Catch Up Blog

Wow - I have been so lazy blogging but between work going nuts with busy season and spending almost all my spare time with Gary...  I think there will be several pix in this blog :)

On Sunday, 10/6/13 I got to go to my first ever NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Kansas City!  A couple from church that the husband's birthday was in September - like mine - wanted to buy my ticket to the race and Dave and I went.  We had a blast!  I took so many pix and have them posted to my Facebook wall.  I think I stood the last 20 laps screaming my head off and hitting Dave in the arm :)  We saw a record-breaking number of yellow cautions thrown and a grass fire to boot.  I bought Gary a Toyota Racing t-shirt, cap and decal.  He liked the t-shirt and cap but he LOVED the decal for his RAV4 (Toyota vehicle) - he's such a goof :)  Check out the pic below from the infield of the Kansas City Speedway.

 

Gary has wanted to clean my carpet ever since he first stepped foot in my house - so on 10/5 he loaded up his carpet cleaner into his RAV and off we went to my house for him to clean my bedroom carpet while I did other things at home.  Check out how he really gets into his work :)

 

Then after my carpet was cleaned that day I decided to become a big girl and get my ears pierced for the first time ever - at age 52 :)  I asked the gal at Claire's if I could hold the teddy bear that was by the chair they did the ear piercing in.  Gary took this pic of me after I officially had "bling" in my ears.  It's been quite the time following the instructions of how often to clean my ears each day, how long I have to wear the posts they put in my ears - to having Gary explain things to me since he has both his ears pierced.

10/11 was our six week anniversary of meeting at Denny's through a mutual friend.  We had someone take our picture that night with Gary's cell phone - it turned out pretty good.  Gary took the time to crop the picture, add text to it, etc.   Check out my cowboy :)

 

I thought I was anal but Gary is anal to the max.  One day I bought some cat litter and Gary put it in my trunk but he put the box on its side and for some reason kitty litter spilled in my trunk.  That really bugged Gary until he could finally vacuum my trunk.  I thought he had gotten all the kitty litter vacuumed up - but I was wrong - about five minutes after I thought the trunk was clean, Gary decided he had vacuumed all the litter up.

I have been very lucky that I haven't had to mow my lawn much this past summer due to all the dry weather - but on 10/19 I decided enough was enough and I had to get my lawn and back yard looking good for winter.  Gary mowed while I weed eated and did other things.  By-the-way, Gary doesn't like me snapping these candid pix of him :)

 

Check out the picture Gary was able to take from his balcony when we had a full moon in late October.  I think he did a pretty good job of capturing it between his two flags.

 

The day we mowed my lawn we found out the black squirrel that I enjoyed watching since June 2011, had been run over by a car.  But I had seen a second black squirrel this past spring with the original black squirrel, so I knew my little guy had hooked up with someone and they had had at least one baby squirrel.  I found out there have been two black squirrel sightings in the neighborhood since the one was killed.  And the real neat thing is that Gary has gotten to see one of the black squirrels too - this past Saturday and Sunday when he was at my house we saw one of them running around the neighborhood.

By now Dad may be completely moved into his new apartment in Fair Haven - those of you from Pella know the old building I'm talking about.  They went in a few years ago and gutted that old building and redid it all - and the apartments are really nice.  He has one of the two apartments that has a balcony overlooking Fair Haven East.  Fair Haven has one of those old porches and the "top" of the porch is Dad's balcony.  I think he will really like his new place - I know it's been challenging for him to downsize - but it's been a blessing in disguise for me that he has been able to do this.

Lastly I found out Saturday night that Casey, my middle step, was deployed to Afghanistan.  I knew he was going sometime in October, I just didn't know the exact date - well it was Saturday.  My daughter-in-law let me know and Casey's two girls were staying with Kelly that night so she wouldn't be alone.  If  you think about it, maybe say a prayer for Casey and his troops while he's over there.

I can't believe this weekend will be November already - and Friday will be Gary and my 9 week anniversary!  Where does the time go?

Lots of Stuff

Well I'm still dealing with my awful summer cold - I feel good a day or two and then boom it rears its ugly head again.  Once again I'm playing catch up with what's been going on since my last blog.

 

A week ago when I left work we had a torrential downpour - and of course I didn't have either my big umbrella or raincoat with me.  I just had my tiny umbrella that sort of kept the rain off my head.  I got soaked walking to the parking garage after work - but check out the double rainbow we saw from Gary's balcony later that evening.  It was pretty special for my lead pastor to stop by Gary's that evening to get to know Gary better - the three of us had a good visit.

 

 

Can't believe I'm 52 - wow.  I definitely don't feel 52 :)  Gary had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said either an Air Force or Dallas Cowboys shirt - so check out what Gary got me.  It was waiting in his mailbox Saturday evening when we checked his mail and I was really excited to open my birthday present :)  I can't even remember what all we did my birthday weekend - must be old age - but I know we had a really, really good time.

