Back In The Swing Of Things

I can't believe it has been almost a year since I posted anything, life got away from me. It got to be so easy to say, "I will write something tomorrow". I think tomorrow is finally here. My oldest daughter did move out and it has been very good for her; sure they have had some struggles. Her fiancé is a full time student and has not been able to find a job. He should be done with school in a few months and things should get better for them. On October 6, 2012 they are getting married. The wedding is a pirate theme, since they are in a pirate reinactment group. My youngest daughter will be starting her senior year of high school on August 8. School is starting early this year, but they have added more days off during the school year. On Thursday our AC went out, luckily my office had 3 portable units that I borrowed. My husband and I plugged in the RV and we have been sleeping out there. K has been sleeping in the living room and my foolish son is still sleeping in his room. The repair guy is suppose to be here at 6:30 tomorrow morning. We have an AC that my dad put on his house soon after he moved in, that was damaged in the major hail storm in October 2010, but still works just fine. He got a new roof and new AC after that storm. We are going to replace our dead AC with my dads. I don't know if that will happen tomorrow or he will just get the old one running for now. At this point, I just want things working, it is suppose to be 109 by the end of the week. I am back in the swing of things, so more later.

Banned Book Week

Reason - He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. John Milton
Censorship - Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. Potter Stewart
Tolerance - Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance. Lyndon Baines Johnson
Truth - If we want truth, every man ought to be free to say what he thinks without fear. Erasmus

'via Blog this'

My Daughter is Moving Out

About a year ago, my oldest daughter met the love of her life. A short time later, he was living here. Next Friday, they will be moving into an apartment together. Yeah! Sorry, but I am ready for my kids to be grown ups. She is almost 26 and it is time.

Now her 22 year old brother just needs to find employment that is not dependent on his dad for construction jobs. It is really tough for kids (young adults) to find work when they have a learning disability. It seems that most places want you to do the online applications and if they have those psychological questions - forget it. I feel that if he could met with someone and talk to them, it would help.

Trying to save a plant

Last summer at this time my Mother-In-Law passed away at the age or 84.  In the process of clearing out her apartment (thank goodness she moved out of her 4 bedroom house of 40+ year, or we could still be working on it) my husband and I took several of her house plants.  I thought they would be fine in my house and we didn't have any house plants.

I have discovered that I am not a house plant person....at home.  The tend to get ignored until the leave are drooping or curling in. The house is one the dark side and since we are gone all day the curtains/blinds stay shut to help keep out the heat. One of the plants we took was a large, healthy Christmas Cactus.  Now due my busy schedule and not really paying attention to it, looks horrible.  I have taken it to my office, since I have a large window and it will get the light it needs.

Hopefully, it can be saved.

Wedding Dress Shopping

My oldest daughter is getting married in September of 2012.  I asked her if she wanted to go and just look at wedding dresses.  She made an appointment at David's Bridal today.

Y's wedding is a pirate themed event since she and her fiance are involved in a pirate reenactment group. The consultant was awesome, she thought it was great to have a theme.  Y tried on 6 or 7 dresses and I took pictures of 5.  My Blackberry only has a minimal camera and no flash so bar with the photos.

Dress 1 - Gorgeous but very heavy

Dress 2 - we added a touch of color

Dress 3 - she liked the bottom

Dress 4 - Very nice, light and airy

Dress 5 - also light and airy

Dress 5 - with a touch of color

This was fun.  Did I buy one?  Hmmm. Not allowed to tell.  I will get post more as the planning progresses.

Where has the time gone

My life has been really crazy the last few months and I just realized I have not written anything since March.

Next week my youngest daughter is going to senior high church camp for the Southwest Conference of UCC in New Mexico.  After I put her on the bus, my husband and I are going to take my dad's 92 Winnebago and going off by ourselves - no kids.  We have been married for 28 years and it is so nice to be able to go places and not worry about the kids. We don't know where we are going yet; he has to figure that out.  

I have been cleaning the Winny most of the day.  Even with the AC on it is still 90 degrees inside.  I am scrubbing all of the surfaces to get the dusty, grimy smell out.  A couple of years ago, hubby took it to a job site in Bagdad, AZ and it was very dusty.  He has also taken it hunting a couple of times and those locations were also dusty.  I have used it to store my pink tents I got for my Girl Scout troops and sleeping bags in between camping trips with my troops.

I am so looking forward to getting out of the valley of the sun.

Having Connections

My dad is retired Air Force and this weekend Luke AFB had their biannual Luke Days Air Show.  He suggested my husband and I go with him and his wife.  My husband was planning on going anyway so I said sure.  As we sat in traffic on a single lane road miles from the public parking lot, he basically said "screw this" and headed towards the Glendale Air Park thinking we could take a shuttle from there.  We were driving towards a different parking lot and spied a sign "Base housing use Kachina, Military ID required".  Holy crap why didn't this occur to us before - my dad and his wife have base privileges and military IDs.  So simple, no parking fees, no large crowds, no having to sit on school buses.  We were able it catch the base housing shuttle and were dropped off right in front of the flight line.

We wandered around and looked at some of the plans they had on display.  They had the new F-22 doing a flying demonstrations - man that is an awesome plane. It almost seemed to hover at time and then would go super fast over us.  There were some other flying demos, stunt planes and a group of 4 planes flying together, one from WWII, Korea, Vietnam and current.  The WWII plane was probable going as fast as it could and the F-4 was going as slow as it could, but they all stayed in formation.

My dad and his wife stood in line to go into the C-5 and got to see inside th cock pit.  It took them like an hour.  My husband and I met up with a couple of his friends and looked at the B-52. About 3:20 the Thunderbirds http://thunderbirds.airforce.com/ took off for their show.  All I can say about them is OMG talk about flying skills.


When we left, we just had to walk about a mile to where the car was parked (the shuttle was full and we figured it would be faster to walk). Coming over the bridge where the car was parked was an MP asking for military IDs from everyone - just doing their job.

When Luke Days comes again in 2013, I am going to see if my dad will take my son, he always wanted to go.  We would just start earlier in the day so we can see all the shows.