I’m Back

Decided it was time for me to start blogging again.  The last time I posted anything was August 2013 after our 5200 mile odyssey.  Not sure what direction this will take.  Will it be a journal of sorts? How about observations of life around me?  A little of this and that.  

So I’m sitting here with a blank brain.  I have no clue what I want to write.  Let’s see.  It’s going to be 900 degrees here this summer.  I didn’t plant my “square foot garden” this year.  Not too much grows when it’s that hot.  I spent a lot of time last year trying to shade everything plus dragging the hose around to water the poor, shriveled up plants. and didn’t get much of a harvest.  I do much better with a winter garden. 

I’m really not all this boring.  I bake bread.  I make homemade meals.  I drink wine.  I read books.  I read lots of books.  I read all kinds of books.  I should have been a librarian. 

5208 Miles – Been there…done that.

We left home on July 15 on a road trip back to the Midwest to visit family and friends.  This was done via our car not motorhome (no longer have motorhome).  There is something to be said about a road trip in a car.  Lucy definitely has something to say about sitting in her car seat for a total of 5208 miles let alone the strange smells she smelled in the various hotel rooms we stayed in.  There was one hotel/motel room where she wouldn’t get off the bed.  We had to carry her in and out of the room.  I glad we don’t have the same sense of smell a dog has.  Tim would have been carrying us both in and out.  Not all hotels will accept pets.  We found the best one to be LaQuinta.  Of course, we found this out the last two nights on the road. 

Knowing the Midwest would be 95 degrees with 95% humidity I packed every pair of shorts and short sleeved shirts I owned.  Tim always packs the same thing…2 pair of long pants, 1 pair of shorts and 5 knit shirts regardless of what the weather is.  He fits everything in a tote bag.  I had to buy a new suitcase to get all my stuff packed.  We left Arizona and 112 degrees.  Our first night on the road was in Gallup, NM.  The next morning it was 68 degrees and raining. Fortunately, I had packed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and I pretty much wore the jeans and sweatshirt the whole month.(Yes, I did change clothes periodically so I could wash them.)  The weather was absolutely beautiful in the Midwest.  The high was 75-85 with the low’s in the 60’s. I swear I could see my breath one morning. No humidity and not one mosquito bite.  The moral of the story…pack a tote bag.  I never wore any of the clothes in the suitcase.

We arrived in Bloomington, IL on July 19 (Friday) staying with Lucy’s Godparents, Pat and Mike (Mike is also her attorney) and their yorkie, Daisy.  Sunday, I took Tim to ER at 6 am. The next Wednesday I took him to ER again after he collapsed getting out of the car .  This time he was admitted and spent the next 4 days in the hospital.  Sparing all the details leading up to his hospitalization, the diagnosis was orthostatic hypertension and severe dehydration resulting from a C.difficile infection.  C.diff is an antibiotic-associated diarrhea where the antibiotics a person has taken (he was on antibiotics for a sinus infection) takes over and kills all the good bacteria and the bad bacteria grows in the intestines.  What was suppose to be 3 days in Bloomington turned into 10 days.  It was truly a blessing this happened while we were at our friend’s house.  They were comforting and supportive and I didn’t have to worry about Lucy.  I will also say it was a blessing we had our SkyMed membership because I knew, without a doubt, that if we had to get him back to AZ, all I had to do was make a call. I had complete peace of mind.

After the first ER trip and before the second, I made arrangements to meet with some girlfriends for lunch in my home town of Lincoln, IL. I hadn’t seen three of my
                   
friends for 48 years!  We had a great lunch and lots of catching up to do plus loads of "remember when...?"  I drove around town to see what had changed since being there 13 years ago.  Lincoln 's population is 15,400.  The courthouse square use to be surrounded by clothing stores, the dimestore, a bank or two, a jewelry store, Sears and a furniture store.  All gone.  I didn't recognize any store.  I drove by the library and I was surprised how small it was.  In my mind, I remembered it the size of the National Library.  I loved the library.

The "rec" was where we hung out on the weekends. Pool tables were in the front. Dancing in the rear.



 The building has been long gone.  All that remains is the parking lot.  We would walk across the alley to Guzzardo's for pizza.  Thank heavens Guzzardo's is still alive and well.  It was bitter sweet driving around town looking for landmarks and previous houses I lived in.  The house I lived in with my grandmother has been replaced with a commercial building.  The outhouse is gone.  The streets seemed narrower.  Kroger moved out toward the Interstate next to the Super Wal-Mart.  The Tropics (restaurant) is still standing but vacant.  The Heritage Inn where I bussed tables and later worked my way up to waitress has been torn down.  I couldn't find the housing complex my paternal grandmother lived in.  I'm pretty sure it was been replaced with a new townhome complex.  The high school has expanded but still has the circular driveway.  A lot has changed in my home town but some things haven't...I can still hear the corn grow.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God Bless…

What follows I received in an email from my cousin.  She didn’t know who the credit should go to for this heart felt poem.  Whoever wrote it (along with the picture included) has captured in words what has been in my heart and in my prayers.