 

 

One thing we're working on at Gary's is his Autumn and Halloween decorations.  We bought two big pumpkins and then some little pumpkins for the table on his balcony.  We decided the mums were pretty nice looking so bought a couple of those too.  We made a huge step - buying our first Halloween decoration together - from Hobby Lobby - that was 50% off for a total of $2.50 :)

 

 

I did get a kick out of "educating" Gary about his Thunderbirds and blowing his mind when I knew what a certain tool was. Gary is former Air Force and that's what the Thunderbirds are - the Blue Angels are Navy.  I asked Gary which plane of the Thunderbirds had its number painted upside down on it - because that plane does the majority of air shows inverted.  He didn't know that the #5 is painted upside down on the airplane - I took great joy in knowing something he didn't about the Thunderbirds.  Then the best was when he asked me to bring his drill and I mentioned that his drill had a chuck on it - I thought he was going to fall over that I knew what a chuck was :)

 

One night Gary got his Xbox going and we played Black Ops.  Now I haven't played any "video" game since PacMac so this was HUGE for me to try to play Black Ops.  Of course he killed me like 10 times in the three games we played but it was still fun.  I don't know why I didn't kill him when his character was standing right in front of my character - but I couldn't.  Gary did admit that I was able to move pretty well throughout the game but I had to work on my aim :)

 

Gary is a Toyota guy and has a RAV4.  I've had two RAVs and really liked them but you can't buy them with a stick any longer.  I must have passed some test because Gary is letting me drive his RAV, and Gary doesn't let anyone drive his vehicle.

 

Yesterday was such a beautiful day that after we ate lunch we got on the bike and went for a bike ride.  We wanted to go back to where we had sat and talked on our first date - which was four weeks ago yesterday - but something was going on at the Isaac Walton League - so we headed for Gray's Lake.  We sat at a picnic table, enjoyed the weather, watched the people walk by and talked.  I decided I'd try to take a picture of us with my phone camera.  I think it's pretty cute and no Gary is not doing a fist pump or trying to bap me in the face.  He had his arm sitting on the picnic table and I told him to get it away from his mouth so his smile would show up :)

 

When we left Gary told me to sit on his bike because he wanted to take a picture of me on it - so there I am - Roni the biker babe :)  Then Gary told me to start his bike and I was like "really"?!  Turned the key on, pushed the start button and viola.  Gary leaned down and told me that no one has ever started any of the bikes he's owned throughout his life except him and the service guys at Garvis Honda - wow.

 

 

I found my cowboy boots that I've had for 20+ years, that I've never worn, that the cats attacked, in the back of my closet Saturday.  I showed them to Gary and he said he could make them look really good - and he did.  So check out my "cowgirlish" look that I wore to church yesterday.  I haven't worn a heel of any type for so long that it will take me a little time to get used to walking in them.  And I now know why Gary has his "strut" when he walks in his cowboy boots - I'm getting my own strut :)

 

 

Tonight Gary made supper for me - chicken, broccoli and rice with cheese melted on the top.  It was amazing!  Gary has also learned that I am not domesticated when I tried to make some soup and grilled cheese sandwiches the other night :)

 

Check out the collage Gary made today of a lot of our different pix.  The upper left pic of me is an old Glamor Shot picture from at least 20 years ago.  I happened to show the picture to Gary so he could see what I looked like with some makeup put on professionally - and my long hair.  Well, that picture is now hanging on the wall of Gary's office in his apartment.  The little boy and girl kissing on the beach was the picture of the first card I gave Gary.

 

Last Two Weeks: A Whirlwind :)

It's been a wild two weeks between meeting "someone", having a horrible summer cold and work - where do I begin?

  T

The Friday before Labor Day (8/30) a friend from work texted me wanting to know if I wanted to meet her and her guy at Denny Arthur's which is a dance club for "more mature" people :)  As I walked into the place there was a sweet looking motorcycle outside that I looked at.  Julie was waiting for me and I met her guy - along with another couple.  Then Gary appeared - the guy that owned the sweet looking motorcycle.  He was a friend of Julie's and must have been in the bathroom or something when I arrived :)  One thing led to another and I got a motorcycle ride that night  and some dancing too :)  I told Julie that if Gary wanted my phone number she could give it to him.

 

Saturday 8/31 Gary finally texted me around 4:00 pm and we texted back and forth for a while and then he called me and we made a date to go to the zoo when I got out of church the next day.  So Sunday, September 1st was our first date - at the Blank Park Zoo.  After the zoo we went back to his apartment complex to get his bike out to go on a long bike ride.  We stopped and talked for a long time to get to know each other and pretty much have seen each other every day since then :)

 

Below is a picture of him that I have framed on my desk at work.  While I really wanted Gary's picture on my desk to look at during the day - I also had to realize it was time to take Mike's picture home.  That was kind of hard and kind of not.  The one picture of Mike, Butler and Milly had been on my desk for many years - at all the different jobs I had.

