Changes and Adjustments

My daughter, her husband and two small children moved into their own apartment today. The move went pretty smoothly for them, I think. At least they will be able to spend their first night in their new home with a kitchen kind of organized, beds made and bathroom stuff located. They still have a lot of boxes and stuff to deal with. It will probably take them awhile to find a place for everything.

Now our home is very quiet - the quietest its been since we moved in three years ago. When we bought this home, we second guessed ourselves. It seemed like more space than we needed what with only my husband and I and our youngest son to fill up five bedrooms. But the house was quickly filled up with a daughter-in-law to be who lived with us for several months before marrying our older son. Before we knew it, our daughter and her husband and one child moved in with us. After that, our youngest daughter graduated from college out of state and moved back home. What was a huge house with lots of room became a home with every bedroom filled. Our three car garage was filled, plus three cars parked in the driveway or on the street.

Tonight, my husband, son and I are living in a very different environment. We have three empty bedrooms. Two baths that probably won't be used much. No kiddie stuff in the family room or kitchen. We have no cars parked in the driveway or on the street.

It's weird. But we'll adjust.

P.S. The answer is NO! You can't move in!

A way with words

My twenty eight month old grandson has a way with words.

Here's a few Aidanisms:

Churcles - something circular in shape

Chupchakes -those little cakes that kids love to lick the icing off and leave the cake part

Flingos - the pink plastic birds that are perched in our neighbors yard. I really would like to "fling" them at the neighbor.

Dinahorse - T-Rexs and their relatives

Pliget - Winnie the Pooh's little pink friend

Floulers - What Grandma grows in her garden


His latest describes a furry animal with ringed tail and a black mask that showed up in our yard the other day. You all know what animal I mean - a Raccatoon, not to be confused with Rabbitouille, of animated movie fame.

Let It Snow!!

I love a fresh snow storm. It started snowing sometime during the night last night. This is what we woke up to this morning:


It's been snowing heavily all morning. Five hours later, we have this much snow:


That's at least 8" or more!

Christmas Tradition

My niece, Sue, has of late become a very famous blogger. She has had as many as 76 comments on one post! I feel real special if I get more than two. To show her gratitude to her faithful readers and to openly steal Christmas traditions from them for her own personal use, she is running a contest. Even though she has admitted on her blog to have lied in the past, we are all assuming that she will actually determine a winner and send out the prizes. After all, her reputation is on the line here.

Here's my entry - (remember, Sue, I am your very favorite aunt and you are my most favorite niece).

This tradition came about more out of desperation and keeping my sanity. One Christmas Eve many years ago, I was feverishly wrapping a mountain of presents for my 5 children. Of course, it was after they had gone to bed, so the hour was late. While wrapping, attaching bows and gift tags, I thought there had to be a better way! So the next year and every year since, the first thing that I bought was wrapping paper. I spent time picking a particular paper for each child. My own personal guidelines were that the paper had to be primarily green or red and the theme of each roll had to relate in some way to each particular child. Since my children were all in school by this time, I would wrap each gift the same day I purchased it - well most of the time - without ribbons or gift tags. Then the wrapped packages would be stored in a closet or hopefully a secret hiding place. On Christmas Eve, Santa's job was greatly simplified since each child was paper coded. Occasionally, the kids would find the wrapped packages (they've admitted this). But all they could do was try to guess which wrapping paper was theirs.

The bonus was that since all the kids were beyond the age of believing in Santa, I could use the leftover paper the next year for gifts going to extended family and friends.

The plan saved my sanity and has made Christmas Eve less of a hassle. It's been fun to search for the ideal paper for each child. Now that the kids are grown and some with families of their own, I try to paper code each family.

A little gratitude, please

I had my 18 month old grandson here for a little while today. His mom had a couple of job interviews. He is a happy, sweet little boy and pretty easy to have around. I was happy to help out.

However, taking care of my grandson made me think back to the days many years ago when I relied on my own mother for a lot of child care. I worked six days a week from 7 AM until 3 PM. My mother took care of my son for 5 of those six days. I would drop my son of at 6:30 AM and not pick him up until 3:30 PM. She took care of him for a couple of years - 5 days a week. Looking back, I don't think I ever appreciated what she did for me. She was always fully dressed when I arrived at 6:30 AM, and when I came back, her home didn't look like a toddler had spent the day there. It never crossed my mind that she may have been exhausted, not feeling well or would just plain rather have done something else with her time.

