Joan on the Road...of Life

Here it is, 11 AM, and I'm still in my jammies. I see the energetic people walking by at a fast pace, arms swinging, ounces dropping and admire their dedication. I say to myself, "Self, you shoulda started a walking routine last January. You coulda lost 20 pounds by now and you woulda looked great and you coulda worn some of those great Christmas outfits that don't fit anymore."

It's been over 3 years since I retired and we hit the road and started living this "relaxed" life style. But the little voice in my head is still making up excuses for not exercising or even completing other resolutions. I am still in the newly retired mode of "I don't HAVE to do anything." Like most people I lived on a tight schedule for many years. Some of those years when I was being a Mom, working and going to school were pretty wicked. I barely had time to read a paper. And I was thin :)

Now there's hardly any schedule and who cares if I'm in my jammies until suppertime? :) We are in the perfect resort park to take advantage of all kinds of physical activities and get started on a new routine. Is this the year I'll really turn over a new page? Or will I continue to be a lazy bones?

Posted by Joan at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When we stop in SoCal for awhile we always have reasons to drive to Irvine where we lived for 27 years. It's a 1.5 hour drive from Hemet on nasty CA freeways so we try to bundle up the things we want to do there. Today was "tooth cleaning" day at Dr. Frank Stone's office. It may seem strange but it is almost more important to us that we see our regular dentist than a regular doctor.

Anyway, Frank wasn't there. Neither was Nancy, the office manager, And our hygienist, Nancy couldn't see us. So it wasn't the usual "old home week" when we arrived. Michelle was very good at cleaning our teeth but it wasn't like old times. You may wonder why we know these people so well. Jim had a ton of cosmetic reconstruction done about 10 years ago....full mouth. We could have bought a new house with all that. But we're glad he had that done. He has a beautiful smile :)

While I was waiting for Jim I read a bit from the "Chicken Soup for the Dentist"! Guess everyone needs their own chicken soup. I had to laugh but then the stories were quite heartwarming and...I know how good it makes someone feel to have that nice smile.

Then after spending time shopping for accessories for our Zen music player we went to one of our fave old restaurants. But....new name, new menu, no old friendly waiter who knew us. No more Cheers! AND they are going to move the restaurant to Newport Beach. So we had a farewell dinner.

I'm pretty open to change. I mean look at the life we live. I don't get all teary eyed when we go into Irvine. I've moved on. But darn it! Every now and then a change strikes an emotional chord and for some reason losing a favorite restaurant is one of them. Ok I tell myself. Get over it!

Posted by Joan at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our celebration started Christmas Eve when we all collected at Naomi and Brad's for snacky buffet, family time and a round of Robber Bingo. Baby Evan was really delighted to see us all at his house. We're all standing around talking and here's this little guy dancing around and stomping his foot like a country singer. Of course, he captured lots of our attention.

I wish I'd snapped a picture of Evan, Grandpa Tom and Uncle Jim on the floor in Evan's bedroom stacking blocks.

Every flat surface was covered with food and after we grazed for awhile, Jim and I passed out the Family Calendar. This year, because of the great price at Staples, we were able to give everyone, kids included, their own calendar. There were lots of smiles :).

We hadn't planned on the "Evan factor" in playing Robber Bingo so we had to watch out for little feet crashing through the Bingo cards. After all the prizes were taken there was a lot of fairly good natured stealing. Brad wound up with the prize box that everyone wanted and only had chapstick in it! He's already planning his prizes for next year.

Laura called from Montana so she got to enjoy the raucous game vicariously. She wondered if anyone really enjoyed it as the noise was pretty intense. We sure miss Laura and Steve. I'll bet they have that tongue scraper :)

Jim surprised me with a new camera! A Canon Power Shot S3. Wow! I love all the features...6.0 megapixels and 12x zoom...but I have a lot to learn. Then we got a Creative Zen player from son Jim which my Jim hasn't stopped playing with! We can see lots of possibiliies for this gadget. Tom and Renee gave me Photoshop Elements 5 which I've been wanting for a year. I have a lot of fun playing with pictures to create the calendar so who knows what I can do by next year. Big learning curve ahead though.

Lots of fun and love was passed around and soaked up by everyone. I love Christmas. Usually I most enjoy watching everyone open special presents but this year I must say I'm overwhelmed by what I got.

