Monopoly or Flinstone's?

Street names are kind of fun. For example, I wouldn't want to live on Dickey Lane or Ira Drive, but Cottonwood Lane or Walnut Drive are nice.

Yesterday we were in two neighborhoods that have their own theme going on.

First up: Monopoly! -All the streets pertain to the Monopoly game. Boardwalk Drive, Reading lane, Marvin Gardens, Oriental Avenue, etc.
Second up: The Flinstones! - There was Bedrock Lane, Barney Court and Dino Drive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are still trying to figure everything out as far as living quarters for us. Living in the RV for 3-5 years, as it sits in one location, doesn't sound good for the RV itself. It would show deterioration rapidly and lose its value.
Fortunately, we have the RV to live in, so don't need to rush into any changes immediately.

H. starts the new job on Monday, so I'll be sure to have the camera ready and grab a couple shots of him heading out the door!

Pappasito's

I LOVE Mexican food!! Tamales, enchilada's, tacos, it doesn't matter. I love Mexican food, so was excited about trying a place here in Dallas. pappasitos had excellent reviews, so we gave it a try.

We showed up about 5:30 and the place was busy, but no wait time. After being seated, we each ordered a margarita....mine on the rocks with salt, his blended, no salt. It was happy hour, so I figured that meant, you know, a $3.00 margarita. Wrong...How 'bout $5.95? Oh well. It was good! Their chips and salsa were fantastic, too!


Pricewise, they are a little high for mexican food, but it was delicious!! I had the tamale, enchilada and taco combination, and needed a to go box because there was so much food (and we always bring something home for Jack).

I'd go back to Pappasito's without a doubt. If you're in the Dallas area, check them out! On second thought, if you're in the Dallas area, we'll check them out together!

Hello, Remember Me? Im Your Flag

What To Do

Dallas, Take Three. We literally spent all of last weekend driving the surrounding areas, trying to get a feel for what may be considered a good neighborhood or bad neighborhood.

We went to four open houses, wrote down a dozen addresses of houses that had 'for sale' signs in the front yard and even looked at a condominium. In all the driving around, we did find an area that we absolutely loved. It's an older area with well kept homes, manicured yards and lots of space. The houses didn't all look the same, which we like. Anyway, after getting back home and plugging the addresses in, we learned that the highly sought after area is just a wee bit over our budget. Or to put it another way - 'there is no way we're going to spend that kind of money on a house.'

The bigger issue I personally have is that after having lived in 400 square feet for the past 5 years, it's hard to walk into a house with 2200 square feet and imagine myself living in it. What in the world would I do with 4 bedrooms? Or 3 baths? A living room AND a family room? Formal dining and breakfast room? And a yard? Uh, that means grass, which translates to 'need a lawn mower', and an edger, weed killer, flower pots, a spade.......the thoughts make me tired.

Another option is a condominium. No exterior maintenance to worry about, right? There are several drawbacks to condo living though. First and foremost, HOA fees which can run anywhere from $300-a month and up. Second, living in a condo is really no different than living in an apartment. Would your neighbors blast the TV at 3:00 a.m.? What if they cooked brussel sprouts all the time? What if they have a newborn baby with colic?

Option Number 3: Rent. We did look at loft apartments in downtown Dallas to lease. They were nice...I could see myself living in one. But! $1500/month to rent....plus utilities. Shoot, that's a house payment. And, you'd have the same possibilities you'd have with a condo. You don't know what your neighbors are going to do. OH! Plus, they charge a huge pet deposit, 1/2 of which is non-refundable, and the 'pet area' would never work for Jack.

Suffice it to say, the past few days have been exasperating and exhausting. At the end of the day, I love my RV.

Happy Easter Everyone

Listen

I saw this on one of my favorite sites, and in light of all that seems haywire in the world today, I felt some calm was needed. So, here ya go. Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Author Unknown

There is a field up the road with two horses.
From a distance, each horse looks like any other horse.
But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing…
Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him.
This alone is amazing.
If you stand nearby and listen, you will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field.
Attached to the horse’s halter is a small bell. It lets the blind friend know where the other horse is, so he can follow.





As you stand and watch these two friends, you’ll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse.
And that the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is.
Trusting that he will not be led astray.
When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, it stops occasionally and looks back.
Making sure that the blind friend isn’t too far behind to hear the bell.





Like the owners of these two horses, God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges.
He watches over us and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need.
Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who God places in our lives. Other times we are the guide horse, helping others to find their way.
Good friends are like that…You may not always see them, but you know they are always there.
Please listen for my bell, and I’ll listen for yours.

