Christmas is just nine days away...

Did something last Friday that I never dreamed I'd ever do. I took a dog to see Santa Claus. Yep, Chow Hound had free pictures with Santa for your pet last Friday. Seems like such a frou-frou thing to do but Max is so doggone cute (pun intended) that I thought "Why not?"

Turned out though that Max was shaking the whole time we were in the store. Not sure if it was from riding there in a cold car; lots of other dogs in the store, of all shapes and sizes; or seeing Santa himself. Probably some weird combo of all three. But he did sit in Santa's lap and we got a cute picture.

Christmas preparations are coming along. Packages are mailed. Most shopping is done. I've finished writing the Christmas letter, now to get the cards mailed out. Started some wrapping today. And made a nice discovery. I'd been missing my good fiskars scissors for a long time (oh, about a year I'd guess!) and found them today at the bottom of the gift wrap box. Hmmm...know that I wouldn't have left them there.... anyway glad to have them back.

Christmas baking has been somewhat of a downfall. I did some baking so that I could send some to Scott - and also made an identical parcel for Eric. The rest are in the freezer until closer to
Christmas. I want to make some other kinds too but it's just sooo tempting. I discovered that Saltine Toffee CAN be eaten frozen. Not good. I am staying within the same 3 or so pounds weight wise. Sugar probably isn't quite as good as it's been but still reasonable. My friend says that her doctor won't do an A1C test in December for anyone. I can see why.

Today starts four days in a row of get-togethers. Geocaching potluck is tonight, then my Gilda's Club staff party is tomorrow, then a party with motorcycling friends on Saturday, and an Eagle Court of Honor on Sunday. Busy time of the year.

And on top of all the holiday stuff, the 29th Street garage sale is accepting items again so got a load together and took it over yesterday. I've made almost $79 already (after their cut) and that's on stuff that I was going to just take to the thrift stores someday. Hoping this is a very successful enterprise that sticks around!

Merry Christmas, Max!

This will be Max's first Christmas with us. This has been on my mind lately for several reasons. Not so much, "What to get a dog..." but "how do we keep Christmas decorations safe from the dog!"

I put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday. Left it naked just to see what Max would do. Well, he thinks it's a giant chew toy, lots of fake needles were quickly on the floor, more than normal in the course of setting it up. Hmmm.... last night I put pieces of foil on the floor around the tree. That seemed to scare him off a little.

I was home all morning while we got our DISH service upgraded. (Sorry boys, your remotes and boxes for your bedrooms are gone...) So decided it was time to decorate. First decision - no fragile ornaments. That means that the vintage, breakable ornaments that I've decorated the tree with for the last several years are staying boxed up this year. I'll miss them. Decided to dig out all of the angel ornaments that I haven't used for a while. I first used them on my classroom tree when I taught third grade at Liberty. I've also used them for my office tree when I was director at Aldersgate. But it's been a while. It was nice to see some old favorites as I decorated the tree. My main vocabulary consisted of "No, Max" though as he thought the garland was a pull toy and the ornaments were something fun to nose around. Didn't put many down low for that very reason!

Well, got to thinking. We need a gate or something around the tree. Suddenly, I remembered: We had a 16" high enclosure for our guinea pig a few years back. Think it's still downstairs. Yep, there it is. And low and behold, it works great. Goes from the window around to the other side and seems to be tall enough to block Mr. Max from becoming too curious! Sometimes it does pay to hold onto stuff, I guess.

We'll see how the rest of everything goes. No stockings up until the last minute, I can see that already. Not sure which nativity will work better. And forget about displays on the coffee table.

Christmas will be Christmas, with or without some of the traditional decorations.

And yes, we did buy Max a Santa hat already. He might be marching in a parade tomorrow with it on!

Black Friday?

Thanksgiving went well. Very quiet with just the three of us - Scott is, of course, in Europe - he spent the holiday at Zermatt, Switzerland, skiing with a group of friends from the base. He had a good time. After dinner, we went over to Steve's dad's and visited. We took him a plate of food, though he has little appetite these days.

When we went home, we decided to go bowling. $7 for 1.5 hours, including shoes. We got three games in - even with a malfunctioning pin resetter during the third game that basically allowed us to keep trying until we knocked down all the pins. That made Steve feel better anyway.

Another Thanksgiving thing was looking through all the Black Friday ads. They were bigger than the paper itself! All that stuff out there and the only thing I was even mildly interested in was the $20 printer/scanner/copier that Walmart had. I did not (and never do want) to get involved in all those black friday waiting games and crowds so stayed up after midnight to see if the scanner would be put online. It wasn't so I went to bed.

Couldn't sleep well (I think Eric turned up the heat) and woke up around 7. Decided to go out and check again. Yep, there it was - and still available! I put one in my cart and decided to see if a few of the other specials were still available. Big mistake - not 10 minutes later I decided to check out and the printer was now out of stock. Should have checked out right away. Oh well, it is what it is.

Everything turned out ok, though. On Saturday Steve and I went out on some errands, and stopped at Sam's Club. While there, I looked at the printer/scanner/copiers. First I saw an Epson model that was $30. Gave it serious thought, but Steve saw a Canon next to it for the same price. There were none but the display, though - and only one Canon box underneath, a different model with more features. No price. To make a long story short, they discovered the higher end model had been inventoried under the lower priced model and they gave it to us for the lower price. Nice bargain and it works well for us!

I love a parade!

Today was the annual Santa Claus parade in downtown Grand Rapids. Never have been to it. Not sure why. Turns out this is one ginormous parade - almost 2 hours long! So why did I decide to go this year? Gilda's Club was asking for staff and volunteers so that we could have an entry in the parade. This would be to promote the club, of course, and our upcoming LaughFest, which is what all the smiley faces around Grand Rapids this week were all about. So why not?

Got downtown shortly after 8 a.m., hoping to snag some parking before the roads were closed off. Nope. So turned north a few blocks on Monroe and found free parking in one of the lots we like to use anyway since it's always free on the weekends. Took the short walk back to Michigan and Monroe and found the Gilda's van, with two of my colleagues already inside. I got in as well, and in our conversation, they asked if I would be willing to wear a costume. "Sure," I answered. After all, I thought, I did do a stint as a Hostess Twinkie way back when.

Well, I ended up putting on a Scooby Doo costume (apparently the costume closer to Sparkle (Gilda's dog) was already rented. It definitely kept me warm. But as I put the "head" on, I remember thinking, "What's a claustrophobic like me doing putting this head on?" It wasn't too horrible though I didn't keep the head on all the time before we started. With the head on, I could only see through a mesh hole in the mouth, about 8" round. Once we got started, two people walked near me to let me know of any hazards close by, and when to turn toward the TV cameras. As far as kids, I could definitely hear lots of yells for "Scooby!" So lots of turning my head and waving, giving high fives to kids and hugs too. Just had to remember that Scooby doesn't talk so also did lots of "ruh-roh's" and barking. Had no idea where exactly I was - since I couldn't see much. But I knew when we turned onto Fulton, though, as a nice welcome breeze started blowing into my "snout."

Once we reached the end of the route, I quickly shed the costume and anonymously watched the rest of the parade. This was a big 'un - floats, bands, even a few balloons like the Macy's parade (though maybe a tad smaller but you get the idea.) Kids along the route made out better than Halloween as far as candy went, even at the end like where I was. The parade (which we started at 9 a.m.) was over about 10:45 a.m., then I had a nice long walk back to the car. I was glad that I'd brought some diet hot chocolate in a thermos which was waiting for me in the car - that sure tasted good!

Went to Meijer after the parade to try on jeans as my current ones are getting big...I bought size 10, that's right, t-e-n. I even fit into the size -8- jeans but the muffin topped out a bit over the top of those, even though they fastened easily. So gotta tighten the leftovers at some point. I've been flirting with the 130's - have been as low as 140.5, up and down a few pounds. Feelin' good!

Famous Lady Day

Today turned out to be "Famous Lady" day for me. It's Friday, I have the day off, and it's a beautiful day to go downtown and see some famous ladies. 1) Myself 2) Betty Ford, and 3) Diana, Princess of Wales.

