Little League ~ Softball ~ Baseball

I'll go in reverse order of the title of today's blog.  Baseball - America's pass time or past time.  Never really got into it because it drives me crazy that on what should be the third out someone can keep hitting foul balls - for a very long time.  Anyway....Mom and Dad are Chicago Cub fans.  When Mom was a young girl/teenager she was so into baseball she wanted to be a professional ball player - that always blows me away to think my mom wanted to play baseball.  Mike and I say the three greatest aka funniest moments in baseball history are:

1. George Brett's pine tar bat issue and how he could get from his dug out to home plate in two giant, Mother-may-I steps.
2. One of Nolan Ryan's last baseball games he pitched he accidently hit the young whipper-snapper batter.  The young whipper-snapper actually had the gaul to not charge the mound but head toward Nolan - big mistake.  Nolan calmly stepped off the mound, walked toward the batter, grabbed him in a head lock and thumped the poop out of his head.  Nobody messes with Nolan Ryan.
3. Dusty Baker's little boy was with him in the dugout several years ago in a playoff game when the other team was at bat.  All of a sudden the little 2-3 year old was out on the field by home plate and almost got trampled by the opposing team member crossing home plate.  Luckily the opposing team member grabbed the little guy on the fly (by his shirt) to save his life because another team member was right behind him to score.  The next camera shot was of Dusty's face and the commentator saying something like, "I wouldn't want to be in Dusty's shoes when he gets home tonight".

Softball - after golf, that was Mike's sport.  Actually before me, in his younger days I think he played fast pitch?  Whatever he played he screwed up both his rotator cuffs and never had them fixed - so he could never raise his arms above his shoulders - but he continued to play.  A few seasons he was on a mens' team and a mixed team - and both were good teams - and I was the score keeper.  I not only had to keep track of the score, but the strikes and balls, errors, and where the opposing team would hit each time they came to bat so I could tell our team captain where that person had hit last time.  And when Mike slid - he slid head first because he wasn't going to mess up his ankles he told me.  I remember one game in Urbandale he started his slide into home a little early and dug himself into the baseline and stopped short of home plate.  He had to reach up and over to touch home - it was a riot.  Mike was mainly a catcher, but in our early years he played short and one time he jumped so high to catch a ball that both teams were impressed.  In the last years he played ball - on the WDM police team - he was their pitcher - but his true love was catching and owning the plate.

In July and August on Sunday nights my church has had friendly softball between our small groups - with bring your own dinner before.  I went a couple of weeks ago when the weather was decent and when they asked if any of the ladies would keep score I volunteered and had a ball.  I actually started to track the balls and strikes and then told myself this was not competitive softball.  Tonight's the last night and they are playing right now.  I didn't go - yesterday while at the grocery store and bending over to get something I did something to my back.  It wasn't much and the sore place on my back wasn't big - but it was enough to be very uncomfortable if I didn't watch how I walked and sat.  I spent most of last night propped on the bed with the heating pad - and it still hurt this morning when I woke up so I've been babying myself most of the day.

Little League - different times this past week I'd see the Little League World Series would be on tv but didn't watch until this afternoon when the championship game was on between the West (California) and Japan.  Mike and I used to watch these games because these boys were amazing.  Some of the shortest could hit the ball the furthest.  It was fun to see the Midwest "farm boys" aka bigger boys against boys from New York.  And we'd always cheer for the team from Curacao - an island in the Caribbean we had traded our timeshare many years ago.  One year the team from Bloomfield, IA was the Midwest team - where Mom and Dad are from - that was awesome!  So I watched California and Japan play all six innings with California taking the title back from Japan.  One neat thing was seeing the Japanese manager smile and have a fun time - which funneled down to his team.  Normally the Japanese are very serious but these boys were having a great time - up until they lost the game.

