Work Work Work

It took me a year to get thru beauty school.  Took six months to finally get my license from the state.  I went to work recently for the very same nail salon that I frequented for years.

I was steadfast about my decision to work there.  It's Vietnamese owned, my coworkers don't speak great English, but they do great nails and it's always busy.  ALWAYS.  My mates who went to beauty school constantly questioned my plans to work for this place, I suppose they had "delusions of grandeur," with the idea that they'd go to work right after graduation in a high-end salon, making tons of really great trendy money.
Well, trendy money in fancy salons requires you to pay $500 a month in booth rentals, plus more money for products and supplies.  That's out of your pocket before you've taken in one customer.  Then you beg for the walk-ins so you can make a little money and pay that booth rent.

No thanks.  That's too much struggling.  I wanted simplicity, and I wanted to make money.  At the nail salon we're working 6 days a week, sometimes 10 hours a day.  The customers come in the door constantly, and I"m in no way begging for work like my classmates from beauty school.  In fact, after a month of working, I'd like a break!

It's funny to see the customers' faces when they notice a very white girl among the Vietnamese ones in the salon.  It inspired me to get my new business cards printed, "White Girl Do Nail."

Lovin the Lightning!

Arizona's monsoon season is usually quite exciting.  I tell people this all the time.  We have so many newcomers to our area, they just assume that the few pitiful little rainstorms we have are the norm.  Not so.  We are in the middle of a 15 year drought.  Before the drought, the monsoons were tremendous.
They typically begin in July, with the rain, high winds, and lightning, a tropical monster that is comparable to the damaging weather the Philippine Islands get each year. Floods, debris, lightning strikes, scary thunder....that's the normal for us in the summer.  Our city has been slowly getting us better prepared for the high volumes of water rushing downhill, and I enjoy standing near the floodgates to watch the white water rapids go by.

Last summer was our first real good monsoon in many many years.

We had massive flooding, damage, and even death.

The city did a little work with concrete and earth movers, making the flood control a bit better.

When the flood waters hit us this summer, it was much more controlled.  Our street is located at the bottom of the hill, so by the time the rain has run down the mountainside and thru all the washes, it's going at least 40 mph.  It's carrying rocks, trees, and debris, and it's aggressive.  We're the drain right before the lakeshore.
With the new culvert work, new concrete, we were pleasantly surprised:

No trees, no cars, nothing terrible rushing by.  Just water, and it was only about a foot deep. I commended the City Manager with the work that had been done in the past year, I wanted him to know that we'd noticed a  big difference.

Oh, but the lighting...

Those two photos were from our back yard.  That top one I refer to as the "hand of God" photo.  It was stunning to see in person.

This photo was from up the hill, at a church parking lot.  I was looking north toward the Havasu Heights area when I snapped it.

A few days later we were blessed with another good lightning display, and I ran outside with my camera.

This was over our house, at about midnight.  Crazy electrical storm.

A week later, another good storm rolled in.  I took this over my neighbor's house:

I guess you could say I'm glad the big storms have returned to our area.  No more disappointing monsoon seasons!!

The Kid is OLD Now...

My son turned 16 years old the other day, and it was a great feeling.  Each year in September I'm reminded of the difficult beginning we had with him, with the premature birth and time spent in the Neonatal ICU.

He was given an awful diagnosis by the neurologist in Phoenix, which turned out to be erroneous.  We scooped up our little guy and slowly took him home to begin dealing with our special needs son.

After several months of dealing with social services, specialists, and therapists, we began to figure out that we had a perfectly fine kid on our hands.  I think it was when Shay was six months old he had a follow up visit in Phoenix and the doctor who'd diagnosed him realized his mistake.

It's been just fine ever since.

He rides motocross, practices MMA fighting at a local trainer's place, lifts weights, and helps out mom whenever he's requested.

He's a good kid, always behaving, and he's respectful.  Couldn't ask for a better son.

Not long ago we found a great deal on a project truck, an S-10 pickup that someone was turning into a "pre-runner."  We bought it and began working on the essentials.

For Shay's birthday, I thought of a great gift idea; real race seats to go in his project.

It was pretty cool to see him smile when he saw his presents.  He went to school that day, proclaiming that he'd ride home on his bicycle that afternoon and install those new seats.  He did just that!

I would give the world for him, he's a great kid.  I'm glad all I had to do was shell out a little bit of money for seats!!