My first stop was a Woman's Expo, hence the "myself" in the famous ladies. Since it was there, and at DeVos Place, decided that would be a good central place to park for the day. The expo wasn't all that great, only filled one exhibit hall of the three, but interesting stuff to look at, some giveaways, and I got a great free massage as well as a 15 minute one that I paid for (and wasn't as good as the freebie either.) Hope I win some of the door prizes but not counting on it, of course. They had a display of a rentable photo booth and I got some absolutely stunning (just kidding) pictures of me, will have to scan it if I add it to this post or facebook.

Moving on, I decided I had time to walk across the river to the Gerald Ford Museum and see the new exhibit on Betty Ford. This was mostly dresses. She sure had a tiny waist! Maybe I should say has since she's still alive, but not sure of her size at this point in her life. She definitely made a difference in how First Ladies were perceived and the things they could accomplish.

At 1:15, I headed toward the Grand Rapids Art Museum for my highlight of the day. I visited the new Diana, Princess of Wales exhibit. This is the exhibit that comes directly from Althorp, her ancestral estate, and includes her wedding dress. You had to buy timed tickets for the exhibit, $20 but worth it to me. (Steve's comment was, "You know she's dead, right?") So 2 p.m. today was my time to go.

I got to the museum about 1:30 - asked if I could go in before my "time" and was allowed to do so since it wasn't too crowded. The advantages of not going in a group! Anyway, no photography whatsoever was allowed, that was disappointing as I did want a picture of the dress! First exhibits were family history, then we were introduced to Diana as a young girl, complete with some of her family home movies as well as other memorabilia. Then we moved on to Diana as a young woman, concluding with her engagement to Prince Charles. Turned the corner and there was the dress. It's displayed in its own case, with the full 25 foot train trailing behind. Also included in the case were her shoes, tiara, and little Clementine Hambro's bridesmaid dress. I just stood there for a while, absorbed in the memories of getting up very early one July morning and watching a fairy tale unfold before my eyes. Memories of seeing Diana emerge from the glass coach in that dress, and watching that train unfurl as she walked up the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral (which I got to see when we were in London!) Took me quite a while to move on, thankfully there wasn't a time limit.

The next room had some displays about her life as a princess and a mother, then I moved on to the next room which was all about her untimely death and the immediate aftermath. The final room brought a view of (I think) 28 of her gowns and dresses, each on display as well as most having a picture of Diana wearing the gown. After leaving the gown room, there was an Althorp gift shop with some very pricey Althorp items. Having seen the rest of the museum during Art Prize, I finished my day with a walk in the nice late fall weather back to DeVos Place and my car. $9.00 to park but it is what it is.

I definitely enjoyed my Famous Lady Day! Only thing that would have made it more fun was to have my mom with me as she also enjoys the Royal Family. But she's seen the exhibit when it was closer to her home in Florida, so I'm sure when she reads this she'll remember how much SHE enjoyed it, too!

Hollow-ween

Hollow-ween has come and gone. Just gonna share a few thoughts.

Growing up - good memories. Mostly of dressing up in whatever costume we could fit over our winter coats....

As a young mom--Dressed the boys up and took them around the neighborhood in Columbus. Eric lost a shoe as a toddler - a Nike - so posted signs in the neighborhood asking if anyone had seen a size 6 Nike shoe - someone left an adult size 6 on our doorstep!

As a new Christian, though, decided that we didn't want to promote the day with our family, so other than some harvest parties, didn't have much to do with the day from the 90's onward. We would go to the store November 1st so the boys could get candy and not feel left out in that regard.

I've mellowed a bit now, though. I still don't like seeing all the satanic influences that the day can involve, but as far as harmless dressing up, I've made a peace of sorts. Our church puts on a trunk and treat ministry as an outreach which is a good thing. So now I get to dress up again.

This year I chose to dress as a "formal apology." A very subtle pun - found the idea on the internet, of course. A formal outfit - size 10! - from Goodwill, my mother in law's fur cape, sparkly jewelry, and an "I'm sorry" badge on my lapel. Did not wear high heels, my feet wouldn't have lasted. Passed out glow bracelets at my game, a ring toss. Had bought some payday candy bars as back up, as well as a bag of candy bars that I did like. Mistake on the good bars (I don't like payday bars.)

I realize that candy is akin to my "gateway drug." I can't just have a piece or two and then stop. Once that sugar hits me, I have to have more. So after a few days of indulging - and no weight loss, I wonder why... - I got my willpower back and realize I can't even have one piece. None. Nada.

So I am solidly at a plateau. Not a bad plateau, mind you. I've still lost 25 pounds since the end of August. But the candy was not a good plan.

November is here now and I took Max out geocaching yesterday. Some nice walks to get some of the caches, did us both a lot of good. He's not as hyper when he's been outside. And I'm burning more calories.

My weekend plans include sorting through all my clothes. Many of them are too big now. Bad problem to have, I know. I plan to keep a few of the good clothes and take a bunch to goodwill. The ones that I keep I will box up and if I don't need them in a year, out they go, too. Some of the ones I saved from last time I was skinny, ok most of them, are out of style now. Or I waited too long and they're already too big. And I had to get some new undergarments, too - have lost inches there.

Predictions for the weather this weekend include the chance of snow flurries. NOT looking forward to that!

Pow-Wow

Last Saturday was our annual Cub Scout Pow-Wow. This year's theme was "Are You Smarter Than A Cub Scout?" A new location this year, Evergreen Elementary in Allendale. Thought about stopping by to say hi to Eric while I was in town, but I don't think he would have appreciated a visit that early. And by the time I was done, he was working in downtown GR. Oh well, I saw him the next day.

My first session, was (you guessed it) Geocaching. I had about a dozen scout leaders that wanted to learn about caching. I went through the Geocaching 101 presentation that I have on power point (the same one I used last weekend) and showed examples of cache containers, swag, and other caching related stuff. I had hidden my red ammo can out on the school grounds, and after the power point, we went outside to find it. There was a GPS receiver for every two scouters, thanks to the council's supply. Took them a few minutes but most had good luck with finding it!
Gave away one more geocoin at the end of the session. I have yet to win one myself. Most likely, I'll be allowed to keep one anyway in return for all the work I've done on Get in the Game; but I'd like to win one fair and square.

After a break for lunch (yep, brought my own. Down to 145 today (Wed. the 20th) as I enter this) I set up for my Cub Cooking session. Didn't have any cubs to cook, so just had to do some cooking demonstrations and fun stuff. Our first task was to make gingerbread in dixie cups. 3 T of gingerbread mix, 1 T of water, mix in a 5 oz dixie cup, and bake in a 400 degree electric skillet for 15 minutes. Really works (and smelled good too.) Have to admit I had a cup - not very much in the way of calories with such a small portion.

2nd up was butter. Surprising that more had never done this before. Baby food jars, half full of heavy whipping cream, shake until butter forms and the buttermilk separates from it. Add a little salt to taste, and eat on crackers. Ummm, good!

Next was ice cream in a can. In hindsight, wish I'd had them make individual ice cream in ziplocks - the cans were noisier and took longer, plus didn't freeze as well. We ended up drinking vanilla shakes....

And last but not least was armpit fudge. 1/2 c of powdered sugar, 1 T butter, 2 tsp cream cheese, 1 T cocoa, and a dash of vanilla. Put into a ziplock bag, squish it around (put it in your armpit to soften it) and you have fudge. Ok, true confession time. I did do this and ate it, too. Saved my extra calories for the day. Oh, it was good....but I don't miss chocolate as much as I thought I would.

After pow-wow, I decided to catch a few caches, of course, on the way home. Stopped in a nearby cemetery for one called "The Search." I had to gather some information from several grave sites, then project a waypoint from another grave to the final (not hidden by a grave.) Got all but one piece of info, drove around to where the missing piece was, got it, then sat in the car and tried to remember how to project a waypoint. Looked up and I was blocked in by two cars. Turned out that the first car were also there caching, so we teamed up, finally figured out the projecting a waypoint thing on about the third or fourth try, and found the cache.

I found two other quick caches on the way home, then spent a quiet evening at home with Steve. Nice day.

Caching Camporee

Last weekend, the first busy one of October, marked a lot of geocaching. What fun! And almost perfect fall weather.

Started Wednesday after my doctor's appointment. Went down to Bysterveld Park near Dorr, where I'd recently attended an event in the pouring rain. Wanted to get the new caches placed for the event, so headed there. Most were fun, walking in the park caches. One in particular was a matchstick container called "just hanging..." Well, it was hanging. 20 feet up in a tree. Held in place by a crafted wire spiral, with a hook at the top and a loop in the middle. Had to use a very long tree branch to maneuver it down. Not as hard, just get ahold of the loop and lift everything off the branch. Getting it back up was the trick. Every time I tried to lift the container the loop would slide down the branch and it was time to start over. Not until I added a shield to the top of the stick did the container stay on the stick long enough to put it back into place. A fun challenge!

