Pioneer Woman

I've got to give credit once again to the pioneerwoman.com blog page that Brandy has a link to. I should probably link to it as well, considering how many compliments I've gotten from her recipes.
Last night I made lobster bisque with "Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jalapeno Thingies" on the side. Salad, also, but the salad wasn't anything spectacular. It's been a sort of challenge around our house to find unique recipes for dinner and last night I was certainly the hero. Thanks, Pioneer Woman!!

On Saturday night, I drove an hour on the Interstate with a friend of mine to go
to the Kingman, Arizona Relay For Life. I wanted to see how they did things and also I wanted to show their committee my support. We ended up having fun, because Kingman is where there are a lot of politicians and county workers that I know, and many where there. We ended up socializing more than I thought we would!
They had a great crowd of participants, though:



We start work on our own Relay For Life tomorrow. The 2009 Relay will hopefully have the military theme that I've been pushing for. I've got all kinds of cool resources that I could use to get a military vehicle display and of course Steve would provide a flyover with the Cobra helicopter. Our stage could be set up like a USO, and the Survivor Reception area could be like the "swamp" on M.A.S.H.
Every year our opening ceremonies include a presentation of colors by the Marine Chor League, so if we have a military theme we could step it up and have representation from each branch.

Southern Arizona

Steve misses his childhood home of Southern Arizona, and for good reason. It's a beautiful area with farms, mountains, and mild weather. When we were on the road last week doing a little bit of work and a little bit of exploring and visiting, we traveled 1,000 miles throughout the state and I got some nice pictures.
This first one is almost my favorite; a wheat field down the road from Steve's property down south of Tucson. It's actually just a few miles from the Mexican border.


I had read in a magazine recently that Wyatt Earp's younger brother Warren was buried in a remote grave yard near Willcox Arizona. Funny, Steve never knew that and Willcox was one of his stomping grounds in his younger days. We asked for directions from the only upright living person we saw in Willcox, and we easily found the cemetary. It was a lonely, desolate, sandy field with several wooden grave markers. Warren's grave was in a corner by itself, surrounded by sand and sticker bushes.


Not far from there, we checked out the mountains which held the Organ Pipe rocks. Pictures really don't do the scenery justice, but I clicked away...


The elevations got up to around 8,000 feet, and to the East of this range we could see Southern New Mexico. Incidentally, this is the area that Rambo is from. Bowie, Arizona is at the foot of the Cochise Mountain range. We just watched the latest Rambo movie and at the end they showed his home, in Bowie.

We eventually made our way to Steve's property, and we found ourselves amazed at the jackrabbits that seemed to pop up out of nowhere and run along side the truck. These friggin things were as big as coyotes. Couldn't get a picture, though, probably because they were "jackrabbit fast." Did take a photo of some unexpected friends I found as we looked thru Steve's childhood friend's abandoned home site. It was a burned up house with remnants of structures all around. As I went to look at a big b.b.q. grill I found this sitting inside:

Those are Great Horned Owl babies, and that likely means "mom" and "dad" were nearby watching us. Those suckers are typically 3 feet tall, with the talons to match. Yikes. It scared the crap outta me. I didn't expect to find those yellow eyes staring at me as I rounded the corner!

We then went to Steve's property, which is nearly 100 acres surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. He isn't sure if he wants to build on this someday, or just sell it when property values get good again. Either way, it's pretty cool that he has this property because it actually is quite pretty.


We came back home, which was a five hour drive. After working for a couple of days we went to my mom's property out in the middle of nowhere, and had a chili cookoff with her neighbors. This is Steve and Shay, watching the horseshoe throwing competition:


The desert always seems to offer such cool photo opportunities; I'm glad I've got a camera!

Leapin Lizards

Had our fundraiser golf tournament on Monday morning, and it was a learning experience.
#1. Golf tournaments are EASY. The only hard part is getting people to commit in advance.
#2. Golf tournaments are EASY.

We had a very small turnout, but we still ended up making money and the participants all had a blast. At the end of the play, which was about noon, everyone gathered at the golf course clubhouse for lunch and drinks.
Here's a view from the clubhouse:


I am already planning another golf tournament, this one will be at night in July.
I guess I gotta find some glow-in-the-dark golf balls.

Well Hello Old Friend

Thanks once again to Classmates.com, for hooking me up with someone I would have NEVER found on my own. Only thing is, Scott doesn't remember me much at all.
His brother David, who played endlessly with me each weekend and summer in rural Iowa, remembers me though. We had war games, missions, exploratory expeditions, and we rode miles and miles on our bicycles thru the paths we carved in the nearby woods. We had our convenience store Rambo knives that were on our belts at all times. David was a good buddy and we had great times together.
Scott, though, was a different story. I had such a crush on him, my poor 12 year old heart couldn't take it. He was 15 or 16, I think.
He moved away from home when he was 17, and it crushed me.
That emotion didn't last long, because my dad died shortly after that and I ended up moving out of the area to live at mom's.
I never gave Scott or my buddy David another thought, with everything going on in my life.
It was when I was browsing around on Classmates that I saw Scott's name and I was just floored. After a few messages thru there, I got him to remember me somewhat, and he also passed my email along to his brother David. It's weird, reconnecting with someone from so long ago when they have very little memory of you. It's not like catching up on old times, it's more like making a new friend. Scott and I email each other once a day or so, and I truly look forward to what he writes because it just feels really good to know he's doing well and he's happy. David is serving in the Army in Germany, and after I heard from him earlier this week I was elated.
I don't know, I guess it kind of feels like a childhood lost when you can't even guess where your good friends went. Knowing that these two are okay and living happy lives makes me feel a little more complete. It doesn't even bother me that my first "love" has very little memory of me. Why would I care, Steve has my heart and I'm certainly content.