 

 

Work is starting to get crazy but we haven't hit full-blown busy season yet.  And this past week I have had the head cold from h-e-double toothpicks.  I have lived on Alka Seltzer Plus continually and it's just now starting to get better.

 

On 9/11 Gary wanted to make me supper - wow - so the picture below is him cooking burritos for us.  And man were they good.  Then we went for a bike ride - it was the first evening that the weather wasn't so hot.  We rode to Gray's Lake and looked at the flags they had placed for all those that lost their lives on 9/11 - it was something to see.  We rode through downtown DSM and I showed him the building I work in, then he showed me where he had worked 23 years before they closed the doors last year.  Then back through downtown to head back to his apartment on the south side.  Let's just say listening to his bike echo off the buildings was way cool.



This past Friday we had food day in "honor" of the Iowa/Iowa State football game.  The building I work in right now has a patio area on the rooftop so we were able to grab food and head up there for our lunch hour - check out the view.

Friday night after work a bunch of the "kids" and I headed out for a while to socialize - and help the "old lady" turn a year older.  Ok it was a week before my birthday but it was fun.  Check out the picture below that has maybe 1/3 of my department in it.  Julie - remember my co-worker that introduced Gary and me - we headed out to Denny Arthur's around 8:00 that night to meet our men.



Gary gave me a ride home on his bike - I had left my car downtown since Julie and I had carpooled.  Well I learned that it's very important to make sure your foot is on the foot peg and not on the exhaust pipe of Gary's motorcycle.  Basically the bottom of my shoe - it was made of rubber kind of - melted all over his pipe.  I got off his bike and saw what had happened and thought "crap".  Gary walked over to that side of his bike, looked at his bike and didn't say anything...not one word.  I'm like, "this is not good and I don't want to look at him."  But I looked up at Gary and he just looked down at me.  Fortunately he was able to clean up the mess on his exhaust pipes and they look good as new.

Yesterday I wanted to go to Pella to see Dad and how he's doing downsizing before his move.  I asked Gary if he wanted to go with me and he said "yes".  So I took my guy to meet my dad :)  They seemed to hit it off pretty well.  Gary also got to meet my niece Chrissy.  I had fun showing Gary around uptown and introducing his to Dutch letters.

A little about Gary - he's 61 and lives on the south side of DSM.  He was in the Air Force and was an airplane mechanic on an A7/D Corsair II.  He has his B.S. in Geology - he wanted to be a geologist.  He is a welder in DSM and works really, really hard.  The past couple of weeks with the hot days we've had have not been the best working conditions for him.  He went to church with me last Sunday and met lots and lots of my church family - and he felt very comfortable there.

As we were driving by the Air National Guard yesterday we saw this plane, a C/17 Globemaster II, which is a troop carrier.  It was really cool to look at.  And it's really neat to listen to him talk about all the different aircraft the USAF has had and currently has.

The kicker was yesterday after Pella when we were talking about the Thunderbirds - these are the Air Force planes that do air shows.  The Blue Angels are the Navy equivalent.  When Mike and I were in Las Vegas many years ago, we toured the Thunderbird part of Nellis Air Force Base and learned something that Gary didn't know - and I took great pride in letting him know "his girl" knew something about the Thunderbirds that he didn't.  The plane with the #5 on it has the 5 painted upside down on the plane since this is the plane that does most, if not all, the inverted flying during one of their shows.  With the 5 upside down on the plane and when the plane flies inverted - the 5 looks correct to everyone on the ground.

This morning was my first Sunday to team teach Puddles (3-4 year olds) with my senior pastor's wife and it was a riot.  Check out the kids listening to Danielle as she was passing out animal crackers after the story.

Well - who knows about Gary and me but let me just say he's a pretty special guy and we'll see what God unfolds for us.

Catching Up

I don't remember why I didn't blog last week but I had a good reason at the time :)  I need to get a little caught up here.

Our School Supply Giveaway went very well.  We had hoped to give free school supplies to 1,000 kids but God had other plans.  This year we were very proactive in our registration time with the parents to have good one-on-one's with them.  We helped approximately 450 kids with their school supplies and had a huge amount of "warm/caliente" one-on-one's with parents that were very receptive to talking about God, our church, etc.  And we had five families from the school supply giveaway attend church last Sunday!

Part of our school supply giveaway was Bubba Dowling showing amazing feats of strength and sharing the gospel with those in attendance.  Bubba is the brother of one of the men in our church.  And Bubba was in the service Sunday seeing if our lead pastor could rip a small phone book in half - check out the pic below.

Unfortunately Josh only ripped the front cover of the phone book - a little :)

My elbow seems to be getting better from my fall at work.  The scab from the half of the scar that blistered came off today.  I'm still having a little problem with my left leg though.

The cats are still on their med to help their poo get solid - so far still not working.  I feel really bad for them.