Friday morning I set off at 7:30 a.m. My destination was Camp Tapico near Kalkaska. Normally about a three hour drive. I did it in a little over 7 hours, arriving at about 2:45 p.m. We were expecting units early in the evening and I needed to set up my camp, etc.

Caching my way up M-66, most of the caches were typical quick hides. I did make one find that was especially satisfying. It was called a Dam Good Cache. Located near a dam, it was a nice little walk in the woods, with coordinates that were right on target and a nice container at the end. The container had the original log book, dating back to 2005 when cachers still left detailed written logs instead of just signing their names like is the tendency today. It's what caching used to be all about and it was my best find of the day. Another was an easy find, but it led me to this tiny wayside chapel which had two pews deep, two pews across for total seating space for four. I also found a Cache to Eagle from another council.

The camporee was fun. Set up my tent near the lake, made for a beautiful view. First time out with the new tent from last Christmas, not sure why the opportunity hadn't come up sooner. So a few differences which made it a bit challenging but I got it figured out. Then just sat and had some quiet time before the boys came. Had brought my own food, had a chef's salad for dinner though later I did have a bit of pulled pork that the rest of the staff had brought.

Saturday morning, I taught back to back sessions of Geocaching 101 to the boys and leaders, while the other half of the boys/leaders had actual work with the GPS receivers outside. I had hidden some micro containers in the room and the boys had trouble finding them, especially the bolt and screw with a log inside. If my sister Debbie ever reads this she'll know which one I mean! Anyway, had hidden that one on a fire extinguisher bracket and had to finally help them find it. Later, I was hiding the caches again and could not find that one. Someone had put it back somewhere nearby (on a screw that had been used to attach a sign) and I COULDN'T SEE IT MYSELF... Everyone got a kick out of how they'd fooled me in return! Also had a lot of examples of containers, swag, and travelers for the boys to look over. Used my new power point presentation which I think works a lot better.

After lunch (I had brought my sandwich, but must admit to breaking down and eating one small cookie...) we all met and I helped upload coordinates into GPS receivers for the boys. They could choose either a moderate course or two more challenging ones. After that (and receiving a hershey bar from our District Executive) I went back to camp and packed up since I needed to teach Sunday School the next morning and couldn't stay overnight again and still do that.

Needed to find at least one cache since it was a yet unfilled day on my caching calendar, but ended up finding 12 more. I had found 20 on Friday. Had decided to take 131 back down, it's two lane down to north of Cadillac but then freeway the rest of the way home. Faster. Got down to Cadillac and figured I'd better eat some dinner. I'd already eating half the chocolate bar, rationalizing it as my extra 150 calories for the day. So stopped at Big Boy and had a grilled chicken caesar salad while using their wifi. Good girl. Then got back on the highway. Discovered that there was another Cache to Eagle close by and, even though it was almost dark, stopped for it anyway. Then headed for home, arriving about 9 p.m.

Happy Day for Steve

So much of what I blog about Steve doesn't paint him in a great light. One way that I use my blog is to vent some of my frustrations with him, and while that's good for me, not always good for him. Though he doesn't read my blog, probably doesn't even remember that I have one.

But I did want to share about Steve's great day last Thursday. Earlier that week, he'd forwarded me an email about the Aptera prototype coming to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, one day only, Thursday, October 7. The Aptera is this hybrid vehicle that is supposed to get 200 mpg, Steve as a designer has been very interested in them since he first heard about them and wants to get one when they are available here.

Anyway, his comment on the forwarded email was, "wish I could see this..."

I replied with, "Why not? Go for it. You still have some vacation days left."

So he did. He drove to Chicago that morning, leaving about 7 a.m. He wore a black Aptera tshirt that he'd bought and pulled into the museum area right behind the semi tractor containing the prototype. He parked in a nearby lot and shortly thereafter learned it was an employee lot. The attendant didn't say anything because of Steve's shirt - he thought Steve worked for Aptera! Steve went inside the museum, paid the fee, and saw the prototype as well as an earlier model that had been on display for a while. He also went through much of the rest of the museum since he was there.

I'm not clear about the details here, but somehow he got to talking to a museum employee who took him through some back passages and out to the staging area where there was a third Aptera that had been taking local media out for rides. Somehow Steve was able to get a ride in that car, and ended up getting another tshirt and water bottle. Turns out the employee was the chief curator of the museum....

Anyway, Steve was the happiest I've seen him in a long while by the time he came home about 9 p.m. that night. So glad for him. Really do love him in spite of the struggles we've been having as of late.

A healthy progress!

Last Wednesday was my checkup, the "deadline" so to speak as to my showing some improvement or my doctor was going to consider adding insulin to my treatment plan for my diabetes. Since I've been doing so well, I was looking forward to this visit!

As of last Wednesday, I was at 149.5 lbs., which gave me a loss of 19 pounds. I didn't expect my A1C (an average measurement of blood sugar levels for the previous 3 months) to show dramatic improvement since it was a 3 month average, not a 6 week average. But, nonetheless, I went from a 7.5 on August 4 to a 6.3 on October 6! Excellent. My doctor was very pleased and I should keep up the good work, which of course I plan to do.

And an update a week later (it's been so busy I haven't had a chance to blog lately...)

My weight this morning was at 147.5. Only two pounds for the week, but it's coming off slowly which is better for permanent loss. And I had some challenging eating situations during the week, too.

Fasting blood sugar continues to be in a healthy range.

Art Prize wrap up

Well, Art Prize 2010 is over and done. I estimate that I saw about half of the exhibits. The trip I blogged previously about turned out to be my last venture downtown - life has remained pretty busy and I felt I did cover most if not all of the major venues.

The winner of the competition was Cavalry by Chris Laporte (I think I got the name and title correct!) which was exhibited at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. I had ended up seeing eight of the top ten entries, and voted for Vision. I did like Cavalry but liked Vision better. Above, the top image is Vision, and the bottom is a partial view of Cavalry.

It was a wonderful experience and I'm really looking forward to next year!

Art Prize - third time visit

Yesterday, Sept. 29, marked my third visit to Art Prize. I wanted to get to the three main venues I hadn't been able to visit last Friday, and catch whatever else I could. I decided to take the car downtown and park at Cathedral Square, the only main venue I hadn't yet visited. Figured (correctly) that there would be some free parking there. Visited all the artwork at the square, then caught the shuttle bus to downtown. Got off at the Grand Rapids Art Museum again as there was one exhibit that I wanted to see that had been temporarily closed last Friday. Stopped first to participate in a photography entry that was taking everyone's pictures. Haven't yet checked out to see what mine looked like! Then to the museum for a visit to the artwork made with salt and clay. Not permanent, it will disappear at the end of the competition.

Then off to the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel and DeVos Place, the two other venues I really wanted to see. Neat artwork there, of course. Then headed toward the Hub and stopped at Calder Plaza for a few more pieces along the way. The left picture, entitled Roy G. Biv, was at Calder Plaza. Then a visit to the Hub where I bought a few Art Prize souvenirs. One was a bag and I had the clerk put my purchases in the bag rather than a plastic bag. Went around the corner and caught the shuttle back down to Cathedral Square. Once on the bus, I started to look at my purchases. Realized that the clerk hadn't put my pin and pen into the reusable bag. Debated for quite a while and finally decided to get off at Cathedral Square anyway, then try to find a short term meter near the Hub. The shuttle takes about 45 minutes to go all the way around the route so I was looking at a long ride to go all the way back to the Hub on the shuttle, then down to Cathedral Square.

Got my car, drove up to downtown, and had to circle the block(s) a few times, including a turn down a wrong way street, before I found a meter. Went inside and they had realized their mistake almost immediately. They had my missing items set aside and were glad I'd returned. So was I.

Headed home from there, then to Awana. Once I got home, put in my last votes for what I'd seen today, downloaded my pictures, and called it a day. I have probably about 5-6 hundred pictures which means I saw close to half of what was out there. Missed a lot of the little venues which were in restaurants and other businesses. Some weren't open during the weekday until evening.

