Against my better judgment….

 

I went outside this morning and looked at the “cool” spider Nicole and Kayla found.

I am an arachnophobic that is actually having the creeps posting these pictures.  I can’t explain the sweating, shakes and heebie jeebies….they just happen.

 

 

Nicole and Kayla did some research when they got to school.  They discovered this guy is a burrowing wolf spider that has probably lost his legs in fights with either other spiders or me – if I saw him first.

 

 

I didn’t have the heart to kill it while the girls were there….so this precious little fellow lives in my flower garden.    Thanks  to my cousin, Tressie, for pointing out to me that we are never more than six feet from a spider at any time. 

I have to go throw up now.

31 Years Ago Today…

 

I was blessed with a beautiful baby boy who has been the apple of my eye ever since.  He has been the anchor in my life steadying me and giving me purpose.  During some dark years in my life, he was the only reason I could find to get up and function.  We have shared joy, sorrow, happiness, encouragement, growth, fulfillment, disappointment, courage, fear, conquests, and all things in between. 

I love you David more than I can ever say.  Happy Birthday!

Circle of Life…

 

I’m sorry I haven’t been on here much lately. It’s been a very busy weekend….with happiness and sorrow.  We had both a wedding and a funeral to attend this weekend.

There were happy and sad moments at each gathering. 

Today we’re off to visit Greg’s family and laugh and play and enjoy each other’s company.  Hope you are all finding moments of happiness in your weekend.

What’s all the buzz about?

 

Was out enjoying the backyard yesterday morning after doing some yard work, when I saw a couple of macro opportunities.

I love the bees.  Sometimes they fall in or somehow get in the water and can’t get out.  At first, I would put a stick or something in there to help them out. Now, I just put my finger in and lift them out. They never sting the finger that helps them. :)

 

 

 

The sprinkler was going on the flower bed and I was inspired by Bellingham Daily Photo to get some drip pictures.

 

Notice the little ball of water caught on the spider web at the top of this photo.

 

   

The world up close is such a wonderful place.

Awesome day…

 

This morning Tracy braved the almost pre-dawn hours to come with me to the newly discovered South Lake at Estrella Mountain Ranch.  We had a wonderful walk around the lake and talked to some very nice and interesting people.  Unfortunately, we missed an hysterical photo opportunity when a nice “elderly” gentleman did an impromptu pose for Tracy.

The sun had just cleared the mountains when we got there.

 

I’m such a work in progress.  Tracy has so much knowledge and she very patiently answers all my questions about settings, shutter speed, aperture….you know photography stuff. 

 

One day she may just tell me to go fly the coop!  Nah – she’s too nice.   We were both very surprised to see this pelican at the lake.  He was such a great subject – until the sprinklers came on.

I hope you all have someone in your life you can share something you love with.  I just get lost in my own little world when we’re out taking pictures.

I lost a bet today….

 

with my 15 year old daughter. 

What lesson am I teaching her, you might ask.  How about - “A fool and her money are soon parted.” ?

Jewels on the water…..

The bet was whether there are one or two lakes at Estrella Mountain Ranch.  Well…there are two.  Guess how many I thought there were?  But I think I still may have come out the winner, since finding the answer involved me visiting the South Lake. They have a wonderful beach with picnic tables, play ground equipment, basket ball courts and heaven knows what else.

 

“ Ouch, ouch….this sand is hot”

 

I kept looking for just the right duck for a picture I wanted to take.  I already had the caption thought up and everything. But none of the ducks cooperated….I wanted to find a  “peeking" duck!!

Hope you all have a great day!

Some days are just….

 

lazy.

 

This picture will not bear enlarging and isn’t very good as is either.  I took it with my cell phone and unfortunately, mine isn’t nearly as good as Tracy’s.  But I just couldn’t pass up this shot. This is Bailey’s Irish Creme and I met her at the Bunco game last week.  She wasn’t bothered by all the activity going on around her at all.

OMG….

Okay, I’ve been working really hard at getting this computer thing all done.  I know I have so many things that are just going to pop up along the way that I’ve forgotten to do or didn’t even know I should do.  But I think I have it all finished on the desk top computer.  Tomorrow, I’ll tackle the lap top. 

