Vacation is almost here

Today is sunday, and it is only four days till i leave for tulsa. this morning we picked up the rental car john is driving out there, and it pretty nice actually. its a silver saturn with all the bells n whistles. john wont be falling in the no radio zone in this car. there are parts of the drive where all you get is static or dead air. this car came with xm radio. hope it keeps him entertained.

my sister came and spent the night with us last night. she has a visiting friend from singapore here that she works with and talks to almost daily but had never met. well, the young lady had to come here for business and my sister is showing her around California this week. they are both on vacation. today we sent them to murphy's to go wine tasting, shopping and to check out the huge gold nugget at ironstone vineyards. I think they will have fun. don't know if they will decide to stay there or come back here tonight. maybe now when i ask my sisters to come here n go wine tasting with us, they will.

we have blue sky's for the first time in about a week na half or two. its nice to be able to breath again. i don't know the status of all the fires, but hopefully they are running out of fuel.

After i turn off my lappy today and go take my nap for work tonight, i wont have my lappy until i get to tulsa. my sister talked me into sending it with john. she said they are so strict at the airports, she wouldn't even take her purse if she didn't have to. i was gonna bring it just to have something to do while i wait for my flight. i suppose i could bring a book. but i know em always travels with her lappy and has never mentioned anything about problems with the airport staff. i am all undecided about this now. i have until tonight to decide. I will probably bring it with me. all i will have is a carry on. I sent the camera with john though.

i am going to try and get called off on wednesday night. i would like to try ands sleep before i get on the plane. that would be nice. well, the car is just about packed. John is anxious to leave, and so am i. don't know if i will have much more to say before i thursday, but if not, i will see you all in tulsa.

 

burning again

if you remember last summer, or sometime a year ago, i wrote about california burning. well, its happening again. last week, during the lightening storm, a bunch of fires were started. it is so dry here, all it would take to start a fire is a small spark. well, we have had too many sparks to keep up with. most of the fires are north of here, but once again the smoke comes straight to the valley and cant get out. it looks like its overcast outside, with the sky all white. when you actually step outside, you realise its smoke. the smell is thick and it get s hard to breath. this sucks. we are being advised to not use our ac, cus it brings the bad air in.

on to other stuff. it seems like it s been so long since i have been here. i jump on, read a few and jump off. that's about all i have time for until i want to take a nap. there is a lot going on with all of you. and did every one know that friday is Lu's birthday? sounds to me like she is embracing the greatness of one more birthday. Happy birthday Lu.

in one more week, i will be on the plane and heading to tulsa to see my son. i am so excited. i really cant wait to just have a vacation. unlike a few people on here who have an almost endless supply of vacation days, i only get three weeks. and it isn't accumulated. i  get three weeks on my anniversary, and it has to last the year until my next anniversary. if i use them up, that's it. their gone. no more vacation. i haven't taken any time off since christmas, and i am ready to relax a minute or two.

so here i am, done with all i have for now. see ya all later

Relay walking, burned homes and strange weather

Let me start by saying yesterday was the most emotionally draining day I have had in I don't know how long. It started in the morning, before I even left the house. John called me in to see the newest fire burning in Santa Cruz. Oh crap, here we go again. someone drove along the highway and lit fires along the way. so many homes burned. It was already hot and dry. I called one of my sisters to find out if anyone was in danger. I finally got hold of a sister and she told me the fires were burning away from our family. this made me feel a little better, although i still felt bad for those families. So i took off for the relay walk, it was still early, maybe i could help with something and i wanted to see opening ceremonies.

I got to the field and our team was setting up a tent to put over the chips n food that was brought. I had no idea how it was supposed to set up. I really didn't do a whole lot, i think i was more in the way than anything. after that was set up, i took a walk around the field to check out the booths. they are so creative. there was a special tent set up this year to participate in a special long term cancer research study. I later joined in on that study. not a whole lot was really going on with me, i just couldn't get into the excitement of it yesterday. not like last year. but i kept trying.

