Happy Blog-versary!

I realized that a year ago today, I started writing this blog. At first it was as much about my upcoming trip to Europe as anything, and has gradually expanded into somewhat of a chronicle of my life in general. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would and plan to keep it up, at least once or twice a week when I have high-speed access.

My goal this year is to double my readership - maybe 6 instead of 3 : )


Forgot to mention in my Christmas blog that the three of us (Eric, Steve, and I) went to see Avatar on Wednesday night (Christmas Eve Eve.) We had hoped to see it at the Imax in 3D but tickets were already sold out for the night. The next 3D in a regular theater was an hour away, so we bought our tickets and walked over to Panera Bread to have a quick bite to eat. Came back to the theater, put on our geeky 3D glasses and watched a really good movie. At least for Eric and I. Steve unfortunately developed some motion sickness and had to leave about a third of the way into the movie. He ended up walking over to IHOP and grabbing some coffee, and was waiting for us when we got out. I felt bad for him, hope it doesn't affect him the same way when we eventually watch it on DVD.

A nice family evening together.

Christmas wrapup 2009

Christmas has now come and gone. The best gift, of course, was my Savior. But things turned out better than I thought they might. I can reveal some of the stories behind the scenes...

Eric's gift was a treadmill. Steve got a really really good deal on one and he brought it home on a Thursday night. Eric had to work on Saturday, starting at noon and until late evening, so it was the perfect time to get it into the house. Steve backed the van around the garage and stopped at the top of the hill down to the basement slider doors. We managed (I'm sure I wasn't all that much help) to get it in the doors and hidden away. Lots of tire tracks and boot tracks in the new fallen snow. Afterwards, I was wrapping the instruction book and had just finished when Eric walks in the door! He decided to take a break between shows and come on home for a while. He looked out the back but says now that he didn't notice tire or boot tracks back there. Good thing.

Steve's big gift from me was a HDTV. Television is one of the few things that he likes to do these days, so I figured it was time to get an HDTV for him. 32" Magnavox. I bought it at Sam's Club on a Friday. The next day was our Gold Wing Christmas party, and we had some time to kill. Ended up at Sam's Club where he made the comments about wanting a BIG HDTV (more like 50" or so) and when I tried to make the point that the smaller ones (ie 32") would fit better in the room, he looked at me suspiciously and said, "You didn't buy me a TV already, did you?" In fact I had, of course, but didn't tell him that. Just said that if I had and he didn't like it he could always take it back.

Hid the TV in Scott's room under a blanket. A few days later (Dec. 23) I came home from some last minute errands to find Steve in Scott's room, working about a foot away from the covered up TV. He was (with Scott's permission) taking Scott's TV downstairs to the basement to watch while working out. He was also adjusting the DISH lines so that the signal could either be down in the basement or up in Scott's room if he was home. I figured he'd probably peeked under the blanket and discovered the TV but he says now that he didn't. Eric said he even laid tools and cables on top of it without knowing.

Bottom line he has set it up in the living room and enjoys it. He says that when (if in my book) he gets a bigger one this one can go in the other living room.

I blogged previously about having no anticipation, no surprises, for Christmas. Did end up with one. Eric bought me a lid lifter for my new dutch oven. But he also made me a dutch oven cookbook (printed 95 pages off at school where he can print for free...) AND bought me a Julie & Julia DVD and wrapped up a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that had been on the counter.

Steve gave me the aforementioned dutch oven, a preseasoned Lodge Boy Scout model 12". He also gave me a new 2-person tent. Reality says there's room for one plus gear, but I really needed something to replace the blue and purple wonder which I inherited from the boys. Can't wait to get some camping in this summer!

Scott gave me a cupholder mount for my nuvi and also AC/DC recharger for it. Cash and gift certificates from Steve's dad and from my Mom & Phil. All in all a nice Christmas. I'm thankful for family and friends.

Chocolate Cherry Mice

Steve brought home one of these adorable little mice from his Christmas party at work. I looked at it and said, "I can do that." Well, it turned out to be harder than it looked, but I made two dozen of them for the Christmas party we went to with our Gold Wing Riders group, and got many compliments for them!

And the best thing is that I don't like cherries so I won't eat them up!

Bought cherries, sliced almonds, and oreos at Meijer. Started off twisting the oreos apart. That didn't work so well. So used a knife (at Steve's suggestion) which worked much better. I might observe here that the picture (the one Steve brought home) shows a double stuff oreo and I bought regular ones. I think the double stuff will work better.

Unwrapped two dozen hershey kisses (ok, unwrapped a few more than that which quickly disappeared...) and melted a 12-oz bag of chocolate chips. Then dipped a cherry in the melted chocolate, put it on the oreo, and quickly attached the hershey kiss and the almond ears. WRONG! Discovered that trying to do it all at the same time resulted in a chocolate mess.

Dipped the rest of the cherries in chocolate, put them on a cookie sheet, and placed them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Ah, much better. Now - put a little melted chocolate on the cherry, attach the almonds and kiss, and place them on the oreos. I put them back into the freezer for a few minutes to set the new chocolate.

Then took them out of the freezer to decorate -- needed eyes and a little Christmas greenery. I had so many partial tubes of decorating frosting that I decided not to buy any. The eyes and red part of the greenery went off without a hitch. The green was a different story. Seemed a little hard in the tube and wasn't squeezing out very well. So decided that a short burst of microwaving (10 seconds) might help. 10 seconds was about 9 seconds too much, I think, as the tube was hot and the insides were liquidy.

Put it in the freezer for a few minutes to solidify. Afterwards, it was more solid but enough so that I had a lot of trouble getting it out of the tube. Steve actually went out and brought his vise grips in so that I could get enough green frosting out to finish the job.

So there you have it, the story of the chocolate cherry mice. More work than I thought, but the compliments were worth it.

No anticipation

Anticipation. There really isn't any this year. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, and that is what is most important about the day. His presence is the greatest present of all.

But the anticipation of what is under the tree just isn't there for me this year. My guys - I love all three of them - just don't go out and look for something they think I'd like. They all ask for lists. And then they go out and get what's on those lists. So I know what I'm getting from Scott, Eric, and from Steve this year. The major things anyway. And I always receive the same gift from Steve's dad, and from my Mom & Phil. I appreciate all of it, don't get me wrong. But is there anything wrong with wanting to be a little surprised at Christmas?

There is SOME anticipation out there, though. Watching everyone else when they get their gifts is becoming more fun than opening my own. Eric is getting a nice gift that he asked for but I really don't think he expected to get. We snuck it in the house when he was at work yesterday. My big gift for Steve is something that I think he wants, but now I'm not so sure because he saw some yesterday and wants bigger than what the one I got him was.

I will enjoy spending Christmas day with Eric & Steve, and with Steve's dad when we go to his house to visit. I'll miss having Scott with us, though, for the second year in a row. Can't be helped. He'd be home if he could.

I may not get to high speed so I can blog again between now and Christmas, so I hope my two and a half regular readers have a wonderful holiday!

12 days left until Christmas

Winding down, only 12 days until Christmas. The weather did improve yesterday, though Sargent Avenue is still a mess. So since I had a few errands, I expanded the "few" and went out to get some Christmas shopping finished.

First stop was a bookstore, looking for something for Eric. No luck. Then to Cost Plus World Market - had seen an Eiffel Tower ornament in their ad that I wanted. No luck there though I did find one that wasn't glass like I wanted. Also found a similar Big Ben so bought them both anyway. Also some stocking stuffers and my favorite, maple sugar candy. Yep, know I don't need it but bought one anyway. Bought a gift each here for Steve and his dad, ended up selling them to Eric to give to them.

Then to another bookstore nearby where I didn't find what I was looking for but did find a couple of books that I ended up "selling" to Eric to give to Scott.

Then made stops at a couple of sporting goods stores since we were looking for a particular pair of Nike socks that were on Scott's Christmas list. He had provided a link but the Nike store apparently doesn't ship to APO, wanted $8 to ship one pair of socks, so I told Eric I'd look locally. Well, no luck locally, and no luck with other online sources. So Scott won't be getting this particular style of running socks, sorry about that.

Stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond - no luck finding anything there though I did sit and have a nice massage in the demo chairs.

Ended up at Target next. Had to buy soup for Steve and pick up a prescription for me (my original "errands") and did some shopping there as well. Last stop ended up being the Hallmark store. I had a $5 off coupon good on anything so bought some individual Christmas cards for a lot less than usual!

So it ended up that most of my day turned out to be doing Eric's Christmas shopping! He doesn't have much of a budget this year because of school expenses, etc. and not much time either with finals starting this week. So since I found some presents that fit his budget, I was glad to help him out. He'd have picked out similar things had he had the time, I'm sure.

Da Blizzard of 2009?

Don't know what to think about this so-called Blizzard we've been having. They'd been building up the hype all week, and we were awakened at 5 a.m. on Wednesday by the weather radio informing us that a blizzard warning was beginning at 1 p.m. that afternoon. (Yep, forgot to turn it off after tornado season was done!)