This has been incredible. This much art right in my own backyard. The top ten are announced this evening, then I can vote for my favorite of the top ten. Winners announced in a week or so, top prize is $250,000.

Art Prize - second time around

Last Friday, the 24th, was my day to fully experience Art Prize. I decided to be a responsible citizen and park my car at the nearest Meijer and take a city bus downtown. Besides being a responsible citizen, it was cheaper to buy a wristband ($5) than to park in a lot ($7.) Wore my Scottevest that had been so handy in Europe and it proved to be handy again today. Inner pocket held my guidebook and (by the end of the day) lots and lots of artwork voting cards. One side pocket held my sandwich & water, another held a banana. And my camera occupied another inside pocket, though I had it out much of the time.

Arrived to find the bus already there so hopped right on. They only come every half hour so I got lucky! Different than the last bus I was on (in Paris) but worked out ok. Got off at the Woman's Club, one of the downtown venues, only to find it didn't open until noon and it was about 11:15. So walked around a bit in the drizzle, not quite enough for an umbrella, and ended up at the UICA (Urban Institute for Contemporary Art) which was another venue. Lots of interesting art there, wish I could post all the pictures. One picture of note was a picture that had been taken by a camera which had HIV-positive blood running past the lens. Not quite sure how they did that one. Ate my sandwich while there and was good to go for a while. Then walked around the area some more, eventually headed back to the Woman's Club and saw quite a few more good pieces of art both 2D and 3D. From there I headed toward the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Saw many neat works there, too - one that stands out there was a collection of rockets made from vintage vacuums and other such items. Steve would have liked that one. Also entered into a drawing to win tickets to the Diana show in November. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Visited several smaller venues and finally made it to the BOB. (Big Old Building) where there were some spectacular 2D and 3D art. One is pictured above, the two mirrored faces. Really liked that one, also the giant steam pig, a dragon, and many more. Also got the chance to play one of the many pianos painted and placed around downtown as an Art Prize entry. Ok, so I only know how to play the cleanup song from preschool teaching. But I still played.

Headed toward the Museums - stopping at the JW Marriott along the way where I saw a mosaic of the seven days of creation made entirely from pieces of crayon. Crossed the river, entered the Grand Rapids Public Museum which was free during Art Prize, a nice touch. Many more exhibits there. Then to the Gerald R. Ford Museum, with some nice exhibits as well. Getting tired by now - and knowing I was tied to bus schedules, decided to start heading for home. Walked back to the Public Museum where there was an ArtPrize shuttle bus. Took that to the bus stop, only to find the bus was already there but the shuttle stop was NOT a bus stop so the bus driver wouldn't let me on. Had to walk a couple of blocks to the nearest bus stop, then wait about a half hour (minus walking time) until the next bus. Made it back home about 6 p.m. Figured at this point I've about a third of the entries, maybe a few more. There are around 1700 all together I believe.

Check out the competition at http://www.artprize.org.

Art Prize 2010 - Frederik Meijer Gardens

Art Prize started last night! I've been looking forward to the second installment of this wonderful competition that brings artists from all over the world to Grand Rapids. Right here in our backyard, more art than I saw in London and Paris combined.

Today I decided to visit Frederik Meijer Gardens, the venue closest to home. Most of the art is located in downtown Grand Rapids, but I chose to start here since it was on my way to work, I wanted to see the Chihuly exhibit that has been here all summer as well.

Arrived at about 10 a.m., and started browsing all the art prize exhibits. Most were sculpture pieces located outdoors, though there were a few inside as well. I decided to pay the admission fee so that I could walk around the sculpture park and also see the Chihuly pieces. For those that might not know, Dale Chihuly does wonderful artwork in glass - in all sizes. Once inside, I toured the conservatory - different to be there without the butterflies! Wonderful little Chihuly pieces were around every corner, what a treat!

Then I went outdoors and walked around the sculpture park, had never toured the entire park since it had been opened (it's been a few years since I've been to FMG for anything other than the butterflies.) I saw old favorites such as the DaVinci horse, and lots of other interesting and not-so-interesting pieces as well. Sometimes ya gotta wonder what the artist was thinking....but most were interesting. Interspersed with the regular sculpture were more Chihuly pieces. My favorite is in the picture above, the blue globe that looks like a flower gone to seed. Came around a corner and found a pond and there it was! Awesome. The rest of the pond had many smaller pieces that looked like glass candy kisses.

I also was able to explore the children's garden, wish I had a little one to take there as it looks like a wonderful place to play and explore.

Finished by going to the gift shop and purchasing a guide book for Art Prize which came with a wristband and map so that I could park at the nearby Meijer store and take the bus downtown, which will save the hassle of parking.

I just finished voting for the artists/pieces at FMG online - that is part of the intrigue of Art Prize, that the public can vote for their favorites/non favorites. Up or down. You can text your vote but since my tracfone is still in the dark ages, I was able to vote online, a pretty easy process. Once the first week is finished, then the top ten up vote receivers will be in the running for the grand prize (you get to vote again for your favorite overall.)

There are, I think, around 1500 pieces of art on display in all. I don't expect to get to see them all, but hope to see quite a few. Looking forward to tomorrow when I plan to spend most of the day downtown looking at more art.

Life - September 2010

Life. It can be a blessing. Much of this month has gone rather well. I had what was to be my next-to-the last session with my counselor last week. We talked a lot about the blessings I have in my life, and how things were mostly turning around in all areas of my life. We agreed that the only concerns would be if Steve decided to go off again and how I would handle it, as well as if I had a good support system in place if he did.

Be careful what you wish for, that was just too much to throw in front of Satan without him taking notice. Or maybe it was just the ride to Hell (Michigan.) I don't know. In any case, last Friday being a nice day, we took a ride to the afore-mentioned place, just because it was the right distance away on what the guidebook said were some nice riding roads. This proved to be true, though our "visit" was quite non-exciting. Two restaurants and a gift shop, that's about all there is to that town. Of course there were two caches there, but since we made the ride decision at the last minute, I didn't know about them until we were back home.

Once we returned home, I got the mail. Steve opened it, and the bills (none of which were for my cards) set him off. Long story short, I am apparently the chief cause of his depression, as I don't work in a job up to my potential and there is no dignity in "wiping babies bottoms." Other words were said, but I'm happy with my response to them, hopefully got my point across without creating more of a storm.

I agreed to start looking for a full time position. I'm saddened that money is still the most important thing in Steve's life. If I'm full time, I'm not available for so much that he doesn't think about. We'd probably go back into a higher tax bracket. And the full time jobs just aren't out there too much. I did interview today for a lead teacher position here in Lowell. Yep, full time, but they could only pay me just over $8 an hour. I make $12 right now. Don't think he'll go for it.

It just breaks my heart to think of leaving my kids at Gilda's. I haven't even said anything yet to them, I certainly don't want to burn any bridges. My prayer though is that if this is God's plan, that he open the doors quickly and provide a gentle exit from Gilda's.

On a lighter note, I've now lost 14 pounds since starting my new way of eating. Feeling good, and my regular clothes have become too big - starting in on some of the clothes that have been put away for a while.

And - we are one of about 35,000 in our county without power this morning, thanks to a big storm that blew through last night. We have a generator, but I don't know much about it so Steve turned it off when he left this morning. I'm recharging the 'puter at BK and having lunch.

Have a nice day!

Health and eating...

At my last doctor's appt, he started me on a third diabetes med and said if that didn't bring down my A1C, then we would be discussing insulin. Now any of my regular readers know that the thing that would help even more than a third medicine would be to watch what I was eating a whole lot better than I have been. Given August was full of family times and my birthday, I set a target start date of August 25 (the day after Scott left for his home.)

I found a healthy eating plan in Woman's Day magazine, developed by a nutritionist named Joy Bauer. I think the article said she is on the Today show sometimes? Anyway, it gave specific meal suggestions - and said to drink two 8 oz glasses of water before lunch and dinner; a dinner salad (or soup but I don't really care for soup that much) before dinner; no starches at dinner and not a whole lot of them at other meals; no artificial sweeteners the first stage (1 wk); and a list of food choices.

So I'm following the plan. Happily enough, I don't feel the cravings like I thought I would. And I'm down around 7 pounds from what I was when I started. Not feeling brave enough to post that starting number yet though...

