Jungle Jack Hanna

Well let's just say that Dad knows what color my car is - and it isn't red.  Thursday I found out that he was in the Pella hospital - he had wanted to drive himself but something happened that he needed to call the ambulance.  I finally tracked him down by phone and the doctor that was seeing him was thinking of transporting Dad to DSM via ambulance that day to Lutheran or Methodist to have a pacemaker put in that day or Friday.  Dad asked how the car was doing and something like, "it is red right?"  I'm like, "ahhhhhh."  Long story short - my cousin saw my pic I posted on Facebook with my "old" car and the new car and told my Aunt (Dad's sister) that my car looked kind of "dark".  My Aunt told Dad this :)  Gotta love it.  The good news is that Dad didn't need to come to DSM for a pacemaker yet.  He was released from the Pella hospital Friday morning and will be meeting with a cardiologist soon.

I'm leaning on the new car and the blue car on the other side is the old car.

Friday was ok.  Around 1:40 pm I looked heavenward and blew a kiss to Mike.

Friday night my sis-in-law, niece and I headed to the Jack Hanna fundraiser for Blank Park Zoo that was held at Vet's Auditorium.  We each got to choose between a book Jack had written or a book geared more toward kids about Jack's travels and animals he's worked with.  Jack did a pre-meet event before the dinner where he met everyone, autographed our book and we could get our picture taken with him.  The first thing we all three noticed when Jack walked into the room - he's not as tall as we thought he was.  I googled how old he was - he was born in '47 like Mike and is 65.  Enjoy the pix of the event and comments below.

Ok, while I had my time with Jack I comment on how I enjoyed seeing him on the Johnny Carson show.  Jack didn't say much but mentioned that he was on the David Letterman show.  Later during his talk before dinner he mentioned that he had never done the Carson show - that was Jim Fowler from Mutual of Omaha.  Way to go McFall............

Little armadillo all curled up into itself - Mike and I had seen one in a zoo on St. Thomas or another island that was just running around and around in his enclosure.  We laughed and said he was doing laps.

An African porcupine - what a cutie and the guy (Tony) holding her wasn't too bad either :)  In some of the other photos you'll see animals on a table - that was in the room with the dinner.  Jack had the porcupine come out again during that time and said she would get to be bigger than the table.  Tony wasn't watching her very closely because she toppled off the table.  Tony popped down to pick her up and then just looked at Jack like "ooops".

Baby albino kangaroo.

I'll touch or run after iguanas, lizards or baby alligators - no problem - but snakes I can't run away from them fast enough.

A Canadian Lynx that the eyes glowed for some reason in my pictures.

Kind of hard to see the black bear cub.  He's looking forward, you can sort of see his nose and mouth.

I can't remember what this was but it was like a mongoose.  It was too bad that the background was so dark and some of the animals were black.

 Little penguin dude was so cute!

100 pound albino snake - blick.

HUGE snapping turtle - I think Jack said it weighed 100 pounds.

Young cheetah - beautiful animal.

Changes To Blogger

Wow - nothing can be left alone anymore.  Evidently Blogger has been updated when I go in to it to do my blogging and it took me several minutes to figure out how to change the Church Chuckle and to even do this post :)

I forgot to mention something Christi and I did through work a week ago - that week was so busy with people in from the offices around the country and the two of us getting to sit in on most of that training along with attending their social hour - remember the "onion ring" calamari?  Anyway - before the social hour a week ago Wednesday night - we were able to participate in Principal's volunteer time to package Meals for the Heartland.  This is something I've really wanted to do since Mike died but they usually do it for one weekend at Wells Fargo Arena and I did not want to walk in there by myself where there were thousands of volunteers packaging meals - just wasn't my deal.  But when I saw that Principal was allowing employees to take an hour of their volunteer time to package meals in our building I checked with my manager and received approval to participate.  As an employee of Principal you have eight hours of volunteer time each year to use for their company sponsored projects.

Well Christi and I were the only ones from our department to do this - which we have already told our teams that we need at least 10 volunteers next year to make up a table to package meals.  I held the bags under the big funnel that others poured their food/vitamin item into, then I handed the bag off to someone else to weigh the bag.  I can't remember how much the bag had to weigh - it had to be an exact weight with either taking away rice or adding rice to make weight.  Then the bag of food had to have the air smooshed out of it so the bag could be heat sealed and then 36 bags to a box.  During our shift - this had been going on all day at Principal - we had the chance to break the 100,000 meal mark.  I don't know if we did or not.  I'm amazed at how many bags our table did in an hour, then multiply that by how many tables we had going at Principal, then multiply that by how many shifts - that seemed like a lot.  Then imagine all of Wells Fargo Arena full of tables of volunteers packaging meals for two full days - wow.

