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Cavorting in Colorado

Posted on August 29, 2015 by Renee Spindle

A glimpse of the Rocky Mountains.

A few days ago I shared my Road Warrior story about our trip to Denver. It was a quick trip there and back, and then a day and a half later my Travel Man took off to Spain for a week. Yes this is how our crazy life works. Travel here-travel there and planning ahead pretty much is non-existent. I have come to terms with that part of our lives, and I just make sure our time together is quality time. No fussing, nagging or whining allowed!

Now, while Travel Man was doing his work thing I kept the rental car and went exploring in Thornton, Colorado. This was truly a first time experience for me. I normally just stay at the hotel and take walks to go shopping or to eat, or many times I go for a swim at the hotel pool. But this day was different, I had some wheels and I wanted to make the most of them! Also, I did have the trusty Travel Man GPS to guide me on my way.

In our normal travel tradition (for us this is “normal”, you may think we are just weird) I located the nearest Super Wal-Mart and got some snacks and bottled water for our hotel stay. Next I wanted to get some cash so I used the GPS and found an ATM nearby. After that stop I decided to bop over to Barnes and Noble for some “browsing” time. (This was going to turn into a shopping afternoon after all.) While at Barnes and Noble I happened on a display of adult coloring books. These books are the latest “stress-relieving” rage. Have you picked one up and perused it yet? I could not resist not getting one, so I picked out one that had designs that appealed to me. I did browse around the store a little after that, and tried to locate some colored pencils, but there were no bargains to be found. So, it was off to the Office Max next door for some colored pencils. The pencils were successfully located, and there was a Cost Plus next to the Office Max. Of course I had to go in and browse the Cost Plus. Such interesting furniture and fabrics there. A fun place for browsing to your heart’s content.

Coloring for me…

My last stop of the afternoon was the hotel. I wanted to get us all checked in before I had to pick up Travel Man from work. Now remember this is not my normal operating mode. Usually I am the travelling bystander and Travel Man is taking care of these details. Not on this day though, it was my job to get it done! After we were successfully checked in it was time to go and get the Travel Man from work. We had a nice anniversary dinner together, and then got ready to head for home the next day.

Our dinnertime fajita platter-yum!

This was a definitely a different kind of day for me. It was nice to change-up the travel routine and do a few out of the ordinary things on my own. What’s the last travel adventure you took by yourself? I’d love to hear about where you’ve been.

3 comments Posted in Travels

On a Road Warrior Trip

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Renee Spindle

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Last week I made a trip to the Denver area with my favorite Travel Man. It was a quick work trip, but we got to spend some much-needed time together. His work schedule has been a little crazy recently. We were celebrating our anniversary and a certain Travel Man’s birthday during this week. It was a lot of fun to be together to celebrate, and do some travelling together. This trip I dropped Travel Man off at work and took the rental car to do a little exploring. While I was cruising around by myself for a few hours I noticed that a few things were a little different in Colorado.

1) The grass here is so green. I’m very jealous. At home in Southern California we are in a Stage 3 drought alert. In our neighborhood we are restricted to watering our lawns just three times per week. Our front yard is surviving ok, the backyard not so much.

2) I drove around by myself with the rental car while Travel Man was at work. This is the first trip that I have done this. I realized I should have been doing this much more often over the past couple of years. I have a fairly good sense of direction and got around town just fine. And of course there was shopping involved.

4) I’m reminded that my Travel Man’s work life is constantly in a state of flux. The customer he was taking care of here needs parts to repair their machine. Receipt of those parts will delay finishing the job. Travel Man’s schedule does not allow him to stay here and finish this one! He’s back on a plane in two days heading overseas. This means we’re going home a day early and he’ll have an extra day to relax and pack his suitcase.

5) There are “Help Wanted” signs everywhere! The hiring signs were definitely in abundance. Every store I went into had a hiring sign posted! It was nice to see that for a change. We haven’t seen that as often in Southern California.

6) I am blessed to be in this place right at this moment. I can pack my bags at a moments notice and head off with my hubby to his next work destination. How many people get to do that every week? I’m a lucky gal.

Have you had a Road Warrior in your life? Did you get to travel together much? Or maybe you were a Road Warrior yourself. I’d love to hear some of your best travel stories.

This post shared at the MidLifeLuv Linky party.

5 comments Posted in Travel Man

My Blogiversary – 4 Years and Counting

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Renee Spindle

Four years ago this week I pressed the “publish” button and I was off and running with my little blog, Renee’s Revelings. It’s always amazing to me how quickly time goes by. I started my blog just because I had some stories I wanted to share. Most importantly I wanted to share our family stories of how we have dealt with chronic medical conditions, and childhood leukemia. My opinion has always been if I can touch one person’s life who maybe is struggling a little, and I can give them hope that they will be ok then my writing has made a difference.

