Desert life 4 me

Sex life of the Painted Lady

2009-03-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

There are MILLIONS of butterflys here now. You can't drive a block in any direction and not kill a bunch of them. I hate that. The poor things. Anyway...on the evening news, one of our bright newscasters said the painted lady butterflys are migrating up from Mexico, headed north. He made it sound like they were going all the way to Canada. What? My goodness, how far can a butterfly fly? In fact, how long does a butterfly live? So I googled Painted Lady Butterfly to see what the truth about them is.

Here you go. A butterfly egg takes 5 to 10 days to hatch into a caterpillar. The caterpillar eats like crazy and will change skin 4 times before it is fully grown. After 3 weeks the hairy, black and yellow caterpillar stops growing and is almost 2 inches long.

The caterpillar finds a safe place to rest and spins a chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar becomes completely liquid and reforms into a butterfly. 2 weeks later the butterfly emerges. The Painted Lady Butterfly has a 2 week life span. During that time, it's main goal is to reproduce and lay eggs so the cycle can begin again!

From start to finish that's about a 6 week ordeal. After watching these things flitting around here I figure it must take quite a few generations to make it north. I guess they look so frenzied in their flitting about because they know their time is running out and they haven't finished their bucket list.

What moves!!

2009-02-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised he doesn't fall off his perch.

I'm so happy!

2009-01-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

How happy does this guy look?! I want a goat like this. You just couldn't help but smile every time you see him. He just looks so darn happy.

It's that time again!

2008-11-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

Wow!! Where does time go? I am working hard with the choir and our first performance this year is December 7th! That is not very far off. In fact, week after next ( the 24th ) we are recording. The good news is, they sound GREAT. Monday night at rehersal they took my breath away. Awesome. I have 80 people signed up this year and it's going to be wonderful. I just have to keep myself focused and on track through the 14th of December. And....in the middle of all this I am organizing our women to go to Phoenix next week for Women of Faith. I have made the hotel reservations, got the tickets, arranged everyone's transportation and I am looking forward to getting away for a few days with all my girlfriends and having fun. There are 30 of us going and we have great seats. Can't wait.

Since we will be in Phoenix we will shop. Oh yea, that's a great side feature of the trip. We go up a day early so we can shop and play. Phoenix has REAL malls. Yuma is mall deprived. You haven't seen anything until you've seen 20 or 30 women from Yuma unleashed in a mall. I consider myself a power shopper. My endurance isn't what it once was and I can't do it for very long so I've become a pro at spotting what I want in a heartbeat and getting in and out. I am not a great browser. I will also admit most of my Christmas shopping is already done. Yep I got on it early this time. Except for John. I really struggle with what to get him.

I wish you all the best as you head into the holiday season and I pray you make blessed memories.

I got it!

2008-09-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

I was driving in to town yesterday and I suddenly realized what the first sign of fall in Yuma is. When it is 105 it is hard to feel fall. Well anyway, my revelation was ...... a yard sale sign! Yep, that's it. Yuma doesn't have yard sales in the summer and when they do have them they are held on Friday and Saturday. Almost never on Sunday. I passed a half dozen yard sale signs in my neighborhood alone. Snow birds love yard sales. I think they haul stuff down here with them just so they can have a yard sale. Which brings me to the second sign, snow birds ( or winter visitors ) are arriving in a steady stream. The grocery store is much busier and the street traffic has really picked up. Time to leave the house a little earlier to get whereever I'm going on time. And for me the final sign of fall is the start up of rehersals for the Christmas tree program. John is so sure that since October is just a few days away, he will be sitting out on the deck in the evening watching tv, so....he is right now out cleaning off the deck and furniture out there getting ready. He plans to watch Monday night football out there. I think the forecast for Monday is 101 which means it might be down to 98 by kick off. But, that's his plan. It's fall alright. I'm thinkin I need to go buy a new outfit for fall.

Benefits of 4 Seasons

2008-09-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

I loved being up in the northwest for a vacation. You could feel fall in the air. On our drive over the mountains from Seattle to Yakima there were even some noticeable changes starting in the trees. In Yuma we miss that. On the way home Monday, there was fresh snow on the mountains around Salt Lake. How pretty. While we were in Yakima I went shopping with my mom and aunt. I loved the fall and winter clothes in Macy's! Love the fall colors and I have always loved sweaters. I just can't buy that stuff to wear here. It doesn't get cold enough here for them. That got me to thinking about the seasons we have here. We basically have 2 seasons here.

1. Way to freaking hot! and...
2. Pretty comfortable.

The summer is the way too hot and my summer wardrobe consists of sandals, cool short skirts and tank tops. Oh and a cardigan to wear in restaurants and stores where they keep their thermostat on 60. My winter wardrobe consists of longer skirts, jeans, tee shirts, and a sweater to wear in the restaurants that still keep the thermostat on 60. Those guys must love the power company. We don't really have much in the way of spring or fall here, it just sort of jumps from summer to winter and back again. The trees here don't lose their leaves or change color so we don't see a change there. There are no daffodils or crocus popping their heads up early to let you know warm weather is coming. I miss the 4 seasons. I slways liked the change and I love to sit inside and watch it snow.

However, all is not lost. I buy clothes in the new fall colors that are light weight. I know it's fall when I start practices for the Christmas program, and when my friend start returning. I know it is winter when there are so many people here you can hardly move, I know it's spring when my Easter choir performs and I know summer is almost here when the neighbors all leave. So I guess whereever you live you still see the benefits of 4 seasons.

Love the green!

2008-08-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

So far on our vacation we have only had one rainy day, yesterday. Today we are in Lynden and have been out seeing the town. We had a great lunch at a dutch restaurant and I got to visit a couple of quilt shops. I bought the fabric to make a snowman wall hanging that is cute. John, bless his heart, just patiently follows us girls around. He doesn't try to hurry us or anything. I'm sure he was more than glad when we decided to check out the restaurant. We also bought a dutch apple pie at the bakery for desert tonight. Ymmm....Teresa and Christy just went to the store to get ice cream to go with it. Maybe we'll just have pie and ice cream for dinner! So you see, this vacation is involving a lot of eating (as usual) and when we get back home it will be diet time.

Aside from the great food, the flowers here are just beautiful. All of the green lawns and trees plus beautiful flowers everywhere make this a nice change of pace for a desert girl. I even enjoyed the rain yesterday.