God Bless those little children and their teachers.  God be with their families.

twas' 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38

when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven's gate.

their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air.

they could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there.

they were filled with such joy, they didn't know what to say.

they remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day.

"where are we?" asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse.

"this is heaven." declared a small boy. "we're spending Christmas at God's house."

when what to their wondering eyes did appear,

but Jesus, their savior, the children gathered near.

He looked at them and smiled, and they smiled just the same.

then He opened His arms and He called them by name.

and in that moment was joy, that only heaven can bring

those children all flew into the arms of their King

and as they lingered in the warmth of His embrace,

one small girl turned and looked at Jesus' face.

and as if He could read all the questions she had

He gently whispered to her, "I'll take care of mom and dad."

then He looked down on earth, the world far below

He saw all of the hurt, the sorrow, and woe

then He closed His eyes and He outstretched His hand,

"Let My power and presence re-enter this land!"

"may this country be delivered from the hands of fools"

"I'm taking back my nation. I'm taking back my schools!"

then He and the children stood up without a sound.

"come now my children, let me show you around."

excitement filled the space, some skipped and some ran.

all displaying enthusiasm that only a small child can.

and i heard Him proclaim as He walked out of sight,

"in the midst of this darkness, I AM STILL THE LIGHT."

Wedding Dress and Politics

Have no idea how the two go together except I had both thoughts in the middle of the night.  I thought about my wedding dress from my first marriage.  My dad drove me to Decatur, IL to the Sears store.  Yes, my dress came off the rack from Sears.  It was street length, white and that’s all I remember about it. 

As for politics in the middle of the night…made me want to get up and pull an Elvis Presley and shoot the TV all to smitherines.  I’m sick of all the ads, lies, accusations.  What happened to decency in this country?  What’s happened to decency and morality?  Shame on them. 

Time Warp

This picture really doesn’t have anything to do with the purpose of this post other than it does reflect another period of time in my life.  I learned how to sew on this type of machine. 
I got to thinking about the last 4 years and decided we were caught in a time warp.  Wikepedia’s definition:  According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, when a body of mass "m" and volume "V" (each length of "l") moves with a velocity "v", then many changes take place in is physical appearance. Its length decreases and mass increases. These factors keep on increasing and decreasing with the increase in velocity. When the body reaches the speed of light "c", the length becomes zero, mass becomes infinite and time factor vanishes. In other words, no time passes inside the event horizon of the moving body. In this way, the body sometimes takes irregular shapes and covers a distance of millions of light years in no time, because the passage of time for that moving body is vanished. During this process, the body is said to be moving with a time-warp speed. 

You got all that, right?  Allow me to clarify.

Einstein’s theory:  In other words, no time passes inside the event horizon of the moving body. In this way, the body sometimes takes irregular shapes and covers a distance of millions of light years in no time, because the passage of time for that moving body is vanished.

Sue’s theory:  The moving body we were in for the last 4 years was a 38 foot motor home.  It did take on irregular shapes at times since we had three slide outs.  And, we covered a whole lot of miles in what now seems like no time, since we are back in our stick home and that moving motor home has gone bye bye.  Yup, no doubt about it, we were in a time warp.

Medio Enchilada Sauce

Tim was in the mood for enchiladas and since we were in the grocery store that caters to the Hispanic population I thought it would be a good place to get some enchilada sauce.

  I understood “salsa, roja, and figured ‘medio’ met medium heat.  I always buy ‘medium’ salsa so thought this would be a good choice.  I had not made enchiladas before but I had watched “The Pioneer Cooking Woman’s” show the day before and she had made enchiladas.  I had dvr’d the show so I could replay it and follow her instructions. No problem.  I had the ground beef, the tortillas and my “medio salsa roja sauce”.  I opened the enchilada sauce, added ingredients per the recipe, cooked up the ground beef, assembled the tortillas and then thought I would taste the sauce to see if it needed anything.  Holy Moley!  Mother of fire! Get me water, milk, wine!  What am I going to do?  Tim said, “It can’t be that hot…let me taste it.”  He took a spoonful, looked at me, eyes watering, and said, “What are you going to do?”  I started with adding a can of tomato paste, then tomato sauce, dumped in some salsa (that was the dumbest thing I did since it was “medium salsa”), added some sugar, stared at it for awhile waiting for enlightenment, and finally added a can of tomato soup.  I couldn’t add anything else without pouring it all into another pot.  Decided it was as good as it was going to get.  The filled tortillas went into a casserole, I ladled in the sauce and topped it with as much cheddar cheese as I could get on it.  Here’s the verdict.  Tim said it was the best enchiladas he’s ever had.  I thought they were horrible.  I’m sticking with Taco Bell.

