets into everything, tunnel.

I only got three little breaks today. We braved the freezing cold to go to McDonald’s for breakfast, then on to shop for new bathroom towels and rugs. The second break was a quick trip to Dollar Gentril to buy some Fabuloso. Dollar Gentril is right next door to Goodwill, so I stuck my head in there to say hi to my friends, and check out the newer old merchandise.

The third break was when my brother, Billy, called. I kind of thought I would hear from him today. I was a little fuzzy on the details about Mom’s early room-renting days. Billy told me to get a pen and take notes.

First of all, there were two signs directing people to our house…one at the end of our street by Highway 16, and one in front of the house.

Billy said we all slept downstairs and the tourists stayed upstairs. I told him I specifically remembered the roll-away beds downstairs. He told me they were for us to sleep on.

I guess I didn’t tell the part about Dad waking him up to ask where Mom was right either. Billy said he was coming out of a  dream and he told Dad she was at the Murdo house. The one that had six or eight rooms in it.”

Dad was really confused about that and he continued to question Billy, which is why Billy started crying. Dad was trying to make sense out of what he was saying, and Billy was getting his information from the dream he just had.

Billy and Mary… when we lived at the new house

Let me look at my notes here…

The very first night, a nice couple rented one of the upstairs rooms. The husband and Dad started talking and one thing led to another. A fun evening was had by all. Unfortunately, it was at our expense and since we only charged five dollars a night, we lost money.

Billy said we rented out our bedrooms because we needed money to buy drapes, which was apparently a real motivator. We also needed a sidewalk. We had wood planks leading from our house to the street. One night, two very well-heeled women rented a room and when one of the ladies went back to the car to get her suitcase, she decided to take a shortcut to the door and walked through a bunch of mud. (We hadn’t put the lawn in yet either.) She sunk her well-heeled foot up to her ankles in South Dakota gumbo. It was the kind of soil that if dry, would have very deep cracks in it. Billy said he stuck a hose in one of those cracks and left it running all day. It never did fill up.

One night Uncle Al and Mr. Brost came over to visit with Dad. They had to talk downstairs because we had tourists upstairs. After a while, one of them started playing songs on the jukebox. We had all kinds of forty-five records which they played loudly. Billy said he was in his room and he heard the McGuire Sisters singing the same song over and over again. The jukebox had so much power, you could hear it all the way to Draper. I forgot to write down the song, but it might have been “Just for Old Times Sake.” I remember their song, “Sugar in the Morning, Sugar in the Evening, Sugar at Suppertime.”

Mom had rented the upstairs rooms to two couples. They all left in the middle of the night. Billy said they didn’t even ask for their five dollars back.

Mom got some real nice drapes and eventually, Dad put in a sidewalk, but we never did have a lawn. Fortunately, the weeds grew thick and green, so we just mowed them down.

We had an old push mower and weeds like in the picture. Once, Mom was mowing at the motel and hit a rock. Her foot got caught in the mower and it cut half of two toes off. (She was wearing sandals.)

When we lived at the new house, Mom grew flowers in the planter under the picture window and she had a spearmint plant beside the front steps. You could always smell spearmint gum when you walked past that plant in the summertime.

I know what Loretta-ism Billy and I would hear if Mom was around. “If you’re going to tell a story make it good or don’t tell it!”  It’s the same one I heard her say the other night, but we tell a story a minute in our family. Mom also said, “I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate.”

Talk to you tomorrow, Billy…THE END

I’m tired. I haven’t been able to stay asleep for the last couple of nights. I  guess I forgot that allergy medications keep me awake. I thought a persistent headache was due to allergies, and decided the headache was worse than the side effects of the medication. I was wrong. No sleep is the side effect and it’s worse.

It’s hard for me to think right when I’m sleep deprived. I wait all day to go back to bed. You see, I can’t take naps. There are two things that wake me right up…trying to take a  nap, and going to bed early. Kip will say he’s going to sit in his recliner and take a fifteen minute nap. He’s asleep before he can finish the sentence and wakes up at the specified time. Don’t even get me started on the dogs and cat.