And best of all....my diabetes numbers have been right where they are supposed to be! I was actually getting low blood sugar episodes which tells me that I was taking too much medicine. So on Friday I called the dr.'s office, talked to the nurse and got agreement that I could drop the newest medicine, switch the second medicine to the evenings (since I was getting the low blood sugars in the morning) and see how that goes. Well, for the next few days I got low blood sugar in the evening.... so I decided to go without that as well and see what happened. No low blood sugar yesterday, and my numbers have still been what they are supposed to be. So I'm "unofficially" down to just one medicine already!

The weight is coming off ever so slowly but I'm very happy that the sugars have stabilized so quickly. This just has to be what it'll be like if I want to stay healthy and see grandchildren someday.

Saturday, part 2

Since Steve went to the Metro Cruise on 28th Street today, I decided to spend my late afternoon and evening taking part in our church's digital scavenger hunt. My team and I, called "we want to play but don't have a team yet" set out with a list of shots to get and an hour & 45 minutes to get as many as we could. Had a great time - highlights for me included my getting "on" a motorcycle that was parked near a bar, the owner was up on the balcony and noticed....we just said, we're on a scavenger hunt and needed a motorcycle picture. We're done now. Thanks."

Another pix was on a skateboard. We saw a kid going down the street on one and stopped him to ask permission to borrow the skateboard for a picture. I guess when a middle-aged lady comes running at you, wearing a chicken hat, you're probably too flabbergasted to refuse. Oh yeah, we all had to wear crazy hats. I chose my chicken hat, though the flying pig hat was tempting.

We had to meet at Meijer at 7:15 to buy ingredients for tacos, then returned to the church for taco dinner and viewing the pictures and declaring a winner. It was nice to spend some time in fellowship with others in my church family, I don't get to do that as often as I'd like. We didn't win but we had a great time!

Saturday part 1 - Age of Discovery

Had a great Saturday. It started with a trip to the annual Age of Discovery geocaching event, in Jenison. Opted to go on my own this time around, since I had a church event in the late afternoon (more on that in part 2!)

Arrived at the park shortly after the event started, and immediately was greeted very enthusiastically by several friends. I was soon to find out that the get to know you game, where you gather signatures of people that fit different statements, like how many caches you've found, etc. had a statement "Find a cacher named redhedmary." So I got to sign everybody's paper, all in the same spot. At the same time I had my own paper. I didn't know, though, that I had been slipped a fake paper with impossible statements. Finally figured it out about a half hour later and got a regular paper...

Traded travel bugs and pathtags, got to chat with lots of people, then was invited to go find the new caches in the park with five other cachers. Went around with vj24, Dirty Gordy, Homebru, Mr. GeoFrog, and Mr. of Team Peterson. We found six caches in the park, the four we needed for the game plus two other new ones. Got back just before the food was gone. That didn't matter, for in my new quest to be "good" with eating, had brought my own little sandwich and my bottle of water so I was set. That plus the exercise made it good.

Had some more time to visit, then the prize drawing. Didn't win anything this yesr but that's ok. Found a few more caches on the way home, then had about an hour before the church event.

June 15, 2010 - Lake Superior Circle Tour Part 3

I was printing some stuff off my netbook last night and realized I'd never printed off the word version of the circle tour that I missed on publishing (the night we didn't have wifi.) So printed it and here it is.

Today started out to be a bit cloudier than we had been led to believe. Oh well, whatcha gonna do? We knew before we left the Thunder Bay area, we wanted to go check out Kakabeka Falls, just north of the city. We were glad we went, the falls were great! When we arrived, we found a self-service permit kiosk. For a two hour stay in the park it was $5 Canadian. Luckily I had enough Canadian quarters to buy the permit. We could have probably gotten away without paying but why take the chance? Neglected to mention that my coin purse full of Canadian change that Steve had saved was our only Canadian money on the trip. Otherwise we just used our credit cards (we pay them off every month.) Weird not to have any Canadian currency this time around. Note on 8/25: we did end up having to pay foreign transaction fees so in retrospect it might have been a better idea to changed some money after all....

After Kakabeka Falls (where I completed an earthcache) we went on down Hwy 61 to the border. Pulled out our passports, gave them to the US Border Patrol agent, and he said he'd have to confiscate our bike. After a long pause, he added "to take it for a spin." Ha-ha. This crossing was a lot easier (and less time, too) than crossing into Canada at Sault Ste. Marie. Stopped in Grand Marais, Minnesota for lunch - found the Blue Water Cafe in this little tourist town and had a nice meal. There was a really neat painting of the entire Lake Superior region on the wall, tried to get a picture but it wasn't straight on as there were people eating in front of it.

Continued on and stopped for a cache in Luttsen - a travel bug hotel where I left three travelers and picked up the only one there. Continued on and made our next stop at Gooseberry Falls State Park, where I'd heard (via geocaching, of course) that there were three very nice falls. There certainly were - and the set up was such that you could get pretty close to them. Lots of people out there on the rocks taking pictures. I was able to pick up another earthcache as well as a virtual here. So four caches for the day, not bad when you're with a muggle.

Continued down Hwy 61 which followed the coastline of Lake Superior. It had become more drizzly by now, but still manageable. We headed for Duluth, knowing we'd have to pick up the interstate to get over to US 2 in Wisconsin. Well, we found it, and found massive slow downs because of construction AND rush hour traffic. Not good, but we survived. Headed across the bridge to Wisconsin, pretty foggy and couldn't even see the water. Finally on US 2, heading across most of Wisconsin, stopping for the night in Ashland.

Went to a Super 8 only to find out it cost too many of our "points" to get for free, and was out of Steve's price range for not free. So we ended up at a pretty small family motel at about $25 less than the Super 8. No wireless so I'm saving this to Word (see Mom, I listened. 8/25 note: but it didn't work out cutting and pasting, not sure why.) We ate dinner at Country Kitchen and I walked across the street from the motel to WalMart for travel snacks while Steve cleaned the bike. We're on the lake so saw somewhat of a sunset, the clouds prevented a more spectacular one. Right now Steve is just waking up so we'll get going. Weather doesn't look too promising today either but we'll see. It is what it is. Today we'll get back into Michigan and I can hopefully pick up some of my missing counties to complete the Michigan 83 county challenge.

Goodbyes and wonderings

The day is fast approaching...goodbye to Scott for at least a year and possibly longer. A year would be if we go to Germany to see him next summer. Longer would be if we don't. He is at camp this weekend, will be home later today. We'll go out to dinner tonight for a goodbye celebration and also to celebrate his passing his Staff Sergeant test, then tomorrow will go quickly and Tuesday noonish we'll leave for the airport. He has a lot of packing yet to do - he came with one piece of luggage, with two empties inside the first piece of luggage, so that he can take his maximum of 3 - 70# pieces back with him (still free of charge because he is active duty military.) He shipped about $70 worth of stuff back to himself already through flat rate boxes, mostly heavy stuff but also parts of his stormtrooper costume that he finally has room for in his apartment.

It's been a fun month - canoe/kayak trip, Michigan's Adventure (where we finally found out he got a tattoo in tech school, can't hide THAT from Mom when you're shirtless...) my birthday, lots of card playing, and just some general time spent together. My babies are all growed up!

Eric has been hanging around when Scott's been home, but I expect we'll see a lot less of him after Tuesday, too - mostly because his fall classes will start soon after. It's been good to have him home, too. I think I can safely say that though in distance they are far apart, as adult brothers they are close to each other. Hope they can keep it that way.

Then its just Steve & I and the dog. Don't know how things will be. I know the boys know that things are a struggle for us right now, Eric because he's witnessed things and Scott because Eric has shared with him (so Scott said to me.) Having the boys around has been a buffer zone.

I'm not holding any fairy-tale illusions though. I am beginning to realize that, in his heart, Steve finds it impossible to love someone who can't live up to his standards. Can I live with that? I already realize that we'll most likely never have a physical relationship again. That's hard, I'm still interested but he's not. My counselor is helping me to realize that I might not get to understand the reasons why the Lord still wants me in this relationship but I need to trust Him in all things. So we'll see how it goes. Learning some coping skills for when Steve puts me down helps some.

Cachin' Wisconsin....West Bend Cache Ba$h

Way back in January (before I knew Scott was coming home on leave) I decided to attend the West Bend $1000 Cache Ba$h, in West Bend Wisconsin. Cash prize giveaway for caching - my 50th birthday weekend - all good. Shortly thereafter I invited my sister, Deb, to join me as she has done some caching herself. I also invited a caching friend from here, also named Deb.

