Snapshots of Our Weekend!

I'm so glad we were able to spend the last weekend of July in the country!

We have not worked nearly as hard as we did when we were here for most of the month of June.

Still, we've accomplished a lot......

Louis Dean finished putting the last of the tin on the roof.

I made regular visits to the the critters here.

The meadow is one of my most favorite places here on the ranch.

It was lush and green in June. I still love it in July!

My best memory here was one April when the entire meadow covered with colorful tents!

Dean had hosted a Karate Camp and I bet the kids that were here then are still talking about it now!

We ate well over the weekend!

Louis Dean's special is homemade hamburgers!

It's like we are still camping out in our added room.

There's many open places so it's not a closed in area just yet.

This morning (Sunday) Louis Dean did the honors and cooked up a hearty breakfast!

Served at noon!

We eat lots of farm fresh eggs while we are here!

Thank you, Dean and Sherry!

This gorgeous peacock and his family are getting a bigger better pen!

Dean and Sherry have been working on it this weekend and it will be all finished long before our next visit here. The new pen will be 12 feet high in one area, thus allowing them to fly some and perch high! Sherry gifted me with four beautiful peacock feathers to take home to the quads.

They do love their Aunt Sherry and I will tell them they are gifts from her!

The little tank is drying up day by day.

All but 5 of these ducks were babies back in the spring.

They seldom venture up to the BIG tank......but they may have new motivation when there's no water in this one.

THIS is the big tank and it has lots of water!

I rode my bike around this evening saying my farewells to the critters and the special places I love.

My heart is so grateful to Dean and Sherry for their generous hospitality in sharing this place with us.

I was 9 years old when our Aunt Viola took us to Harper, Texas. Lanita. Lloydine and Lonnie and I were so excited to be going to the country! Mother kept Luann at home with her and she was expecting twins in August. Luann would be a year old in August so she was too young to come with us. Aunt Viola's friend, Fritz, lived in an old farmhouse and she had to sweep the spiders and cobwebs down with a broom before making our beds. There was a barn and chickens and roosters and horses and hay. I loved hay. I loved the way it looked and smelled. I loved being in the country.

It was good of Aunt Viola to take 4 kids ranging in age from 9 to 3 years of age.

At that time in our lives, we were so devastated by the changes that had come about during the last year - this country experience was just what we needed to reconnect with life on a bigger and safer scale.

Aunt Viola was a nurse with limited finances so we ate oatmeal two times a day.

No matter. We were in the country and we explored instead of survived and were able to be children again. I will never forget that time and am so thankful to have come full circle BACK to the country.

I'll soon be 69 but I know that God does, indeed, give us the desires of our heart! 

Sometimes it takes awhile.

While Louis Dean accomplished a lot - so did I.

I painted the front exterior and called it DONE!

LD will still have to finish it up and trim out the windows and such.

Still, it looks good to me!

I spruced up the camper inside today.

Since it will be September when we return, I put out the fall things I bought at a Goodwill  down here a few months back. It was one of those Goodwills where you pay by the pound! Win! WIN!!

My favorite spot in the camper.

Can you spy the pumpkin?

I know! It's crowded and cluttered.

Not every one's cup of tea but it works for me.

I see it all as 'comfort!'

Louis Dean had two bar stools for many years before we married.

I finally got around to sanding them and he painted one stool top blue and the other one red.

I used a broomstick skirt (formerly used as a curtain) for a skirting. I cut off a strip at the bottom because it was too long and used that as a tie with a bow.

This is the other bar stool.

Candie gave me some of her mom's denim skirts and I simply stapled this one to the legs.

I used the extra fabric from the other skirt as a sash and threaded it through the denim loops.

The good thing it - I didn't violate the integrity of the skirt and can whip it off and wear it if and when I so have a mind! In the mean time - I will think of my friend, Candie, every day I see this!

Thank you, Candie! I love the clothes you gifted me and I am WEARING most of them!!!

This is the camper from the pantry to the front.

The brown curtain closes off the bedroom.

And THIS is from the brown curtain to the back.

The accordion door closes off the bunk area and the bathroom.

Louis Dean's favorite spot!

I straighten the covers a few times every single day.

This sofa has HAD IT!!!

I wish we could replace it but I don't know how.

So - I double up the cushion where the springs are sprung and cover the wear and tear with denim - both red and blue.

Love and creativity can cover a multitude of everything from sin to simply ugly!

Another accomplishment of mine was more decoupage!

This is on the bathroom wall - the shower wall.

I have two more to fill with the calendar pages I love and have saved.

It's a good thing we don't USE the shower or the tub!

This is where I put my clothes!  I pack a big bag and plunk it down in the tub and use it from there!

I have a bag hung from the shower head holding plastic bags and a closet caddy filled with washcloths, headbands, medicines and such.

Amber suggested I put up a clothes rod and actually turn this into a closet!

Great idea! I told her that the obvious totally escapes me - sometimes!

So here I am.....thinking I might need therapy because I am decoupaging shower walls when I realize - this IS therapy!!!

I'm going home tomorrow and I am happy about that. Really, I am.

My calendar is already filled every day - more or less - for every single week of the month of August.

I have so much to look forward to!

Sometimes I have a hard time believing how wonderful it is that God has gifted me with TWO worlds! A country world and a city world.

Family lives in both!

So do I - thanks be to God!