So when the cancer study tent opened, i went down, enrolled, gave them four vials of my special blood and left. they had a quota they could reach for the day, and in the end, they went over by 16 people and had to start turning people away. So as I left, i got a call from one of my santa cruz sisters. the fire from up in paragraph one, she thought had burned all three of the homes on another sisters property. the family was all at her house swimming, so they were all safe, but the homes were gone. its a good thing that crying was normal yesterday, cus i was bawling. i called john n told him what i was just told and I was sobbing. I later got a call telling me only one of the homes burned, not all of them and two other buildings. by the way, this was arson.

now, onto the strange weather. the day was supposed to get to 108 yesterday and I'm sure it did. the morning started out freaking hot. there was supposed to be storms in the mountains, but no relief for us down below. hah, and again i say HAH! about noon, the clouds started rolling in. they got darker n darker. there was lightening, thunder and sprinkles of rain. it felt so good to cool off. then the winds came up, and up and up. if you looked at the pics i posted, you will see some guys holding the stakes of the awning, that is because the wind picked the whole thing up and blew it completely away. these guys came and put it back together again. no sooner did it blow away, than they were there. I don't even know where they came from, i do, but it was like they just appeared. like super hero's. we gave them boxes of chips as thank you gifts.

ok, i may write some other stuff later on. this is getting kinda lengthy though so I will stop here. go check out he pics i posted. see ya all later.

relay walk 2008

here are some of the pictures i took at the realy for life. this year i didnt take any videos, or get any pics of myself. just a lot of everything around me.

Going to Vegas Baby

Start:	Sep 10, '08
End:	Sep 13, '08

John n I are going to Vegas to meet Amber, Chris, Brandon n Em.Careless will be there too i hope. i heard she may go, that would be so cool if she could show up also I am way too excited.

fathers day brunch

fishy updates, n stuff

I have been going out to check my new pets first thing when I get home every day. I put food in the water, but they don't eat it. Yesterday i put in some fresh water from the hose, and saw a couple of the tiny fish that died float to the top. I was able to get one and remove it. the other one is sitting on the bottom of the bottom barrel somewhere. I tried to find it to take it out, but i couldn't see it. So this morning I went out, looked at them, pulled out the fake plant the little guys hide in and counted seven. I am so happy to have seven of them still alive. I hope they all live. then i tried to feed them again and hoped they would come up and eat. the big ones in the bottom barrel did start to eat the food this time and I was so happy. I was worried about them. A lady at work said she started with a bunch of the tinys from walmart and they are all still alive and about 3 or 4 inches long. I can hope.

In my last post I guess i ticked a couple people off. someone I don't know said i was a narrow minded bigot, or racist or something. I wrote her a personal message saying i wasn't, and she insisted i was. i guess she wont be my friend then. she wont be reading this i guess. oh well. I don't think i could go to someone's page and introduce myself by calling someone things like that. i shouldn't be bothered by this, but it does bother me. maybe because this is the first time i have ever been attacked for the stuff i write here. its not like i have this huge following of readers. if five people read what i write I'm lucky. lol. i don't do this for friends though. I have friends because i was lucky enough to meet them. maybe this is why i only write non serious stuff here. I just don't want to be bothered with confrontation on this site. that isn't what its about for me. ok, nuff said on that, just had to get it off my brain.

i was working last night and packing next to this lady. I don't always get to pack with everyone else. they put me on automation cus you have to be certified on it and keep it running efficiently. it was the end of the night, and I was kinda tired and trying to keep myself awake and entertained. I have wondered this many times, but never said it out loud. I wondered what it would be like to have everyone on the lines start singing the same song. I was thinking 99 bottles of beer,cus everyone knows that song,  but it could be any song we all know. i just thought this would be funny to see. "cheetos, the musical!"

ok, on that silly note, i am signing off. have a great day.

thoughts I had last night

last night I had to work on a line all by myself. I dont mind really. it lets my mind go a little off on a tangent. so this is what i thought about last night to keep my mind entertained.