Well, 1 p.m. came and went. Earlier, there had been rain, sleet, and a variety of weather, nothing bad enough to be called a blizzard. Still, roads were tricky and I didn't have to work after all. (I usually don't now on Wednesdays, but had been scheduled on because of a need.) Since Lowell schools were closed, Awana was cancelled as well.

Eric went to school and came home. He said the roads weren't great, but not too bad. It was supposed to start snowing harder and get windy but neither really happened.

So this morning - still in blizzard warning (until 4 p.m.) but Lowell schools were OPEN, as well as Greenville's. That was significant because if school was cancelled in Greenville, Cub Scout Roundtable was officially cancelled. Also, work decided to be open as well.

So I had my work cut out for me. Still had to burn CDs for Roundtable as well as some other prep. I'd pretty much convinced myself that RT would be cancelled and hadn't done the burning yet (why waste CDs if I'm not going to need them?) Also had to finish making some new bead holders since I was out of them. Got everything done and got on the road about 11 a.m. (needed to be at work at noon.)

Roads were not too bad, even the Sargent hill has been worse. Made it to work in 45 minutes, going about 30-40 all the way. Visibility was definitely reduced the more west I headed. Made it to work where I found out in a quick e-mail check that Roundtable was cancelled anyway.

And now we've decided to close work at 4 p.m. So I'll get to go home a little early, too. Seems that the Blizzard warning has been extended until tomorrow and that conditions are finally befitting the name. I'm gonna head straight home and probably not go anywhere until church on Sunday! (and if the weather isn't good, I can probably stay home from church with a safe conscience since I don't teach Sunday School this week.)

I've just about decided to start watching Channel 13's weather instead of Channel 8 since Channel 8 seems to over-dramatize the weather situation. That just gets me all anxious about getting out on the roads. Just because I know how to drive in this stuff, doesn't mean I like it!

Stay warm, stay dry, stay home!

No Snow to Snow, No!

We have had quite a nice stretch of good weather in November, even extending into early December. That all came to a screeching halt on Thursday night. Yeah, they told us it was coming, but it was still cruel.

The snow started falling while I was in my troop committee meeting on Thursday night. Still, as I left it wasn't sticking to the roads and was still pretty light. So I figured I had time to stop at Meijer. WRONG. I came out of Meijer to snow that was sticking on the ground (and roads) as well as coming down at a fast enough clip that it was what I call "Star Wars" snow, comes right at you like the stars do when the Star Wars ships are traveling through space. Still, with nice and slow I made it home ok.

Thankfully, I don't work on Fridays anymore because that little bit of lake effect snow turned into 8+ inches around home, and even more to the west of us. All of the area schools were closed (though not colleges. But Eric chose to stay home anyway as he only had one 50 minute lecture and it would have taken twice as long to get there as he needed to spend there.)

Things had cleared up enough by yesterday that I got out and did some Christmas shopping. Still, it was the first trip down the Sargent Hill this season, back to creeping down at 10 mph...

Sunny but cold today. Calling for more snow tomorrow, as well as the potential for a blizzard Wed and Thurs. Goody. (not) Just in time for Roundtable.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas is coming. 25 days away now. I brought up the Christmas decorations over the weekend since I had the time. Pulled the tree out of the box first. Three sections, pre-lighted, easy to put up. You have to fluff the branches, though. I don't always do so well with that part. But I digress. After the tree is together, add the garland. Gold colored, wind it around the tree. I always have fun remembering how Eric used to call it the "garlic." Then the angel topper. Where is it? Looked through all the boxes I'd brought up. Nope. Went back downstairs and it was in a box I hadn't brought up. Put it on the tree and put the tree skirt on as well. That was as far as I got on Saturday night.

Sunday evening, I decided to get started on the ornaments. For a few more years at least, I can still use all the beautiful antique glass ornaments handed down to us through mostly the Eidemiller part of the family, but also some Cooper, Gentner, and even Pomrenke ornaments mixed in. Add a few newer glass ornaments, and it does make for a beautiful tree once it's done. Once there are small children in the house again (ie GRANDCHILDREN) it won't be so practical.

Started at the top with the tiny ornaments. Exquisite. Then to the main first layer of the ornament box. First to unpack: our First Christmas Together ornament, from 1983. Second, Baby's First Christmas from 1985 (Scott's.) and next comes A Baby Boy's First Christmas from 1987 (Eric's.) The last two are pretty much the only non-glass ornaments, other than some vintage shiny plastic ornaments. Then the unpacking continues with many beautiful memorable ornaments. Some I remember from childhood, others more recent acquisitions. Got tired of hanging them about a third of the way through the box so quit for the night. On FB, I posted the question "How many ornaments does it take for your tree to be considered decorated?" and got lots of answers. They ranged from "one" from several guys, to "if you can see any part of the tree it's not decorated enough (from my sister.) Interesting!

This morning, I figured I'd better get the job done. It was fun - played some Christmas music on the stereo (yep, one of those antique CD's called "records") and did a pretty good job of covering the tree. Sat back and noticed a few places where I could have fluffed better. But overall pretty good. Placed the basket of children's Christmas books next to the tree, added the gingerbread boy and girl next to them, and there it was.

Next the nativity. This is the second year I've put up the Cooper family's nativity rather than the big one that my grandparents made. When we added some furniture to the living room, there just wasn't a good place for the big one any more. Hopefully that will change some day. But for now, unpacked the smaller nativity and set it up. This is a vintage set, figures made in Germany, and "goes" with the ornaments on the tree quite nicely. I set up the wise men and their entourage on top of the little fireplace instead of with the rest of the set - after all, the wise men didn't actually visit the stable, it wasn't until Jesus was about two years old that they found him in Egypt.

After the nativity comes the Santa scene. This comes mostly from Steve's Uncle Forrest, a vintage handmade fireplace with the proper accessories. Also a vintage Santa, and a couple of reindeer too. Add a small tree with miniature ornaments and presents under the tree, and we're all set. Scott has the second small tree in Germany now, I hope he puts it up in his room.

Miscellaneous decorations, mostly in the living room and dining room: the bell from my Grandparents house (pull the cord and it plays Jingle Bells); a stuffed Santa to sit atop the TV; a card holder, Santa jiggling down into the chimney toy, some gold miniature trees on the coffee table, a photo collage of the boys as babies and toddlers at Christmas, and the N-O-E-L letters.
The letters take on a life of their own, as they are often rearranged by Santa's troublemaking elves into different configurations such as L-E-O-N. Hmmm....

Ok, looks good. Now to haul the boxes back downstairs and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Now comes the shopping and baking and cards and everything else. I need to find time to slow down and remember the true meaning of the season.

One last bit about Thanksgiving...

Ok, the first bit about Thanksgiving. But in reality it was three days ago, and Christmas already seems upon us as the decorations have come up from the basement (not all up yet) and today is the first Sunday in Advent. I did NOT succumb to the Black Friday temptations.

But before we leave Thanksgiving behind, I thought I'd like to try to gather my thankful thoughts. Perhaps if I had wi-fi at home, this would have been blogged that day. Or maybe not. We'll never know.

(in no order of importance, just as they came up in my head)
-- family. A no brainer there. My DH (Steve) that he is a faithful provider to us all even when things get stressful for him. Scott that is is safely back in Germany and is doing so well in the Air Force. Eric that he has a personal relationship with the Lord and that he is settling into what he wants to do in life.
-- My personal relationship with the Lord.
-- a house to live in and food to eat.
-- a car that still runs - gets me where I need to be
-- a job that I enjoy, and children there that love me unconditionally
--a basement big enough to hold my stuff, though I know I need to pare my stuff down some...
--our needs are provided for, and even some of our wants
--my mom, not just for her love and support but also for the supreme gift of travel that she has given me and my sisters. Some of my lifelong dreams came true this year and I have her to thank for that.
--free wifi at places like the library and Burger King so I can use my netbook to access the internet.
--freedom
--good friends made through my hobbies of Scouting and geocaching.
--reasonably good health
--God's creation - the outdoors

I know there will be things I think of as soon as I'm done posting. But I need to get on home pretty soon so will end for now. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Sleeping is optional...

I have to take back the part in my last blog about my DH being too cheap to replace the dishwasher. We bought a new one last Saturday morning. I'll get to that.

Friday afternoon, after finishing up most of the house cleaning (company came yesterday) I sat down with the paper. I don't usually look at the Sears ad, but right on the front were the doorbuster specials. 7-11 a.m. Saturday only. One was a nice dishwasher for almost half price. Checked it out online and it was a good one. So left the ad on Steve's chair for him to see. Didn't hold out much hope, but you never know...

When Steve came home, he looked at the ad, we talked, and bottom line, we decided to get up early the next morning and go buy the dishwasher! We're also going to get a water softener so that the hard water doesn't wreck this one like it did the one we have now.

