Food, Rocks, Food, Science, Oh, and Did I Mention Food?

So we've gone from painting to toilets back to Arizona in blogland. Day three in Arizona was filled with food, perhaps too much food--real food, rock food, and and a visit to yet another grocery store. We went to a mineral and mining museum and I don't think we were wanted as the woman selling the tickets did not want to wait on us. Talking to her co-workers was much more exciting than helping us, but whatever. Anyway, since it was only $2.00 to get in, I guess I shouldn't complain about sub-par service. I'm not wicked into rocks, but I have to say there were some cool rocks there; I especially liked the rocks that looked like food. I'm not kidding, they looked like a full out meal (kind of hard to see in the pic, but trust me on this one). Post rocks, we went out for lunch then went to a Science Center, which was fun. Spencer enjoyed flying a plane, sitting on a plane, a swing, and playing with a child who thought he was a "nice boy." We all enjoyed the weather exhibit and I found the exhibit that explained why we react to scary things pretty cool because I'm afraid of everything.

Following the Science Center, we stopped at a grocery store on the way home because one of the underlying themes of this trip was to visit as many grocery stores in the area as possible. (I didn't actually get to go in this one because I stayed in the car with Spencer while Natalie ran in to grab one thing so I'm not sure if that counts as a visit.) Unintentionally, Natalie ended up taking me to several different grocery stores during my stay in Arizona so that became a big joke on the trip. After our grocery store stop, we headed back to Natalie's house only to get yelled at by a police officer because we were waiting for a light to turn green and he yelled at us and told us it wasn't working and that we were supposed to just go--well who knew! If we had gone, he probably would have yelled at us for running a red light. Anyway, once we got back to Natalie's it was soon time for the four course meal. I cannot remember the last time I ate a four-course meal, I'm not sure I've ever eaten a four course meal, maybe on a cruise once. If I go out for dinner, I usually just eat dinner. Sometimes I may share appetizer with someone and then get dinner or sometimes I may get dinner and if I am not completely stuffed I'll order dessert, but never four courses.

Course one was was potato leek soup with croissants (fabulous, of course I'm biased because I peeled the potatoes with Michael). I'm not a soup person, but I quite enjoyed it. Course two was also delightful, which was a mixed green salad with a french vinagrette and a cheese tart. I was nearly full by this time so thankfully we had a time to digest in between courses two and three. Course three, the main course, was chicken with some type of sauce (it had lots of butter, but I forget what it was called, it was good though!) served with mini potatoes and asparagus. Dessert a.k.a. course four was a chocolate mousse. Chef Natalie informed that the meal contained four sticks of butter--and there were 6 1/2 people eating it (I say 6 1/2 people because Spencer didn't eat a full out 4 course meal so can I count him as half a person for this or is that just plain rude?) Hmm...good thing I didn't have any doctor's appointments scheduled immediately following that meal. I was so incredibly full I couldn't even finish the tasty dessert wine. I've heard talk of food comas and wonder if I was experiencing one. It was an absolutely delicious meal though. Much gratitude to the chef even though I may have gained 100 pounds after eating all that. :)

Please Flush...Can I Get Paid for That?

Where I work, we are supposed to serve on a committee. This year I chose to be on one committee, which was enjoyable, though stressful at times and I was "voluntold" (don't you love that word? My friend Chris taught it to me) to be on another one (I'll spare you my feelings on that one). Okay so the other day at summer school, I had to go the bathroom so I went and I noticed there was a sign above the toilet that said to please flush with a little note (forget what the rest of the note said, but it's not that important right now) but get this, the note was signed

"Thank you,
The Flush Committee"

What does a Flush Committee do? Can I be on that committee? My job doesn't have one of those, but maybe we should start one. Do you just go around and flush toilets? Do you do it daily? Several times a day? Once in a while? Or do you just make signs reminding people to flush. Is it stressful? Do you get a stipend for that committee like you do for other committees? I'm intrigued. Although it might be disgusting if you have to check gross toilets, but it might be a low-stress gig as there are other people who work in the district that would actually fix the broken/gross toilets. What do you think the time committments are? Okay, and yes, I know it's probably appalling that I just blogged about toilets, but come on, have you ever heard of a Flush Committee? Aren't you secretly curious about what they do too?

Professional Painter I Am NOT

I decided to paint my kitchen the other day. I painted my cabinets last week, but aside from that the only things I've painted are small decorations like frames and ceramics at those places where you can go and paint pottery and then the place puts it in a kiln for you and a week later you have a piece of pottery that hopefully looks halfway decent. I am no expert painter, but I enjoy doing those things. I do simple designs and usually don't spill on my clothes, though my hands and the table covering tend to be a mess. I was not terribly thrilled about painting my kitchen, but what the heck, it's cheaper than hiring someone and I have to learn sometime, right? Well, I think the only thing I really learned is that I'm not very good at painting. The walls were a peachish color and I wasn't too crazy about it at first, but it started to grow on me so I figured I'd go with the peach family, however, now the walls look pink. I tried the sample under different lighting, etc and it looked like a light peach. It was called pale sand or something like that, but now that it's done, it looks pink. Is a pink kitchen acceptable? Are people going to make fun of me? I'm not sure I've ever seen a pink kitchen before. I wanted something light because there is only one window and there is brown woodwork, but I thought white would be too much white since the cabinets are white. I guess it doesn't matter too much if other people are anti-pink as long as I can deal with it, right? Was that rude? So getting beyond the pink, I did okay spackling and taping, but I didn't tape the ceiling. Stupid, right? I somehow managed to get a couple of spots on the ceiling and not right at the edge either, but a few inches away from the wall. How does one do that??? So I followed the directions to wipe it off and did it work? NO! It made it worse so now instead of a couple of small spots I have big streaky spots. UGH! Did I mention I'm hiring someone to do the living room and probably my bedroom? My mom came over today and told me it doesn't look that bad, but I think she has to say that since she's my mom. Perhaps if I didn't want people to notice the pink/peach spots on my ceiling I shouldn't have blogged about it. So if you ever come over, please don't look at my kitchen ceiling and if you do look at it when I'm not looking, please refrain from telling me there are peach/pink streaks on it. Thanks!

Dogs, Mexican Restaurants, Two-Year-Olds, and Potatoes

I had several things I felt like blogging about today, but vacation seems to make me the happiest. :) I quite enjoyed Arizona. Natalie made sure I drank lots of water and a slushee. Or is it slushy? I'm too lazy to look it up. I've blogged about various parts of AZ all ready so I'll try not to be too redundant. My first day involved meeting Ginger (a delightful dog who I've heard lots about) and touring Tucson (fun to see). I've never had a pet, but I spent a bit of time with two pretty well-behaved dogs on my southwest trip and I started thinking, maybe I'd like a dog. Then I remembered that for a good part of the year, I'm gone for 10 hours a day and the dog might not like that (or maybe he/she would) and I would absolutely hate to pick up poop and if the dog woke me up early on a weekend morning when I desperately wanted to sleep late I'd probably get really cranky. Oh, and I just bought a condo so I can't really afford a dog right now, but if it would sleep in late on the weekends and I could deal with the poop perhaps some day I may become a dog person...Anyway, per usual I am babbling off topic. So while in Arizona, Natalie told me I needed to have "real Mexican food" (I guess our NH kind is fake???). It was quite good and the restaurant was fun. They had people that would come over and serenade you, but I was told not to look at them because if they came over you were supposed to give them a big tip. So I kept sneaking looks at them, they caught me looking when I was walking to the bathroom so I was afraid they might come over and it would be really embarassing to have someone sing to me as I walked to the bathroom, but I quickly looked away and they did not follow me to the bathroom. At dinner I ordered a margarita and it was the size of my head--and affordable, which was amazing. I am sad to say that I could not finish it. :( Following the restaurant, we went to a bar where we had lots of laughs and good conversation. We also saw a pair of cougars, a cowboy, met a lovely pregnant waitress (God bless her, I would not want that job while pregnant), and we think the valet guys might have been trying to hit on us. It was a good night out. And I must say at 11:00 at night in June, the weather in Tucson is quite pleasant. The next day we toured Sabino (sp?) Canyon. I was afraid we'd be attacked by a mountain lion since there were many signs posted saying to beware of them, but instead we saw some deer. If you look really closely at one of the many pictures I attempted to take of them, you can actually see them. I'm not sure why I felt the need to do this as I've seen deer many times before. One summer there were even a bunch at my house, but nonethless I attempted many pictures. They just weren't in the mood to pose for them. :-p I also had to take a million pictures of the Arizona vegetation because it seemed like the touristy thing to do. The rest of the day was fun (who knew french fries with ranch dressing and bacon could be so good?!), I learned about Native Americans and saw some pretty cool ruins, and of course the Tom Mix Monument. Natalie, Michael, their two-year-old son and I went to the pool when we got back to their house. We were all having fun in the pool, but Spencer (their son) wanted nothing to do with me for quite a while. I could totally understand that as to him I was a stranger, but then suddnely an hour or so later he decided I was cool and wanted to talk to me and play in the pool with me, show me his toys, etc. I realize I am probably a huge dork for being happy to get a two-year-old's approval, but it was the cutest thing. Of course when I saw him a week later, he really didn't think I was so cool any more so it was short-lived, but such is life. Oh, yes, and that was the night of the potato-peeling. Michael and I peeled potatoes while Natalie made one of the courses for her upcoming four course meal. (Does that count as helping to make dinner? Can I say I helped with one of the courses? Probably not) That dinner might just have to get a blog of its own. All for now. More vacation babbling coming soon.

P.S. Does anyone know how I can move my pictures so they're not all at the top?

White or maybe it's Vanilla Custard or Banana Cream

I went to Home Depot the other day to buy paint, white paint, or at least that was the plan. Now, I know there are many shades of blue, purple, red, green, etc, but I was naive enough to think that white was white. Little did I know there was a whole section of white paints. I picked up Banana Cream and thought that looked like white paint until I put it next to Vanilla Custard, which made the Banana no longer look white. This continued for severeal more minutes and severeal more shades of white, not good for the indecsive one (aka me). However, I finally made a decision and chose Crisp White Linen. Yes, I made a decision people! Now goodness knows what'll happen when I go to paint the bathroom light purple. Should I go with Hosta Flower or Lavender Sparke? Or Twilight Pearl? Or...well, you get the idea.

My Arizona Top 20 List

Since 1999 my friend Natalie has been telling me I should come visit her in Arizona and I've not been a very good friend as I never went. I wanted to visit and some friends and I even discussed going once, but it didn't happen (well, actually, one of my friends went, but I didn't). So this year when I went to visit my brother in Colorado and found out it was only $59 to fly two hours from Denver to Phoenix I asked Natalie if she'd like me to finally come visit. She kindly said YES!





Disclaimer: The list below isn't necessarily in an accurate order. It's hard to say which event I liked more than another, but to put it simply I had a great time


20. Tom Mix Monument (see a previous blog)




19. Listening to Natalie's Special CD (a CD my friend Megan made for Natalie years ago to remember her visit to New England that we enjoyed listening to while in Arizona)





18. Grocery Store Tour (we visited several grocery stores)




17. Food Rocks (a museum we went to had rocks that looked like food)

16. Peeling potatoes (my contribution to the four course meal Natalie made)

15. Seeing Michael (Natalie, he did almost drop to a worse position due to his status as a Yankees fan, but if I want to be invited back, I need to be nice to him and he was my potato peeling pal)

14. The Capital Museum (a fun and educational part of my trip where I got some AZ history lessons; I'm a dork and enjoy that kind of stuff)

13. Arizona Vegetation (and of course posing with it, and posing Sheila Laguna with it)

12. Fun Times at the Science Center

11. The joy of Eegee's (a restaurant Natalie said I must try that had great sandwiches, fries, and slushees--is that the correct spelling of slushees?) A shout out to Natalie's parents for that

10. The Native American Ruins



9. Arizona Ornament (and the process of finding one; thank you to Nick for that!)


8. Making an appearance in Natalie's Blog


7. Midnight Packing (Natalie and Michael were packing for an upcoming trip at midnight one night, I attempted to help and be social)


6. Saturday night in Tuscon (minus not feeling well at the beginning of the evening, my own darn fault; we went out to dinner and then drinks saw some cougars and cowboys and had some good conversation and laughs, and of course meeting Natalie's friend, family, and Ginger)


5. Sabino Canyon (minus the fear of mountain lions)



4. Finally meeting Spencer (and being included in is inner circle of cool people)



3. Natalie's Four Course Dinner (even though I couldn't move afterwards due to a food coma)



2. Beat the Heat and Drink lots of Water. (a bit of an inside joke)



1. Good times with Natalie and finally making it to Arizona (it only took me 11 years)

A lot of people have been complaining about the heat lately. As I complain a lot, you'd think I'd be one of them and okay, I confess, I have found quite a few reasons to get out of the house so I can be in my air-conditioned car and run errands in air-conditioned places, but honestly, I'm not going to complain (too much) about this weather. I absolutely HATE the cold weather--ironic considering I live in a place that gets pretty cold in the winter. I don't like driving in the snow, I don't like shoveling, and I absolutely cannot stand being cold and I get cold quite easily. By January 15th, I am ready for winter to be over. In fact a winter with little snow and minimal cold days would be like a dream come true. When I retire, I may have to be one of those peole that lives half the year in New England and half the year in Florida or (insert other warm place here). So anytime I start to get annoyed with the heat, I just remember it could be worse, it could be January. Now when it's time to go back to working full time and it's 100 degrees in my room I might be singing a different tune, but for now, bring on the heat. Heat makes me think of summer and summer=swimming in the pool, ice-cream, the beach, vacations, only working part time, sleeping late, weekend trips, and not being cold. :-) And besides after the rainy, not overly hot summer we had last year, I'll gladly take this weather.

There's Nothing Short About a Short Sale

There is NOTHING short about a short sale except perhaps one's patience and the amount of trees left in the forest due to all the wasted paper. In case you don't know what a short sale is I will attempt to explain, but I'm probably not going to give a completely accurate description as I'm not in the banking or real estate business. It's not as bad as a foreclosure for a home-owner. When an owner cannot pay his mortgage, he can sell the house for less than is owed on the mortgage instead of foreclosing. Basically, the bank agrees to take a "short" on the mortgage (hence the name short sale). So they make some money, but not as much as they "should." Last year I decided I wanted to buy a home. I looked at a variety of places and found one I liked. My realtor told me it was a short sale so it would take a little longer to close than what I'll call a regular sale. The seller and the bank (or whoever holds the mortgage) both have to agree to the offer. Fine with me, I didn't need to be out of my current home yet and that would give me a little more time to save. The seller agreed to my offer fairly quickly. This was June and I figured we'd close sometime in August because that's what the paperwork said. Ha! Boy was I wrong. August came and apparently "they" still hadn't decided whether or not to accept my offer. Who are "they," you ask? Good question. I believe, based on the various e-mails I received,"they" involves a realtor, a lawyer, Chase (I'm not sure if that was a person or a bank) a couple of investors, at least one bank, a small country, three french hens, two turtle-doves, and a partridge in a pear tree). So since we had an August deadline and no acceptance in sight my realtor asked me if I'd extend my offer. Fine by me, I still wanted a place to live and I hadn't looked for anything else so I extended the offer. I'll spare you the complaining except to say that two weeks later I was back in her office signing another extension and this continued fairly regularly for the next two months. My mom was hoping I'd have an answer by November so when all of the relatives were in town for Thanksgiving (several of whom have trucks) they could help me move. Mom did not get her Thanksgiving wish, nor did I get my birthday or Christmas wish (to have a new home soon). Instead I signed more extensions and looked at a few other places, but didn't find any I liked as much as this one. I was soon approaching the lead in my realtor's office for longest short sale. Someone had me beat by about a month (this was not a contest I wanted to win). I think my bank was getting a little annoyed with me because they had to keep redoing and extending paperwork for me (thankfully, my mortgage offifcer was very patient with me, he told me he now uses me as an example when he talks about short sales to first time home-buyers and I now have enough of his business cards to wallpaper a small room). It got to the point where I think I was communicating with my mortgage officer and realtor more than my friends. I seriously considered sending them both Chrismast cards as I was now talking to them more than people I usually send Christmas cards to. I was also beginning to wonder if people I worked with and perhaps some of my friends believed that I had made an offer on a home as no one had ever heard of it taking this long to buy a place. Well, Christmas came and went and so did the New Year, but still no home for me. Just more extensions and reassurances that things were looking good and we should be getting an answer soon. Excuse me for sounding pessimistic, but I didn't entirely believe them as I'd been hearing that since August. Perhaps the definition of soon is not the same in the real estate world. I was hopeful (perhaps too hopeful) as I purchased a few small things for the new place and several people gave me things for the new place for Christmas. February arrived and I decided I should go look at the place again before I signed another extension to make sure it still existed and looked livable. Thus one cold February afternoon I went to look at it and it was getting a bit messy, but it was still there and livable. I agreed to sign yet another extension. Sadly (and ironically) that night I got a phone call from my realtor...the investors, lawyer, banks, small country, Chase, three french hens, two turtle doves, and partridge in a pear tree did not accept my offer because apparently the owner had two mortgages on the place and the first and second mortgage holder couldn't reach an agreement! (There was talk of a counter-offer, but they couldn't reach an agreement right away so it never happened, all it did was cause me to get many phone calls while trying to visit a museum in NYC where I don't think you were supposed to be talking on a cell phone, so much for escaping to the city to forget about condo drama.) To say I was devasted is a huge understatement. But what could I do (besides perhaps plant some trees to make up for all the wasted paper)? So after eight long months I had NOTHING except wasted paper, little patience, and wasted money on required paperwork and an inspection. You want to hear something ironic? The place is STILL on the market and it dropped in price again so it is now on the market for significantly less than my offer. It's been on the market for OVER a year. So I think the real estate world needs to consider renaming a short sale a long sale. What do you think?

Packing

I don't think you realize how much stuff you have until you have to pack. It's amazing how much stuff one person can accumulate. I figured when I started packing to move there was no way I'd need all the boxes I had in addition to suitcases, tote bags, etc. I mean it's just me and I pretty much only have to pack up a bedroom and kitchen stuff. Boy was I wrong. I've used nearly all the boxes I have and I'm not sure it looks like I've packed anything. I filled several boxes with just movies and books and I still have a full bookshelf. And don't even get me started on the pictures. I know I take lots of pictures and put them in scrapbooks and photo albums, but wow, what's going to happen if I ever have a child? Have you seen how many pictures people with kids take?! I'll have to tell the child he/she can't have any toys because there's no room for them with all the photo albums, hmm, that'll probably qualify for a bad parent award. I cleaned a bunch of junk out of my desk, but still managed to fill two boxes of desk stuff. Does anyone know why I felt the need to save stories I wrote in 6th grade? Haven't even touched the closet yet. I filled two boxes with holiday decorations, but that doesn't include Christmas and I love Christmas so I'm sure that'll take a few more boxes. Hmm...perhaps instead of blogging, I should get back to packing...

Tea Time

I've never been a tea drinker. Last summer I spent two weeks in England visiting a friend and she and her family tried very hard to convert me to tea, but they had no luck (I drank two cups while there, but I just couldn't get into it). It's not their fault, I just don't like hot drinks, aside from the occassional hot chocolate after a day of shoveling. Thus when my brother suggested we go to a tea factory in Boulder, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but the man was being such a good host and putting up with me, I couldn't complain (too much) right? Well, I still don't like tea, but I tried some cold teas (it wasn't techincally iced tea, but I'm not sure of the official name) and enjoyed those so maybe there's hope for me yet. The tour was cool too, aside from the funny hair nets and beard nets. Have you ever seen a beard net? My brother had to wear one, but I didn't get a picture of it. It's amusing. It's this white mesh thing that you put over your beard so hair doesn't fall out of it into any of the tea machines and thus the tea. It's kind of like a modified hair net. I was really hoping he'd keep it and wear it out that night lol. They also have a mint room. If you need to clear your sinuses go to Boulder, CO right now and stand in the mint room at the Celestial Seasonings Tea room. I lasted about 5 seconds in that room, because I apparently have a low tolerance for overpowering minty smells, but I swear it'll clear your sinuses. And have a cup of tea too (unless like me, you just can't get into the whole tea thing).

Sox, Rockies, Parking Problems and Tar

When I planned my Colorado trip I was "wicked" excited to find out the Red Sox were playing the Rockies the week I was going to be there so I begged my brother to get tickets for us, which he kindly did. Unfortunately, I did not realize we would be rooting for opposite teams. We almost didn't get to root for either team. We went to a parking garage, paid the money, and drove around, but could not find a single free spot so we went back and complained to the attendant who told us there was one space left. So we went back just in time to watch someone else pull in to the one remaining space. We went back to the attendant (not an easy task since my brother had to turn a big truck around in a space that was barely big enough to turn a compact car around in) and told the attendant the space was gone so she told us we could sit there until 6:00 until some people got out of work (apparently, she did not understand that we were starving--remember we hadn't had lunch because we'd been walking the horse poop trails--and I was a huge tourist and wanted to see the whole Sox vs Rockies game). We peeked for spaces again, unsuccessfully of course, and she finally agreed to let us have our money back. We found another garage that really had spots, popped into an Irish pub for "dinnah" (full of Boston accents) and then raced to the game where I found out my brother was not only a Rockies fan, but he was "that guy," the one everyone complains about that's always standing up and yelling and trying to start cheers (okay, cheering is good, but not for the wrong team so often and it works better when people join you). It was an intense, but good game. Tons of Sox fans mixed in because they go everywhere. Lots of back and forth with the scores. It didn't start off well though, the first inning took 45 minutes (you can probably guess who was pitching). The game went into extra innings and lasted over four hours. Amazingly, after all that screaming my brother still had a voice (and he forgot to go get a free taco that he screamed about). Oh, and the Sox won (thanks to Predroia) so that made me happy. :) My brother: not so happy, but he was even less happy when he got home and found "my niece" aka his dog covered in tar and had to give her a bath at midnight. Nice way to end his evening huh?

$24 Worth of Pictures

I appear to be on a vacation-writing kick lately. I don't have anything funny to say about my second day in Colorado. I went to Pike's Peak and Garden of the Gods. Both were beautiful. My brother didn't even complain when I took a ton of pictures going up, at the top of, and going down Pike's Peak because he said we needed to take $24 worth of pictures (that's how much it cost for us to drive up a mountain). That became the big joke of the day. "Take more pictures, you need to get $24 worth." I applaud him for successfully getting his truck up the mountain as I fear I'd be too busy taking in the scenery or freaking out about the tight turns with no shoulder or barrier and unintentionally drive my car off the mountain. And let's face it, who wants to do that on vacation...or ever. Garden of the Gods was great minus the horse poop, yes horse poop. We unintentionally hiked around on the trail that you can walk and ride horses on. Oops! Overall, it was a good time though.

Revolving Thoughts on Football

I don't like football or beer. In fact I'd go so far as to say I strongly dislike them so it's ironic that my first full day in Colorado involved football and beer and yet, I had a great time. I'll support the Patriots, Go Pats! I've even watched a few games from various people's couches. There is a miniscule part of me that would be willing to go to a Pats game early in the season (before it's FREEZING, I refuse to sit outside on a cold winter day and watch a football game) so I can say I've been to a game. I even have a cheesy pink Patriots t-shirt and earrings for those days at work when everyone wears their Pats stuff to show support for the team and for Superbowl parties. And yes, even though I don't like football, I always happily attend a Superbowl party every year (and watch most of the game lol). But truth be told I just don't like football. There's no real good reason, I'd just rather watch baseball or hockey. People don't understand how I prefer baseball to football, but hey, I've never claimed to be normal. As for beer, yeah, I just don't like it. So on my first day in Colorado, my brother took me to Invesco Field (I hope I got the name right), which in case there are any other non-football people out there, is where the Denver Broncos play football. He has season tickets this year so we got a private mini tour of the stadium and we even got to go on the field (well, we weren't really supposed to touch the grass, but we got to go really really close to it). I quite enjoyed the tour. Our tour guide was a riot, loved her. Following the tour, we went to the Corrs Brewery. Despite not liking beer, the tour was pretty good and I forced myself to try beer (still don't like it, but I tried new things). And just when you thought the day couldn't get any stranger, later that day my brother and I went shopping on some famous place to go shopping in Denver and the only things I bought were postcards. The girl who loves to shop, skimped out big time on shopping. My brother was a bit worried about me. What's happening to me? Still enjoyed browsing the shops though so maybe we don't need to worry yet. We ended the day with something I enjoy: sushi! And I finally branched out and tried some new flavors. So don't expect me to start watching football games or drinking beer any time soon, but it was still a pretty good day despite the football and beer. :)

Pleasant Departures from NH to CO

I recently decided that I am a huge fan of Manchester Airport (or as it's now known Manchester Boston Regional Airport, which I think is silly because really we have a Boston airport so it should just stay Manchester airport, if I want to go to Boston, I'll go to Boston, I'm not sure why they felt the need to lengthen the name, but now I'm babbling...) and flying in the afternoon instead of at the crack of dawn or on the red eye. Can we say run-on sentence? My English professors would not be proud. So normally when I fly, it's an early flight or the dreaded red eye. I'm always exhausted after taking the red eye because try as I may, I cannot seem to sleep on a plane. I have no trouble sleeping in a car if I'm tired and someone else is driving, but for some reason, even when exhausted, I just normally can't fall asleep on a plane. So when I went to Colorado I got to take an afternoon flight out of Manchester. It meant I could sleep late, not stress about last minute packing at 6:00am (instead I could stress about last minute packing at 11 am lol) go out to breakfast with my mom (what a nice mom I have) in the middle of nowhere, (it was delicious, but the place we went was really in the middle of nowhere), and get info about buying a condo--yes, random, but true. The airport is so close and the people were so nice. The security officer even had a nice little chat with me about my birth date and the fact that it is so close to Thanksgiving (perhaps because the line was so short). The flight left on time and got in early. Now perhaps all of these things were just flukes, but it made me a MHT fan. Unfortunately, my connecting flight was 45 minutes late leaving, but such is life. However, my darling brother was patientlywaiting for me in Colorado and took me out for drinks and pizza--nothing like dinner at 10:30pm! More on Colorado in future blogs...

On an unrelated note, for those of you wondering, my paper is finished, but my printer is out of ink so I need to get ink this weekend so I can print it and be officially done!

