February 14: Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.

Today was kind of a lazy day around here – for me anyway. Lazed around after getting up for a while then Judy asked if I wanted to go with her to Home Depot and Fry’s.

She needed to get some Preen for the new house since the yard guys were coming today to clean it up and they don’t want more weeds growing. And they also wanted some bug bombs to set off to make sure there were no creepy crawlies around. I got another little folding stool to make it easier to get up into my bed.

Next was a quick visit to Fry’s for a few things. I was amazed at how many people were there on a Wednesday morning. It was like going to Costco on a Saturday! The parking lot was jammed full of cars and the store was wall to wall shopping carts.

After we got back I let Misty out and was putting things away. Then I went over to watch the yard guys go up the palm trees to trim off the dead leaves. Judy and I then went inside to pull the bedding off and get ready to set off the bombs. Some of the bedding was falling apart as it had been in there for 4 long years of hot weather.

I came back and saw Misty’s leash going into the camper – I always leave the screen open so she can jump in if something frightens her. When I looked in the door all I saw was the leash with an empty pink harness lying on the floor! I must have said something like, “oh, shit” because Judy came to see what was wrong. Well, Misty was sitting right there on the seat looking back at me. She must have gone to the end of the leash and then backed right out of the harness. Whew! I put the other one on her and hope it won’t allow her to do that again. Trish thought the pink one looked like a bikini bottom anyway.

Uh, Oh! Where’s Misty?!

I had some fresh beets and greens that I needed to cook up so I put the beets in the oven and roasted them. Then I cooked the greens with some garlic and let that cool. I cut up some cherry tomatoes and a little onion and mixed it all together with some Sherry wine vinegar and olive oil, added feta and called it beet salad. I had some for lunch and will take the rest for dinner tonight.

I also had those poblano chiles that needed roasting and frozen for future Chile rellenos so I did that too. The broil function doesn’t work real well on this little oven so I ended up putting them on a cookie sheet and right on top of the ‘bottom’ of the oven over the gas flame. That seemed to work fairly well. So those are now in the freezer.

The day has been pretty cloudy and we have had a few short rain showers. It probably got up to around 70 or so during the warmest part of the day but was pretty cool this morning. I lay down for a while during the afternoon and listened to my book but couldn’t quite take a nap.

The Painted Desert

The Bryants and I went over to the Keenan’s place for dinner tonight. We had chicken from Chicken on the Run along with breaded and deep fried corn, a new one for all of us. I took the rest of the beet salad and some shrimp for an appetizer. Trish had a pasta salad and some asparagus. Great dinner!

It is now raining pretty good and looks to stay cloudy through Friday. The rain really helps keep the dust down and I certainly don’t mind it not being too hot! Early night tonight as we are heading to Mexico tomorrow morning.