It's hard to believe but last Wednesday (8/21) was one year that I put Butler down.  I can't believe it's been a year since he's been gone.  He was an amazingly great dog that Mike found for me.  He was a great comfort to Mike after his kidney surgery and he was at home recouperating.  I was always Butler's person but it was amazing how close we got after Mike died.  I do miss him from time-to-time but know that was the right day to let him go to the Rainbow Bridge.

Work is crazy and we haven't hit "busy season" yet.  That won't hit for another week or two and run through Thanksgiving.  I'll be working 10 hour days and probably one day on the weekend.

Thursday morning I woke to Rowdy scratching at something and I'm like, "stop it, I have 15 more minutes to sleep".  Well, I decided to get up, go to the corner where the cats were and get them away from whatever they were doing.  When I got them back from that area, the scratchy noise kept going.  I thought they had probably trapped a bug but I didn't think a bug would make that much noise.  I figured it was a mouse and I wasn't too excited about that but I could deal with it.  I was wrong - it was a bat.  Only the fourth bat in the house since we moved in, in August 1985 but my first without Mike.  I like bats but I thought I needed to get it out of the house so the cats don't bite it or the bat bite the cats.  So I call WDM Animal Control - and I don't have my glasses on - and that's when the bat decided it could fly and wanted to dive bomb me.  So I keep seeing it dive toward me, I'm on the phone with the dispatcher and occasionally screeching in the dispatcher's ear.  Animal Control showed up and I knew her so after a few minutes of the bat dive bombing both of us - Carol caught it and took it outside.

I have blogged before how I thought I should look at large, flat screen tvs, get rid of DishTV and go with a Roku box for Netflix and Hulu.  Well I got the 50" flat screen Visio tv Friday after work.  I haven't gotten rid of Dish yet - I need to make sure an antenna works to bring in the local channels but I did sign up for a Netflix account last night.  I'll sign up for Hulu next week.  Both Netflix and Hulu were "built in" to my tv already so I don't need to buy a Roku box now.  I have duct taped the tv stand to the cabinet it sits on so Rowdy doesn't knock it over on top of him and smash him flatter than a pancake.

Today I had two Living Waters Fellowship basketball clinics that I helped with registration.  The 9:00 a.m. clinic had a really good turnout.  The 11:00 a.m. clinic had maybe 10 kids so they played basketball kids vs the men that were putting on the clinic.  And it was H-O-T hot.  After that I had a baby shower at my pastor's house and I asked him if his wife would be ok with me heading to their house early and begging to use a wash cloth, towel and some soap to get some of the stink off me from the basketball clinics :)

Tomorrow will be a crazy day with church, water baptism at Easter Lake, lunch at my pastors to kill some time before a baby shower, then kill a little more time before the live Living Waters Fellowship fantasy football draft that I am involved in.  I have a fantasy football team :)  It's VJ Big Dawgs.  I have a co-manager which is a bud from work that will help me with the draft and through the season.  The name is for Veronda Joy who lives in Valley Junction (VJ) and Brad David (Big Dawgs).  A play on both our first two initials.  This should be interesting to say the least.

The last two pix are of Rowdy of course.  One is him under the covers and the other is him sitting on my tummy - that's how close he gets at times. :)

McFall Day at the Fair ~ Butter Corn ~ And More



It was a wild week with going in an hour early every day for work, to having something almost every night.

 

Monday night we had a children's ministry meeting and I was blessed to be able to move to the Puddles group which is 3-4 year olds.  Mike and I taught 3-4's at several different churches.  I am paired with my senior pastor's wife - and I am excited.  Danielle is very crafty!  We won't start the new schedule until September.

 

At work Wednesday we had Iowa State Fair Day with people bringing in all kinds of food on a stick, some brought in art to vote on, we had teams do a butter sculpture and had drawings for free tickets to the Fair.  I was going to be good and stay away from the breakroom and not sample any of the food brought in but that lasted until I ran into a friend that was taking something into the breakroom.  I came out with a huge plate full of good stuff.

 

We had 30 minutes to work on our butter sculpture - which had to be an ear of corn.  There were four teams - East Team, Central Team, West Team (which is my team) and National Accounts.  We had a blast - check out the next two pix.

When the results were in, we didn't even get second place out of four teams!  I let out a  "What, we didn't even get second place! We were robbed, robbed I tell ya".  One of my team members IMed me and told me to keep it quiet down there (at my end of the row).  I was like, you heard that?  He was like - I think everyone on the floor heard that :)

Then that night off to the first of the two women's modules where I will learn if I am a Mary or Martha when sitting at Jesus' feet.  The first night was amazing!

Thursday was my niece (Chrissy) and my Third Annual McFall Day at the Iowa State Fair.  I can't believe Mike has been gone for three of them already.  Check out the pic below of Chrissy and me - we had a riot walking all over the Fair.