Several years later as a single mother, I called my mother to take care of the same child when he had the chicken pox. I had to work and, of course, day care wouldn't take a kid with chicken pox. My mother lived about 40 miles away then. Without hesitation, she came and got my son and kept until at her house until he was pox free.

I think that most of us take a lot for granted in life. I just expected that my mother (and my father as well) would help me out when ever I called. I know that I never really expressed much gratitude to her. It's too late now since she passed away over 24 years ago.

Anyway, thanks Mom for all that you did for me. I understand now how hard it may have been at times. But you never complained.

Do You Want To Buy A Ticket?

These tickets may go fast and the money will go to a worthy cause.

Here's the deal...our HOA is having their semi-annual meeting next Tuesday night. It should be a doozy! Next year's budget will be presented. The HOA president told me that the fees will be nominal for 2008. However, another budget item for legal fees due to a mediation will also be presented. The fur will fly when owners demand to know who is suing the HOA (it's the Nimbys). Even though the majority of people in this neighborhood have plenty of money, they won't be too happy about an assessment for legal fees - especially over trees and views.

An additional agenda item is for an amendment to our Design Guidelines that is being proposed by the Nimbys. The Nimbys want all trees that are now over 24' or at sometime in the future will be over 24' tall removed. Specifically, they're proposing this amendment to give them a little ground to stand on in their claim about our trees blocking their views. But, any provision in the CCRs and Guidelines has to be applied to every homeowner, and therefore, every tree in every yard. You can imagine how people will react to that.

Anyway, this meeting should be a interesting to say the least. The HOA president suggested to me that people may want to buy tickets just to witness the Nimbys being ripped to shreds by the high powered Type A personalities that live in this neighborhood. I suggested that the proceeds from ticket sales be applied to legal fees. Call it creative fundraising!

So don't miss your chance as seating is limited.

Maybe not the bad guys!

I'm sure many of you can relate stories about battling with insurance companies to get them to pay claims. They are notorious for making life miserable for us premium paying peons.

Well, I guess not all insurance companies are tightwads. My daughter that had surgery last September just called me. Her insurance company paid ALL of her hospital bills...to the tune of $23,000.

We are kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know, a letter from the insurance company saying it was mistake and she owes a bazillion dollars!

Trees, View and Shovels..

I am taking donations so that I can buy heavy duty "you know what" shovels for the entire neighborhood. Or maybe if I get enough donations, I can convince that guy on the cable TV show "The World's Dirtiest Jobs" to come and do the work for us.

Trees and Views

We are still trying to go with trees here. But, decided that we should remove a couple of trees that the Nimbys were complaining about. Today some very efficient tree guys came and took them away as well as moved another one. Luckily, it didn't cost a fortune.

We have a wonderful large space on our uphill property line where these two trees stood. I am SO happy the Nimbys now have an unobstructed view....of our family room and breakfast area, as well as the previously mentioned roof. I will have to be sure I'm fully clothed all the time, OR NOT!

On a cheerier note, the Nimbys have also submitted a proposed amendment to our HOA CCRs regarding tree height, views, blah, blah, blah....too complicated to go into here. So I have spent the last couple of days commiserating with my next door neighbors about a couple of statements we will read at our HOA meeting in November. You know, "united we stand, divided we fall". We've decided to take no prisoners and are ready for battle. Even though the Nimbys "you know what" (thanks Al for that great comment) has been rolling down hill for quite some time, we are trying our darndest to shove as much of it as possible back up their way.

Which leads me to a "shoving it your way" action I took today. The Nimbys delight in letting their light shine forth - so to speak. They have 2 non-conforming motion activating flood lights on the rear of their home (which just happen to activate just about every time a microscopic spec floats by and consequently flash on and off in our bedroom windows all night), they also have non conforming colored globe string lights across their rear lot line pergola and numerous solar powered stake lights around the perimeter of their yard. Even though we have no way of getting any screening from all this light shining forth, we've tried to ignore it. Oh and they also have 2 pink flamingos perched in a tree - been there all summer.

But today I decided that I had nothing to lose and sent an email to the poor guy on the HOA board who gets all the "rat on your neighbor" emails. I ratted on the Nimbys lights and flamingos.

