Where did the week go???

 It is Sunday morning in Greenwood, Indiana where Steve, Sally and I have been since Friday night. 

My big project this past week was the concert program for civic orchestra. I am not playing in this performance but I still need to do the programs (sigh). Getting the conductor and assistant conductor to do the program notes has been an uphill battle but I finally got all the pieces on Friday and I brought the laptop with us to Indiana so I could put everything together in time to send it to the printers this coming Tuesday. 

We had a nice St. Patrick's Day on Monday. Corned beef and cabbage for lunch. Getting to know a new young couple in the ward over cookies in the evening. 

The rest of the week was spent in necessary appointments. On Tuesday, it was taking the Honda to the mechanic just down the street for an oil change. On Wednesday, it was Steve going to his dermatologist for a full body scan and having some suspicious bumps frozen off. I also had an eye exam and I ordered new glasses at Costco because my current glasses, that are only a little over a year old, have cracks in the lenses! Thursday we went back to Costco to get two new tires on the Kia. In connection with many of these appointments, Steve and I bought groceries, checked out a couple of used furniture stores to look for a better recliner, and made visits to Hobby Lobby, to Bath and Body Works and to JoAnn. It is good to do errands in as few trips as possible to save gas and time but it sure is tiring!

Tuesday noon, Beckie came over for lunch. I had purchased some wagyu ground beef from Aldi and I wanted to do a taste test comparing it to "regular" 80/20 ground beef. I made both kinds of beef into separate batches of meatballs and Steve, Beckie and I did the sampling. We concluded that the wagyu beef was superior....way more fatty but it had a better texture. Not that I will be a wagyu beef buyer from now on but now I know. 

Thursday afternoon, I went to Naomi LaFond's to have her advise me on the best exercises I can be doing every day. I'm already doing exercises but I wanted to be sure I was optimizing my time. She was very helpful! Thursday night, we had dinner at Mary and Walter's. Mary does such a nice job of making sure everything she serves is gluten-free. 

Friday morning, Steve and I attended the temple and, in the afternoon, we headed east to Julina's. We stopped to eat dinner at a Culver's in Effingham right at the dinner hour and it was slammed! So much so that my order was very messed up and I didn't get my food until Steve was completely done with his meal and had ordered our frozen custards! An hour had already passed and I finally got my food. I ended up eating most of it in the car as we continued on our way. We have rarely had problems with Culver's so I hope this is just an anomaly! 

We have had a quiet visit with Julina and Alex, so far. The plan today is to take down the Christmas tree and that is about it. Steve and I are missing our stake conference and they are having a General Authority visit - Elder Patrick Kearon! So, we will be watching it via a zoom link instead of attending Julina's church meetings. Elder Kearon's daughter, Lizzie, lives in our ward with her husband who is doing his medical residency at SLU. 

We will drive back to St. Louis tomorrow morning. 

I'm Back Home

Monday, March 10th, Juli and I drove down to the valley but, since I didn't have to be at the airport until 3:00 in the afternoon, we spent the morning and early afternoon visiting. First, we stopped to see our brother, Jim, in Anthem. Joan, who is recovering from knee replacement, wasn't feeling up to coming out to see us. 

Then, we drove down to Glendale to see our cousin, Kay Winfield. Her arthritis has left her bed-ridden, she is on oxygen 24/7 and is on hospice and yet, in spite of all her difficulties, I am amazed at her good attitude. 

Finally, we had lunch in Mesa with our cousin, Paul Fraedrich. He spends his winters in Arizona and his summers in Oregon.

My flight home was pleasant. I was able to snag a window seat in the 3rd row and no one sat in the middle seat so it was pretty comfortable. I watched a very interesting HBO documentary on Christopher Reeve. As we approached Lambert Airport in the dark, I was able to identify the River Des Peres (curvy dark line amidst lights) and Carondelet Park which meant, our house was directly below the airplane! (hi, Sally)  This is not surprising as I regularly see Southwest airplanes flying overhead in the mornings as I work in the yard. Someday, I hope to see the house in the daylight...

Tuesday was a FULL day - unpacking, teaching lessons. I had Eliza in the morning, home school orchestra in the early afternoon, Maria and Ben in the middle afternoon, and grandkids Quinn and Larkin in the late afternoon. I then drove back home to pick up Sam and we attended a lovely Relief Society birthday dinner at the church.  At the table are Sam, me, Marla, and the sister missionaries (Chambers and Larsen)

On Wednesday, Steve and I finally broke down and got a Costco membership. I have looked down my nose at Costco shopping for years, ever since we would go with Steve's mother back in American Fork. The blatant consumerism is just ridiculous and the prices were not any better than Aldi and the product sizes were more reasonable. BUT, the costs of eyeglasses, hearing aids, tires, gasoline and EGGS were enough to bring us over to the "dark side". We also got an oil change on the Kia and we did grocery shopping so it was a busy, driving-around kind of day.

