Sunday, June 4, 2023

Hello! I'm back...

This was weird!  I wrote this post last year, it’s been a draft since then, and I forgot about it.  Then yesterday, I accidentally posted it, not realizing what I had done.  Then… I received a nice comment from Sandie and wondered what she was talking about.  So I checked out my blog, and here was the draft post from last year.  Fantastic!  I changed some of the dates and made other updates, and here we are!  Now I’m going to add some photos and re-post.

Thanks, Sandie.  I think you just started my blog going again, lol!  😁

June 4, 2023

I've been keeping up with a lot of you through your posts, and continue to be surprised that so many of you are still out on the road, full-time RVing.  I think about all my years out there pretty often, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many of you aren't ready to hang up the keys yet.

I'm thinking of publishing a book with all my blog posts, not for sale, but just to have a physical record of the great times - the places I've been, the people I've met, all the experiences I've been so fortunate to have had.  I started this blog on August 8, 2010, and the last post before today was March 26, 2019.  Eight years and 7 months.  829 published posts.  That's a lot of text and photos, and it would cost me a fortune.  

Have any of you published a book of your blog posts?  I'm curious about which companies did the best job for the best price.  Please leave any information you have in the comments below, I'd really appreciate it. 

And now - to the rest of the story...  (Thanks, Paul Harvey!)

Of course, a lot has happened since I moved to Truth or Consequences, or TorC as we locals call it.  It took me a while to start using TorC, but honestly, the whole name of this city is so long to write and type!  Expediency won out, finally. 

I've lived here now for over five years.  I moved into a local RV park in early 2018 so that I would have a legal address to use for becoming a resident of New Mexico, and then I was able to get a NM driver’s license and register The Palms in this state.  I can’t believe that was over five years ago.  Seems like yesterday.

The idea was to become a resident, and then start looking for a house to purchase.  I was ready to put down roots again; I wasn't sure about keeping The Palms or selling her, but that decision didn't need to be made until I was ready.  

I looked at a bunch of properties, a single-wide trailer (mobile home) that I loved in Elephant Butte, but I couldn't get a loan and didn't have all cash to make the purchase.  I didn’t realize banks don’t make loans on single-wide trailers.  The next place I really wanted was in TorC, in town, and again it was a trailer, but a double-wide, and so nice.  On a really nice lot.  But the title wasn't "real property," it was shown as "personal property," and I couldn't get a loan on this place either until the seller did the paperwork to change the property status.  He refused to do so.  I even offered to pay for the documents to be done, and he still wouldn't.  Obviously, he wasn't a motivated seller.  My realtor and I decided I'd only look at sticks and bricks, and I did view a few more houses.  Then, just as I was leaving town to visit my family in Lake Tahoe, my realtor called to see if I wanted to look at one more house before I left, and I said, "Sure."  And that's the house I've been living in for almost five years now.  

I really think this house and I were meant to be together!  It's so perfect for me, so solid, a perfect size, I love the area I'm in and have great neighbors.  Just outside of downtown, I'm close to everything, minutes away.  I can't believe I've been here almost five years, usually about two years into living in a house, I'm already planning my move to a new town, but this time, I haven't even thought about moving.  Anywhere.  And after buying the house, I refinanced it a couple of years later, so my interest rate and monthly mortgage payment are so low, I'll never be able to have a house payment this low again.  It was just meant to be.

I'm going to try to post updates pretty frequently along with photos.  In addition to my house, I have Charlie, of course, my great dog who will be 5 in July, and as of March 2022, we have four new additions to our little family.  Four Black Australorp chicks, who have grown into beautiful egg-laying hens.  They are a great breed; I had Australorps before when I lived in Camino, CA, on the western slope of the Sierras.  They were great hens, so I chose that breed again.  My four hens have a coop with a fenced yard, and I've also put a new X-Pen around that, so they have an enclosed coop, an inside fenced area, and an outside fenced area.  

They free-range in my backyard from morning to night, and then walk up their ramp into the coop every night at dusk, where I "put them to bed," by securing their coop door, and the doors in their inside and outside fenced areas.  You'll be hearing more about them as time goes on, for sure! Their names are Annie, Betsy, Coco and Daisy. 

I've always been a pretty quiet, shy, introverted person, I know it doesn't seem like I am, but trust me, I am.  When I moved here, into a stationary house that I couldn't drive away, I felt a little fear of letting people know where I was and what I was doing.  The nice thing about full-time RVing for all of us who are loners and love our alone-time is that we can always move on.  Meet someone who is not working out for us, and we can just start up the engine and move, especially if living off-grid.  I was so used to having that option, not that I ever really needed it, but still, it was an option, that when I settled in one place, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel having people know where I lived.  

I'm not a young woman, and every phase of my life has been wonderful; I've learned so much through the years.  I'm still learning and changing and doing new things, and having new ideas.  For some reason, I'm okay with posting about my life again, and showing my readers photos of me and my little family of loved ones with fur and feathers.  I guess I'm gaining some self-confidence in my old age!  Finally!  lol

I think I'm going to change the header to reflect this new phase of my life.  And maybe the Blog name, too.  "Me and My Dog... and our Hens?"  I'll have to work on that.  But I'll always keep the photos of the header with Katie and also The Palms somewhere on the site.   

That's enough for now, a good start.  I was going to add photos, but I'm going to think about the last five years and see if I can choose some highlights to share in the next posts, along with some photos and current things that come up.

Thanks for stopping by.  See you next time!

♥️ Barb, Charlie, Annie, Betsy, Coco and Daisy 

PS:  When I started this blog, the URL, Me and My Dog, was already taken.  I had a little design business named Dewell Designs, so I used that.  www. dewelldesigns@blogspot.com became my URL for the RVing blog.  So now, only the NAME and HEADER will change.  You won't need to do anything different to visit the updated blog posts.  Lucky, right?  😊


5 comments:

  1. Hi there!!!! I am so excited to hear from you. Welcome back. When Jim died, I hung up the rving keys but I'm still in our park in Apache Junction. I have had blog books made every year since we went on the road. I use blog2print.com. they have sales quite often and I get an email about them. So looking forward to hear more about life in TorC. Pictures of Charlie and the feathered babies please. So good to hear from you.

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  2. Happy to see that you are back to Blogland. You always wrote interesting posts. We worried you were a statistic of the Covid. Glad you are Safe.
    Looking forward to catching up on what you've been doing and maybe meeting up again.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  3. Always enjoyed your blogs, looking forward to more.

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  4. Good to see you are back to writing your blog again. Looking forward to reading it again.

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  5. Nice to see your blog is back...looking forward to your next post.

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