I know I’ve been very bad about keeping things posted on here, but I have been trying to at least visit all of your blogs and enjoy the fruits of your labor.  Tracy even called me the other day to be sure I was okay.  I’ve been very neglectful.

The other night I did step outside for a few minutes and try to capture the beautiful moon I saw there. 

I thought this shot had a mysterious look to it.  I hope you enjoy it too.

I’ll get myself back in the swing of things soon. 

One of life’s little embarrassing moments…

or if someone had had a video recorder, they could be winners on America’s Funniest Home Videos!

My days have been challenging lately.  Not sure why.  I’m tired and my knee and back are hurting, but that’s not too far out of the norm.  I’m tired all the time and can’t seem to get enough sleep.  So, I’m sure all of this has something to do with how my days have been going lately.  My attitude seems to be primed and ready for problems.

Today was a day to take my mom to Luke Air Force Base to pick up a prescription we called in to be refilled and then go to the commissary to shop.  Her car needed gas so I pulled into the gas station on base.  Then I tried to get out of my seat belt….yep….tried.  I thought I must have put it in backwards or something silly like that.  I checked…nope…it’s the right way.  I pushed the button and I pulled the belt – nothing.  My sweet mother made the moment all that more special by asking me if I was pushing the “red” button….as opposed to what?  I had turned the car off in anticipation of getting out, so I turned it back on to get the AC running again.  I decided I would try and see if I could loosen the belt enough to “slip” it over my head.  I reclined the seat and gave it the good ol’ college try.  No way!  Not happening, but what was happening was that people were starting to notice I was still sitting in my car with the engine running.  I opted for Plan B and decided I might find it easier to slip the belt over my feet at this point.  One of the station attendants was by now circling the car at a distance, but hesitant to really stop and see if I needed help.  Mom is, of course, laughing her head off and I was in fear she just might wet her pants.  Not that I blame her….I was (thankfully) laughing also.  This had to be the day I decided to wear my tennis shoes instead of flip flops that I could have just kicked off making it easier to get my feet through the belt.   At last I was free!!  Thank goodness I’ve lost those 40 pounds and have been out walking otherwise, I’m thinking things wouldn’t have ended so nicely.

As I got out of the car, the attendant had just made another pass by the front of the car.  I told him what had happened and he leaned into the car and after several hard yanks got the seat belt open.  I said I wished he would have done that sooner and he said he thought it might not look so good with him leaning over me to unlock it.  I told him it couldn’t look any funnier than I did crawling out.  He said that if it was okay with me, next time he’d do it. :) 

My daughter and husband say he was hitting on me…I say he was trying really hard not to laugh out loud.

The Secret Life of Bees….

 

They are always out there…waiting for me to clean and refill the bird bath.

Some things are going right…

 

Today with the help of my SIL, Lisa, I got the DVD/CD drive working again on my laptop.  Since I just upgraded my air card and needed to get it downloaded to my laptop, this was pretty important stuff.  All went well and I’m up and running on my laptop again. Now I need to get through the pictures on it and get all my pictures put on my external hard drive and off both computers.  It’s a daunting task believe me.  I would love to have it done by the weekend, but life can be so unpredictable.

Got a long to-do list for tomorrow (again) so we’ll see what I can get done.

Can’t leave without posting a picture….

Just love flowers….here’s one from my cousin, Jessi’s yard.  I’ve shown these before.  They’re called  Candy Cane Roses.

Work and then play…

Nicole had a big research paper to do this weekend and since we only have the one air card, I’ve tried to limit my “play time” on the computer.  She’s done and I believe she’s quite pleased with her efforts.  But now I’m tired and I’m about to head off to bed.  Just wanted to check in and let you all know I haven’t really been neglectful…I think this one falls into the good parenting category.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and you’re all ready for an even better week!

This is a message Nicole made for me years ago to hang up next to my desk when I worked at the school. It got me through many a rough day.