Of course it wouldn't be a state fair without me getting my fake, air-brushed tattoo from my vendor on the midway.  He told us that it was either buy a tattoo and get $2.00 off or buy one get one free (BOGO).  Well Chrissy had never gotten a fake tat before but she did that day.  We did the BOGO option.  My tat is in the picture below.

Friday I was really having a challenging day at work - taking a Thursday off and going in to work on a Friday is hard.  Quotes were crazy and other things going on.  I had a jewelry party to go to Friday night at 7:00 and then keep score for my friend from work's softball team at 9:00 Friday night.  Brad's team was visitors and in the first inning they got 16 runs.  I told the guy sitting with me in the stands that the score book had become a coloring book for me.  They called it after 5 innings because it was 22 to 11.

Saturday I woke up with my scar from my fall at work really hurting and I couldn't figure out why - until I finally looked in the mirror.  Half of my scar had blistered and I have no idea why.  I put triple anti-biotic ointment on it and a bandaid and headed to the zoo with a friend.  We had a really fun time at the zoo.  When I got home I looked at the blister again and thought I should drain it - I didn't want to bump it and pop it somewhere that all the fluid would go everywhere.  So I sterilized a needle with a lighter and poked the blister.  I squeezed a ton of clear fluid out.  I tried to cut off the dead skin from the blister but that is pretty hard to do one handed looking at your elbow in the mirror.  So I put a ton of hydrogen peroxide on it to clean it out good, more triple anti-biotic ointment and another bandaid.  It's looking pretty good today.

The last two pix are from today.  I had found the "naked" stick of a cat stick toy that has feathers and bells on the end of it and no idea where the top of the toy had gone.  Sadie found the top and brought it upstairs yesterday.  I took the picture below just seconds before Rowdy pounced on her.

The last picture is Stick and its blooms today - so beautiful!

Saturday is Living Waters Fellowship's School Supply Giveaway - say a prayer for it and us.  We hope to give school supplies away to 1,000 kids and minister to many families!

School Supply Giveaway ~ Outdoor Movie

Well another busy week.  I've learned a new function at work to help another office on my team - along with working my office and back up my sister office.  The sad thing is that with learning indexing - it's the first step to get quotes into the right queue for an office - my office and back up office don't index timely for my co-worker and me.  I wish I could do indexing for Portland/Seattle instead.  Oh well.

 

Our mission team arrived home Wednesday morning and I am hearing lots of awesome stories of what they were able to do in Lima to help that missionary down there.  Pastor Josh said we'll have a slide show and testimonies next Sunday - can't wait.

 

Tuesday night I headed out at 8:00 pm to watch the LWF softball team play two games - they play in Raccoon River Park which is close to me.  Unfortunately they outcome wasn't in LWF's favor for either game but it was fun to watch them.  I tell people how Rowdy waits for me at the kitchen door when I come home and Sadie sometimes is there waiting.  Check out the pic below - not the best pic because they were moving - but they were both waiting for Mommy Tuesday night after 10:00 when I got home after the games :)



 

Wednesday night was our last night for small groups for this quarter - we are taking the month of August off and having modules instead.  So our small group headed out to Saylorville to have a picnic/cookout at one of our small group couple's camp site.  It was a lot of fun, relatively peaceful, could see the lake and have good food and fellowship.  We played the game Say Anything which was a lot of fun and then as Jim gave us rides back to where we parked our cars - we rode in the back of the pick up like teenagers - haven't done that since I was on Central College's mowing crew in the summer.

Thursday night I headed out to Altoona to help our sister church with their final night of Vacation Bible School.  They sang songs, had a quick skit, talked to the parents that had come to family night and then turned the kids loose to get in line for their school supply giveaway and ice cream.  The picture below shows some of the crowd.  When they said to run over to get their free school supplies it looked like a herd of locust heading our way - and not getting into a line.  So I'm yelling, "Line, get into a line" as we were being invaded :)  I was glad I could help that night.

Friday night a family in our small group was having a cookout and showing a movie outside - "Wreck It Ralph" which is an animated movie.  I thought it would be fun and headed over around 7:15 for a little food, more fellowship and then show time at 8:45ish.  Dennis put up a big white sheet to show the movie on.  It was really cute - and it got pretty chilly before it ended.  I think everyone was wrapped up in a blanket :)  Earlier in the evening I had grabbed my pastor's youngest girl, Neriah, to have a little baby time.  She is just a riot.  Check out her taking a picture of herself with my phone :)

Saturday I had to get things done at the house starting with a very bad kitty pooper pan.  I will warn you the picture below is bad.  Rowdy and Sadie have been dealing with loose poo since I got them and I've been working with my vet to try to get their tummies settled.  There is nothing physically wrong with them when their poo was tested.  I had them on a low fiber diet food that did not help - so put them on something else and it seemed to work for a while and then it didn't.  So this is what I had to deal with.  I thought I was going to pass out from the ammonia smell from it all.