Ok, fast forward to bedtime. Now not only did I have the exciting prospect of a dishwasher to think about, but also my plans for the next day. I was planning to go caching for most of the day since I had to be in Muskegon for our Wood Badge dinner that night. So...three exciting things to think about. Went to bed about 11:30, Steve had gone to bed about an hour before.

Laid in bed, but just could not shut off my mind. Kept thinking about my caching plans, then the dinner, then that we were actually going to get the dishwasher (and that I had to get up at 6 a.m. to get ready to go...) I'm sure most of you have had this happen to yourself at least a time or two.

About 1 a.m. or so (I think) I got out of bed, brought my blanket and pillow to the living room, and stretched out on the couch. Brought a book and figured reading would get my mind stopped and get me to sleep. Note to self: don't choose an interesting book, choose a boring one. Mind just switched from caching-dinner-dishwasher to what's gonna happen next. After a while decided this just wasn't working.

I went out into the living room and went on the internet for a bit. Cleared out my mind from the book and I was feeling sleepy. So went back to bed to try again. After about another half hour, knew I was still awake. So went out to the kitchen. Try a warm cup of drinking chocolate, girl. I have some of my Cadbury drinking chocolate left from London - has to be stirred into warm milk. Tasted good but didn't relax me.

So next - went back to the internet to google can't sleep and you'd be surprised at what came up! Some of the suggestions I'd already tried, like counting backwards, reading, warm milk, etc. About the only one I hadn't tried was playing soothing music. I've done this before but not for a while. Where's my mp3 player? Oh yeah, out in the car. So out to the car (thankfully it was IN the garage) and got the player. Went for my warm lamb (it heats up in the microwave) to give me an extra bit of soothing and set the mp3 player to my musical massage album. I know it was about 4 a.m. at this point because I heard the chimes on the clock. I don't remember much between then and 5 a.m. when I heard the chimes again so it's possible I did snooze for a while. At that point, though, I was awake again so decided that sleep was optional and picked up my book. Finished it about 6 a.m. so went back to the bedroom and we got ready to go to Sears.

We went into town, thought I might doze in the car but no. Ordered the dishwasher (none there ready to take home even though we were there at 7:10 a.m.) Steve will pick it up on Wednesday night. Went back home and I tried to take a nap. No. So decided I was just going to have to get through the day and did just that. Diet Cherry Coke was my friend. Left about 11 a.m, did get some caching in and went to a great Wood Badge dinner. The drive home was not fun but the fog kept me awake and alert since I had to concentrate more on my driving than usual. Good thing under the circumstances. Had no trouble falling asleep Saturday night!

How about an "I've been married a long time" shower?

Our church has a nice tradition of honoring brides by giving them a bridal shower. This is even if the bride doesn't belong to our church but is marrying someone who does belong to our church. I don't often go to the showers since many of them fall on nights that I have meetings, etc., but there was one today that was noon on a Saturday, and I didn't have anything else going on so I could go.

The groom is in the Navy, and will be returning home in December just long enough for the wedding (private small ceremony) and then the couple will return to his base in Virginia. There will be a small reception that night but this was probably the bigger celebration.

Wow. So many nice gifts, they will start out housekeeping very well. Dishes, appliances, gadgets, linens...the list goes on.

Some of us at our table were talking...when do we get to register again for new stuff? What many of us have is still from our own weddings and is frankly getting worn out. We realize it isn't gonna probably happen but wouldn't it be nice?

We'll just have to take things into our own hands, I guess. I received a gift card for Christmas last year from my mom and used it to buy new kitchen gadgets such as a whisk, a ladle, and other stuff to replace what had frankly been pretty worn out.

About the only thing I really need to replace now is my dishwasher...think they make a gift card or registry for that? Oh yeah, if I do get a new dishwasher (not likely, my DH is too cheap...) I'll need some new glasses and a few other things to replace the things that the hard water has pretty much trashed. We're talking more than water spots here.

Indian Summer at last?

These past two days have been as close to Indian Summer as I think we'll get here in Michigan this year. So how did I choose to spend (at least part of) them? Geocaching of course.

Friday morning was chilly. Downright cold at first. So I decided to go out but dressed in layers. Long sleeve shirt, AF Mom sweatshirt over that, and my fleece jacket over that. Worked well. Went up to the Cannon Township Trail and found five caches along the trail. My only problem there was needing a bathroom. Enough that I actually considered going "outdoors." But...the trail had houses near enough that I didn't think THAT would be a good idea. So waited until I got back to the cachemobile and went down the street to the nearest gas station. After that I went to one cache in another park, then on to Pickerel Lake to try some caches there.

I was a bit wary of the caches there as the cacher who placed them is known for difficult hides. And, sure enough, I didn't find the first one I looked for. Given the time of day, the fact that daylight savings time ended last week so daylight would be gone earlier, and the perceived difficulty of the other caches, I decided to come back another day. So back to another park.

The cache at this park was placed in May and has had very few finds. A three stage multi, and the final had been reported as wrecked months ago. The few finds since then have confirmed that. Unfortunately, none of those finders had brought materials to fix the final. I did.

The first stage was not too far from the parking lot. Took me about a half hour of searching, and reading the recent logs (I love having those on my nuvi now!) and finally I figured out where the first stage was. Micros in the woods, grrr.... So went on to stage 2. Lost the trail so bushwhacked most of the way. Only clue for the stage was "shake." Ended up in an area of woody vines so did a lot of shaking. Nothing. I was there for close to an hour and no luck. Even phoned my geo-friend Golfdiva, who logged the last find. She wasn't answering her cell.

And I ask you, why can I get a cell phone signal in the middle of the woods but not at home? Life is just not fair sometimes.

So back to the cachemobile I went, and headed on home. Logged my caches and spent the evening working on my VHS to DVD project. All I have left now are a few travel tapes and the class reunions. Getting there, Mom!

I wouldn't normally go out caching on Saturday with Steve home, but Steve had to work. So since I had an errand to run in Lowell, went on to do some caching. Started with one of Golfdiva's caches that I'd been putting off as the parking was a little dicey. Did ok with that since the leaves are now gone. Anyway, it was a .15 hike (supposedly) and you were to follow the trail, marked in blue. I lost that trail pretty early on and ended up bushwhacking over one hill and up the next. And these were big hills. Finally found the cache, then saw a blue trail marker. Went to it and immediately lost the trail again. Never did see another marker until I was close to the car again. Good thing I'd marked that location!

Then on to Saranac and five caches there. The last one was in the owners side yard, and one of the kids came out to watch me look. Thankfully it was an easy find. Then I went north of Saranac and picked up a few out in the country. The last one was a tree alongside the road, for whatever reason there were several dozen pairs of shoes tied to the branches. The cache was in the toe of one of the shoes. That was an interesting find! (Will post a pix once I get them uploaded.) Ended the day with a find in Fallasburg Park, close to Lowell. Then on to home where I did the wash and worked on the DVDs again until Steve came home about 6:45.

We went to Steak and Shake where we were waited on by Natalie, our old favorite waitress from when we went there quite a bit with the boys and Steve's dad. She remembered not only us, but what we usually ordered! Now that's good service. She asked about the boys and Steve's dad. We used to tease Eric that the waitress had a crush on him, I think that's one reason why Eric didn't like going there so much. Just for the record, she was just very nice. Probably not interested in Eric other than as a customer.

These have been two nice Indian summer in Michigan days. Today is just as nice but where am I? In Burger King using the internet. And it's 70 degrees outside. Time to go, I think. Enjoy it while I still can. Steve is out on a motorcycle ride but they left before church would have been out so I didn't go.

VHS to DVD: Memory Lane

My latest project has been a Christmas-related one. I had recently transferred our old videos of the kids and others, from VHS or 8mm to DVD. Talking about this with my mom, she mentioned how many old tapes she had. I offered to transfer them for her if she'd send them to me. Let's call it your Christmas present, I said, since they are VERY hard to buy for.

That was a great idea to her so a few weeks ago a package arrived with lots of tapes. Since then, I've taken some evenings and a few days off to start the process. It's been interesting! The first tape that I transferred ended up being from my baby shower, almost 25 years ago. I had a copy of that on Beta (that's an older format than VHS for anyone who might not know) so couldn't transfer it. Got to see myself VERY pregnant, that sure brought back memories!

Some of the other tapes haven't really involved me so it's easier to get it going and start doing other things. Some have been interesting to watch, though, as they were of my own kids as small fry, or my sister's kids, or other people I knew. I found, though, that a 2 hour video tape isn't necessarily 2 hours. If the entire tape was used, it ends up being more like 2 hrs, 15 minutes or even more. I don't think they were precise in measuring the amount of tape they put on a cassette! Or sometimes, you would think the entire tape was used and all of a sudden it was done. Or throw in 6 hours on one tape (extended format taping) and 3 DVDs are needed. (Each DVD does hold exactly 2 hours of tape.)

I still have about half of the tapes to finish, then will send them back to my mom. Much of what is left is from my stepfather's family and from their class reunions so it won't be as fun to watch.

Glad to give my mom & stepfather something useful for Christmas!