Busy as the Proverbial Bee…

With the beginning of school and play practice, my days have gotten extremely busy.  Add to that  I’ve started walking again in the mornings with Star, and Mom and I are doing a lot of “game” therapy….and whew….the time just flies.  I’ve also been working at cleaning up some stuff on my computer so I can try and see an improvement in my download speeds.  That means going through a zillion (no exaggeration!) pictures.  I had 229 pictures of my adorable great nephew, Justin, in one file and 118 in another.  That doesn’t count the ones on my laptop!  So I have been very remiss in visiting my blogging friends and posting.   Plus, I was planning on going to see my Pop one day this week and now it’s Friday and the week is gone.  We had a new couch delivered yesterday, bloodwork for Mom this week, a doctor’s appointment for her also, I have all the afternoon driving duty on the school carpool right now, and it’s BUNCO night tonight!!!  I sure could use some of that Calgon….if I only had a bathtub.  Oh, that makes me think of a picture I could take.

Truly, I got up from the computer, grabbed my camera, got in the truck and went a quarter mile down the road and took this picture.  I’ve noticed this clawfoot bathtub in a neighbor’s “second hand lot” (read junkyard)  for weeks now and have been meaning to take a picture.  The line above just forced the issue.  Plus it made me laugh because Tracy and I had just had a conversation about me being a “brave” (read stupid) photographer while all she wants to do is have no one notice or see her taking pictures.  You can see at the top of the picture what happened to the last trespasser.

Can’t even remember what picture I was going to post here before the muse chased me out the door and down the road.  But I’m happy with this one.

On the road again….

Today was a busy day.  Lots to do at home before Mom and I got out and about.  Then we drove into town to do a little shopping…a new purse and tennis shoes later, we were headed home.  Made a quick lunch, cleaned up and then spent time one-on-one with Mom.  I’ve been noticing there is a little decline in her mental clarity so we’ve been working the crossword puzzle and playing some games. We play a game that has her adding and planning.  We’ve been “working” at this for a couple of weeks now and I’m seeing improvement…plus she’s beating the socks off of me!

Then back into town for a doctor’s appointment. Those never go as quickly as they should. It’s always a challenge to drop Mom at the door and then play musical parking spots with 73 other vehicles.

Home in time to head the other direction to pick up Nicole and Kayla from play practice.  I got there a little early so since I had remembered to bring my camera, I decided to take some shots of the clouds.

 

These are all straight out of the camera…no time to play around this evening.  The clouds actually got together and made a decent little rain shower.  We’re having flash floods up north right now from all the rain they’re getting.

Then practice was over and it was time to head home and get dinner started.  Tomorrow morning, get to start it all over again. :)

I seem to have run headlong….

                                                                    into a dead end.

I’ve done very poorly at posting since Friday….too much “girl time”?  I don’t think so.  I’ve been out and about, but haven’t taken my camera with me.  Sometimes I feel like a pack mule when I leave the house.  I spent a lovely afternoon and evening at Bill and Tracy’s and had the most delicious dinner.  They claimed to be using me as a guinea pig (very appropriate use of the word “pig” here).  I couldn’t stop ohhing and ahhing during the entire meal. Please feel free to experiment again anytime!.

Tracy had her camera out and was taking some pictures of the moon, but I didn’t take mine with me.  I did remember to take my swimsuit so we could cool off before dinner though. :)

Off to get the girls after play practice…I’ll take my camera with me this time. 

Girl time rocks!!

Today, my great buddy, Annie, came to spend the day with me.  We started with some shopping and then headed home to have a light lunch and watch some movies.  Why the light lunch? Well you can’t watch movies without munchies.  :)

You gotta love the dollar store….Sugar Babies, Whoppers, Twizzlers, Cow Tails, Bullseyes….not so good for the diabetes, but sometimes you just have to live life and enjoy yourself.

Hope you all have a special friend in your life to share moments like these with. Have a wonderful weekend!!

She has my heart….

and keeps me on a short leash.

Star and I have been out walking each morning.  She’s taken to the leash wonderfully and it’s made me get off the couch and start walking again.  I have another blood workup on the 25th and will find out if I can get off the diabetes medication and manage with diet and exercise alone. 

Cooling her heels…

 

in her red hightops.  Yesterday the Drama Club held tryouts for their upcoming production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.  The kids had to recite a monologue from a Shakespearean work that lasted 60– 90 seconds.   Nicole chose hers from Macbeth. I guess it’s bad luck to even mention the “M” name while preparing to perform….hope it didn’t jinx her.

