The Excitement Continues

Had a nice, quiet evening last night

after working til 6.

Rod was out helping a new family

move into the ward.

I fed the animals and sat in the shade

of the barn and read my book.

NICE!

When he got home I cooked us up some

steaks and steamed veggies,

we ate and were in bed ASLEEP

by shortly after 10!

This morning my alarm went off at 6.

And then it was 6:38.

How did THAT happen???  LOL

Made breakfast

(scrambled eggs with sauted zucchini

and a slice of nice thick bacon

and a "thin mint" choc/peppermint smoothie)

and then headed out to leave for work.

(I made our turkey on sprouted 7 grain

bread last night - just tossed some cottage

cheese and frozen mixed fruit in tubs

for our mid-morning snacks...)

Anyhow.

Out to the truck.

Turn the key.

Flashing lights.

Tick tick tick

That's it.

YUP.

Dead batteries.

Yes, I said batteries.

My big ol' diesel truck has TWO

giant batteries and they are

DEAD.

But the Lord continues to bless us.

1.  I am in MY yard, not West Palm Beach.

2.  We have a spare vehicle.  I grabbed my stuff

and moved to Rod's little Honda.  He will

drive the Trooper today.  (No A/C.  The

sacrifices that man makes for me!!!!)

3.  I'm married to a talented mechanic who can 

take the batteries out tonight before he heads

down to Vero Beach for his High Council meeting

and then he can go get/install new ones tomorrow.

And on top of all that,

I was only 5 minutes late to work!

AND

I got a text from Kyle.

This is where he ate lunch yesterday.

Wow

There are a LOT of blogs that I find myself

starting to title 

"Whew".

Its like nothing happens in my life

and then suddenly the flood gates open

(generally on the weekend)

and then I finally get to pull back

and check in and all I want to say is

WHEW!

This past weekend was one of those.

Friday after work I headed home.

The dogs were in the garage and the

horses were loose in the back yard.

I let the dogs out

(and finally remembered to close the door.

Buddy LOVES the dog food... darn horse)

Then I headed to the barn to get my bucket

so I could gather my eggs.

There is one chicken who lays an egg in a

feed bin inside the barn, so I grabbed that one first.

As I was coming out of the barn and trying

to hold my bucket, close and chain the new

gate closed...

OH!  New gates!!!

NICE, eh?  Rod put those up by himself

while I was out of town.

AND he put in a new porch light!

LOVE IT!

Anyhow.

Back to my story.

So I'm trying to close the gate

while holding my bucket

that has an egg in it

and Andy (my horse) comes over to 

see if there is anything good IN the bucket.

(And likely to bust my egg that is rolling

around loose in there...)

So I turned around and smacked him on the 

cheek with the side of my fist.

And broke something in my hand.

I would show you a picture.

But it would be anti-climactic.

I have a lovely bruise that runs from the base of

my pinky finger all the way to my wrist bone.

But it's the same color as my tan.

My palm is also bruised.

And it is swollen.

But it doesn't photograph well.

So trust me.

If only I had HURT-A-VISION.

(And I must have bumped it 2000 times

in class over the weekend!  In fact I just NOW

hit my desk with it.  OUCH!!!!)

Anyhow.

I gathered the eggs.

Headed to the house.

Amazon had delivered a bunch of stuff.

Which was AWESOME

because my canisters on my counter were

EMPTY!

So, I was filling them.

And Bandit was playing on the floor beside me.

And I WATCHED her swallow the

stupid push pin.

Yes.

The vet returned it to us.

(I'm considering having it gold plated.)

Kinda looks lethal!

Look how innocent she looks!

She is now "pinless" but also missing her

"lady bits"

As long as they had her under the knife

we decided to do a "two-fer".

She and Shadow have to be kept separate

*unless we are there to supervise

since they are CRAZY when they are together.

Yesterday Shadow had to stay in her crate all day.

Poor girl!  None of this is HER fault!

(She was hiding on the couch!  Bandit can't 

consistently get up there yet...)

So today Shadow is out in the dog yard with Bison.

Bandit is in the garage (dog room) by herself.

And was crying her head off when I left.

(She's never been alone before...)

There is a radio playing out there.

She'll survive.

And the good thing about living in the country...

no (limited) neighbors to be annoyed by her noise.

(And the only neighbors close enough to maybe hear

are inside with their windows closed and the A/C blasting.

He just had surgery, so no hanging outside for him either...)

Anyhow.

I worked until 9:30 Sunday night and then headed

home, arriving in town around 11:30.

And then had to work 10 hours yesterday

(and every day this week until Thursday)

since my employer decided to close Friday

and offered us the opportunity to work instead of

use our personal time.

WHEW!

Random Foodish Things

This is not a food blog.

This is just my blog.

I post stuff I'm thinking about today.

And today I'm thinking about food.

Ish

Yesterday I noticed my lunch was

actually really pretty!

I love my little black lunch containers.

I bought them on Amazon,

they come 10 to a pack,

they are microwaveable,

dish washerable

(but we don't use our's anymore...)

and seal really well.

Lunch Trays

Black just makes bright green

broccoli look so much brighter.