Thursday, I finally got to stay home all day! I got a lot of projects done throughout the day including working in the yard for the first time this season. Temperatures were warm and I hacked down the tall maiden grass growing around the front yard flagpole. I also took pictures of the spring blossoms popping up in the front yard.

I confess I am not ready to resume yard work. I still have plenty of inside projects to get done but it is now mid-March so I guess I will be starting outside projects, ready or not.

Friday was a humdinger of a day. A strong storm front was moving in with severe weather predicted for the evening so it was warm and super windy (50-60-and even 70 mph winds!!!). Just as it was getting dark, Steve took Sally out to potty and saw that our neighbor's cedar tree lost it's top and fell on our driveway. Thankfully, it didn't damage anything like the fence or the neighbor's chicken coop (the tarp-wrapped structure in the 3rd photo). 

Ahead of the storm, Steve pulled down the flag and we hunkered down in our basement watching the news as it blew through at about 9:30 at night. We could hear hail falling but found no noticeable damage the next morning. We were lucky as several tornados touched down and there were twelve fatalities as the storm blew through the state. It was a doozy of a storm, for sure.

Also, by Saturday morning, our neighbor had hauled the fallen cedar tree out of our yard and by noon, all the branches were chopped up and mostly hauled away. He is such a good neighbor!!!

It was a busy Saturday for us, too. We had the baptistry in the morning, I had back-to-back lessons from noon to one, I had to play my cello for a baptism at 3:00, the re-scheduled Pi-day potluck was at 5:30 and Steve had a rehearsal at 7:45 that evening. The potluck was supposed to be Friday night but the impending storm caused it to be moved to Saturday.  I brought a GF pizza and lemon pie but not as many people were able to attend on Saturday so we took home leftovers. 

Evidently, some snow fell overnight but when I took Sally out this morning, it was just wet and chilly. I attend my first Lamb of God rehearsal this afternoon. The upcoming week looks a little calmer...

 

ARIZONA!!!

The home school group where I teach beginning strings had spring break the first week of March and the English classes for the Afghanistan community is on Ramadan break so I decided I would fly to Arizona to visit my sister from March 4 until tomorrow, the 10th. I flew out Tuesday afternoon in a pouring rainstorm. Happily, not severe weather - which was a possibility. I was in B seating but I still managed to snag a window seat on the second row! And I saw some beautiful sights on my flight - when I wasn't watching Moana 2. 

Amy picked me up from Sky Harbor and I spent the night at her place in Mesa. She and I took a lovely little walk around her neighborhood Wednesday morning where I saw these gorgeous bougainvillea. 

I also picked lemons, oranges and tangerines to bring back to Missouri. Juli drove down from Payson that morning and we loaded up Amy's Toyota Highlander and headed off to adventures for the next couple of days. 

Our first stop was to the Binghampton cemetery in Tucson to show Amy where mom and dad were buried. She and Cory had gone there earlier and couldn't find the tombstones. We also visited my grandparents stones.

We ate lunch at a Culvers, drove by the airplane graveyard in south Tucson,

 and then drove to Kartchner Caverns. We took a fascinating tour given by a very knowledgeable guide. Sadly, in order to preserve the cave, we couldn't bring cameras or phones so I just bought a postcard and took a photo at the entrance.

Juli had reserved an AirBnB in Sierra Vista for two days and it was a very nice one - beautifully decorated and well equipped. Juli and Amy had their own rooms and I slept on a roomy couch. After settling in, we shopped for some breakfast items, ate a light meal and watched Leap Year that evening for Amy's sake who had never seen it and neither Juli nor I minded watching it again.  We had a beautiful sky that evening. Sierra Vista is the same altitude as Payson and Prescott and it is nestled up against a beautiful mountain that is high enough for pine trees (although, there were no pines in the town - just lots of cypress trees as you can see in the photo)

Thursday morning, we drove down to Bisbee, a cute little touristy town that originated in the 1800's from copper mining. We visited a well curated museum and wandered around the shops. We were impressed at how the residents maintained their cute little hundred-year old homes. We found a narrow set of stairs lined with art work. Fun!

We returned to Sierra Vista (only 20 minutes from Bisbee) for a Mexican food lunch before driving to nearby Ramsey Canyon (in that mountain I was telling you about). It is owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy and we enjoyed a lovely half-mile hike along a well maintained self-guided trail with interesting points of interest along the way. We also saw deer. Note the coats - it was chilly-ish.

 

That evening, we had a very nice visit with cousin Mona Varga who lives in Sierra Vista.

Friday morning, we checked out of the AirBnB and drove to Tombstone. We didn't plan to stay long and catch the gunfight and other attractions and, it was so windy and cold due to a storm front coming in so we left even earlier than anticipated. Tombstone was also a mining town.