Where would we be without Faith

2008-08-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

Every year when it is time to prepare for the Christmas program or the Easter program, the attacks start. I know these are something satan would really like to bring to a halt. Every year I wonder what he's going to try this year. One year we were in the middle of giving a performance and a car hit a power pole down the highway from us and blacked out the whole valley. We lost all power....our sound, lights etc. We finished that song acapella under the romantic glow of 70 booklights. While that actually sounded very nice, we were unable to continue that performance. But most people returned the next night to see the whole program. A couple of years ago at a rehersal for the Easter program, I slipped on the stage steps and broke my foot. The good news is I only did it in front of 40 people, not the whole congregation. See, there's always an up side. Last year after they got the tree built for the choir some kids from the mobile home park nearby came over and kicked out a bunch of the light panels on the tree. They must be hard up for entertainment. Over the years we just roll with whatever comes out way. This years problem is already apparent. The joint replacement in my left shoulder has failed and needs to be completely replaced! RATS!! I will not have it done until after Christmas and hopefully I can make it until after Easter. I have to be careful with it or it will dislocate and I can tell you that really hurts. So here you go prayer warriors...please pray that I can maintain until at least after Christmas. I have great faith that this will all work out.

Monkey teases tiger

2008-08-10T14:39:00.001-07:00

This is a brave or stupid monkey. I liked it when he pulls the tail of the tiger. Probably a good thing they were only cubs.

Baby moose playing

2008-07-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is so cute.

Our dogs rule!

2008-07-25T05:17:00.000-07:00

Some of you have asked me to post pictures of our dogs. Thor is my Maltese and without a doubt the smartest one of the group...at least he has me well trained. Stanley is the black and white Shitzu/poodle - we call that a shit-poo. Then there's Bubbles the cock-a-poo. Named because she is the color of champagne. She is our senior dog. She's about 12 now and her eyesight isn't good, neither is her hearing. Or maybe she just has selective hearing. They all get along great and as long as we keep well supplied with treats and cater to their every whim they allow us to live with them. All three of them have to be groomed so every 4 weeks they go to the doggy beauty shop for a new do. We spend $105 a month on dog grooming!! I spend about $30 a year on my hair. There's something wrong with that picture. We are blessed to have a friend that will take all 3 of them when we go on vacation and in return we take the lovely Patches when they go. All in all they are an entertaining group and we wouldn't ever be without a dog .... or three.

Desert Entertainment

2008-07-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

You probably have to live here to understand but we find the monsoon season very entertaining. A lot of times at night we have spectacular lightening shows and I am always amazed how it can just pour in one block or two and go over just 3 or 4 blocks and they might not have had a drop. At 3 this morning (yes that's 3 am), John and I were sitting out on our deck watching it rain so hard the street in front of our house was completely under water. That little shower was over in 30 minutes. But there's our entertainment factor, we jump out of bed and rush outside at 0 dark thirty to watch it rain. :) You have to be prepared to move when it happens because it won't last long. Had it been daylight I would have jumped in the car and driven up the street so I could watch the wash fill up and run. I've even taken pictures of that event! Yep, the photo is the wash up the street from our house.

What's new?

2008-07-11T10:26:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful vacation in Little Rock. The weather was very nice, not too humid, got a little shower every day. Speaking of showers....we came out of the movies on Saturday and it was just starting to rain. Just a drop here and there. Then in a matter of 3 or 4 seconds, it was like God turned a bucket upside down on us. Looking back, it was kind of funny but we couldn't have been any wetter if we had jumped in a pool with all our clothes on! It took my shoes 3 days to dry out. There's a memory for us. We also had great fun feeding french fries to the fish and turtles at a restaurant we went to in Hot Springs. We sat out on the deck by the lake and had wonderful seafood. John came back from this trip 5 lbs heavier, I have avoided the scale. We also did quite a bit of sight seeing and it was nice to see so much green for a change. By contrast, everything looked pretty barren back home. If it weren't for the tormados I wouldn't mind living in Little Rock.

We got back home to heat and humidity. Yep, humidity. The monsoon season has officially started. We got a nice hard rain yesterday afternoon and probably will continue this cycle for a few weeks. For all those people who joke "it's a dry heat", they've never been here in July and August. 106 degrees with 45% humidity is not comfortable.

We are looking forward to vacationing in Washington state in August. Hmm...more green and cooler weather, nice. The kicker is, I made our air reservations months ago with Delta and now they are pulling out of Yuma. While we were in Little Rock, they called and rescheduled us but we were still flying in and out of Yuma. Today I checked my reservation and they had changed us to leaving from Yuma but returning to LA. LA? I called them. I told the agent that LA was a freaking long way from Yuma and how did she suggest we get back to Yuma. She punched her keys and came up with her idea of a great solution. For an additional $350 we could fly to Yuma from LA on United. After a very lengthy conversation, the bottom line is, we are flying out of Phoenix. It is what it is.

Now we just have to diet so we can be ready for the next trip!

It's Too HOT!!

2008-06-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Usually this time of year it might be 100 - 104 now with lows in the low 70's. Saturday it was 115 and Sunday morning when I got up at 4:30 it was 84 out. This is our middle of July thru August temps. Hopefully it will cool off a bit again. Maybe? Needless to say we are really looking forward to our vacation to visit Sam in Little Rock in a couple of weeks. No matter what it is like there it will be a nice break for us.

Since I'm conserving gas and spending more time at home, I am staying busy by reading a lot and quilting. I joined a quilt club that meets on Monday nights and I've learned a lot from the women there. They are so good to help if I have questions. They also make quilts to donate to children that are taken from their homes and put into foster care. The children get to keep these and hopefully they give a little comfort in a stressful time. When my choir practices start up again in the fall, I will miss this group. To that end, I am also working on picking the music for the tree program. The guy who programs the lights on the tree keeps bugging me for the music. You might think it's kind of early for this, but it takes a lot of time to put this together. I've previewed a lot of music and I haven't found the right one yet. I'm beginning to think I might have to cut and paste to get what I want. I like a couple of songs in one, one in another, etc. Then I'd have to rewrite the narration to make it all flow right. This is the first year something hasn't just jumped out at me. I usually have this done by the 1st of July!

I guess I'll go work on the Christmas quilt I'm making. Maybe it will inspire me.

I need a job!

2008-06-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Wow! I think I need a paying job. Our gas bill for my car and John's truck was $700 last month. Add to that how much everything else has gone up and I can only be thankful we aren't trying to feed a big family now. My favorite bread is now $4.32 a loaf. :( I've switched to a different kind. We purchased our airline tickets for our summer trips several months ago, thank goodness. Now I just have to figure out how to go on vacation with one suitcase. That's a problem for me. I am never sure what to take. Will it be hot, too cold, do I need a dress, what shoes....etc. Oh my, what about a coat! You know, when you come from Yuma, you are cold when it is 75 degrees out. I guess if I traveled more I would be better at it. For the past 25 years I traveled in an RV so I could take anything I wanted. That had it's definite advantages but I don't regret getting rid of it. Especially with the price of gas now. How do people go treking all over europe with just a backpack? Maybe I need to take a class on how to pack a suitcase. Is there such a thing? Oh, here's a thought .... I could UPS my stuff to my destination and just fly with my carry-on. Now this has possibilities! That way I could make room for whatever purchases I make during my travels. Oh, this is brilliant. I am going to go ponder this.