(there's a little tub of ranch dressing

that I could have just put in the extra hole

but I didn't want to heat it.)

It was delicious!

(those are Hillshire Farms Jalapeno Cheddar

Sausage links.  Pan fried for dinner the

night before.)

They are handy.

So I thought I'd share.

PS - the orange and blue cloths in the back

are actually little kid size 6 tank tops

that I sewed the bottom on and use

as my lunch and box bags.

And since the Florida Gators colors are

blue and orange, I get lots of comments.

Sadly, the ONLY things I know about the

Florida Gators are their colors.

And they play college football.

And they have rabid fans.

And I'm not one of them.

Utah

So.

Kyle has been in Utah for a couple of weeks now.

Mostly he is enjoying living in the mountains.

And doing LOTS of hiking.

He got to finally see some SNOW!

He said it was pretty challenging to walk

up that trail - had to dig toe holds.

Of course he was wearing his trusty Chucks!

LOL

Tuesday he tried out a new spot.

Isn't this beautiful?

He is trying to talk Jim into coming out

to go camping with him here.

So gorgeous!!!

The whole Logan area is really lovely

and he seems to be happy there.

Frozie Rozie

Today is my darling little sister's birthday!

She calls herself Frozie Rozie.

These are her friends.

We Canadians just can't seem to get / stay warm.

Which might be why we all moved SOUTH.

She is super athletic and loves challenges that

involve other people.

Relay races

Group hikes

Giant bike races

Like that.

I got to spend a week with her a couple

of months ago.

It was wonderful!

We were roomies when we were little.

Shared a room.

And a double bed.

She was athletic back then too.

She used to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Talking in her sleep.

Maybe talking isn't the right word.

She was "calling" a baseball game.

Naturally she was the one scoring the winning run!

It happened more than once.

She was also the only girl on an all boy hockey team!

And she used to take her little Suzuki Samari up into

the mountain with her mountain bike and camp

and ride the trails.

By herself.

She is strong.

She is confident.

She is loyal.

She is an amazing Mom to 3 wonderful

and successful kids.

(and one son-in-law)

She is a terrific sister.

And she is LOVED!

Sleepy

The weather has been 

REALLY HOT

here in Florida.

It's kind of wiping us all out.

Buddies already.

God Bless Orlando

Good Gravy!

The hits just keep coming!

Friday night a nut job shot an up and coming

new singer after her show during a

"meet and greet" with her fans.

Then he shot himself.

Sunday morning a nut job shot 49 innocent

people in another night club 

and then he shot himself.

And this morning I woke to the news that

a 2 year old boy was taken by an

alligator in one of the lakes

on the Disney property!

I'm not sure how many more hits

the City Beautiful can take!

There have been so many good stories

coming from these tragedies.

Money donated

Blood donated

Food donated to those

donating blood

Survivors telling of heroes who rescued

them and helped them to safety.

Alligators (and sharks) don't typically 

eat humans.

(Word is they don't taste good)

I have lived here for 35 years.

In CLOSE proximity to gators.

(The neighbor gator is named Burt.)

(We "converse" - he from his pond,

me from my side of the fence...)

I have never heard of a gator taking a child.

It's super rare.

They take small dogs and cats.

I sometimes worry for my stupid chickens.

There are gators in every fresh body of water.

With all the rain we have had lately

(Tropical Storm Colin and just lots of

really strong thunder storms in the past few weeks)

they are really active. 

Moving from pond to pond.

Florida Fish and Wildlife captures and relocates

any / all gators that appear to be a nuisance 

on the Disney property.

Since last night they have caught and killed

4 gators in the lake.

Looking for the child.

My heart breaks for all the families of these tragedies.

One good thing about living in the "bible belt".

People aren't afraid to mention God and

to pray in public.

Many who haven't spoken to their Father in years

are turning to Him now.

We could use YOUR prayers.

Whew

I was a zombie yesterday.

Let me back track.

Thursday morning (which happened to be Kyle's 25th!)

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLE)

(I didn't do a post, since he doesn't read my blog...)

Anyhow.

I drove to Orlando to attend a two day

instructor training session.

We learned a TON.

And I didn't have to teach.

(awesome!)

But I received lots of flattering comments

from others who DID teach.

And it looks like they might tag me to do a series

of instructor webinars for new instructors.

That might be fun!

Anyhow.

We were in session from 10:30 until about 4, then 

headed upstairs to our rooms to rest

and meet in the lobby for an awesome dinner

up the street at Bonefish Grill.

I love these sessions - we all eat and chat,

about lots of things, but primarily we pick

each other's brains.  I came away with a 

bunch of really good ideas for new games

and ways to refresh my classroom!

Then back into the classroom again on Friday

for a rehash of all the admin stuff that

instructors are getting lax on.

(That's one of my other jobs - travel to

other instructor's sites and "mentor" them

on things they might have forgotten or never learned)

We left Orlando around 1:30 Friday afternoon

and when I got to the house, I sat on the couch

for a minute and 2 hours later I woke up.

LOL

Repacked my suitcase and headed south

to Ft. Lauderdale to teach the 2nd weekend

of my current class.

