thanks guys, appreciate all the info. going on day 4 of the wife driving it approximately 2-3 hours a day on the highway, still no drop in coolant level. when I said the coolant was low, it was on the full mark when cold, I know that is full, but I thought I had it higher in there for the simple fact that it was recently overheated and wanted to have some extra in the tank. so I topped it off to just about the top of the tank, and when it gets hot, it just about touches the top of the bottle, and it has maintained that level for the last 4 days, so I am thinking one of two things happened:
1. I over-reacted and did not remember correctly the real level of the coolant in there and just thought it lost some
2. I was correct in my memory of having extra in the bottle and there was an air pocket in the system from the overheating incident that finally came out

still have 2 more days of the test to go until I make final assessment, but so far, it is looking like the smoke is engine oil since I do traditionally need to top that off every week or so.

if doing valve seals is a really in depth job, I will just deal with it, it isn't tons of smoke, I mean it has 170k miles on it, hard miles, off roading miles, towing miles, hot heat arizona miles, etc. so it won't be able to hold engine oil back like a new engine. will burning about 1 cup engine oil every 2 weeks ruin anything?