Monthly Archives: May 2017

05.27.17
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What I’m thinking

Tonight I watched the Billboard Music Awards on Demand.  I must say that if you heard all the hype about the Xfinity voice remote, I’m here to tell you.  Yes….it’s as good as the hype!

  • I’m starting to listen to Country Music again.  It’s really only a little bit Country now but there is a little bit of redeeming Country performances left.  BTW I like Florida Georgia line and John Legend brought it all together for me!
  • I like the A symmetrical dresses aka one shoulder on and one shoulder off.
  • Celine Dion has a set of pipes and I get shivers when she belts it out but her pronunciation accent with certain words quite frankly distracts me
  • CHER….OMG what is there to say about Cher….Cher is amazing…71 years old and other than less moving and a few out of breath moments, she put on a spectacular performance.  It made me nostalgic….and a little depressed that we are all aging so fast!
  • I’m very disgusted and pissed off that Dirty Dancing is being remade.  It’s way, way, way too soon.  I never want to forget Jennifer and Patrick….they are the real and only Baby and Johnny!
  • If I could go back, I would do 35 to 45 years old again.  It was a golden age for me.

Until next time……

05.24.17
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Last day at Lake Jacomo

Dear Diary

Finally quit sprinkling in the afternoon.  Jax spent the night with us and was up bright and cheerful for his full day of camping.  He got to spend some time before the rain with Papa in the campground park.  Slides got another full wipe down with towels meaning Gma has some laundry to do when we get home.

Visited the 


Hooved animals today.  bisom were more than willing to eat the carrots and apples we provided but the elk missed out.  Jax got a kick out of feeding them and attempting to throw the apples over the high fence.


He took an afternoon nap in his own bed, then Brought his mom, dad and little brother to the campground for supper and a campfire with s’mores although he sees no necessity in toasting the marshmallows.

The set up of Lake Jacomo, the campground and Fleming Park is perfect.  I will assume the area is very busy in the summer.  We will be back!

Home in the morning for some R&R!

Until next time….

05.23.17
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Lake Jacomo Day 3

Visited the 1855 town today.  Worth the wait.  The chickens were in a fenced area but the sheep just roamed the town…pretty much wherever we were, they would be also.  It was really special…he and I were the only tourists…it was a Tuesday early in the season so it was Incredibly pleasant…I was able to put myself there in 1855 and could just imagine little kids running around the street with hair braids flying and barking dogs and hard working mothers and fathers.  The most enjoyable place for me was the tavern and travelers stop.  This was taken of one of the two rooms upstairs…one for men  and one for women ….travelers could stop for a hot meal, a bath and overnight stay.  If the Inn was full, strangers would sleep in the same bed and use the wood commode in the same room.  Check out the bath tub between the beds.


We hit a local restaurant for lunch…splurged on pecan pie for dessert.  Just something we don’t do anymore.  the meal was good home cooking not your typical fast food sit down like Perkins or Panera!  

Picked up Jax this afternoon for a camping experience.  He is such a blessing!  

Until next time….

05.22.17
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Lake Jacomo on Monday

Dear Diary

Pretty discouraging chance of rain today but really only had a couple of mild showers and it moved on…the sun would come out then back to clouds and dark sky.  About 9p we started the heaviest rain of the day and I had to leave the bonfire.  My sprinkle and rain look.


We tried to visit the 1855 town that is incorporated into the Lake Jacomo/Fleming Park but it is closed on Monday…just like hair salons and a lot of mom/pop restaurants.  Did drive thru the wildlife area to see the buffalo but didn’t get out of the car…didn’t have carrots or apples and didn’t have Jax with us.  That will be Tues or Wed.  We did find a sailboat cove with lots of sailboats and an unbelievably nice shelter house….we enjoyed the solitude and the peacefulness of the moored sailboats gently floating on the water.

He took a hike into,the woods and I sat outside and read this afternoon…peace.


My camping jacket.  bought it at Bennett Spring in 2000 and campfire pops burned holes in it a month later.  Seldom wash it and will never get rid of it!


I know….I’m a prize when I’m camping 😉

That’s all today…..

05.21.17
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Lake Jacomo

IMG_4018A really nice spring day and we are camping!

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Temps in the 60s this week…

While sitting around the campfire, we had visitors

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They didn’t seemed to have any fear until a dog barked in a neighboring campsite.  Then they were back just mosey-ing along the treeline.

This is a beautiful lake and campground in Lee’s Summit.  Hard to believe this oasis is so close to the hustle of life.

until next time…….

 

 

05.19.17
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Not my best week; giving lip service to gratitude

As I get further through my week, I’m able to refocus and give it some perspective.  Nothing tragic happened unless you consider a colonoscopy tragic 😳 but the negativity of the week just overwhelmed me.  Starting with the prep!  I experienced the prep 10 years ago…then again 2 years ago for my nephrectomy, but at the time, I considered it unpleasant but doable.  Not a hateful experience.  It wasn’t even the “purge” that took me down, it was something in the fact that I was putting that gallon of chemicals  through my system which I knew was desperately unhealthy.  I was putting the gallons of hatefulness about Trump and the deceitfulness of our politicians into my psych…..I felt I was literally drowning in shit.  I mentally fought it all the way through….and do you know what that mental negativity did to me….it took me down into the bowels (pun intended) of negativity!