I wasn’t going to write a blog tonight because of my….uh, my…I forgot what I was thinking. Mom used to say, “If you can’t remember what you were going to say, it must have been a lie.” Well, Mom, if that’s true the older I get the more lies I tell.
I hate to be caught in a falsehood. I remember making a spinach dip for my sister-in-law’s Thanksgiving dinner. My nephew made a comment that it was really good. In fact, he loved it. I just haaad to go and say it was my own special recipe. One I had developed over the years. He frowned at me, and then got up and walked to the kitchen. He came back with a Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix. The recipe for my dip was on the back. He said, “Other people make your spinach dip, Aunt Mary.”

“But I use only the freshest ingredients,” I mumbled.

He turned the package over to read the recipe. It called for mayo, frozen spinach, buttermilk, and the powdered Hidden Valley ranch dressing mix.

I don’t do that anymore. I just tell everyone who likes what I bring to potlucks that I know where to buy good food.

 I remember Mom telling Billy she made the cherry turnovers he loved, from scratch. Then he found the empty box that had held four frozen cherry turnovers. It was in the garbage. He was very upset, but not as mad as he was when he caught her putting a raw egg in his hot chocolate. It wasn’t bad for you to eat raw eggs back then. Mom thought he needed an egg each morning and he wouldn’t eat a cooked one.

Is pretending the same as lying? No, I don’t think so.

I remember what I was going to write about tonight. Have you ever put your foot in your mouth? When we were at our Tuesday dinner last night, a good friend said to me,”Your hair looks really cute tonight, Mary…Did you wash it?”

Of course she didn’t mean it like it sounded. She realized what she had said right away. It’s usually worse when you try to walk it back. I jumped in and told her that yes, I had washed my hair right before we came to dinner. She told me it was really shiny.

I went to Wyoming to visit my son and his family. I was so excited to see everyone. When we got to their house, I walked in and everything looked wonderful. I said, “Boy, your house looks great! You must have worked for a week to make it look this nice.”

The awful thing was, I didn’t even realize what I had said until I looked at my daughter-in-law’s face. She didn’t get where I was coming from, because I would never say such a thing even if it was true, and it most certainly wasn’t.

I felt terrible and I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t make what I said sound worse. I think I apologized and said I hadn’t slept well for a couple of nights.

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We were busy for most of today researching areas for a possible tiny home site. We didn’t return the call to the realtor we were referred to, and I didn’t call the other “realtor connection” either. We decided to concentrate on putting our house together. Monday, we will begin again.

So, tomorrow we will pack up our teeny house and move back into the small house. I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep. If that doesn’t happen, I’m sure to hear Mom say, “Your eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket.”

I guess my hair is kinda shiny…

I titled yesterday’s blog, “As happy as if she had good sense.” This is one of the Loretta-isms Mom often used. Translated into today’s lingo, it means something like, “She goes through life unscathed even though she’s clueless.”

My brother, Billy, and I once wrote down all of the Mom metaphors we could think of. Mom was phrase prolific. She had an idiom for every story that required her to give it her own bit of flavor. When I have completed this post, I will name it with another of Mom’s isms. I will be able to see her shake her head and give me a sideways glance as she gives my post a cryptic analysis.

Kip and I took our time this morning. I didn’t sleep very well, so I wasn’t looking forward to doing mundane chores like laundry. The day was warm enough but dreary, which didn’t add to our energy level. By lunchtime, we were pretty caught up with things, so we started looking online for lots in the Cedar Creek area. Kip also called the real estate agent referral we were given and left a message, but we haven’t heard back from him.

We found a lot in Log Cabin that sounded great. The ad showed pictures of all the lake amenities and made it seem as though it was in sort of a resort area. It was also reasonably priced, so we decided to go look at it.

 This was the good part of the neighborhood.