You be the judge

A year ago the house uphill from us was sold. It didn't take long for the new owners to start to make major renovations both inside and outside the house. We came home from a 2 week trip last fall to find that all of the landscaping in the rear yard (that borders our rear yard) had been taken out, a fence put in and a construction on a swimming pool had started. It was a surprise to say the least. Since we live in an area with an HOA, I figured everything had been approved by the HOA. It was not that big of a deal.

Last Spring, the new owners (I'll now refer to them as the "Nimbys" as in "not in my backyard") started on the new landscaping. The HOA CC&R guidelines, among other things, require that fences be screened. The Nimbys new landscaping didn't quite provide enough screening given the fact that they now had a pool, huge kid's swing/climbing set. So we planted some trees across our back lot line to give a little more screening. We were careful to follow HOA guidelines as to mature height of the trees. We also did not plant the trees in our uphill neighbors "view corridor".

You'd think that most people would like some trees - you know, a little contribution to combat global warming. But the Nimbys seem to think that they had a home on a VIEW lot and made a complaint about trees in our yard, and in our next door neighbor's yard, blocking their view. They demanded that all of the trees in these two yards (32 in all) be removed. Most of the trees have been around for 5 years or more!

Here's the view the Nimbys have from their yard:



And these views:



Yep. I agree. Our trees are blocking their view......OF THE BACK OF OUR HOUSE!!!

However, our trees provide screening for us and from the views into the Nimbys yard. Here's a "view" we've had this summer of the Nimbys yard.

A flock of pink flamingos took roost for about two weeks. They'd probably still be there if I hadn't made a complaint to the HOA.

And this one is really special:


When I first saw this on the Nimby's back deck on a Sunday morning, I thought that someone didn't quite make it back into the house after a pool party the night before. But on closer inspection, I realized it was a blow up doll wearing a t-shirt with a message just for us. The poor thing hung out on the deck in the blazing sun for almost a week.

Anyway, because the Nimbys didn't like the idea that the HOA Board said no trees had to be removed, they've hired an attorney. That means that the HOA Board has had to hire an attorney. This is where the whole thing gets ridiculous. Every homeowner in our subdivision, INCLUDING THE NIMBYS, will have to a pay a special assessment to the tune of about $1000 per homeowner so that the HOA Board can have legal representation. So the Nimbys are technically suing themselves.

This whole situation is really gathering steam. A meeting with the HOA Board, the Nimbys, us and our neighbors, and attorneys for both sides, will be held in the near future. I just can't wait.

In the meantime, you be the judge. Trees or views?

P.S.

The Nielsen Ratings people never called back. They probably figured out that I wasn't the best person to call about TV watching.

Getting Caught Up....

I emailed my brother today asking him why he hadn't posted to his blog for a week. He's a fairly regular poster. So to have nothing from him in a week was a little out of the norm. I wanted to be sure he hadn't fallen off the planet. He emailed me back and reminded me that it been several weeks since I had posted. Guess I better get caught up. These are all random thoughts.

I realized today as I was pulling into a shopping mall parking lot that the city where I live has come of age. A "Cheesecake Factory" will soon open at the mall. Along with an IKEA that opened last August, we are just like the big folks. Word is that when the big new downtown shopping center is finished in 2011 that some really big high end retailers will be moving to town. Then this little old town will really be grown up.

Last Saturday it was wet, rainy and cold. After spending part of the day at the cinema, my husband and I headed to a local cafe for a late lunch. We had some time on our hands with a decaf and hot chocolate to nurse. Our conversation turned to getting older. Now, it's amazing that my husband would even talk about getting older because he's been in a state of denial for years that he is over 50. He made the comment that there seemed to be so many younger people around these days!

My husband and I have been talking about "downsizing". We live in almost a 4000 sq ft home. That's going to be too much room in a few years. So how's this for downsizing? We looked at a home for sale this weekend that is 106 years old. It meets a lot of our criteria (despite it's age and need for some work) - family gathering space, a yard for grandkids to play, close to downtown. But it is almost 5500 sq ft. Guess we have it a little backwards.

It's no longer summer, or even Indian summer, where I live. For the last few weeks, it's been raining or snowing - generally on the weekend. There's been a few good days, but not many. The patio furniture is covered for the winter or put away. The sprinkling system has been shut down and the flowers beds readied for winter. And most likely, the motorcycle won't be out of the garage until next Spring. Now that's sad.