I was finally able to talk it through with him and as I was able to mentally bring it all together, I realized that I was experiencing real emotions….real feelings without the benefit of an anti depressant to smooth it all out!  This is not a poor Nina blog.  This is a sharing blog to those of you who are experiencing the withdrawal.  Yesterday was my 3 month mark.  As I mentally trudged through the complications of the week and the self indulgence of anger, I basically faked it until I could make it.  Hes the only one who really knows I was screaming profanity in my head…but I’m also celebrating ….  I’m celebrating that I felt real emotion and I worked it out.  I put a lot of negative emotions about a lot of things through the strainer this week and I’m starting to see more clearly now.  We all deal with it…medicated or not….the difference is our perspective and how we let our own perspective drive our thoughts.

Until next time…..

05.14.17
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Burning the words of emotion

A few months ago, I participated in an applied kinesiology session with a massage therapist.  It was a technique to dig deep in your soul writing down specific words in color degrees as you talk about a troublesome issue…followed by an alternative muscle massage therapy to determine where you are physically hiding these emotions.  The dam broke for me approximately 5 minutes in because my emotions about my childhood are always right under my skin.  I did a follow up session one month later and was given the large poster board size sheet of paper marked in Magic marker of my words and was told to hold on to it and then one day burn this page.  I was ready last night.

I spent most of the evening on the deck with my headphones watching a movie on my iPad….alternating sips of coffee and water.  I found myself distracted several times by my flowers and the serenity of the pond.  I put a quilt over my legs and felt the cool evening breeze in my hair…I felt I was totally at peace with myself.  I shut down any intruding thoughts and focused on my blessings.

Then I grabbed the “words” off the ironing board where they had been laying for months, grabbed the fire stick and in the dark over an old tree stump, I burned the words in preparation for Mothers Day.  I didn’t do it for her….I did it for me!

Until next time….. 

05.06.17
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If you find yourself on a deserted island….

Years ago when I sold insurance (a short lived career) I saw a cartoon in a newspaper that showed a couple people on your typical deserted island and the caption read, something to the effect, all you have to do is yell I need life insurance and you will no longer be alone.  This vividly popped into my head when he hit the 3 month mark of being eligible for Medicare.  Junk mail from insurance companies increased by the hands full and insurance agents starting knocking on our door.  Seriously!  We called those cold calls!  These were one step up…cold knocks!  I had done my research on what we (he) needed and had my local Insurance agent picked out….but he was not one that knocked on our door and he is not the one that got our business.

Then this morning, the religious folks were out.  I hid.  He got to talk to him.  He did learn that many religious organizations have different doctrine and we don’t all worship the same God….Mr religion coldcaller worships the God in the Bible.  He wasn’t sure who this guy represented 😉 but he moved on quickly.  I kind of doubt from a glimpse it was the Saturday morning jehova witness because he was older, bearded and not wearing a dark suit.  I guess who really cares.

And that’s our day so far…….

Until next time……

05.04.17
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No brakes

If you read my last blog about that “feeling” that something just isn’t right…well here you go!  ALWAYS listen to those uneasy or gut  feelings.

We have a shorter bed Ford F-250 pickup with a Reese extender 5th wheel hitch.  This is necessary when we need to back the trailer into a campsite or driveway because without it, the clearance between the front of the 5th wheel and the back window on the truck collide.  (We have replaced the back window 3 times$$$).  We thought the hitch apparatus wasn’t working right because we could not get it to lock into maneuver position…..then we realized that the problem was the brakes on the trailer were not working which allowed the 5th wheel to slam forward.  SO…..

We took the rig up to Camping World in Grain Valley this morning and found out the new electrical bundle connector they installed last November was not installed correctly.  the technician had failed to hook up the trailer brake wire.  The seven connector plug only had 6 connections.  I assume just using the truck brakes for stopping could have been a deadly situation had someone stopped short in front of us and they had been run over by the momentum of a 30 foot 5th wheel with no brakes.  This is a very scary scenario…..and a lesson to those idiot drivers who don’t stop at stop signs and pull out in front of a truck hauling a camper.  Big/small theory is always in motion!

Two lessons learned here.

Until next time…..

05.02.17
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What if the universe is talking to me…

And I’m not listening.  We’ve all heard the stories about people missing planes for whatever reason and the plane crashes or some other catastrophe that was averted because something else happened.  That fear has been hanging around my neck since Saturday.

The plan was:  my friend, Suzy, came down from Des Moines for a birthday weekend…then…he and I were going to leave Sunday for a week of camping at Bennett Spring Park near Lebanon, MO.   We weren’t able to do a lot of things I had planned in my mind because of rain.  Lots of wet, heavy rain.  We had a good  time In spite of the weather but we kept hearing about rain and flooding in Southern Missouri.  I just knew in the back of my mind that this was going to suck!  Sure enough the campground was  flooded as well as a lot of people trying to get their lives back to normal with significant damage to their homes and cars.

Back to my woes.

We decided Monday morning that since we weren’t going to Bennett and eat trout that we would load up and head over into Kansas.  Just an hours drive to a large lake with several campgrounds…but in the back of my mind I had an uneasy feeling that maybe everything was pointing to this being a bad idea.  Various little complications like a cat vomiting 3 times in a row.  We went.



With no particular information, we found a campground with full hook up.  NO trees.  No place to buy wood.  No one outside enjoying the evening.  More like an RV park on the prairie where everyone set up camp and went somewhere else….or were all murdered in their campers and  no one checked.  Always a novel in my head.  When I heard the forecast for 100 percent chance of rain again, I went into angst and pissy mode and told him I wanted to just go home.  This morning he agreed and now we are home.  I feel relief, I feel calm and I feel content.  Still don’t know what I was mental flapping about in my head….perhaps nothing…perhaps I finally listened and averted tragedy.  I do have new fodder for the novel I probably will never write.

Until next time.