Beautiful Clearlake in California

Beautiful Clearlake in California
Pacific Ocean/Mendocino Feb 2016
Update: March 6th, 2016.
After a very very long year of learning to live a new life with my most recent handicap. I am getting movement in my arm!! :) It started the end of August and has been progressing, slowly. My issues with paranioia and depression are also getting better. I am confident that things will continue to progress. However, loosing a whole YEAR of my life is devastating to say the least. However, keeping a positive attitude for the most part has been a huge challenge, but I do it. I am grateful to all my family and friends that have been so encouraging and helpful. Thank you..




Saturday, March 24, 2012

My New Hat..

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Mid Week getaway Ft Bragg

A few months ago I received and invitation from Travelzoo to experience The North Cliff Hotel in Ft Bragg for the great price of $199 for two nights stay, dinner certificate and champagne at the Cliff House Restaurant and some tickets to the Botanical Gardens in Ft Bragg. I really had never considered ever doing some nights in Ft Bragg other than maybe in the trailer.. Not sure why I never thought of it before, but the invitation sounded like a wonderful idea.
We were so impressed by the lovely view, the clean rooms, tastefully decorated, quite and serene. We could hear the fog horns in the night as well as the buoy bell on occasion because we left our sliding glass door open just a little overnight. We were situated on the 2nd floor with such a fabulous view of the Noyo Harbor and the Pacific Ocean. We watched the fishing boats coming in and going out of the harbor. There were seals in the harbor, there were whales breaching and spouting that we could see in the distance. The weather was over all pretty nice! Considering I think we were lucky to be there between storms.
Our first day we arrived we got to the hotel about 2:30 had some snacks and then took a walk out the break water from the harbor to the sea. It was cool, cloudy and breezy and the tide was turning to come in. There were some fisherman along the breakwater fishing, catching some nice fish for their dinners I am sure. After that walk we were still full from our snacks so we decided we should take another walk so we could think about having dinner about 7pm at the Cliff House restaurant right across the way (across the bridge to the right) located right on the edge of the harbor. I am not sure but I think we walked about 3 or 4 miles, so we could walk off those snacks! We walked the long way down to Noyo Harbor. Got some great shots of the harbor, some of the fishing boats and restaurant's!
We arrived to the Cliff House Restaurant about 7pm that evening as the sun was just setting over the ocean. We were seated in an elevated booth over looking the arm of the harbor into the Pacific. Lovely view. We were admiring a appetizer a gentleman had in the next booth over so we asked him what it was, it looked delicious!!! uumm.. obviously our appetite had returned. The lovely appetizer was a “Crab Martini”, uummm..
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Of course we Ev and I shared one with our cocktails. BTW great Vodka Martini and Roy Roy..
Ev ordered a Clam Linguini and I had the Delmonico Steak (16oz) with portabella mushrooms. Both dinners were prepared perfectly, presented well and delicious! The service was very good too. The girls, Megan and Debbie were so sweet and attentive. Great evening..
Thursday we woke to a beautiful sunny, blue skies day!! The ocean was gorgeous!!!
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Now to plan for the day.. We had a light breakfast in the room. The hotel offered a continental breakfast.
We decided to take a walk over the bridge down to “Chicken Point” across the way from us, about 2 miles one way. As we were leaving our friends Jim & Shirley called and asked we wanted company? We said “OF COURSE”! They were already on their way, so they would be in Ft Bragg about 1130am.. It was only 930am, so we had plenty of time to do our walk and then get ready for the day.
Jim & Shirley arrived about 1130am, we popped a bottle of champagne and toasted away! Jim had a brandy (his fav). We then headed over to Silvers at the Wharf for lunch. Ev and I shared a uumm delicious crab melt with a bowl of clam chowder, while Jim & Shirley both had something different. Shirley had a Shrimp Louis and Jim had steamer clams. We all enjoyed our lunch and we ready to move on.. We all decided we wanted to drive down to Mendocino and visit “Dicks Place” and have a couple of cocktails.. after a couple we were all plenty silly enough by now and decided we should do some site seeing, walking of course. We visited a couple little shops, walked through a old lovely hotel (not sure of the name) and then we walked along the cliffs above the ocean. It was now getting late and very cool with that strong breeze. It was time to part ways. Jim & Shirley were going to drive home and we were headed back to the hotel.
We got back to the hotel and decided we needed to take another walk over to “Chicken Point”.. What a beautiful day!! We enjoyed a spectacular sunset over the Pacific.
252Got back to our room, had some snacks kicked back and before you knew it, we were out like lights!!
Friday we slept in a bit..then took a nice walk over to “Chicken Point” again.. Got the blood going. After our invigorating walk, we were ready for the day! We got showered, packed up and headed out. First stop, “Eggheads” . BEST CRAB OMELETS EVER!! Guess I don’t need to say anything else! My mouth is watering as I write this, so better not stay on this subject long! It’s a 2 hours drive to Ft Bragg and they are now closed for the day..
Next we went to the Botanical Gardens.. Due to it being early spring, not much was in bloom. However the “roddies” were highly in bloom and breathtakingly beautiful! Thank God there was the roddies and the gorgeous coast line to enjoy. I am not sure that there is anything more beautiful in the world than our California Coast Line..especially on a sunny day. We looly gaged around the gardens for awhile enjoying nature at its finest..
Got home about 5pm..
Enjoy the pics!!