When you are driving in an area and there are houses that would better be described as shelters, and there are signs all over that say, “No Trespassing…Keep Out,” you know it might not be the best place to settle down. As we locked our car doors and headed back to the main road, we realized we hadn’t seen any signs of life other than a dog standing near the road…watching us.

We were about to ditch the idea of looking around anymore, when we came across some lots in a subdivision in Eustace. We headed that way and found them in minutes. The lots are in a pretty good area and they are about the size we want…a quarter acre. They are all heavily wooded, and don’t have any utilities to them, which would really increase the money we would have to invest. It might still be a possibility if we could get the lot price reduced enough, but I think we can do better.

Tomorrow, we will try again to touch base with the realtor Kip called today, or get another referral. We went to our regular Tuesday night group dinner, and our friends, Pat and Jerry, suggested we contact someone they know who has a lot of contacts in the Eustace area. It’s probably wiser to tap into other people’s knowledge of a town than to go off on our own. It’s 328 miles around Cedar Creek Lake and there are several different communities for us to check out. We have only just begun.

On another note, we stopped by the “small home” and the flooring job was almost finished. All they have left to do is finish some of the trim. The lady they lined up to clean everything is supposed to finish tomorrow too. We will all move back in on Thursday morning. There will still be a lot to do to put it all back together.

I like it, but I’m not in love with it. I guess I should reserve judgement until we get all the furniture back in place and add the touches that make it homey. You are the only ones I have said anything to. I didn’t want Kip to know I’m a little nervous. I’m the one who picked the flooring out. I’m sure it will be fine. At the most, we’ll just have to paint the walls…and the kitchen cabinets, but don’t say anything, please.

 My Aunt Ella, Aunt Helen, and Mom…

Mom is looking sideways and I can just hear her say to her sisters, “I told Mary, if the story isn’t interesting, don’t tell it.” Translated…”If you’re going to tell a story make it interesting, (adlib), or forget it!”

One of Mom’s greatest talents was knowing how to tell a good story and she always knew when to forget it.

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Did you know there was a Machiavellian Cabinet plot in the 30’s that would have DENIED the Queen the throne, left her a lowly Duchess of Edinburgh and made William and Harry COMMONERS??

She looks clueless

 

We had to drive to Dallas this morning for a doctor’s appointment so that cut into our day a little bit. We hadn’t really mapped out our ongoing strategy, anyway. It was a beautiful sunny day, so when we got back to the RV around noon, we took the dogs over to the Bark Park for some exercise. Later, our friends, Ron and Barbara, came over to visit and see what improvements had been made to Texan’s RV Park. They’re RVers too. We decided to drive over to Athens and show them all of the model tiny homes we had been telling them about.

Each time we go look, we leave thinking we have decided on the one we like the best, and then when we go back to look again, we change our minds. Maybe it’s a good thing this is looking like it will take some time.

These two models are our current favorites. Which one do you think should be Kip and MG’s Stunted Manor? (I stole the name from Queen E. She is going to live in “Bucking Bacon” which is a miniature replica of Buckingham Palace, only more rustic.

The Meadowview

 

The Bishop 2

These photos don’t really do them justice, but let us know which one you like best.

I never did do the wash the other day so we’re going to do that in the morning. The salesman we see almost every day, gave us the name of a real estate agent that might be able to help us find a lot. We’ll try to get in touch with him in the afternoon.

The floor guys will finish up with the trim in the small house tomorrow. We have someone lined up to help us clean on Wednesday and we will most likely move back in on Thursday.

Kip said not to worry. No matter what, we were going to find a lot to put our Stunted Manor on. He wanted to know if I had ever thought about moving to Alaska.

He doesn’t know my new mantra for 2018 is, “Life shouldn’t be a struggle.” I’m trying hard to remember I don’t have to push the river, it flows. Besides…tiny igloos? It’s not gonna happen.

This is Buck and Bacon. I can’t decide which one to ride. Which one would you pick?