But one thing that will always bug me and the California team did it - the bills on their ball caps were straight as could be.  Ball cap bills are suppose to be curved - not straight - I learned that from Mike.  Now.....in an earlier game the kid pitching from California did have his face saved from a horrible accident when the batter smacked the ball right back to him and it hit the straight bill of his cap - straight on - I saw the replay several times and it was amazing.  But I'm old school and will continue to bend the bills of my caps like Mike taught me.  I still remember the guys on the WDM PD reserve unit just staring at me when we got our reserve ball caps and the first thing I did was bend the bill of my cap.  I think they were shocked a female knew to do this and how to do this :)

It's Saturday - Must Be Time For Another Phone

Well one of my errands today was to return the phone I got at the Verizon Shock City booth last Saturday at the Iowa State Fair.  The Corporate Verizon store (that I LOVE) on University kitty corner from Valley West Mall thought there was a Shock City in Valley West Mall - is there?????

I started the morning getting my hair cut - I had gone over two months letting it grow out and the back definitely needed to get under control.  My hair really looked cute - even with all the white when David was finished with it.  If I get it to look half that good I'll be happy.

My next stop was to drop off household hazardous waste at the Windsor Heights free drop off at Colby Park.  I knew where Colby Park was - you can see if from the freeway and it's behind the WalMart on 8th Street but I wasn't sure what street to go down to get to it.  Luckily there was a sign :)  I had some containers of leftover product that Jon had used on my back porch floor that I couldn't put in the regular trash that they gladly took.

I finally get to Valley West Mall and the Verizon store - which was NOT a Shock City store but the young man told me there was one in Waukee.  I had tried to find Shock Cities online but didn't find anything looking up Verizonshockcity.com.  So I headed to the Qwest - now CenturyLink kiosk at the mall (where I bundle my cell and Internet) and asked if he could help me figure out the closest Shock City.  Waukee.  I called and figured out where the store was located and headed on my way.

The very nice young lady informed me that I couldn't just turn in my Gem cell phone and reactivate the replacement phone - no siree.  I had to get another phone because I had signed a two year contract - I was not a happy camper.  But she was very nice and we found a phone that I think I'll like - it's still an Android and after my mail-in rebate it will cost me $3.00.  I set up my email at home - again.  Evidently I did the incoming email ok but have something wrong with the outgoing email - so I'll work on that.

Tonight the kid that mows my lawn finally mowed this week - he was supposed to mow Wed after school, then it was Thurs after school.  I had told him about the section of grass south of the house and he told me he would be sure to mow it this time.  I was home when he mowed and saw him mow the back yard and the front yard but not the side strip.  Then a little bit later I heard a weed eater and thought - no way, he's not weed eating that section - yep he did.  At least it's "cut".

While I was waiting for the library to open this morning I called Dad and walked around the pond by the library and asked him what he thought of the front porch - he loved it.  So it's ok to post pix of it now.  Check out my enclosed front porch, enclosed back porch and very yellow downstairs hallway :)

Like the tropical/Caribbean look?  :)  I need to spray paint the pale yellow chair a bright yellow.  And Jon will make me a small table to go between the two chairs that will have the purple tile for the top (look at the windowsills in the next photo), trimmed in the teal color with green legs.

The tv came with the house and the two chairs are my in-laws.  I thought this side of the front porch has a nice "old home" feel to it.  The papasan chair in the foreground will eventually go upstairs in my bedroom when I clear some things out.

Jon stained the concrete floor on the back porch and it looks ok - not quite what I wanted but it's ok.  And of course then the porch needed to be painted.  It had been probably 15 years (or more) since it was painted these colors.

And this stairway was a medium grey color.  Glum, dark, blicky.  It's definitely not blicky now :)

Jon put the peel 'n stick tile down on my bathroom floor before I started working at Submittal Exchange but a week ago he put trim around the floor - we never had trim in the bathroom.  Now it looks finished.

BIG Horses ~ New Phone

Yesterday I met Chrissy at the Iowa State Fair but I got there early to mess around on my own before meeting her at 11:15.  I got there about the same time I did last Saturday and got my same parking spot two blocks from the main entrance.  There weren't many people heading into the fair at 7:30-7:45 a.m. so I knew God would lead me to a family on my way out of the Fair to give the two adult discount tickets to - in memory of Mike.