 

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Moose Lodge to Host Farmers Market

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FARMERS MARKET
EVERY WEDNESDAY
JUNE 6TH THROUGH OCTOBER 3RD
(EXCLUDING HOLIDAYS)
3PM-7PM
Interested vendors call the Moose Lodge for more details, call Thomas 707.998.3740
click to view more info
http://www.mooselodge2284.org/events/farmersmarket.htm

Moose Lodge 2284 New Website

As many of your know, I do quite a bit of work with the computer.. an understatement? Don’t laugh I am trying to be modest.. I just love to have fun with it! So many people don’t like the computer, because they feel it is “work” related. However some people just realize how fun it can be too! I love the computer and quite honestly I could spend all my days here, playing around..Not to healthy..ok it’s winter..
About a month ago or so, I was talking with the Administrator Thomas DeWalt and he was going to spend lots of $$$$ to have a website built. I told him I could probably do it and it wouldn’t be anything fancy, but clean and simple to navigate and that my services were FREE!! I do believe the key word was “FREE”! I started working on it about 2 weeks ago and got it up and running within about 10 days (and possibly about 40-50 hours plus).. As I said nothing fancy, easy to navigate, etc.. Of course the most interesting pages are the “Events” & “Photos”, there is also the “calendar”, the “newsletter”(this page is in deed of some creativity) and of course the “woman of the moose” as well as the “loyal order of the moose”, the men. “Home” has all the fancy buttons with a couple of nice pictures of the lodge that I took on a beautiful almost spring day.
Hope you will enjoy going through the site.. Here is the link>>
http://www.mooselodge2284.org/
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We have some really GREAT events coming up in the next couple of months at the Moose. There is our camping trip up to Lewiston Moose Lodge over Memorial Day Weekend, Taste of the Lake Wine Festival, featuring local wineries, art, food, etc.. It’s going to be a fabulous event!!! that is June 3rd. That same week we are introducing our “Farmers Market” at the lodge! Not sure what else the summer will bring, but will try and keep you posted with our “Events” page!

Rossmoor at Walnut Creek

Our friend Lee Barry moved over the weekend to a wonderful retirement living community nearby Walnut Creek/Lafayette area called Rossmoor. Rossmoor is approx. 7,000 retired people.
Lee asked us to do some shopping at Costco before we arrived on Sunday. Loaded up the Toyota.. Arrived early afternoon at Lee’s new condo.. Lee’s sister Bonnie and her husband Terry were there as well, trying to help Lee get settled.
Lee’s place is cute.. it is a 2 bedroom/1 bath, approx. 1050 sq feet, upper level, nice views of the trees. Very quite, seems rural lots of wild life, turkeys, geese, dear, squirrels, etc.. everywhere!
We helped out getting things put away, organized and cleaned that afternoon. Lee too us to dinner at?? OMG forgot the name of the place.. I know it was a sports bar in Walnut Creek and it was packed! Ok.. looked it up, it is called McCovey’s Sport Bar.. dahhh We had a very nice dinner there.  Lots of fun things going on there!
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I was perfectly horrible about taking pics over the couple of days that we were there.. too busy working I guess?
So what you see above, is it!
Monday morning when my feet hit the floor I started working cleaning, emptying boxes, organizing boxes, hanging pictures, etc.. Ev & Lee went to McDonalds got us breakfast while I tried to get as much done as I could before showering and getting ready for the rest of day to meet friends for lunch and get home. I felt that we made good headway getting things put away, etc.. Lee mainly needed to put more personal items away. I think he was pretty tired when we left. at about 2pm.
Before we came down to Walnut Creek, friends George and Carol asked if we would have time to meet for lunch at a place called “Chow” in Lafayette? While driving down on Sunday I “texted” them and let them know that would be the perfect ending to our day on Monday! And beside George & Carol just got back from a fabulous cruise in the orient!!
We met them at the restaurant “Chow” and it was so great to see them! They already looked rested and they had only been home less than a week! We got and gave great hugs to both! Listened to some wonderful stories they shared with us about their trip!! Be sure to visit Carol & George’s blog at >>
candgtravels or http://cngtravels.blogspot.com/ << Carol is the photographer in the family and takes some very detailed/beautiful photos, however not to say that George doesn’t also take wonderful pictures too!! We just had the nicest visit with them! They are exciting and fun people! Their next trip is the “Kentucky Derby” again!!  Tally Ho!!
(Carol and I both didn’t take pictures on Monday)..

