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Storm Season
It looks like storm season is officially here. It’ll gear up in a few days, I’m sure & we’ll have rain every day for a couple of weeks. Right now, it just clouds up & thinks about it before it moves on. I’m thankful we don’t really live anywhere that has a lot of severe weather, if we did, I’d have to think about underground shelters, because, while we do have a small root cellar, there’s no way all of us & the pets are going to fit in there for any length of time.
Anyway, I wish it would hit in full force, because the waiting for rain gets tedious, especially when it gets humid. I know that our humid & what is humid for most of the USA isn’t the same, but I live in the desert. We don’t have much humidity, except for about a month every year. We have dry winters (yes, it snows, but we don’t have damp, cold winters), when it rains in the spring, it’s still cold from the winter & not muggy. Most of the summer we have no rain, and if we do, it’s a surprise storm in the late evening or middle of the night. I know.. wahhhhhh. I’ll stop complaining! 
Thinking
We’ve been talking about getting me a smaller, more gas efficient vehicle for my daily running around & using the XTerra only for camping & grocery shopping (basically things were we need the cargo space). I’d love something cute & somewhat sporty (like the new beetle) and Troy’s pretty much leaving it up to me. I’ve been thinking that one thing I really want to get for whatever I choose (besides a great stereo) is a GPS, since I end up being the one who drives any time I go with Dawn or my mom to St. George & I’d love to not worry that I’ll get us lost. I don’t need a dezl truck gps or anything, just something with lifetime map updates included is good enough for me. It’ll be nice to have for traveling, too, then we don’t have to stress out.
Anyway, do any of you have one with updates included? What is it? Would you recommend it?
Independence Day
So, I said earlier that the 4th of July night deserved an entry of it’s own, so I’ll try to do it some justice. We had invited everyone in our core group of close friends, but we were pretty sure it was just going to be me, Troy & Rhi and Dawn’s family, because Nate & Marie had said they were going to the cookout in New Harmony with Dawn’s extended family & Ryan was on a camping trip with other friends. As evening approached, I got a text from dawn, saying that Jeremy wanted to know what he should bring, so I knew that at least he was coming & probably Nate & Marie, too, since Jeremy was the reason they were going to the other cookout.
They (and Dawn’s family) showed up at around 7 or 7:30 & as I was going around to the front of the house to get a couple more chairs, I heard a honk & looked up to see Ryan pulling up to park. So, it looked like everyone was going to make it after all! Troy got home, was happily surprised at everyone being there & as soon as he got changed, we started grilling. It turned out that both Nate & Jeremy had brought fireworks with them & we had a few, too.
While we were finishing up dinner, the neighborhood started going crazy, with people lighting off a huge variety of things. The laws regarding aerial fireworks just changed here, so we’re allowed to have anything that doesn’t go any higher than 150′ into the air & we can buy & light fireworks for a whole month (we have a big holiday here on July 24, where a lot of people light them, too) instead of 3 days before & after each holiday. We hadn’t bought any of the aerials, but both of them had.
We waited until it was actually dark & we had all had enough to eat before moving up to the street to start ours. We started out with something that looked like a huge frog (called Fiery Frogs) & popped like a couple of strings of firecrackers. Then we moved up. Jeremy lit a huge aerial pretty early into it & everyone on the street stopped what they were doing & started cheering that one. It got a round of applause afterwards. We finished them all up after about an hour, and honestly, it was a magical night. It was the way you always dream of the 4th being & it never quite is. Between the awesome friends and great food, it would have been an amazing night anyway, but throw in those fireworks & it was just perfect. We all talked about it for days, about how it was amazing,magical & perfect. It’s definitely one I’ll remember forever. We got a chance to show Rhi that amazing times can happen while you’re sober, too, and that was worth so much.
Next up? A group camping trip, hopefully within the next few weeks. I guess we’d better get a new inflatable mattress for our tent or hope someone wants to magically qualify us for some rv financing between now & then, or we won’t have anywhere to sleep!
New Game!
Troy & I have been seeing ads on the TV lately for Dungeon Siege 3, and since it appears to be at least a 2 player game, we’re very interested in getting it. It looks like a lot of fun, and we’re both pretty excited about it. It’s almost $60.00, but I’m confident that I can find some good best buy coupons to save some money on it, and even if I can’t, it’ll be well worth the money, just to have something we can play together.
We used to play Guild Wars together all the time, then we all lost interest & the missions became harder & harder so they weren’t any fun, so we quit. I’m really hoping this will work out better for us.
The Good Ole Days
Do any of you remember back when men & women both dressed up for an evening out together? When there were nice places to eat in almost every town, even if it was small? I think I really miss those times, when people thought about what they wore, and tried to impress each other. There were nice ties & cufflinks for men, along with hats & shoes that needed to be shined before they were put on. Women had nice dresses, (didn’t dress like they were going clubbing) shoes & purses that matched & pearls. They got their hair done just special for their night out, too.
