I love retirement

Good afternoon.
No pics today. I haven't had anything I've done or gone anywhere to get pics.   :-)
It's been a beautiful couple of days. Sunny and around 60. We've gotten back out and been walking again as my foot seems to be just about healed. Helped out our neighbor across the street. They had a couple of flood lights in the kitchen out. Her husband is recovering from the flu and with 10 ft ceilings, she wasn't to keen on changing them herself. I was happy to help out. She them mentioned when she was adjusting her outdoor Christmas projector, the ground was very wet. I checked her drip system to find she had several drip lines that now were little fountains. Apparently the cheap 'heads' the builders original landscapers use tend to fail, as we've discovered over the last 2 years. I had extra drip heads and replaced them for her.
We also fed-ex the 1099's back to Lansing for the ex staff. The last thing Craig had to do for the former business.
And speaking of that, I have to say, retirement is just the BEST thing! It's GREAT! Doing what you want and when you want. I might get a little bored here and there, but definitely not enough to EVER go back to work! I miss a lot of people, but not the work! But there was a lot more than just doing hair. Running a business while doing hair is a lot of work! I happy it's done.
So, that's my post for today.   :-)

blah blah

Good afternoon.
It's been a no event couple of days. Haven't done  too much. If you click on the pic, you'll see Mt Charleston and the Spring mountains behind the shorter mountains covered with snow.

Everything looks so much farther away in pictures. But it is really quite the sight. On the news they keep showing all the people flocking to the mountain to experience the snow. Not us!   :-)
 We've seen more snow in our lifetime to ever want to go up there in the winter.
But we did manage to find Craig a doctor and he has an appointment on Jan 12th. His one prescription will be just about gone by then. We got a recommendation from a neighbor.
I've also been downloading apps and movies for our tablets. I wanted to get some new games so we have something different to play on the long plane ride to Hawaii. It's not for a while yet, but it's a good time with the colder weather we've been having. The rest of the week should be much nicer with temps back in the upper 50's.
That's all I got!

Merry Christmas!

Good afternoon and Merry Christmas!

We've just returned from a Christmas brunch at one of our neighbors.
 Yesterday we went to the Salted lime at our local Aliante Casino/hotel for all you can eat Taco Tailgate party.  They had a make it yourself taco bar. We were a little disappointed at the toppings offered. Just lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. But the shells were crispy and crunchy and the taco meat was nicely spicy and so they were very good! We then drove through our community enjoying the many lighting displays many of the people put out.

We currently have our turkey, with White Castle stuffing, in the oven. The recipe for the stuffing is   here. It's very good!   :-)
So I hope everyone has a nice holiday and a prosperous New Year!

cheap eats

Good morning.
Yesterday was a dreary drizzly cool day. It pretty much rained all day, although we ended up with only about 1/2 an inch.  Here's the low clouds hanging over the Sheep mountains....

This is a pic taken from the street in front of our house. And it looks like it rained during the night. The pavement is all wet this morning. Soo, I spent the day cleaning and playing on the puter. Last evening, when the outside lights came on, they immediately all went off. Must have gotten water in one of the connections with the day long rain. All the breakers were on so I finally traced it to the ground fault plug in the garage. But when I reset it, it quickly tripped again. Soo, I unplugged all the outside lights, and one by on re-plugged them in to find the short. It ended up being the last string I tried. The one that lights up the main front tree. Still not sure where in the tree it is. There are 7 strings on the trunk and in the tree. It got too dark to work on it last night, so I'll mess with it today.
Also today, we're going to a local casino buffet for lunch. One of our neighbors has a coupon book and still has a number of half off buffet coupons that expire the end of the year, so they invited Craig and I and another couple. The lunch is normally $8 with a players card, and we have that, so that means we'll eat for $4. Almost cheaper than you can eat at home! Then tomorrow for dinner with another couple, we are going to the Salted Lime at our casino for the Tailgate Taco Party. Every Sat. they have an all you can eat Taco bar and $4 margaritas. We haven't been to one and this Sat. is the last one for the season as they only do it during college football.
Well, that's it for now.  