1. Monday is Ambers real birthday. Im gonna have to send her a video.{ I did that already}

2. I hope my fish are ok. what if they dont survive the night. What am I gonna do. {as soon as I got home I checked them, and fed them. they are fine so far. they stayed at the bottom of the barrells. if it gets too hot in the water, i will put ice in it.

3. I just found out there is another group at work. Now we have a native american group. we have groups for hispanics, aisians, blacks, and gay people. We dont have a group for americans, or for white people. that would be racist. or so im told.

4. if a person is born blind, and never see's color, can they really be racist.? how would they know if they were talking to a person of a different color if they had never seen their own color.

5. I thought of the american negro college fund for some reason. since we really dont use the word negro refering to black people anymore, shouldnt the fund now be called the american african american college fund. cus a mind is a terrible thing to waist.

6. worried about my fish some more. do you know they only remember 3 seconds. as far as they know, they were all born and raised in my wine barrell fountain.

7. if a person is born in africa, but moves to the us and becomes a citizen, but is white, can the still call themselves an african american? {I know they can, but i thought about the reactions it would cause}

These things occupied my brain for a bunch of time last night. In between trying to remember the words to songs I was singing to myself, i kept changing songs cus I couldnt remember all the words. this is how i entertian my brain while im at work. what do you do to entertain your brain. thats all I have for now. have a great week. I will keep you updated on my fish. I know this is keeping you all on the edge's of your seats. lol. now dont forget to bombard Amber with happy birthday wishes.

I have pets now

John wont let me have a pet. I wanted one of those cute little useless pocket dogs, but he said no, its like having another kid. What are you gonna do if we want to leave for the weekend. He said the same thing about a bird, and even an aquarium. And also he doesnt want to invest a bunch of money into a pet that might just die on us. so yesterday we were sitting in the back yard and I was thinking I could put goldfish in the fountain. They dont cost a whole lot, so if they do happen to pass away, it wouldnt break my heart too much.

So this morning I headed off to petsmart to look for a few fish. On the way there, i rememberd walmart had fish, and they were probably cheaper. So I turned left instead of right and went to walmart. There was a couple other things I wanted to look for anyway. I picked up the foot cream I wanted, looked at photo transfer paper, decided no, not this time and then headed to the pet department.

there was two sets of fish tanks, a cold water one and a warm water one. Goldfish are coldwater btw. There were ugly sucker fish in every tank, hanging on to the sides of the tanks, keeping them clean. I was gonna get one of those, but decided against it. i would never be able to see them in the dark oak barrels. They would keep the algie down, but no. not this time.

I decided to get ten tiney little feeder fish for ten cents each and three coy looking fish that were about three or four inches long. I also bought a fake hiding place for them to swim around in. oh, and food. I got them home, showed john and headed out to the back yard. I dumped the ten tiney fish in teh middle barrell and the three larger ones in the bottom barrell. I dont know why I seperated them, but I did. its kinda hard to see the fish with the fountain going, but knowing they are there makes me happy.

I am curious to see how long the little guys will survive. I am hoping they will live for a while. it would be fun to see how big they will get. I know they will get as big as the tank they live in will allow. I didnt get a whole lot cus I wanted to see if they would live first. If they live for a while, I will get some more and add to the barrells. it should be fun. if that is the only pet I can have, i will be happy with that.

Ok, so its sunday. the wind has finally stopped for now. its supposed to be about 95 today with a small breeze. we can live with that. There is such strange weather going on right now everywhere. some placces are having unusually hot weather, some are flooding, and some are dodging tornados. I wish it would jut settle down. I should be happy, it could be in the 100's.

well, thats it for today. remember, tomorrow is Ambers big birthday. send her a happy birthday wish.

