Beep, Beep! 7/95!!! or Stephen K. Morris Live Tonight on Facebook!!

The last few days Tony and I have been painting the outside of The Cabin. The cabin is now painted, but we still need to paint the trim boards and put them up, along with the shutters that we made. Anyway, it is a work in progress and the hardest part has been accomplished.

The other day while we were waiting for the paint to dry, on once side of The Cabin, our dear talented artist friend, Steve Pietzsch came over to visit us and he brought me an incredibly great, beautiful present that he had made/painted. And please note that we stayed ten feet apart, because of social distancing.

I about fell over when Steve gave me a signed and numbered, limited edition, framed, print, of one of his most recent paintings. My print is number 7/95.

It is a beautiful painting of a roadrunner racing across the desert and Steve put "his own unique funny twist" on it, because the dust that he painted behind the roadrunner is similar to the artwork they used in the hilarious Wylie Coyote cartoons. And I absolutely love it!

It is titled "Beep, Beep!" And here is a picture of the back of the framed print.

After Steve's fun visit, I took it inside to take pictures, but because of the sunlight's glare it does not do it justice. So I suggest to view Steve Pietzsch's "Beep, Beep!" please click here to check it out on his website. It is the first picture on the bottom row. Anyway, here is my print of "Beep, Beep!

Well, tonight Tony and I have exciting plans to watch another great, live performance of Stephen K. Morris playing his awesome music on Facebook, at 7:30! And now like solving jigsaw puzzles and playing solitaire my latest addiction is watching and listening to Stephen K. Morris' Another Stir Crazy Wednesday! And I hope that y'all will join Tony and me for another great Wednesday evening.

And that is about it for tonight, because I want to solve a few more jigsaw puzzles, before tuning in to  watch Stephen's show.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

P.S. Mari has just sent me this great video about Kerrville's restaurants helping restaurants in Kerrville and it was so much fun to watch.  So Enjoy! (Thanks Mari!)

Mark Your Calendars—September 27th— 2 pm - 6pm — Texas Heritage Vineyard!!

This past week I've been writing up a storm even though it has not rained one drop here. :(

Our dear friends Marita & Hans Fredriksen, from Bergen, Norway are back in Texas! In fact, they are in Fredericksburg, staying with our dear friends Stephen K. Morris & Eva Robinett.

Marita sent me an exciting e-mail today with news about their daughter's upcoming art exhibition, at the Texas Heritage Vineyard, in Fredericksburg. The Habitat Art Exhibition & Live Music event, will be on Friday, the 27th of September, from 2pm - 6 pm.

Tony and I cannot wait to go to this event, because Christina Fredriksen, is an incredibly talented artist. Tony and I love her art so much, I am hoping to buy a piece of her art. (If she has a lay-a-way plan.)

This event is going to be so much fun that I want to invite everyone to please mark your calendars and come to it, so you will have the opportunity to meet Christina in person and view her fabulous art. And if you show up for this event I promise to also introduce y'all to Marita & Hans, too. (Hans & Marita are characters in my upcoming 3rd novella.)

I also promise to introduce y'all to Stephen K. Morris &  Eva Robinett, because you will love love listening to Stephen's awesome music and you will just  simply love meeting sweet Eva. (Stephen & Eva are also in my 3rd novella.)

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

P.S. My dear friend Kris & I have now taken 3 line—dancing classes and we are hooked on line—dancing, because we are having so much fun and burning calories!

The Prize!

Unfortunately, today and yesterday we did not get to work, at The Old Timer's Rusty Dawg food truck, because we are getting so much rain. We haven't been able to work, because of the rain, because when it rains hardly anybody gets out in the rain to go to a food truck or anywhere else for that matter. So to help keep costs down and not waste our time—we don't work when it is raining.

But please know that I am not complaining about all of this much needed rain that we've been blessed with, because by staying home the past two days I got to and get to write, write, write.

I love writing, even though I do miss having so much fun with Tony, at the Rusty Dawg and our great customers. And hopefully tomorrow it won't be raining all day, so we can get back to working at the Rusty Dawg. Here's a great picture of the Rusty Dawg that Tony took last week, when the sun was shining and we were taking a break from cooking up some delicious hot dogs and Frito-pies.

This past week has flown by and it was a whole lot of fun. Besides having fun with Chet O'Keefe, Stephen & Eva, Hans & Marita—I had a total blast going over to Carol's ranch for a super fun visit with her, Debbie and Vicki.