Christmas update

Good morning.
It's hard to believe Christmas is this coming Sunday.  And even though this is the first day of winter, it still feels like fall outside. Cool mornings and mild days. Upper 50's this week. But that's the main reason we moved out here. To get away from the bitter cold.
Here's a pic of a plate of cookies one of our neighbors brought over for us.

And we got a little white poinsettia from another neighbor. We do have some very nice neighbors.   :-)
And here's Craig doing 1099's for the very last time....

This will take him the good part of 2 days to finish. That's the last thing connected to the Salon business that he'll have to deal with.
And here's the last pics of our decorated home...

I strung some ornaments around the base of our table lamps, and got a couple of pillows for the chairs.

I also added a string of battery operated globe lights among the ornaments under the TV.

And we've been putting our Christmas cards on the valance over the patio door.

So our home is looking very festive.
I just received our current electric bill, and the outside lights have added about $30 to our bill. That's for 3 weeks of lights. Maybe next year I'll put them up a little later, and maybe look for led lights on clearance after Christmas. I would have gotten led this year, but they run about 5 times the cost of regular lights. But if I can get them on clearance, than that will save me now, and in the future. And we put solid colored lights on each bush. One red, one blue, one purple and one pink. I think we have little birds pecking at the blue lights on the one bush. At first, they were all blue, but over the last 3 weeks, we keep noticing more and more lights are more white than blue. I think the birds think they are blueberries since there are ornamental blueberry bushes out here, and they are pecking the color off the light bulbs. The lights are to new for the color to be fading already. I may have to find a different color next year.   :-)
Craig has been enjoying cooking in our big kitchen. The kitchen in the house was quite small and the apartment kitchen was practically nonexistent.  He made a large cabbage roll casserole yesterday, and a crock-pot beef roast the day before. So today is leftover pot roast and tomorrow, casserole. Good eating! And I have to take out a turkey today for Christmas.
And that's enough  for now I think.

fall clean-up

Good morning.
It's a bone chilling 30 out this morning. the coldest low temp so far this year. But it will be sunny and 47 later today. and back into the mid 50's next week.
With all the wind we've had the last 2 days, all the leaves from out desert Willow have finally come down. here's a few pics Craig took while I vacuumed  them up Friday when the temps were still in the 60's.......

The green trees you see are in neighbors yards and are all African Sumac's. They keep their leaves all winter.

With the cold temps, we haven't been walking the last couple of days. And that's good as I think I've developed a bursa on the side of my foot. Probably too much walking in not the best shoes. So I've been treating it and trying to stay off my feet for a while until it gets better. Then I think I'll go out and get some good walking shoes. I enjoy my walks and want to be able to continue them.
That's it for now..

an overnighter

Good morning.
Wed. we spent the day shopping, sightseeing and the night at Sunset Station.
We headed out around 9am and headed to IKEA in the southwest part of the valley.
It's always fun seeing what stuff they have. And they have a LOT of stuff. We picked up a couple of stemware, knives, potholders, and cork coaster. I know, big spenders.   :-)
Then we headed over to Sam's town to see the Mystic Falls park all decorated for Christmas. Was quite disappointed. Maybe we shouldn't have seen Bellagio first.   :-)
Then we headed over to the Galleria Mall. It's one of the largest in the valley.

Got a couple of shirts here with the remainder gift card I had.
Then across the street from the mall, we checked into the Sunset Station casino/hotel. Here's a view from our room looking east.

After getting settled in, we checked out the massive casino, then headed next door to Walmart where I picked up a new belt to replace the one I was wearing that came apart. We saw this really odd looking cloud as we went out to the car.....

After Walmart, we headed over to Ethel M's to tour the chocolate factory and see their famous cactus gardens decorated for Christmas.
The factory tour was very short, but very informative. They even give you samples!
Then outside behind the factory was the 3 acre cactus gardens....