So Thursday was the day...picked up Deb L. at 7:30 a.m. and we were on the road after a Mickey D's breakfast stop and an ATM stop. We cached along the way in Michigan and Indiana. Our favorite cache along the way was one in Indiana called KA-BOOM - it was near a fireworks store and was an ammo box with a pringles can decorated to look like a firecracker, with notation that the log was inside. When we opened the can, out popped one of those snakes on a spring...after we screamed, we laughed. Probably won't ever pass a fireworks store again without thinking of that one. Also did about six caches at one shopping area, most centered around a Bass Pro Shop that was there.

Headed into Illinois, and the tollway. Slow going at first with construction on 80-94. And the tolls - my how they've changed. I-PASS is the way to go now, apparently - if you don't have one, you have to go all the way over to the right side for a cash booth. And the prices have gone up and are even different depending on the booth - we paid anywhere from 80 cents to $1.50. I think Deb L. thought it was funny that I was so verbal about that - but I grew up traveling the tollway a couple of times a year or so and still remember the Pay Toll One Mile, Cars 30 cents signs. And oh, yes, the baskets are gone, too. If we were the lucky kid sitting behind the driver, we got to throw the toll into the basket.

No real delays around Chicago other than 80-94, so smooth sailing. Didn't cache much except a few at the Oases until we got to the Gurnee exit, did three there. Then headed up into Wisconsin and by then we were getting tired and pretty much just wanted to get to the hotel. After we arrived, checked in, we walked across the street to Applebee's and ate dinner. After dinner, we both logged our cache finds from the day then went to bed.

Friday morning - woke up, ate the hotel breakfast, and had a few hours to kill before the new caches were released and registration opened at noon. So we decided to go for some nearby caches, then went over to the park and did some caching there. Our first one was at the park's playground. Just couldn't find that one so went to the next two which were both pretty mosquito-guarded. Then decided to do one more - it was on an island, I volunteered to wade across. A team of a dad and two sons soon joined us, it took a while but the dad finally found the cache. Then we made our way back to the park, registered, then decided to go back to the hotel and shower, then pick up my sis Deb who arrived at 2 p.m. Once we had sis Deb checked in, the three of us set out to do just "10" caches - the new ones all had 10 as their prefix. We had to collect a stamp or codeword from each one to prove we were there, and received tickets to the prize drawing based on how many caches we could find. We managed to find 27caches on Friday, even though there was some rain, mostly light though. There was a meet & greet at the park but we decided to keep on caching anyway. Came time for supper, we were going to grab sandwiches and take them back to the room, but then I saw a Noodles restaurant and I had a coupon for a free birthday meal so we ended up there. I had Wisconsin Mac & Cheese, Deb L. had stroganoff, and sis Deb had buttered noodles with meatballs. Again, spent the evening logging finds. Sis Deb had some trouble getting the wifi so went to the lobby. She met several West Michigan cachers down there without me even introducing her!

Saturday - today's goal was to get me to 3000 finds. I knew we couldn't do it on just 10 caches, and the tickets were only good for prize drawings, not the cash prize, so we were doing anything that came our way that wasn't going to give us a long walk. Definitely a numbers day! We were all over but managed to get me to 2996 by the time we came back to the park to turn in our cards just before the deadline. I grabbed two more caches while waiting for the prize drawings, and logged the post-bash party before the bash, which made the event my #3000 cache find.

We passed the time while waiting for the prize drawings by doing a little cache shopping, pathtag trading, and visiting with other cachers. We didn't win any cash or prizes, but had a good time. Went back to the hotel to clean up, then stopped by the Post Bash party (another event.) I had logged that I would be having my 50th birthday the next day, so they had a special prize for me - a book called "The Joy of Geocaching" which was autographed by the authors. Very good book! We didn't stay very long at the party as it was quite crowded and the bar didn't serve any food other than Tombstone Pizzas so left in search of better food. We ended up at Qdoba for mexican food, then went back to the hotel and (you guessed it) logged our caches. Had 39 for Saturday so it took a while.

Sunday morning, we got up and headed over to the Breakfast, a third event for the weekend. Enjoyed some pancakes then did the turkey shoot which involved finding four plastic wildlife creatures and figuring out the closest coords. Didn't win that either, oh well!

Oh, when we came out to the car at the hotel, I discovered that sis Deb had decorated the car with balloons, "50" written on the windows, and over the hill streamers. She made me a sash out of some of the streamers, and I got to wear a Burger King crown as well, proclaiming me the birthday girl. Had received the crown the day before, and the counter guy actually sang Happy Birthday to me when I received it....

Then back to the hotel to load up, check out, and head for home. Said our goodbyes to sis Deb, I'm really glad she could join me though I think it'll be a while before she does another event, at least a huge one like this one. Left the balloons and other decs on the car all the way home, at first when people honked as they went by I couldn't figure out why, then the "oh-duh" meter went on and I waved back...

Ended up with a grand total of five caches on Sunday. First was the breakfast event, then one in Wisconsin to drop off a coin that wanted to stay in the area, then an Oasis cache in Illinois, then one in Indiana when I needed a driving break, then an event in Portage, Indiana that other West Michigan cachers had told us about. We didn't get there in time to search for the new caches from that event, but we visited about 15 minutes and so received the smiley anyway. Got home about 7 p.m., then Steve and the boys took me to Outback for dinner.

Got a new digital pix frame from Steve, a Deutschland license plate that said GEO CACHE on it and a Transatlantic Council Wood Badge patch from Scott, and a beautiful card and a promise to buy me a massage certificate from Eric. Plus a cheesecake for birthday cake.

A great birthday weekend. You only turn 50 once, right? : )

Kayak/Canoe trip on the Rogue

How to spend some family time together while Scott is home? Get out the canoe and the double kayak and take a river trip! Saturday proved to be perfect weather: warm but not too hot with low humidity. Waited until about noon then got the boys up (shades of their youth!) and got everything loaded up and were on the road by 2ish.

Still had not figured out where to go. I had suggested the Rogue, admittedly because there are seven caches on islands. That pretty much ruled it out until nobody could come up with anything better, plus the canoeing book said it was good canoeing. So we started about 3 miles or so above Rockford with the plan to go all the way down to the Grand.

We dropped Eric's car off at the parking area by the Grand, then went up to Rockford to check out the dam. Yep, Steve, there is a dam there even though it wasn't shown in the canoeing book. Don't believe me. I digress. Anyway, determined we could portage so went on to the put in point, 12 mile and Grange. Got everything off loaded, got Max's little life jacket on him, and off we went. Eric and Scott were in the canoe, and Steve and I were in the double kayak with Max in front of Steve. A beautiful afternoon to be out on the river, though it was a bit more shallow than we'd anticipated. So shallow in parts, that one or the other of the boys probably dragged us in the kayak over about a dozen sandbars or other obstacles. Thanks boys!

Took us about 3 hours to go the distance to Rockford. About 20 minutes before we arrived, we saw an orange construction barrel submerged in the middle of the river. Now Steve has this thing about orange barrels so as a joke I called to the boys, "You should get that for Dad!" They took me seriously because not too long thereafter, they caught up to us and, sure enough, they had the barrel sitting in the middle of the canoe! It clearly said City of Rockford on it so they decided to leave it at the dam. Their CITO for the day, I guess.

It was sixish by the time we were almost to Rockford. We'd passed then paddled sort of with a family for a while, asked them how far from the dam down to the Grand. They told us we probably hadn't ought to try it tonight, we wouldn't make it by dark. When we arrived at the canoe landing, friends of theirs were meeting them. They agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea and, since Eric's car was at the Grand instead of in Rockford, gave Steve a ride down to Eric's car while we waited with the boats.

While we waited for Steve, we had our sandwiches and I suggested the nearby ice-cream stop. The boys wanted to wait for Dad. Fine. Dad came back and the boys went to get the van up where we'd left that, so that Steve could eat. Afterwards, I suggested ice-cream to Steve. Let's wait for the boys was the answer. The boys came back with the cars. "Let's load the boats first, then go for ice cream." Ok.