It's a Situation

Shay took his cell phone with him when he went to dad's, and that's a very good thing. He called me, in tears, asking to be picked up because his dad's girlfriend was picking on him and yelling.
Normally I get him to calm down and I tell him to go talk to his dad about it. Which, really, is the right thing to do.
But this time he was sobbing and I couldn't get him to stop. So, I hopped in my car and went straight over there.
It was ON. His dad's girlfriend was belligerant, loud, unreasonable, and it didn't matter what I said she wasn't listening. Basically I laid it out: I'm mom, dad is dad, we make the rules and we don't want some other person bossing Shay around.
She has forbid him from going to play with his cousins next door, because she doesn't get along with them. I say, too bad. He should be immune from her drama problems.
She has also decided that she doesn't have to get him up so he can get ready for school. (she hasn't driven him to school all year, because of a DUI she lost her license. so I pick him up and take him, even when he's over at dad's)
Last week I picked him up for school and he hadn't eaten, showered, or brushed his teeth.
He didn't have an alarm clock in his room, and he overslept. But his dad's girlfriend was down the hall gossiping with someone on the phone. Too busy to wake him up.

When I explained my side of things, without raising my voice or using a curse word, she responded by yelling obscenities. When I told her that my son is stressed out from all the drama and problems over at their house, she said, "Fine, Shay, get your shit, get out, and don't come back!" His dad just stood there. I could tell he was just wore out from all the fighting that goes on with this woman, so I certainly didn't pick on him anymore. I left with this, "That is your son crying in my car, and these huge fights are what he's going to remember about his childhood with his dad. How can you stand to hear him cry over something your girlfriend started??"

I'm not making ultimatums about whether or not Shay can go back to dad's house, but I'm definitely going to make sure he doesn't go back until things are fixed over there.

Five minutes with me, and Shay was already better. But then he got to my house and discovered his new Super Mario game had come in the mail. Suddenly, dad and his girlfriend didn't exist.

Nice Stack

Steve asked me today what my schedule was, as he was walking out the front door.
"Well, if I could get that stack of paperwork done over there, I'd be FREEEEE!"

The stack is literally 1 foot tall, and it's from putting off some things that I really shouldn't have.
Besides doing the billing for the two huge events we just did, I need to pay a month's worth of bills for our office and also for my boss. He pays me to take care of his house expenses. He has six mortgages, which is two for each house. That includes two rental houses that he has never seen in person.

I've been sleeping so well, lately, so it was a surprise to be jolted out of slumber at midnight, with the freight train sound of very high winds hitting the house.
I put on my robe and headed outside to see what damage I could avert, like moving patio furniture to safety and making sure there weren't garbage cans flying around the neighborhood. I knew the wind was coming, but I didn't know it would be a friggin hurricane. I looked at the weather channel out of curiosity, and it said 35 mph winds all the way thru Tuesday night. So one thing I don't need to worry about is my hair!!

HaPPy MoTHers DaY

Well mine went very nice. I got eggs benedict for breakfast and a lovely card. Quite unexpected!!

Yesterday we accomplished an event that was actually very challenging. I can't say it was a pain in the ass, because really it all went according to plan and there were no fatalities....but it was challenging.

It was a boat regatta for a manufacturer that is very quirky to say the least. They are not a very outgoing bunch, and they are picky about certain things. Pair that up with a venue that is sometimes difficult to work with, and several changes to the schedule that people have come to get very acquainted with, and you have a big stress mountain.

Part of every event is the helicopter photos. Boats line up for their chance to get a professional photo taken of them racing down the lake in their boat. The photos are taken from the helicopter, and the starting point is a boat with me standing on it instructing them with a megaphone. (pictured below, I'm in the cowboy hat)


We usually do about 60 to 70 boats like that, then we rush to the next portion of the event. This is me, on the way to the next venue:


We had an article in a southern california newspaper last year, talking about how we conduct these regattas with a minimum of five different venues. Set up, tear down. Set up, tear down. A lot of times I'm jumping from boat to boat, then from boat to dock to get to where I'm needed. Run on the beach, pick up a few things, then dash off to the next thing on the schedule. Gee, I wonder how come my feet hurt....

One of the magazines that we do some work with is owned by a guy named Chris Davidson. He's a huge guy, big red-headed goof who gives the impression that he's not very saavy. I love and hate those kind of business people. They act like they don't know what they're doing and fool you into believing they're just a 'dude' that is lucky in life. But really, he has his money and his magazine because he knows just what the hell he's doing. He is not only a publisher. He's an Elvis Presley fanatic. He collected Elvis stuff for many many years, and eventually opened an Elvis museum in Vegas. When he tired of that, he sold a lot of the Elvis stuff to Graceland and made several million dollars from it. He didn't sell it all; he still has quite a collection, and it's stuff like jewelry, watches, pendants, clothing, etc. My boss has been to his office, and there are days where there'll be a big gawdy watch sitting on his desk--Chris says, "Try it on, that's an original Elvis piece."
Whoa. Touching something like that would be like touching an artifact from the pyramids in Egypt. But apparently Chris wears this stuff like it's nothing.
Yesterday Chris was on the boat with me, and I noticed a big "EP" pendant around his neck. I got to touch it and take a picture:



So that made my day, for the moment. As soon as I got off the boat I hit the ground running so I could get the banquet hall set up.