I headed to the horse barn and was in 7th heaven!!!!!  BIG horses!!!!  Percherons and Clydesdales - everywhere - and they had come to the State Fair from everywhere.  Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Arizona, Maine and Canada!  I found a team from Prescott, Arizona and immediately had fond memories of the trip Mike and I had when we traded our timeshare to Flagstaff and spent a few hours in Prescott on our way back to Phoenix to catch our flight to fly home.  Prescott was a neat town - it made us think of a western, cowboy town and the day we passed through there was a car show going on at the town square.

I walked up and down and up and down the rows of stalls talking and petting lots of horses.  Check out the pictures below.  At 9:00 a.m. was the start of the Clydesdale competition so I sat through some groups and visited with a really nice mother and two daughters that were horse people - they answered some of my questions.

A lady with this group told me this guy was ten years old, over 18 hands tall and weighed 2400 pounds!

Getting a bath before show time.

When I walked up to the horse barn this is what I saw!

Taking it easy.

 The guy with this group was a doofus.  This horse had small spots like an Appaloosa so I asked him if that was normal for Percherons to be spotted LIKE an Appaloosa.  He looked at me and said, "This is a Percheron, not an Appaloosa."  I'm thinking in my head, "duh" but I ask something like I realize it's a Percheron but is it normal for them to be spotted like this.  He basically says yes and I realize I'm not going to gleen any horse information from him and move on.

The brick I bought for Dad and me outside the horse barn - many years ago.  I'm still thinking where I want Mike's and my brick to go on the Fairgrounds and what it will say.



 This is the 1st and 2nd place horses for basically babies (born Jan-March) through 2 or 3 year olds for the big pooba horse ribbon.  I asked the mother and two daughters behind me how a baby could be judged against a 2 year old.  They didn't understand how that was "right" either.  And one of the two oldest horses won.

I talked to this guy and asked how tall the horse was - over 18 hands and this horse was their smallest horse!

Back at the group from the first picture.  I was with Chrissy by now and we realized this stable was a prison ministry group out of Colorado - how cool is that?

Not the best pic from my camera phone but a nice looking horse ready to take someone for a ride.

Before meeting up with Chrissy I went to the Verizon booth in the Varied Industries Building to talk about the replacement phone I got when my Droid got wet in June.  I haven't been completely happy with the replacement phone.  The Verizon dude told me I could upgrade, showed me two phones and so I went with one of them.  I stood there for almost 30 minutes for him to try to bring in my Q.com email account and he didn't get it set up - I told him I had to leave to meet someone (Chrissy).  More about the phone  later.

Chrissy and I got something to eat - she got some meal and I got a corn dog.  We went through the free food rooms in the south part of the Varied Industries Building.  Then off to the horse barn - I could live there almost.  The Agricultural Building so Chrissy could buy her sticks of honey.  Down the midway to get my airbrush tattoo and then through the booths under the Grandstand.

As I left the Fairground I told God to lead me to the right family to give the tickets to.  I approached a couple with a small child and asked if they had their tickets - they did and they looked at me weird.  The next couple had a small child in a stroller - they didn't have their tickets so I handed them the two discount tickets and told them to have a good day at the Fair.  The wife thanked me two or three times. 

I needed to go to Home Depot to buy a bag of white rocks for the side of the house so thought I'd stop at the Verizon store to see if my email couldn't get setup.  The guy that helped me got my email to come through but I realized my contacts were duplicated on the phone.  My SD card and my Gmail account both loaded contacts - so the guy hid one set.

After I get done with things last night and could sit down to play with my phone I realized I'm missing two contacts on the new phone - one is Chrissy.  I add her and it doesn't save her - I do this twice.  I have some other weird things, so I start a list and think I'll stop by the Verizon store on my way home after church today.  And....the guy that helped me at the store by Home Depot didn't set my email up exactly right - I finished getting it set up properly...............me............the most uninformed person when it comes to cell phones.  That in itself is scary.

So after a great church service I hit the Verizon store - again.  The more I talk to the guy helping me I realize this "upgrade" phone is a piece of work but I can't return it at the Verizon store I'm at - I have to return it to a Verizon Shock City store because that is what the booth was at the Fair.  I'm like where are Verizon Shock City stores and how in the world would I know whether I'm at a "regular" Verizon store vs a Shock City store.  Evidently Shock City is in the name of the store - and there is one at Valley West Mall.  Guess where I'm heading after work tomorrow night - Valley West Mall to return this stupid phone.  I have 14 days to do this luckily.