The neighborhood

2008-05-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

Man, things are really quiet in the neighborhood. There's not too many people here although, there are more than last year. I guess with the price of gas people aren't taking the big trips. A lot of my winter friends left their RV's here and just went north in their cars. I'm sure glad we don't have ours anymore. I'd hate to fill the tank now. It got a whopping 6 miles to the gallon when towing a vehicle. Gas has hit $4.00 here now and I am really cutting back on my running around. We live 15 miles from town and I used to just flit back and forth and think nothing much about it. I remember when noone would have considered living more than 7 miles from where they worked. Look at us now. People in major cities think nothing of spending and hour and a half commuting each way. In their Hummer. I'm thinking horses were a good mode of transportation. They could mow the lawn, fertilize the garden, and get you to the church on time. I'm surprised the tree huggers aren't trying to get legislation passed to abolish cars and bring back livestock. I guess they are too busy making their plane reservations so they can get in the most protests possible. I wonder if they will rethink their position on expanding drilling in this country when they can't afford to heat their homes next winter.

Does anybody sleep?

2008-05-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

The older I get, the less I sleep. I wonder why that is. My friends all seem to have the same problem. It doesn't help that my husband gets up at 4:30am every day. The dogs are "trained" to get up that early so even on the weekend they get me up. Good wife that I am, I get up with them and close the bedroom door so John can sleep in. It's kind of like having small children, forever! Thor, my maltese, gets me up between 2 and 3 in the morning EVERY day to go out with him to pee. There's a doggy door they all use at will, but apparently Thor doesn't want to go out in the dark alone. Just a theory. Actually, you can probably see who the one that's well trained around here really is. John and I both have trouble staying awake after 9 pm. Thanks to TIVO we record any TV programs we want to watch. In July I am going to have my 60th birthday. Never thought I'd be so old. At the rate I'm going, I figure by the time I'm 70, I will no longer sleep at all. What do I do with all those hours in the middle of the night? I read, sew, play computer games, pray, worry, etc. Maybe I should get a night job. Employers take note, instead of hiring young people for the night shift, hire seniors. They are awake anyway, and they know how to work!

I'm Refreshed

2008-04-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

We had a great vacation with my brother and his wife. After they spent a couple of days here with us, we all went over to San Diego for a few days of fun. We had a great time at Sea World. John and I love to go to Sea World, so much that we have and annual pass! As we were pulling in the parking lot, my brother Paul saw a roller coaster kind of ride and said he wanted to do that. Pat, his wife, said it wasn't for her. Hmm...I love roller coasters! Must run in the family. It was a beautiful day, not hot with a slight breeze. Now remember, to me, the Yuman, 80 is cool. Well, after lunch, we strolled over to the ride and discovered it was kind of a combination coaster, water ride. Brrr..Paul says, come on it's not that bad. Well, I walked over and watched for a few minutes and the people didn't seem to be getting drenched or anything so what the heck, I'm up for it. John and Pat stayed behind as Paul and I joined the line. Let me tell you, we got drenched!! I mean soaked from head to foot, wet stringy hair, no dry spots. I tried to duck in the gift shop at the end of the ride, thought I needed a Sea World beach towel. Paul yanked me out and made me keep moving. Now that light breeze felt like an arctic wind. Pat got a picture of us looking like drowned rats, said she is going to email it out to all the family. Nice. So, I managed to convince the others that a trip through the polar bear exhibit could wait till later. We did however, have a good time together and made plans for our trip up to Seattle in August. John and I also enjoyed having a vacation, the first one since Labor Day. We spent Friday at Coronado Island. I love Coronado Island, it makes me feel kind of like I'm in Hawaii. Now we are looking forward to our next vacation with everyone in Arkansas.

You gotta watch this!

2008-03-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/v/_LHoyB81LnE&hl=en">

Goodbyes are hard

2008-03-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

It is that time of the year here when my friends leave to spend their summers in a cooler climate. Sunday the Easter choir will give two performances and they sound wonderful. The music is great. Jean and Judy and I will sing a special during the offering and it will be our last time to sing as a trio this year since they too go north. I miss my friends when they go but I look forward to their return in the fall. After a busy winter, for me it brings a season of more relaxing activities. With only one church service on Sunday John and I will get to go out for breakfast after church again. I love that. :) I get to look forward to vacations this summer to visit all of our family. John and I cherish that time with everyone. Noone ever wants to come to our house for the 4th of July?! Hmmm..maybe if we put in a pool. I pray you all have a blessed Easter.

There's a dog on my quilt

2008-03-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

That's the title of this pattern ~ "There's a dog on my quilt." I made this for the back of John's chair and since it is a small throw, I machine quilted it myself. I think it's pretty cute. :)

The days are TOO SHORT

2008-03-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

Wow! Easter is so early this year. We only have 2 practices left for the Easter musical performance by the choir. Monday night after practice, John Krueger ( who runs the sound ) asked if I was going to have some power point photos to run with the program. Rats! I need to get that together. Then Tuesday morning someone at the women's Bible study asked me about the tickets for Women of Faith in November. Rats! I need to get those arrangements finalized. So ....what am I doing? Typing this instead of doing what I need to be doing. :) On the plus side of things, we have our air reservations for Little Rock. Laundry ~ I have to do laundry!

Cheap airfares?

2008-02-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have been pricing airfares to Littlerock from Yuma. We used to just have United flying in here but as of the first of the year Delta does too. They had all this hype about the great fares we can get with Delta. Well ...if we fly out of Yuma on Delta, it will cost us about $600 each! Maybe we could just fly to Salt lake (their hub) and then get a cheaper flight with someone else the rest of the way. Nope! It is $340 RT Yuma to Salt Lake, each. Hmmm....I guess we'll fly out of Phoenix, as usual. Maybe some of you can tell me if I'm missing something here.

More Quilts!

2008-02-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of the two throws I just finished. The Bottom picture of the one laying across the sofa was the first quilt I made.