Boats loaded. "I have to go to the bathroom and there's no place to go, so lets go and we'll stop for ice cream somewhere on the way home." (This was Steve talking and he had gone for a walk before the boys came back, looking for a restroom.) So we bypass every single gas station and other possibility in Rockford, go all the way down to Northland Drive in Grand Rapids (a good 10 minutes plus drive) and Steve ends up deciding it would be a treat to get "ice cream" at Burger King..... after the anticipation of getting some really good ice cream (yep Mom I know I didn't need it) that was not worth spending the calories or sugar on. Very disappointed but typical Steve. The trip itself was good and guess that's what counts the most.

Boys both left last night - Scott back up to camp for a few more days of friend time and Eric decided to check in at his apartment since Dad & I both had to work today.

This morning, got ready to go and discovered a flat tire on the van. Everybody already gone - so did what was logical and called Steve. He was quite p.o.'ed at having to come home, never mind the four trips I've made to pick him up because of bike issues in the last few weeks. Told me that he probably spent more in gas to get home than I would make today at work. Also asked me when I was going to do something with my life. Wow, went all the way back to emotionally abusive pretty doggone quickly. Should have anticipated it since we had a good day on Saturday. Good days can't be tolerated so they must have some put downs to follow.

Maybe I'll feel better about it later. Right now, no.

Surprise!

Steve finally left for his bike trip on Tuesday about noon. This was in no way guaranteed up until the last minute. Last post I said we'd be going to the Ionia Free Fair. Not. He decided to drain the oil from the lawnmower before we left. Not sure how, but oil leaked all over the garage floor. And of course it was my fault for not telling him it was happening. (I was looking at him, not the dang lawnmower.) Anyway, we got over the hump - I remembered what my counselor had reminded me of - a verse in 1 John that says perfect love drives out fear. By the end of the evening Steve was still depressed, but talking. Tuesday morning he woke up and said he might as well get started on the backyard project. It took a lot of talking, but he finally decided to pack up and get on the road. He really needed some time away, and I'm hoping he's getting it. He called from just into New York State last night.

When he left, I loaded up the van with Max and me, and we were on the road. First stop was downtown GR, to pass off a pinewood derby Race to 2010 car to my friend Fitz who was leaving the next day for the national jamboree. Then headed toward Hastings where the last Treasures of Scouting geocache that I hadn't yet found was waiting patiently for me to come.

Found two cemetery caches along the way, then a single stage cache at the same nature area, so that the Treasures cache would be #2900. Weather getting very warm - Max getting tired and hot. We both had plenty of water, though, so that wasn't an issue. Started the 5 stage multi that was the treasures cache. Got to the first stage area - no luck. Read the clue off the nuvi and expanded my search. I was able to find it, but it was 120 feet away. Headed off toward the second stage and this is where I struck out. Clue was "rim" and I did find two rusty old barrels there. But looked up, down, inside, outside, and all around. Nada. Since Max and I were both hot and tired, decided to end the search and headed back to the car. Did four other caches on the way home, including one that did become my #2900.

I pulled into the driveway, intending to drop Max off and do a little more caching towards Ionia and go to the free fair by myself. Eric's car was in the driveway. He knew I would be home alone so I figured he'd stopped by so we could go to a movie or something. He walked into the kitchen as I walked in from the other way, and we started talking. All of a sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind me. Turned around and there was Scott, home five days earlier than he'd told us. Surprise!

They had set this up all along. I'd been suspicious that something like this was afoot, and even asked Eric once. The only bad part of it was that Steve had left just a few hours before Scott came home. He'll not be very happy that he missed the homecoming. But Scott doesn't want me to tell him for fear he'll cut his trip short and head straight home. The good part is that Scott has already left for camp, so he'll be able to spend more time at home when we are both home to see him. (he'd planned to spend time at camp the first week he was home which would have been next week.)

After getting over the shock and having some nice visiting time, I suggested we might check out the free fair. I wish we hadn't. Not much there to do unless you wanted to spend lotsa bucks on ride tickets for rides that weren't all that great, buy overpriced carnival food, or go through the merchants tent where most of the merchants were trying to sell things, not give away pens and such like at the Lowell Expo or the Kent County Fair. We did get our picture taken for free at a Meijer display, that's what's posted above.

We headed for home, stopping at Jim McCormicks for a short visit since he was home from his honeymoon. Then stopped at Meijers because "there was no food in the house" and ran into Pastor Dave there, who was quite surprised to see Scott, of course! Went home where Scott promptly went online and discovered I was signed into Facebook so hacked my status with a message that I'd given up "GeoChaching." If you're gonna hack my status, at least spell geocaching right! I'll attribute that to jetlag...

Scott was planning to go to the Secretary of State's office this morning to renew his drivers license, then head up to camp. I had my counseling appt. this morning, then headed over to my new favorite wifi place, the East Grand Rapids library. I'm sitting in a comfy chair with a desk attached, using the wifi while looking out onto Reeds Lake and watching the sailboats go by. Beautiful! Headed from here to Steve's dad's to check on him. To tell or not to tell - that is the question. He doesn't need any surprises at this time in his life.

S'pose I'd better get over there.

Wouldja go already?

Steve's been planning for a while to take his BMW motorcycle to a rally in Vermont the last week of July. Hey, it's the last week of July - has he left yet? Nope. The rally doesn't actually start until Thursday but he was going to leave last Saturday.

Well Saturday came and went. He was still tweaking the bike, trying to install some kind of bracket he thought he needed. I had made plans to go to the Bertha Brock Park event in Ionia, so I went anyway. Only difference was that I didn't have to take Max. Good thing too because Golfdiva and I went through some really really tall grass. We're talking as tall as me. Max would have been lost in no time flat. I ended up with three ticks, too - the first ticks I've come across geocaching in years. The event was fun - got home about dark.

Sunday, I stayed home from church because I thought he was going to leave in the morning and I wanted to see him off. Nope, still working on that bracket thingy. Eric came home around 2 and shortly after Scott called. So if the boys hadn't come home or called, he might have finished. Not complaining here, mind you - always good to see and hear from them.

So today - has he left yet? Nope. I finally left for my errands, which involved coming to the library for wifi and a few other stops, about 2 when he said he was just about finished but it wouldn't pay for him to leave this late in the day. So looks like it'll be tomorrow. I did say that if you weren't leaving today, let's go to the Ionia Free Fair tonight. Looks like we will.


It's not that I want him gone. Yes it is but not quite the way you might picture it. He needs the time away, he needs some enjoyment. And - there's a certain pleasure in being home alone, having just what you want for meals, doing just what you want (like geocaching...) and he's been home now three more days than I'd planned for him to be here. I'm off this week as well, but it's more of a involuntary vacation (and unpaid of course) since they are remodeling at work and none of my kids will be there either.

I do have to get the living room finished (moved all of my stuff from Scott's room out there to sort it out) but otherwise will be ready for Scott to come home next Sunday! Six more days - I've been counting down on Facebook.

200th post

Noted that my last post was #199 - so this one makes #200! I started this blog a few months before I went to Europe with my sisters, and at first it was basically a travel blog. It has evolved from there, though, and now more of my wonderings are includes as well as my wanderings.

Today, I'm at the house of two of my Noogieland friends. Noogieland is beginning some structural changes today, and I offered to watch the two kids at their home because it would be easier all around. They're both sleeping right now, and I brought my netbook on the off chance there would be a wireless signal around. It's low, but it's there.

Home life is about to get more exciting with Scott coming home on leave in ten days. I don't expect we'll see a lot of him as he has many places he wants to go and people he wants to see. Steve leaves, probably Saturday, for his trip on the BMW to a rally in Vermont. I would have really liked to go with him (well, the trip anyway. Not so much the rally) but as the BMW doesn't perform as well two-up, I opted not to go. I'm looking forward to a week of just Max and me. Could be some caching involved, I don't know... ok, there WILL be caching involved as soon as Scott's room has the scout stuff cleared out of it. You see, I didn't request next week off but I have it off anyway as both Noogieland parents opted to take vacation that week and I wouldn't have any kids even if Noogieland was operational.

Max is getting along well with his summer haircut. He doesn't look like the same dog unless you're looking at him in the face - there's Max in there! I'm almost thinking the shorter haircut is a better thing, easier maintenance. But it's not a traditional Havanese look and we'll see how long it takes to grow back out. He is pretty good now at letting us know when he has to go outside - sometimes a false alarm but very few accidents these days. He enjoys tearing through the house from one end to another - sometimes fetching one of his mini tennis balls, sometimes carrying the ball, sometimes just running. His humping behavior has lessened considerably, but he still loves tearing up paper when he gets ahold of it.