Jon/handy guy stopped by at 1:00 p.m. today to settle up his bill - and he's done at my house.  It's going to be weird not getting daily calls from him about what he's working on.  The front porch has the furniture back on it and I sent a couple of pix to Dad via email for him to see first.  Next time I blog I'll put those pictures in for everyone to check it out.

Recycling ~ Giving Back

It's Frasier Friday and Butler's laundry is in the washer.

Here's a picture of Tanner on Chrissy's / my / Mike's / his grandpa Ron's motorcycle from Tuesday night when Tanner got it to run but we couldn't get it into the back of his pickup to take back to Pella.

Yesterday during our lunch hour work invited a speaker from Metro Waste Authority to speak to those of us interested in recycling and of course I was there.  We split into two teams for an inter-active game with each team having a pile of cards of different types of "trash" and place cards to determine where the "trash" should go (recycle bin, landfill, charities, stores, etc.).  It was very interesting.

Until June of this year - our company was a partner with 1% For The Planet where 1% of our annual revenue went to this organization.  Our CEO determined he wanted us to give back to our community so he has allotted each employee 8 hours of volunteer time for this year.  I will be using two hours on August 31st to help bag meals for Meals for the Heartland (I think that's what it's called). 

And lastly - once again we have the opportunity to donate $20 to wear jeans the last week of August/first week of September.  Or we can donate one good, professional piece of clothing.  The money and clothing will be donated to Hope Ministries.  I think it's so great that I work somewhere that cares about the earth and our community - and not just making a buck.

Tomorrow I meet Chrissy at the Fair to have our 2nd Annual Fair day.  I'll be saying a prayer before I head out that God leads me to the right family to give my two extra Fair tickets to in memory of Mike.  Then when I get home I'll be using the weed eater to trim both lawns and attack some weeds.

The House

Let's see - what has Jon been up to?  He put the trim in around the floor in the upstairs bathroom yesterday and it looks really nice.  We never did have trim around the floor in the bathroom :)

Today Jon primed the downstairs stairway and hallway going into the basement.  He tinted the primer yellow and it already has brightened up that area a ton!  I just let Butler out for the last time and when I turned on the light for that stairway I thought the sun had come up it was so bright - and that was just the tinted primer.  The paint fumes - that's another story - I can smell them clear upstairs in the bedroom......

And it must be time for light bulbs to blow on me when I flip switches.  Last night the really high light bulb in the downstairs stairway blew on me.  Thankfully Jon changed the light bulb for me today.  When this happens again in the future I think I'll have to drag out my step ladder to be able to reach this one.  And then just now when I went to get Butler's laundry out of the dryer (yes, Butler's laundry), one of the two light bulbs in the basement blew on me.  I put a light bulb on the kitchen counter to take down with me to change that bulb out when I leave for work tomorrow.

Last night my niece and one of her boys stopped by thinking we could get Mike's motorcycle loaded into Tanner's truck so they could take it back home to Pella with them - nope.  Actually the motorcycle was Mike's brother Ron's - who was Chrissy's dad and Tanner's grandfather.  After Ron passed, we bought the bike off Marcia (my sis-in-law).  I didn't know if the motorcycle would start since it had been in the basement for almost a year with the battery hooked up to the charger the way Mike had left it.  Tanner was positive it would start.  Tanner finally got the motorcycle out of the basement into my driveway, put the key in - took the key out to unlock the gas tank to check the gas - put the key back in and guess what?!?!  It started!!!!!

Chrissy got teary because she said the last time she saw anyone on that motorcycle was her dad (Ron) so Tanner is reving the bike with one hand and reaches out to grab his mom with the other to hug her.  Then I get teary because I remember how cute Mike looked in his brown, golf wind jacket - with a baseball cap on backward - pulling into the driveway after taking the bike for a ride.  So Tanner then reaches out to me to give me a hug - still sitting on the bike as it's running.  And the look on Tanner's face as the bike is running was ab-so-lute-ly priceless!  Unfortunately the three of us couldn't pick the bike up to put in Tanner's truck - so the bike is back in the basement awaiting another time when we can have more bodies available to put the bike in the truck so it can go live with Tanner and his brother Colton - for another generation of McFall boys to ride it.