Yesterday we had our WELLebration at the Well at church.  The remodeling of the building had been put on hold for quite a while by the City of Des Moines but right before Pastor Josh headed to South Africa the beginning of February we were given the ok to continue the remodeling.  We have new heating, air, plumbing, electrical and more in the building.  We paid cash for the building and all we have done we have paid as we went - no debt incurred.  But....now the Well fund was empty.  So yesterday was our last big drive for our church family to give sacrificially to help finish remodeling the Well so it could house our church offices and be a tool for the community to tie in with the school where we meet for church.  We would help with after school tutoring, have a clothing bank, English as a second language classes and more - along with LWF being able to utilize the building too. 

Yesterday was cold and it rained some but that didn't damped spirits - people turned out and money/checks were given.  We raised over $22,000 yesterday!  Check out the pix at the end of the blog.  I am on the church planning committee that organized WELLebration and was on the food committee.  We met Friday night at a couple's house to make over 100 hamburger patties.  I started out mushing hamburger into balls to put on the food scale to make sure they were 4 ounces and then others made the patties.  That was a lot of hamburger!

We also got to make our mark on the Well by signing our name or writing a verse.  I had so many verses I could write but finally decided on Psalm 91:2, "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust."

I had gotten a call Wednesday that my new car was in at Toyota but they needed to install the remote start.  I called my sales person while at WELLebration wondering if the car was ready and it was - I could pick it up at 4:00 pm!  I was excited but had mixed emotions.  This was my first car to get without Mike.  The blue car I was turning in was the last item of something I owned that had Mike's name on it too - the house is now in my name from refinancing and the timeshares are in my name since I converted from weeks to points.  It still bugs me a little that his name isn't on anything now.  I had mixed emotions driving to Toyota not knowing how it would go picking up the car by myself - Mike had been there for all our cars.  The paperwork went really quick and the guy that showed me the bells and whistles of the car was really nice.  And he realized we shared the same birthdate.  I think he got a kick out of me when he got my droid cell phone to communicate with the car's bluetooth technology so I can make hand's free calls with the car now.  He wanted to know if I used my droid for downloading music - I just looked at him and said I'd work on that for the next car.  I won't post a picture of the car until Dad gets to see it in person.

I can't believe this coming Friday will be two years since Mike died - it doesn't seem possible.  This second year has flown by.  I miss him so much but I don't mourn him.  My sis-in-law, stepniece and I are going to do something pretty nifty Friday night.  We all three bought tickets to see Jack Hanna at Vet's Auditorium.  He's here as a fund raiser for Blank Park Zoo.  We bought the deal to meet him before the meal, get a picture with him and see his animals, then have a meal, then he'll talk and show everyone the animals he brought.  The three of us are really looking forward to this.  Mike and I loved to watch Jack on the late night talk shows and see what the animals would end up doing - especially to Johnny Carson :)

Easter Egg Hunt ~ Mowing

Well, we sort of had our postponed Easter Egg hunt this past week at work.  My manager (who is the department manager) walked around with a plastic bag full of plastic Easter eggs and told each of us to pick 8 eggs.  We would either get a piece of candy, or a slip of paper in the egg that could say;

• 1 hour PTO (vacation)
• 1 day to wear jeans
• 1 item from our department snack shack

I got eight pieces of candy.....  I think out of all our team, three people got a piece of paper with something on it.  On other teams, one person got three pieces of paper (aka each egg they picked had a good prize).  But hey, I'll always take chocolate.

I'm trying to do the mono-contact deal again - wearing one contact in my right eye for distance and my left eye is contact-free for reading.  I'm building up my time to wear a contact and right now my two eyes aren't working together real well (it's only my second day doing this).  So if something isn't spelled correctly or looks weird in this blog - I'll blame it on my vision.

All day Tuesday and Wednesday morning Christi and I got to sit in on training that was held for the Proposal Specialists (PS) that work in our offices across the country.  The PS does my job in the local office but they can also quote for groups over 100 lives.  I was able to meet the PS from the Arizona office that supports my Denver office.  Wednesday night there was a social hour that Christi and I went to where there were really good appetizers - basically supper.  I heard someone say that they were serving calamari (squid) and I thought to myself to make sure I stayed far, far away from that - blick.  I remember holding squid feeding them to the dolphins in St. Martin.  So I get plenty of veggies, fruit, cheese and some small onion rings.  We start sitting down at tables and my trainer sat on one side of me.  After a while someone mentioned how good the calamari was and I wondered what it looked like because I hadn't seen any squiddy thing on the food table.  My trainer said it was really good so I look at her plate and we have the same thing foodwise but one thing and I knew that wasn't squid.  So I pop a couple of onion rings into my mouth - remember they were really small - and ask Amy/trainer where her calamari was....she points to the onion rings!  I immediately stop chewing what is in my mouth and just stare at her.  She asks me if that's what's in my mouth and I just nod my head.  I finally swallow it and mentioned I wondered why those onion rings had been kind of chewy - and I had eaten several of them.....................  blick.

