93 more school days and 170ish actual days.

The kids always come up with something wonderful to do for my birthday since I am such a baby about it.  It is 9 days before Christmas.  Last year we took a class on how to throw pottery and this year we are taking cooking lessons the 11th of January. I will let you know how that goes.  I gave myself a birthday present and we are all going to do a 5k Color Run on January 24th.  Mind you, I haven't run consistently since 1999.  Then I could run for 30 minutes at 6 mph no problem. I am now a decade and a half older and 20 pounds heavier.  I found a podcast cast called NHS C25K ( Couch to 5 K) training,  program.  I was crazy happy that I have finally figured out what a podcast is.  The kids listen to them all of the time.  Anyway, it is a 9 week program that gently leads you into running a 5K (approx. 3 miles).  I have been doing it really inconsistently since Thanksgiving, mainly because I am a morning person and it is too dark and early to run before I go to work and it is too dark (and I am too lazy) to do it after work.  But now I am off for vacation for three weeks and have been doing the program every other day.  Today was the first run for week 4.  Five minute warm-up, run 3 min, walk 90 sec., run 5 min., walk 2 1/2 min. repeat.  I was really scared to do it and I was supposed to do it yesterday, but the Ipod battery went dead.  Darn! ;)  But it is now charged and wonder of wonders, I did it and didn't die!  4 more weeks until the race and 5 more weeks of  the program.  LOL well at least I will be in better shape than I was when I thought up this idea.  Hopefully I can keep it up when school goes back into session.

On another note, we are going to go to Jalama for New Year's again.  Well, technically the weekend after.  Same group of friends and a friend that I haven't seen since we worked at BofA together 25 years ago.  Love Facebook for letting old friends connect again.

Sometime soon, we will be getting together with our neighbors, Buddy and Judy, to plan our trip to Alaska for the summer of 2015. 

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.

Last year of work . . . 170 school daze and counting

School started two weeks ago and already co-workers are tired of my countdown.  I just don't understand ;)  I seem to have a good class this year except for those few "special ones"  that you always seem to get.  We are planning a camping trip back to Tuttle Creek with some friends and fishing up the road to Whitney Portal.  I am really excited about it since our big Oregon trip was cut short by the dermatologist, but he didn't shorten my nose!

 We cleaned out Dad's house and brought back a few things: his golf cart, the Puss and Boots cookie jar and his old grey Formica kitchen table with drop leaves.  I don't ever remember not seeing it in at anytime in my life.  It was sad, but not as sad as it could have been because we gave the house to my step-brother and I know we can go back in it anytime we go back to Brady.  Our good friend, Roger, hosted a memorial golf tournament in honor of my dad.  It is a beautiful course.  Our friends from here were on their way home from visiting family in Minnesota and golfed.  They came in 2nd and won  wonderful flashing light cowboy hats. 

 On another sad note, my self adopted mom passed away a few weeks ago and my dad's best friend is in the hospital with cancer. 

So our camping trip in a few weeks will be a wonderful escape and I only have 170 school daze left.

Post Op

I went to the dermatologist thinking that I would have a battle scar on my nose and what I came home with was half of my nose missing.  The cancer was pretty wide spread and deeper than anyone thought.  They had to cut a flap from my cheek so that they could cover the hole on my nose.  Jay thought the surgeon did a really good job covering it.  He came in and saw it before they moved my skin over.  Now he tells me that it looked pretty bad and it looked really good afterwards.  It's starting to get all swollen and black and blue, but I know that will go away.  It isn't going to look pretty at all in the next few days.  At least they got it all, that is all I am concerned about at the moment. I may freak out later, but for now I am just glad it's gone.

Hello again . . .

I just haven't had time to blog at all for about a year it looks like.  It has been a long, sad year for all of us.  My dad passed away this spring and we don't know what to do with ourselves now.  We always went up to stay with him for a few weeks every summer. Turn the page to a new chapter in our lives.
 We have traveled a bit this year.  We spent New Year's Eve with friends at Jalama Beach just short of Lompoc, Ca. We reserved the  group site so everyone was guaranteed a space.  It's a 12 mile twisty road.  It didn't used to have reservations, so it was a crap shoot if you got a spot or not. Now most of them are reserved.  Welcome to CA and no last minute camping trips.

Our camping buddy, Pam, purchased a new Dutch oven and we were fortunate enough to be her guinea pigs for all of the new recipes.  She made a chicken stew that was wonderful.  That Dutch oven it a pretty ingenious little contraption!

Our neighbors bought a solar system for their trailer and we were so inspired that we put one on our camper and wired the 5th wheel so that the  panel could be moved from one rv to the other.  After nagging my poor husband for a long time, he finally got on board with the solar, next maybe the house!

 

My dad passed away in March.  It was really sad to go back to the house.  It still feels like we will see him when we go back. At least now he is comfortable and not in any pain.

 



 Love you Dad

 

 

We went to Tuttle Creek for the weekend to try out the solar panel on the 5th wheel. It was hot during the day and cool nights.  It worked like a charm, but we needed shade, so we bought an EZ Up.  Neither one of us needs to be in the sun anymore. 

 

I have wanted to find the Mobius Arch ever since I read about it on several blogs. While we were at Tuttle Creek, we found it. 

 

Friends of ours have several timeshares.  They had already taken us to Sedona and after school was out this year, they took us to Cabo San Lucas.  What a pretty resort, Pueblo Bonito Blanco. We stayed there for 7 days and had all inclusive food and drinks, burp. Do I heard exercise and diet in our future?

 

When we got home from Cabo, we hopped in the camper and headed north to some cooler country.  We drove up to Bodega Bay and traveled Hwy. 1 and ended our journey at Elk Prairie Campground near Crescent City, CA. We took about seven days. It rained, it was cool; 60 degrees and it was green.  I loved it.

 

 

We had planned on continuing up the coast to Washington and turn east, but I have some skin cancer that needs to be removed from my nose. That is why we are back in the desert and 100 degree weather.

 

Hopefully this year I will be better about keeping up with my blog.  Jay will have been retired for 4 years this coming October and I have plans to retire in June of 2015, God willing and the creeks don't rise.  Then it won't be He's retired and . . . , it will be We're retired and . . .