Our next stop was to continue east to the Chiracahua National Monument. It is basically a mountain range with cool rock formations - a lot like Bryce Canyon National Park. By then, the front was on top of us and we encountered so much wind, rain and even light snow. We didn't stay long. But I managed to get some fun pictures (can you see the profile of Cochise in the mountain photo?) before we scurried to our car to get warm.

We arrived back in Mesa around 5:00 that evening. We took a photo of us showing off our matching t-shirts that we bought at Ramsey Canyon. Note the green Arizona shirt that Juli is wearing in the Kartchner Caverns photo. All three of us own the same shirt and I didn't think to bring mine or we could have all been matching! So we decided to buy new t-shirts that matched.

 Juli and I then loaded up her car and left for Payson after we ate dinner at a place in downtown Mesa called Against The Grain - a completely gluten-free restaurant. The menu was daunting but I finally decided upon mozzarella sticks and chicken strips and a donut. Juli shared a bit of her orange chicken. Everything was delicious!

The weather we dealt with all day caused us a bit of concern on our drive up to Payson as they had snow off and on all day. Happily, we just encountered rain, thick fog and some snow but nothing was sticking to the roads (and it wasn't icy).  We breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled into Juli's driveway! And, evidently, ADOT closed the southbound part of the Beeline highway that night due to snow so I guess we made it to Payson in the nick of time!

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning...

That morning, we got to see the newly released movie Rule Breakers which is a true story about an Afghanistan girl robotic team and the obstacles they faced, being girls in a Taliban ruled country. I really enjoyed it. And, the viewing was sponsored by the Payson Classic Car Club. The club has a monthly movie activity of going to a movie at the local theater. A member of Juli's ward belongs to this club and she invites members of the ward to join. For $8, we got a drink, popcorn AND saw the movie. What a deal!!!

After the show, we did some shopping. I found some pretty rock souvenirs for my students. Temperatures warmed up and snow was melting fast.  We worked on a 500 piece puzzle in the afternoon. And we watched Instrument of War that evening. It was a true story about a WWII POW camp in Germany and a prisoner who built a violin while he was there. Really good.

Today was church in the morning, we took a nice walk this afternoon (again, temperatures are in the 60's) and I will get to see Jesse and Kat for dinner. I fly back to St. Louis tomorrow evening. 

I will close with a photo of our puzzle and of a beautiful vista from Massai Point in Chiracahua.

 

So NICE!

We had NICE, spring-like temperatures all this past week in contrast to the snow and bitter cold of the week before. But, yesterday it was COLD again! I guess it must be spring in Missouri....

Take a look at my adorable, NICE little cactus blossoms. This was a gift from our neighbor, Mona.

Tuesday evening, after giving Larkin and Quinn piano lessons, I stopped in at the Target that was nearby hoping to find some snow boots. The ones I have were given to me several years ago and they are fine for shoveling snow but terrible for walking around because they are just a teensy bit too big. Not surprisingly, Target had nothing this late in the season. I had already looked unsuccessfully at two Walmarts. My next stop was to go to Shoe Carnival on Wednesday after grocery shopping and, happily, I found a very NICE pair that is a bit too dressy for shoveling snow but still casual enough to wear with jeans. Happy Jeanne. Also on that Tuesday night, I went to JoAnn Fabrics hoping to find white thread (not Coats and Clark but Gutermann. According to the Huskvarna sewing machine rep, Coats and Clark is not as good a quality thread as it used to be). Sadly, just that day, JoAnn Fabrics announced that they are closing all their stores and the store I went to had already started marking down their inventory, including thread. So, there was not a spool of white thread to be found. Sad Jeanne. My sewing machine will just have to make do with Coats and Clark for the time being until I can find another source for Gutermann brand. 

On Thursday, Steve and set out on a quest for replacement dining room chairs (used, hopefully). First we stopped off at aluminum recycling where I redeemed a NICE record of $17.52 worth of cans!!! We continued down the road to a church sponsored thrift store that is only open on Thursdays and Saturdays. They were having their twenty-five cent sale. And, because they wanted to clear out their current inventory, they had an even better sale of "anything you can fit into a paper grocery sack for just one dollar" sale. And Steve and I scored big time! Steve found six pants hangers, five clipboards (for him to use in his English class since his room is too small for a table), and three ties. I found four white cereal bowls, two pieces of kid-themed fabric curtains that I can make into humanitarian blankets, and a curling iron. What a NICE deal!!! But, no furniture. The next stop was to a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and - TA DA!!! - there were six very NICE matching dining room chairs for $9 a piece. They are very solid and I think the two colored wood is kind of pretty. Here they are:

Finally, the last NICE thing that happened this week was getting to go on a double date with Emily and Joe last night. First, we had a super NICE meal at Little Fox. I love how Beckie takes care of my gluten issues when we eat there. After stuffing ourselves, we went to the St. Louis Symphony's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was such a fantastic performance!!!

To close out this blog, I recommend a very NICE movie on Disney+ called The Young Woman and the Sea. It is based upon the true story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel back in the 1920's.