Debbie and Vicki are two of the nicest women and of course, Carol is too. Anyway, over the years Tony and I have become good friends with Carol's dear friends, Vicki and Debbie, from Dallas. In fact, Tony and I love them so much I've made them two of the main characters in my upcoming, soon to be published novella The Cowgirl Sisterhood: Part III, Ghost Riders In The Sand.

Anyway, last Saturday afternoon I went over to visit with Carol, Debbie and Vicki and to talk to them about the quirky characters that I've turned them into for my book. And while we were talking and laughing about their characters, Vicki mentioned that she thought it would be fun for me to do a contest, like one of her favorite authors had recently done.

Vicki told us that this author announced on her blog that anyone wanting to have their name, in her mystery book, should write her and tell her why their name (possibly made into a character) deserved to be in her upcoming book. 

Well that got all of us excited and after two minutes of listing the pros and cons of having this contest I decided that I should do a contest too, because it would be so much fun. But we figured out that I would have to limit the requests to just one paragraph, because otherwise I would be bombarded with reading for hours and not be able to write.

So I am now inviting all of you that would like to see your name in print, in my third novella to please enter this contest by writing no more than 1 paragraph telling me why your name deserves to be in my book. 

To enter the "I Want To Be In Your Book" contest please post it as a comment on my blog, because that way it will be confidential—I can read it and no one else will ever see it. 

The Rules:

1. You may not be eligible if your name has been in my previous books.

2. The contest starts today and it will end one week from today—Saturday, September 15th @ midnight.

3. And at the end of your paragraph please include your full name and the best way that I may contact you in the event you win. (e-mail, phone, snail mail, etc.) 

4. Please note that all contestants will be considered, but please know that I do not have the time to personally respond to each contestant individually and to send out rejection letters. So if you are picked the winner, I will notify you and only you and then I will announce it on my blog and post the paragraph that you have written to me for all to read.

5. But before I can announce the contest winner, I will need a consent form giving me full permission to use your name anyway I want to, in my book and it must be signed and dated. (Who knows? You just might become another quirky character in my third novella.)

6. The prize for this contest will be a signed, first edition copy of my third novella. 

7. The last rule is to have fun with this.

And that is about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

P.S. Great news! Our dear friend Fay, in Toronto, is coming to see us on the 17th and we cannot wait to see her!

Second Hand News! or We're Off! or Mug Shots! or Foreign Friends!

Yesterday was so much fun. I actually got up early and I was thrilled about it, because I've been trying to change my body clock, so getting up early will become second nature to me. And it's working like clockwork.

Anyway, after getting up and drinking a delicious cup of coffee, Hazel came out of the closet and she and I got removed all of the dog hair, from the floor, behind things and underneath furniture. Then I walked 4 Fast Miles with Leslie Sansone.

After that I decided to check my e-mail. Mari had sent me some funny notes and Chet O'Keefe had sent me an e-mail that was written in three phases. What I mean he wrote some on Sunday night during a thunderstorm, Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Sunday's news was about him coming up to visit us on Friday and planning on playing a fun gig with Stephen K. Morris, at the Western Edge Cellars, in Fredericksburg @ 4:00. And we can't wait, because we love Chet and Stephen's awesome music and the Western Edge Cellars is way too cool a place to listen to great music.

On the Monday part of his e-mail, Chet added news about his new, custom-made guitar and the last part of it was exciting, because he was looking forward to staying with us over the weekend and seeing all of our dear friends Stephen K. Morris & Eva Robinett and Hans & Marita, who are here once again, visiting all of us. Marita and Hans are from Norway and they will be staying in Fredericksburg, for the next month.

Tuesday morning the last part of Chet's note was a short note—Chet told me that he had talked to Hans & Marita and he knew that they were coming to see us "today."

As soon as I read that Marita & Hans were coming to see us "today" I asked Tony to please check his messages, to see if they had contacted him.

A minute later, Tony came into the big room, and said, "They sent me a note. They said that they are coming to the Old Timer's Rusty Dawg food truck to eat lunch and get a visit in with us.

I went into a panic mode, and said, "Oh my goodness! We won't be there." Then I clicked the remote to open our gate outside. "Try to send them a note telling them we're off today and to please come to The Cabin instead."

While Tony was writing them a message, I jumped into the shower and took the fastest shower that I've ever taken in my life. And forty minutes later our dear friends, Marita & Hans arrived!

After howdies and hugs outside, we came inside The Cabin and the real fun began. But before we started catching up with each others news they gave Tony and me gifts. "These are our favorite coffee mugs and they are made in Norway and...."

Tony and I loved our new Norwegian-made coffee mugs and I claimed the blue one and he got the white one.

