Isn't she lovely

Okay! I'm finally finished with waxing the entire mo-ho for the second time this year! Damn! that's a lot of work! You think a car is a job, try a 35 ft mo-ho!

But isn't it perrrtty!

I swear, the previous owners didn't do a thing while they owned it, so it's taken a bit to return it to how it should look. The good news is every time you wax it, it looks better, the bad news is you gotta keep waxing it! But now, it looks almost as good as new, and it's 7 years old. I use Turtle Wax, it's the best of everything I've tried. It cleans and waxes.

In other news, it's still tooo damn cold for this time of year, but it's due for a warm-up this week. I also sprayed the lawn for weeds, and Craig mowed the grass, and vacuumed the house. And he's currently making another delicious dinner! Ham steak with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli with cheese sauce. Yummy!

Clean again!

Today's mission........clean and seal the roof of the mo-ho.
And that I did. Of course, first I cleaned the Salon, then woke Craig up, read the paper with home made Latte's, and then did some weeding in the garden, and then when it finally warmed up a bit, cleaned and sealed the roof of the mo-ho. Here's a before pic.

Isn't it interesting how the antenna left a dirt imprint on the roof?

But not after it's cleaned! And doesn't it look fabulus!

So after I got the roof cleaned and sealed, I washed some of the mo-ho, and did some more waxing. Damn! it's looking good! I also sprayed weeds while Craig did bookwork, laundry, and prepared our dinner for this evening, a Pork Roast with Carrots, Potatoes, and Sauerkraut! Can't wait!

To damn cold and wet

Greetings from a cold Lansing. This pic is the jet streams position this weekend. As you can see, it dips down right over Michigan.
It's been pretty much in this position all summer. That's why July was an average of 3 degrees cooler than normal. Now 3 degrees doesn't seem like much, but if you have a few days normal or above normal, that makes the rest of the days way below normal. Yesterday's high was 63. Today's high is forecast for 65. This is more like late September weather. On an up note, the grass has never looked better, and we've hardly used the air conditioner this year, so good on the utility bills. And our normal rainfall for the month of August is 3.46 inches, so far we've gotten 6.41 inches.
But in other news, it's been a so-so week at the salon. steady, but not real busy. And yesterday after work, (when the rain finally stopped) I got some more veggies from the garden.

The Tomatoes and Peppers went into our Spaghetti sauce for dinner yesterday, and the Potatoes will be added to a Pork Roast Sunday.

Now it's time to get ready for work.

funny friday

Recently, a large corporation hired several cannibals to increase their diversity.
"You are all part of our team now," said the Human Resources rep during the welcome briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any employees."
The cannibals promised they would not. Four weeks later their boss remarked,
"You're all working very hard and I'm satisfied with your work. We have noticed a marked INCREASE in the whole company's performance. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"
The cannibals all shook their heads no. After the boss left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?" A hand rose hesitantly.
"You fool!"
the leader continued.
"For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed anything.
But NOOOooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something."

Have a great weekend!

Just more talk

Good morning from a wet Mid-Michigan.
Well our latest heat wave lasted two days, and now were back into the cooler wet weather The grass has never looked this good in August!
We did manage to mow the yard, and wash and wax more of the mo-ho. This coming weekend, I hope to clean the mo-ho roof, and retreat it. While I was washing the mo-ho, I discovered that a mess of those nasty purple berries that we dealt with in Holly, have stuck them selves to the roof and came home with us. So I should get them off, and while I'm at it give it a good cleaning and reseal it.
My veggie garden is doing terrible. Although we have had some tomatoes, and dug Potatoes, all the squash is doing poorly. The Zucchini vines withered and died, and the Butternut and Acorn squash vines look wimpy with a total of 4 small squash slowly ripening. And I'm getting what looks like 1 pepper on each of my pepper plants. Next year I need to do all this different.
Well, I've got a long day today at work. I start at 8am. and go to about 7pm, so I need to jump in the shower and go.
See ya Friday!

Michigan Renaissance Festival

Good morning! today's post is about the Michigan Renaissance Festival. We went to that Sunday morning. We thought Sunday was going to be the nicest day of the weekend, but we were wrong. It was cloudy, cool, with drizzly rain all morning. We arrive at the festival around 10, but sat in the car until the rain stopped. At least for the time being.
We've never been to this before, and it was quite the experience. They have an entire medieval village permanently set up here. And use it only 7 weekends a year. This was there first weekend. If you've never been to this before, you gotta try it. It was great fun. A lot of the people who come to this, dress up also, so you feel as if you've really gone back in time.
Here's just a few pics.