COAST

Michigan fall weather. Ya gotta love it. This past weekend was another round of COAST (formerly known as Outdoor Leader Training) training for scout leaders, at Camp Gerber. Friday was wet and cold. Jacket and poncho provided protection. I cached a little, even in the rain, on the way up, and found my last cache for the lower peninsula county challenge (see previous post.) Then arrived at camp, set up, and greeted participants as they arrived.

We had flags, then first aid instruction, then a cracker barrel. Saturday morning found the weather to be the same, if not a bit colder. We joined the patrols for breakfast (pancakes) then started right into our day.

Flags, site selection, then round-robin training in knots, stoves, map & compass, plant and animal ID, Leave No Trace, and woods tools. Stopped for a lunch break then right back into things. Finished at 5 p.m., by this time the rain had stopped though it was still damp and chilly.

Dinner was an instructional session in cooking, mostly dutch oven style. Good food was prepared and enjoyed by all. We had closing flags then a campfire (inside style due to weather.)

We had lots of fun at the campfire - each patrol had a couple of performances, as well as the staff. We put on a session of "If I weren't a Boy Scout" that had everyone rolling on the floor laughing! Another cracker barrel closed the day.

Sunday - cool but no rain! Breakfast again, was supposed to be eggs but the patrol I ate with had switched the menus and had pancakes today. I was looking forward to those eggs, but it was not to be. Morning flags, then Scouts Own, then packing/hiking and the usual inspirational talk from Mike, our council exec. He was surprised by DA BEARS (yep, my bears) with his very own bear which was actually an owl (his wood badge critter) dressed in full scout uniform in miniature. He was as close to speechless as I've ever seen him.

Closing flags ended the weekend, other than checking out and staff meeting. We were able to leave at about 2 p.m. Of course, I did some caching on the way home. Finally got to PJ Hoffmaster State Park to do the Entmoot virtual. That was a bit over a mile hike each way, up some big hills and sandy paths. Definitely got a workout! I now have Michigan's oldest virtual on my find list.

Next session of COAST: April 16-18, 2010. Looking forward to it!

The lower peninsula is done...

(would have been written on Friday, October 23)

I'm headed for COAST (the new name for our outdoor leader training course) today. In geocaching, I'm heading both toward my #2200 milestone and the completion of my lower peninsula county challenge. Only Oceana County to go. Both will happen this weekend, it's just a matter of deciding which when.

Earlier in the week, I realized that I would be near to Entmoot, the oldest virtual cache in Michigan. So I decided that I would make that my #2200, and pick up Oceana County on Sunday after leaving Camp Gerber.

This morning, the weather was wet and cold. Not really good to plan a two mile hike, so scratch the plans for Entmoot. Back to plan A, picking up Oceana County. So after taking my time packing up last minute stuff, got on the road about noon.

Finally got to the rest area cache right inside Oceana County and parked. Very light rain - so didn't feel I needed rain gear. You guessed it, heavier rain almost right away. That hindered my GPSr reception as well as my searching skills. I finally found the cache and with that completed the lower pensinsula county challenge. That means that I have found at least one geocache in every lower peninsula county in Michigan. There is also an upper peninsula challenge as well as an all of Michigan challenge. I still have seven UP counties left and don't expect to get them this year.

It's been quite the journey. Started caching almost 4 1/2 years ago with a cache find in Ludington State Park. Steve was along for the start, though he soon declared his dislike for geocaching. Oh well, his loss. The next day brought my first Kent County find, just a few miles from home. The surrounding counties were picked up over the course of the next few years, and most of the rest of the counties were found while on trips for other reasons. Four trips to Mackinac Island (three with scouts.) A day long trip around the thumb, on the bike with Steve. Three trips to Midwest Geobash. A circle tour of Lake Michigan, and another of Lake Huron, both on the bike with Steve. The last trip (the thumb-day tour) just a week ago was about the only trip that I made purely for picking up counties. The others were well-planned routes while on other journeys. Sometimes I would travel through a county. Other times I traveled just inside a county, long enough to find a cache then turn around and head back the other way. I've seen so many wonderful places that it would take too long to list them.

I can't think of a more satisfying way to spend time outside with nature. I only wish my family shared that feeling.

Happy Birthday, David

Yesterday (October 18) was my brother's 42nd birthday. He passed away when he was 36, but his birthday brought back memories of the time spent with him over the years.

I was not apparently too happy when he was born, because there are pictures of us three girls taking turns holding him. The picture of me holding him shows me with a scowl on my face. It might have been because of my hand-me-down boys pajamas, I don't know.

But I must have soon changed my mind (and hopefully the pajamas) because my memories of growing up with David are all good ones. He was the youngest, and spoiled of course, but had a charming smile and could get away with it. We used to dress him up in dresses and wigs and put him through all kinds of (to us) fun.

His seventh year brought new challenges: a malignant brain tumor. I was in high school by then, and it was a stressful time for us all, but especially for David and for our mom & dad. Through God's grace, though, the treatment was successful and David grew to adulthood. He had some struggles along the way but met each and every one of them. He had to have growth hormone shots for years because the radiation for the tumor had damaged that area of the brain.

As an adult, Dave had his share of difficulties as any young man does. (I'm seeing some of that now in my sons.) Getting finances in order, living independently, getting a job, and meeting that special someone. Dave met who he thought was that special someone and they were briefly married. Unfortunately, the girl didn't turn out to be what she seemed and they soon parted. Probably for the better. But what do they say, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

Dave had worked for Sam's Club for many years but then chose to move closer to my mom in southern Indiana. He was working for WalMart in Columbus and was at work when he died of a sudden heart attack.

We all miss him very much. Anytime I see a hot wheels car, or any depiction of an Eagle, sweet memories of my baby brother come to mind. Happy Birthday, David...

6 new counties, 24 caches, 12 hours of driving...

Friday was my reward day for staying away from sweets and snacks all week. My plans were to get the six counties that I needed on the east side of the state. I figured we weren't gonna get there by bike any more this year and I wanted to finish up this four year quest to get a cache in all of the LP counties.

So off I went - left home just after 7:30 a.m. I figured it would take at least two hours of driving to get to the first place I planned to go. Decided to take M-21 over instead of I-69 through Lansing. Figured I'd miss the rush hour traffic to Lansing that way. But it did turn out to be slower - it was close to three hours before I hit my first cache on the list (though I did stop for one on M-21 that was a new travel bug hotel on the way.)

First county: Macomb. Northeast of Detroit. Got off I-69 (I had met up with it in Flint) and took M-53 south, just over the county line from Lapeer Co. My destination was a cemetery cache. I was glad to find it, as I would have had to go about 5 miles farther south to pick up my backup cache. Then headed north again on the same road, passing through Lapeer County to Sanilac County.

Sanilac County's cache was also on 53, on the far western side of the county. It, too, was a cemetery cache, one that had just been out for a week. Surprisingly, I was only the second to find it. Wasn't a hard find, either. Again, glad it was there as I would have had to go about 10 miles east for the next closest one.

Then back down to M-46 and west into Tuscola County. I had several possibilities here as I passed through most of the county on my route. Ended up with three or four finds and one DNF. Cut across the corner of Saginaw County on M-15 heading northwest but no caches along that route. Got into Bay County and found several caches in Bay City, one was in a cemetery and one was an ALWAYS cache (WalMart parking lot.) Lots of construction in Bay City on the roads so didn't spend as much time as I might have otherwise. Got over to I-75 and headed north, stopped at a rest area cache and then got off at Pinconning Road and headed east to M-13.

Stopped in Pinconning for a quick late lunch at Subway (it was about 3 p.m. by now) and headed north into Arenac County. Just over the county line, stopped at a rest area and found the cache there. I was lucky that all three of the counties where I wanted to find the cache and then backtrack had me with quick finds each time!

South again on I-75 and got off in Saginaw (Saginaw County, of course.) Found several caches along the way so I was able to finish the six county quest. Now it's time to head for home. Wanted to get home before dark and (hopefully) Steve as he knew I was going caching but not necessarily that I was going this far. I did stop for some caches along M-57 on the way to Greenville, then headed home from there and got home about 7:30 p.m. Steve had beat me home but not by much. He didn't ask me any questions about my day, since he's not all that interested in caching.

12 hours of driving with 24 cache finds, lunch, and a gas stop to break up the ride. That made for a long day! But now I only have one county left, Oceana County, and that is close by Camp Gerber which I'll be visiting this weekend so it shouldn't be a problem!

New geocaches and a new outlook on taking care of myself

I'm sitting in the Lowell Library on high speed. Just came from church where I was working with my three cache series placed in the wooded/grassy area behind the church. Finally got permission for the placement yesterday after a month of waiting for the deacon's approval.

My first order of business was to move the third cache. Mainly because it was too close to the second one. Geocaches have to be at least a tenth of a mile apart, and these two were about 400 feet apart. It was fine for the kids when we did the geocaching activity this summer, but not for an official geocache. So I did some hiking around and finally found another good area. I put some new swag, a travel bug, one of my new pathtags, and a new log book into the cache, and moved on to the second cache.

