Well , My world has changed again

Looking back its been 4 years since I posted here, well its mostly for Me, Myself and I anyway ha ha so I am sure no one really missed me, .




I am still using the same photo of myself online ...although I am now 60 something ... Well eventually I will get around to changing that as well..


Lost of changes in the last four years, but we will kind of ignore them and continue on, the kids and grand kids are all doing OK and that's the important stuff, right? yeah it is .

Now ON to the New Stuff........We have run away from it all ( again) and gone to sea...no really ,I mean it.We bought a 27 foot sail boat we re-named Second Wind and have moved to the coast of BC Canada and we love it.. I tell you ,we thought and thought about it and decided we'd do it and set a date for Dons retirement March 31 2011, and started looking for sailboats and downsizing our stuff.

Of course our luck had to change, and the day after our boat arrived, Don was hit with an attack of vertigo we though he was having a heart attack but after lengthy testing it turns out he has MS. Well we could sell the boat and mope about while he grew weaker or forge ahead and enjoy what time we had left..you know what we did, and here we are, bouncing around in gail force winds this past week..at least we're tied to the dock at French Creek Marina.
Don is going to have the Liberation treatment in November, but that will be in another post.
By the time we arrived on the coast it was late in the Summer , but we have had some good adventures. I will let Don tell you all about them as he is starting a blog on our goings on. Mine here is just the usual chatty rambling on that I usually do ha ha.
It is now into Fall, and we did not go south this year as the Doc recommended that Don not travel to far from his Doctors or hospital care. This wasn't the idea ,we were going to be Snow birds and travel south for the colder months, but so far we still have enjoyed life on a sailboat cold weather or not. I love the morning call of the seabirds and the wind blowing , although the bouncing of the boat in weather can be a little rough, it still isn't so bad as the boat is a two step wide and there is always something to hang on to.There is a little propane heater in the boat and if we close everything up we are roasted out !! So I am sure we will do just fine and there are sweaters and jogging pants to ware and I am going to make thick socks.. using all my scraps of wool I insisted we bring ha ha well I am going to post this now and get back to the tale of Me and the Sea tomorrow ....
goodnight all ,
Wanda

Back again

Ha! I found my way back
Current mood: cheerful


Well not much news, even after being gone so long.

Besides the move I have been diagnosed with Diabetes, and have finally gone in for that cat- scan on my back, I get the results of that on Monday (finally! a year and ½ after I first went to the Doc. for unmanagable back pain) the Diabetes is not under control & although I don't have to take shots yet, I do have to take 3 different kinds of pills (plus the ones for my back) nothing but a drug store around here ha ha ha.

Well enough of that, maybe all this will help me loose that 50 pounds I've put on since leaving the work place. Which, let me tell you I MISS!

Don being back to log home building is gone lots and Sammy is never home what with school and work. That leaves just me and myself , well, and my books, AND at last my computer. Hey I finally have high speed Internet again! Yahoo!



We've had to put a lot into storage as this suite is so small, but we are comfortable and it has a nice view, all in all I am happy. I am planning on socking away a lot of money for Sammy 's college fund. And I am planning on paying her in monthly checks rather than one lump sum, ( hee hee I did learn something from the other two after all). Don is making almost triple what he did at the ranch, money makes the world go round, right?

Shawn my son has moved back to BC, although not to Merritt & they are still closer than Alberta anyway. My little granddaughter Samantha who is 2 is sure bossing him around lol, and he just laughs and says, "What can I do".

Sarah quit her job and took an evening one which gives her days at home so she doesn't need a babysitter, as Darin is home in the evenings. It seems to be working out well for them.

We kept the Dog, Spook with us and she is adjusting, slowly I admit, but Don takes her with him when he can. The horse Tucker is farmed out to the Douglas Lake ranch for the winter and the cowboys will ride him, if they like him and he works out as a cowpony they will buy him. Now what we will do with that new western show saddle we just bought Sam I am not sure, probably sell that to. Oh well more money for Sams college fund, I know from experience she'll need lots of money the first year, She has to furnish an apartment and there is the utilities etc. hopefully her friend will share expenses with her. Sam's goals have changed, she now is taking languages, French English and Spanish, and she wants to be an airline hostess for a couple of years and then go in to translating. So she will end up a city girl I guess. lol

So that's it..2 plus months of not being here and not much to say …I'm just boring, I guess.

Hope everyone is well and happy !

~Wanda

packing up and moving again

Packing up and moving again ...Loads to do, I seem to have spread out all over the ranch & I just cant get it all together. Only 1/2 a month left to do it in too. I have been packing here and there willy -nilly and never finishing any thing. So today I am starting in the basement and doing that until its done, then finish the dining room etc. Boxes I need Boxes help!! I have somehow filled 4 bookcases of books in the year I've been in this house and that's with all the library reading I have done to. No way can I get rid of them as 1/2 of them I haven't read yet. Lets hope I can get them into a box before I start to read them hee hee.
bye for now
~Wa

He did it again!