My husband asked me Saturday if I would ski with him this winter. I have a very nice pair of skis and boots that have probably only seen snow about 6 times since I got them over 8 years ago. Maybe I'll have to find out if I can even get down the ski hill anymore. The last time I went skiing, it was at a resort with lots of snowboarders. I hated it. If I'm going to ski at all, we'll have to find a resort with NO SNOWBOARDERS! (No offense to any of you who may snowboard. But I didn't like the way snowboarders carved up the hill.) There's only one place to ski around here that's within an hour of my home. Guess we'll be heading up to Deer Valley.

Why me?

I don't know why we seem to get the "taking a survey" phone calls at our house. But we get quite a few of them. I answered the phone recently (made the mistake of not putting on my glasses so that I could read the caller ID - hate having "old eyes") when the caller said they were calling for the Nielsen ratings. I told the young lady that I really didn't have time to answer her few questions for a couple minutes (a few questions always turns into many and a couple of minutes usually turns into 5 or 10). Anyway, I really was in the middle of something that I couldn't interrupt. She probably wondered why I answered the phone, if I was so busy. She asked if she could call back at another time.

You know, I'm probably not the best person to ask questions about TV viewing. I don't watch alot of TV. First of all, because I wear hearing aids in both ears, I just can't understand the dialogue on most shows to follow the story line. It's frustrating. Please, don't suggest that I get those "TV Ears" things!! The few shows that I can follow because there isn't much in the way of dialogue that matters, (Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, House Hunters, Designed to Sell - I know none of them are really worth the time anyway) my husband can't stand and he "controls" the remote.

Now if someone is taking a survey about how people spend time playing internet games, reading blogs, checking favorite websites, I could probably give some decent answers. If the Nielsen Ratings gal ever calls back, she'd be better off talking to one of the other people who live at this address who actually watch television.

Kelly Update

Kelly was released from the hospital today and doing well. Prognosis is good. She is now "holding court" with friends in our living room.

Don't be afraid to ask the question....

My daughter had surgery last Thursday. It involved her pituitary gland, so it had to be done by a neurosurgeon. After spending 2 1/2 days in the Neuro Critical Care unit, she was moved to a room in a regular unit. I had gone home for a break and wasn't around when she was actually moved to her new room. This particular hospital has very few private rooms so we were expecting she'd be sharing her recovery space.

When I got back to the hospital, I found her in a semi private room all right. But she was on the hallway side which meant all the staff and visitors for her roommate would have to go pass her... not very conducive to recovery and rest. (As if that is the purpose of a hospital stay anyway) On my way to her room, I noticed several empty rooms. After seeing her cramped quarters (We couldn't even get to the shared closet space to put her things away. The other patient's family had commandeered all the visitor chairs as well.), I decided that it wouldn't hurt to ask if she could be moved to one of the empty rooms and put on the window side.

After finding the charge nurse, I asked the question; emphasizing that my daughter had just come from the NCC unit and basically hadn't slept in several days. After a brief hesitation, the nurse says "I can move her." I barely had time to go back to my daughter's room when staff came in to move her. I'm thinking "Wow, that was fast." The staff is organizing all her equipment, IV stand, etc while I gather up her personal belongings. One of them says to me: "We're moving her to 309. Is that OK?" Again, I'm thinking "309, 316, 126 - it makes no difference as long as she's on the window side" . I head down the hall to 309.

Blogger's Note: You have to know this daughter is Kelly...our family medical anomaly. Her past medical experiences have been anything but "normal" or easy. I won't go into details.

Back to the story: I opened the door to room 309 and my jaw literally dropped. Remember, nothing good has ever really happened to Kelly when it has come to medical related issues.
Kelly would be getting a window in room 309. But she also got a room that was bigger than some hotel rooms. It had hardwood floor (maybe fake - but definitely not linoleum), a large couch, leather recliner, several other chairs, a coffee table, side table with lamp, media cabinet with TV and DVD player, marble (probably fake as well - who cares?) counter on the sink, private bathroom and oh, the huge window had plantation shutters on it. After Kelly gets settled in her new "digs", the charge nurse comes in to see "if everything is OK". My private reaction was "Mmm...is this room available in pink? How about a microwave, turn down service and mints on her pillow?? Really, guys, you can do better than this!"

It turns out Kelly scored a VIP room. Apparently, the only VIP room in the hospital like it.