Relationship wise things are so-so. We're still more like roommates, but I'm learning to trust in whatever God's plan is for our marriage. Not always easy. Will be interesting to see what a week apart does for us. My counselor is a Godsend (literally) in helping me deal with things. I'm not so sure about Steve's counselor. Steve doesn't feel like he's helping him much. But that's Steve.

Well, the baby is waking up so I'll have to close. Here's to the next 200 posts!

Good deed for the day

This morning, I did my good deed for the day. I joined friends from the Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGO) in our thrice-yearly cleanup of a stretch of the East Beltline in Grand Rapids. You know those signs that say, this stretch cleaned by.... yep, that's what we did.

Arrived at the meeting point and was issued my neon yellow safety vest, my grabber, and my trash bag. We were divided up into teams and assigned an area. Drove down to our area, and got started.

It's really not too bad, we didn't find much in the way of gross stuff this time around. See something, use your grabbers to pick it up and put it in your bag. The East Beltline has some wide boulevards so you're not dangerously close to traffic for the most part. Makes you feel like you're making a difference along that two miles of road, anyway. Plus you get to spend some time with geocaching friends.

Some of our "interesting" finds: a good pair of leather sandals, an unused, still in packaging condom, a tube of lipstick, a sock, a shirt, and lots of fast food wrappers. We figured we had enough to go out on the town...NOT! No trucker bombs or meth lab discards this time around, thankfully.

Now at the nearby Panera Bread using the wifi before I head for home. And yes, I see the irony in my willingness to help clean up a highway when my house could use some attention. That's what my afternoon plans are.

Family Day at BK

Mom was in Winchester, Indiana for the Steel Guitar convention with Phil. Debbie is working at a WalMart in Sterling, Illinois. We decided to get together at Rensselaer, Indiana for a short visit since it was about 3 hours travel for each of us. What we didn't know was that Mom and Judy plotted to get her there, too - she traveled to Winchester from her home in Campbellsville, Kentucky and then drove over with Mom to Rensselaer. Surprised both me and Debbie!

We met at the Burger King there since Mom is now vegan and BK has a veggie burger. We had several hours of visiting, lunching, picture sharing, and a good time was had by all. Good thing that nobody wanted to do much else since there wasn't much else to do in Rensselaer!

Mom and Debbie compared injuries. Mom had her hand slammed in a car door while in California, breaking a bone. Debbie had a compound fracture of her little finger in a fall at work. Judy and I both forgot to bring the bubble wrap for them! We felt left out because we didn't have X-rays to show...

After we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways, I decided to do a little caching in the Rensselaer area since it had been dark the night before. After caching, I stopped at the local WalMart to pick up some pop that didn't have Michigan deposit. Will be nice to just recycle the cans for a change instead of having to haul them back to the store. Anyway, I ended up leaving my coupon box in the cart. Didn't know that, of course, until Steve called me about an hour down the road, letting me know that Walmart had called. To make a long story short, they are going to mail me the box, very nice of them. I offered to give them my credit card # to pay the postage but they said it wasn't necessary.

Not too long after that, heading north toward Michigan City, the clouds were suddenly starting to get VERY dark. Freakingly dark. Stopped to call Steve to see what he could see on radar. No signal. The next town was LaCrosse, IN, where there was a cache in a small park. As I approached, I could tell there'd already been some rain. Still, it wasn't raining right then so quickly made the cache find. Then tried to call Steve again. Answering machine. By then the wind was really picking up so turned to the radio (had been listening to CDs) and found out there was a severe thunderstorm warning for the area I was in. Still not bad, even looked a little clearer, so decided to go ahead. Rain got pretty heavy, slowing traffic, and it did get windy, but thankfully no hail or even worse. Clearing up by Wanetah, so stopped for a potty break at the Burger King next to the gas station/DQ I'd stopped at yesterday. Believe it or not, I had an -eggnog- shake. They were out of their featured flavor so found some eggnog flavor. Weird to have an eggnog shake in July - must have been my Christmas in July celebration!

From Wanetah did a couple of Indiana Spirit Quest caches (cemetery caches in very old cemeteries - really interesting to see the old stones.) Then stopped and did a couple on the Purdue University North campus at Westville. The first, a DNF, and nobody was around. I mean nobody. Then there was another quite near the entrance to the area. Since I hadn't seen anybody, parked close by on the road even though it was not really a parking area. Sure enough, I came back from the find to see a security car nearby. They didn't stop me, though, and the cache page did indicate security was aware of the caches on campus, so I'm sure (with the geocaching bumper stickers I have on the cachemobile) they figured out what I was doing. And with no traffic I wasn't exactly blocking anything. So almost my 2nd geocaching LEO.

Did a few park & grabs in Michigan City then decided it was time to just go on home. That meant taking I-94 and I-196 instead of going back the way I came. Bad thing about that was I didn't have caches loaded up that way, so it was a pretty much cacheless trip from there. Arrived home at 9:45 p.m., tired and glad to be home to see Steve and Max.

Road trip!

My mom is currently in Winchester, Indiana attending a steel guitar convention with my stepdad, Phil. My sister, Debbie, is working in Illinois. So Mom suggested that we all meet at a central location for the day so we can see each other. That central location, about 3 hours travel for each of us, turned out to be Rensselaer, Indiana. So here I am in my motel room there, waiting for our rendezvous in about an hour.

Why am I already here? I decided this would be a perfect opportunity for a road trip! And you know what I like to do on road trips - geocache!

I left home around 8:30 yesterday morning. My plan was to go south to 84th Street, pick up a few caches that I hadn't yet found down there, then head over to 131, go south to US 12, go west to I-94, west to Michigan City, south on 421 to 114, then west to Rensselaer. Just driving, around 3 hours or so.

Didn't start out so well. DNFd both of the local caches. Steve called me on my cell while I was at the first one, to ask a question, and during the call he asked how far I was. I had to admit, "Alto" which isn't very far!

Ok, so Mom AND Judy just showed up at my motel room so I'm going to finish this later.

(Sunday) It's later. I'm back.

Got over to 131 and picked up a few caches in the Dorr area, then worked my way back to 131 and got a few more. Went a bit out of my way to find a cache called "Cache Cache BEAR" which sought to answer the question, "Do bears cache in the woods?" My answer was, of course, yes! The cache container was one of those large bear-shaped animal cracker containers, just right for the name. That was my only back roads expedition of the day.

In the Kalamazoo area, took one exit (M43) and ended up with 10 cache finds, all park & grabs. Then continued south and picked up caches in most of the little towns along the way. Turned west at US 12 and found a cache in Union, Michigan, which was the last cache I needed for a challenge series called "Ada to Zion" which required me to find a cache in a city for each letter of the alphabet. The final cache was in Niles, near US 12, one reason why I planned the route I did.

Arrived in the Niles area, found a few caches, then found the final for the Ada to Zion challenge. Next stop was the BIG Orange travel bug convention center, an orange barrel set up in the owner's back yard adjoining the St. Joseph River. This owner, MaxB on the River, has moved over 14,000 travel bugs. He travels all over the world, I believe for work purposes, and brings travel bugs wherever he goes. He has moved more than a few of my personal travelers, most recently responsible for bringing the travel bug that Eric gave me for Valentines Day to New Zealand! Unfortunately, they weren't home but I did drop off a large traveler that wanted to see the world, started by a school class.

From Niles, I started looking at the time - and decided I needed to step up the pace, so changed my plans and got onto I-94 not too far away. Did make one last Michigan cache stop, then finally crossed the border into Indiana about 8 p.m. EDT. Found a couple of Indiana caches, then realized caching time would be about done if I wanted to get to Rensselaer before dark.

At Winamac, I realized it was about time to stop for gas. I remember thinking, it'd sure be nice if I found a gas station that had a Dairy Queen attached. Sure enough, there was one not 5 miles later : )

Ended up getting to Rensselaer at almost 10 p.m. EDT (they are on central time.) Got a soft drink and settled into my room at the Knights Inn. Was pleasantly surprised to find that there was wi-fi after all (it wasn't listed in the hotel description) so was able to log my 60 finds for the day. Of course that made for a shorter sleep time.

Woke up, dressed, went to Mickey D's for an Egg McMuffin, and came back to the room. Was just starting to post this entry when Mom and Judy showed up. Our visit deserves its own blog entry so I'll finish this one.