Thursday, March 11, 2010

work in this economy

Bob is starting to look at job listings. The company he works for is experiencing a lull in remodeling jobs.

Monday, March 8, 2010

a sigh of relief

Alex sold his (second) motorcycle and bought himself a 4 wheel drive truck. I am thankful this motorcycle is gone, it was quite a beauty to behold, but oh so fast ..... and dangerous.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

February 18, 2010

My oldest daughter turned 29 today! Five years ago she was born. Four years ago she started kindergarten. Three years ago she graduated from high school. Two years ago she was getting married and a week ago she was pregnant ...... at least in my mind.

Today she is an incredible woman. She's a single, hardworking mother of three precious children. Nicole is working with and impacting other children as well as her own. She is my pride and joy.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Conquering The Beast

First of all, I had to get up and into the truck. Not an easy feat for this little Native American woman. I am able to get in on the passenger side and of course trying to get myself up and in on the driver's side was backward and the complete opposite. My legs don't do opposite.

I was determined to get myself up there. This was all about me proving that I COULD drive the Beast, I would not be defeated before I even started! Eventually I pulled and crawled and drug myself up and over the seat (not a pretty sight, quite humbling actually).

After instructing me on how to start the ignition (and there is a trick to doing it), we were off. First thing I noticed was that the dashboard was very high or else I was sitting very low in the seat. I asked Bob if I looked short in the driver's seat. He asked me if I could see over the steering wheel. Ha ha

The front end needs some work so the steering wheel is not straight. Your hands turn to the left about a quarter of a turn. As you drive, you've got to keep correcting the steering wheel because it pulls to one side and then the other. This reminded me of trying to play that Driving Across the US video game. I can never keep my car on the road in that game. Fortunatley there were no deer or other wildlife on the side of the road this day.

Next I was told that the we are actually going 5 miles faster than the speedometer says we are, because of the big tires. Then Bob asked me what the mileage was on the trip meter. Was he serious? I could not even see the trip meter and when I finally located it I realized that I couldn't read those little numbers unless I took off my single vision glasses. I told him not to talk to me for awhile because I was concentrating on keeping us on our side of the white line and watching the speedometer with the stress of a brand new driver.

I could not judge the width of the right side of the vehicle and was surprised that I was not going up over curbs when I had to turn right.

A car came out of a side street and pulled into the road instead of staying at the stop sign just as we came upon it. I slammed on the brakes, locking them up, as Bob yelled at the driver. I didn't have time to check my mirrors or even think of honking the horn. Fortunately we were not hit from behind.

Not too long after this, a car in front of me swerved into the next lane just in time for my lights to shine on approximately 4 feet of a palm tree laying across my lane. We barely missed running over it.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Beast, As We Lovingly Call It

Today Bob said I was going to drive the truck.

The truck is his pride and joy ... or so it was a few years ago, but that's another story. The truck is 4 wheel drive and lifted with big tires. When we first got the truck Bob offered me a little wooden step to climb up into the truck. Somewhere down the road he did away with the littel wooden step. Maybe he got teased about having it in the back of his BIG bad truck... but that's another story too.

We were talking today and it came up in our conversation that I had never driven the truck. As a matter of fact I didn't have keys to the truck and my name isn't on the title ... but alas, that is another story.

Bob said that there's a good reason why he doesn't want me to drive it (yes! he admitted it!) He said it was hard to drive. I told him that he could teach me how to drive it. And that's basically how it came about that TODAY was the day.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Spot

This weekend Julianne is babysitting a goldfish. She's concerned that the fish will not last through the weekend. I wasn't too worried ...if anything happened we could easily replace it! Until I looked to see why the fish's name is SPOT. It has a little black spot on one of its fins. Would it be easy to find another one with the same spot in the same location? I don't know!! Come on Spot, we're pulling for you. Don't let your new surroundings depress you into .... into not eating or whatever happens to goldfish before you find them floating on the top of the water.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Our Pets

We have a dog. She's old now. She's white and sheds alot. We kept the name she had when we got her, Taffy. Everyone who sees her is amazed and says that she looks like she's smiling (and even laughing at times). She's a mutt. She has a medium sized body and small (not short) but small legs and a small head. I think her head looks like the seat on a ten speed bike.

We had two rabbits, Deione and Fudge. Fudge had a baby once. We only saw it one time. They were living in our backyard. Fudge had gone under our shed to have her baby (we didn't even know she was expecting). We didn't know she was a she. Julianne was outside playing and saw a very small rabbit running around. She yelled. We ran out and got to see the little baby rabbit run back under the shed. Deione outlived Fudge. In the end our dog got ahold of Deione and that was ... well, that was the end of Deione.