Posted by Joan at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Christmas! Everywhere I look there are stacks of Christmas things. Today is the day to wrap everything and pack it in the sleigh for delivery. The Family Calendar is just great and I'm sure everyone will enjoy it. We got the long distance ones into Priority Mail yesterday so they'll be delivered in time for the new year...we hope. Our mail from Rapid City, Priority Pack, is running about 5 days late. Usually it's a good service but the ole U.S. Mail can't equal FedEx or UPS for meeting promises.

We finished up all our gifts yesterday and tackled the grocery store today. Barring emergencies....WE ARE DONE! I was reading a couple of blogs where people are complaining about the crowds and spending money and parking...yada yada yada. I say...if it's such a hassle, don't participate. It's OK to adjust your holiday routines and ceremonies to what works for you.

One of my friends commented that this is the first year she won't be hosting the family Christmas dinner. She's passing the baton to a son. That happened for us when we moved and it's great fun to have others hosting the parties. This year we're delighted that our Granddaughter and her husband are hosting the Christmas Eve get together. We're going to play Robber Bingo to get us in the swing of passing gifts around and unwrapping. Unfortunately our favorite Bingo gift, the infamous tongue scrapper, has disappeared.We had lots of fun trying to avoid getting that one.

Now I have all my supplies collected, the Christmas music is playing and it's time to wrap the gifts. Bring Mrs. Clause a drink, honey.

Posted by Joan at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The calendar went to the printer, Staples, yesterday. They have a good deal this year...$9.99 per calendar with color laser printing. I'm always doubtful that they'll get it done right so we'll see tomorrow . Good thing we finished it up yesterday 'cause it's not done until Friday afternoon.

Now that the calendar is put to bed we can finish up our Chirstmas shopping. We did about a third of it on the road so we have some gifts from around the country. We "shoulda" done more of that just like I "shoulda" created all those hand made gifts I promised myself to do last January. Oh well...

Jim likes these last minute shopping adventures. We have all our "wish lists" from kids so we'll set off to do the best we can. And maybe we'll throw in some gifts that they "shoulda" wanted :)

The weather is PDC here in Hemet. That's Pretty Darned Cold or Pretty Darned Christmassy! 30-60 degrees. But there's no wind, lots of sun and no snow in the valley, just on the mountain tops...so we won't complain. Just put on a heavy sweater, hook up the reindeer and hit the road :)

Posted by Joan at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been deeply immersed in creating the Family Calendar. Haven't been out of my jammies for 2 days :) Yikes! I have hundreds of pictures on DVDs from seven family members plus my own pix. I'm trying to keep them straight, doing one person at a time, in hopes that I won't duplicate a picture.

Today I'm coming up for air and a shower and then it's time to "git r done!" If I was smart or more organized I would not be in this last minute mode. But it's actually one of those projects that needs to be completed in one big chunk because I have to keep in mind whose face I've put where....if you know what I mean.

So I'm going to grab another cup of coffee and get to work.

Posted by Joan at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grandson Jim came by to visit yesterday so we went to a late lunch at Applebee's and then tried for some sunset pictures up at Diamond Lake Reservoir. Too bad, the lake was closed at 4 PM. So back to our park and we showed Jim all the resort amenities. We have 3 pools, a billiard room, various meeting and ball rooms and a huge shuffleboard building. Jim captured this lovely sunset light photo of us.

After Jim and Grandpa had a game of billiards we went home and among other things, Jim showed me some Photoshop tricks that I may be able to incorporate into our calendar. We are really enjoying visiting with our grownup grandkids. Jim is studying photography and graphic arts so we spent time looking at some of our travel shots. We had a good discussion about temperament/personality style which is a topic I used to train in the corporate environment. Sometime I'll write more about that life :) .

Tonight I was invited to Baby Evan's day care Christmas Program. What, you may ask, will 1 year olds do in a Christmas Program? About 10 toddlers came out with snowman costumes, hats and jingle bells. They all stood in front and clapped, danced and jingled to "Frosty the Snowman." Picture taking didn't work which is too bad because some were more expressive than others. Evan got into the dancing and was very pleased when we all clapped. But tears came when the bells and costume were taken away. Ahhh....it's just beginning for his Mom and Dad.

Posted by Joan at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Tuesday Jim was feeling almost 100% so we went to visit granddaughter Mary on campus at the University of Redlands. We got the tour of her dorm and classrooms. Although this is the 100 year celebration for Redlands several of the buildings are quite modern and Mary says the computer labs are tops. She played her final project in digital music for us in a soundproof studio. It was really interesting to see how common sounds and words can be made into music. We are very proud of her and happy she can go to this school. It's pretty pricey but she is lucky enough to have some big help in scholarships and grants.

