The Ladies at Morelias and UPS Stop at Glenda's

Liz, Rita, Peggy, Valerie and Marilynn at Morelia's in Elgin, TX
Saturday, January 30, I'm up at 7:45 a.m. to a low of 32 degrees! It is cold and windy, remaining partly cloudy all day so that it never has a chance to warm up very much. The high only get to 39. We finish the jigsaw puzzle we started yesterday first thing this morning so we can eat breakfast at the table like human beings.

I check my email around 10:00 as I realize I never even got on-line yesterday. I find an email from Elaine saying the bread lady is at the Bastrop Farmer's Market on Saturdays beginning at 9:30. I call Elaine right away and she's already down here on this cold morning, just arriving at the Farmer's Market. It's too bad I didn't see her email, Bob and I could have picked up the bread on our way to Elgin. Elaine says the lady has her delicious bread at Elgin's Farmer's Market by the Depot on Tuesdays. She says it is a slow crowd at the Bastrop location on such a chilly Saturday morning. I'm impressed that she's out and about so early.

I stretch and do my weights, then Bob and I get cleaned up. He takes Manny, Moe and Jack Frost off the wall so I can take them to Glenda's. And he brings our digital picture frame's memory stick so he can download the new Chihuly glass pictures to Glenda's frame.

Peggy shows off her new necklace to Valerie

We left at noon for Morelia's in Elgin. Valerie calls as we're on the way up Hwy 95. Liz, Peggy and her are meeting to come together and they will be about 15 minutes behind schedule. Bob and I pull up out front about 12:20 and Marilynn is right behind us. We get a table for eight. Marilynn and I go over my jewelry choices and changes. Around 12:50 Liz, Val and Peggy arrive. We have hugs all around. Liz and Val surprise me with Dunkin' Donuts French Vanilla and Starbuck's coffee. Peggy is looking great and I'm so glad she could make it. She has a sporty hat on and tells a fun story about trying to get her hubby to notice her hair growing back out. Liz says Lisa stayed home with Scout, her daughter, who just had knee surgery.

We order after our waiter's slip of the tongue when he asks "Are we ready ladies?" Bob gets up to leave. I can't say I would blame him as all of us gals get to cackling. What a great visit with my long-time pals. Liz tells a great story about the Medieval-themed birthday party she gave for Connor. HEB couldn't find her turkey legs she ordered and when they did, they didn't cook them like they agreed to. She discovered this two hours before the party. Talk about stress!

Glenda's baby quilt top

After we eat all of us gals ooh and aah over Marilynn's jewelry. She just keeps taking what seems like a hundred necklaces out of her box. Peggy finds a nice piece made of Aventurine, a form of translucent quartz, that she can't resist using her 'lunch money' for. I snap a picture as she tries it on. Bob captures all of us and all too soon we say our goodbyes.

I call Glenda before we leave to say we're heading to her place to pick up our package. She turns down my offer to bring her enchiladas, etc. As we pull up we spy our package on the porch that Glenda has covered along with her dead fern! She has a nice warm fire going inside, her sewing machine, ironing board, and her baby quilt top laid out on the floor in the den. I snap a picture of the bright yellows and greens that we worked so hard to pick out at Joann's Fabric a few weeks ago.

We have a nice visit. Bob tried to load Chihuly picture on her digital picture frame but our memory card reader won't fit in the USB port near her wireless mouse on the back of her PC. So we'll just bring our laptop next time.

At 7:30 we head home as the temperature is down to 35 degrees and we don't want our pipes to freeze. The living room is a chilly 50 degrees but all is well. It's 8:45 p.m. and 35 degrees with 65% humidity.

Morelia's and Stuffed Cabbage Stoup

Tuesday, January 26, I woke up at 7:15 on a board. The digital picture frame came on at 7:30 (Bob changed the timer to come on one hour earlier last night) so I knew what time it was when I woke up without having to hunt up my glasses.) I checked email and while sending some messages my friend Jean from Austin called about 9:00. She is having a domestic maintenance issue that came up right before her three week trip to South America so she cancels our lunch today. We'll reschedule her tour of The Titanic on our next trip through Central Texas. I'm glad we were able to get together with her before the holidays this year.

Dr. M's office calls to reschedule my 2/4 appointment. It is a day of changes. But now we have a free agenda for the day. I clean up breakfast and take a walk and stretch (On my walk I saw Marilynn's brother Jim, who lives here in the RV Park, on his bike but he kept on a peddling when I said hi.) Bob loads Chihuly glass art pictures on to the digital picture frame.