Lucy’s Travels

Lucy is 5 1/2 years old.  Most of her life has been spent in our motorhome travelling.  Her world has been about 300 square feet.  There have been a few times when we were in a hotel room or at someone’s home for night or two and she seemed overwhelmed.  The place was too big for her.  We moved back into our home May 1 and it took weeks for her to adjust to all the space.  Now, it’s hard to find her.  She has her cubby holes/hiding places everywhere! 

I got to thinking about all the places she’s travelled especially the last 5 years.  Here are a few of her travels:  Her first trip was to Show Low, AZ when she was 6 months old.  We still had Tootsie and Lucy had a travel partner for a couple of years.  Fort Bragg, CA was next.  She and Tootsie weren’t too keen on the twisty, winding highway to Fort Bragg.  I wasn’t either.  The road was narrow and the logging trucks were big and fast.  Lucy’s been to Salt Lake City, Park City, Utah, Olympia, Seattle, Spokane, Moses Lake, Deer Park, WA, Newport, Florence, Tillamook, Rockaway Beach, OR.  She doesn’t want to spend anymore time on the coast.  She’s done with rain. However, she really did like the beach.  She would just flat out run toward the ocean and run tail when the tide came in. She’s been to Bandon, Canyonville, Bend, LaPine, Albany, Redmond, Lincoln City, Seaside, Astoria (all in OR).  We spent a lot of time in Oregon.  She’s spent many nights in RV parks, (some good some dumps) fair grounds, overnighted in WalMart parking lots, Elk’s Lodge and casino parking lots. She wasn’t too crazy about the WalMart parking lots.  She and Tim had that in common.  He wasn’t crazy about them either.

As far as Lucy was concerned, the motorhome was her crate and it had wheels on it.  She really is a good travel dog.  We never let her run loose when we were driving.  She was always tethered to the seat belt on the sofa.  And, she’s always belted when she’s in the truck.  The people who let their animals sit on the dash of the motorhome or run loose while driving are just plain stupid. 

Lucy’s been a whole lot of places and there are many stories to tell.  Maybe that’s the direction I’ll take with this blog.  I’ll recreate a diary (after the fact) of the 4 years we dropped out of the rat race.  Where do I start? 

Done with Facebook

Not sure what really prompted me to delete my Facebook account…I think I really just got bored with it.  It’s not that I had a kagillon “friends” cause I didn’t.  I was pretty selective who I “friended”.  Then some of my friends were into the games and that was a turn off for me.  I blocked them.  What I did look forward to was the posts from Dogwork.com and Hopeforpaws.org but I can go directly to those websites and see what’s happening there.  Same is true for JoyceMeyer.org – don’t need Facebook for her.  So, what was the point?  Couldn’t see any reason to keep it up…so…kaput – it’s history.  One less techie thing I’m tethered to.

Update on Pressure Cooker

Remember awhile back I got one at a sale?  Well, it’s history.  Gave it to Goodwill.   

End of an era...

 Eight years ago we bought this motor home.  We never owned one before.... no tent, trailer, nada.  My idea of camping was JW Marriott.  I'm not sure what possessed us to buy one. 

The last three years we lived in it full time.  (That's less than 300 square feet of living quarters.)  We primarily travelled west of the Mississippi except for one trip to Alabama.  I was raised in the Midwest and I told Tim I wasn't travelling back there until Wal-Mart had underground parking for RVs to escape the tornados. 
It's been a great motorhome.  We've had experiences of a lifetime and most important of all...we've reconnected with Tim's cousin, Dick and his wife, Rosemary (we had lost touch with them for years and ran into them at a rally in Albuquerque, NM).  We've also made new friendships that will last a lifetime whom we never would have met if it had not been for the motorhome, rallies (and Lucy).  Things happen for a reason. 

However, it is time to hang up the keys.  As Tim says, he's managed to drive the side of a barn down the road for 8 years with no one hitting us and us not hitting them...a good time to quit.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

About 9 am this morning while sitting at the computer I felt the motorhome shaking.  My first thought was it was my imagination.  I looked at Tim and asked if he felt anything.  Yep, he did.  I looked at my plant sitting on the dash and the leaves were really shaking.  I told him we were experiencing a pretty substantial earthquake (after all we are in California only a few miles from the San Andreas fault).  My second thought was this may be a big one since we really felt it.  My third thought was “crap, there may be damage to the roads and we won’t be able to leave next week and we’re really ready to head back to AZ”.  Tim said earthquakes don’t last this long.  My fourth thought was “damn, it’s the spin cycle on the washing machine”. 