I want to talk to Jack

2008-02-07T04:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I popped in to Jack in the Box for a quick lunch. That was my first mistake. They aren't quick. I perused the menu board and ordered the number 8. It said "jumbo cheeseburger combo". Yep, that was for me, a jumbo CHEESE burger. A burger isn't complete without cheese, in my book. I'm patient, I took my book and sat at a table and read for a while. Finally they call a name that I was pretty sure was supposed to be me. These places never get my name right, even spelled right the person calling the name on the order thought it had to be wrong, so she changed it. So....I looked around and when "Marvin" didn't get up, I went up and sure enough, it was me. I looked at the slip and the person who took my order had written very clearly MAVIS. Oh well. I took my tray and returned to my table. I unwrapped my jumbo cheese burger and surprise, surprise, no cheese. I took it back up to the person who took my order. "There is no cheese on the burger". "Did you ask for cheese?" "I asked for a number 8" "Well you have to tell us if you want cheese, some people don't want it." HUH?? I looked back up at the board more closely to see if I had made a mistake. Nope. It very boldy says JUMBO CHEESEBURGER.. I pointed to the board and told her to look, she did, then she said well on her computer screen there are two choices, cheese or not. I asked how in the world was I supposed to know that! It says number 8 I ordered number 8 and I want my cheese. She grumpily took the burger back and put some cheese on it. So here's your lesson for the day.....regardless of what the menu says......if you want cheese, tell them you want cheese. Remember, they hire people who can't read.

I love it!

2008-01-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

I finished the top of the quilt for the queen bed in our guest room. I am very pleased with it. It still has to have the batting, backing, and be machine quilted but you can see how it will look. I have really improved since that first throw I made. This one came out the exact size I wanted and I got all the points just right. :)

Vacation's over

2008-01-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

I've just sort of kicked back since Christmas. Took a couple of weeks and relaxed a little. In my relaxation mode I read 4 books and made 3 quilts. How fun! I got a new sewing machine for Christmas so I HAD to sew! I made another throw so now I have one for the sofa and one for the love seat. I sent those to my aunt in Oregon to machine quilt for me. She called today and said they are done and she is mailing them back on Tuesday. I can't wait to see them. When I get them back I just have to sew on the binding on them and they will be done. I also made a small table topper of Christmas fabrics and I took a class in machine quilting and quilted that one myself, since it was small. It turned out very nice. And...just today, I finished piecing together the top for a queen sized comforter for the bed in our guest room. I need to sew on the borders and send it to Cecilia to quilt for me. It is way too big for me to do on my machine. With each one I've done, I've gotten better at it and I am surprised (as is the rest of my family) that I love doing it. I guess that is because I love doing puzzles and putting a quilt together is like doing a puzzle. It is fun to watch the patten come together. When I get the two back from my aunt, I will post pictures of them.

So...back to work. The choir has come back together and we are working on our Easter musical. It is a smaller group than was in the tree choir but that is OK.. I don't need 80 for this. I have 40 and I might hit 50 but that is a good sized group for and indoor choir. We will sing the program for 2 service on Easter.

We will be having quite a bit of company for the next couple of months. Different people coming and going but a fun time to spend with friends and family. It is the peak of the tourist season here so it is very busy. My brother and his wife are coming for a visit in April and I am very excited about that!

Check this out

2008-01-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.howmanyofme.com This is kind of fun. I did it and there are 19 of us out there with the name Mavis Ellis. I thought I was probably the one and only!

2008!!

2008-01-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

Wow! That sounds so futuristic. It's amazing how the older you get, the faster the time seems to go by. We celebrated last night with friends and since we were at a club, we managed to all actually stay awake until midnight. We had a good time dancing and I especially found it interesting to watch people. I haven't been to a "club" in a very long time. Let me just say that young people are way less inhibited than we were at their age. As I sat there and watched some of them doing what they were doing in their enebriated state, it should not surprise any of them if they find themselves on You Tube some time in the future. There were digital cameras everywhere and those who didn't have a camera, had their camera phone. After toasting the new year in we came home and were in bed by 1 am. I had just gotten to sleep when the phone rings. OMG who calls someone at 1:30 am?! Someone must have died! I answer it and it's Lucas. "Mom, I didn't wake you up did I?" He and Angel and my brother and his wife went on a dinner cruise on Lake Union and watched the fireworks in Seattle from the boat. How fun. They were all calling from the boat. Maybe next year we'll go to Seattle for New Years and do that. Hmmm.

I haven't made any resolutions. I never keep them anyway so this way I don't have to worry about failing at them. I am looking forward to this next year. I am on my 3rd quilt now, got a new sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm signed up for some classes. I'm having fun with it and can't wait to start the classes.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and the the New year brings you endless blessings.

A new choir member?!

2007-12-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

La La La La La La La!

It was great!!

2007-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Last night was our last concert and it was the best!! We had a big crowd, one of the tv stations was there, and the whole program came off great. What a lot of fun the whole thing was. I was blessed to have such a wonderful group of people to work with. They all worked hard and put a lot into it and at the same time we laughed a lot and had fun. It doesn't get much better than that. For any of you reading this, God bless you and have a wonderful Christmas.

Choir on tree

2007-12-13T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of the tree during a performance. I just got home from this evening's program. It is going very well. The weather is perfect and all the electronics are cooperating. I have quite a few members out sick with bad colds. John missed a couple of days work this week from the bug and I'm just praying I don't get it. Still have 3 performances to go.

Trying to post a video

2007-12-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

You gotta watch this video if I did this right. Makes me want to shovel snow!

We're underway!

2007-12-10T05:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of the tree with the lights turned on. I took it last night before everyone arrived and the program started. A photographer took pictures with the choir on the tree and he is going to email me some. I couldn't take any myself because once they start getting on the tree I am busy making sure they are all up there where they need to be. Also, the audience is there watching. This first performance was unadvertised and just for our church family and friends. We had a couple of glitches with the sound system but otherwise it went very well and the people who came to see it loved it. It poured buckets all morning and until about 3pm and then the stormed passed. It's a God thing. Rain is the one thing that would make us have to cancel a performance. In 10 years we have never had to cancel a performance. So....we have until Wednesday night to fix the problems with the monitors, and buy more book lights to replace the ones they dropped on the tree. Next year we are going to mount orchestra lights on the top rail of each panel and get rid of the book lights. By Wednesday I will have spent $400 on new booklights this year! They are absolutely my thorn in the side. I hope you all get to see a nice Christmas program, it makes this season so special and makes memories your kids will never forget.

Completed projects.

2007-12-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the completed tree structure for the Christmas program. All of the green panels are covered with lights that are run by a computer program. While the choir is singing, they are going on and off in all kinds of formations, like a cross, and just various patterns and tempos to match the music. It is really pretty at night. Hopefully I can get a picture one evening this week with everyone on it. We were going to have a dress rehersal on the tree Monday night but the recording we did last week didn't turn out right and we have to re-record the whole thing tomorrow night. Maybe everyone can get on it Tuesday night.