The kid that mows my lawn mowed today and I wondered how he did.  I had to email him to advise him to mow the little strip of grass that is on the south side of my house between the sidewalk and privacy fence.  For some reason he didn't mow this the first two times he mowed.  It wasn't that big a deal the first week he mowed because the grass wasn't that high - but last week you could definitely tell that he should have mowed it.  So as I let Butler out when I got home from work I walk around the side of the house and just stared - at one strip of grass (about a lawn mower's width) that had been mowed and another strip of grass (a little wider than a lawn mower's width) that hadn't been mowed.  I'm like what in the world?!  The kid is here to mow GRASS - that is a strip of GRASS that needed to be mowed that will be even taller next week.  I just didn't have the strength to deal with it tonight - I'll call or email the kid tomorrow......................

Butterfly bush bloom.

Stick before a bloom opens all the way.

I guess I've named this hibiscus Dumb since this is the "dumb" hibiscus that kept falling over - check out the blooms.

Iowa State Fair

First - Dennis Rodman was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last night!!!!!!  THE best defensive player and rebounder the NBA will EVER have - just sayin'.  And last weekend when I bought paint for the back porch I bought a hibiscus plant for $7.00 - well it is the dumbest hibiscus plant alive - yes dumb.  Everytime I go outside or look outside the kitchen window it has fallen over - seriously.  This morning I let Butler out and had to stand it up.  I get back from the Fair and had to stand it up.  Just now I took Butler out for the last time - and had to stand it back up.....

Jon finished the front porch but still has to clean up his tools - so not pictures yet.  And Dad will see the first pictures via an email before I post on my blog since he helped with the demolition and spent a ton of time sanding and scraping the porch.  I'm so ready to put the furniture out there!

Today is the best I've felt in almost a week.  I've been dealing with headaches again because of my physical therapy and working the nerve that is out of whack.  Yesterday when I talked to my physical therapist I talked about my pillows and said that I'd had them for at least 20 years.....I thought Blake was going to fall over.  I'll take a picture of them tomorrow when I take the pillow cases off to do laundry - my pillows are in s-a-d shape.  Mike was horrified that I was still using them like 10 years ago.  So Blake told me to shop for a "side sleeper" pillow since I sleep 95% of the time on my sides.  He told me how he and his wife had pillow shopped for over two years before they found their side sleeper pillows - for $60.00 (that's when I almost fell over).  So after the Fair today I headed to Bed Bath and Beyond with my 20% off coupon and found a decent side sleeper pillow to try.

Also Blake had mentioned last week that he wanted to tape me - my shoulders - the next time I was in so we did this yesterday.  We go into the treatment room which was as cold as the North Pole and he put cold stuff on my shoulder/back before putting the "under layer" of whatever and then the actual tape to keep my shoulder in correct position.  He put three strips of the tape on my shoulder/back and said if I could keep it on for 48 hours that would be great but if it hurt or anything to take it off.  I took it off about two hours ago - which was challenging in the middle of my back that was hard to reach - but anyway....  I told Blake as he was taping me that I felt like an athlete - getting taped and all :)

Last night was Frasier Friday and the episodes are toward the end of the series when Niles and Daphne finally get together - and it's so cute to see them together.  But it reminded me of Mike and made me sad and I cried some wishing he was here.

Today I was out the door and parked within two blocks of the Fair (you can't park in the first two blocks by the Fair) by 7:30 a.m.  I was pumped - that was the best parking spot I've had in years.  And I had my two extra tickets to give to a family to carry on Mike's tradition of random kindness - unfortunately there weren't many going into the Fair at 7:45 a.m. so I told myself to be on the hunt for a family on my way out of the Fair.  And the weather was awesome - it was almost cool today.

I headed to the horse barn first thing and it was EMPTY!!!!  I couldn't believe it so I headed to the office in the horse barn to ask what the deal was.  Last night was the Cattle Queen function in the horse barn (or something like that) and they had to clean the whole barn to get ready for the miniature teams and Belgians to come in starting at noon today - the horses were in the west end of the sheep barn - so off to the sheep barn I went.  I was in heaven petting horses and saw one boy that was 17.3 hands - he was to TALL!