Oops, it's still a little bit too close to the third. So I tweaked ITS location, found a similar place to hide it which worked well. Put in some new swag, a travel bug, and a new log book. Moving on.

On to the first cache. This one was hidden in a pile of rocks. On the way, had to go through some standing water on the trail, worst it's been on the three or four trips I'd made out to this cache over the last six weeks or so. Got to GZ only to find the cache gone. Not sure why muggles would be out this way but apparently they were. Since the water's probably going to continue to be an issue, I found a new location for this one as well. Only trouble was I didn't bring a new container with me. Thought about it, "just in case," but didn't do it. So will have to fix up a new container and bring it back with me to Awana tonight and place it. Thankfully it's pretty close to the parking lot so I won't have to walk far.

I set up the third cache as a puzzle cache. Left half of the coords each in the other two caches. Cachers will have to find 1 & 2 in order to get the coords for 3. Makes it a bit more of a challenge.

Have fun!


I'm being moderately successful in staying away from snacks and sweets this week. No, haven't had ANY. Make that very successful. The carrot I'm holding out in front of me is going out caching on Friday if I continue to be successful. I need to take a trip over to the east side of the state to pick up six counties. That will make one to go, Oceana, which I'm planning to get when I go to Gerber for outdoor leader training next weekend. Then I will have all of the lower peninsula counties after four years of caching. UP will have to wait until next year at least, I still have 7 counties to go there.

I know I have to get better at taking care of myself and drop some of this extra weight I'm hauling around. I may not have anybody else interested in how my body looks but I need to take care of myself for my own sake. Hope I'm not jinxing it by posting this...

ArtPrize - Grand Rapids 2009

On Wednesday, the weather had improved and I was finally able to make it downtown to see some of the ArtPrize exhibition. The organizers invited artists from all over the world to enter, and there was a $250,000 grand prize. That brought over a thousand pieces of art, both large and small, to Grand Rapids. In about three hours, I was only able to see about a tenth of them, but still had quite a nice walk around town. It kind of reminded me of spending time in Europe this spring, walking around and experiencing artwork.

I was able to post some of them here: at the top, the left picture shows a mosaic that was installed on the wall of the Grand Rapids Childrens Museum. It will be a permanent addition as the artists donated it to them. Next are two of the three pushpin portraits. Made entirely of pushpins. Pretty Cool. I almost voted for this one but ended up voting for the Children's Museum mosaic. Then next to that is a large piece of balloon art - I think it was supposed to be a jellyfish? Below the pushpin portraits and the balloon art is the painting that won the top prize. I'm glad I saw it when I did - I walked right into the building where it was being exhibited on Wednesday, but there was an hour wait yesterday (Saturday) just to get into the building, let alone to see the painting.

Back to the left side, showing a picture of the table and chairs set atop the Blue Bridge over the Grand River. Next to that, just to the south of the bridge, is "Nessie," our very own Loch Ness Monster, in the Grand River.

The picture below this entry is of the moose, made entirely of nails welded together. The other three top ten entries were a sculpture, another sculpture that was in the Grand River, and a "field of wheat" for which a still picture does not do it justice.

There was a wide variety of sculpture, painting, and other types of art, placed all over the downtown Grand Rapids area.

For $5 (price to park in the ramp) I spent a nice few hours!

Today's weather started out to be dreary. I had hoped for a nice morning so I could finally go to downtown Grand Rapids and check out some of the ArtPrize entries before the contest ends. Dreary and drizzly so went to the library instead to use high speed.

As I was leaving, the garbage was just being picked up in front of our driveway. Can't think of the last time I had the opportunity, so I yelled out the window, "Thanks" to the garbage worker. It's a thankless job for the most part I would think. So decided to take that moment. Why not?

Next stop was the post office. I finally had a package together for Scott. Didn't have any flat rate boxes left at home so just used a regular priority box. When I got to the post office, the clerk asked if I thought I could get the contents into a flat rate box as it would be a few dollars cheaper to send. I could and did. That was nice of the clerk; she didn't have to do that. Had to buy stamps, too - we'd finally used up all the ones we'd bought before the rates went up.

Then to the library - nice to go into a study room so I could listen to things as well. Uploaded Scott's facebook pictures from Qatar, and watched a video he'd posted. Wish I knew how to save videos from FB! Judy started IMing me from facebook, it was nice to have a chat with her. All of a sudden though I realized (thanks to Judy's question) that it was time to get to work! Went outside to a beautiful blue sky - where was that two hours ago?

Headed to work, but was almost late because of an accident that really slowed traffic. I'd allowed plenty of time to get to work, though, thankfully!

I'm hoping that the weather holds and it is still nice enough tomorrow to go downtown and check out the ArtPrize exhibits. Probably about my last chance.

Oh, and weather? The long-range forecasts actually have the "s" word in them. That's snow, not that other s word. Probably not enough to stick, but still.... that's Michigan for you.

A soggy Geocaching 101

Shoreline District of Tall Pines Council and Five Rivers District of Gerald R. Ford Council (Boy Scouts) put together a Geocaching camporee which was held Friday through Sunday at Camp Tapico near Kalkaska. Since the two organizers are good scouting friends who both geocache and know of my passion for geocaching, they asked me to present a geocaching 101 class on Saturday morning.

Drove to camp on Friday, through (mostly) drizzle, sometimes a bit harder rain. It's about a 3 hour trip, but found 8 caches along the way, all were easy almost drive ups considering the weather. Got to the camp turn off and discovered that the roads, which were trying at best last time we were there, are not only trying but muddy. The van is pretty dirty right now!

Set up in a light rain after finding Ted and Dave. They drove us back to the campsite, about a 3/4 mile walk so appreciated not having to haul my gear back that far. Then got things ready. My job was to sit in the OA lodge, with a nice fire in the hearth, and check the scouts in. Turned out that all of the participants came from Tall Pines; I wasn't surprised as our council had just been to Mackinac the weekend before. That was ok though.

Leaders/SPL meeting at 9 p.m., then we went down to camp. Not much else to do but turn in so I was in bed just before 11. A damp and chilly night but my sleeping bag kept me warm and my tent kept me dry. Did wake up in the middle of the night and had a debate with my body over the necessity of getting up and heading for the latrine. My body won. After I was able to get back to sleep, 6:30 came pretty early though. The guys cooked egg casserole for breakfast, then we met the Seabees from Camp Grayling for flags at 8 a.m. The seabees were in camp to do service projects all weekend.

My geocaching 101 followed that. I have a power point presentation now which helps get the points across much more easily. I had an attentive audience and that helps too. After my presentation, the scouts were let loose to tackle a 37-cache course set up in camp -- Cache to Eagle. There were "parts" of Eagle Scout requirements hidden in each cache and the goal was to collect everything you need to earn your Eagle rank. Not sure anyone finished as I left shortly after lunch.

We fixed our lunch at the OA lodge, veggie soup and grilled cheese. Felt good to get warm food in us as it was still cool and damp, though no rain. No duties in the afternoon so I left for home as I didn't want to miss church two weeks in a row.

My first stop was Geocache 612, a few miles away. More muddy dirt roads, but not as bad as those leading to camp. This cache is the second oldest active cache in Michigan so once I realized it was so close it was my plan to get this one if nothing else. Mission accomplished! Then I decided to tackle one more "dirt road" cache. Got stopped on the way by a large temporary body of water across the entire road. Had nightmares of what would happen if I got stuck or shorted out the engine so decided to turn around and get on home.

I did find four more caches on the way and made it home about 8:30 p.m. The fall colors were about at 40 percent or so of peak - getting nice. We're a few weeks away from peak around home though.

Once a month cooking?

I found an interesting book at the library the other day: Once A Month Cooking. The premise is that you shop for all the food you need for two weeks or a month, then spend part of a day cooking and freezing so all you have to do is heat up the prepared meal each night. Thought it was worth a try!

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping. Spent more than I usually do but this is for two weeks, right? Got it home but then had to go to Awana so couldn't do any prep last night. Though I did clean out my freezer and spice cabinet to make room (and they needed it anyway.)

This morning I started. First lots of cutting. Carrots, onions, green onions, celery, green pepper, red pepper, kielbasa, chicken, flank steak. Then the prep. First was a baked jambalaya. Combined ingredients and put them into a freezer bag. One down. Next was supposed to be stuffed pork chops. Oops, forgot the mozzarella cheese. Skip that recipe for now.

Then a curry. Had to cook the chicken and add other ingredients. Then into the freezer bag and the freezer. Then three different chicken recipes - one with a soy sauce marinade, one with a barbeque marinade, and one with a cranberry sauce and onion soup marinade. All done. Then Chili Burgers. Mix, form, freeze. By now the kitchen is full of dishes and I am almost out of time before I need to leave for work. So one more...a roast in the crock pot. It is supposed to be mixed with the sauce, then frozen. Thaw out when you need it. I skipped the freeze/thaw step and just made it now for tonight's dinner. And yes, I remembered to make sure the crock pot was turned on. Last week I put chicken in it, and forgot to make sure it was turned on before I left for the day. No dinner when I got home, just a mess of thawed out chicken.

