What We’ve Been Up To Lately

Retirement is GRAND! We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, and not feel guilty about doing just nothing at times. Since the last blog we have been enjoying life in general.

We met our good friend, Pat Gregory, a couple of weeks ago. Pat and his wife Sandie live in Brandon, Florida. He was in North Carolina visiting their RV site at the Great Outdoors RV Park in Franklin for about 10 days. Sandie stayed home because they are remodeling their kitchen and she needed to be there to make sure everything was going as planned. We met Pat at his place and then went out to eat at Lucios, which is an Italian restaurant in Franklin. It is a great place to eat. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings they have a special for two people. You get an appetizer, all you can eat salad, garlic rolls, and the two entrées for $24.95. It was all delicious and I had plenty to take back home to eat for the second day. Pat even had cocktails with chips and dip for us when we got to his rig. He was a perfect sommelier! The conversation was fun and we wished that Sandie was here to partake in the festivities. Just a side note, Pat was once MY boss when he was Principal of Mann Middle School in Brandon, Florida. As a matter of fact, he brought me from Dowdell Middle to Mann back in the day.

Jeff was asked to DJ a Cinco de Mayo event on May 5 here in the campground. We had a homeowner’s association meeting in the morning and they said we could start at noon time or whenever. We started at 1 pm and stopped at 7:15 pm.

We wish we could say there was a crowd, but there wasn’t one. The campground had a taco bar buffet which was fantastic! They even had the owner of La Cabana Mexican restaurant come with his frozen margarita machine to serve virgin drinks which were delightful. We had many requests for songs from people who were at the pool but no takers on dancers. There was a rally going on but they had scheduled a dinner out so we didn’t get that crowd. Pat joined us again and we had a great time talking. It got to the point that I was sitting there reading my book and Kozmo was sleeping while Jeff played songs. However, there was a dance contest to the Electric Slide song and I won. That was because no one else was there to dance with. Haha

We started making a list on what we wanted to buy to get our vegetable garden started and which flowers we wanted to plant. We went to Lowe’s and found a kit called “My First Garden”, which is a two foot square barrier that you put together and then put your seeds and dirt into. We bought two of them. Unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating with us the last three days. We had steady rain on Sunday and most of the afternoon on Monday has been consumed with drizzle. We hope to get it out and done on Tuesday since the rain will end tonight sometime. We are going to plant carrots, burpless cucumbers, green onions, lettuce, and summer squash. I will also grow tomatoes from a tomato plant that has already been established. Last year I started from scratch and had 50 cherry tomatoes that were absolutely delicious! So now with “My First Garden”, we just might get a salad together out of the vegetables we plant. We also bought two hanging baskets of ferns to hang out on the deck. They were a steal at Home Depot.

We have done our fair share eating out. Our favorite place right now is called Annette’s. We have eaten there for breakfast and lunch on several occasions. It is located in Dillard in the antique strip and has a very down home atmosphere. We also found the Main Street Pizza place in Dillard which makes a fantastic stromboli and  great pizza. Even though we have eaten out more than usual I still manage to fix us wonderful meals in the rig. Just this past weekend we had grilled steak with a spinach salad which was very good! Even Kozmo got some of the steak and enjoyed it.

On Saturday of this past weekend we went to Hillside Orchard Farms for their buy one get one fifty percent off deal. We bought some sweet and crunchy dill pickles, pickled beets, garlic salsa, blackberry preserves, strawberry preserves, and pumpkin honey butter. Even though it was drizzling on Saturday, the place was doing a great business. The “online store” is a great way to order items they make and sell in the actual store. Check it out!

We have a bird’s nest in one of the corners of the coach house. Jeff wanted to get rid of it but I said no. The nest is a big one for small birds. We don’t know what the birds “nationality” happens to be but they are small birds. Kozmo is mesmerized with them and just watches them as they fly very near our heads to the nest. At least, under the roofline, on a rafter, it is protected from the weather. When we go outside on the deck the “guard” makes all kind of noise until we sit down.

We are headed to Dawsonville, a little north of Atlanta, this Saturday for Jeff to DJ a wedding. It will be his first wedding. The groom’s mother happened to be at the Halloween Dance here at River Vista last October and got Jeff’s number from the campground office folks while we were in Florida and contacted him. It is going to be an outside affair at the groom’s parents’ home and they have selected a few songs for him to play and he’ll fill in the rest. We are planning on staying at a hotel for one night while we are there since the wedding starts at 4:30 and Jeff is slated to play for three hours which is his minimum amount. Thank heavens it is not a formal affair. We wouldn’t have taken the gig if it were formal-we don’t keep clothes in the rig for that.

We hope all you Moms out there had a very nice Mothers’ Day. The park managers came around on Sunday and delivered carnations to the women in the campground. That was a very nice touch!

So that’s a quick synopsis of what has gone on with us the past few weeks. We’ll try to post a little sooner next time.

Until next time….