Had to be thousands and thousands of lights!

It was a beautiful enjoyable sight.  

Then we headed back to the casino/hotel for a little gaming, where we ended up losing about $20, then we grabbed some pizza and headed up to our room. We decided to stay overnight as everything we wanted to do was in the southern part of the valley and Craig didn't want to deal with all the after work traffic trying to get back to the far northern edge of the valley. It's only about 25 miles, but with traffic could take nearly an hour. Vegas is a big, busy city!   :-)

But we had a nice time. Really liked the layout and design of this casino/hotel. And the room was only $29.00! Loved the cactus gardens, and was nice to get out of our community for the day/night.

Well, out nice 60's is coming to a screeching halt. This next week, we'll be in the low 50's and maybe even the high 40's! brrr! But that's still good compared to Michigan!    :-)

fall in souther Nevada

Good morning.
Here's a pic I took with my phone a few days ago when we had that cold spell. Even clouds!

Not a great pic, but it does show the leaves turning on the trees along the road. They apparently turn much later in the year than the trees back in Michigan. I know that when we came out last year the first week of Jan. all the deciduous trees leaves were gone. And when we came out in late Feb. the early blooming trees were in full bloom. So we apparently have a very short 'winter'.  And I'm fine with that!   :-)
The cold spell has past and it's going to be back in the mid 60's for the next week.
We're still walking every day except that one cold windy cloudy day we had.  We've been seeing a lot of the people in the community decorating for Christmas. Will be fun taking an evening drive around and see all the lights.
Also, we've spent the last 2 days working on our Christmas cards. I've also been dusting and cleaning. It's nice having a lot of extra time to do everything.
Well, that's it for now.

catching up.

Good morning.
Here's some more pics from our little trip to the strip on Tuesday...

A shopping bazaar at the Planet Hollywood. That's me in the lower right.

All these buildings are actually indoors. The 'sky' is a huge dome that's painted and lighted to look like an evening sky.

This was here years ago when the hotel was called the Aladdin. It was Middle Eastern themed and they built this massive shopping district with the same theme. It circles around the entire casino and hotel. We were wondering if Planet Hollywood would change it. It was nice to see they kept it. It's really cool looking.

They even have a 'docked' ship.
There is always so much to see when going down to the strip. We plan many more excursions.
Back at home, we also added some greenery to the coach light on the garage and on a pillar near the front door.

With Wed. being the coldest day so far this fall, ( only a high of 52 with a lot of cold wind) we decided to stay inside and had a Christmas movie marathon. We spent the afternoon watching several movies I downloaded from the internet. It's a Merry Fricken Christmas, Christmas Reunion and The Kramps.  The first 2 I'd give 3 1/2 stars out of 5. Good movies with an enjoyable story, but not something we'd watch again. The 3rd was a little better.
Thursday was nicer, sunny and 55. Got our nice long walk in and started on our Christmas cards. It is suppose to get into the 60's for the next week. That will be very nice. Especially after seeing online the snow and cold back in Michigan. Tomorrow will be 4 months since we retired. Can't believe how fast it's gone.  I think we picked a good place and the right time.   :-)

a little trip to the strip.

Good morning again! :-)
Yesterday, we headed down to the strip.
Here's a pic of us having a drink at the Halo bar next to Planet Hollywood.

Sorry for the bad pic. It was kind of dark in there.
The main purpose was to see the Bellagio Conservatory. They decorate it for every holiday and really do a fantastic job!
Here's one of the hotel entrances as we went in...

Giant ornaments hanging from the dome. And below, the ceiling near the front desk...

And the front desk....all decked out for the holidays.

And here's a few pics of the Conservatory.....