Mary joined us for lunch at Olive Garden and after Jim ate a full meal I knew he was back to normal. We stopped by Camping World to pick up a "steering wheel topper" to make a little table in the MH (but it doesn't work) and then dropped Mary off by her dorm. Back to studying for finals for her.

I'd taken several pictures on campus and wanted to post a few here but, dummy me, I accidently deleted them from both camera and computer. I don't think I've ever made that stupid mistake. So I took a deep breath and then got into scanning slides again.

By the way, in my infinite wisdom last year, I wrote up instructions in MS Word for making the photo collage in Photoshop. There are a few tricks. Click Download file for the file if you're interested in doing this.

Yesterday I took a break from scanning and calendar work to have lunch with Jim by the pool. Should have taken a picture there. This is a really nice park and the weather was beautiful...72 and sunny. Can't ask for better in the middle of December :)

Posted by Joan at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Out of the blue on Sunday afternoon Jim got sick...all the classic flu symptoms. Now where did that come from? So he went to bed for 24 hours and felt better yesterday afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one else gets it. I quit kissing him but it was probably too late.

So while he tried to feel better I got out the Nikon slide scanner and started on the slow and boring process of scanning 35mm slides. I haven't done this since January because I got a bit pi$$ed off when my hard drive crashed and I lost about 10 hours worth of scanning. Took me a long time to get over that one I guess :) Also, it is a nostalgic/emotional thing to do. I'm going through pictures of our family from 1959, recalling fun times, vacation, lost loved ones. But the end result is a wonderful keepsake.

I figured I needed more old pictures to incorporate into the Family Calendar collages that I'm making. I've recovered about half of the pix I lost so I think I'm ready to start the calendar. I have photo submissions from kids AND grandkids this year so I'm sure the decision process is going to be tough.

I use Photoshop Elements 3.0 to create the collage pages. I always have to search HELP to figure out how to do it again but basically I start with a FILE\NEW and than add layers of pictures that I resize as I go. The hardest thing is to avoid duplicates! I really need to run it by a Grandkid because they catch all my errors, but that would spoil the Christmas surprise. Here's a sample of January 2006. I think there's 15-20 pix on each monthly page.

Pre-digital I had to physically cut and paste snapshots, then make copies. That was kind of fun, sort of like scrapbooking :) Now it's all on the computer and I'll take a file to Staples where they'll print up calendars for $9.99!!! Wow! We've been paying $25-30 for ink and paper in the past.

So the Calendar process is started and hopefully they'll be ready for Christmas giving....because I won't get the flu!

Posted by Joan at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday night Evan and his Mom came to visit. He was pretty happy with plastic spoons, cups and containers. He's at the "put it in, take it out" stage. But then he tried to climb the "doghouse"!

Look at me Mom!

Saturday we celebrated Bryan's 18th Birthday! Bryan was my dancing buddy when he was about 8 months old. I would dance him around the living room to get him sleepy. Now he's 6'4", high school senior, captain of the baseball team and aspiring major league ball player. He's a pretty darned good pitcher and shortstop!

I looked around the room at the 7 grandkids and realized that 5 of them are over 18. They sure seem a lot younger at that age than I was at 18. How can that be? And they've become opinionated! And they don't always agree with me. But we still have fun together.

Posted by Joan at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, we're not lost! I just thought a picture of our current home in Hemet might be good. It's a large site with a nice shrubby backside. Currently no one is beside or in front of us so we feel very spacious.

Now about "lost". We started to put up our little 4 year old fiber optic tree and could not find the transformer thingy to plug it in! You might think that it's hard to lose something in such a small home....wrong! There are lots of nooks and crannies, some of which are really unpleasant to get to.

Here's what I think happened. I forgot to put the thingy in the box with the tree. So rather than dig out the tree again last year I put it in a junk container. You have one of those? Then, when we cleaned out the junk container, I held up the thingy and we looked at each other and said "I've no idea what that is for." So we threw it away. I have a dim memory of that scenario.

But we've saved lots of other thingys that are not attached to any gadget. Unfortunately none of them worked. Probably not enough power because they just made the little tree look sick when plugged in. Finally Jim found a voltage regulator gadget (?) that he kludged together with a plug that fit the tree. It makes the tree light up nicely but the color wheel is not rotating so the lights aren't changing color. It's OK until we find something better. We concluded our decorating with more rope lights inside and out so we feel festive.