Shopping...Ay yi yi

I need to premise this post with the fact that H. and I have been cruising in jeans and T-shirts for the past 6 years. We do not frequent department stores or malls.....at all. So, now, the following tale of today will make more sense.

Neither H. or I are very fond of department store or mall shopping, but he needed clothes for the new job, so off we went. First stop: Kohl's. Did I mention I hate department stores? Yeah, I thought so.

Locate the Men's department...check.

Hunt down the short sleeve button front shirts....check. Woo hoo! SAVE 50% (I like it!)....until we notice the REGULAR price is $50.00! For ONE button front polyester/cotton shirt?? (Not even a Ralph Lauren.) Okay, Okay, so 1 shirt at 50% off is going to cost us $25.00, and we need 10 shirts. So, after weeding out all the Charlie Sheen look alike shirts, we had several we liked in an assortment of colors.

Next up: Slacks.

Find the casual slacks (Dockers)....check.

Holy cow. There are officially at a minimum, 10 variations of Dockers slacks today. You have your classic, your chino, your pleated front, flat front, microfiber (I'm serious!), straight fit, individual fit, comfort fit, cargo and soft. ----- Okay, no problem. We just needed to find the regular basic style of Dockers that H. wore 10-12 years ago. After a few minutes, we spotted them.......for $36.99 each! Man, when did the prices for clothes skyrocket???

After working through the pile to find the right size, we ended up with a light khaki, dark khaki, charcoal grey and navy.

On to the dressing room. ....................................One hour later, we have matched up the selected shirts with the selected slacks, tried everything on, second guessed it all, then finally said 'what the hell' and marched to checkout. We were tired, we were hungry and we were so done with shopping at this point. ......The cashier was quite cute as she commented on each shirt saying 'how nice' or 'this is quite nice', and she was even cuter when she said 'that will be $330.22 please, but you saved $180.20!' Uh, yeah, that's because everything was marked up 300% first...duh.

Next stop, the mall. Oh, I hate malls. We found the food court, and a mexican place that served two enchiladas with rice and beans for $3.99. That works! We took one, found a table and scarfed down our lunch.

Sears, JcPenneys, Macys or Dillards???? We still needed one more pair of slacks, socks and a belt. ------------(why didn't we buy them at Kohl's you ask? We didn't think of it. I know, I know) ......We chose Sears. Fast forward through all the locating where we needed to be, with the exception of complete shock with the price of shoes, made in China if I may add; we managed to find one pair of slacks, one belt, 9 pr. of socks and 2 additional shirts, headed to the checkout, paid them $178.10 and got the heck out of there. It was time to go home.

One last stop. Walmart. Wine/Beer. Yes. Okay. Home, James. :)

Tax Facts.....In honor of Tax Day

In honor of tax day, Business Insider put together a slide show on the 20 tax facts that will “make your head explode.” Here’s a sample:

1. The IRS has more employees than there are people in Flint, Michigan (106K vs 102K).

2. Americans spend $28 billion and 8 billion hours each year doing their taxes.

3. The number of pages in the tax code has increased 16,775% in the past century.

4. You could fill Dallas with the number of accountants Americans hire to help with taxes each year (over a million).

5.The number of pages in the tax code has increased 16,775% in the past century

Go here to get the facts-about-taxes-

OH, in case you were wondering, Mr .and Mrs. Obama received a $12,344 tax refund.

And, We had to write another check payable to the Department of Treasury. It's weird.

Farmer's Market - Downtown Dallas

Dallas in the background Wow! Watermelon, peaches, plums, pineapple Pepper Paradise! (I'm in love) And, the flowers! Impatiens, salvia, geraniums, roses and more



Hey! Considering it was Saturday, we decided to take a drive to the heart of Dallas. As it happened, we stumbled upon the Dallas Farmer's Market. We're talking food, fruit, fresh vegetables and music! My kind of place! This was by far the BEST EVER Farmer's Market we've seen. All the produce is Texas grown, prices were more than reasonable......AND, they were handing out samples! We sampled our way through on watermelon, oranges, cucumber, pineapple, mango, papaya, jicama, plums and the best tomatoe I've had in a long time.


Then there were the herbs and flowers. Oh my gosh. Herbs of every flavor and flowers, some of which I've never heard of. The Farmer's Market is open every day of the week, so I know where I'll be shopping! After enjoying the Farmer's Market, we did a bit more driving uptown, then hit a Sonic on the way home.


Dallas, so far, is looking pretty good!