What happened to us? Did we all become less special to each other? Did ease of care & comfort become the deciding factor in everything? I still love to get dressed up for my husband when he takes me out, although I don’t overdo it, considering we’re going somewhere like Applebee’s or something, but I want him to know it’s special to me & as a consequence, so is he. I guess there are times when I feel like I may have been born in the wrong era, although, most of the time, I love the time I’m in.
A Cool Idea
Morgan & I were talking earlier & she & Beth were watching the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family (I think). She mentioned that she wished we could have Samhain dinner like they were having on the movie right then, without the troll. I agreed that it would be awesome if that were possible, but no onehas nearly enough space for that, not even a big garage. We compromised on starting to buy Funkins to carve, since those are light enough to be suspend by fishing line so they look like they’re levitating. It would be awesome if we could find a barn or one of those steel buildings that we could rent for a day, though. We could have an amazing Samhain party in that.
I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with decorating the hell out of Dawn’s basement & making the most of it, yeah? We’ll still have an amazing time, we always do, and I’m really looking forward to it!
Just Not Slowing Down
Well, I kind of am, I have to. I’ve been sick with some sort of stomach bug, so I’ve been sleeping a lot & lying around a lot, too. The gazebo broke, pretty soon after we got it up & got to use it the one time. Troy, Rhi & I joined my parents at the livestock auction Thursday morning, looking for goats to add to our little herd. We didn’t stay long, since it was mostly cows that day, so we went to lunch & then we took the girls swimming after that & had a really good time, even though we didn’t stay long, since we were all tired out pretty quickly & the water wasn’t all that warm yet. Dani hated it, Beth loved it:
She spent a long time making her “soup” in her bucket & before that, she made a tower on the umbrella stand, which was fine until she started adding water to it. She had a great day & that was really what mattered.
We took Rhi up to the jail the next day, to serve her first weekend & she was told that she was done, had served her 90 days & didn’t have to do any weekends. So, we left, figuring it was probably a clerical error & at least she’d have the holiday weekend off, so we were pretty excited about that.
We had a great weekend, and had a barbecue planned for the 4th, plus we wanted to take Dani to the parade on Main Street. We all met at my house at around 9:00am and walked over to the parade (I live 3 blocks away) and had a great time with her at the parade. She was pretty unsure of all of the sirens, but never cried, she just looked concerned. She started waving at people pretty early into it & never stopped. I got some free salvia plants from the local nursery during it & found out they were giving out tomatoes later in the day, so we made plans to go out there at some point.
I got home, checked my email & found a couple of invitationbox.com beach party invitaitons in there, but they were from old high school friends & the party was at Pueblo Reservoir, which is several hundred miles away from me, so I declined them. When Dawn got up, we headed out to the nursery. I bought basil, lemon basil & spearmint & got 6 free tomato plants, then I dropped her off, hugged on our friends Nate & Marie, invited them to the barbecue that night & came home. After Rhi got here, we planted everything.
That night was pretty amazing & probably deserves it’s own entry, honestly.
Wow!
That was an extremely busy few days, there. Wednesday Dawn & I spent time getting ready for her birthday party, Thursday was her party plus we needed to get patio furniture done & we even got started on the gazebo, Friday we spent at Groovefest & then finished the gazebo. Saturday was our Litha celebration, which was from 2pm on. I hurt myself pretty bad while I was setting up, so it was a good thing that we don’t have a spa or anything, because I was spent & there would have been no removing the hot tub spa covers or anything after that. I came in, got it cleaned up & bandaged & got on the couch. I didn’t really care about anything else after that.
Ritual went pretty well, but then we started losing people (or they never showed up), but we made the most of it & had a good day anyway. Today is Dawn’s birthday, I made her burritos for dinner. They’ll come over at 6 to eat, watch True Blood & play Rock Band (I hope I can get my voice back by then). Right now, I think I’m going to go take a nap for awhile.
Dropping Out
Sorry about that, things are always crazier around here in the warmer months. I’m almost unwilling to sit down in front of my computer & do anything productive, when the big, wide, warm world is out there waiting for me. Tomorrow, we’ll start building/assembling the gazebo in the back yard, I really can’t wait to get it done so we can actually enjoy the back yard, finally. We bought some cute chairs & a small table for the front yard & I’ve been having my coffee out there in the mornings, it’s so peaceful & a wonderful way to start off the day. Today, Dawn came over & shared it with me & will be back tomorrow, too.
We plan to put the patio furniture together tomorrow after coffee, while Troy is (hopefully) at the shop, fixing my driver window in my XTerra & trying to figure out what’s wrong with the AC in it. After that, I imagine we’ll do the gazebo, because that’s about the only chance we’ll get.
Our daughter will be released from jail sometime tomorrow, thankfully. We bought beach chairs, an umbrella & I got an awesome swimsuit for the lake here, now I just hope it gets hot enough to start going, soon. I’m thankful that we don’t live near the ocean, I know I’d end up having to buy surfing clothes for her at some point. As it is, I’m sure she’ll want a new suit, too.
At any rate, we’ve been very busy, we’ll probably continue to be busy, or, at the very least, outside & not hovering over the computer all day long, like I do in the cold months.