To say the least, since this post is growing by the minute, "We had a wonderful time with Hans & Marita and we hated to see them go back to Fredericksburg. Not because we don't like Fredville, because we were having such a great time with our foreign friends.

This morning while I was cooking us breakfast, Tony was outside taking pictures. When he came back inside The Cabin, he was carrying a gift wrapped package. "I found this by the gate. Fay has sent you something."

Since I was busy cooking I asked Tony to please open it for me.

When I saw the cute box, I said, "Let me open it. Will you stir the eggs for me? They are almost ready." Tony took my spatula and began stirring my scrambled egg concoction (sausage, onion, mushrooms, garlic, eggs, parmesan cheese, heavy whipping cream and power greens) for me.

When I opened the box and saw the hilarious mug's message, I laughed out loud, because those were mostly my thoughts for the most part of August, because of Mercury doing its thing. It could not have been more perfect, because it said it all. Then I read Fay's sweet note. So right here, I want to say, "Thank you, Fay! I LOVE this mug! I Can't Even—"

❤

Then I cut up a ripe avocado and halved it. Then I smashed it, on our awesome restaurant plates, they sweet Liz & Jim gave to me. Then I dumped my scrambled egg concoction, on top of the smushed avocado and we ate another Keto-friendly-low carb breakfast. And in four days, we've been eating delicious salads, burger without buns, etc. And Tony has already lost five unwanted pounds and I can almost button the top button on my 501 Levis!

Here are our mug shots. 

As I finish writing this post this morning, Tony and I are fixin' to take off for Kerrville, because we are meeting Marita & Hans for a super fun lunch, even though neither one of us is hungry. Then we're going back to the big H-E-B, so we can stock up on more Keto-friendly food, because we are loving this amazing, healthy diet. And that is about it for today.

Y'all have a great day and evening! And keep on laughing!

Out-Of-Town Friends!

This past week has flown by so fast, because we've been so busy working/remodeling the cabin, doing our rescue ranch chores, spending quality time with many of our dear friends, etc.

But I guess the real reason for time flying by so fast is because I am now 66 years old. Or better said, "This upcoming Halloween, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas day will be my 66th." And if you think about it that is pretty exhausting to say the least.

This past Saturday the East Kerr 4-H Club came out to volunteer for us and it was so much fun for Tony and me and our dogs. We love the East Kerr 4-H Club, because these super-cool, dedicated kids are doing great volunteer work.

While they were out here we walked dogs, down to the creek, with them and after that they helped Tony with a fencing project. And if we hadn't had their help with the fencing it would have taken Tony and me at least four hours to do what they accomplished in just one hour. So before I go any further I want to thank the members of the East Kerr 4-H Club. And here are a couple of pictures that I took when we went walking with them.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was going to sew curtains for the cabin, after the East Kerr 4-H Club came out, but it turns out that I lied, because instead of playing "Susie Homemaker" (Where in the heck did that phrase come from?) and sewing the curtains—Tony and I went back over the the cabin and worked until dark-thirty. And we spent most of Sunday working, over at the cabin, too. 

The reason why we worked so hard was because we knew that our good friend Chet O'Keefe and his faithful dog, Willie, were coming to see us, on Tuesday and they were staying with us until Saturday, because Chet has a gig to play Saturday night, at the famous Starlight Theater, in Terlingua. 

And also coming to see us on Tuesday, were our great Fredericksburg friends, Stephen K. Morris & Eva Robinett and they were bringing our mutual Norwegian friends, Hans & Marita and Hans & Marita were bringing their daughter Servenen (spell check there) and her boyfriend Casper, who had flown over, from England, to meet their Texas friends. Anyway, Tony and I were determined to get a lot of work done, so we could show off our soon-to-be cozy cabin. So here is what Tony and I accomplished, before yesterday afternoon.

As planned Stephen & Eva, Marita & Hans and Servenen & Casper arrived, at 1:30 and they brought along Jimmy, their musician friend, who is a singer/songwriter, plays an awesome guitar and harmonica and who also used to perform with Travis Tritt. (I can't remember Jimmy's last name, even though he gave me one of his latest CDs for a birthday present. So tomorrow when we are over, at the property, I will pick it up and bring it home and let you know who this famous musician is.)  

And when they arrived they surprised me, because they were throwing me a surprise birthday party and even Tony did not know about it.

Well, as soon as they arrived Tony and I started giving them a tour of the cabin and by the time we made it out to the beautiful back porch, Tony says, "Chet's here!"

"He is?" I asked, because I figured Chet would be arriving around 3:00 or so.