I got the back yard mowed - the front yard didn't really need it.  I was all done mowing when I saw it - the second snake of the year.  It was a baby snake but I still sprayed the poo out of it with wasp spray.  I actually tried to get it to slither up on my dust pan to take it to the park but it wouldn't get on it, so it got blasted with wasp spray.

Stick had it's first blooms of the season too - and of course that picture can't get uploaded for some reason.  I also attacked my front and back enclosed porches and they are looking pretty good.

Today we had a really good sermon - we are going to be studying the Lord's Prayer all August.  Pastor Josh did the three verses preceeding it as his "intro sermon".  Then I headed to the movie theater to see "Red2" with a friend.  It was pretty good.

Looking at my calendar for this coming week, I have something every night and something Saturday morning and Saturday night - wow.  And they are all church related except one. 

My niece and I are heading to the Iowa State Fair Thursday (can't believe it's time for the fair) and then hopefully I'll be back on the other side of town that evening to hand out flyers in the neighborhood for our free school supply giveaway which will be August 17th.

The picture below is of Rowdy trying to attack the fly that was in my bedroom Saturday, he's such a goober.

Laptop Issues

Well the reason there was no blog last week was because my laptop was at the computer repair shop - long story short I needed a new screen and some wiring......  So I have a little catching up to do.

 

A week ago Saturday I headed to Newton to see how my sis-in-law was doing recovering from her double knee surgery.  She was and is doing great!  We visited for a while, went to lunch and she gave me a couple of books to read and then off to Pella to see Dad.

 

When Dad and I had gone to Bloomfield a couple of weeks ago he had put his little cooler on the floor in the backseat of my car and I had forgotten about it until I tossed something into the backseat a couple of days after our trip and saw it.  So I wanted to get his cooler back to him and talk more about the tablet vs laptop issue for him to have email and Internet after his WebTV goes away.  And low and behold a laptop is the cheaper way to go for him - so sometime in the near future Dad will be the owner of his own laptop - and first computer of any kind :)

 

My elbow and hand are healing really well.  The scab is almost gone from my elbow.  I'm putting triple antibiotic ointment and/or Vitamin E oil on it almost daily to help with the healing and scaring.  My manager still hasn't looked at my elbow :)

 

Tuesday night I had a great visit with Casey (middle step), Haleigh and Lauren (granddaughters) and his fiancé, Kelley.  Casey and crew were making a Midwest sweep and Tuesday night was my night.  We got pizza and had a really good visit.  Lots of laughing about things when Casey was living at home.  Also some amazement at what was left of Casey's bedroom in the basement. 

 

Friday at work one of my buds who plays ball on Friday nights mentioned that he may not have anyone to watch his boys for him while he played.  I looked at him and said that if he would like, I could go to his game and watch them for him - all I had to do was go to WalMart.  So I headed to the Greater DSM Softball Complex on the NE side of town for an 8:00 pm game.  It was windy and by the time the game was over it was down right cold.  Well Brad's dad and stepmom showed up and they helped with the boys and somehow I got handed the scorebook.  So I kept score.  I used to do that all the time for Mike's ball teams and really liked doing it, so I had fun keeping score for Brad's co-ed team.  Maybe I'll get to do it again - and hopefully it won't be so cold :)

 

I have decided I need to get a new flat screen tv to replace the big box tv I have so Saturday I did a little tv shopping at Costco and Best Buy.  I don't have a Costco membership but I could go in as a visitor and look.  My computer guy really recommended them.  Mike and I had always thought the Visio brand was pretty good and I found a 47" one there that I may decide to get - if I can get someone I know with a Costco membership to go with me so I can buy it :)

 

Today one of the guys from church that likes NASCAR and has kind of the same tv package as I do - we were chatting how it was the Brickyard 400 and we couldn't watch it.  He's like we should go to Okoboji's for lunch and watch it there.  So when church got over I headed to Okoboji's for a table for five adults and room for one high chair - they have three kids.  We got to watch about half the race and then had to leave - but it was really nice seeing those cars go around and around and around :)

 

Only 70 days until I head to the KC race with another guy from church!

 

As you can see from the pix below - never a dull moment here.  Check out the kittens checking out my bathroom counter.  Yes, Rowdy has his head down in my sink in the first pic.



 

And of course Rowdy acting goofy while Sadie chills by Mom.

Elbow Update ~ And More

Something is "up" with my laptop.  Instead of being normal color, it's really blue tinted and I can't upload pictures to this post.  Oh well....

My elbow, hand, foot and leg are getting better.  I went to the doc for my first visit and he marked me with a black Sharpie to make sure the redness didn't go outside that line - that was one of the pix I wanted to upload.  At my follow up visit later last week he said that looked fine.  Well, when I fell, I landed on my left side and my pelvic area was a little tender - I figured I'd jarred myself when I fell.  If I had broken something I would have been in a lot more pain - the doc agreed but needed to see if there were any bruises or lumps.  So I get in the hospital gown, the nurse comes in and the doc tells me to turn my head to look at the wall and cough.  I looked at the nurse and just cracked up laughing thinking I'm female, what in the world are you asking me to do that for?  He did say he was checking for hernias.  So I apologized for laughing hysterically and got myself under control long enough for him to tell me to look at the wall and cough again as he checked my left groin area.  Well I lost it again and barely got a cough out.  He said I was ok.  I just thought that was too funny and if Mike would have been with me - he would have been on the floor rolling and laughing.