Just goes to show, it doesn't hurt to ask. You never know what you'll get for an answer. It also proves that there is God up above who believes that just once in awhile a lowly mortal deserves a break.

A Sucker born every day? Part 2

After a discussion last night with family about the advantages of DVR, I called the cable company again this morning. Just to make sure that I knew what I was talking about, I got on the company's website before I called them and used the phone by the computer so that I could reference the info on the website while talking to a live person at the cable company. It turns out that the website is a "national" website and each state has its own packages and pricing. So after getting the more or less correct info from our local cable company on their packages, it turns out that to get DVR it will cost $107.00 a month!!! That's almost double what we pay now! We would be required to upgrade to the Premium Plus package ($95/month). The rental of the DVR box adds another $12. Well, I'm not falling for this new "sucker" package. Everyone living at the same address as me will just have to be happy with our "Digital Classic" package. That is, unless, they want to pony up for the difference.

A Sucker born every day?

A several months ago, we purchased a new television - digital and all that. In order to get digital, we needed a cable box. Of course, we had to pick the box up from the cable company and install it ourselves. Now you'd think that there would be some kind of instructions for those that are electronically challenged about how to connect everything up and get it working probably. Well - no. I was handed the cable box, a bag of cables, remote and a card with the channels we would be getting. That was it. The customer service gal must have thought I was an idiot when I asked if there were instructions for installing. "No" she said, shoving the cable box and all the stuff at me. Thanks to my son and son-in-law, it got connected and seemed to be working fine. We had a better picture and a few more channels for about $8 more a month. We were happy.

That is until we spent some time watching TV at my brother-in-laws house a couple of weeks ago. It seems that there's this fancy feature called "DVR" that you can get from the cable company. It sounded great - record what you want, watch it when you want, blitzing through the commercials. The next day, I called the cable company to get DVR added to our account. Seems like I could get DVR added for an additional $12 a month and they would send a technician out with the box and get it all connected. They gave me an appointment for 3 days later. Great! Terrific! We all waited in anticipation.

Come the day of the appointment, I get a phone call from the technician. It went something like this:

"Hello, this is John Doe from Comcast. Uh, didn't they tell you when you made this appointment that we were out of the DVR boxes for another two weeks?"

Me - "No, they failed to share that little bit of information. Can we just reschedule the appointment then?"

Technician - "You'll have to call the office in a few days to do that. But I've put a red "S" on the service request."

Me - "What's the red S mean?"

Technician - "That's so the office will know you made this request, but we didn't have the equipment at the time. You'll get better attention."

Me - "OK, I'll call back in a few days."

This morning I called the cable company.

Me: "I had an appointment last week for a tech to come an install DVR on our cable. He couldn't do it because you were out of the equipment and told me to call back this week."

C. S.: "Since you only have classic service, we will have to upgrade you to the Platinum Super Duper service with 30 more channels in order to get DVR. And we don't have any boxes in and don't know when we will get them."

Me: "How much more will that cost per month?"

C.S.: "Oh, It's a lot." (offers no $ amount) Now I'm thinking it must a kazillion more dollars a month.

Me: "So, how much is "a lot more"?" She finally tells me that the total package is $95 a month.

Me: "I was told I could get DVR for another $12? What's the deal?"

So she proceeds to tell me, after a conferring with her supervisor, that if I come in to the store and pick up the DVR box and install it myself, they will "honor" the $12 quote. If I pick the box up and want a tech to install it, I have to call AFTER I've picked the box up and make an appointment. Seems they have the "new" boxes at the store. But don't know when the "new" boxes will be available so I can make an appointment to have a tech bring one to the house and install it. So, we are sticking with our original cable. Geez!

Now I'm thinking that the red "S" the tech wrote on my service order actually stood for "Sucker". But I didn't fall for it.

Another Delivery

Emily
September 11, 2007
6 lbs 14 oz, 20"

Once this little girl decided to join her family, it was a speedy arrival. Mother and baby are doing well. Big brother is still trying to figure out what a baby sister is all about. But he did tell her "I lub you, Emmie" and gave her a kiss before going home.

Wait No more

Just in case any one is holding their breath waiting for me to post "B is for", you can breathe now. I've decided that the ABC thing isn't my thing. There won't be any "B", "C" .....