I still have a few more dishes to make: goulash, a shrimp dish, and another dish or two whose names escape me at the moment.

My hope is that this "plan" will at least remove some of the work in cooking, definitely remove the "what should I make for dinner tonight" anguish, and feed my family a bit better. Too much reliance on convenience foods lately.

I'll let you know what happens.

My baby is back where he belongs (for now)

Now that I'm finally caught up on my Mackinac blogs, I can share the good news that Scott is finally back in Germany at his home base. He called us last night from Spangdahlem. Didn't get to talk as long as I'd have liked (and Steve missed his call altogether) but it was great to hear from him. He ended up staying in Qatar for six days while waiting for the flight back to Germany. He got to go on an off base tour while there and saw the Arabian Sea. His swim in the Arabian Sea was cut short, though, by some nasty jellyfish.

While in Iraq, there were mortar attacks (not allowed to talk about them while there) and some came very close. He was in his shop, though, which is a fortified concrete bunker. Still chills me to think of it though.

I am very thankful that he is out of the war zone. Hope he doesn't have to go back.

Meandering to Mackinac, now going home (day 5)

Sunday, September 27
Woke up, went to breakfast, then had to go to our color group to make sure they got to chapel on time. After chapel there was a group picture (not an easy task when you're talking about 1500 people; the photographer was in a cherry picker truck.) Then the fun began. We had to inspect each campsite after the unit told us they were ready to go. After they passed our inspection, we issued parking passes that would allow the unit to go get their vehicles and load them up. Most units were great at making sure their area was policed and everything was taken care of.

My last unit, however, was really slow. I finally went over to their site to find out what was going on. About 2/3 of the scouts were just sitting around. Worse yet, all of the leaders were also sitting around, under the dining fly which hadn't yet been taken down. There were about six or so tents still up, too. Turns out they were the leaders tents and the leaders were expecting the scouts to take them down for them! I got them going and they finally did get everything done.

Then we were free to leave. I left just before noon from the campgrounds. Went to I-75 southbound to the first rest area, where there were three caches. At the third one, I met up with a troop from the Rendezvous that was having their lunch break. I ended up showing them a bit about caching.

Then on to other caches in other counties. My route took me east of I-75 then south, then west back over to US 127 in Clare. My last cache was in the Clare rest area just before 7 p.m., then I drove home from there without anything more than one bathroom break. Got home just after nine.

A great five day trip combining two of my favorite activities, geocaching and scouting!

P.S. I posted the group picture: Look for me in the second row, far left side behind the two people in red. Yellow Hat.

Meandering to Mackinac, day 4 - On the Island

Saturday, September 26

Today was the day for the trip to Mackinac Island! We loaded buses by color group to take us to the boat docks for the Star Line in Mackinaw City. Since we were staff with white "glow in the dark" wristbands, we could jump the line once we made sure our color group was where it was supposed to be.

Carolyn, Terry, and I ended up on the same boat with Fitz and Jessica Fitzgerald and we all decided to go to the nearest cache once we were on the island. Nobody had cache info on it, of course. I didn't because it was a multi-stage earthcache that I'd decided not to do. Fitz ended up calling his brother in Seattle to have him read the info, then they decided not to do it either. So we did two of the Road Apple Tour caches. Carolyn actually found the first one, and she's still a new cacher. Great work! After the second cache, I needed to meet some scouts at noon so needed to get there. The scouts (all from our Lowell troop and crew) were all eating lunch when I arrived, so got out my lunch and ate it too. Then the scouts decided that there were other things they'd prefer to do so I was on my own. Did four caches along a bike trail on top of the island. Sitting on a log at the first find, looking at the ammo box contents. Several young scouts were walking along the trail, and one called out, "Don't look left, there's a guy taking a dump over there." Definitely not the case on so many levels. Oh well. Also did a few other ones near Arch Rock, then saw Arch Rock again. Had one more to do on a more rugged trail near Arch Rock, called Mackinac Manitou. It ended up being tucked into the hollow of a tree about 6/7 feet off the ground. Had to use my hiking stick and another nearby stick to maneuver it out of the tree by the handle. That was tough! Then went down to the island road and found three more caches before heading back to town.

Once I got back to town, bought the requisite fudge (Steve and Eric had requested peanut butter and mint chocolate) and headed toward the boat dock. Was pulled out by security to go to the Fort and help with dinner set up. (Since I had a yellow hat I think they thought I was security, too. Same color hat.) I was done so didn't mind. So got to skip the line and go to Fort Michilimackinac where we were served dinner. My job was to stand at the front of the line and mark people's hands as they moved through the line. So I was one of the last to eat but that was ok. Then into the fort itself for an evening program, then back to the buses to return to the campground. Finally got to bed around midnight.

Meandering to Mackinac, Day 3

Friday, September 25

Woke up in the cabin after a restless night. Hard to get to sleep next to someone besides Steve, I guess. Had breakfast prepared for us, then helped to do some last minute set up in preparation for the scouts arrival. After everything was done, I had some free time so did some caches in Mackinaw City and towards Cheboygan. 11 caches in all (oh, and 21 yesterday. Forgot to mention that.) Among them was my #2100 milestone, just 3 1/2 weeks after my #2000.

Then back to the campground, where we changed into our scout uniforms and the scouts started arriving at 3 p.m. We had charge of the "yellow" color group, which meant showing them where they were to camp in the yellow area, making sure they unloaded and then took their vehicles to the parking area, and knew the schedule for the weekend. Our last group made it in about 11 p.m. Then I went to talk to the Venturing group about geocaching on the island - I'd made two routes for them to follow while on the island. Then off to the cabin for a better night's sleep.

Meandering to Mackinac, Day 2

Thursday, September 24

Woke up at the motel, got ready to go and had the motel breakfast. Then outta there. Realized that I could still do the Geography puzzle cache I'd solved before I left home as I did have the printout after all. So did two other Traverse City caches on the way to the Geography cache. Then was on my way out of town.

I was following the Lake Michigan shoreline (roughly anyway) today - did several caches right on the beach or shoreline. The weather was much better than yesterday, a great day to be out there caching. Around about Charlevoix, I looked at the time, looked at how many possible caches I had on my list, and thought about whether or not I wanted to cache in St. Ignace. I decided that I wanted to cache in St. Ignace more than in Emmet County (which I already had cache finds in anyway) so skipped quite a few caches on the list. Did a couple of travel bug hotels and that was about it until I got to Mackinaw City. I did go into town for one cache - because I knew that it was a two stage cache with the first stage in Mackinaw City, second in St. Ignace.

Then across the Mackinac Bridge I went. I really, really, really hate driving this bridge. But I like caching more than I hate driving the bridge. So went anyway. At least it was not a windy day. Crossed the bridge and kept going, up to a cache a few miles north of St. Ignace that I've tried to find at least three times without luck. I got some clues after my last attempt and they weren't quite accurate but helped enough that I did find the cache (Roger's Park) this time around. Back to St. Ignace after that and to Straits State Park. This was where we've held previous Mackinac Rendezvous events and it was really strange to be there without a bunch of boy scouts there as well. Did several caches in the park, then went across the "street" (I-75) to Father Marquette Park and did one there as well. Then back across the bridge and to the campground.

There were seven of us staying in one of the campground's cabins. Bathroom, shower, microwave, refrigerator. Only downside was sharing a bed with the scoutmaster's wife. She is nice but I don't know her all that well. We slept sideways on the double bed which gave everything but our feet more room.

Got online from the campground ($2.50 for 2 hours but I wanted to see if Scott had updated his Facebook with news he was back in Germany) and got some of the caches from the day logged.

Meandering to Mackinac, part 1

And it truly is a meandering. I need to be in Mackinaw City Thursday night so that I can start in on my staffing duties on Friday. Our Boy Scout council hosts 1500 people for the weekend, and does this once every two years.

I left at 8:30 this morning (Wednesday.) Straight shot it's about a four hour trip. Would RedhedMary do a straight shot trip? Naaaah. Of course not. I planned out a trip that involved going through 14 Michigan counties that I had never found a cache in (as well as other counties of course.)

Tonight I am in Traverse City - if you think of Michigan as a left-hand mitten, its about where your little finger would be. I've found 29 caches today and can cross six counties off my list.

The day started out drizzly. Never did have a hard rain, but those first few caches were kinda dampish. Started off with a stop at the Denny's off Plainfield in GR, there was a new one just placed and I don't get up that way so often. So made the quick stop. Next a park and ride near Sand Lake, just off 131. A bit disconcerting there, someone had decided they needed the ammo can more than the cache did so took it. They left the swag and log in the ziplock and rehid that. But not before writing an obscene message in the log book. Too bad.