I got on the tram hoping it would take me into the campgrounds.  Dad and I, and then Mike and I had always enjoyed the shuttle ride (note the two different modes of transportation) through the campgrounds but last year I couldn't find where to board the shuttle - it had moved from in front of the Agriculture Building.  I lucked out the tram dropped me off right as a shuttle was heading to the gate to enter the campgrounds.  I had a huge smile on my face riding the shuttle through the campgrounds saying to myself that today's ride was for Mike and Dad.  One little girl sat down next to me and said something to me about the empty shuttle going the other way.  I looked at her and told her that the shuttle was my favorite ride, she smiled and her mother and grandmother chuckled and knew exactly what I meant.

At 10:00 I was at the Maytag Family Theater to watch "The Year of the Cat - Feline Conservation from Around the World" by Pella Wildlife Company - check out the photos at the end of my blog.  It was a good presentation and had some cute "kitties" to see.  I sat by two of the cutest little boys - maybe 5 or 6 years old - that kept talking to me about the cats before the presentation.  It makes me sad to think that there are animals that are extinct and other species - like the tiger (yes the tiger) - that could become extinct very easily.  I think that has to make God sad to see what Man has done to this planet and destroying some of His beautiful creatures.

I stopped by the Iowa State Blue Ribbon trailer to purchase my Butter Cow pin - this is the 100th year of the Butter Cow at the Fair.  Next to the trailer was Nadine Hawbaker - a local, reknown Iowa watercolor artist that had done an Iowa State Fair print that I purchased and she personalized for me - see photo below.  I had seen Nadine at Kenneth Paul Gallery a few times when I worked there part-time several years ago.  She didn't remember me - which I knew she wouldn't - but she was so friendly to chat with.  She loved that my personalization was "Fair Memories" and I told her about how Dad and I used to have our day at the Fair, and that Mike and I used to have our day at the Fair.

By then I wanted to head back to the horse barn to see if any of the Belgians were coming in early and stopped by my favorite Wonder Bar vendor - where you get the real Wonder Bars.  Well not this year - instead of the square Wonder Bar on the round stick I got a regular ice cream bar with nuts on it with the tongue depressor stick - poop.

I found a shady bench to sit on outside the horse barn and waited and waited and waited.  I saw three or four teams of miniature horses come in but no Belgians.  I finally left because I had other errands to run and it was almost 1:00 p.m. by then.  It would have been awesome to see some of those big horses unloaded though.

As I walked to the car I told God to lead me to the right family to give my two tickets to and there wasn't anyone.  All the families were on the other side of the street.  And it just hit me a few minutes ago that next Saturday when Chrissy (my niece) and I go for our day at the Fair - which kind of replaces Mike's and my day at the Fair - that I don't think God wanted me to give those tickets to anyone today.  I'm supposed to find the family next Saturday to honor Mike's memory.

Nadine's watercolor print of the 2011 Fair.

This little guy is the second smallest cat species in the world - from South America.  His name is Lightning and he thinks he's as big (and has the energy) of a tiger :)

This is Dipstick (check out his tail with the little spot of black), a young Bobcat.

Inside the crate are domestic Bengal kittens with Buddy, a 10 month Cougar in the background.

A baby Percheron!  I've never seen one.

Loved this miniature horse trailer for the miniature horses :)

This guy cracked me up when I asked him to stick his head out the window!

Final shot of the Fair - until next Saturday.  Trying to show how congested Grand Avenue was - I needed to be at the other end of Grand Avenue, on the hill, to get a better shot to show the crowd.

Porches and Stick

Well, Stick finally bloomed a few days ago and here is what he is........



Stick IS a hibiscus!  I couldn't believe it when I saw the first bloom.  And the blooms are HUGE.  I've never seen a tall, skinny hibiscus plant before - who knew?!  :)

Butler did not have a good day last Wednesday.  When I got home from work he was sitting on the couch in poop - loose poop - lots of it.  I cleaned the poop, Butler and the couch up.  When I got Butler upstairs all he did was lay on the bed - no eating food or drinking water - no lifting his head when I called his name.  I started crying - and praying for him.  He was doing a little better when I left for work Thursday and I put him in God's hands like I do everyday - and when I came home he was good as new.  He is one tough cookie.  And tonight when I let him in from going potty the last time - he lippity lopped (let's see how many of you know what author uses that expression in his books) across the back yard to come in.  Here's Butler from last night on the bed.