Potential ER Customers

Today, I saw some adolescents practicing long boarding on a fairly busy local street. They were taking turns riding out of a steep, somewhat blind driveway on to the road. Most of them didn't stay upright as they made the turn unto the street. But I had to give them a little credit for a dab of brains - the hospital ER was a half a block away.

Fooled Them!

Apparently, the DMV has redesigned the "official" drivers license. So instead of getting a sticker to put on the back of my old expired license, I got an entirely new license in the mail the other day (See an earlier post about renewing my license). Well, you actually can fool the DMV because the picture of me on my license will be 10 years old when it's time for the next renewal. I can just hear them now when I go in to renew in 5 years, "The picture on your license looks pretty good for an old lady."

Can someone please explain this to me?

I understand all about how socks can go into the wash as a pair and come out of the dryer as a single. It's a well known fact that washers eat socks.

But there is another mystery I'd like someone to explain to me about missing pens? On a regular basis, I purchase a mega size package of pens. S0me of the pens go in the container on the desk by the phone. The rest go in the drawer. The purpose of the pens is so that when someone has to write down a phone message for another person, a pen will be nearby - no searching all over the house. Of course, with the usage of cell phones and voice mail, the process of message taking rarely happens. In theory, there should always an abundance of pens right where I put them, right? Not the case in this house. They must develop legs and walk off somewhere. Where do they go??

ABCs and Agriculture

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So here's to my daughters...I'm copying their ABC list.

A is for AGRICULTURE. Agriculture? What's with that? I've never lived on a farm and my best attempt at any form of agriculture has included weed eradication, lawn mowing (which I now pay someone to do); growing tomatoes in a pot on my patio (a failure to say the least), and planting fruit trees on a steep hillside. Actually, I don't take credit for that idea. The one who thought it was a good idea did not think ahead to harvest time or the problems that would occur when the fruit overloaded a particular tree and it start to slide downhill. He just wanted them up there because fruit trees look pretty in the spring. Brilliant! What's the real reason behind choosing AGRICULTURE? Yesterday, I was with my granddaughter who's in the 4th grade and had a chance to help her with some school work. One of her Bonus spelling words was "agricultural". She spelled it correctly the first time. Now that's brilliant!

A is also for ABC, my younger brother's initials. Due distance (he lives on the east coast, I'm in the Rocky Mountains) and other more personal reasons, we have not been very close. I'm sure that it didn't help that I was not a very good older sister when he was little. In fact, I was down right mean to him. I was jealous that someone, in the form of a baby (my brother), had taken over the place where I had reigned supreme for over 5 years - the youngest child. I'm not very proud of the way I treated him. But through the power of modern technology - specifically blogging - we may be reconnecting a little. We discovered we both like Mexican food, watch HGTV and like the color blue. It's a start.

Sign of the times??

I walked into my family room a few minutes ago. This is what I saw.......


Four people: 1 person reading, 3 laptops, 1 cell phone, TV on SNL 80's special

Mmm...not sure what to think about this scene.

Sentimental Value

My mother didn't have a lot of expensive jewelry. I remember she had several sets of earrings, matching necklaces and pins - mostly costume jewelry. Whenever she got dressed up in her "Sunday Best", she always wore some of her jewelry. As a girl, I would go to her small, cloth lined jewelry box and look at her collection. Everything was very fancy to a young girl. There was one piece that I never saw her wear. It was a ring with a stone missing in the setting. The loose stone sat in the jewelry box along with the ring. I never asked her why she didn't get it fixed so she could wear the ring.

When she passed away 24 years ago, that was the one piece of jewelry I took for myself with the idea that I'd get the ring fixed and wear it. The ring sat in my jewelry box for almost 13 years before I took it to get it repaired. By then, I had lost the loose stone and had to replace it. I've worn the ring almost daily ever since.

Until just recently, I didn't think that the ring had much sentiment to any of my brothers and sisters. But after sending my younger brother a picture of our newborn granddaughter, he remarked that he got more sentimental seeing Mom's ring in my hand than looking at the picture of my granddaughter. I learned from him that he saw Mom wear the ring later in her life. She must have put in on often enough for him to recognize it 24 years later. His reaction has given me reason to pause and reflect a little on my mother and "the ring".