"Yeah," Tony remarked. "There's Willie..." And that is when our super-fun party began and to my surprise, our friends brought all kinds of delicious food, refreshments and my birthday cake.

After the howdies, hugs and handshakes we gave everyone a full tour of the cabin and the property and everyone fell in love with our place and they were very happy for us, but not nearly as happy as Tony and I are about getting the property. 

After the tour we broke out our musical instruments and we had a great time jamming, for several hours, in our front yard. And I ended up taking a break and took these pictures of our jam session.

I could write so much more about fun party with our dear out-of-town (and country) friends, but I think that I've written about enough for now, because I am pooped and I still need to start gathering up a bunch of stuff, for me to sell, at Ellen's and June's gigantic garage sale, which will be happening this coming Saturday.

In fact, Tony and I are so tired tonight, we stayed home to rest, while Chet and Stephen are performing, at the Western Edge Cellars, in Fredericksburg.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Mustang Willie!

Oh my goodness! Yesterday was great and today has been too. But before I start telling you how great everything is I have something to tell you about my Little Debbie.

As you may already know Little Debbie is a sweet, one-eyed precious, little Chihuahua that we rescued along with five other adorable Chihuahuas, almost three years ago. And Big Al(ice) was one of those lucky, five, other Chi's that we found fabulous homes for.

Anyway, since Little Debbie joined our family she has been nothing but great and she stole our hearts the minute that we saw her. Little Debbie has become a famous movie star ever since last year, when she starred in our hilarious Longmire—Texas Style video spoof.

Little Debbie is highly intelligent and house-broken even though she hardly ever sets foot outside. So when I say she is house-broken—I actually mean Little Debbie uses the potty-pads, inside The Cabin.  And not to brag—she'll only potties, on a pad, to help make cleaning up easier for us. Which I think is quite thoughtful of her.

Now to get to the point of all of this about Little Debbie, yesterday morning, we discovered that she is so smart and such a fine actress that she almost faked us out. Tony and I were, in the kitchen, getting ready to give our dogs treats and when Little Debbie walked into the kitchen she was limping and holding her paw up like it was hurt. "Omg, Tony! Look at Little Debbie. She's hurt!"

Tony picked up Little Debbie to look at her leg and to see if she had cut her paw or leg and she seemed to enjoy all of the attention she was getting from us and our dogs. "I can't find a thing wrong with her," he said, as he put her back down on the floor. Then Little Debbie raced out of the kitchen using all four of her legs like nothing was wrong.

So, he called her and she came limping back, into the kitchen again, but she was limping and holding up her other paw. Like this:

After running out of the kitchen again, she came running back, but this time she was holding up her other paw and giving us "the sad eye" look and wanting us to pick her up and that's when we realized she had been faking us out. Bottom Line    Little Debbie has a new acting skill and she is really good at it.

Yesterday afternoon Carol, Tony and I went to the Western Edge Cellars, in Fredericksburg and we had an absolute blast. When we arrived a few minutes after Stephen K. Morris' live, one hour broadcast show Spotlight, had already started, on the new, solar radio station TABC (Texas Americana Blues Cajun Music) And he was introducing his guests singers/songwriters/musicians—Lynette and Lefty. 

Stephen waved at us, from the stage, as we sat down at a table, near the front of the stage. Then this friendly, sweet waitress walked up to our table to take our order and then she disappeared and then quickly reappeared to serve us our drinks.

When Lynette and Lefty started singing their first song all three of our jaws, dropped all of the way down to the floor, because their music was so unique, refreshing or better said, "Totally fantastic!"

Everyone in the crowd applauded loudly, hooted and whistled after they finished their first song and the good vibes were uphill all the way till they finished their first set. Their music was amazing and Stephen and their interactions with the crowd kept everyone laughing. 

During their first break, Stephen and Lynette and Lefty came up to our table and Stephen introduced them to us and we introduced them to Carol. Then we started having a fun visit with them and that's when we found out that Lynette and Lefty had two, rescued Chihuahuas that they travel with. And I got to meet them, but I can only remember Gilbert's name. 

Before the second set, Stephen's better half, Eva Robinett, arrived and she joined us at our table, while Tony and I were finishing eating two delicious bowls of pinto beans with rice, sausage and melted cheese. And to top all of that off—the waitress came by our table and she gave all of us some really nice Pedernales Brewing Company beer glasses, because this popular brewing company is one of the sponsors for Stephen's Sunday afternoon Spotlight series. 

So to put our fun adventure, to Fred-Town, in a nutshell "We are now huge fans of Western Edge Cellars, Lynette and Lefty, Pedernales Brewing Company and Stephen K. Morris' Spotlight series and here are just a few pictures that we took. 