This was the Washing Well Wenches. As you can see it was raining during the show. The festival goes on, rain or shine. Craig bought us cheap rain covers, so we stayed dry.

They even had a joust! great fun, even though it was a bit corny at times.

And this is just one area of the village. They were selling all kinds of merchandise, food and drink. You've got to try the Smoked Turkey Legs! There were a total of 16 stages showing everything from jugglers, knife throwing, fire breathing and on and on. We would have stayed longer if not for the crappy weather. We'll definitely be back another time.

Then it was back to the campground to relax, and dismantle our site in preparation for an early morning drive home.

And once again.....no incidents! And of course now that were back home, it's going to be 85 and sunny today.

Holly State Recreation Area

And we're back! Did you miss me? No? It figures!
But anyway, we've just returned from a weekend trip. This time it was to Holly Recreation Area, on the east side of the state.And it was probably the coldest August weekend we've ever had! High Saturday, 63. 63! In August! But that's been our summer this year. A few warm days, followed by a cold spell. Another summer that wasn't. But we still had a good time. You've got to have contingency plans in Michigan. And with this area very hilly, we got just 1 TV station, damn digital! And even lost my cell phone signal a couple of times, and that never happens with Tracfone. But we arrived early with Holly being only around an hours drive from Lansing, and got all set up in our very wooded seclude spacious site. Believe it. In Michigan a spacious campsite. That's a first!
But our campsite was a mess! These berries everywhere!

They were purple berries that squished and stained everything they touched! I got out our rake and cleaned the area.

And here we are all set up. I got a little crazy with the lights, but we enjoyed them.

And this was a RRV scheduled event. But almost no one came, probably due to the crappy weather. But we did meet 2 separate campers, Jeff and Dave. Nice people. Were fun to hang with.On Saturday, we all went up to Birch Run and the Prime Outlet Mall. This place is huge! We exchanged cell #'s and headed out. the first thing we found were these nifty toothpaste squeezers.
We have a set of dishes just for the mo-ho, and we've been wanting to expand it, so at the Corelle store, we found a couple of plates and 2 bowls that matched our set in the mo-ho. And in another store we got some metal rings you put on your griddle to keep your eggs in a nice round shape for sandwiches.

After we met up, we hit Hallo burger for lunch. Great Burgers! Then Dave knew of a massive weekend flea market, just a little south of the campground. Craig and I aren't much interested in that kind of stuff, but what the heck, it's a crappy day, and something to do. Well it took forever to get there. I'm starting to think Dave isn't the best at directions, But we finally arrived, and it was huge! We wandered around, and it was pretty much a lot of junk, as we suspected. Maybe we should have arrived with a more open mind, but no, it was a lot of junk! So we let them search for treasures, and we headed back to the campground.
We relaxed with cocktails and read the paper. Later Dave suggested a steakhouse for dinner, Lucky's. Not far from the campground. I should have taken a map! We got separated following them, and of course following Dave's directions, we got lost, but he finally got us back on track, and arrived to a 40 min wait. Ugh! But what do you expect for a Saturday night. The wait was worth it though. Great food! Huge portions, and reasonably priced.

And tomorrow, I'll tell you all about our day at the Michigan Renaissance festival!

funny friday

As a young boy entered a barber shop the barber whispered to his customer,
'That is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch, while I prove it to you.'
The barber put a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other.
He then asked the boy a question.
'Which would you like to have, Son?'
The boy took both quarters, and left the dollar.
'What did I tell you?' said the barber. 'That kid is the dumbest! He never learns!'
Later, when the customer left, he saw the boy coming out of the ice cream store so he asked, 'Hey, kid! Why did you take the two quarters instead of the dollar bill?'
The boy licked his cone and replied,
'Because the day I take that dollar, the game is over!'

Have a great weekend!

Yaba, Yaba, and Bamboo

I don't normally do an evening post, but I got out of work a little earlier than usual. I had planned on doing a post from work this morning. I took in my laptop because I had to be there at 7am this morning, even though I didn't have any customers till 10am. We were having a new roof top heating/air conditioning unit installed, and they needed the breaker switch off, so I hauled it in early and thought I'd do a post there, but even though we can sometimes get a free wi-fi signal, today, it just wouldn't work. But they got the unit installed in record time. They had originally said it might take till noon, but they were done at 9:30. So we didn't have to worry that it might get too warm in the Salon.
And now, some pics of the yard.....