Well he did it~accepted the job with the log house builders. Without talking to me. ! The last I heard about it he had said no and that was before the wedding. I guess They sweetened the pot, to the hourly wage they offered a while back they also offered , free rent and a company truck & gas. 8 to 10 hour days 5 days a week and he can work all the overtime he wants, or none at all. He said yes!! So I guess we are leaving Ranch life and moving on to something else.
I have yet to tell Sammy, we will have to do something about her horse, find out how much it is to board it or sell it or something. She only has a year before she goes to college so its up to her. I guess she could sell it and add it to her college fund??
I am not sure how I feel, I've moved lots in the past 2 or 3 years, another move or 2 wont kill me but its sure hard to settle in someplace if you are going to move in a year or so. Well its midnight and I don't even have my glasses on so I am not sure what I am typing.. Ill draft this and finish tomorrow I guess.
Well I've had a couple of days now to let it sink in, I'm still not sure how I feel, mostly sad I think, I really liked it here, and will miss it. I guess we are not leaving the area, and maybe we can find a house outside of town somewhere so we don't have to live right down town.
I don't feel like blogging right now, I'll get back to this later

Cherries, weight gain and a history lesson , all in one post Wow!

OHhhh, so sick, I have a tummy flue. hummm I wonder if its too many cherries??..Maybe that cherry milkshake I made last night, or the cherry pie, which was sooooo good, had a few frozen cherries too. Oh yes it was the cherries!!
Today I was supposed to clean out my poor van; I haven't done it since before the wedding. What a mess! Anyway I don't feel like it right now, so here I am on the computer.
I have been watching Don and the dog do the water "thing" out the back window by my computer. What a lot of walking he does, no wonder he is so skinny (the dog is too)
I am cooking Baron of beef tonight, poor hubby needs feeding up.
My weight is not doing so good; I think I have gained another 10 pounds since the wedding, although the scale says I am the same weight. I don't know, nothing seems to fit me and I have done nothing but laze around since the wedding. Maybe I should take that trip out to Alberta and visit Shawn (my son) and the baby for a while. Maybe I am depressed about everything that’s been going on around here? I don’t know...
Hey on a different note, some one contacted me about my family tree. They are related through an out of wedlock child, I asked my Mom and she said her Uncle did have a child out of wedlock back in the early 1900's sometime. My family has a connection to Romany Gypsies from the Isle of Mann, and I think this is what she wants to know about. Ahh explaining the difference between Gypsies and the OTHERS is a hard thing, most people hear the word Gypsies and that’s that. But there is a difference...there are the Gypsies, those who were born Romany, have a long heritage and are CLEAN and although they maybe be poor, proud of who they are They care for the environment around them and clean up the area they live in. Then there are the OTHERS, people who ancestors chose to live with, or like the Gypsies, They (not all of them, but most) can be smelly, dirty and uncaring of the earth they live on. Their campgrounds are filthy and children dirty and scruffy on the most part, quick-fingered scam artists who are fast becoming social assistant bums who don’t work. Now you are thinking I am cruel and discriminating, but I am not, I just don’t want you to think my family comes from that!! Even my sister when she went back to England asked, "what is that" as they drove past an camp of them, "Gypsies" she was told, "NO they are not " My sister replied, we don't live like that. Kind of shocked her friend who had no idea she had Gypsy heritage. The Gypsies I remember lived in trailers, true, but they carried NO garbage with them, no clutter, no mess. They Used bleach, because things had to be clean. My grandmother even bleached the rope clothesline she put out to hang her washing on. Things sparkled and nothing from below the waist ever touched something from above the waist. Yes that is true...You don’t use towels, or cloths for you bath to dry your dishes, you don't wash dish towels and face towels in the same wash (something I still believe) & you don't wash your dishes in the same bowl you wash yourself in, and my grandmother, and mother had a bucket of bleach water they dropped their cups into if they weren’t going to do the dishes right away. Shoes were never put on the table or bed, Oh I could go on for ages ha ha ha.
Along time ago when my Grandma was little she can remember sitting at a Gypsy fire and watching some scruffy people coming into camp.the older women were all looking out of the corner of their eyes and making comments one of the comments was " Dik Aki" which means look there or in other words Look at that!! Nowadays, a lot of these "new Gypsies " are calling themselves " Didakias" it isn't very hard to figure out where that one came from is it ha ha ha.
Now I better quit while I am ahead, ha ha ha, if anyone who knows me reads this I'll get into big trouble...But I just wanted to state there is a difference and Gypsies and Romany’s or Romany Gypsies are two different things.
Now verbal history as told in our family says: Along time past, our family was passing through Italy, Rome in fact, And a great favor was done for the Pope of that time so a reward was given to the
Romany Gypsies,"CartBlanch" they could take what they needed to survive in their travels & day to day living. The one thing Romany’s do is travel, and they traveled from there through many countries including France & England where they thought the Popes word would still be good to.ooops that is how they got the name for thievery and robbery when the poor Romany’s were only taking a meal to survive.
Now another thing, many people say there were No Gypsy Kings and Princes. That might be right, but again in our verbal history it is stated the when we (Gypsies) arrived, there were those who rode in silks and colors and there were the masses who walked behind. That might not mean Kings and such but it did mean there was a class difference amongst them.
Well enough for today in Romany history ha ha ha.
Bye for now