Jon has been working on the back porch - it needed painting now that the floor was done - and he finished painting today.  It looks a lot better.  I can move the furniture in tomorrow after work.

The New Eggplant Purple tile came in so I picked up the three very heavy boxes of tile tonight on my way home after work.  So Jon will start cutting and laying tile in the windowsills on the front porch tomorrow.  I'm really excited to get that done and the furniture back out there!

The downstairs steps and hallway have places where the wall has "blown out" as I call it.  Jon said because of water seeping in the ground and the acidity, it made some of the plaster come off the wall - if you've seen my hallway you know what I'm talking about.  Jon will fix those places and then I figured I might as well have him paint that area - it's never been painted since we moved in here.  So I'm debating between a light, bright yellow color or a light blue - I want to brighten up that stairway and hallway.

Saturday my church had it's annual School Supply Giveaway and was mentioned in the Des Moines Register!  I hope the links I put in the blog work.

Living Waters Fellowship's School Supply Giveaway

www.desmoinesregister.com

And....my work received another award!  Submittal Exchange wins the 2011 Construction Specifications Institue's (CSI) Construction Technology Award!! 

http://www.submittalexchange.c​om/public/csi_award.aspx

Today our monthly company meeting was offsite - we got to wear jeans (and it wasn't Friday) - and we could even change into shorts if we wanted to.  We went to an athletic place a couple of blocks from work and after Matt talked for a while we headed downstairs to the rock climbing walls and whoever wanted to climb the really, really high walls could - the rest of us to cheer team members on.  I would have loved to have done it - but I've tried this before on those rock walls that aren't all that high (like at the State Fair) and get about 3 feet off the ground and that's it for me - thank you very much.  And I didn't think that would be very smart of me to attempt while in the midst of physical therapy.  I could see me looking up at Blake tomorrow explaining why my shoulder was really screwed up, "Well you see Blake, at our company meeting we got to rock climb this wall and I climbed and......" so I passed.

On Facebook there is a group "You Know You're From Pella If" and it is hysterical reading the posts.  And I've done some of the posting.  People are remembering teachers, scooping the loop, the roller rink, "mixed marriages (between Pella High and Pella Christian High grads, I posted this one), coffee time, Dutch dancing and more - talk about going down memory lane......  I know several other town have these groups on Facebook and I wonder if people post to them as much at the Pella people do.  There's probably been 100 posts to it today.

This Day In History ~ And Other Random Things

Like I posted on Facebook today - this day in history besides being Dad's 83 birthday......

• We moved to Pella on Dad's birthday (1973)
• Dad helped Mike and I move into the house I still live in (1985)
• I may not have this one right but I thought Dad helped Uncle (Mom's brother) move from Bloomfield to Pella (1982 or 1983)

So either Dad likes to move and/or help people move on his birthday - or that's just how it happens :)

I've been reading on a friend's blog about her son that went on a missions trip to one of the poor countries in Africa - it's been very interesting.  One of the last things the American teenagers were able to participate in was Prom.  Basically the African teenagers have nothing - live in mud huts - and have nothing - but Prom is something they really look forward to.  The boys save a month's wages to buy a suit to wear.  This is a HUGE deal (Prom) for both the young men and women.  The American teenagers were amazed at how the African teens, who had nothing, were able to really dress and get "dolled up" for Prom.  And if I understood correctly, the American teens took special items to place in gift bags for Prom.  The boys received baseball caps that had been printed incorrectly and the girls received bath soaps, shampoos that you find in hotels - and they were thrilled - thrilled to get these gifts.  It humbled me to read that.  I emailed my friend and said that every American teenager should visit a third world country to see how their teen counter part lives to make the American teens appreciate what they have in our country.  And who knows - that could help reduce some of the problems we have over here.