I asked one of the guys from church if he could come over and help me hook up an antenna to my tv to see if I could get local channels.  My main tv in my bedroom is HD but not digital - and I know I can't use a digital converter.  Dad and I tried that a couple of summers ago - my stucco/cement house won't let the digital signal through.  So I thought if I could get the local channels with an antenna, then I might look into Roku with subscribing to Hulu and Netflicks to have more choices on tv.  Unfortunately the antenna didn't work - so I returned it to Best Buy.  I think my next step is getting a newer tv - don't faint Traci and Chrissy when you read this :)

The funny part was Jon brought his little girl and boy with him.  They had stopped at Dunkin Donuts and offered me a donut in the driveway which of course I took.  I was eating, walking up the stairs to my front door and talking when Hannah sweetly and matter-of-factly told me to, "Chew with my mouth closed."  I just cracked up.  Of course Rowdy and Sadie made themselves scarce so the kids couldn't see them - goobers.

I am a reading fanatic and found a biography on the actor James Garner and read it over the weekend.  I really like him and it was very interesting to learn about his early life before being an actor.  I don't read many biographies but gave this one a shot.

I got my small group leader going yesterday when I texted him "I have a date and not a date" after church this morning.  His immediate reply was "Who What?"  I told him it was a co-worker, a younger man.  He's like "HUH?"  He was a little late to church and I had to leave right after church to make my "date" so we didn't get to talk and I knew that would bother him.  So he called me as I was driving to the movie theater to find out what was going on.  I told him it was one of the guys from work that is a buddy - but my buddy had said "it's a date" when he replied to my text.  So that's why I got Rob going.  Rob said he had to make sure what all was going on with his "big sister".  I thought that was so nice of him - but don't tell him I wrote this.  Wait he reads my blog :P

This morning at 5:00 a.m. Rowdy decided he wanted to become a different species.  He got on top of my dresser that is a little ways from my bed.  I told him to "get down" for like the millionth time.  Well he decided to become a grey flying squirrel and leaped from the dresser, spread his legs and proceeded to land on top of me in bed.  It was like the Peanuts cartoon whenever Snoopy would leap onto someone and yell "Cowabunga".  Yowza.

Finally four peeps from my church and two from our sister church will head to Lima, Peru on the 18th for our first missions trip and return the 31st.  If you think about it - remember this group from Living Waters Fellowship in your prayers.

4th of July ~ Family ~ Going "Boom"

I don't think I posted the picture of the cats' Wubba last time.  Check out the picture below - that's Sadie's paw checking it out while I'm taking the picture.  I just laughed and laughed when I saw it because of buying Cruz her dog Wubba - of course this Wubba is cat-sized :)

 

It's been a challenging couple of months with scratching my eye and it swelling almost shut - to goofing up my left shoulder with mowing and bagging all that grass that had grown in my yard - to somehow either bruising a rib or stretching the muscles by my ribs that caused me horrific pain at times to even breathe a little breath - to the latest.  I missed the bottom step of two steps walking out of one of the buildings at work late Tuesday afternoon.  Flew through the air just a little to skid and land on cement.  I was more "bruised" egowise that the passing traffic saw what happened than my injuries - until I looked at my elbow.  Let's just say that the angles God has assigned to me were working overtime Tuesday afternoon to make sure I didn't get hurt any worse than I did.

 

It took over five minutes for someone to come to my building with the key to unlock the door of the closet where our first aid kit was located - I won't even go into that ordeal but to say I was dripping blood on the floor the whole time I was waiting.  The two pictures below are after I got home Tuesday night to really take care of my boo boos.  I know it looks like I got "goosed" from behind in the top picture - I was concentrating so hard on getting the picture of my elbow that when I realized how my face looked, I tried to look "happy" and that's what I got.  Times like this are when I wish Mike was here to help me with my boo boo and maybe baby me a little Tuesday night - but oh well.  I also have some abrasions on my left foot - found those out in the shower Wednesday morning when shower gel got into them - ouch, and a big bruise on my upper left leg.



Wednesday night our small group didn't meet but my small group leader and family were going to go to Yankee Doodle Pops on the capital grounds so I thought I'd go for my first time.  More of his family showed up, another couple with kids from our small group and our lead pastor's family arrived so we had quite the group - in the middle of 100,000 other people.  There was a reason Mike and I never went to this event - the crowd would have driven us crazy - but on my own it was ok.  We even had a surprise guest singer with the DSM Symphony - Iowa boy Simon Estes sang two songs and chatted for a while - that was way cool.  And then the fireworks were good too.

