Jerry Brown, blog ads, and weight gain : (

WELCOME to Cindi and Stumpy at RVly Every After!  Thanks for following along with Katie and me. I love your puppy photos, and am enjoying your new blog - especially your blogs about the RVs you're thinking about.  Maybe the same Small Class C type I'm going to be looking for.  Good luck to both of us - hope to see you both down the road. 

WELCOME to Wil Mosher - our new Follower!  Thanks for joining us, Will.  I hope you enjoy reading along as we prepare to sell everything this year, and hopefully purchase an RV to full-time in early 2012.  If you have a blog, let me know so I can follow along with you, too!

WELCOME also to the GYPSY G-MAS, Life on the Road!  I've followed your blog from the beginning and have always looked for your posts to pop up on my Blog List (no pressure!).  I really enjoy reading about your adventures.  I hope we meet up on the road some day; we can exchange "tree through the roof" stories. : )

We have a new Governor, Mr. Jerry Brown, in California.  I didn't vote for him, but have to admit I liked him the first time around, and have high hopes that he will do his best to fix all the problems in California.  I think that's how it should be:  no matter who you vote for or support, when the election is over, stand behind the winner.  I think we'd all benefit from that.  Especially at the national level.

  Governor and Mrs. Jerry Brown
39th Governor of California

Speaking of Jerry Brown, who ran against Meg Whitman, I did find out what happened to my Ad-Sense ads, and I think I know why I was dumped.  A reader who doesn't like Meg Whitman saw her ad on my blog and multiple clicked it a bunch of times, which was apparently picked up by Ad-Sense who investigated and canceled my account FOREVER.  Apparently if you are canceled due to invalid ad clicking, you can NEVER have an Ad-Sense account again.  That doesn't seem fair.  I didn't do anything wrong, and I am the one penalized.

I know that this person, who feels awful about the account being canceled, also made purchases by clicking on ads on my blog, and was just exercising a political opinion against Meg, who I actually supported.  This reader had no idea what the result of her clicking would be.  I was surprised to see a political ad on my blog, Meg Whitman was the only politician I saw advertising, but I guess she had so much money she was appearing everywhere.  Little good it did her, or me.

After seeing Tioga George's Income/Expense sheet, and seeing how much you can actually earn through blog ads, I may do some research to see if I can place ads another way. I know they can be a nuisance for my readers and apologize in advance if I do find a way.  I'd never earn what George earns, he has a HUGE following, but any extra income would be a help next year when I'm living on Social Security and probably little else. I just ignore the ads on blogs, unless it's for something of interest, then I do click. We'll see...

On that depressing note, I'll add another.  In 2010 I gained 8 pounds.  Ouch!  There was some discussion in the office today about weight gain last year.  There were four of us there, and we all gained from 8 to 20 pounds.  I know the fifth person in the next office, who remained silent on the subject, gained 15 pounds in the last months of 2010.  So, 5 for 5.  I sure hope 2011 is a year of better self control, less candy, and more exercising for me.

When Katie and I gained some weight three years ago, I put us both on a better eating plan, and we were walking a lot.  I lost my 20 pounds and she lost her 3 pounds.  Well, Katie is still thin and energetic and I'm not.  She gets two treats a day, maybe that would work for me?

Kind of a mish-mash blog today.  But, as I seem to be saying a lot lately, "It is what it is."

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Monday evening, everyone! : )

January 1, 2011

1-1-11.  It's a new year, and I wanted to start out right and post on the first day of 2011.

I've been off work since Thursday, with family visiting from Vacaville and celebrating our whole family Christmas at my son's house on Thursday.

My daughter Kristy and her husband Matt, and kids Andrew and Lauren arrived Wednesday evening.  I don't how I'm ever going to keep track of what day it is when I'm retired.  I'm having a problem remembering what we did and which day while the kids were here.  : )

Kristy's family stayed with me, but we all met at Tom and Trish's house since it's a large home and had lots of room for meals, opening more gifts, the kids had lots of room to play, etc.

 Tom making the Eggs Benedict - a family specialty

The eggs were PERFECT, and the bacon crisp!

We had Eggs Benedict for breakfast at Tom and Trish's one morning - delicious!  Tom is a great cook and did most of the meal cooking, with everyone else helping out when needed.

Afterward we opened more presents and got lots of great photos for the scrapbooks.  The kids played and had a great time together.