I’ve told stories about so many things over the past few years. Tom’s Travels, grand-kiddies, quirky happenings around the house when Travel Man is away, and lots and lots of family stories. Little did I know that I would enjoy writing and sharing my stories so much. It has been a positive force in my life, and now I’m always looking for tools and tips to improve my writing. I will admit I have had bouts of not being able to write one word. This was especially true when my Dad passed away two years ago. It was so difficult to put any thoughts and stories on paper. I honestly had to do a ton of just plain journaling my thoughts in order to find my way back to my stories. But after getting through the loss, and helping my Mom start to put things in order for herself I found my way back to my story-telling.

Blogging has been a great learning experience for me. Teaching me how to be more social (that’s out of my comfort zone for sure), and teaching me so, so much about the world of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and on and on. Oh my there’s a lot to learn out there in the blogosphere. I had better get busy! As I continue on in my blogging adventures I hope you will come along with me, and bring your cup of coffee too!

4 comments Posted in Blogging

Grocery List Curiosity

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Renee Spindle

I had a curious thought this morning while putting together my list for my Sam’s Club shopping. How do you write out your grocery list these days? Personally I do not go to the store without a list. I would forget too many things. I try to keep my store visits to a weekly minimum, and don’t really like to spend any great amount of time browsing the food aisles. You can read about my love (or not) of grocery shopping from my Sam’s Club Shopping story.

We keep a running list of groceries we need on the fridge. I have these write-on small white board labels that stick to the fridge, and use a dry erase marker. They have been very handy. No papers flying all over the front of the fridge. When I’m ready to do my shopping I transfer that list to my phone. If you live in my house, when we are out of something please write it on the fridge list, so it’s not forgotten.

My go-to app for my grocery list is Evernote. Once I have transferred my list into Evernote I can easily share it with my favorite Travel Man if he happens to be home. When he’s home Travel Man does like to go shopping with me, especially if the list is rather long. He’s the complete opposite of myself. He likes to browse the aisles, and read the labels, and look for new products. I like to stick to the list, and get in and out of the store.

It’s been a long, long time since I went to do my grocery shopping with a paper list. I would rather use my phone, and not have to fiddle with an extra piece of paper. I used to have a really elaborate list for my Sam’s Club shopping. It was an excel spreadsheet with all of the groceries categorized and took up almost an entire sheet of paper. If I try to use that paper now the grocery shopping task seems completely overwhelming. Thank goodness for my smart phone and Evernote.

So here’s my curiosity – How do you grocery shop these days? Do you take a list or just run out to the store with no list at all? Do you write your list on paper or is there no paper involved? Are you a daily, weekly, or monthly shopper?

I’d love to hear about your shopping habits.

This post shared at the #MidLifeLuv Linky Party.

#MidLifeLuv Linky

This post linked to the GRAND Social

10 comments Posted in Around the House

Crafting Time at Camp Grandma’s

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Renee Spindle

It’s Summertime here at Camp Grandma and we’ve had a few crafty adventures over the past few weeks I thought I would share today. We’ve been painting, coloring, blowing up lots of balloons, squeezing in some swimming, and eating lots of popsicles and snow cones. It’s been hot and humid here recently, and we all know how popsicles can cool the soul!

The first thing I did to make Camp Grandma a little special this year was I made a box, and each week when the Grand-kiddies come over (they are with me on Thursday’s and Friday’s) there’s some sort of crafty surprise or something fun to-do in that box. This has been a fun way to start the day, as the kids look forward to finding out what’s in their special box.

The first week the box contained paper plates, balloons, big crafting sticks, and some duct tape. We used the contents that week to make and play Balloon Pong – which I had read about at Grandma’s Briefs. I will admit that the grand-kiddies had fun blowing up all the balloons, but they had even more fun ping-ponging the balloons around. They didn’t have a lot of success hitting the balloons to one another, so Evan made a contest of seeing how many times he could “pong” the balloon before it hit the ground.

The next week at Camp I had put balloons, colored paper, scissors, tape, and the pattern to make balloon feet. We were making balloon people. They were so cute. Madison really enjoyed telling me what she wanted me to draw on her balloon. Evan made his into a group of the Avengers, which I did not get a picture of. Boo on Grandma. This crafty project was discovered by yours truly at Grandma’s Ideas. The balloon crafts have been really fun, and just plain blowing up the balloons and using them like volleyballs around the house was a great activity too.

For two of our weeks together we have done some painting. We used tempera paints, sponges brushes, sponges, and I splurged on some thick watercolor paper for my little artists. This is really the first time I’ve had a chance to paint with Madison. She loved putting the colors on paper and painting with everyone’s favorite colors. Madison’s favorite color is pink, and she know mine is purple. She’s always telling anyone who will listen that her Grandma’s favorite color is purple. Evan had fun being a mixologist, and discovering what colors he needed to mix to make other colors. He had a lot of fun being the paint scientist.

I am blessed to be able to have some special time with my grand-kids each week right now. This time together creates memories that will last for a long, long time. As they start to get a little older and as they move on to do their own independent activities, it will be good to know that we’ve had this time with each other.

Have you spent time with your grand-kiddies recently? Did you get in any crafting time with them? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to this summer.

3 comments Posted in Crafts

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