Then 131 to Reed City, then west on 10 to 37 in Baldwin. North on 37 to 115. West on 115 to Frankfort. North on 22 at Frankfort to 72. East on 72 to Traverse City. Memorable caches include one that was in a relocated outhouse in a cemetery (I could tell it had been relocated because the cache was in one of the holes and there was hard ground underneath, not what would have been there if it was once a working outhouse.) Another one, called "America's Finest" was suspended by a rope from a tree. One was hidden opposite from the largest Black Willow tree, at least in Michigan and I think in the US. There was also one near the Betsie Point Lighthouse. By this afternoon it was a lot sunnier than when I left.

I hit Traverse City with about 2 hours of daylight left, cached most of that time, then checked into the Knights Inn. A nice room but it doesn't have a table and chairs! Most do these days, I'm a bit surprised. But the price was good, it has high speed and breakfast in the morning, so we'll call it good.

Tomorrow I plan to head east to Kalkaska, then northwest to Charlevoix and then northeast to Petoskey and on to Mackinaw City. If I have time I will brave the bridge and do some caching in St. Ignace. We'll see.

Tales from the back of the bike

On Saturday, I went with Steve on a motorcycle trip (Gold Wing) with our Riders Redeemed motorcycle church group. A bunch of Baptists on motorcycles? Yep. And our Pastor Dave is among them. It's great for outreach, and what I hope will someday be a link to draw Steve back to church. In the meantime, he does love a good ride, we both do, so agrees to come with the church group from time to time.

Our destination was Clare, Michigan, home of Jay's Sporting Goods. Our four bikes left the church parking lot about 8:45 a.m., with the air temps hovering around 50 degrees. It was brisk! Four guys plus me on the back of Steve's bike. Had I known there would not be any other ladies coming this time, I might have opted out so that Steve could get to know the guys more. But there I was, so enjoy the ride!

What does one do on the back of the bike? It is somewhat passive, of course. You don't have to do anything to make the bike go except lean in the right direction from time to time. So lots of time for looking and thinking and praying.

Looking at the scenery passing by, lots of thoughts come to mind:

• That's an interesting car (bicycle, motorcycle, truck, etc.)
• Nice house! Wouldn't that look good at home?
• Wow, that house has seen better days.
• The morning light would make that a great picture. Just not while we're moving though.
• Look at those (horses, cows, etc.)
• Here we are in (insert name of small town - we were taking the back roads.) Never heard of this place before. Don't blink or you'll miss it.
• Wow, I can see my reflection in the back of Steve's helmet.
• and, of course, the proverbial "that would be a great place to hide a cache" and "wonder if there's a cache hidden there already?"

Caching is usually not an option on group rides. Steve is reluctant enough to stop occasionally when we're on the bike by ourselves. When we're with a group, the stop decision is usually not in our hands. And you never know for sure just where we're going to stop, except for the final destination. Luck would have it that there were no caches within walking distance of Jay's. So I was out of luck. I still bring the GPSr anyway. I can entertain myself by knowing how far we've gone, how close we are to our destination, how fast we're going, how long we've been going, what road we're on, and other such valuable information. I think I can also play a game or two on it, just never have, other than the great game of geocaching.

I did take some time to count just how many waypoints I have entered into the GPSr. 384 to be exact. I needed to know because I need to load waypoints for my upcoming Mackinac trip and I only have room in the GPSr for 500. What's in there now are mostly local caches. By local I mean about 30 miles out in every direction.

Yesterday, I was able to load in the caches for the first day of my trip. Home to Traverse City. I have a room reserved for Wednesday night at the Knights Inn there, and will go the rest of the way to Mackinaw City on Thursday. Friday is check in for the scouts, that's those of us on physical arrangements staff are working. Saturday we don't have much to do so are free to roam the island at our leisure. Read geocaching into this. Sunday we work again, checking out the scouts, then head for home. If all goes well, I will add 14 counties to the "found" list and only have 7 lower peninsula counties left, and about the same in the UP.

I'm really looking forward to this last blast for the year!

A ride for veterans

We finally (Steve and I) got out on the Gold Wing yesterday. Home sweet home, my body said as I eased into the seat. Much more comfortable than the Beemer. Anyway, left about 8:30 a.m. for a 9 a.m. breakfast meeting of the Gold Wing group.

Arrived a little late because of traffic tie ups due to the Reeds Lake Triathlon. But still enjoyed time with other GW riders, then set off for Muskegon where we were meeting with riders from other clubs. That was a nice ride through the countryside.

Got to Muskegon, and after a short wait we took off for Custer, Michigan and the VFW there. The ride was called the "Freedom Ride." We had to pay a fee to ride, but the fees were all donated to the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. Well worth it. The ride was great, very scenic and roads we'd never been on. There were so many bikes that we split into three groups. I would say there were 40-50 bikes all together. Stopped midway at an Artesian Well for a break. The water had an iron taste but was clean and cold.

Arrived at the VFW, where we were treated to snacks and we both won door prizes. Ok, it was apple sauce and apple juice (Indian Summer was a major prize donator) but it was nice to get something useful. They also had T-shirts for sale, we didn't bring enough money so Steve got back on the bike and found an ATM so we could both get shirts (again profits to the Vets.)

Rode home with three other bikes from our Grand Rapids group, took more major roads so it wasn't as long of a ride, but still two hours or so. I was actually getting sleepy and came as close to dozing off on the bike as I ever have. The armrests would have kept me in I guess. Got home around dinner time. A nice days ride.

September 11, 2001 & 2009

I'm sure that many of you are thinking today about where you were and what you were doing eight years ago today when you heard the news about the events of September 11, 2001.

I was working as a day care director. We usually didn't have radio or TV on, of course, and it was progressing as a normal day. Took a call from my husband, he told me that a plane flew into the World Trade Center. Not quite sure what he was talking about, turned on a radio and started to get reports. The more we heard, the worse it got, of course. I remember allowing the teachers to bring a radio out to the playground and listen while watching the kids play. Never before, probably never again. But that day, yes. We tried to keep things low key for the kids sake. (Hard to believe but those kids are teenagers now.) I do remember one little girl, a few days later, telling me she saw a movie on TV about an airplane flying into a building.

Eight years later. Since I don't work on Fridays, I was able to participate in our Boy Scout 9/11 Salute. We raise the flag at the Gerald Ford Museum at sunrise, and stand at salute (in 5 minute shifts) until sunset. I took four shifts. My arm definitely got tired, but it was nothing compared to what people went through that day, even what my son goes through right now in Iraq.

God Bless America.

A trip to Sunny's Grand Isle

I can finally log a find on Sunny's Grand Isle!

After getting close a few weeks back (I'd tried Reeds Lake and found Beaver Island but decided I was too tired to try this one, too) and also trying to set up a trip here after Age of Discovery (the weather was very uncooperative) I finally convinced Muggle Hubby (Steve) and Tall Son (Eric) to go out with the kayaks on Sunday. They weren't thrilled that a cache was involved but I pointed out that it was five minutes out of a nice afternoon of paddling.

The geo-kayak was still in the cachemobile. MH and TS loaded up the two-seater kayak in the carrier on the top of the cachemobile, and off we went. Arrived at the boat launch and got everything off-loaded. TS really wanted to try out Mom's kayak. Knowing that the first half of the trip was upstream, I generously offered to let him go first. I rode with MH in the two-seater, had a much easier paddle than if I'd been on my own. Our trip up to the island was a nice one, probably 45 minutes but we weren't looking at our watches.

Got to the island, found a nice little sandy beach area to disembark at, and I got out to go get the cache, less than 100 feet away. That took just a few minutes of tiptoeing through the poison ivy, wrestling with a less-than-cooperative ammo can, then signing the log and leaving one of my signature cards. Put everything back in its place, and turned around. No kayaks.

Steve and Eric thought it would be funny to paddle around to the back side of the island and make me think I'd been stranded. I figured out their plan pretty quickly and decided to just go back to the beach area to wait for them. Only trouble was, I slipped in some mucky sand on the way back, and got that mucky sand all over my legs and shorts. Took advantage of the waiting time to clean up as best as I could. Sure enough, they soon tired of their little game and came paddling back to get me.

I decided that I wanted to take the geo-kayak back to the boat landing, so switched places with Eric. That was probably a mistake. One little me versus two strong guys. Not a good plan. They would paddle furiously for a few minutes, get way ahead, then just sit and wait for me to catch up. After a few turns of this new game, they decided they weren't quite being fair and paddled with me the rest of the way.

A great day for a paddle, and glad to finally get my 2009th cache. Found it in the year 2009, too - that's pretty neat.

2K and counting

I really had some trouble deciding which cache would be worthy of #2000. Even posted a plea for suggestions on facebook; got LOTS of good answers there. But due to timing (I knew I could cache Wed. a.m. and wanted the big 2K before then) I decided to take my geofriend Golfdiva up on her offer to go do a night cache.