I also finished my quilt top and sent it off to my aunt to machine quilt for me. I can't wait to see how that turns out. It looks pretty good for a first time effort with no help. I am already contemplating my next one. I told John, if he would get this gun cabinet out of my office, I could set a table up in here for sewing and the dining room table could be used to eat at. Yes, well, since we all know he eats on a TV tray in front of the TV, that isn't a huge priority for him.

Christmas shopping?! Haven't really done much yet. I have thought a lot about it but I can't seem to take action. I guess I think too much. We do have all the lights up on the outside and the tree up inside, so I have made some progress for the season. When we were stringing up the outside lights I was remembering how handy Lucas was for that sort of thing. He liked getting up on the roof and John and I are both getting to the point that neither of us wants to go there. Maybe next year Lucas and Angel could come for Thanksgiving and help hang lights. What a great idea!

I'm nuts!!

2007-11-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take advantage of the 50% off coupon for JoAnn's that was only good today plus another coupon that was good until noon. I wanted the bigger cutting mat for cutting out quilts. The one I had worked but was small and I managed to also cut the table cloth along with the quilt pieces. I also was ready to buy the fabric for the back of the quilt (yes, I have the front done). I very patiently stood in line to get the fabric cut from the bolt, and then I patiently stood in the check-out line. That fabric line was long!! When I finally made it to the checker, I gave her my coupons and she informed me I couldn't use the 50% one on the mat because it was already on sale. Really? It didn't say it was on sale. Oh well. Can I use it on the fabric? I got 5 yards and the coupon would only be good on 1 yard. Rats! OK . . . I'll just use the 20% off your total purchases coupon. Sorry, that sale ended at noon. It was 12:15. Excuse me, I've been standing in the fabric line for 45 minutes!! Sorry . . . the computer won't accept the coupon after 12 pm. Thank you very much, have a nice day.

Ok, on with the show. I'm gonna stop by the church on the way home and check on the tree construction. Wow, there were men there working on it. I got out of my car to tell them how good it looks and thank them for working so hard to get it done and they informed me that they were repairing the damage done to it last night by some neighborhood kids. They kicked out several of the light panels. Put their foot right through the middle of each one. The turds! It took 4 men all day to fix their damage. I guess I'm going to need to find someone who will park their RV there for the next month to deter it from happening again. In all the years we've been doing this, we've never had them bother the tree before. On that happy note I decided I should just come home and take a nap. What could go wrong in a nap?! ZZZZZZZ

Out of time!

2007-11-20T13:35:00.001-08:00

My time at Women of Faith was wonderful, as I knew it would be. Then I came back home to face the fact that I am running out of time. Above are pictures of the tree going up. Today they started putting the light panels on the front of the tiers. This morning I was up climbing on it trying to determine how many I can get on each row. I have 86 in the choir if they all show up at the same time. I doubt that will actually happen since someone is always sick or something. Last night at rehersal I brought in the narrator and Mary & Joseph to run through it with the choir. It was amazing! We went from beginning to end without stopping and they sound great! Next Monday night we will record it, the following Monday, which will be 12/3, we will do an on the tree rehersal, and then on the 9th we will give the first performance. That is an unadvertised performance for our church family and friends. Then the 12th through the 16th we will give one a night for the public. In my spare time, I'm running all over town looking for more book lights and it occured to me, as I stood in a checkout line, I don't have a lot of time for Christmas shopping. Every year I tell myself I am going to get it done early. Yea, right! Thank goodness for computers.

Girl's night out!

2007-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Girls of all ages need time with their girlfriends. One of God's great blessings in my life are my good girlfriends. Girls need time together to encourage each other and share their lives and to laugh until they nearly pee their pants. It's how we all get through the up's and down's in our lives. Noone understands your kid troubles better than your girlfriend, who's either been through or is going through the same thing. I am leaving for Phoenix in the morning for a 3 day trip to Women of Faith with my girlfriends. We have so much fun! We go up on Thursday morning so we can shop and goof off all day and go out to someplace fun for dinner. The conference actually starts on Friday morning and runs all day Friday with a break for dinner and then Friday night and all day Saturday. The speakers are great, the music is amazing and the whole experience just re-charges me. I go home exhausted, with some great memories, and thrilled to be back home so I can share everything with my husband. Girls ~ I highly recommend a little get-away once in a while. Guys ~ let them have the time, believe me you will be rewarded!

I can sew?

2007-11-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

I finally broke out the sewing machine today and set everything up on the dining room table. I got my cutting mat and my rotary cutter and my rulers all ready for action. I dug to the way back of the spare room closet for the machine. I was foresighted enough to buy some remnant fabric to practice on before cutting in to the material for the actual project. I cut strips, carefully measuring, made sure I knew where the 1/4 inch mark was on the machine so my seams would be accurate. I really had this all thought out! Then I sat down to sew. Right, how do you thread this thing? OK, I finally got that right after about an hour. What's wrong with the bobbin? The thread keeps getting tangled and jamming the needle. I tore the house apart looking for the owners manual, never found it. I went on line to the web site for Brother and it wanted my model number. There's no model number on my machine ... anywhere! Believe me I looked all over it. I can see the serial number but no model number. Oh well, I finally got it working. Yipee! I sewed strips together and cut them into blocks and sewed the blocks together. I pressed all the seams just right. Amazing, it looks like a quilt. Well, actually, it looks more like a table runner but hey, it was just practice scraps. John just got home from work. He walked in and looked at the table, now buried under my quilting "stuff ". "What are you doing? You actually have the sewing machine out? I didn't know you still had one." "I'm making a quilt" I said proudly and held up the results of my labors. I got the blank stare. "Why on earth would you do that?" "Because I want to?" OH. He'll see. I'm gonna do this for sure now.