I am training a new instructor, so I had him teach

for the first hour, but it drives me nuts to see

someone reading from the book, so I took

over again after the first break.

He's going to be a good instructor - he is a retired

police officer, so his people skills are awesome.

But he hasn't spent the time necessary to 

get familiar with the material.

And I'm not going to let my students suffer.

Anyhow.

Again.

Red Lobster for dinner.

(where they lost my ticket so didn't seat me

for nearly an hour - I didn't notice cuz I was

texting Kyle and reading my Kindle...)

And back to school at 7:30 Sunday morning.

We give the final exam 12 hours later at 7 pm!!!

And there is always at least one student

who insists on taking the entire 2 hours.

So at 9:00 pm we were just grading the final paper.

And then there is still the wrap-up

(entering hours / grades etc into the computer,

tidying the room, packing up the books, etc that

we need to take to the next site... that sort of thing)

so I didn't get out of the room until nearly 9:45.

Hit a McDonald's drive thru for a salad

which I ate in my bed in my hotel room.

And OUT like the light by 10:15.

Alarm went off at 4:45

Left by 5

Drove to my office, arriving RIGHT at 7:30!

Whew!

Cleaned up the mess left in my office 

from not being here on Thursday and Friday

left at 4:30

home to gather eggs, feed the chickens and rabbits

(Rod did the horses and cows)

and then over to our little town hall for a

Trails and Greenways Committee meeting

from 6 - 8:30.

Fried up some yummy jalapeno / cheddar cheese

sausage and some steamed broccoli and in BED

by 10.

Today...  I'm actually doing much better than yesterday.

I'm not even threatening to curl up under my desk

for a nap!

Tomorrow I'll let you know how Kyle is doing.

(Spoiler alert - GREAT)

Kyle / Colin Updates

Kyle has landed.

LOL

He is happily ensconced in his new 

little apartment.

We start with his large

roller tool chest with personalized wood top.

It is currently home to a bottle of

Gatorade, but will soon

hold a new flat screen smart TV.

(Happy Birthday Kyle!)

His bed comes next on the far left wall,

the end table he made is between

his bed and his chair.

The gorgeous golden (but amazingly comfy) chair

is from his Grandma Buffaloe's collection

(the other one is in our bedroom)

and the foot stool is another awesome

piece of furniture Kyle made.

The "lid" opens and he keeps

all kinds of goodies in there...

Continuing around the edge,

we have his closet.

It appears to be leaking.

He has since rearranged and it

is much better, but that big red

tool box still makes it impossible

to close the door.

But everything else has a place

and is accessible.

Phew!

Then we have the "kitchen"

complete with a sink,

two burner stove

and mini fridge.

Sadly the cabinet under the sink

is home to a bunch of poorly installed

pipes etc, so there's no room for

anything but possibly a bottle

of dish detergent.

Bummer!

Of course there is a trash can.

And the door to his fab pink bath!

Then his dresser with a stylish

fan on the top

strategically placed to catch the cross

breeze from his windows.

And there you have it!

Welcome home Kyle!

***********************************

Speaking of welcomes.

"Welcome" Tropical Storm Colin.

Looks like we will miss the main thrust

but being on the south edge 

they are forecasting 2 - 5" of rain

today with gusts about 50+ mph.

A good day to keep the dogs inside

and work in an office.

Kyle's Address etc

Kyle woke up this morning in Nebraska.

He hopes to go to sleep tonight

in his new digs in Logan!

For those who are wondering:

Kyle Buffaloe

55 E 500 North #8

Logan, UT 84321

Looks like he has about 11 hours of

driving ahead of him today.

So he won't get there until evening.

But that's ok.

It's easier to unload a trailer when

it's cooler out.

That's our theory anyway.

Illinois - kind of FLAT!

He is following the pioneer trail.

Council Bluffs, the Platt River,

etc.

He re-read the Work and the Glory

series before this trip to remind

himself of all the places he was

going to be driving through.

Next photos should be of his new place!

(But I'm going to be out of town again

this weekend, so who knows if I will get

a chance to update my blog...)

Trip Report

Kyle Skyped me yesterday when he

pulled over for a little "walk about" break.

Scared the living daylights out of me!

I had just gotten back into the truck

(was at the feed store getting hay)

and my phone started making this

HORRIBLE NOISE!

(We just added Skype... I usually

used my tablet)

Anyhow.

We had a nice little chat.

He was in Georgia.

We checked in several times during

the evening - he was enjoying the drive

and then there was a brief rain shower

that cooled everything off.

I was pleased that he called around 10:30

from a truck stop in Tennessee

and was stopping for the night.

He stayed there all night and left

again this morning around 6.

SO glad he is taking it easy and

enjoying this trip.

Who knows when / if he will ever

get through this part of the

country again.

A man and his rig.

(And his Mom and his dog)

The Adventure Has Begun

The adventure has begun!

Although that's MY truck on Sunday,

it is basically what he looks like right now.

Just driving to Utah...

I'm so excited for him!

(And have been bawling like a baby all day...)

We are going to MISS him!