A Couple of Country Days....

Our cats live such full and rich lives!

Life at home in the city, life at the Bells and then life in the country!

They seldom get a chance to be bored because we keep going from one place to another.

We go home on Sunday and then it won't be long before they go back to the Bells for a visit while Louis Dean and I go to Mountain View, Arkansas for Louis Dean's long  awaited 'Bucket List' trip to his #1 favorite vacation spot! He and his family used to spend every summer for several years at the Ozark Folk Center and Campground. He and I have been there together a couple of times in our 17 years of marriage and now it's time for us to go again.

Sweet Tabitha! She's the feisty one who usually tries to escape - but not so much lately.

Maybe she's growing up.

The other night I was trying to get Samantha to take her inside the camper for the night.

Louis Dean was already in bed and I don't like leaving them out in the front room unless we leave the camper door open - and since it's still AC weather - I grabbed for her right there where Tabitha is sitting - and she resisted and pushed herself through the window knocking the screen off and escaping!

It didn't take me long to get her - she seemed bewildered by the plowed dirt she was in.

We went to bed happy as we could be on Wednesday night.

There had been a problem with the camper AC condensation thing and the camper ceiling was bulging with water and there was a steady rain from the corner of the air filter. However! Dean had come down pronto and he thought and we thought he fixed it.

So I woke up all happy Thursday morning with a phone call from my Brother Buster in Kansas City.

We had the nicest phone visit.

While we did not grow up together and only just met in the spring of 2021.....

I just rejoice in the fact that we share some of the same routines in our lives.

As in the mornings  - he called me as he was opening his windows and doors to the morning and turning on his music to welcome the day. I could hear him puttering around in the kitchen making a breakfast of Quick Oats and strawberries.

 I love how similar our morning routines are.

I get up and put on my coffee (Louis Dean makes his own in a little alcove he created in his music room from a corner of a closet) and turn on all my 'thousand points of light' - my fairy lights. I turn on my stereo with five of my chosen CDs and light a candle or two just to celebrate a new day.

Usually, I take my first cup of coffee outside to sit with the Lord for a few minutes before starting my Bible reading and prayer time.

I sent a text to my Sister Rita after the phone call to my brother just to say how happy I am to know she is my sister. God has been so good to me in revealing my father's name and meeting my Kansas City Sibs! Nita and Mike were instrumental in making that happen and I am so very thankful they were able to meet and visit and get to know our precious Nita. I won't linger here because I am starting to cry but I am so very thankful for the years I had my sister here on earth. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

After all my happy time with Buster and Rita - I got up to go make coffee in the front room - and the living room area of the camper was soaked!!! I had a great big salad bowl under where it was leaking just as a precaution since it wasn't dripping when we went to bed.

That huge bowl was overflowing like a water fountain!!!

Enter Son Dean to the rescue AGAIN!

This time he really DID fix it and it will stay fixed now.

Once we leave to go home, he will do the last few things to make this fix permanent.

In the meantime, I sucked up a LOT of water and put the fans on to dry it thoroughly. 

Louis Dean Thursday doing what he loves to do - run his tiller!

He's making a firepit like we had in New Mexico at the mountain cabin.

Note he dug up one only for me to tell him that the crepe myrtle was too close and he needed to dig further over! And so he did.

We ate lunch out on the deck - a Taco Salad.

Easy meals are the order of the day this trip.

I spent some time finishing up chapter 26 in my book - some 2,546 words in all.

And then I could not FIND that chapter to email it to myself.

It was there on the OneDrive but I wanted it 'in my hand' so to speak.

I finally saved a copy to Word docs and emailed it.

If I were to lose this book, I could never write it again.

Once I finish it, I'm thinking of posting a chapter at a time here on the blog.

I'll turn the whole thing over to Amber and see about it being published after that.

You won't get the 'clean version' but at least I will have it out there for you to read.

Anyway - after avoiding a complete meltdown - Sherry came up and asked if I was ready to go on the four-wheeler! Was I EVER!!!

We had SO much fun!!! What a blessed relief to laugh and scream and yell as we went all around their 50 acres at a great speed!!! Through mud and water and over small tress and up and down the banks of the tank and over the property!

It was my very first time ever to go mudding!!!

We did, indeed, get a little mud on the tires!

The Golden Hour on Thursday night was truly golden!

At long last I sat down and painted for an hour or more.

This Friday morning I woke up and checked the camper for water!

DRY!!!

Louis Dean and I did our normal morning routine but breakfast ended up as lunch since he slept so late,

which wasn't a bad thing in that he slept so well!

I went back to my art table and had a really good session.

I took lots of breaks to read, play Words With Friends, text friends and family, and do some food prepping for tomorrow. We four - Sherry, Dean, Louis Dean and I - will meet Roy and Ruth Ann in Hamilton, Texas which is the halfway point between the country and where they live.

I made pepper poppers, cut up a watermelon and have chips and salsa to take.

I worked mainly on the right hand side of this very large canvas.

Next session I will paint in the big tree on the left and work on the road.

Far from finished but I'm happy with my progress.

Next I based in a fun Christmas painting that I am SO wanting to show but am trying to keep it a secret as it will be a Christmas present.

I'm not good at keeping secrets!

Well, I can keep actual secrets.....but maybe I should say I am not good at keeping surprises a surprise!