Very Behind

 

Happy Wednesday everyone.  I hope your week is treating you well.  Mine has been a whirlwind of activity since Monday.  I plan on telling you all about it as soon as I show you my 'Making space for what matters" for this week.

The declutting challenge from October really inspired me to continue with it.  Becki from Field Lilies has offered to continue the challenge but on a slightly less demanding scale.  She has suggested only blogging once a week about what we have decluttered that week.  There is no real number of items that are demanded this time.  In fact, there may be weeks when nothing got removed from the house that is blog worthy.  (ie: things that get thrown in the trash or recycle bins)  If you would like to join us, just hop on in.  There are no sign up sheets to fill out.  Just head over to Becki's blog (I put the link on her blog name) and see if it is something that appeals to you.  She has also made some lovely graphics you can use for your header.  I just haven't grabbed one yet so I made up one to use today.

Anyway, here is my declutter of this week.

It isn't all that earth shattering.  I am still working in Josie's room.  This time she was able to help me a bit.  We found socks she has never worn and refuses to wear, a Raggedy Ann doll I made for her that is kind of scary looking, a little baby doll she used to take to church with her and a hat and scarf set I made for her when she was a wee thing.  That is all so far this week.  There is quite a bit more in her room we discussed, but I am trying to figure out what to do with the items she told me to remove from her room.  They are all porcelain dolls I have collected over the years.  I wish I knew of someone that collected them as, I would give them away to them.  I can not see giving them to GoodWill as some of them are quite expensive.  This, to me, is where the hard part of decluttering comes in.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments.

OK.  So, as I said in the beginning of this post, this week has been a whirlwind for me.  Yes, it is only Wednesday but, I feel like I have not had the time to stop and just 'be' yet this week.

Josie and I took off for Prescott Valley and Prescott early Monday morning.  We have been wanting to go on this little adventure for a couple of months.  I just was waiting for her to have a day off from school to do it.  Hubby did not accompany us as he had some dental work that needed to be done ASAP.

We left about 8:30 in the morning and arrived at the alpaca farm around 10:30.  It was just the two of us and one other couple from Los Angeles for the tour.  I learned so much about alpacas.  It was a great tour and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the whole time we were walking around the 20 acres of land.

As you can see, they are not at all afraid of humans.  Of course it helped that I had food to let them eat from my hand too.

Can you see the two spotted ones?  They never know what colors they are going to get when breeding their flock.  These are babies here and were so cute.

Josie loved feeding them.  This guy loved her.  He is about 6 months old and is a real beauty.

This one is my favorite of all the alpacas.  This is Blarney Stone.  He has won first prize for his fleece.  The owner was impressed that I spotted him and fell in love with his coat the minute I saw him.

He seemed to be quite taken with Josie too.  The fleece/roving/yarn they get from their flock is a grade 2.  It has taken them almost 10 years to get their fleece to this grade.  

Yes, there were ducks there too.  Lots of them.  They followed us the whole time we were there.  They would eat the grain that was dropped on the ground.

This is Taj.  I do not know why I remember his name.  I loved his two tone face.  His mother has the same face only in white and black.

If you are ever in Arizona and want a lovely experience go to Plum Creek Farms and enjoy a tour.  It does cost a small amount to take the tour, but you get food to feed the alpacas for that price.  The tour lasts about an hour and there is a shop on site where you can purchase items made from the fleece or you can purchase roving or yarn too.  Come back on Sunday and I will show you the yarn I purchased.  

The trip up to the farm and on into Prescott was great.  We hit the peak of fall color on this trip.

Living in the desert, we do not get 4 seasons.  But, if I travel 2 hours north, I am able to take in the beauty and wonder of Fall.

The trees were at their peak and I would say by next week, the leaves will be dropping off.

I think she had a great time.  We laughed because her shirt matches the trees.

As we got back into the car to head back, I plugged in my phone for the GPS navigation.  I immediately got an alert of the interstate being closed 6 miles from where we were to catch it.  I called my husband to find out what was going on and he looked it up for me.  Seems there was a wild fire and they had closed all the south bound traffic on that road!  I told him where the GPS was taking me and he agreed that was the best route home.  REALLY?  That route back home was going to take us an extra hour and a half.  Normally, I would not be too upset by this.  However, it was already after 3 and the sun sets about 5:30.  The route that was given to me was all mountain driving until the last half hour.  There are no street lights in the mountains and there are lots of twisty turning roads.

I put on my big girl pants and sucked it up.  What else was I to do?  I needed to get the teen home so she could go to school the next day.  Otherwise, I might have opted to get a hotel and wait until morning.  I will say this, the trip back was even more beautiful than the trip up.  We drove through what we call "the piney woods".  The temperature outside dropped from 80 to 65 quickly.  I opened up the fresh air vents in the car and we enjoyed the most lovely pine tree scent for many miles.  There were no towns for the first 2 hours of the drive.  We finally hit, Strawberry, Pine and the Payson.  (Yes, there is a town in Arizona named Strawberry)  We stopped in Payson and grabbed some dinner (McDonalds) and ate while sitting in the parking lot.  That was the only stop we made on the way back.  By this time it was pitch black outside.  The drive from Payson to the valley was nothing but twists and turns all the way down the mountain.  I was thankful there were other vehicles on the road which helped with seeing what was up ahead.  Josie was a great traveling companion and kept a steady stream of conversation going.  I finally got her to her house about 7:30 and I arrived at my home around 8.  I was exhausted.  But...........................I would not trade the memories of that day for anything.  So, our day trip that was suppose to last 8 hours ended up being an 11 hour adventure.

Tuesday, the refrigerator repair guy came and fixed our door seal.  After he left, hubby and I took off to fill my car with gas as well as going to the grocery store to pick up 4 items I was not able to get during my last shopping trip.  I got a load of laundry done, uploaded all the photos from my camera (thank you Josie for taking such great photos), watched Dancing with the Stars (we record it), fed my sour dough starter (it is refrigerated) and got dinner made for tonight.  I stayed up until almost 11 watching election results.  Hubby was up until 2 doing the same.  

Today, I am hoping to complete another load of laundry, start making my chex mix for the coming holiday season and maybe even make a cake for tonight.  Our daughter is coming over for dinner and to deliver my Pampered Chef order.  I am WAY behind on reading others blogs and am also hoping to catch up on that today.  I get so much inspiration from reading them.  The last time I read any was Sunday afternoon.  Normally, I read them first thing in the morning and then again after dinner.

The morning is quickly passing away so I had better sign off and get moving.

Until next time.......................................................................