Dallas, Part Two

2000 Nissan Maxima One owner, only 73k miles No dents Immaculate interior Dallas, Part two. We needed a car for commuting, so we've been on the hunt for the past few days. After seriously weeding out the scammers and avoiding all dealers, both new and used, we finally settled on a 2000 Nissan Maxima. It is a one owner vehicle with just 73k miles and in immaculate condition. This guy had literally ALL maintenance and service records. We did not hesitate with an offer and within the hour were driving it home. He even took us to the DMV where we registered and titled it. In Texas, you need both a State inspection and emissions, but fortunately, the inspection on this car is good until November. We are happy with our purchase! Now, on to Part Three.....shopping for clothes! Woo hoo!

The Big "D"

It's not Vegas, Baby. It's Dallas! We arrived here a few days ago and have been overwhelmed by the amount of traffic and number of people. So much activity everywhere! I guess we've been living the relaxed lifestyle for so long, a little culture shocked has definitely shocked us. In our fulltiming, we've always avoided Dallas like the plague, and here we are, thrown right into the middle of it.

We will make our way through, but it will take some time to adjust for sure.
First on our agenda is to find a car to commute in. Our Jeep is not the commuting type of vehicle, so it may be sitting for a spell.

That's it for now, from Dallas. I haven't decided yet about this blog, but will probably keep it going as we make our transition from fulltiming to worker bees.

How Corny is that?

Yup. Corn. ??? (don't ask)





Me, our daughter Amanda, H. and of course, Jack. We had such a great time in Arizona with our daughter and her boyfriend! It was tough to leave. Makes me wish we lived very near so we could always be there for her, whenever she needs something. Of course we don't and she is quite frankly a pretty independent young lady, so will leave it at that. We did finally find a replacement Jeep for her. Pictures should be coming shortly. It is a great looking Jeep with very low miles, so we are hoping she will be happy with it, especially since she was able to buy it and put some money in her pocket. As I type this, we are on our way to Dallas. H. has accepted a full time permanent position so our life as fulltimers will be changing, but I fell it's too soon to speculate on that, so will be posting updates of our 'life in Dallas' as things come.

Who Doesn't Love April Fools Day...from 1911?

Kelley RV Wash

We discovered a gem today! We've been drycamping for the past 7 days between the Wild Horse Casino and our spot in Chandler. Today, we needed to fnd a place to take on water and dump black and gray tanks. Luckily for us, just a few miles away in Chandler is Kelley Car & RV Wash! It is an idea place for fulltimers because they have a dump station....$5.00 charge, AND you can fill your water tank....FREE! They've got a special right now on an RV wash....$25.00!
Any mobile RV wash typically runs $65.00 and up, so at $25.00 we jumped on it. The best part was with the $25.00 wash, the dump fee was waived. Bottom Line? We filled our water tank, dumped the black and got the rig washed all for just $25.00!!

Now, about the RV wash. It is automatic, but as soon as you pull in and are sprayed with soapy water, the nice young man that works there comes along with his long handled brush and washes the entire rig for you. As you are enjoying your beverage safely inside your rig, and your dog is freaking out because of the suds and the noise, the rinse cycle commences, followed by the typical vacuum type drying. Within a matter of minutes, you've got a super clean RV and you're on your way.

I highly recommend Kelley Car and RV wash!! ---A $5.00 fee to dump and no charge for water is worth the stop!

Let's Talk CVS...And Saving Money

Saving Money. Getting free stuff, like toothpaste, dish soap, or chips. It is possible. It can be done. CVS is a great place to start, in my opinion, because it's a relatively small store with a good variety of personal, grocery and health items. PLUS, you can save even more by getting their extracare card simply by asking any cashier. You earn 2% with every purchase and get instant savings on their weekly sales item.

Here's a quick rundown on CVS deals this week to show how you can really save some bucks:

Colgate Maxfresh, Maxwhite, Maxclean 6 oz, OR Manual single pack toothbrush $2.99 = $2 Extra care bucks (limit 2)
Buy Colgate Manual single pack toothbrush Use the $1/1 coupon found in the 3/27 smart source insert from Sunday's paper Pay $1.99 Get back a $2 extra care bucks.
Final cost FREE!

How about this one? Campbell’s soup 10.75-11.5 oz, Swanson broth 14.5 oz, Heinz gravy 12 oz, Stove Top stuffing 6 oz,or Kraft mac & cheese 5.5-7.25 oz on sale now for $0.77 each.
Buy Stove Top Stuffing $0.77 Use the $0.50/1 coupon found here: stovetop or here: coupons.com
FINAL COST $0.27!