My mother had a comfortable life. But I know that there were some things that she would have liked to have done - one of them was traveling. This may be shocking to some, but one of the reasons why she didn't travel was my Dad. He couldn't understand the interest or be bothered with it. My mom was nine years younger than my Dad. She said to me, more than once, that she would probably out live him. She looked forward to being able to travel with her sisters to some of the places she had only heard about. When she became ill with cancer and knew that she would not survive my Dad, she was a little angry knowing those travels wouldn't happen.

So what's the sentimental value in all this? I look at the ring I wear on my right hand a little differently. My mom wasn't able to travel, but her ring has been pretty well traveled in the last several years - many places in the United States, as well as Paris, London, Scotland, and Denmark. Now when I head out on another travel adventure, I will be taking a little of my mother with me in the form of a special ring. It makes me a little sentimental.

Newest Grandchild

Sienna
August 25, 2007
6 lbs 4 oz - 18"

On August 25 at about 5:30 pm, we got a phone call from our pregnant daughter-in-law. "I'm in the hospital. They just checked me in." About 1/2 hour later, our son calls. "Wife is in the hospital." We said, "We know, she called us." Son says - "What, she called you before she called me??" He was at work when his wife drove herself to the hospital! She didn't want to bother her husband because they had had several false alarms. He made it in time for the delivery of our newest granddaughter. Big sister and brother are excited to have a little sister.

They're No Fools

I got some mail from the Drivers License Division a couple of days ago. My license expires on my birthday in a few months and because I've been without any moving traffic violations in the last five years, I could renew by mail. Yippee! No going to the DMV and waiting in line. No taking an eye test. But it got better, I could actually renew online! Yea! No stamps or trip to the mailbox. I quickly got online and filed my renewal form. But my joy was short lived. There was another notice at the bottom of the form: "If you will be 65 when your new license expires, you will need to apply in person and take an eye exam." Yep, that means me. I can't believe that would possibly mean me. For years, I've been fooling a lot of people about how old I really am. But I guess you just can't fool the DMV!

Weeds Be Conquered!

Yesterday, I spent 3 hours weeding the top portion of our steep back hillside. Even though, I spent hours this spring planting ground cover, perennials, more shrubbery and trees (actually, professionals and Patrick planted the trees and shrubbery), the infamous wild grass and morning glory still took over the hillside. You really couldn't tell what was growing up there. Six black garbages later, the place looks a lot better.

However, my body is paying today for the physical labor. Aside from the usual aches and pains, I also sat down hard on a small rock and bruised my tail bone! Ouch! I didn't know the rock was right under my butt when I sat down on the hill. I should probably just let the weeds totally claim the hillside as theirs. They've been trying ever since we moved in here. But I won't be conquered by the obnoxious little weeds. Even though it seemed that no one in my family noticed my hard work, or the six garbage bags sitting on the patio waiting for someone to haul them around front to the garbage cans; I have some satisfaction of a job well done. Hopefully next year, the perennials and shrubs will grow up and show the little old weeds who is in charge.

Rooster asked for more pictures of our July trip...

The Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Ntl Park, Alberta, Canada is in a stunning setting. It was too early to stop for the day when we went through, so we didn't stay. Maybe next time.

Motorcycle Grandpa loved the fresh crab cocktails at this fish market in Westport, Oregon.
A local eatery across the street billed itself as the "Home of famous Cranberry Oyster Ice Cream". Now there's a combination for you. Westport was also where we met a very friendly woman who offered to have us stay at her place for the night. I still have her name and phone number if anyone is in the Westport area and needs a place to stay.

There was no rain in the Hoh Rainforest, Olympic Ntl Park WA...
But we did have record breaking heat!

East side of Flathead Lake, MT.
It was on this road that a cooler full of beer fell off the back of a moving truck that was right in front of us. Beer cans were exploding all over the road!
It was amazing that we were able to dodge the mess.

I promise no more pictures. It was a great trip.

July 2007 Trip - Canadian Rockies/Pacific Northwest

The ride through the elevation changes, twisties and straightaways of the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver, BC. was exhilarating! I took this picture from the back of the bike going 65 mph.

Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada was another amazing place. The Canadian Rockies came right down to the lake shore.

If you'd rather "leave the driving to somebody else", these red vintage buses make the trip to Logan Summit, Glacier Ntl Park on a regular basis. It was in this parking lot that we dropped the bike while dismounting. Like Motorcycle Grandpa always says, regardless of what really caused it, it was my fault.