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Moose Lodge Carnitas Dinner

The carnitas dinner was a big hit!! SOLD OUT!! I do believe the sopapilla cheesecake pie was a huge sensation!! It is all gone too. So over all the dinner was successful!! 
I believe we sold about 40 plus dinners.
I guess SOLD OUT pretty much says it was good..
I strongly recommend you try my dessert sopapilla cheesecake pie, it is very good, cheap to make and everyone will love it! Especially if they are like/love sweets.
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Printable Version>> http://www.clearlakevacationsonline.com/recipes/sopapilla_cheesecake_pie.pdf
View all my recipes>>
http://www.clearlakevacationsonline.com/recipes/index.html

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Rob Roy Brunch

This would be day 4 of our busy busy weekend! We had our monthly meeting with our Philosophical Society at the Rob Roy this morning at 11am. Had a great turn out, about 24 this morning.. Not bad..
As always Faith & Rudy come festively dressed (st paddy’s day), for which I had forgotten completely.. oh well there is always next year. Cristina was also dress in green along with some other festively dressed people.. We enjoyed a fabulous seafood omelet this morning for our breakfast. Rob Roy Golf & Country Club always do a wonderful job with the food as well as the service. Due to Easter and then Mother’s Day falling on the 2nd Sunday of the month, we won’t be having our monthly meetings again till June.

We finished with the philosophers and off we went to Robinsons.. Ev and I played our $10 bucks, won $150 and we were out of there.. Tomorrow is the last day of the stretch of a terribly busy schedule.. Tomorrow (Monday) we cook at the Moose!! Carnitas.. cooking as I write.. Smile

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Woman of the Moose Luncheon/Fashion Show

The first annual Spring Luncheon/Fashion Show was held on Saturday March 10, 2012.
The hall was festively decorated with the theme of St. Paddys’ day. Everyone did a fantastic job! We had Lasagna with all the trimming for lunch. One our new members “Personal Chef Mary” prepared all the food. Yummy..
Our day started at the Moose about 11am. I was one of 8 models for the show. We (models) needed to arrive early so we could get what exactly we were going to do. This was the first time and we did pretty darn good..
Most all us dressed in the woman’s office and really it wasn’t too bad. The models were, Me, Lynn Ringuette, Judy DeWolfe, Barbara Higman, Colleen Chatoff, Donna Brown (our bartender at the Moose) and Jana Heller a new member of the moose. We all had a fun time strutting our stuff!!
You can view the slideshow on “youtube”..
Or you can click here>> view Fashion Show


Friday, March 9, 2012

Dinner with Larry & Lynn

Larry & Lynn invited us to dinner on Friday night earlier in the week and we were going to TJ’s in Lakeport. We hadn’t been there yet, so this was going to be a nice treat for us!!
We met L & L at the Moose and Larry drove. We stopped in Kelseyville at a little bar called the “The Brick”, really old place wit lots of character! Cool little place, had one drink and then off we went to TJ’s.
We arrived with no reservations, didn’t really seem like we needed them. Atmosphere is friendly, not to dimly lit, and the bar was a “U” shape making it even more inviting.. So we all sat at the bar and most of us had wine. The bartender set us up with a table for dinner. We were seated and our wait person took our order, 3 of us had the seafood Linguine and Lynn had prime rib.. food was good and reasonably priced, service was?? ok.. We would go back.. Can’t always judge by the first experience. Larry chauffeured us back to the Moose and then went in and had another drink..Ev didn’t drink so I managed to drink enough for both of us. Of course I knew I would pay for it the next day.. And of course that was the big day of our Woman of the Moose Fashion show.. Oh Lord..