It’s Sunday evening and I’m late writing this post because I have been online looking for lots. It seems the more we learn, the less we know about the things you have to think about before purchasing a lot for a tiny home.

We were talking with a sales person who was giving us a tour of some model TH’s, and he showed us a home that some people had paid cash for only to find out the subdivision they bought the lot in had square footage restrictions. The price of the tiny home had been greatly reduced.

I think I said in another blog that because the tiny home is under 400 square feet in size and has wheels and axles, it is classified as a recreational vehicle. That is turning out to be a blessing and a curse. The blessing is there is no property tax on the unit. The curse is it’s more difficult than we first thought to find a suitable lot to purchase. We really want to buy rather than lease the lot, but I don’t think we should put our house on the market until that  problem is resolved. I looked online today and found several lots listed with realtors. We will begin researching them this week. We hope to move back into our small house Wednesday. Then we’ll have to tackle the dirt and dust everywhere. It has sifted through the doors that have been closed, and inside the kitchen cabinets. I get a headache just thinking about it.

A lot of tiny home owners rent lots in a tiny home community. The only one we have found close to the Mabank/Cedar Creek Lake area is in Canton about twenty miles from here. We will check that out too for another option to consider.

Nix that idea. I just spent about an hour researching Mill Creek Resort in Canton. It’s beautiful, but they don’t offer full-time living. It’s a vacation home and rental community. I didn’t find any information on the cost, but I’m not going to spend anymore time investigating because it’s not what we are looking for.

We are not giving up. We will be such experts on tiny homes by the time we reach our goal, we will be able to write a how-to book. It will sell because when all the kinks get worked out, tiny homes will be even more in demand. They are sure moving them off the lot in Athens at a rapid pace. Kip said some of the sold homes are going into a community, but they usually don’t allow any other improvements, like an RV port. I see some compromises up ahead.

I try not to get too far into the future. How many times do our plans work out like we think they will? That’s why it’s important for us to do our due diligence. We’re far too long in the tooth to make costly mistakes.

Maybe my next pursuit should be to contact HGTV. Since Chip and JoJo are leaving, Kip and I could slip right into their spot. I’ve been trying to think of a name for the series. How about, Kip and MG’s Puny Pad, or Kip and MG Living Little…

Now who wouldn’t want us as neighbors?

The gardener, the cook, the crazy relative, the party planner, the maid

I’m going to live in a stunted manor

 

 

 

I didn’t write a blog yesterday. It was one of those days when nothing I could think of felt right.

This morning, I felt the need to sort out some feelings I was having. So many people I care about have been affected by a devastating or life changing health issue.  

Knowing there is no way to walk around the fear and pain that lies ahead, can be overwhelming. To find the strength to walk through it, is daunting, but we must in order to help ouselves or those we love.

Yesterday, we spent time with some very special friends. All of us have been affected by frightening health issues; either those of someone we love or our own.

This is how my thoughts took shape. I hope it helps those I was thinking of and others it might speak to.

Are we helpless?

I was touched by you again today. More than once I heard you say that you were going to have your way.

Just when things are going well, you unleash your kind of hell. Leaving us with fears to quell.

Some you give another chance to hug a friend or dance a dance so other’s lives they still enhance.

You thrive in darkness and keep us guessing. We know good health is such a blessing. The thought of you… beyond distressing.

“You’ve got this!” Those close to your victims say. “Fight the fight and we will pray. Should we go or can we stay?”

I have a question you can answer.Who found you and named you Cancer?

Your name can change to heart disease, or alzheimers, if you please. Whatever brings us to our knees.

If we should find ourselves there…trying hard not to despair; while on our knees let’s say a prayer.

Inspiration …photo by Dianna Diehm

We’ll hear a voice…a soothing tone… say, “You can’t fix this on your own. I heal the sick or bring them home. 

Don’t give the illness all the power. Turn fear into a blossoming flower, or your strength it will devour.