Then today on my way to work - I sort of witnessed a traffic accident two cars ahead of me.  I take the 74th Street/Jordan Creek Parkway exit and go north to University Avenue to turn heading west on University.  Normally I am in the right lane to turn west but today I was in the left lane to turn west (both lanes can turn west at that intersection) - the second car back.  I hear a bang and see a car suddenly stop next to the median like she was westbound on University and wanting to turn south onto 74th.  I couldn't figure out why the "bang" and why she just stayed there - blocking our lane when we got the green light.  The first car and I were able to move over into the other lane to turn west and then I saw the car that had hit the car I could see - the front end was all mashed in.  I grabbed my cell phone and called 911.

At work on my lunch hour I check my home emails and had an email from one of my friends letting me know that WalMart had spiral notebooks on sale! :)  She reads my blog and saw how my small group was needing to buy these for this Saturday's school supply giveaway and she had noticed they were on sale this week and wanted to let me know - I thought that was awesome - and let her know :)

I got home and saw the carpet on my enclosed front porch - and LOVE it!  I hope the tile for the windowsills comes in soon.  I couldn't believe how excited I was walking around my porch in my bare feet - I'm such a nerd.

But the ultimate was making my Qwest payment - by phone - which I do every month.  The first call in to Qwest I was basically told to call back during customer service hours because my zip code wasn't correct - no idea what was up with that.  The second call in to Qwest - I got all the way through where I verbally confirmed my payment.  Up until then I input everything through my phone number pad but I had to verbally say "yes" to confirm my payment.  For some reason after saying "yes" the system thought I either wanted to change the amount of the payment or cancel the payment and when I said "no", it told me to call back during regular customer service hours.  The third call to Qwest as I was inputting information via the number pad, I coughed during a question and the system told me it didn't recognize that answer.  I thought for sure it would tell me to call back yada, yada, yada - but it didn't - and I was able to get my payment made.  Then it asked if I wanted to take a short survey - you bet I did.  And when I answered a question with the rating 1 (which was the worst rating) it asked me to explain why.  During my explaination, the system said it didn't recognize what I had requested and told me I could do some options or hang up - I hung up.................

Check out Cyclone :)  I still don't know what Stick is - he keeps getting taller and adding more buds but they haven't opened yet..................

Softball - Not A Recreational Sport?

Yesterday had a good service and fellowship with LWFer's.  We were under another heat advisory from yesterday morning that goes through Tuesday ending at 7:00 p.m. - so the big question at church was - would we have softball at Yellow Bank Park yesterday afternoon?????  My vote - which I didn't have a vote - was NO!  Mike and I always said the older we got the more further south we wanted to go - basically to get away from winter and snow.  I don't know about going south - I want to go wherever I can have a change of seasons and no stinking heat advisories or humidity!

The NASCAR race yesterday was the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Speedway - which is a biggie in the NASCAR world - so I got home in plenty of time for them to drop the green flag - and then fall asleep with about an hour left of the race.  I woke up with my normal ten laps to go.

We were told during church announcements to watch our emails to see if softball would be cancelled or not - nope it was "on".  We have a potluck/social time before the games and that was cancelled.  From reading a few Facebook posts this morning, some LWFer's were sore from yesterday's games.  To me - recreational aka fun softball doesn't include the word sore.  Now that I'm home and reading more posts evidently the two games turned into full contact softball.  I have one word for those that played yesterday - insane.

When I got home from work there was a roll of carpet on my front porch and a voicemail from my handy guy Jon saying he would be at the house early tomorrow to lay the carpet!  I hope the tile comes in soon for the windowsills.

I stopped at Petco on my way home to buy another male wrap aka Speedo for Butler since he seems to get his wet every time he wears one for very long - so now he has three Speedo's.  And two of them are in the laundry right now - Butler's laundry as I call it.  I seem to do a load of Butler's laundry 3-4 times a week anymore.......what a life I have - doing laundry for a dog.  Oh well, I'm glad I have him.

Tomorrow is Dad's birthday.  He emailed me today about a couple of things and told me he got his birthday card today.  Aunt Verta (his sister) will drive up from Bloomfield to spend the day with him since I have to work.  I told him to not overdo it for his birthday since it would be hot out :)