Jackville

We made it to Jackville, as we call it, in honor of Larry's customer Jack who so kindly let us hang out in his horse pasture until we are ready to head for Washington at the end of March, when Larry will retire. It's pretty bare here, and as we will quickly learn, will become quite muddy, but it is preferable to the Wal-Mart parking lot. What we won't do to save money, which is absolutely necessary since the cost of gas alone on our journey to Washington will be staggering!

The view is spectacular - and we have prairie dogs and coyotes for neighbors. Needless to say, Duchess  usually has to be on a leash when she goes outside.

Down the Driveway for the Last Time...

Larry was anxious to be on our way, so he climbed aboard Jumbo and I followed along in my car.

Down the driveway for the last time...

Ready to Hit the Road

Everything was secure in Jumbo and we were almost ready to head down the road to our temporary home in the horse pasture in Parker.

 Time to bid farewell to this very special little house. I hope the next tenants love it as much as we did.

Time to Leave...

December 31st had finally arrived - our last day on Ridge Rd. I walked around and took some pictures before we left. My Garden Angel has journeyed with me from Everett to Elizabeth to Ridge Rd., and will travel with us on Jumbo back to Everett again!

We had spent many wonderful evenings on our patio watching the birds at the many feeders on this side of the house...

More Christmas Eve...

The Stockings were hung and overstuffed!

We enjoyed our tomato soup along with the grilled cheese sandwiches. We couldn't have asked for a more delicious Christmas Eve meal!

Christmas Eve in Jumbo

Things had been pretty hectic on Ridge Road for a couple of weeks prior to Christmas, what with us trying to get rid of the last of our possessions - our sofa, bed, & TV - plus making many trips to the Douglas County Task Force and Goodwill with bags and boxes full of donations. On top of all that, the property management company was showing the house and people were traipsing in and out every other day or so. We still had the last-minute cleaning to do, but the house was looking pretty empty by Christmas Eve.

We spent a very peaceful Christmas Eve night  in Jumbo, still parked behind the house.Larry watched the Big Bang Theory while I prepared dinner.

 Our gourmet Christmas Eve dinner...grilled cheese sandwiches!

We turned on the Christmas tree lights and lit the candles...

A Little Bit of Christmas Spirit

For the first time in many years, I found myself totally devoid of Christmas Spirit. Usually by now I would have the house decorated, the tree up, the nativity scene on top of the piano, the garland hung on the mantel, and the juniper bushes outside would be glowing with white lights. But this year is different. The piano is gone and there is no tree to decorate in the house. I gave away most of my ornaments, saving only a couple of special ones.  We have been so focused on moving everything out of the house, selling and giving away so many of our things, and moving what we will be needing for our new life into Jumbo, that Christmas just didn't seem important this year. And  then I found this little artificial tree at King Soopers, bought some battery-operated LED lights, found a tiny tree-topper at Target, and hung it with the small ornaments we had kept. Suddenly we had Christmas Spirit! It looks pretty cute in Jumbo's conservatory. We plan on being totally moved out of the house by Christmas Eve, so our stockings will need to be hung somewhere in Jumbo as well.

I painted the gold stars and pine cones years ago, and since the pine cones and some of the stars were too big for this little tree, they found a home in a basket.

I gave our big nativity scene to Rachel, and Bailey fell in love with it and set it up under their tree. Larry gave me this little one on our first Christmas together, and it's just the right size for us now!

Pandora playing on our new little TV - an early Christmas gift to us!

Larry enjoying a well-deserved beer before dinner. We did a lot of re-arranging and organizing in the closet storage area, and were pretty worn out! Not only was he celebrating the fact that we made some progress, but we were both quite pleased that Jumbo passed his emissions test that morning! Now I have to register him on Monday. A good sign that all will be well on our upcoming journey.

Even Duchess was worn out and curled up in her favorite spot... Actually, she's quite happy wherever we are.

We heated up some leftover veggie chili and cornbread for dinner, and were happy that the furnace kept us toasty warm. And when we walked outside to go back into the house for the night, I saw that Larry had lit the lights on the Juniper bushes. I was thrilled. Quite an enjoyable evening!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It's VERY cold outside...and not too toasty inside, either. The furnace decided to stop blowing hot air sometime during the night, and Larry got it to work when he got up at 5:30, but it's still only 63 in here. This little house doesn't seem to have much insulation. Brrrr!!!! The property manager is bringing some prospective renters over this afternoon. If it hasn't warmed up significantly by then, they'll get a feel for what it's like to live here during the bitter cold days of winter. I'm thinking that it might be warmer in Jumbo if I go out and crank up the furnace, but don't want to waste the propane!

Here's the view from the back porch. I was hoping to get a shot of Duchess playing in the snow, but it was so cold that she scurried in as quickly as possible after going potty.

Here's the view from the front porch. It looks pretty, but I didn't want to venture out in it!

Jumbo dusted with snow...

I ordered some thermal leggings for Larry & myself which arrived a couple of days ago. It's definitely time to put them on and hunker up under a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate!