Spring Break

A couple of weeks ago when Joelle & Natalie were on Spring Break Tracy A called and said they were taking their niece and nephew to downtown Chattanooga for a play day and wondered if we wanted to join them!









Absolutely, was my reply - so we went downtown where they have the Tennessee sledding areas and let the kids slide until they could slide no more!









Then we walked a few blocks over to the Mellow Mushroom for a YUMMY pizza meal!














Of course we had to take some fun pictures along the way.












Then we went out on the walking bridge and as you can see, the kids made it a 'climbing bridge' too!


















...even upside down!





















We stopped for a moment of a Daddy/Daughter Pic.















Group pic, group pic, group pic!





















Tracy even did some 'monkeying' around of his own! :)



















Then we had to head back across the bridge and home to wrap up the day. What fun!

Electrical Retro-fit

Our house was built in 1972 and it's a good house, just needs a few things tweaked here or there.

One of the things we needed to do was have some electrical stuff done. Occasionaly if we turned the stove on the same time the oven was on, the breaker would pop!

The other thing was we had some breakers completely off, others on and didn't seem to be going anywhere and some outlets and switches not working.


So with part of this year's tax return, we hired a good electrician - Rick - to come do some seroius work for us. Here' the old box with about 6 to 8 wires just hanging down going to no where. Also the additional little box on the left, had 4 breakers but nothing! Some of the wires were loose and some of the breakers felt like they were about to fall out. Plus nothing on the panel was marked to tell us what breakers went to what circuits in the house.







Rick came in and put in a new panel, then we chased down where all the original wires went. Then we went through and found which breaker went to what circuit in the house. Turns out the ENTIRE basement was run on one circuit. Oy vai!!!

So we ran a new wire and separated the basement into 3 parts on 3 different circuits. Aaahhh - much better. I feel much safer now.

It took two days to get it all done, but thankfully, we've got it changed and almost right, but Iam much, MUCH happeier about it!

Keyboard Hunting

For Christmas, we were wanting to find a keyboard for our home. (Didn't want a piano to move around.) So we started 'hunting' and didn't make much headway.

So after we found out what our tax return amount was, we renewed our search to find one. We decided to bring in a professional keyboard hunter who knows their ways and their wiles and how to draw one in - Larry (my father-in-law)- who began the chase for the elusive keyboard.

A couple of days later he spotted one, just sitting there, looking like it needed a place to go.


This is the trophy we brought home from Larry's Craigslist keyboard hunting grounds. It's a Casio Clavinova. It's a nice one with weighted keys and pedals and the whole kit-n-kabootle.













Now, next year, Natalie can begin piano lessons that she's been wanting to take for so long!

Awesome!!!

Family Drama - Fingernail Polish or Lipstick

We were headed home from church a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden Joelle announces to us that Natalie did something wrong.

WOW - what is that and where did that come from? Well, part of it is that Joelle must have learned her lesson well when she got busted hiding one of her sister's secrets from us.

So we ask Natalie what happened and she doesn't want to tell us.

I assume it's 'damage' to the car or she broke something important and start to get irritate and want her to tell us right now.

But a cooler head - Doreen's - prevails and she talks Natalie to tell us after we get home.

We all get home and change and Natalie doesn't want to talk. She only wants to talk with Mommy. Well, we need to work on that - so she can talk with Mommy with Daddy in the room, quiet.

So we sit there, and sit there and sit there waiting. Nothing. Finally Doreen tries to coax the info out of her and after a bit the story comes out.

She said she put stuff on her lips.

"What stuff?"
"Fingernail Polish."
"When?"
"This week."
"Where?"
"I took it to school and put it on there."

Oy Vai!!!

She's only 6 and she's trying to hide stuff like this from us already.

Fortunately it didn't take very well and she gave up.

We explained that she wasn't in trouble, that doing things like that isn't very good for her health.

If she wants some lipstick, moderate of course, then we'll get her some - but it's not allowed at school.

Whooosh. I cannot believe the drama a couple of little girls produce. Amazing!!!

Well - that's all for now...

...I hope!!!

Flip Flop on Global Warming

Ok - I have waffled. I have pulled a flip flop on Global Warming.

Up until now I have believed that it is only junk science and used by tree-huggers to further their agenda.

I have to apologize to them, I was wrong. I was talking with a friend recently and we got to talking about Global warming and he convinced me from some ancient writings that it has been predicted and beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true.

Unfortunately it is going to get a LOT hotter than they predict though.

Let me share with you my belief...

2 Peter 3:10 states, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."

Whoooo weeee that sounds HOT! Yup, the Bible tells of a coming 'Global Warming' that any stuff we value here on Earth will be toasted. Guess that kinda tells us where we need to put our priorities huh?

The really good part though is this...

