Catching Up – Lightning Round

I’ve been quite busy lately, so in an effort to catch up here a bit, I will just play a little lightning round question and answer game.

Question:  “What has kept you so busy lately?”

Answer:  Helping my oldest nephew get my sister and brother-in-law (his mother and father) moved to a new mobile home on his property.. and a very nice one at that.  Let’s just say we have all learned *a lot* about mobile homes over the past few weeks!  Interesting stuff, and I’m glad to know a lot more about them now.

Question:  “Why the rush to move them?”

Answer:  My brother-in-law was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a few months ago, and my sister’s health (both physical and mental) continues to decline, not improve.  She has fallen twice recently and broke her elbow and a toe.  Neither of them can adequately care for the other now, it seems, and moving them to a home on their oldest son’s farm will make it easier for him and his large family to care for them when needed.

My nephew and his family are going to earn lots of gold stars in their Heavenly crowns for taking this responsibility on, too.  I’ve been trying to help where I can to make this happen as quickly as possible because it’s been a huge task, and other family members aren’t helping much, if at all.

Question:  “Have you been anywhere in the RV lately?”

Yes, we went on a great little five day trip to Lake Mineral Wells State Park (Prairies and Lakes region) and Fort Richardson State Park (Panhandle-Plains region) a couple of weeks ago to use Hubby’s last three vacation days before they expired the first week of March.  It was our first time to visit these two state parks, and we really liked both of them and the lovely RV sites.

Fort Richardson was a nice surprise and nicer than we thought it would be, too.  The fort site itself was so interesting to see, and our campsite sat right on a little spring-fed creek that was just delightful.  The spring was only about 50 yards upstream, so the water was crystal clear.

This was a bit of a landmark trip for us.  By finally visiting Fort Richardson State Park, we’ve now visited every state park in the Panhandle-Plains region except one, Possum Kingdom, since we started traveling by RV 5 1/2 years ago.  When you look at how large this region is geographically, I think that’s a decent milestone because we only vacation by RV.  (We probably won’t go to Possum Kingdom anytime soon, unfortunately, because a terrible fire struck there a few years ago, but maybe we can just make a day visit there to sometime to check it off our list.)

Of course, we’ve visited other parks outside the region, including state parks in the Big Bend region, the Hill Country region and the Prairies and Lakes region.  But, it’s great that we’ve finally made it to all the parks in our home region now that we want to see at this time.  Lake Mineral Wells is in the Prairies and Lakes Region, and we certainly enjoyed our beautiful lakeside campsite.  Hubby also caught a catfish but threw it back.  I enjoyed just sitting by the lake while he fished, and the dogs joined us lakeside a few times, too.

We both needed a nice, relaxing trip, and this whole trip was great for us for that very reason.

 

What a great, lakefront site we had at Lake Mineral Wells State Park!

 

Some day, we hope to actually visit every state park in Texas, so this is a good start for now.

Question:  “How’s the weather been lately?”

Pretty good, nice actually, except for two wild and windy West Texas dust storms that were just hideous.  We had to come home early from our stay at Lake Mineral Wells State Park to avoid driving the next day in one of those two wind storms, too.  When the weather alert mentions “Flaming Tumbleweeds” in the forecast, it’s best to just avoid traveling in a high profile vehicle, I think!

Question:  “Have you been doing anything else?”

Yes, cleaning out *that* closet in the back bedroom.  I got interrupted in the middle of that big project to help move my sister, so everything is just a disaster back there right now.  Ugh.

Question:  “Anything else of interest you want to share before you get back to your urgent tasks?”

Yes, one more thing.  Since my sister is downsizing her home, I worked a trade with her.  I bought them a new bed set for their new home in exchange for all of china and crystal she had from both of our grandmothers.  If I didn’t do that, she was going to sell it off to strangers, and I couldn’t bear the thought of her doing that.  I absolutely did not need any of this, but I wanted to keep it in the family.

I now have FIVE SETS OF CHINA.  Five of them.  Cinco conjuntos de.  My husband just rolled his eyes when I shared this tidbit with him.  Bless his heart.  But when I get *that* closet cleaned out, we will have plenty of room to store all of them for awhile.  At some point, I will have to decide who gets what between immediate and extended family members, but not anytime soon.

I also have a set of Christmas dishes, too… in addition to the four smaller sets of dishes we use regularly.  And what about a few of those interesting depression glass pieces?  Lead crystal bowls?  (Thankfully, I only have one little set of cute Corelle dishes in the RV.)

I may or may not have a dish problem.

I may need to even write a post soon with photos of all the dishes in my life, as well as the crystal sets, three nice sets of stainless and one very nice set of silver.  Oh yes, I have silver service pieces, too, all pieces that belonged to family members, and I’m determined to make sure they all stay with family members that will not sell them off, if possible. And speaking of those silver pieces, it’s time for a good polish.

Yes, as one dear friend put it, I am now the family museum.  I know these treasures will only be mine for a little while, so I will enjoy them while I can and do my best to keep them safe in the process.  They are just stuff, but they all bring such special memories with them, and that’s what is most important to me.

That’s it for today’s lightning round!  It’s time to get busy again on this Monday when the wind is supposed to once again roar with flaming tumbleweeds!

Ugh.