Hosta's come in soo many different shapes, sizes, and colors. Above is an example of that.

And here is a large bed with Hosta's, Joe Pye Weed, Turtle Head, Japanese Anemone, Lady's Mantle, Queen of the Prairie, and a few other assorted plants.

And here's a cool variegated ground cover Bamboo, mingling with Lily of the Valley.

I'm so pretty update

I've gotten several comments and e-mails about the wax I use on the mo-ho, so I thought it'd be quicker to just do a quicky post. I've used a lot of waxes and polishes and what not, but always go back to Turtle wax, paste wax.

It's a cleaning and polishing wax that removes oxidation that polishes won't. And don't use the liquid, only the paste for a good cleaning/waxing. It's a bit more elbow grease, but that's what you need to really do a good job. And yes, you have to be careful you don't get that white film, but it's the best wax around!

I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!

Good morning from a wet Lansing again. Cloudy and mild today. Yesterday the rain eased up long enough to get the entire passenger side of the mo-ho waxed. That is one big job! And I want a bigger mo-ho?

But isn't it pretty? I've been trying to get ahead on the waxing part. Both the front and back of the mo-ho were really oxidized when we bought it, and the more I wax them, the better they're looking.

And while I was busy on the mo-ho, Craig mowed the yard, and prepped dinner, which was pork cutlets on the grill with marinated grilled Zucchini, and fresh potatoes from the garden. Yummy! Oh, and speaking of pork cutlets, Meijer had whole boneless pork loins on sale for, get this, $1.49 a lb! That's cheaper than boneless chicken breasts, and as lean or better! And we have them cut into 3/4 inch chops. So we stocked up on them!

Now it's time to get lazy Craig outta bed!

Mom and more trips.

Good morning. Another wet day here. Scattered showers all day.
Had a very nice visit with my mom yesterday. Took here out to Red Lobster where she had the Parmesan crusted Tilapia, and I had the New Orleans Salmon. Both were delicious! Then it was to the VFW for refreshments and pull tabs, and later took her shopping. It was a nice day, though a lot of traffic on the way home.
We've also finalized the rest of our camping schedule. They are,
Holly Recreation Area, where we will partake in the Michigan Renaissance Festival. Check out the link. It looks like a hoot!
Back to Indiana Dunes State Park.
Then we'll be going to Fort Custer Recreation area,
Cleveland, Ohio at the Streesboro/Cleveland KOA, with a vist to the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
And and end of season trip back to Indiana Dunes.
So even though summer is quickly winding down, we'll stretch our trips as late as possible before we have to winterize and store it for another long Michigan winter.

Finished another busy week at the salon. Friday after work, I waxed the back of the mo-ho, and cleaned the patio door and a few windows. Saturday after work, we came home, fixed cocktails, and relaxed on the deck. And then I dug potatoes!
Yep! dug these from 3 plants. My vegi garden isn't doing to well this year, so I was happy to find this many. So they'll add to a couple of our meals this weekend.
Today, after cleaning the salon, I'm off to Muskegon to see mom and take her out for an early birthday meal. Craig is staying home, doing bookwork, and cleaning the house. He's got to come up with another $2500.00. We have to replace the roof top air/heating unit at the Salon. Fortunately, when we sign our latest lease 3 years ago, we added that we would pay 2 months rent toward replacement of the unit if and when it was needed. The mall is fairly old, and we knew other tenants have had problems in the past, and we didn't want to get stuck with the entire $6000+ bill. And when we had routine maintenance on it this summer, he discovered the heat exchanger was cracked, along with badly rusted mounting brackets, so he shut off the gas to it. Thank goodness it is summer and not winter. But they're coming next Wed. to replace it.
Well, I'm off to clean the Salon, and then to Muskegon.

funny friday

Todays ff..........APHORISM: A SHORT, POINTED SENTENCE EXPRESSING A WISE OR CLEVER OBSERVATION OR A GENERAL TRUTH.

Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?

There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. It could be a right number.

Be careful reading the fine print. There's no way you're going to like it.


If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense.

Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than in a Yugo.

Always be yourself because the people that matter don't mind, and the ones who mind, don't matter.

Have a great weekend!