Last night we had quite the storm.  Butler and I were enjoying Saturday night racing under the lights (NASCAR at the Texas Motor Speedway) when of course Dish TV lost the signal - and then we finally lost power around 8:30.  So I lit a couple of $1.00 WalMart candles - so you can imagine how big those were.  And I played Solitare on my cell phone to have something to do.  I finally went to bed and something woke me up around 1:30 a.m.  I couldn't figure out what woke me up until I realized the lights were back on :)

This morning as I drove around the neighborhood before church I realized I was very fortunate to not have any damage.  I didn't really have many branches down in my back yard.  Just the block south of me I started seeing trees split in two and some trees were completely blown over out of the ground.  Also some roofs were blown off.

I didn't mow last week Saturday so I had to mow this week and had hoped to mow yesterday but the grass was too wet - so that left today to mow.  And I don't like mowing on Sunday since that is my day of rest but I had to.  The front yard was long and I ended up bagging the part of my lawn that is the high part but I knew I would have to bag the back yard.  I have four bags of grass and sticks at the front curb for tomorrow's pick up.  My mower started just fine after letting it set between the front yard and back yard but the last time I had to start it to finish the last section of the back yard it wouldn't start.  Now normally I can mow both yards without adding gas to the tank - I fill the tank before I start mowing.  I'm thinking what is wrong now since it started everytime - and I decided to check the gas level.  The mower needed gas - once I put some in I was able to finish mowing!!!

Mike's Easter lily is living in my kitchen sink until I get a chance to plant it in the back yard.

 One of my dwarf lilac bushes - they really started blooming this week.

The other two lilac bushes.

Easter and Anniversary

This week was Christi and my first week doing live quotes with all the coverages we quote.  I had 16 that came through the Denver office that I was able to do.  Our goal is to get quotes out within 24 hours - the latest 48 hours.  But with our quotes needing to be checked before we can send them, we need to watch which quotes we take - basically when they came in - and with checking and everything, will they make our 48 hour timeframe.  If it doesn't look like we will make 48 hours - we don't take that quote, someone else on the team works it.  One of my quotes had a 186 page benefit booklet I had to go through for Life, Dependent Life, Voluntary Life, Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, Vision and Dental (yep, that's all our coverages) to find out what I needed to quote to match their current coverage as close as possible.  Our trainer said that quote almost did her in checking it - I said, "almost did you in?! you're the trainer - imagine what it did to me."  :)

We were going to have a departmental Easter egg hunt Thursday but our manager had to postpone it until this coming week because we got slammed with so many quotes.  I told everyone to watch out because the eggs were fair game and this old lady was taking no prisoneers - if you were in my way I'd lay ya down flat - just kidding - kind of.  Some of the plastic eggs will have candy in them, some with a piece of paper saying you get an hour of PTO (vacation), some saying you can wear jeans one day, etc., so look out.

Friday would have been our 28th anniversary and it was an interesting drive to work.  I had an '83 or '83 Mercy Lynx when I met Mike and guess what I saw driving on the freeway.....an Escort - ok it wasn't a Lynx but it was the same year and look as the Lynx.  When is the last time you've seen an Escort or Lynx - that old - on the road?  Me - forever.  It was like my past was next to me as I was driving my present.  I passed the Lynx (of course, speedy me) and realized I was ahead (or in the future) with the Lynx (my past behind) and then the Lynx passed me and led me off the exit ramp.  As I turned into the parking garage the Lynx went on south on 7th Avenue, kind of like Mike going on with his journey.  Anyway it was symbolic to me.

Wasn't sure what I wanted to do Friday night so I rented two DVD's.  Contagion and Reel/Real Steel.  Contagion was good, slow - but good.  And like I posted on Facebook actually scary to realize how quickly an epidemic like that could spread and wipe out so many people.  Reel/Real Steel was awesome.  A great family movie.

Saturday got up to help decorate the school for Easter breakfast and service - see the pix below - and of course a picture of Butler too.

Breakfast had a great turnout!  The service was awesome.  A boy from our small group played a few songs before service on the electric keyboard and did a great job.  Then my small group leader, his wife and two of his brothers sang a song during service that was out of this world.  I always give Rob (my small group leader) a hard time about any and everything (and he usually gives it back) so I told him I was sitting up front to get a good view of him singing.  He told me he wasn't going to look at me during the song.  I ended up moving over to the side of the gym to sit with a friend.

We had around 20 Easter lilies that people purchased in memory of loved ones.  I had one for Mike and another for Mom.  It kind of got to me during the last song that Mike wasn't there and I wished he was - but that wasn't God's plan.  I have to remind myself that Mike got to celebrate his second Easter in Heaven - can't even begin to imagine what that was like.