Their newest CD—Meant To Be

Today has been great, too. This afternoon, Dylan, the nicest young man came out for his appointment to meet Willie Nelson, because he was seriously thinking about adopting him. And it only took Dylan about ten minutes to make up his mind that he wanted to adopt Willie.

While I was filling out Willie's adoption form, Tony and I visited with Dylan, inside The Cabin, because it was starting to get hot outside. And the more we visited with him the more Dylan impressed us and he reminded us so much of dear friend Ben. In fact, Dylan is a cook and he loves cooking. So Dylan and I spent several minutes having fun talking about how we both enjoy cooking and our love for dogs. 

When we went outside to put a collar on Willie, Tony had found a nice dog collar and attached Willie's dog tags to it, while I was inside Willie's pen telling him about how happy we were for him finally getting adopting. And something must have clicked inside Willie's head, because he looked at me like he understood me and then he jumped up, on the top of his dog house.

And here's a picture I took of Willie and Dylan, just before Willie got in the passenger front seat and took off in Dylan's fancy Mustang.

Late this afternoon Tony went to pick up our mail and when he came back, he said, "You've got to read this. It is a letter from a woman named Julie Smith, in Australia. So, I read the letter and chuckled when Julie wrote she that she bought one of our Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch T-shirts, at a 2nd hand market, when she was visiting Phnom Penh, Cambodia. With a photo of her wearing "my very favorite shirt—I've had it for years and I wear it most weekends and all through summer camping...." So I would like to say "Howdy" to Julie and thank her for sending us this letter along with a picture of her wearing it—with a small kangaroo close by.

And that's about it for now, except I forgot to tell you that Dylan's girlfriend loves Blue Heelers and that she might want to adopt Blue! And I got this invitation in the mail today.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

In Dreams I Go Back Home!

The past few days have been great. On last Tuesday's blog post I wrote that the sweet waitress, at the Thai O'Cha Restaurant made Tony and me look fat so I didn't post a picture. Well, sweet Eva has sent me a picture of Stephen K. Morris and Eva Robinett posing with us and Tony and I still looked fat, so I cropped it and this is what I got.

And the good news today is Tony and I are going to do the Atkins Diet for a few weeks or until we lose our muffin tops. But please don't tell Tony about dieting, because he doesn't know that we are dieting it.

Last night Tony and I met our dear friend Carol, at the Medina Highpoint Resort, for their Friday Nights delicious Catfish buffet. And also because Hogan & Moss, who we love their music, were doing a concert, out on their huge patio.

The buffet was delicious as it always it and omg, Hogan & Moss put on an incredibly great show and had the big crowd begging for more. In fact, we never stopped tapping our toes to their beautiful music, which is good because I'm sure our toe tapping helped Tony and me burn off a few extra calories.

This morning, I wasted about thirty-minutes of my time Googling on approximately how many calories are burned toe-tapping non-stop. And I found nothing, so if y'all know or can find out please let me know ASAP, because tomorrow afternoon between 4:00 - 7:00 Carol, Tony and I will be toe-tapping, again, at the Western Edge Cellars, in Fredericksburg. Because Stephen will be hosting another one of his awesome Outsider Insider Singer/Songwriter shows. And I want to invite all of y'all to join us there for a super-fun time.

Back to last night, at the Medina Highpoint Resort. During Hogan & Moss' 1st break, Bethany a dear, old friend of ours walked up to our table to say hi to us. And even though we haven't seen Bethany in several years and because we are such good friends our conversation picked up like we had just seen her yesterday.

Carol, Tony and I had a blast visiting with Bethany and we talked and laughed non-stop until Hogan & Moss took the stage again, to sing another great set for the crowd.

Later on, when it was time for all of us to go home, before it got dark on us, we got to have a fun, friendly visit with Maria Moss & Jon Hogan. And it was a lot of fun, because we quickly found out that they are real good friends with many of our great musician friends—such as: Chet O'Keefe, Jim Keaveny, Stephen K. Morris, etc.

And before we all adios-ed each other, Jon & Maria gave Tony and me two copies of In Dreams I Go Back Home, which is their latest, fabulous CD. And they asked us to please give one copy to Kinky, because they especially wanted Kinky to listen to Can't Always Cry, the 2nd cut on the CD. Because this beautiful, unfinished song had been written by the late Blaze Foley and after Blaze's untimely death his daughter had asked Jon to please put music to it for Blaze. 

And that is about it for tonight, because Tony and I are fixin' to go over to visit with Carol & Bill.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!