 

lazy saturday

it is windy outside today. About a month or so ago, we were having really bad winds. i was afraid something was gonna get blown away, like my roof or the new fence we put in a few years ago. But it didnt. everything stayed in place. even the wind. since that windstorm, we have had wind ever since. every freaking day. we had one week of really unseasonably hot weather, over 100 a few days, but other than that it has been windy. if the wind would stop, I would put on shorts and start on that tan i need to aquire before heading off to "vegas baby!" That is how it should be said. lol

So, because it is so windy, we are in the house. John just made reservations for our hotel in tulsa. He found a room with a jacuzzi and a king size bed. I love the jacuzzi part. We also made reservations for the first night of his driving there. it will take 3 days to drive, but he really hates to fly, so that is why he is driving. I am surprised i got him to go to "vegas baby!" with me. he will be gripping those arm rests the whole way. so i tried to look up stuff to do in tulsa. there is a bunch of museums there and more churches than one family could attend in a year. Oral Roberts college is there, but we drove by that one time. no real biggie. its a college with huge praying hands in front of it. other than that, I dont know what we will do. Alex will be working and going to school with very little time off. He is looking for  a new job and I think he found one selling cars. Not my idea of great, but he will be working.

Oh, and guess what happened. Alex got his bank emptied by someone. he found out after he got his internet back after last weeks storms there. so he called the bank and filed a police report. the next day the bank had put his money back since he didnt make the purchases. I also told him to file a fraud report with equifax, which he did. they send it on to the other two. that whole thing sucks.

Ok, thats it for today I guess. nothing is really going on. we are being lazy and lovin it. I still have to make a macaroni salad for dinner and maybe some brownies. that sounds good. we can have brownies and  a glass of port after dinner. sounds good to me. See ya all later.

stoppin in

i thought i had better stop in and see what what was going on. Im not doing a whole lot really, just working, sleeping, eating, and repeating. Only one more month till i get to go on vacation. we are going to tulsa. I am flying out there, and john is driving. Its that whole fear of flying thing. I dont want to waste my vacation time driving, i have better things to do. we will be driving back though. I was thinking i wanted to rent a convertable. since i cant own one right now, i guess renting is good nuff for me. i havent had a vacation since christmas, and I am ready for some time off.

I really cant wait for september though. from what i hear carol is gonna try and make it down also. what a freaking blast this is gonna be. I thought about trying to loose some weight in this short time so i dont appear as the great white blob sitting by the side of the pool. I dont know about that one either. I could try, but if nothing happens, i dont want to beat myself up over it. lol. I was gonna leave my lappy at home for that weekend, but i better bring it so I can post pics as they happen, and the meeting video. this is gonna be fun.

ok, thats it, see ya all later

We are totally booked

we are booked to leave Modesto airport on wednesday the 10th at 12:10 and arrive in vegas at 3 something. We will be leaving vegas on saturday at 3 something and getting back here at 7 something. we are staying at the tuscany swuits hotel and casino the whole time. i convinsed John we are staying until saturday, rather than leave on friday. I sorta guilted him, so, who cares. this si my vacation this time. I always agree to what he wants to do. It my turn this time. Last time i priced tickets to vegas, they were 45 one way. hahahahahahhaahah, no more baby. talk about skyrocketing prices. i wont mention them here, but leave it to say they went up a bit. Thats ok, it will be worth every penny and i cant wait.

last night the commander from the post called and said they were going out and did we want to join them. I asked john and he said yes, we woulkd love to join them. So we met at this really country bar and the music was loud and live. there were cowboy hats, large belt buckles, and tight jeans everywhere. do you know that you can line dance to just about any song, and they all have their line dance. not for us though. we danced up in front of them, just as wild as we wanted to be. the guys stood at the bar and watched us for a while. eventually they got out and danced with us. we had a great time, but since i only slept about 4 hours yesterday, i pooped out about 1230 and had to wait for john to agree to go home. we finally left at 130. I dont know how I drove home as sleepy as i was. I think i was asleep before john made it to bed. lol

I worked on the big quilt yesterday. i am tying it and I will do a little sewing around the border. I just wantto be done with it. it is gonna be so pretty. ok, i think that is all I have. see ya all later.