 

     

     It’s a proven fact (?) that closing your eyes helps you remember things better.  Kayla is living proof. :)

 

 

 

They’ll find out today if they were selected for a part.

Pippie Birds….

 

This little guy is a Verdin.  I call all little birds like this pippie birds because of the sounds they make. 

 

They enjoy the humming bird feeder also.

 

I do chase the finches off the humming bird feeder, but just don’t have the heart to chase these cute guys away.

It’s official…

they’ve bonded…they’re running in a “pack”.  They both know I’m still the leader of the pack though. :)

Today I’m loving….

my family and friends and all the support and understanding they show.  Thank you so much.

Nicole and Greg….what an awesome support system….hugs and kisses.

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David and Lisa and my little Joseph….precious doesn’t say enough.

 

 

My Pop and all my brothers….their families….wives and children who mean so much to me.  Their influence and love guide so many choices I make in my life.

 

Bill and Tracy…encouragement and love and fun….all very important things.

All my blogging friends…I started to put some of your pictures on here, but decided their were too many to do that.  The part you all play in my life on a daily basis is beyond words.  Interacting with people – whether face-to-face or via the internet – has a huge impact on our mental well being. 

It’s not a small thing we do for each other.

Today I’m missing….

my own house.  I feel guilty saying it and almost thought better of writing it.  But it’s a cloudy, rainy day and the light has that quality that makes me turn all mellow.   We knew when we started this journey to care for my mother that we would find it hard sometimes…I guess today is just one of those days.  It will pass.

These are old photos taken with my first digital camera…not the best, but to me they are dear.

QUOTES:

“Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.”  Mother Teresa

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”  Maya Angelou

“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.”  Benjamin Franklin

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”  Charles Dickens

Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough…

I spent today with my brother, Richard.  He had decided that he would like to give Greg and I a “little” something. 

Mom and I headed into town this morning and Mom spent most of her day with Lisa.  Richard and I headed out with a couple of specific destinations in mind.   I never knew there was so much to know about buying a shell for your pickup truck.  It seems it’s no longer simply a matter of long bed versus short bed.  Years and makes have become very important. The beds are no longer square…they have a taper that changes every few years.  We decided that the difference between used and new didn’t warrant the increase in price.  There was a limited selection, but we found two we liked and I needed to chose between. Once that was done, we had  to wait for an hour and a half on the installation.  One more stop to buy a liner for the bed and then we got to have lunch! 

It’s August in Phoenix and it is hot!!  But my brother likes to do things right and he wasn’t happy with the clean up job that they did on the camper. So we hosed it out, did some cleaning up, trimmed and put the bed liner in and then I wilted.

Greg was home when we returned, but didn’t see us come in the driveway. I asked him to come out and help carry some things in…and surprise!!!  He was so pleased!  Now we can have an easier time camping (with my brothers and their families), Greg can haul his RC airplanes to the flying field without the weather being an issue and on trips luggage will stay dry.

As I said, “thank you” just doesn’t seem like enough, but THANK YOU, Richard and Lisa!

Ferocious Feline….not….

 

This is my sister-in-law, Lisa’s, cat.  His name is Jimmy and he has been shown on my blog in the past.  I did a study of Jimmy one day awhile back and decided to share them here now.  (Don’t get me wrong…but I’m running out of photos…it’s hot out there and I’ve been really busy.)

 

 

 

Don’t you just love his nose?

Rainy days, grandmas, and cherubs…

 

Can you see it?  Do you know what it is?  Yes!  It’s rain and it’s falling on us here in the Valley of the Sun.  Wonder of wonders…

There is no devotion quite like that of a grandmother, who just got out of the hospital, understanding the need to stay connected with her grandson….even if it is raining.

I know you remember that little love-of-my-life who has stolen my heart….taken it captive….wrapped me firmly around his little finger….Justin.  He is now walking, waving goodbye, clapping and jabbering up a storm. 

 

And, as you can see, learning to feed himself.  He is beyond words.

I hope you all have a blessed and happy Sunday enjoying your home, family and friends.