Finally, Jess, this is for you:

We will blog away

Good, bad, silly things we say

On our blog each day



Yeah, that needs some work, but there's my blog haiku for you. Have a fabulous day everyone!

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Tom Mix

About two weeks ago I was visiting a friend in Arizona. I flew from Colorado (must blog about that part of the trip in a future blog) to Phoenix and my friend Natalie picked me up from the airport. We drove from Phoenix Airport (forgive me for forgetting its official name) to Tuscon. Our first stop in Tuscon was Natalie's grandmother's house. Natalie's grandmother was an absolute delight, but apparently, she also lies. I had no idea she was lying, I thought she was a sweet old lady, but apparently she lied about Tom Mix. Do you know who Tom Mix is? If so, I am impressed because I'd never heard of him. Apparently, he was quite the handsome cowboy movie star in his day. He was born in PA in 1880 and died in Arizona in 1940. He was in a ton of movies from 1911-1935 and he also did some directing, producing, and writing. He had several wives and I think two children. Apparently, there is even a museum in his honor. So there's some random info about him for you. Anyway, Natalie's grandmother mentioned him because he died in Arizona and there is a memorial in his honor that we were going to drive by on our way back to Phoenix. She mentioned that we should go see it. The controversy comes in re: how he died. Natalie's grandmother said he died when he was thrown out of a car windshield and got all cut up and shredded by the glass. Natalie told me he actually died when the lockbox that was sitting on the backseat (with all his gambling money in it) flew up and hit him in the back of the head. As I wasn't around in 1940, I have no idea what is true and what is a lie, but I found the whole thing so intriguing that I had to google Tom Mix when I got back to Natalie's. I also insisted that we stop by his memorial and take pictures. Natalie thinks that should be the high-light of my trip (Don't tell her, but I actually enjoyed Sabino Canyon, her four course French dinner, being entertained by Spencer, the bar in Tuscon, and various other things in Arizona more than the memorial, sorry Natalie.) So there you go, there's more than you probably ever wanted to know about Tom Mix, may he rest in peace. And I apologize if I got anything re: his life wrong, but you can't believe everything you read on the internet (or learn from your friend's grandmothers) so no disrespect or false info was intended.

Procrastination

It's amazing how good I've become at procrastinating lately. I'm taking a graduate course so I can get a Masters plus 15 (translation: when I'm done with the course, if all goes well and I pass it, I can get a slight pay raise because I'll have 15 credits beyond my Masters degree). You'd think I'd want to be done and enjoy the rest of summer so it's not hanging over my head right? Or at least the extra 5 cents I'll make would motivate me, but unfortunately, I seem to still be slacking. I put "finish paper" on my to do list, but sadly, everything else on the to do list gets checked off and the paper remains incomplete. I even forced myself to rake in this 90 degree weather the other day (don't housesit for family without a.c. in 90 degree weather). I ran all my errands, prepped stuff for summer school, did laundry, and did some packing. Then I decided now was as good a time as any to finish watching last two episodes of "Gilmore Girls." (I'm a dork, I know, but I've been working on the series for a couple of years here and there). So I finally put the computer on and did I finish the paper? No! I did do some more work on it, but instead I felt the need to check my e-mail (both accounts), play Scrabble on facebook, read some of my friend's facebook pages and leave comments, look up flights on Southwest (as if I can afford to fly anywhere any time soon!), and read and commment on my friend's blog. The thing is I started this paper ages ago! It has several parts to it and I started the first part back in May when I started taking the course. And am I working on it now? Of course not, I'm pretending I know how to blog. So perhaps I'll go finish the paper now...or perhaps I'll go in the pool until it's time for Zumba...

Beginning Blogger

I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never blogged before, but I may make one for work next school year so I figure summer's a good time to practice. My dear friend Natalie inspired me to blog. I aim to blog as well as she does some day...