Thursday evening everyone except me and my youngest granddaughter, Lauren, went to the Holiday Bowl. Lauren and I had a "girls night." I got some great one-on-one time with Lauren, but didn't spend a lot of quality time individually with the other grandkids.  They were so happy to see each other, the adults faded into the background the whole visit.  But I did get the next best thing, watching them all having fun and enjoying each other.  Lots of running, lots of playing, lots of noise, lots of fun.  I got lots of good photos of Lauren, here are a few:

Lauren, 3, loves to cook. We made chocolate pudding.

Lauren did her puzzle "all by herself!"

I love this photo. Lauren looks great in hats.

We had Christmas and everyone got lots of great presents.  I don't get all the grandchildren together very much during the year, so I lined them up and snapped.  They are so good about it:

They are such good "posers" except for Graydin - maybe next year : )

Another group shot.

Andrew, Kennedy, Lauren, Gavin, Graydin

Before opening presents.

Both boys like Star Wars - they loved this book.

Graydin loved his new chair!

Even Katie loves her new sweater.

Friday we all again met up at Tom and Trish's house. We ate Chili Reano, Chicken Enchiladas,  a huge salad that friends brought, beans and rice. Home made guac and sour cream - it was delicious.  Pies, boxes of See's Candies, and my home-made fudge completed the dinner.  Another great meal at Tom's house.  

We had an East Coast New Years with Champagne and Sparkling Cider, and a bit after 9:00 I drove home, followed by Kristy and her family.  They were up and on the road by 6:00 am this morning.

Katie and I pretty much took it easy all day today. The house is so quiet with everyone gone.  

We had a wonderful couple of weeks of holidays with family, and now I'm looking forward to 2011.  I wonder what it will bring.  Lots of good things for everyone, I hope.

(This is the year we're buying our first RV!)

So, on the first day of 2011, Me and My Dog, Katie wish you all a Happy New Year!  : )

Hallelujah, it's Christmas Day

Hallelujah - The Canadian Tenors

 I love this song by these guys! 

The tempo seems a bit slow,  but this is the best version I could get on YouTube.

Thank you all for the nice (and funny) comments about Katie in her Christmas Reindeer outfit - She DOES look like a deer in the headlights - that was a good one!  Exactly what she looks like.  And I'm SURE she was thinking, "Hurry up with the damn picture and get me out of these things!"  She is such a good sport.  She looks kind of scared, but she was really okay with it.  I have written before that, although I think she is a really good dog and I love her madly, she doesn't get cute expressions on her face like a lot of dogs do.  But once in a while...  like in the reindeer stuff, she actually has an expression!  LOL  (Even if she looks miserable.)

Katie had a fantastic Christmas with Tom and Trish and the kids.  The baby Graydin, who is going to be two in April, LOVES her and loves to chase her. At their house, which is huge, he chases her around and around the downstairs, which Katie loves, and Graydin just giggles and keeps running.  The only problem at my place, which is about 1,100 sf including the small kitchen, two bedrooms, a dressing room, and two baths, which leaves a very small living/dining room, is that HERE, Graydin can catch her!  At first he tried to kick and hit her, he is very aggressive, but it didn't take long for him to learn that he needed to be nice and gentle with Katie, and by the end of the day he was playing ball with her.  So cute!

Every one liked their presents, the turkey dinner turned out great, and we all took a walk down to the lake to feed the ducks. After dinner and presents everyone settled down to watch a Christmas movie, during which Gavin, six, and I found some peace and quiet in my room and I read him a dinosaur pop-up book that I got him.  It's a beautiful book with very intricate dinosaurs that pop up on each page, with 4 to six little booklets with little pop-ups on each page, too.  Wonderfully done and he loved it.  Hard to pronounce those dinosaur names, though.  They were spelled phonetically also, but were still hard to pronounce.

  Trish and Tom at dinner

 Kennedy, Me and Gavin (recognize the antlers and scarf?)

 Graydin wearing his sister's Uggs - Katie with her ball

And everyone loved the Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes!

With all the rain we've had, I noticed a leak in my bedroom yesterday.  I e-mailed the home owner's association and got the go ahead to contact the man they use for leaks, so I sent him an e-mail to call me.  I couldn't believe I got a phone call this morning at 8:30 am, and he was here at 9:30 to check it out, on Christmas!  He said there's a two day window to check it out because of the mold possibilities.

We've had some real issues here, because for at least 15 years our absolutely, positively, awful board that was representing us for 15 years (we have a new one now) did absolutelly positively nothing in the area of maintenance to our condos. We're just all learning that not only did they do pretty much nothing, when the did any maintenance or repairs they used "bandaids" and the wrong kind of bandaids.  Nothing was done correctly, and now the current owners are paying, and are going to be REALLY paying soon for all those years of deferred maintenance.  Our entire roofing system is bad, was done wrong.  Roofer went bankrupt, and the current HOA board can't even find the paperwork.