A cool front came through so it only gets to 68 today in spite of clear blue sunny skies. Bob and I head to Elgin where our first stop is lunch at Morelia's. I had to have the Bianca Tilapia. Bob has tilapia with shrimp and crab meat. Then we head on to our bank in Elgin for a payment. And finally we stop at Elgin Hardware (no longer Ace) for an outside plumbing fitting Bob needs. Back to Bastrop HEB (we like it better than Elgin's HEB) for ingredients for Rachael Ray's Stuffed Cabbage Stoup recipe that Glenda shared with us. What a great, savory recipe (Google lets us know we can substitute tarragon instead of coriander, saving us $5.79 and another big spice jar!) This makes a huge pot of stoup. The first glass of tea gets knocked over on our new living room carpet. The Scotch Guard must still be good because you can't see a trace of it.

We watch NCIS, NCIS LA, and White Collar. Bob records The Good Wife after a weird occurrence with the old VCR. It won't accept mm/dd/10 for 2010. So he puts in 01/26/99 to get a Tuesday and we can record. Who in the world and why in the world did they program it not to accept the year 2010. It takes all dates before Y2K and it took 2001 through 2009. Very strange. It's 9:25 p.m. and 56 degrees with 41% humidity. The low was 42.

Reet 'n Bob vs. Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve!

Thursday, December 24, it was hot and humid when we went to bed last night. But during the night the wind started blowing and rocking the RV. By 6:00 a.m. it was chilly. Bob got up and turned the heater on in the living room and crawled back in bed. At 6:30 I got up and it was 62 degrees out there. The sun is out and the wind is blowing out of the west. It clouds up by noon and later the wind switches out of the north. All day our main slide awning is whipped by the strong winds. I'm worried we'll lose it.

I check email and have the cutest You Tube link from Glenda:Silent Monks "Singing" the Hallelujah Chorus We laughed our fool heads off. We lounge all morning. I put on some Christmas CD's. Love the Three Tenors and I have to play Dean Martin's Holiday Favorites every year. We have pancakes for breakfast and lounge some more.

Around noon I stretch and have a shower. I left a voice message for Joyce and Dan from our old Elgin neighborhood. We're going up to Morelia's in Elgin for lunch and I wanted to see if we could stop by and say Merry Christmas around 3:00. My heart skipped a beat when I didn't get an answer but I'll just pretend they are out doing last minute shopping and everything is okay with them.

Apparently that is what the rest of Bastrop County is doing today. Around noon we brave the cold wind. The high yesterday was 74 and it has dropped steadily since early this morning to 46 by the time we leave for lunch. I'm not complaining because most of the rest of the country is buried under snow.

We stop for diesel and pay $2.69/gal at Chevron where I get the last Statesman. Just down the road we see $2.46 at Shell-Oh well. We stop in Blockbuster but can't find Boston Legal. We want to watch the entire series but no one seems to have it for rent. Then we head north on 95 to Morelia's in Elgin.

The hostess is the same gal but our waiter is new. Our entrees are even better than we remember. Bob has Chicken Conquistador and I have Shrimp Avocado. My mushroom soup is to-die-for. We don't know whether to be glad or sad that Morelia's is not in Bastrop! We cross 290 to Family Dollar to look for a jigsaw puzzle to get us through the cold weekend. But they don't have anything over 500 pieces.

On our way south on Hwy 95 we stop in Pepper's, the new RV Park Glenda and Peggy told us about. It certainly has possibilities. It is larger than we thought it would be. The sites are spacious and it looks like they have cable. That circle in the back may have some low-hanging branches but it is doable.

As we cruise through Bastrop we decide to brave Wal-Mart and look for a puzzle. It wasn't too bad except for the check-out lines. But we find a tough looking egg mosaic jigsaw with 1500 pieces so that should keep us busy.

Home to read the paper. We discover we inadvertently left the heater on in the living room which we don't like to do when we leave for that long. But secretly we were kind of glad as it is toasty in here when we return. Bob's watching a movie and I'm working on journal pages.

It was a tough decision as to whether we would make the trek to Dallas to be with my brother and his family for Christmas. We sure appreciated their invitation. But the weather was a huge factor as our furnace isn't working so we couldn't leave it on low to keep our pipes from freezing. For a while I was second-guessing our decision as it was 74 degrees yesterday. But now we're looking like geniuses. There is a freeze predicted for the next four nights here and the Big D is usually colder. Bob said he just heard there is 5 inches of snow up there somewhere. Oh well, maybe next time.

It's 6:22 p.m. and 39 degrees with 50% humidity.