Quilting

2007-11-05T03:49:00.000-08:00

Since I bought the fabric to make my quilt, I needed a couple of things to get it started. So off I went to JoAnn's. Let's see, my aunt said to get a mat to cut on, a rotary cutter, thread, needles, a ruler, if I have any questions someone there can help me, right? Oh they can help alright! Now, I have to say the rotary cutter is a wonderful thing. Way better than trying to use scissors. And I can certainly understand you need a mat to cut on with it. But wow, I had no idea how expensive they are. I opted for the middle sized mat since the big one was $45.00. There was a woman in the aisle getting one too, she said she had the smaller one and it wasn't big enough for her. Hmmm....we'll see, after all it's only a throw, not a bedspread. After I had my bare neccessities in my cart I spied a beginning quilters book. I'm sure God directed my vision to that. The total for that little jaunt came to $90.00. I will have to keep this up to get my money's worth out of all this stuff. Let's see, I spent $45.00 on fabric plus the "stuff " and I will still need the fabric for the back of the quilt plus the batting for the middle. I should be able to make the thing for a mere $200.00! I saw a quilt in a shop that someone had made and was selling for $600.00. It was a queen size. At the time, I thought "Are they nuts?" Oh, no, they are just trying to recoup their losses and probably pay for the new sewing machine they upgraded to and maybe make the payment on the quilting machine they couldn't live without. Oh yea, I forgot to add in the cost of having mine quilted. Good news there, my aunt said to send it to her when I get it done and she will quilt it for me for free! She has the super duper, so big it has a house of it's own, lazer guided quilting machine. Oh boy! When I was a girl, no one bought fabric for a quilt. We made them from the scraps left over from the clothes we made. I have a quilt my grandmother made and it is fun to look at it and remember who had what dress made out of which fabric, it is a memory quilt. And I also have one my great grandmother made. Every stitch in the quilt, and I mean every one, was done by hand. Imagine the time it must have taken to do that. I remember my grandmother had a room with this big quilting frame set up in it and chairs all around so people could sit and visit while they worked on a quilt. We had some fun times together doing that. Of course, we only had 2 TV stations to watch at that time so there was more time for things like this. I guess we could save money if we all slowed down a bit.

Daily ramblings

2007-11-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

I guess I have Christmas on my brain so much because I am so busy getting ready for the big program. Monday the men at church will start building the tree structure the choir stands on for the concerts. It is 35' high. It takes the better part of a month to construct and yesterday we borrowed the big forklift from where John works to get all the materials out of storage and plant the center pole for the tree. I hope to take pictures through the construction to post so you can see it. It is pretty amazing to see. We now have 65 members in the choir and there are more yet to come. I think I will get over 70 this year again. Last year I had 72. My donkey search isn't going to well so maybe I should abandon that idea. I went to see a burro last week that was a BLM adoptee named Marlo. Marlo was a sweetie but he didn't even lead with a halter yet. I don't think he's ready for the bright lights!
My latest new project for all that spare time I don't really have is ....drum roll .....a quilt. I have never made a quilt in my life but my aunt the professional quilter just left today and yesterday when we were in a quilt shop she convinced me I could do this one and I bought all the stuff. Now remember, I said she left. She's gone, not comming back, I'm on my own. Don't anyone be looking for this one under their tree this year. Don't look for any meals to be served on the dining room table for a while either. Well, where else would I set up my quilt shop?! The good news is John prefers to eat on a TV tray in front of the TV. If the quilt thing doesn't work out, I could always make pot holders.

Family tree

2007-10-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

I have been researching my family tree for a while now and with the help of some distant cousins I've found on line I'm a lot further along that I thought I'd ever be. It can be quite surprising what you find doing this though. I always knew we didn't talk about my dad's family. It was just something you didn't talk about. Whyever not? After all they were family, right? I loved all the relatives I knew. They were all on my mom's side. We had wonderful times growing up and I always knew they loved me. I loved getting together with my cousins at the holidays and having Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma & Granddad's house. Weren't all families like this? When you're a kid you think the whole world lives just like you do. Life wasn't a complete bed of roses, my dad was an alcoholic and things could get pretty tense at home. But...my extended family was always there for me. They taught me about God, showed me what a happy home life looked like and how happily married people treated each other. They were always my safe place to go. I know I wouldn't have survived the teen age years without them. When I told my mom I was searching daddy's family she said I wouldn't get farther that his dad Fred. Well, I did. Lots farther. Fred was a character, without a doubt. I've learned to find birth records, death records, marriage records, and military records. The last one is the start of a new dilemma. I got my dad's army enlistment record. He enlisted June 10, 1942 in Sacramento, CA. Here's the problem ....on it it states he is a widower! He married my mom in 1943, 6 weeks after they met. I am now on the hunt for a marriage record and a death record. My dad's father Fred had a sister Millie that he kept in touch with over the years so I have friends out there helping me with this search, and we will find it! The real search here is for the daughter it is rumored my father had with his first wife. The story goes that my dad and his wife had a bad automobile accident that killed his wife and almost killed him. They had left the baby with her parents that day and after the accident her parents kept the baby and raised her. None of this was EVER mentioned in my house. I might have a sister out there that I don't know? She would have been raised to think she was an only child. We've missed an entire lifetime of knowing each other. How sad :(

Love my friends

2007-10-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

I just love going to church on Sunday now. Well, I always like church, but this time of year is special because each week I get to see another friend I haven't seen in 6 months. Yesterday was great! A lot of good friends back and several more choir memebers. I was especially glad to see Judy Waud. She lost her husband Larry a couple of months ago suddenly and we were all stunned. He sang a solo on the Christmas tree last year. They are from Canada and I wasn't sure she would be able to come back, but her children helped her get down here and all set up for the winter here. She asked me for a copy of the music :). God bless her children for supporting her and being there for her. Family is so important.

Speaking of family .... my aunt and uncle are arriving from Oregon this week for a visit. This is the time of year when people actually want to visit us. John has a list of fix-it's for my uncle and Audrey is hoping my aunt will help us make new curtains for her 5th wheel. Of course, they do have plans of their own. Their real reason for coming is to get dental work done in Mexico. We have an excellent dentist in Mexico that we all go to and the fees are way less than in the states. Dr. Cruces actually lives here in Yuma and has his is lab here but his office is in San Luis. I recently had to have a root canal, yuk, and he did x-rays, the root canal, a filling, and cleaned my teeth for a grand total of $275.00. Anyway, we'll all have some fun and eat too much I'm sure. I know John and Jay will get some golf in and Cecilia and I will have to do some shopping. I love my family and I am so happy when any of them can come for a visit. John told me last night that Don might be here sometime this week too. I guess I better get my rear in gear and do some house work.

Happy Monday everyone

What a Guy!

2007-10-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

I'm stunned. He came home, rode his exercise bike, made a toddy, and sat down and read the manual for the new remote! He didn't ask me how, he READ THE MANUAL. Wow!! He got it all figured out in record time. Now I am well aware that he is a very intelligent man and can do anything he sets his mind to but usually that doesn't include stuff like this. What does this demonstrate? It demonstrates his determination to have total control of the TV. For any of you that have visited us, you know he is KING of the remote. If I want to decide what to watch on TV, I go to the bedroom and watch that one. The good news ~ he is quite happy with the new DVR. His only question?....was I sure the old remote wouldn't work the new machine? The moral to this story .... it's hard for a man to part with his remote.