And if you don’t believe in Thee, borrow faith from one who knows Me. Through them it will be…Me you see.”

Heaven’s Peace…Photo by Dianna Diehm

We are never helpless. There is a way to get through the hardest day and know that it will be okay.

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A peek at tomorrows blog:

We met a couple who own a tiny home and they love it. I wrangled an invitation to see it in a little while. I’ll write about that and hopefully show you lots of pictures.

 Thumbs up to a fab 2018. Photo by Lady Jules 👍👍

The saga continues. The story unfolds…a little. Every day can’t be perfection no matter how hard we try, right? Why are we surprised when we have a little bad luck?

We stayed up rather late last night. We accomplished a lot this past week, but finishing up in time, is the nerve wracking part.

We were ready at nine a.m. and the floor guys got there at ten. We had everything off the counters and shelves and moved everything we didn’t want to be covered in dust. The men were to move all of the furniture into the garage. Here is how the kitchen and living room looked when we left this morning.

Here is how it looked when we stopped by to pick up a few things on our way to meet the Tuesday night dinner group.

After I saw this scene I wasn’t bothered so much by what happened in between. We could never have lived there while the work was being done; especially with three dogs and a cat. It’s a “small home ”

We left Mabank and twenty minutes later, we arrived at the Texan RV Park. It was 22 degrees outside.

The park is wonderful. They have two good sized lakes with nice paths around them…perfect for walking the dogs. Did I mention the wind was blowing? The dogs ran to the RV to get out of the cold.

Once we got all parked, leveled and hooked up, Kip went back out to start filling the fresh water tank. Apparently, when it’s 22 degrees and the wind is blowing the park’s pipes freeze up.

The deal is, we are not going to let things like freezing weather and no water upset us. It was just a short walk to the clubhouse where they have showers and commodes. I took a five gallon bucket over there, put the bucket in the shower and turned the water on. It took a while for the bucket to fill up because of the non-adjustable, wide spraying shower head. There is no heat in the bathroom, but the heating light with a timer on it warmed the room up after about fifteen minutes. I had to keep turning the light back on because the maximum on the timer is about five minutes. Oh well, I was in a good place in case I had to go to the bathroom. As I waited, I noticed the bathroom was actually pretty, and smelled nice and clean. Finally, the bucket was full. I had to dump half of the water out because the bucket was too heavy. As I walked back to the RV, I wondered how I was going to take a shower in the morning if I had to get out every five minutes to turn the light and heat back on.

Oh well…

I warmed some water on the stove to wash and rinse the lunch dishes and gave the animals a big bowl of water which emptied the bucket. Kip said it was almost time to go meet our Tuesday night dinner group, so I decided to brush my teeth. Silly me…I had my mouth full of toothpaste and it wasn’t until I had to rinse that I remembered there was no water. I rinsed with peach flavored ice tea while Kip went to get another bucket of water.

I was already a little miffed because Kip took the container I keep all my crowns in to the storage unit. There were a couple in there that could double as winter hats. I’m lucky he didn’t take my pillow.

The picture below captured what was going on pretty well don’t you think?

(Note to cousin, Val. Here you can see two of the four televisions.) See how I captured Sammie? She looks like she’s telegraphing a message to me. “Are you kidding me?” She asks. “We’ve got four more days like this?”

“What a spoiled dog you are!” I telegraph back to her. I look at sad face Pattie and telegraph to her too. “Cheer up or there might be a cold doghouse in your future.”

The cat doesn’t worry much. Here she is at home before we left this morning.

Here she is in the RV.

We had a great time at the Tuesday night dinner with twenty or more of the best people one could ever know.

I have to remind myself that at sometime in our lives, most of us have to go through real, sometimes devastating challenges; or maybe have to watch people we love experience things we wouldn’t wish on anyone.

We’ve been there and we’re saying lots of prayers for a family member now.

No matter how our story goes, we are blessed beyond belief.

When we got home tonight, I telegraphed an apology to Pattie and Sammie.