Lost in books. Every now and then I get lost in books and that's where I've been for a few days. No inspration to write...just read. If I'm honest it's probably an escape or procrastination habit. I should be scanning slides for the family calendar. I should be cleaning cabinets and reorganizing while we are parked. I should be exercising more and using the beautiful facilities here at the park. Is there a theme here?

Because we get all our books on the cheap I wind up reading an eclectic mix. Here's where I've been lost:
The Brethren by John Grisham- three judges in a Florida prison run a scam
Boomer by Charles Taylor- a Russian "charm school" graduate gets command of a US nuclear sub and carries out deadly games
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro- an English butler recalls his life during a road trip; a wonderful example of the English language
Warning Signs by Stephen White- a Boulder psychologist and his wife are involved in solving a tangled murder mystery; I'l look for more by this guy

That's where I've been. Today no books. I have to get our little house baby-proofed because Evan is coming for dinner. Wonder what he'll eat tonight?

Posted by Joan at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday night was a DJ night. I think we were both a little anxious about the doctor appointment on Monday. So we got lost in the music again. I don't know if I mentioned it but we now have our Musicmatch library on a third laptop that sits by a chair. So it's easily available to both of us. We find that we are playing more music this way. We had a steak, broccoli and red wine dinner then enjoyed our tunes.

Monday we made the long drive to Long Beach...took 2.5 hours. Good thing we left early :) It's been nearly 2 years since Jim was diagnosed with bladder cancer while we were in Florida....winter 2004. He had surgery in April 2004 and gets checkups every 6 months. This one was, again, two thumbs up. We breathe a big sigh of relief although I'm more anxious than Jim. He felt sure that all was well because he had no recurring symptoms.

Taking care of health business while on the road is a pain in the tush but we're sort of developing a pattern...trying to get docs in CA lined up so that we can do checkups here. Next he has an appointment with an ophthmologist in Long Beach who was recommended by our Illinois eye doc. Hopefully Medicare will pay for this new treatment in CA.

On the way home we stopped at Winchester Farms on Rt 79 where we're getting some really good Texas Star grapefruit and we picked up a Reed Avocado. I'd never seen one before but we took a chance and it's really good. Great on crackers with salt or in a salad but I guess not good for guacamole :)

We are enoying the lovely weather in Hemet. We had five days of Santa Ana winds in SoCal with gusts of 60+ mph but here at our little park in Hemet....no wind. It's kind of crazy. We drive out of the park about a mile and get blasted with wind but here it's very quiet. with temps in mid 70's. So life is good today!

Posted by Joan at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Several weeks ago our granddaughter Mary invited us to her Christmas Concert at University of Redlands. Her high school concerts were very good so we were looking forward to this college presentation. We didn't realize what a community production The Feast of Lights is.

Son Jim treated us to this evening of music and pagentry. Seems the event started decades ago with some carols and readings. Now it is presented four times and includes community and college choirs and orchestras. Probably 300 people performed old carols and hymns along with the story of Christmas. While Jim and I are not religious people we enjoy all the culture and tradition of Christmas....and in this case we got to sing along. Wow! Blending our voices with all these professionals, the orchestra and the pipe organ. The candle lighting ceremony was very impressive and then during the closing "Silent Night" we were led outside where luminarias lighted the walkway. Quite wonderful!

We were inspired to come home and put together our Christmas music list on the computer using Musicmatch. We must have a couple of dozen Christmas albums ranging from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Yogi Yorgerson singing "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas".

So now we're in the spirit even though it's 75 windy degrees in SoCal. We have a few Christmas gifts purchased, the Family Christmas Calendar is in the works, yarn and crochet hooks are close by and some Christmas lights are up outside. What else? Oh, get out the Christmas tree and bake some cookies :)

Posted by Joan at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Those shoes weren't made for walkin'....so he took them back. The shoes from Macy's that saved the day for Jim in Chicago were clunky and uncomfortable but, at the time, the best he could do. They traveled 2200 miles but probably only walked a mile. So we thought let's give it a shot. For $80 it was worth a try to return them here in Temecula, CA.

The girl at Macy's looked a little doubtful. Do you have the box? Where is this store? Well let me see what I can do. No, I can't give you credit on your Visa card because our stores aren't linked. How about if I give you credit on a Macy gift card?!

So we got the $80 gift card and on the way out I suggested Jim try on some Hush Puppy slippers because he's been wanting slippers for awhile. $60?! for slippers? Well...I've got this gift card here :) So we went back and bought them from the same clerk who didn't even crack a smile. And the slippers were on sale! 25% off! This feels like we finessed something but we're not quite sure what :)

Posted by Joan at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)