Last night my family had tacos for dinner. My husband and I had crunchy shell tacos, while my sons had soft shells. We added refried beans into the tacos; the beans add a lot of flavor to the taco. When I make my refried beans I heat them up with a bit of taco sauce and shredded cheese. They are very tasty this way. When making the boys’ tacos I spread the refried beans on the shell, top it with meat, add a bit of taco sauce and top it off with some shredded cheese and a small dollop of sour cream. My husband will usually add hot sauce, jalapenos, lettuce, and tomato to his tacos as well. I usually only pile cheese, and sour cream onto mine. Tacos are great because everyone can have what they want without feeling like a cook in a restaurant.

Today I am wearing some new clothes in smaller sizes. After losing about 25 pounds this summer, I am delighted to be wearing a size 10 pants for the first time in about seven years. My ensemble today consists of black dress pants, black heels, and a pink v-neck short-sleeved shirt with an wide elastic band around the waist. I’m also wearing my usual watch and some bold oval earrings. As a teacher, I had been saving some of these newer, skinnier clothes for the start of the school year, so it has been fun wearing them for the first time. I’m getting compliments from teachers and students alike.

I am a full-time RV’er spending her summer at a lake in Iowa. The dog days of summer are upon us and it’s the weekend. Yeah! The day was gorgeous, sunny and 81. I have been in this campground the entire summer and we have never actually explored the surround areas around the lake. This is a Corps of Engineers lake and has many recreation areas, so we load up the cooler and head out on a road trip. What a beautiful day. Families are out boating, swimming, having picnics, hiking, and riding their bikes on the bike trails. We had a great time and finished the day off back at the RV with a bottle of wine and couple of steaks on the grill. It doesn’t get any better than that. Sunday dawns cool and cloudy. If you have ever spent any time in a RV then you know that those are the kind of days that you dread. It’s too cold to sit outside and it’s terribly confining to sit inside a RV all day. We turn on the TV and prepare to spend the day being couch potatoes. Luckily, a friend called to save the day! “Did we want to come to dinner?” you bet we did! We had a great time visiting. The meal was excellent and the three bottles of wine made for great conversation and relaxation. Life is good when you’re retired!