Tuesday was Christmas this Week!

Because we aren’t quite sure yet how our IRAs are doing, we have decided to postpone the final finishing of our casita. Yes, we need to paint sometime this winter, and the project is begun. Yes, we tried to fix the leak between the roof and the porch, but that didn’t take.

Inside, however, is going to be a slow process. Last week we went to Wal-Mart and bought some rugs to cover our bare plywood floor (the old rugs weren’t big enough and were getting in bad shape). This week we had Christmas on Tuesday! We bought a new TV for the casita, a 22-inch Samsung HDTV, a little DVD player to go with it, and a new length of cable to connect the TV to the park’s cable system. There had been a cable there when we moved in, but when we tried it out, it made a very poor connection. We later found out that it was rotted through the sheathing.

We also went to Sierra Vista, bought a ceiling fan with light from Lowe’s, and a track lighting fixture from Home Depot for over the desk.

The TV is great, just the right size for our little casita, and the picture is sharp and clear. We don’t have the lights mounted yet, because there is wiring to be designed and accomplished. When we get finished, we’ll show you some pictures.

Friday we began our Christmas decorations in the casita, in the motorhome, and on the lot. We took a break to watch the evening news, and up came the sunset. We had thought that morning’s sunrise was special, but the evening crowned it.

Just look at that sky! We are so blessed to be in Benson, Arizona. The sky is only one visible demonstration of that blessing! (For Gene, who now is wondering, no, I didn't retouch this picture a bit. That's what it really looked like!)

Well, Mother Nature sure likes to strut her stuff! We showed you a picture of Friday night’s sunset, but we can’t show you pictures of Saturday night / Sunday morning’s wind! It was blowing hard all night, with gusts that rocked the motorhome. We were afraid we’d have to drive to Tucson to try to find the gravel from the surface of our lot, the wind was so fierce.

Saturday we added to our Christmas decorating. We decided the casita needed a tree, so back to Wal-Mart where we found a 4-foot tree all folded up in a box, loaded with 200 multi-colored lights. We added some boxes of ornaments and came home.

We had planned to spend most of the day finishing our decorations, but our new friend Howard Payne popped in to invite us to a gathering on his site here in the park. Howard runs a website and a daily blog and has quite a following. He and his wife Linda put on rallies around the country, and all of the folks invited to their party either were attendees of their rallies or, like us, readers of Howard’s blog. It was fun. Everyone brought their own beverage and snacks to share, so we had a good time and met some nice people.

After the social hour, we returned to complete our decorations. With the new cranberry-colored rugs, we think it looks quite festive.

The three kings banners have been with us since we were young marrieds. We and our small children made them following a pattern in the Family Circle Magazine in the '60s.

We’ve even created a sort of entertainment center with the new TV and our stereo sitting on a table from my childhood. Somewhere in our boxes of stuff in the storage room is a picture of my brother Chuck and me, with me around age 3 or 4, sitting on that table! Someday we will find that old photo, scan it and show you on a blog posting.

The reason we wanted to finish decorating is that we had guests coming too, Terry and Darlene Miller. Darlene is the author of two humorous books on the RVing life as well as her own blog. We bought her first book (RV Chuckles and Chuckholes - the Confessions of Happy Campers), and because she used part of one of our postings in her second book (More RV Chuckles ...), she gave us a free copy of that one.

We had a nice social time with the Millers, then went out to dinner.

And so, we bid you good night, and thanks for spending time with us in ... Our Life on Wheels.