So, what I found out this morning is that the poorly done roof and gutter system on my condo is gushing water that's getting into my walls, under the concrete that my place is built on, it's all wet, my carpet is wet underneath, etc.  Part of my living room underflooring has shifted.  I, along with others in my model, will probably have walls taken down and re-built, the underflooring redone, etc.  Some are already in progress.

The only good part is that I may get a new carpet in the bedroom and a new sliding door in the living room.  But you can bet we are all going to get a huge assessment in the next month or two.  There goes my RV fund!

From Me and Katie, Merry Christmas evening, everyone!  Hope your holiday was the BEST!  : )

Merry Christmas to All!

A big WELCOME to our new Follower, Laurel King.  Laurel, I don't see a blog listed for you, if you have one (or start one) leave me a message so I can also follow you. : )  I hope you enjoy following along with us on our adventure to full-timing. 

I haven't been posting regularly lately, but have been keeping up with you.  I have a couple of photos to show you.  Finally, on my way home from work yesterday, I saw the surfer sculpture with clothes.  But check this out - kind of disappointing.  A torn tee-shirt?  I'm not sure what it is.

I don't know what it means, but he was also in the news tonight, so I Googled and found this most recent offering - he's being attacked by a spider.  Not very Christmasy.

 Cardiff Kook - December 12, 2010

I love the photos you all get of lots of birds on the overhead wires, and on the same trip home I was stopped at a light and looked up and:

I got one!  I love these photos!

The last thing is...  I'm cooking the turkey tomorrow for my son and his family.  I've been very busy all week shopping, wrapping last minute gifts, picking up the last of the food I needed, cleaning, etc.  I love making turkey and dressing and gravy, but it seems like just when things are really busy in the kitchen, the MASHED POTATOES need to be mashed.  And I have a small galley kitchen.  So I looked on line for a make ahead recipe for the potatoes and found one that looked good.  I tried it out tonight so that I could just pop it in the oven tomorrow.  There was extra after I filled the casserole dish, so I had some for MY dinner tonight. 

All I can say is:  DELICIOUS!  Really good.  I minced the onion up really small and it added such flavor to the potatoes!  I didn't do the garlic, but may in the future.  I hope the kids like them, because I made a LOT!

I don't know how many pounds I used - I just used five large russets, with the peels off.  Here's the recipe - if you are interested in it, click and it will be clearer:

 Now I'm going to relax and enjoy my evening, because tomorrow's going to be early and busy!

 Is this the strangest looking Reindeer you've ever seen?

 

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a Very Merry Christmas, everyone!  : )

The Magic Carpet Ride in Cardiff, CA

On my way home from work I can take the freeway - "the 5," as it's called - which I usually do, but if there is a lot of traffic, I take the turnoff to the ocean and drive up Highway 101 - the coast route.  Then I pass by a sculpture in Cardiff that has an interesting story.

Per the North County Times, "The surfing sculpture has had a bumpy ride.  "The Magic Carpet Ride" was unveiled in Cardiff in July 2007.  Unofficially, locals dubbed it the "Cardiff Kook," criticizing the surfer's stance of a novice." 

This is the sculpture:

The Magic Carpet Ride, July 2007

People have been surreptitiously decorating it since then, and every so often a photo appears in the paper, such as:

Snorkel goggles, a bonnet, women's underwear, and an umbrella in August 2008

 This was Easter weekend April 2009

 Fourth of July 2009

 "Jaws" July 2010

The shark had a stealthy start. Papier-mache fins were spotted across the highway prior to the "attack" and the fins had moved closer to the well-known statue over the course of a week.You can barely make out two gray fins on the ground in front of the "shark."

 Clown with balloons - August 2010

Zorro - September 2010

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - October 2010

There are more, but you get the idea.  I drive by the statue a couple of times a week, but I have never seen one of the costumes.  At least, not yet...   : )  It's kind of a fun thing - of course, the sculptor is insulted.  He doesn't like people making fun of his sculpture. 

I saw the surfer statue when I took the coast route this morning - traffic on the freeway was awful with the rain - well, kind of rain.  Really just drizzle on and off.  Clogging the freeway.  What would San Diego do if it snowed?  We couldn't cope.  Coming from the Sierras where it snows in the winter and people just go about their business, it's absolutely amazing to me that a little drizzle almost doubles my commute sometimes, but it does. 

That's all I've got for today - a little bit of local history.

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  : )