 

July 4th I headed to the zoo first thing in the morning.  I hadn't been there since Mike died - that was our last real outing as a couple before he could only go for rides in his truck.  We have loved the zoo forever, been members through the years and helped with many Night Eyes events.  I think we have a great zoo - yes it is small - but sometimes that's just fine.  You don't have to walk forever between exhibits or really hunt for the animals in the exhibits.  And they are continuing to do amazing things out there and bringing more animals in to the zoo.

 

I didn't think I'd need to take my digital camera with me - surely I wouldn't take THAT many pictures at the zoo would I?  Hmmmmmm 52 pictures later on my phone camera I walked out the gates of the zoo.  Just a small sampling of the animals below.

 

I'm not sure what happened to my favorite animal at the zoo - the Serval - but the two cats are no longer there :(  The little guy above has become my new favorite - his name is Scoots.  One time on a vacation Mike and I went to a zoo in the Caribbean and we saw an armadillo run laps around his exhibit and just chuckled - so I've liked armadillos ever since then.

 

After the zoo I checked my movie app on my cell phone and saw that I could probably make the 11:15 showing of "White House Down" so off to WDM I zoomed.  It was a really good movie - yes the White House gets taken like in "Olympus Has Fallen" but they are two totally different storylines.  The daughter in "White House Down" is the little girl from "We Bought A Zoo" and she was really good.

 

I didn't go to the fireworks Thursday night since I was going in really early Friday morning to flex my day and leave at 3:00.  But I wondered if someone down the street would light off their mini fireworks like they had the past couple of years - yep after going to bed and turning off the light I saw a few fireworks out my bedroom window - cool.

 

Friday after getting off work I headed to my vet to buy more "bland" cat food and medicine for the kittens.  Their little poo and tummies are still not in synch.  The vet assured me giving the medicine wouldn't be bad - it should be easy - the liquid medicine had a chicken flavor.  I have one little eye dropper bottle for Rowdy and another for Sadie - since Rowdy is over 9 pounds his dose must evidently need to be stronger.  Plus two diabetic syringes to give them their meds.  Let's just say "easy" is not the word I would describe when I've given them their meds (and I have to do this twice a day).  After getting a death grip on their little heads and dragging them back toward me several times as I try to squirt the liquid into their mouths - it ends up all over their faces and my hands.  But I know some gets inside them.  I know nothing is wrong internally (no parasites, etc.) just maybe started them off on too strong of cat food and we need to get their systems to make hard poo.

 

Saturday I headed to Pella to pick up Dad to head to Bloomfield.  My cousin that is 9 days younger than me that lives near Athens, GA had made her annual summer trek to Kirksville, MO to see her family.  And it worked out that my cousin that lives in Warrensburg, MO had come up to visit my Aunt that lives in Bloomfield for the 4th with one of her daughters.  So Jana brought Terri along from Kirksville and we all met up at the restaurant Dad, Bertie, Aunt Verta and Uncle Gerald and Aunt Elaine and I met at in May.  I don't know why the group picture wouldn't load to my blog but here's a picture of four of the six remaining Hills cousins.  Stan and Gary are the two that are missing.



 

It was a lot of fun to catch up and listen to Dad, Aunt Verta and Terri talk a lot about Grandma and Grandpa Hill and our family tree.  My great-grandma (Dad's grandma) was full-blood Seminole so I'm 1/8 Native American on that side.  Plus Grandpa's Mom was Cherokee or some other tribe.

 

On the way down Dad and I talked about how his WebTV is going to no longer be available for email or Internet come September.  Both of us have been doing some looking at tablets for him - me at Best Buy and him in Pella at Radio Shack.  For some reason I thought it took 2.5 hours to get to Bloomfield from Pella and we ended up being early.  Dad told me he thought my "clock" was messed up - I just looked at him and asked him why he didn't tell me that so I wouldn't have had to wake up so early :)  We killed some time at the Ottumwa WalMart looking at a Samsung Galaxy tablet so that was good.  I still shake my head thinking my Dad will be more techy than me with a tablet.....  :)

Today our lead pastor preached on the life of C. S. Lewis and it was really interesting.  He will preach on Spurgeon (his absolute favorite man of God), then a guest speaker will preach on Martin Luther and one of our deacons the last Sunday in July will preach on Calvin.  This month's sermons are "Four Old Dead Guys" or something like that. 

After church I had to run errands and ended up at Earl May looking at hibiscus plants - hadn't bought any this year.  Just couldn't justify $19.99 per plant when I used to get them for $10.00.  But a friend at work had given me her two Earl May bucks and all the tropical plants were 50% off - so check out my two new hibiscus plants that are just off the back patio next to the dog tribute stone a friend gave me last year after putting Butler down.  The red one has a little bit of yellow in the middle - can't remember the name of that type of hibiscus right off but thought it was pretty cool.  And the yellow one was really pretty too.