Pretty Flowers

It was a beautiful day yesterday. We mowed the yard, and Craig did laundry, and made a pasta salad to go with dinner, while I washed and waxed the back of the mo-ho. We also added another year on Craig's Tracfone. His expire date was the end of Sept. but I got an e-mail offering an extra 200 min. if we did it now. So it was $99 for another year and 400 min. plus 400 bonus min because this phone gets double min for life, and then another 200 bonus min. for renewing now, for a total of 1000 min! He now has 2840 min. I don't know how he'll ever use that many, but he has them just in case. My phone service doesn't expire till Dec. They screwed up and gave me almost 2 extra months when I transferred my service from my old phone to my new one. And no, I wouldn't tell them. That's what Tracfone gets for outsourcing their call center to India where you can barely understand their English. Fortunately, we can add min. online like we did for Craig, so I won't have to call unless I get another new phone.
And as promised, a few more flowers that are currently blooming in my yard.

The first 2 are actualy bushes. This one is a pink Sweetspire,

and this is Rose of Sharon.

And this is a Rudbeckia laciniata

This is Rudbeckia herbstonne. I like the green cones in the center. And this plant gets about 7 ft tall and will continue to bloom right through to a hard frost.

And a real pretty Daylily.

And now 2 long days of work, so I'll see ya Friday!

Good morning. The rain seems to have finally ended, and we're in for several days of sun and normal temps.(low 80's)
Yesterday I managed to install the dishwasher in the mo-ho, but it took a bit more than I expected. Isn't that how most projects go? Anyway, I decided to run the generator because it's been a couple of months since I last ran it and your suppose to do it periodically, and I could use the air on in the mo-ho during this project, so that worked out well. The dishwasher was installed in a closet across from the shower where we already have a washer/dryer. We built a shelf above the washer/dryer, leaving enough clearance to turn the water valves on and off. And here's a pic of it installed. It's a small counter top model, but perfect for our trips.

On the right of the dishwasher, you can see a couple of rods, and some foam squares. The rods extend and go inside the shower to hang our towels to dry, and the foam squares go in the ceiling vents in cold weather for insulation.
And before I installed the dishwasher, I needed to fix the dryer vent. It had a plastic coil type that went from the back of the dryer to the outside vent and it had pulled off and was torn and since we almost never use it, I just never got around to replace it. And we went with an expandable metal sleeve that took some work getting it through the wall of the mo-ho. I was surprised to see how thick the outside wall was. Over 3 inches. With an inner wall board over foam board, some other thin materials, than an inch of insulation and more wall support before the outer fiberglass skin. Impressive! But the mo-ho is quite quiet inside.
After that project, I checked the house batteries water level. They need to be checked regularly because we have it plugged in all the time.
And tomorow, I'll post more flower pics. I have them going non-stop!

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

Good morning from a very soggy Lansing.
On Saturday morning, we received 2 inches of rain. Sat. night, another 1/4 inch. Sunday was hot(92), but dry so I got a bunch of deadheading and weeding done. Sunday night it rained and rained, and rained, giving us another 2 inches as of this morning, with scattered rain predicted today and tonight. Our entire area is under a flood watch. Fortunately, our house sits on high ground.
Today I'll be installing another dishwasher in the mo-ho. They were on clearance at Menard's, and Craig wanted one. I don't no why, because I do all the dishes when we camp.
And here's a few flowers currently blooming in the garden.

The first 3 pics are all Helenium's. I really like the first one. A pretty bi-color.

And this little fella is called a Blackberry Lily. It's kind of an orange-red color. This is the only color I've seen, but Randy and Jamie have a yellow one you can see here.
And these self seed easily, so if any one would like seeds, let me know, and I'll mail them to you.

food!

Well, we've finished another week of work. And we have almost no plans for the weekend. So I'll get to relax some. Oh, I'll do some weeding and dead heading, and maybe wax a car, but not too much work.
On Friday, we had stir fry. I love stir fry! This time it was with beef, rice, peppers, onions, mushrooms, snap peas, pineapple, almonds, and a wonderful bourbon sauce! Yummy!


And tonight we're having home made tacos!
And have we had rain! After a fairly dry several weeks, today it just dumped on us. 2 inches since this morning.
And I've picked just one Zucchini. I don't know what's wrong, but they start to produce one, and then it turns yellow and shrivels up. It's been doing that for several weeks now. It's just not a good summer for vegi gardens. Too damn cold! Oh well, I'm digging potatoes this weekend. I'll let you know if they produced.

funny friday

A young boy asks his Dad,
'What is the difference between confident and confidential?'
Dad says, 'You are my son, I'm confident about that.
Your friend over there, is also my son, that's confidential! '

Teacher:
'Do you know the importance of a period?
'Kid:
'Yeah, once my sister said she missed one,
my mom fainted,
dad got a heart attack
& our driver ran away.'