 Worship team running through songs.

 Visitor/welcome table.

 Setting up for breakfast.

Not the best picture but the guys praying before they went out calling in the neighborhood like they do every Saturday.

 This morning after breakfast when we had our "mood" lighting for service.

 We definitely know how to bring food!

My buddy on the bed the other night :)

Training ~ Black Squirrel ~ Basketball ~ Some Sadness

I can't believe I turned my AC on today.....in April.

It's official....Christi and I are done with training as of last Friday!  Starting Monday I will be working the Denver office on my own and Christi will be working the Philly office with one of her team members (the Philly office submits several more quotes each day than the Denver office).  All our quotes will be checked before we submit them to our respective office or broker until we get released from checking.  We found out that when we were told we needed to have 15 quotes at 97%+ to start the release process we thought 15 individual quotes with a score of 97% or better - nope.  It's an average score of our last 15 quotes.  So......that's kind of good for us.  Both our managers may start looking at quotes say Wednesday and go back 15 live quotes to see our average to determine if the average is 97% or better.  If it is, then they will look at the different parts of the quote to see what we can be released from - maybe we won't need to be checked on our Life or Dental quoting but we need to be checked on Disability quoting and reviewing booklets.

Yesterday on my way walking in to Riverwoods Elementary to help with LWF's 4th Annual Shooting Stars Basketball Camp I read an email that a friend of mine had passed on Friday.  It was a total shock.  She and I were both members of the local P. Buckley Moss Chapter but she had not been attending for several years.  Somehow - I don't remember how - Bonnie started following my posts on Mike's CaringBridge site and then transitioned to my blog.  Bonnie befriended me and then unfortunately on 9/27/11 her husband passed so we grew even closer because she could confide in me how she was doing.  Bonnie is the one that had me go to a few estate sales with her.  Friday was six months to the day her husband passed.  I'm not sure what caused her passing - we had talked a couple of weeks ago and as far as I knew she was fine healthwise.  But it was still a shock to read.  One of the coaches is a small group leader at church and he prayed with me/for me, while I shed some tears, but then I was able to stay to help with the camp.

Below are some pix of the camp.  It was a free-will donation for I think K-3rd grade (maybe older).  We had two sessions with the first session for the younger kids.  They had three breakouts to go to with different coaches to help them with different basketball skills - then all of them (in groups of fives) got to play basketbal with five of the coaches.  What a riot!  We had free doughnuts and juice for the first group after their camp and then free hot dogs and some drink for the second group.  They took serious group pictures but of course I didn't want those - I had to take pictures of the funny faces.

This is my lead pastor, Pastor Josh, talking to the campers before they broke out into their sessions.  This looks like the first group of kidlets.



Second session of the older kids - group pic. 

 Group pic of the first bunch - the younger kidlets.

My lawn mower had been in the shop to see if a guy could figure out why it wouldn't start when I'd go from my front yard to my back yard to mow.  I'd probably go 15 minutes with the mower off between yards while I'd weed eat, spray for weeds, and do some clean up in the front yard and then head to the back yard.  I picked the mower up Friday after work and got it unloaded out of my trunk ... by myself I might add ... and was ready to mow after the basketball camp and I'd run my errands.  Well....the mower didn't want to start in the back yard.  So while I was trying to kill some time to let it set even longer the neighbor guy to the south was talking to me and pointed out the black squirrel.  I wondered if the little guy had survived our mild winter.  Evidently the squirrel has moved back across the street from the park and is living in the trees in my neighbor to the north's yard.  Check out the picture of him below.  And the guy also said he's seen bats at dusk in our yards this year - cool.



This is kind of a heavy week for me.  It started out with one of my friends going to the ER this morning with possibly having a heart attack but it was just (just) a blood clot in her lung.  She is home now and is starting to take Cumadin - she'll see her doctor tomorrow.  Tuesday is the one year anniversary (I really don't think that's the appropriate word for this) of the passing of a friend of mine's husband and her daughter is also my friend.  My small group leader's grandfather passed away late Friday night so he and his brothers (three of the four brothers attend my church) will have visitation tomorrow night and the funeral Tuesday morning.  Actually all these people I've mentioned are in my small group that meets on Wed nights.

And then this coming Friday (4/6) would have been Mike's and my 28th wedding anniversary - it's my second one without him - doesn't seem possible.

I posted on Facebook that I was moving to Vegas - it's fun to read the comments.  My pastor actually texted me and called me to make sure I was April foolin'.  I called him back and told him I was.  I said I would go back out to FB later tonight and tell everyone it was an April Fool's joke.

The other night I took this picture of Butler as we were getting ready to go to bed - what a goofball.