We drove the Highway to the Sun, Glacier Ntl Park, last summer. But on the motorcycle it was spectacular...completely surrounded by the environment.


On the road to Kalispell MT, A very large bird smacked right into the lower windshield, leaving a pretty good splat mark. We're lucky it didn't run right into Motorcycle Grandpa's helmut. That would have caused some problems.

There are so many pictures from this trip. I could post a huge blog full of them. But you'll have to wait for the Shutterfly book of this trip to be put together to see the most of them.

Motorcycles and Me

About a year ago while I was on a trip to Europe, my husband bought a BMW touring motorcycle. He logged hundreds of miles while I was gone. Since then, we've ridden together over 7000 miles Last fall, we did a gypsy trip (no specific itinerary) that took us from SLC to Santa Fe, New Mexico and back. We logged almost 3000 miles! It was an amazing trip over roads that we had been on by car many times. On a motorcycle, it was like a whole new world.

In June 2007, Motorcycle Grandpa decided he wanted an motorcycle upgrade. I was happy with the one we had. But after borrowing a friend's 2006 model of the one we had, there was no turning back. He came across a great deal on the 2007 demo at the local dealership. We were ready to ride for our next big trip.

July 2007, we took a trip north from SLC through Glacier Ntl Park, Banff, Alberta, Canada, the southern Canadian Rockies, west to Vancouver BC and then south down the Washington and Oregon coasts. Most of it was country that we had never seen before. We never knew what to expect around the next bend, uphill the next hill or in the next town. We planned our trip from day to day and always managed find a good place to stay each night. By the time we pulled into the driveway at home two weeks later, we had logged 3380 miles. I also put in my longest day on the bike during the trip - 550 miles.

Pictures of July trip to follow in a later post.

This is my life....

Some of you have brought to my attention that the purpose of having a blog is to post something other than lists. Since I started this blog over 10 days ago, my life has been something a little different than planned. I think another list is in order to kind of justify why there hasn't been any post since Aug 5.

1. Oldest daughter came home from OB appointment and told me that she was suppose to "lie low" for the duration of her pregnancy - about five weeks left. So, my grandma duties have increased helping to take care of a 2 year old, etc.

2. Youngest daughter was in the hospital for various reasons over the course of 6 days. One was for a planned procedure that was very difficult for her (see her Blog for details). The 2nd stay was a result of an ER visit.

3. Second son's wife had her tonsils out and they needed help from me with their 15 month old for a morning - which just happened to be the same day that daughter #2 had a radiology test done.

4. Youngest son had a doctor' appointment and will be having minor surgery this week.

It's been kind of crazy. I've also realized if I was 15 to 20 years younger, I would have handled all this without too much problem or the exhaustion that came from days taking care of grandkids, family members, cooking, cleaning and all that stuff. I know why you have kids while you are young!

If any one of the above listed events had not have happened practically on top of each other, I may have posted to the blog. But just about every time I sat down to post something new, my brain was mush and I'm pretty sure that what ever I wrote would have been pretty much incoherent ramblings.

4 Reals

I've been lurking around everyone's blog for awhile. Now I'm jumping in and trying to get up to speed on this blogging stuff.

Here's my 4 REAL

4 Jobs:
1. Hotel desk clerk
2.Receptionist
3. Condo/hotel manager
4. Secretary

4 Movies I could watch over and over
1. Pretty Woman
2. American President
3. Gone with the Wind
4. Mmm...can't think another one

4 Places I've Lived
1. Arlington, Virginia
2. Orem, Utah
3. Park City, Utah
4. Salt Lake City

4 TV Show I Watch
(when I can get my hands on the remote for longer that 5 minutes)
1. HDTV House Hunters
2. HDTV Design to Sell
3. Dancing with the Stars
4.Survivor

4 Places I've Been on Vacation
1. Paris, France
2. London, England
3. Lake Powell
4. Cannon Beach, Oregon

4 Favorite Restaurants
1. Anyplace with a great filet mignon and baked potato
2.Loco Lizard
3.Faustinas
4. Pagoda

4 Websites visit daily
1. msn.com
2. Gamehouse (I'm a jigsaw puzzle junkie)
3. SLCity.com
4. KSL.com

4 Places I'd rather be
1. Paris, France
2. On the beach - Cannon Beach, OR specifically
3. Lake Powell
4. Motorcycle touring