Jan 3rd to 7th

The weather has been nice, a bit of cloud, temps 54F (12C) Monday to 70 (21C) today (Friday).

Monday I delivered our card to Lenore and Mike, Lenore was not home and Mike said he wanted to wait to open the card until Lenore came home which I certainly understood and thought it was very thoughtful of Mike. Other than ordering a couple of knife blanks for Woody, and the usual daily things like walking the dogs, cleaning, etc., there is not much to report.

Tuesday I was very proud of myself, I took the dogs for a walk on the trails in the desert and managed to walk a full mile, that is a first for me in just about a year, (since I have been having issues with my hip), it sure felt good to walk without any major pain. I hope that means that my hip is slowly healing. Other than doing some major cleaning and working on the blog that is about all I accomplished. Woody keeps busy with his leather projects, he is working on a belt for himself which I urged him to do, nothing like wearing your own creation, he is also working on items for Wild TV which is presenting some challenges for him. Leather is not forgiving, one slight wrong move and the project is garbage, he at least can use the scraps of leather to practice on, so not all is lost and it is the only way to learn. I ordered another knife blank for him today so once they arrive he will be a busy boy!

Wednesday the highlight of my day was a visit from Mike and Lenore, they dropped over to thank me for the card, and they are such thoughtful sweet people. Lenore invited me to go “Street Walking” in Tombstone, I laughed saying that did not sound good, but of course what she meant is window shopping with some of the swimming gang, I thanked her but declined, walking is still an issue as I found out on my morning walk with the dogs, it would have been fun otherwise, some of the girls made themselves costumes so they will fit into the 1880’s look. Many people dress up in Tombstone so you fit right in. Woody made a trip to the gun range with his buddy Rolly to do some shooting; they left around 1:30 and got home around 5:00, almost late for “Miller time”! The weather was perfect for shooting, no wind although Woody said it was a little chilly at the range, and he had to put a jacket on. This is the first time they went to the range this winter but I am sure they will go again before the winter is over.

Thursday was a busy day, we dropped the dogs at the groomers at 10:00 am while they were getting all pretty and clean we did some shopping. After picking them up at 1:30 pm we came home took them for a walk and settled them at home then went to visit with Cheri Saunders who had invited us over for snacks, etc. Cheri is the owner of Blue Opal since her business partner and friend Mike passed away about 5 months ago. We met Mike our first year here and became friends and were very sad to hear he had passed away which we found out shortly after our arrival when Woody stopped over at Blue Opal to say “Hello”. We visited until around 5:00 pm and while there Cheri offered Woody some Mother of Pearl for Woody “to play around with to see if he could incorporate it into some of his leather pieces” (in her words). Woody was surprised and pleased with her generous offer and thanked her excitedly. After dinner Woody worked some on designing some leather projects, incorporating the Mother of Pearl, I did a little work on posts for the blog until Cookie started whining and looking so sad, she wanted to sit on my lap, she really hates it when she doesn’t get her lap time, yeah she is spoiled but how can I resist when she looks up at me with her sad brown googly eyes. When she was just a small puppy I really spoiled her by letting her sit on my lap while I worked on the computer, she is too big now to do that but of course she doesn’t know that so I shut down the computer and watched a little TV with her and Muffin in my lap, not a bad way to finish off the day!

Today our friends Dale, Janice and the boys flew back to Alberta from Tucson, hope they had a good trip, will have to email them and see how the rest of their trip went and find out what they had a chance to explore in Phoenix and Tucson.

Friday was a nice day 70F (21C), sunny with some wispy high cloud floating around and some wind. Not much to report, we did not even go to the Jam Session at the park in the evening, this is first time we have chosen to not attend since 2008 and only the second time we missed a Jam Session, we choose to go and see Johnny Bencomo at the Landmark Café a few weeks ago instead. Woody worked on a belt buckle for himself incorporating a few Mother of Pearl gems, it did not turn out as nice as we both anticipated, the design on paper looked good but somehow did not look real attractive on the leather a little disappointing but he is not deterred, will try something different with the Mother of Pearl after giving some more thought to the design. I will post a picture of the buckle after Woody completes one to his satisfaction.