Views & Doods

Stu will be home today, happy me! I can completely rest my knee all day tomorrow and see how it does. All the walking with the #2doods has kept it irritated with some pain and swelling. Tomorrow it will be elevated as much and often as I can.

I have snapped a couple of sunset and yes, even a couple early shots on our walks. Enjoy...










As to the #2doods, they're never bored, even in the RV. Here is a video to prove it. Oh, Cooper is the one in the lead, leaping down the stairs and Murphy is the one that waits for him to turn around in the garage space and come tearing back through.


No, they're not always good as this photo shows....at least it has lasted more than a couple of months!


And a couple more...indoors and out.

Murphy's favorite way to sit in the RV...


We rang the bell, are you taking us out or not?


Checking out the area...


Cooper decides there's nothing exciting in his view and relaxes his guard...


Murphy isn't so sure...



Ciao for now!

Busy, busy!

If you think we've been busy lately, we're about to get busier! While Stu is currently busy continuing to work on the French drain for the pasture behind the Backend of Nowhere Garage, I'm struggling to get my three former Kindle World books ready to republish.

At the same time, I/we are prepping for a week-long visit from Olivia & Jesse, our two Delaware grand-girls. Their parents are going to Maine to help out a friend and the girls asked if they could come see us. So, they are!

The biggest challenge is food - with our current way of eating (low carb), we need to go shopping for them. Milk, yogurt, cereal, bread, buns, strawberries, blueberries, apples, bananas and yes, snacks, are all on the list. All no-no's for us.

We plan to make a day trip to Dollywood while they are here as well as see a movie or two. Other than that, they will be kind of left to their own devices. Good thing Stu is great at entertaining them (LOL).

We are also working on future plans. Stu got a phone call from his older brother, Scott, who has been widowed for several years now. He's getting married! We're so happy for him. The wedding is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we will spend an additional couple of days in the area before heading back home.

Before that trip, we need to get the RV ready to head south, hopefully heading to our winter campground for this year (southern Georgia) by the middle of November. It will add a day to our drive north for the wedding as well coming back, but it eliminates rushing to get the rig moved immediately after driving back from the wedding.

We have to be in Florida on December 8th to pick up our youngest grand-girl, Waverly, for her Disney trip. Because her parents are taking her to Disney for her first trip in October, we will be taking her on a four day Disney Cruise.

The #2Doods will be trying out a new boarding/doggy day care place in Georgia - we will squeeze in a meet and greet day before we commit.

Okay, time to get back to my C'Mon Inn mystery rewrites. Hoping to get them published by Monday. Woot!!

Ciao for now!

Nice afternoons....

The temperature has moderated a bit and we have been sitting out on the deck in the late afternoons. I love listening to the sounds - my chimes, the big bullfrog in our pond, the neighbor's mule, and the hummingbirds (both the beating of their wings and the chirping at each other as they try to guard 'their' territory).

We now have four feeders out and have seen at least 5-6 hummingbirds at one time. Because of the placement of both our chairs and the feeders as well as the green background of leaves, it's hard to get a decent photo. You'll need to click for a larger photo and zoom in on some of these, but it's what I could grab.

The #2Doods are loving the cooler temps - today's high was only around 82 degrees. They are staying outdoors, lazing in the shade of the big tree in our backyard, scratching up a cool spot in their "sand box" or racing around chasing each other.

Then it's time for this...

Then this...

And this...

Tell me, does this look comfortable to you? My head hurts just thinking about laying on that metal ring. LOL!

Ciao for now!

No food aggression here!

One thing we have always done, both with Sadie and now with the #2Doods, is be sure there is no food aggression. This means no growling or any kind of reaction if we take food/treats away. You've seen photos of them waiting for the OK to eat their treats, the same thing happens when we feed them. They sit and wait in front of their food bowls, waiting for the OK.

We also don't give them people food. Well, most of the time. I've been known to let them lick the empty yogurt container. It's really funny to see them both licking it clean - at the same time! But I've never been in a position to get a photo of this.

Today, once Stu finished up some tuna salad, he let them lick the bowl clean. I managed to snap a few photos. Both were happily licking away - at the same time. So funny!

Murphy asks, "Daddy, are you done yet?"

Ciao for now!

Reflections on the A to Z of Goldendoodles

Well, April came and April went. Now it's time for some reflections on the April A to Z Blog Challenge. This is not my first year. In fact, it was my fourth year. But it was my first year where I did two blogs, this one for the Goldendoodles and flash fiction on my author blog.

This was also the first year the staff at A to Z tried using Google docs to master the beast of link signups. The first two years, they used LinkyList. Last year they tried another method that was so bad, I can't even remember how it worked. LOL!

So here is my take on the good, the bad and the ugly for 2018, both for my posts and the challenge overall. [NOTE: This post will be repeated on my author blog.]

THE GOOD:

• I prefer themes and easily set them for both my blogs and then participated in the theme reveal.
• I pre-wrote all 26 blog posts for this blog. I kept it simple, a little text and a several fun photos.
• I pre-wrote 65-75% of my blog posts for my writing blog.
• The Theme Reveal list helped me choose blogs to follow.
• Being able to add my blog links to the Daily List in advance was a HUGE advantage. I suspect I would have missed many days of posting as I often did last year.
• I managed to reply to EVERY comment left on both blogs. Phew!
• I visited the blogs of all my commenters, often adding them to my blog reader to follow.
• I commented on 60% of the blog posts I read.
• I checked out the blogs of commenters and found some new ones that way (not all were A-Z).
• I found way less folks who posted they were going to participate but didn't! Yay!!

THE BAD:

• I got sick in the middle of April. A nasty cold that hung on for weeks. I barely got the last three posts written in time. Phew!
• There were a couple of folks that didn't make it easy to find their blogs (from the comment profile). Hoping they will realize that and fix it. It's the one way folks find their way to the blogs if they don't have a direct link.
• Still not a fan of Google+ but I did join a group and post all my links there (and they post to my G+ profile automatically from Blogger).

THE UGLY:

• I really can't think of anything other than the personal time sacrifice - and I'm retired. LOL!

Would I do anything differently? Not much that I can think of. I would stick with writing in advance

What were my goals and did I accomplish them? My first goal was, and always is, to increase readership of my blog(s). I definitely did that as compared to last year where I had very few comments and no gain in readership. I also found some new blogs to follow, non-writing related blogs (of which I already follow too many). In addition, I gained a couple of new friends on Facebook, folks who had interesting blogs and got me invested in their lives.

My second goal was to get my writing mojo back. I was ready to retire from it and writing flash fiction re-ignited the fire. But, I still plan on taking a couple months off to read. It's been too long!

What's next? Well, this blog (our personal blog) will continue to be about our daily life as well as the life of the #2Doods. I hope you will continue to stick around for my ramblings and our meanderings. My author blog? TBD [to be determined]

Ciao for now!

The A to Z of Goldendoodles

There are many different Doodles...
Labradoodles, Goldendoodles, Bernedoodles, Sheepadoodles, Cadoodles
and those are just the standard sized!

We have two adorable, funny, lovable Doodles - Cooper and Murphy. Join them in the A to Z challenge to learn more about them and Goldendoodles.