Easter's coming! That means candy!

Mars single egg 1 oz 2/$1 Use the $1/2 coupon found in the 3/20 Red Plum insert in Sunday's paper
Final cost – 2 for FREE!

Who doesn't like the Buy One, Get One Free deals? Add a manufacturer's coupon to the deal, now you're talking! Check this out:

Buy 2 Irish Spring body wash 15 oz $4.99 (based on online price) Minus Buy 1 get 1 Free sale = $4.99 Use 2 $0.50/1 coupon found in the 3/13 Smart Source insert in Sunday's paper
Final cost $1.99 each!

hat/tip to my daughter for telling me about CVS and their great deals!

Shhh...Our Secret Camping Spot

Three years ago we found the ideal drycamping spot in the surrounding Phoenix area. It's a quiet spot at the end of a road. No one has ever bothered us AND it's just 2 blocks from our daughter's apartment. This is the third time we've stayed here when visiting and we usually pull in on a Friday and stay through the weekend. The sand crane in the picture above was taken just 100 feet from where we are parked.


It's been a fun weekend with her. We've done some shopping, visiting and playing games. Her boyfriend loves to play Scrabble and we've got the Super Scrabble game which takes the four of us a good two hours for just one game. Our daughter is Super Scrabble Champion this time around and kicked out butts. - Last night, we got the deck of cards out and played 'Oh, Heck', which is a card game my family has always played at get togethers. Lots of fun!


So, today is Monday and we are hoping she will hear from the insurance company with a settlement amount on her Jeep. -Still in a holding pattern.

Wild Horse Pass....

Casino, that is. In Chandler. We are making our way very slowly. As the weekend has finally arrived, so have we. Maybe now with our daughter having a short Friday workday and the weekend off, we will be able to spend some quality time with her. This has been the craziest past few weeks. I feel like we've waiting in a holding pattern at 80 degrees. Oh, that's probably because it is what we've been doing.

An update on her Jeep accident: The insurance company totaled the vehicle, as we expected they would, so now she is awaiting word as to their declared value. Hopefully, they will offer her enough to replace what she had, but, not to sound pessimistic, it is unlikely. So, the quality time we will be spending with our daughter will entail checking out what's out there.

That's it from Arizona today.

What a Year, and it's only March

2011 is shaping up to be quite the year...in a not so good way. We've been waiting in Casa Grande for our daughter to return from San Fransisco. We haven't seen her in over a year so have been quite excited about seeing her! The very next day after she returned from CA, we got a phone call from her saying she was just in an auto accident. She is fine, not hurt, other than her neck is quite sore, but the status of her Jeep (which she just bought a few months ago) is not so fine. The accident was not her fault and the other driver was cited. Our daughter's Jeep was not driveable and had to be towed away. Fortunately, she had full coverage insurance and the other driver as well, so now it is the painful, frustrating ordeal of dealing with the insurance company.....and waiting. It is quite likely her Jeep will be totalled, as the damage was quite significant, but we shall see.
Anyway, upon her phone call to us that day, we jumped in our Jeep and drove the almost 40 miles to see her. We arrived as her Jeep was being towed away and she was standing on the side of the road. It was wonderful to see her, despite the circumstances surrounding it.
But, boy oh boy.....

Sorry no exciting adventures to report.

Super Moon

Last night was the rare occurence of what is called 'super moon'. It is when the moon appears much larger and brighter than normal. Sunset in Casa Grande is at 6:58 p.m., so we were outside and ready for the moon to pop up over the horizon. Unfortunately, there were a few clouds, as you can tell from the pictures, but it was quite spectacular.

Now, we were unable to use the new camera, because we do not have a telephoto lens for it, so we used the old Sony with a zoom on it. Huge difference in the quality of pictures, as these are quite grainy, but at least we captued the moon!

Our daughter has returned from her San Fransisco trip, so we will finally be able to see her and visit for the next several days......of course she works fulltime, but we'll figure it out. I am excited about seeing her!

Inupiat Masks

Our Inupiat Mask; it hangs on the wall in our motorhome. Memories of home I suppose you could say. A reminder of where we come from. Actually, H. was practicing with his new Nikon, so we're getting pictures of all kinds of strange things. Poor BlackJack is the primary subject, and such a good one at that!
But, as long as we're on the subject of the Inupiat people, click on the title to this post for some excellent history on them.

Inuit men in Nome, Alaska, singing, dancing.

The Inupiat 'Eskimo' are a proud people, and even today are found adhering to the same customs and traditions practiced by their ancestors.

Have a great weekend!