Then there was FIRE!

Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.  I’m talking about Kindle Fire.   

SkyMed ( follow the link on the left to know more about SkyMed) awarded us a Kindle Fire for sales we had last October/November.  We are avid book readers.  We are always perusing the local libraries looking for books.  We drop books off…we get new books.  I have books stashed everywhere.  We very seldom buy a book. I wasn’t sure if I would like reading a book on an E-reader.  I have the Kindle app on my Droid and have read a book or two on it but the screen on the Droid is so small and I’m flipping pages so fast that it makes me dizzy.  The Kindle Fire is like a small I Pad.  I have downloaded books…books that were already in my “Cloud”.  I have downloaded free music albums that stay in my “Cloud” so I can then download them to my MPG3 player on my Droid. I can surf the web, check email, download apps, watch streaming videos through my Amazon Prime account, browse for free books and music. I can also borrow books from Amazon’s lending library. There are free e-book sites other than Amazon not to mention the local library for their e-books.  There are functions of the Fire that I haven’t even begun to understand yet.

The biggest problem I seem to have is Tim.  He keeps eyeing MY Kindle.  I don’t plan on showing him how to turn it on.

Guess who???

Jaywalking…

Tim sent me the link. Very funny but also scary considering they can vote, too.

http://www.iviewtube.com/v/65379/jay-leno-in-jaywalking-(very-funny)

Talk about intensity…

I posted this on Facebook but not everyone is on Facebook.  Tim and Lucy start their morning watching this. 

http://www.dogwork.com/bcw2b/

Adams School

We moved back to Lincoln when I was 8.  I was in the 3rd grade.  I don’t remember the teacher but I do remember Adams School.  It was a 2 room schoolhouse and was just a few blocks from where we lived with “Mom”. First and second grades were in one room and third and fourth were in the other.  There were 2 teachers…one for each room.  The only real memory I have of attending Adams is coming home with a plastic bag with a couple of guppies.  Guppies are baby fish.  Not sure what they grew into.  I think gold fish.  I remember my mother and grandmother saying “no way”.  Guppies were like rabbits and I’d end up with millions.  I begged and begged.  I finally wore them down and my grandmother gave me a bowl to put them in.  I promised to take care of them.  My mother gave me some money to go buy fish food.  I fed them every time I walked by the fish bowl.  They had to eat, after all.  Well, they didn’t have to worry about millions of guppies.  After a few days the guppies were belly up.  I think I over fed them.  End of story.

Here’s a picture of Adams School:  

Changes in the wind…

Lots of wind the past few days.  However, the changes we’re making has nothing to do with the wind.  Change is good, keeps one out of a rut.  I don’t like ruts. 

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and desert

http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/02/mouth-watering-monday-20-breakfast-in.html

http://www.ziplist.com/recipes/459300-Bacon_Guacamole_Grilled_Cheese_Sandwich

http://www.closetcooking.com/2011/02/double-smoked-bacon-wrapped-fillet.html

http://www.closetcooking.com/2012/02/raspberry-and-dark-chocolate-cheesecake.html

I’m stuffed.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Watcha doin?

Family history continued

As I get older it has become important to me to try to remember stuff and write it down.  Stories told to me as a young adult went in one ear and out the other.  My Dad talked about being a POW during World War II only one time.  He was in Patton’s Third Army, went in with the group that liberated a POW camp that Patton’s son-in-law was in and then ended up being captured by the Germans on the way out.  I would give anything today to have had a recording of that conversation.  He never would talk about it again.  Hopefully, some day my grandkids, nieces and nephews will find and read this blog to get a sense of who their family was (is).  My mother and grandmother use to tell stories about their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, children born and died young.  My mother lived in New Harmony, Indiana and remembered when a devastating tornado came through and killed hundreds of people.  She helped to pull bodies from the wreckage.  She also told me about her first marriage to Bill Hyatt.  She didn’t really want to marry him but when he showed up at my Aunt Dena’s cabin (where she was staying) in a wagon pulled by horses she got in and they went to town to get married. I do remember my Aunt Dena. She had a twin sister named Lena.  I don’t think I ever met her.  I’m not positive but I think they were my grandmother’s sisters.  My family history is murky.   Aunt Dena was a little looney.  She not only smoked a corn cob pipe but kept dead copperhead snakes in some sort of liquid in quart jars.  Ii have no idea why.  Maybe that’s why my mother got in the wagon!