Last Rites

2007-10-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

We said good bye to Tivo today and hello to a new DVR. Since we have our service with Direct TV, we have to use their DVR. I have been punching buttons this afternoon, familiarizing myself with this thing. Now, you have to understand....Tivo was very SIMPLE to operate. Amazingly simple! As electronic gadgets go, this new one is not difficult but it is different. I have it figured out, no problem. John, however, is going to hate it. I can already see the writing on the wall. I will have to be within earshot at all times. We are talking about a guy that can't figure out how to get on the internet at home. He can do it at his work because apparently his screen has some kind of link he just clicks on and he's into his email. However, most of them he forwards to me because he can't figure out how to print them out. So....I print them out for him. Now he has a new remote to learn to use. He doesn't like change. I guess none of us really like change very much. Then again I guess he and I make a good team. We work well together. He takes care of me and I take care of him. I'm glad God put him in my life.

THE CAT!

2007-10-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I saw the picture of this cat on "Cute Overload" and I immediately thought of Sam. I guess it looks like Sam's kind of cat. I bet Daisy would love him too.

The footer

2007-10-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, I think I got rid of that. Yep, it appears to be gone. Now if I can get rid of the box around the smiley and maybe make it smaller? That would be good.

Smileys

2007-10-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

My new project is to get the smileys on this page. I couldn't get them on the email I was trying to write. Oh look! A Donkey!! Yea!!! I wonder if the post is going to show this annoying ad bar at the bottom of the page? I hate that.

The passing of "Tivo"

2007-10-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Alas, our pal "Tivo" croaked today :( For those of you who don't know, Tivo is a DVR and also our Direct TV receiver. A Tivo is a wonderful thing. So easy to use, even I can figure it out, unlike it's predecessor the VCR. I never could get that thing set up to record something when I wasn't home. And setting the clock?! That simply served for YEARS as a flashing night light. But Tivo...now that is truly amazing. I had it mastered in minutes. I have programs we like, that are on when we are not home, set up with a "season pass" which let's it automatically record the program every time it comes on. We had noticed lately that Tivo was not acting quite right. It was getting slow to bring up programming, sometimes getting stuck on fast forward, losing the satelite signal. Did I mention that Tivo lets you pause live programming? What a great feature! I guess you can tell where I'll be at 9 am tomorrow. Yep, the Direct TV store.

I got a lead at church this morning on a "sweet" donkey. I'm going to go pay it a visit tomorrow and see if it is calm and sweet. I even have to go right by the Direct TV store to get to the donkey's house. What luck!!

It's Saturday :)

2007-10-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

We love Saturdays. It's our day together. We get to sleep in a little (as much as the dogs will let us) and kick back. I am recovered from nearly killing myself cleaning the neighbor's house. I am thankful for that. Today we are going down to Algadones Mexico for the day. We live about 20 minutes from there and it is a fun little town. Lots of stuff to look at and the people are very nice. We have a favorite restaurant there where we are looking forward to having lunch. We thought we'd beat the winter visitor rush. A month from now the place will be packed. I like to be able to leisurely browse and the weather today is perfect for it. It is only supposed to get up to 82 today. That's my idea of the perfect temperature. We don't get the fall leaves and colors that you get in the north, but we do feel the change in the air and after a hot summer it really feels good! I am also excited to break out my fall and winter clothes. I'm tired of the summer ones and it makes me feel like I just got a new wardrobe. I can't get the fall leaf colors, but I can get those colors in my wardrobe. Yep, I'm sure people will look at me on Sunday and think of a beautiful fall maple tree. A SMALL maple tree.

Happy fall weekend everyone. I'm off to Mexico

Another Spike!

2007-10-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

O boy, I got it, another learning curve spike! Check out the Cute Overload link. You're gonna love that one.

The neighborhood is really picking up. My next door neighbor from Montana, got back yesterday and another one 4 doors down returned. One of the added benefits of the returnees is light! Yep light. We have no street lights out here where I live and everyone puts wall lights on top of the brick walls that are in front of every house. When they leave for the summer they turn off their power, hence no wall lights. It can get pretty dark around here. Of course it's easy to pick out our house at night. When I turned down our street last night coming home from church, it hit me how many lights were back on. Nice.

John and I take care of a house 2 down from us. The owner is 95 and in a nursing home. His family wants to keep the house so we look after it and rent it out for them. It comes completely furnished and I mean completely. You need only bring your clothes and personal items. It is a real cute little place and last winter I had a nice couple in it. When they moved out, we put the 4 rent sign up and rented it to a man who said he wanted it for his mother and he wanted to sign a 12 monthe lease. He wanted to pay rent all summer?! Yep. It has a covered RV port on it and he said he wanted to park his big boat under it for the summer. Great. Well, to make a long story short, he turned out to be a con, it cost my friends $3000 in attorney fees to evict him. While they did get a judgement against him, they will have to find him. Believe me we've all tried. He told me he had a housekeeper coming in every 2 weeks to clean. Yea right! What a PIG!! I spent all day yesterday cleaning that house. I had to scrub floors on my hands and knees to get the crud off them. He took the bedding so I had to go out and buy new, although as filthy as he was I probably would have anyway. Now, those of you who know me, know I have a housekeeper because it is very hard for me to do that kind of thing. I had her give me a quote to clean the house and I just couldn't bring myself to ask these people to pay for what I feel was my error in judgement. So.....I did it myself. The end result ~ the house looks great again ~ I can hardly move today.

You all have a nice day, I'm going back to bed!

The Learning Curve

2007-10-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

My learning curve had a spike in it when I figured out how to get a photo on here but now it has flattened out again. I am trying to add to my side bar links to blogs of friends or other interesting sites and that isn't coming along to good. I've gone back and forth, to and from the "help" directory and, while I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out, it seems that the older I get the easier I confuse. I am determined not to become my mother! I recently spent 2 hours just trying to teach her how to use email. She is 87 and she was once a very intelligent, intimidating woman. She was a CPA when women didn't do that. They were bookkeepers and assistants to CPA's. After I returned home from my visit with her, I sent her several emails, as did other family members. I never got any response to them. Finally I called her and asked her if she had checked her email lately. Her response? "I haven't turned on the computer since you were here." After a little more conversation, she decided she shouldn't be paying for broadband service she doesn't use and maybe she will give the computer away. The once intimidating woman is now intimidated by a computer.