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Thursday, March 8, 2012

Bakers Retirees Luncheon

We were on the road early on this Thursday morning (3/8/12) so we could make it to the luncheon for the Bakers Retiree Luncheon at Francesco’s in Oakland on Heggenberger by the Oakland airport.
Our friend Lee Barry is the President/Secretary/ Treasurer/etc.. poor guy has all the jobs.. Does pretty good at getting it all together.
We had a short visit before we had to hit the road to get home. It is nearly a 3 hour drive one way!! Spent more time on the road than we did visiting with everyone.. It was a nice day..

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Moose Lodge 2284 Website

On Sunday after our outing hiking, I started working on the website for our Moose Lodge.. To my amazement I couldn’t believe how long it had been since I had NOT DESIGNED A WEBSITE! OMG! It was like I had no imagination at all,! I looked at what I was doing and I was in?? Well?? I can’t even relay my total disappointment of what I thought I had! Looked like I had never done anything creative in my whole life! BLAH. BORING, ETC….After Sunday (maybe because I was so physically exhausted from hiking all day?), on Monday things started to look better.. Thank God for Janelle my niece.. she helped me to put things in perspective.. awww.. I worked on the website nearly 14 hours on Monday!! TRANSFORMATION happened! woo hooo and Thank God! Tuesday was a couple of hours work, then Wednesday a few more hours and waaa laaa.. we have a nice, simple, clean working website.. I am ok with it.. would like it too look a little better… but for the beginning, it is alright.. check it out for yourself.. Here is the link>>http://www.clearlakevacationsonline.com/moose2284/loom2284/ <<this link only will work till we get the new home for it’s real website.. hopefully it will be http://www.mooselodge2284.org ?? we hope to get that done on Thursday March 8, 2012.. So far I am happy with it.. Smile

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Hike to Frog Pond via Cache Creek Regional Park


We were having breakfast and talking about what we were going to do today. The weather is so beautiful today, expected highs in the mid 70’s!! I had the idea to “drive” up by Chico/Paradise area and then up on the Feather River… Ev said we should go to Cache Creek and hike (hiking is more healthy, so we opted to hike).. So we packed up a lunch, us and the dogs and off we went. We got to the park about 11am and we were on our way. The weather was perfect! I wore shorts and tank top, Ev started out with long sleeves, however soon the long sleeve shirt came off. We took both Ripley and Kaylee with us.. Kaylee just rips through the trails like they’re flat and Ripley with his bad back knee got to hitch a ride with “Mom” or “Dad”.. Mom has the “puppy pack” so it is easy to take him.. Of course when I was packing him up hill it was quite the workout! We had a nice lunch (tuna sandwiches) at the pond, where we could see and hear the frogs!! Nice hike.. On a scale of 1 to 5, and 5 being the most difficult, I would say it was about a 2 hike. We hiked 5 miles round trip up to Frog Pond..
We found out about a new website today it is called www.yolohiker.org .. This website shows all the places where you can hike in Yolo County, that is one county down from us..  Lake County, CA hiking trails is>> http://www.lakecounty.com/things/Nature/Trails.htm 

Friday, March 2, 2012

First Sour Dough French Bread I have made!

Many years ago I tried making bread with a bread machine.. I do believe they have those machines rigged so you can only use there pre-mixed packages.. And the reason I say that, is that I never got it to make bread right ever! Finally gave it away to my sister-in-law Suzie.. don’t think she ever used it either.. probably gave it away too..
So that brings us to “today”.. Actually a few weeks ago I was at the website “Just a pinch”, terrific website (free). Lots of people posts their recipes and they get judged and the “winners” get prizes etc.. and also their recipe gets emailed to all the people who have signed up for the free emails! That is how I got the “Sour Dough Starter” and recipe for the “Sour Dough Bread”. It’s been a fun journey. I say journey because there many new avenues I had not experienced before, making the starter then the bread.. It was fun and if you can believe it, exciting too! While kneading the bread, I also learned that it can be great exercise! Your hands, wrists, arms and tummy!! OMG! Tummy muscles are feeling it today!!
Below you will see me with a photo of my first loaves of Sour Dough French Bread!! YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Not only does it look good, it tastes wonderful too!! Not mention how yummy the house smells!!
Thank you ladies at “Just a pinch”!!
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http://www.justapinch.com/