Man comes home and finds his wife with his friend in bed.
He shoots his friend and kills him.
Wife says,
'If you behave like this, you will lose ALL your friends..'

Have a great weekend!

My new Tracfone

Yep! We finally broke down and upgraded our cell phones. We've used Tracfones for a number of years now and have had the same phone. For us, they're perfect. We have the convenience of having a mobile phone, with out the big expense. Our old one is first.

And here's our pretty new one! The antenna on my old one was ready to break off. And they had a good deal on an upgrade. $29.99 for a new phone, and double minutes for the life of the phone. We don't have a contract with Tracfone. You buy the phone, and purchase minutes. We always buy a one year card for $99 and it comes with 450 minutes. So we only have to load minutes once a year, though you could add more during the year if needed, but we seldom use our phones, and the minutes roll over. I now have 1722 minutes. I don't know why I thought I needed double minutes, but I did need a new phone, and who knows? Maybe I'll start using it more.

It's a beach thing

Okay, continuing our camping trip. On Sunday Tom and Dean fixed breakfast and we discussed plans for the day. We decided to go to the casino. There's one in Michigan City, just 10 miles from the campground. Like I always said, that's never a good thing. But after a couple of hours playing, Craig and I were ahead $65.00! Yay! But Tom and Dean were down about $70.00. So back to the campground. Then it was down to the beach. It's a bit of a hike, so Craig was to drive us down, drop us off, and find a parking place. Well, as we got back to the park, there were so many day users there, they had closed the road to the beach. So we had to take the trail from the campground. A bit of a hike, but not bad. The beach was full, but not packed because it's a huge beach.

They have this displayed at the beach. It's the Chicago skyline. On clear days, you can see Chicago across the lake.
Click on the above pic and look closely.

There's this very cool old Pavilion between the parking lot and the beach That's still used today.
The reason you see no people is I took a walk to the beach in the early morning while everyone was still asleep.

Now here's a couple of pics of the beach while we were there.
And after baking in the sun awhile and watching the sights, we hiked back to the campground where Tom and Dean fixed Shish Kabobs on the grill with Corn on the cob, and we brought Baked Beans. Then another camp fire in the evening.

We packed up Monday morning, said our goodbyes, and made it safely home. Another good trip!

Halsted Market Days

Good morning!
After arriving home from Indiana Dunes, we did laundry, got all the clothes and food out of the mo-ho, and relaxed. It was a safe and non incident trip!
Here we are set up in our site with our friends Tom and Dean and their 5th wheel behind us. It's a fairly spacious campground. But of course, we're not in Michigan!
We arrived Friday afternoon, and since we had worked that morning before we left, Tom and Dean fixed us a delicious meal of Brats and Corn on the Cob.
We had a little visitor who wandered around each day. Isn't he cute!

On Saturday we took Tom and Dean into Chicago and up to the Lakeview area to Halsted Market Days. Billed as the largest street festival in the Midwest!

And it got very crowded too! But we wandered up and down the street. They block of Halsted between Belmont and Addison. It covered something like 6 blocks of Halsted.
Dean complained we didn't take any pics of them, but he was wrong! Here they are in the above pic! Lower left corner. That's Deans Bald head with Tom's thick dark hair right behind him! :-P

But we had a good time. Enjoyed the sights. And Mike, a Chicago friend of Tom and Dean's met us there, and took us to a nice restaurant for lunch. Then back to the campground, and a nice warm campfire.

Tomorrow, Sundays pics and the rest of our trip.

Hello all, we're back!
Yep! We just returned from another weekend trip. This one to Indiana Dunes State Park. There we met up with our camping friends from Wisconsin, Tom and Dean. And we like staying at this campground, because it's only about a 45 min. drive into Chicago. So we always take one day and spend it in the city.
But now we're home, and we need to get unpacked, so I'll fill you in with pics and details tomorrow,

No more Roses

I love all my many roses, from Shrub roses to the very fragrant Rugosa's. But the blooms end in early July. Well, actually they don't end, I just don't get to enjoy them because of these little bastards.......

They're called Japanese Beetles, and moved into Michigan about 8 - 10 years ago. And I've tried everything I can think of to eliminate the pests, but they just keep on coming, attracted from all over to the wonderful scent, and then they devourer them completely, as fast as they try to open. I've spread grub killer, used insecticidal soap, traps,(they actually make it worst) and regular sprays. But with no neighbors doing the same, they just come from elsewhere. Oh well, at least I get to enjoy them before the beetles hatch.