But.....don't write off the senior citizens who prefer the manual way of doing things. I recently read a series of books by Terri Blackstock, the first of which is called "Last Light". In this book something happens with an exploding star that causes everything electrical and electronic in the WORLD to stop. Permanently. Cars won't start, watches don't work, no electricity, TV, phones, no communication at all. Everyone is thrown way back from the civilization they once knew. Most people had no idea how to survive. The old woman in the neighborhood showed her neighbors how to dig up their yards and plant vegetables, dig a well for water, compost what they could and bury the rest of the trash. There's way more to the story but it is very thought provoking. The banks couldn't open, people couldn't get their money. I don't even get paper bank statements anymore. I know I would be scrambling along with everyone else if it happened. Older citizens had to teach the younger people that they could survive and have a life without all the "stuff" they were used to, and you had to WORK to survive. I highly recommend the series.

Well, it's time to hit the donkey trail.

On with the hunt?

2007-10-08T06:02:00.000-07:00

While I should be recruiting more people to sing in the choir, I am going off this morning to interview a couple donkeys. I need that special donkey. The one who doesn't mind being groped by lots of kids, 22,000 flashing lights, loud music, fire, traveling, etc. He will also need an owner willing to let him play the role of Mary's donkey. Who wouldn't want their beloved donkey to get to carry the mother of the Savior of the world?! I'm going to take my camera so I can show you all pictures of the candidates, now that I figured out the picture thing.

Last night was fun. After a very quiet summer in the neighborhood, things are picking up and it is great to have our friends come back. We all ate too much but that was our intention. I'll be stopping off for my workout at Contours before I visit my first donkey. Really though, I'll probably be doing a lot of walking on my search so maybe I could skip the gym? Yea, probably not. I'll probably just walk from my car to the corral fence and gaze into the pen at the critter.

Back to last night ... while we are very happy to see out friends back, you should see the dogs! My three dogs are thrilled to have Beau back. And to top their evening off...their pal Scruffy was walking his daddy by and got to stop and say hi too. They all were so excited. We could all learn a lesson from the dogs. They are oblivious to the fact that they are all different breeds and colors. They just don't notice. Too bad people can't just see each other as the brothers and sisters we really are. After all, it all started with Adam & Eve.

Sweet Success!!

2007-10-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Whoopee!! I did it. I'm so excited. I'm going to get my camera out and start taking pictures to play with. This is the mighty Thor as an 8 week old puppy. Can you imagine naming a little cutie like this "Thor"? You know that wasn't my pick. Yep, John wanted him to have a macho name. I guess that is his substitute for having a macho dog like a Rottweiler or something. He has grown into the name though. He is now 5 pounds of determination and rascal.

Now that I have mastered this task, I can turn my attention to the dinner I should be working on. We are having our neighbors over for a tri-tip barbecue later this afternoon. It will be the first block party of the season. Monday I'll have to get back to the gym routine. This neighborhood likes to eat and the season is upon me. It's fun though.

Pictures?

2007-10-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

How hard can this be!? I am trying to get the picture thing down. I uploaded one but now I can't seem to find it. Where do you suppose it went? Think about it. It left my computer. Boarded the bus for an internet blog. It said it arrived but which stop on the way did it get off on? Maybe it is over browsing in Amazon.com. Hmmm.

Better late than never!

2007-10-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I am certainly catching on to this fast! It's only been just over a year since my last post. :) I won't bother with a narrative of everything that has transpired in a year. It has finally cooled off here and the winter visitors are pouring in. It only got up to 92 today. The good news is that with the influx of people, my Christmas choir is growing. I'm half way there with 35 people, I need 70. It's going to be a great program this year and it certainly is keeping me out of trouble. Maybe. I am on the hunt for a lethargic, calm, unspookable donkey for the program. This year I have Mary & Joseph sitting at a campfire, on their way to Bethlehem. Now, we all know Mary rode to Bethlehem on a donkey so I figure I need one standing in the background for reality's sake. I just don't want it to freak out when the choir starts singing and 22,000 lights start flashing. I want it to snooze through the whole program. Maybe I can find one that is about 25 years old. John and I saw one standing in the desert right by the road the other day and I thought about stopping and picking it up. It looked pretty dull witted standing there all alone. Then again, maybe it was too hot to move. It was 118 that day. I've got the camp fire part all figured out too. The RV'rs around here all have those little portable propane campfires they travel with and I'm sure I can BORROW one. I could buy one but borrowing would be cheaper.

Stay tuned for donkey updates. I plan to stay more current with this. Practice makes perfect, right?

Time Management

2006-08-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

OK, I haven't had time to figure out the photo part. I'm sure I'll get it figured out. Our friend Audrey arrived this afternoon to stay for a week. She's come back from Wisconsin, where they spend the summer, because our friend and neighbor Cynthia passed away Wednesday. Cynthia and her husband Ray had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in April and shortly after that she was diagnosed with both lung and breast cancer. What a wonderful marriage they had! They had their share of trials the same as the rest of us but they just kept working together. If only more couples could think of "we" instead of "me", maybe there wouldn't be so many children in single parent homes. I know that for John and I it has certainly been an exercise in cooperation. Ray seems to be handling the situation for the time being however, he has yet to be alone. His daughter will be here for another week, plus Audrey, and John and I are with him every evening. We will continue to be there to help and support him.

Cynthia wouldn't go to the doctor. That is why she lost to cancer. What a tremendous price to pay for being determined no one could tell you what to do. We had all been begging her for a year to see a doctor. She lost over 60 lbs in the last year and wasn't dieting! She finally admitted to her daughter a week ago that she had known she had a lump in her breast for over 3 years. My prayer for anyone reading this is this ~ have an annual checkup! This could have been prevented if caught early and just think, her family could have had the pleasure of her life's presence with them. If you can't think about yourself, think about the people who love you. It isn't fair to them.

A new experience for me

2006-08-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well, this is new for me. I thought I'd give a blog a try and see how I like doing it. It's so stinking hot here that I need something to keep me busy inside other than the way too many books I read, and house work. I've done way too much house work lately due to the fact that we replaced all the flooring in the house a week ago. I'd never replaced carpet in a house I was living in before. The end result is wonderful, but holy cow!, what a lot of work!! It was like moving. We paid the carpet guys extra to move all the furniture but I had to get the furniture ready for them to move. Like, empty the china hutch, bookcases, curio cabinets, etc. You get the picture. I decided we have WAY TOO MUCH STUFF!! I guess the real problem is it's been too many years since we moved. Moving is good for purgeing all that stuff you no longer need but thought you couldn't get along without. The amazing thing is, I got rid of a ton of stuff and the closets and drawers are still all full! I blew it when I didn't save a pair of old shoes for John to wear when he went out to touch up the paint on the house. Oh yea, we also had the house painted on the outside. It looks great too. I figure as old as we are we'll never have to do this stuff again.

Well, my next project is going to be to take some pictures of the house and figure out how to post them on this blog. Wish me luck.

Mavis