A night cache, for those who might not know, involves taking a flashlight and trying to find tiny little reflectors attached to trees, following the path, and eventually finding the cache. And yes, it's DARK. I've done very few of these, mostly due to my promise not to cache at night by myself. But two of us together, different story.

Golfdiva picked me up at dusk, and we headed to the cache, 13 miles away. Glad she was driving! Got to the parking lot, set off down the trail. She checked one side, I checked the other. Quickly determined we needed to follow the trail to the RIGHT. So off we went. After a short time, heard a rustling. Golfdiva said she surprised some critter right on the boardwalk. Glad she was in the lead, not me. We continued and soon found the red reflector and the reflective X on the cache itself. Not as long of a hike as we'd hoped, but still fun. And my #2000 was finally here. Took the obligatory pictures, signed the log, then headed back. On the way home, we stopped at her new cache, and I found it in the dark. Not too far from the trailhead so it wasn't bad.

This gave me free rein to grab caches on Wednesday, without having to worry about a "special" cache for #2000. For the first time, I cached paperless now that my nuvi has the cache info. Found six caches, then went to the eye dr. for my yearly check. Then home for the evening.

Age of Discovery and a FTF (Saturday and Sunday)

Saturday was the 6th annual Age of Discovery Geo-Event, held at Hager Park in Jenison. I headed over that way and arrived a bit after 9. The event was to start at 10, so I decided to get in some of the new caches in the park before the event started. Found four of them pre-event, two of them had stickers in them for Age of Discovery so decided I'd better take one. Good thing I did as they were part of a game we played later.

Headed for the event at the other side of the park, got to meet and greet quite a few of my geocaching friends both old and new. We played a scavenger hunt game where we had to get signatures of people that fit into different geocaching categories (like who has found a cache in a foreign country - that was my favorite line to sign!) A good way to get to know more about the people whose names you've only seen on logs before now.

We had a hot dog lunch with potluck additions. I had to stop at the Jenison Meijer and pick up a dessert since I had forgotten my stuff on the counter at home. Oh well. Good food, then several geocaching friends and I set off to find the other new caches in the park, and grab the stickers for the game we needed them for. Caching at this event is interesting, you're usually with 3-4 people and end up meeting one or more other groups of 3-4 at the cache site. So not much challenge there, but still a lot of fun.

Got back to the shelter area and one of my geocaching friends helped me figure out what wasn't right in my attempts to load cache info on my nuvi. He got everything working fine and now the cache info on my 300 closest not founds is on my nuvi and I don't have to bring the paper printouts anymore! Also, when I'm driving past a cache a signal will go off so I know it's there and I can then use the nuvi to get to the cache location. Sweet.

Then the door prize drawing. I've never won a door prize at a geocaching event. Surprisingly, my streak stopped today. I won a ready to hide geocache which was in a RED tupperware container! I'm thinking it was possibly a set-up but that's ok, I'll take it. Also won two other ready to hide containers, one had an event geo-coin in them. So a wonderful time was had at the event.

Even though it had started to drizzle by then, I decided I would try to grab a few caches on my way home. At the second cache I stopped at, ran into two geocaching teams that I knew. They helped me find the cache I was looking for (height was an issue, thankfully they were taller than me) and also another one in the same park. Then they invited me to go with them to find a new series of seven caches that had just been published that day. I didn't have any information but was able to slowly enter the coords at each stop and follow them in their cars to get to the area.
My find count at the end of the day is 1998....

Sunday - went to church, then over to Burger King where they have free wi-fi access. Had been there a little while, checked my e-mail to discover that a new cache had been hidden at the Lowell Meijer 15 minutes earlier. No problem EXCEPT that I had left my GPS at home. Saw it on the counter that morning and thought I wouldn't be caching so just left it there. So tried to find it based on the description and clues. No luck. So went home (just 3 miles) and got the GPS, went back and found it quickly. I was the first to find, my 15th FTF in 4 years of caching. So NOW I'm at 1999 finds. Have just made plans with a geofriend to go to a night cache tomorrow night to make it 2000.

Bowling with my boy

Friday afternoon was cold and rainy. Not exactly typical summer weather. So I just putzed around the house, getting things done. Didn't go caching since I was planning to be gone at a caching event the next day. Eric comes into the room and says, "let's go bowling!" Now this is his standard idea when he's bored. He was surprised when I said, "sure, why not?"

We went to the local bowling alley. They are running a summer special, 1.5 hrs of bowling + shoes for $5. So for $10 I got an hour and a half of quality time with my son - priceless! We split the six games that we managed to bowl - I won the first, third, and fifth - he won the second, fourth, and sixth. I wasn't sure we'd get that sixth game in, but Eric really wanted to, he was behind 3-2 in our count at that point. We had trouble getting decent house balls - the one I finally ended up with was a bright green 11 pounder with a quarter size chip in it. But it still worked. Eric had trouble getting one that fit his fingers correctly. Got to bowl, talk a bit, and just spend time with my boy.

One interesting sideline: during our bowling time, a group of 4-5 young ladies came in, dressed in formal gowns (mind you this was 5 p.m. on a Friday) and one was wearing a tiara. They spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of each other with the bowling balls, I'm not sure they even started bowling before we left, though they did have a lane turned on for them. That was a bit unusual. But of course we don't go bowling that often ourselves so maybe formal gowns are the new trend for bowling.

Honoring a fallen hero

On Sunday, August 16, a West Michigan soldier, Nicholas Roush, lost his life in Afghanistan. Hard as any of these situations are, this one seems just a bit harder because, but for the grace of God, could have been my own son. Scott is (as he quoted in facebook) 73% done with his deployment, he is in a relatively safe area, but he is still in a war zone.

Anyway, when I heard that the family wanted the route from the airport to their home church lined with people yesterday afternoon, of course I wanted to be there. Got there in time to join a large group of people all there to show their respects to this fallen hero. Quiet talking beforehand, sharing our links to the military or just our feelings about wanting to be there.

The procession passed. Makes it very real to see a military hearse with a flag-draped coffin in the back, followed by cars carrying obviously grieving family members. After the procession passed, back to the car. There was only one piece of music that I had with me that I could play, it was the service song medley that I have on a CD.

God Bless the Roush family and Nicholas for his ultimate sacrifice.

And Lord, continue to keep my Scott safe.

First adventures with the kayak

Took the new kayak out for its first journey yesterday. It loads right up into the car, with the seats down. Of course, since we haven't figured out where to keep it in the garage, it's been in my car since last Thursday when Steve gave it to me.

Headed for Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids where there (supposedly) is a cache that's been there since 2003. Unfortunately, the last time it's been found was last fall - no finds this year despite several attempts. So I wasn't too optimistic that I would be able to find it.

Got to the boat launch area and discovered there was no off-road parking. Street parking was very popular - it took me a few trips around before I was lucky enough to find a spot. Pulled the kayak out and went over to the boat launch. Off I went! A nice easy paddle, about 3/10 of a mile, over to the cache area. Saw some swans along the way and got a few nice pictures. Got to the area, pretty lily padded and reedy. Nothing bigger than a kayak or canoe could get over there, I'm sure. After a lot of looking, gave up the search. Took some time to take pictures of some of the water lilies and (tried) to take pictures of me in the kayak. Got me but not the kayak too much.

Paddled back to the boat launch. My arms were starting to feel it! Loaded the kayak back up and decided to head towards Jenison and the Grand River Park, where there was a cache on a small island in a lake (Beaver Island Challenge) and a cache a mile upstream on the Grand River (Sunny's Grand Isle.)

Got to the park, pulled the kayak out and decided to go for Beaver Island first. Getting ready to go, saw a car pass by in the parking lot, stop, then start backing up towards me. Thought maybe someone was going to tell me I couldn't kayak in the little lake. No, they were fellow geocachers who stopped because they recognized me. They didn't think I should go out there on my own so stayed on shore and waited for me. This was good because they kept my camera and got some good pictures of me in the kayak.

The trip across the little lake was about a tenth of a mile if that. Landed on the little island, got out of the kayak and found the cache after a short search. It was just above my reach, though, and fastened to a tree. I was able to stand on a lower branch, sorta climbing a bit, and reach the container base. I used the top as leverage and managed to unscrew the base and retrieve the log. After signing the log, I ran into trouble. Just couldn't get the height and leverage needed to screw the base back into the top. Even a bit more climbing (and I have the scratched up arm to prove it) didn't do the trick as I was trying to hold onto the branch with one arm and screw the base with the other. Plus my arms were already tired from the paddling. So ended up carefully tucking the base into a crook of the tree just below the top. Then went back to shore, retrieved my camera and thanked my friends. They shared some chocolate with me and helped me get my gear squared away. Decided not to do Sunny's Grand Isle as I was already tired and tired plus alone plus a mile upstream didn't sound like a good plan at this point.

So did do a walking cache in the park that I hadn't yet done, and one more on the way back home, but I was pretty tired by this point! I had planned to do a night cache last night with Golfdiva as well; but the rain didn't hold off long enough and spoiled our plans.

Today it's raining as well so no outdoor fun.