It was really beautiful! And so very festive!
We even finally found a good, not to busy, route from our house to the strip. Now, we may go down to the strip a little more often. It takes about 30-40 minutes to drive down there.
And of course, the strip was very busy. This week, the big convention is the 2016 National Finals Rodeo. They said over the Thanksgiving weekend, the rooms were 92% filled. And Vegas has a lot of rooms! 62,000 just on the strip! 124,000 rooms in the valley! And they're building more!
Anyway, we had a nice little excursion and I'm happy to say not one penny played at any casino.   :-)

almost winter

Good morning.
We don't get a lot of fall color in the valley. A lot of the trees we have are evergreen, but at our local Smiths store, here's a few pretty ones I took this week.

Fall seems to come late here. Our Desert Willow still hasn't dropped it's leaves. Our front trees, The African Sumac, and the Southern Live Oak, keep there leaves all winter. So it never really looks like winter except it does get colder here.
Here's some more holiday decorations I've done...
Got lights on the eves so all the outdoor lighting is done.

And garland thingies under the coach lights and the pillar near the front door.

And my next post will be our little excursion we took down to the strip yesterday.
There's quite a few pics and I didn't want to get this post to long.   :-)

a little more Christmas

Good afternoon.
We've just finished our walk and added lights to the eaves of the house. I'll try to remember to take some pics when it's dark enough to see them.
But here's a few more pics of our inside decorations.....

A centerpiece for the coffee table....

Under the TV....

And a wreath on the door and a star on the cabinet.
That's all the inside decorating we do. I think it's enough.   :-)
Remember our trip a while back to Laughlin? Well, I just received a mailing from one of the hotels. They want to give me a night at the Aquarius casino/hotel for $20! And....a second night free!  Now when we did go there and checked out all the casinos, we signed up for all their players cards, even though we didn't gamble much and certainly not at all of them.  But one of our neighbors told us if we did, we'd get special offers from them.  Well, we were planning on going back sometime to do a few driving trips from there, so I think we'll use the super cheap rooms and give us a nice cheap vaca. Spend the day doing sightseeing trips, and the evening maybe a little gaming eating and shows. Sounds pretty good!
Well, Craig's fixing dinner, which is going to be turkey rice casserole, and soon the lights will come on outside. It gets dark here by 5pm. I'll try to get some good pics.

a post

Good morning.

It's been a while since I've posted, as I haven't done much to write about.   :-)
As I've said, we don't decorate inside much, but here's a coupe of pics....

A centerpiece for the table....

And our little tree on the kitchen counter.
We have been looking at doing a few trips. We've booked a couple of overnights in the valley and just yesterday booked a trip to Hawaii. We haven't been to Hawaii in just over 30 years. Will be fun to see how much we remember and how much has changed.
We've had some cold, cloudy and windy weather this week with highs only around the low 50's. Quite cold for this time of year. But I've still managed to get my walks in in the afternoon. Weather should be nicer the next few days. It feels like fall with the colder weather, but a lot of the trees we have out here don't lose their leaves, and I still have flowers on some of the bushes in my back yard. It will be an adjustment this year having winter in the desert, and not so cold temps and snow. I think I'll manage.   :-)
That's all for now.

eating good!

Good morning.We're having one of the coldest weeks so far this year. Sunday was cloudy, windy and rainy with a high of only 50! We look to be below normal temps all week with highs only in the low 50's. That should be our highs at the end of Dec. But it should be sunny the rest of the week, so that will help. We're working on some inside decorations, and I'll take some pics when we are finished.
Craig has been making some good food.

Ravioli lasagna!
Um-mm! It was good! Paired it with roasted Parmesan zucchini. And enough for leftovers.

Next day, turkey Kielbasa with peppers and onions and mozzarella cheese.

We are still walking every day, but with the very cold mornings(low 40's) we've moved our walks to the afternoon.
I've been asked to apply to be on the Architectural Review Committee. They have an opening, and one of the current members think I'd be a good fit.  I'm thinking about it but not sure I want to commit myself.  It's only 4 days a month for about an hour each morning, but still not sure I'm ready for a regular routine yet. I'm still enjoying my retirement freedom.  :-)
And that's all I've got for now. Now I've got to get the trash cans out. Tuesday is pick-up day.