Rambling on about Cherries, Superman & Gypsies

What am I to do with a fridge full of cherries. Ha Ha Ha..Well I know what to do , but who wants to do canning when the temp is getting up to around 34.. I never did pull out the stove from the motor home so its inside canning or none at all. Now a friend did tell me I could freeze them all, & that they are good eaten frozen on a hot day or after freezing them, I can can them at a later date when it is cooler.
Cloudy today so I am hoping it will not be as hot today (( Its still to hot to do any canning people!!))But it is a good day to wash the floor which has been needing it for a little while now.
Don asked for his once a year lump sum raise. He only asked for 100$ a month raise to be paid once a year, I am thinking they won't go for it..Ranching is funny that way , and they have let him know that he is one of the highest paid ranch hands around already. Which maybe true, but the bigger Ranches don't work their Men 7 days a week and more than 8 hours a day either. Ah well, this is where my Romany Gypsy heritage just might come in handy ha ha ha.. It just might be Don says "time to be moving on" I've moved a lot with him over the years, It was just the time period that I had a job in the Post Office that I couldn't go with him. I'm Retired now and Sammi is out of school in a year, and its a whole big world out there, right? ha ha ha I am not going to stress over it, although I think He ( Don ) is, he really likes it here, but is feeling like they want him to do it all and keep working each day until it is finished. They probably don't , hee hee , they have to know he is NOT Superman.
Shawn hasn't been phoning much, I hope all is going OK for him and baby Sammy. Sarah phoned yesterday and they are all doing OK.
I let Sammi stay out until midnight last night and she was ready to be picked up at 11:30,which was great, but I made the mistake of napping after 9 pm and so when we got home I was wide awake. I played around on the computer for a while then went to bed at 1 am. Was awake again at 3 am and again at 5 am , finally I got up at 7:15...And don't you know it, NOW I am tired.
so I think I am going back to bed for a nap, and tonight I'll stay up later with no naps ha ha ha.
Talking about My Gypsy heritage, I have a webpage out there that has my family names in it., and a few days ago I got a message in my Guest Book from a "maybe" relation.. Someone who is related to my Grandmothers brother. She lives in England..I am looking forwards to talking to them more now, and it has gotten me interested in genealogy again.. (( that last was an awkward sentence if I ever saw one , but oh well you get the meaning))
Well time for my nap, better go now before Don comes in for breakfast at 10 am.

Running air through your fingers

Its that time of year again, yup Tourist season. The Merritt Mountain Music Fest is a little more than a week away and people are already in town so they can get a good campsite up there on the festival Grounds.
You can tell the tourists as you drive along, Most likely they are wearing some type of colored (pink ) or sparkling cowboy hats and /or they have their hand out side the car window playing with the air as they drive by. It looks like they are waving at you, ((And sometimes I wave back just because I can ha ha ha)). They move there fingers like they are doing hand exercises and wave there arm up and down from the elbow, kind of a lazy , flowing motion that lets the dry hot air flow over their hands and through their fingers. How do I know this, well, I hate to admit it ,but, way back when, I was a tourist to the area to!!! And YUP you guessed it I got great enjoyment from feeling the strangeness of the dry , silken air rushing through and around my hand here in the Thompson, Okanagan Area. Still it brings a smile to my face when I see it, and the thought "tourist" passes through my mind. I love tourist season, everyone is so friendly and happy when on holiday (( well most everyone, there are those few that nothing seems to make them happy )) Anyway I try to be as friendly as I can back when I am in town, but I have to admit that the week of music fest I STAY HOME!! Way to many people for me ha ha ha. This year with Sammi working at Wal Mart, I will have to brave the crowds driving in our small town. This is a scary thought as last year forgetting that it was Music Fest I went downtown, well I headed that way, I got to the main road going through out small town and cars were lined up in all 4 directions. I was in the left hand turn lane , and thank God we have a light now for that, and I had waited about 4 or 5 lights to finally get to be first in line. While waiting for the light to change the people directly across from me missed a light, why I don't know but he didn't move and the person behind him got out of his car and dragged that other driver out of there car and a fist fight started , right there in the middle of the intersection. Dammed if I was going to miss my light and get beaten up also, so I turned went around them and proceeded to go home with out stopping in town. One more thing as I turned the corner about 3 cars back on the road I was turning onto was a cop car, he was just sitting waiting, weather he knew and didn't care about the fight or hadn't seen it I don't know, Although how he could miss it makes me wonder what was occupying his attention as they were stopping traffic by that time, Ahhh the joys of the "Old West".