Friday, September 2, 2022

It rained today and the high was 74.

I kept a tally and discovered that I spent about one hundred dollars on birdseed in August. That doesn’t include sugar for the hummingbirds. I’m considering a “Go Fund Me” account to help with my birding habit.

Ray is still itching from chigger bites, but I finally have his kitchen stuff put away.  I left some clothes and a few boxes in our bedroom for him to get to. Chances are he never will, but I’ve always been a dreamer.

Monday, September 5, 2022

Ray went outside and walked around in shorts and crocs with no bug spray yesterday morning. Seed ticks covered his feet and removing them caused us to be late for church. He hasn’t been doing much except watching TV since all his chigger bites. Matt told him, “Use the bug spray and stop going outside in your shorts and crocks to get out of working.” They crack me up.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II passed away Thursday. The news is full of reports on the royal family and Elizabeth’s remarkable life.

Ray and I went to the Shepherd of the Hills Craft Fair this weekend. It was small but fun. They have lots of unique crafts and repurposed art. Afterward, we stopped by Home Depot to exchange something. I noticed the car next to us had Missouri license plates that read “YAKOV.” Smirnoff has a theater here, so I pointed the plate out to Ray. While I waited at customer service for Ray to get our replacement item, Yakov was paying out about twelve feet from me. We were loading our car when he started down the parking lot toward us wearing a goofy blue ball cap and big sunglasses. I waved, and he waved back with a “Do I know you?” look on his face. He wasn’t nearly as friendly as the bloggers we saw at Silver Dollar City. Then he waited for us to drive away first just in case we were stalkers. I get it. You can’t be too safe these days.

Chestnutridge Baptist had the Cavalrymen quartet perform in worship today. They are worth going out of your way to see. They entertain and minister beautifully. After the concert we had lunch. Pastor Adrian said it would be a tremendous lunch. To our surprise, we ate delicious steak and shrimp! Ray said it was the best church meal he’d ever had. The older visitor sitting next to me said, “Oh, yeah, when you raise your own beef you can serve it for a lot less than chicken.”  Looking at the remaining three shrimp on my kabob as he browsed the dessert table, I said, “I wonder who raised the shrimp.” The pastor was right, it was tremendous. 

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Brandon and Rose Jordan visited for a few days and we went to the Shepherd of the Hills Drama and dinner. It’s an outdoor production of Harold Bell Wright’s bestselling novel of the same name about local history.  I’ve seen Texas and the Fandangle and I think those are better shows, but Shepherd of the Hills has more of a plot and was hard to follow at times due to several characters having the same names or nicknames. The presentation had some great costumes, set pieces, and special effects. We all enjoyed it.

The Jordans leave in the morning and Matt flies out to Ft. Worth. Ray and I will be alone until we pick up Stephanie in Oklahoma on Sunday. We plan on doing as little as possible.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Stephanie’s visiting and we went to the Classic Rock Remix show last night. The Shared Psychosis band and Lena performed lots of hits from the ’70s and ’80s. It was a little on the hard rock side. Elton John, Tom Petty, or Fleetwood Mac were not among the artists featured in this show. I knew all but three songs. Ray said he only recognized three songs. I enjoyed the music, but the band’s manager kept taking the stage trying to be funny. He wasn’t and it made the show weird and the audience felt awkward at times. This is the only Branson or Silver Dollar City show we’ve seen that hasn’t mentioned God and sung at least one spiritual song.

Ray and I attended John Conlee’s concert at Silver Dollar City Saturday night. He always puts on a great show. We’d seen him many years ago.

The heat is back on here. It will cool off about the time we head back to Texas and New Mexico later this week.

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral was today. Most of the news coverage was of the procession and her service. I don’t know what’s happened to the communicable diseases and inflation that plagued our country a few weeks ago. And Putin’s threats and war rage on.

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Ray and I took Stephanie home on Thursday and drove to Ruidoso on Friday. We haven’t been here since 2019. It feels good to be back and so far the weather has been beautiful. Today’s high is 74.

We’d planned to go to Las Cruces yesterday for their huge craft and farmer’s market held every Saturday. There’s also a huge used bookstore downtown. But we had a flat and couldn’t make it before the market closed, so we’re extending our time in New Mexico and going next weekend. After repairing the flat, we went to Cloudcroft and ate Mad Jack’s delicious barbecue. We waited in line for over an hour to eat at Jack’s.

This morning I asked Ray, “Do we have enough food here to stay in our jammies at the condo all day?” He said, “Uh, we did until I had breakfast a few minutes ago.”  So we’re going out to dinner tonight.

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

The Jeep wouldn’t start when we got ready to go out Monday night. We had it towed to the Jeep dealership Tuesday morning and rented a car. The service department scheduled it for Friday but will get to it sooner if possible. We rented a car but haven’t done much. Businesses had different hours since Covid-19 and several places we planned to visit were closed when we stopped by.

We watched 12 Mighty Orphans on TV last night. Much of the production took place in Weatherford, TX. The film about a Fort Worth football team composed of orphans was very well done and Luke Wilson’s performance was exceptional.