Revelation 20:14 lets us know, "Then Death and Hades [the grave] were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away [by fire]; and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . 'Behold, the tabernacle [dwelling] of God is with men, and He will dwell with them [on the earth] . . ."

Anything we can DO today will not stop Global Warming. We gotta be ready for when the Global Warming will come to be elsewhere and avoid the HOT problem and then get to enjoy perfection, for the first time in our lives!!!

So - now that I've flip-flopped, I can't wait for Global Warming to clean this Earth!!!

End of an Era - Wheresgeorge?

I've come to an end of an era in my life. For the past 6 years I have been active in the wheresgeorge.com community. Basically, when any paper cash passes through your hands, you stamp it, log it on wheresgeorge and spend it and hope someone else hits it so you can see where it's traveled to since you had it.

It's been kinda fun seeing where some of my bills have traveled.

Well, this month, exactly 6 years after I started I have logged $20,000 in bills. I figured it was a good place to stop - finally.

Let's see, that averages out to having $3,333 dollars pass through my hands every year. $277 a month, $9 a day or .38 cents a minute.

My first month, March 03, I logged 10 bills. The highest number of bills I logged was in Nov of 08, 61 bills. The lowest number of bills I logged was Sept 02, 2.

The largest dollar amount I logged in one month was Feb 05, $3,824. That was due to paying the sheetrock hangers who were building my in-laws house in cash. I had to WG it before paying them! ;) The smallest amount I logged in one month was June 03, $10.

Got some change from lunch at McD's yesterday and I put it in my wallet to WG when I got home, then remembered - I'm out, done, fine`! It was kinda sad and yet kind of a relief! :)

It's been fun and if you see one of my bills, go ahead and log it - I'll still watch the ones I've got floating around to see where they go!

.25 Project or Coin Collecting

This past Christmas, Mom & Dad gave each of my girls a book with the state quarters them. (Except for the ones that hadn't been minted yet.) They really liked them and now we have them stashed somewhere safe easily accessable for them to add to them and just enjoy them ocassionally.

Well a few weeks ago while talking with my mom on the phone she asked me to watch out for the Philadelphia minted state coins. She has all the Denver minted stated coins, but is lacking the ones from this side of the country.

So I walked into our closet and pulled out a container I've been saving coins in when I return from my trips.

I went through them and pulled out all but about 3 or 4 Philadelphia minted state quarters she was needing. Very cool.

In the process I went ahead and pulled out a Denver and Philadelphia minted coin from each state I had to start a book for us.

I'm still missing a few Philly coins, but probably a dozen or so Denver coins.

But it was wild, looking through those coins, I had 13 West Virginias, 11 New Yorks, 11 Virginias, 10 Connecticuts and North Carolinas, 8 Georgias and 7 Arkansas, New Hampshires and North Dakotas. I had 5 Colorados and 5 Bicentennal quarters too.

Not gonna become a coin collecting geek, but it is kinda fun! :)

I'll post a pic on here when I've got 'em all!

In Memorial - Jim Scriven

Today, our family will be remembering our Cousin, Jim Scriven. (He was my Dad's cousin, so that makes me a 1st Cousin Once Removed.)

Jim passed away last week while he was having dialysis. He became quite ill & had to be rushed to the hospital. He was admitted & at this time they say he had a blood infection & other complications. Sadly he never recovered.

But I just want to take a sec and share a couple of memories of Cousin Jim.

I rememeber the beard. You can see it in the pic, I'm not sure I have a memory of him without one.

I remember one time, just after we moved back to Colorado from Ohio, Jim came by for a visit. He took my best friend and I for a ride and we happened to spot some prairie dogs just hanging out in some nearby adobe hills. Jim stopped his car, ran to the trunk and pulled out a bag. From inside this bag he pulled a .357 pistol. Handed it to me and said, "get one." Farmers on the western slope of Colorado don't like prairie dogs - but that doesn't much matter. I took a couple of shots and missed them completely. They scattered and were back a couple minutes later and my friend tried his luck and missed too. Jim got a good chuckle out of that, put the gun away and we headed home. Good fun!

Another time on that same visit, he ran me into town so I could buy, with my own hard-earned lawn mowing money, my first pair of Nikes. They were a $70 dollar pair then. Pretty pricey for those days. (And at only making $2 an hour, a lot of work too.) Nice shoes, I liked them. I seem to remember my folks were kinda unhappy, more at me for actually 'blowing' my money on them, than at Jim for actually taking me.

The other thing I remember about Jim were April and JJ - my 2nd cousins - his kids. I loved being around them, so I thoroughly enjoyed it when we were around Jim cuz I got to have some good cousin time.

Jim Scriven had a lot of challenges in his life, but he left his own special mark on each of ours. Jim - you will be missed. Wish we could be there in person to say goodbye, but that's not possible. Thanks for being a great 'cousin!'