A Breath of Fresh Air

What a dull news morning it was this morning. I read most everything with a light heart, and I don't believe a single gasp escaped my lips as I sipped my coffee. Yesterday morning was greeted in a similarly light-hearted way. We watched the swearing in ceremony, and then Mike made celebratory waffles for breakfast.

Waffles are Mike's signature dish. He makes them the way my mother taught us...with Bisquick, the way they do it on the box, only we substitute club soda for the milk. It makes them nice and light. Mike's been making waffles more often since I broke my shoulder. Now that I'm back doing most of the cooking again, I figure he's not getting off without making waffles now and again.

While I was listening to Biden's speech, I was just getting started on the Quilt Shop redwork. This is a fairly large piece, and so it will take me a while to finish it. I just hope I brought enough floss.

My thumb is giving me trouble, and so I might need to hold off for a few days. My shoulder is feeling pretty good most days now. I can move it most directions, although I'm still far shy of full range of motion. The thumb, on the other hand, is taking lead spot as the injury that hurts the most. I did quite a bit of slow stitching in my push to finish the Rise and Shine piece. Now, I believe my thumb is letting me know it's had quite enough of that nonsense. I'm stubborn though. Probably I'll have to make it hurt worse before I'll give up on my morning slow stitching.

After breakfast, we went out for a walk around the RV park. The mountains behind us are called the Spring Mountains. You can see there is snow on the peaks in the distance.

Mike wanted to check the pool area to see if the pool is heated. The hot tub in the foreground is nice and warm, but the pool beyond is icy cold. If you're thinking of doing any lap swimming, it will need to be in the hot tub.

Here, I took another blue shot, this time with lines.

Also, I like these little barrel cactus lined up like soldiers.

They have nasty thorns though, so touching is discouraged.

Later in the afternoon, we got Super Smitty out for a walk. He was on high alert, and honestly, have you seen a more macho mancat in your whole life?

Wait just a darned minute...where's my 21-gun salute?

I thought it might be a pretty sunset. The "sunset" never really materialized in the way I thought it would, but I liked how the setting sun cast a pink tinge on the snow-capped peaks.

Up until last night, we've been eating leftovers at every meal. When we're home, I'm often freezing half of what I'm making for future RV trips. We've finally exhausted our supply of those and the leftovers they produced. Last night, we were back to regular cooking for the first time. I raided the freezer looking for cuts of meat I'd stowed away before leaving home. Among them, I found these hunks of tri-tip that we marinated to make this Barbecue Sirloin and Blue Cheese Salad. So yummy.

The recipe is one from our diet. If you click on that link I've given you, you'll see that it includes a rub for the meat. We've done it that way, but last night, we marinated the meat instead, using our favorite "Better than A-1" marinade. It's good either way. It just so happens I forgot all about the rub until I'd already made the marinade. 

So today a crew is coming by to wash and wax the RV. It's a traditional maintenance task when we make our Rainbird trips. Mike would ordinarily do this, but we pay someone to do it when we come south. It's a lot of work, and it would take Mike days to do it on his own. A crew can do it in a few hours. It's a man thing, you know. He already took advantage of the coin-operated car wash here at the park to wash his truck. 

Just before dinner, there was a little excitement here at the park. Someone drove on the road behind our rig (had to be a guest here at the park) and fired two gunshots off into the desert. Well, don't you know that got folks riled up. A park employee lives in the RV beside us, and so he had some words with the offender. Mike spoke with him later and the employee told him the "guest" was a "lunatic," and that the park would handle it. Hm. Mike's going to pay a visit to the office this morning to check up on this "handling" business. It's illegal to discharge a firearm in an area like this, and we were none too happy to have it happen right behind our rig. More on that when I know more.

I'm not sure what's on today's agenda. I'm still threatening to get out the sewing machine and do some sewing. If nothing else, I might start doing some cutting for a little mini. Or I might make a mask out of some camper fabric I have. There's no telling what might happen when the sewing machine comes out. It's Pfelicity, you know, and she loves a sewing party.