Joan on the Road...of Life

You may know how it feels. They'll take a picture in a week or so and the tension is building. Every day more and more quick flashes of desperate thoughts find their way into your brain. Get out! Bring in positive thoughts. Everything will be OK.

Night time, can't sleep, what if? What if I have to go through this all over again? I can't, OMG, I can't!

Keep busy. Watch movies, play internet games, cook, snack...anything to keep the mind going in a good track.

Then the day arrives and you make the long trip just to wait in the office wondering when they'll finally call your name. Get undressed, put on the robe.....just step up here m'am. Closer, bend the arm, breathe, hold it! SQUISH! Step back.

Thankfully, the wonderfully sensitive technician comes out immediately and says the magic words..."No problem, Joan. Everything looks good!!!""

Take a deep breath and smile ....and laugh....and shout!!! Yessss!!! (can you see the arm pumping?)

Posted by Joan at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well I finally got bored enough that I set up the Nikon scanner and started in on the negatives from 1992...only 9 more years to go. It takes about an hour to go through one "roll" of film, about 24 pictures. The Nikon does a very nice job of removing dust and scratches.

It's such a nostalgic thing to do....seeing family members before divorces, before life threatening illness. Really happy times. Not that we're terribly unhappy now. But life goes on, kids get older, health problems appear, friends disappear, new ones appear. Funny....mostly pictures are of good times. We never take pictures of the arguments do we? That's probably a good thing :)

I do believe that all my pictures indicate that we had way more than our fair share of happy times. Picnics, holidays, beach parties, trips, dinners, bonfires, camping trips, bike rides, spa time, remodels, weddings, showers, new babies...sometimes I am overwhelmed with the memories of such good times with family and friends.

Here's a "blast from the past" pic...a relaxing day at Newport Beach in August 1992. This shot has been "cleaned" by Nikon Coolscan.

Bottom line...my life has not been boring...but everynow and then I need to kick myself in the butt, adjust my attitude and get on with life. Thanks for listening :)

Posted by Joan at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just finished reading My Dream of Stars, From Daughter of Iran to Space Pioneer by Anousheh Ansari. As a girl in Iran, Anousheh would lie on the balcony at night and dream of someday going into space to be with the stars. At age 40 and a successful American businesswoman she was able to make that dream come true.

Her story takes us with her through school, immigration to the U.S., university studies, marriage, business development and success and finally training for space flight and the journey to the International Space Station. The book is currently on the New York Times bestseller list...pick it up at your library and I'm sure you'll enjoy it...and you'll contemplate your dreams.

I realized yesterday that I need to have a dream out there in the future, something I'm thinking about, planning for and focusing on. The thought came to me in a flash while we sat outside having morning coffee. We have never fully utilized our membership at Hart Ranch in Rapid City, SD. While we stay there every year for a few weeks we actually can be there at least 21 days every month at no cost. Now I don't want to do that full time...pretty cold in the winter. BUT...why not stay there for 3 or 4 months in the summer. There's lots to do and explore.

So that's my dream, my goal for next year. Live in the land of the Fab Four (Mt. Rushmore) and dig into the history of the Black Hills. While the decision to pause here for a year is a good decision, it also has a negative impact on my psyche...almost a feeling of being trapped. Putting a new goal out there lifts the dark clouds.

Posted by Joan at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoyed our Mother's Day celebration with a couple of my favorite Moms...Daughter Renee and Granddaughter Naomi.

This was taken by Evan so it's from his point of view :). I wish someone could find the camera angle that elimates my double chin.

Naomi (on the right) invited us over for brunch. It was a team effort. She prepared the fixins for omelets and SIL Tom cooked them up. Son Jim brought a delicious fruit salad, gourmet bacon and mimosas. Naomi made hash browns and cake for dessert. What more could we ask for?

Evan was fussing about watching a new Thomas the Train movie but we wanted to visit. So I distracted him by letting him take pictures with my camera. That kept him occupied for about 15 minutes mostly taking shots of everyone's shoes. Here's the happy photographer.

Renee sent me home with a pan of Lemon Squares and a colorful bowl of flowers for the patio. A perfect Mother's Day is when I get to talk to all my kids and my Mom. It was a perfect day.

Posted by Joan at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In our effort to be frugal we have been looking at various adjustable expenses like groceries, gas, and electric. For the past week or so we've experimented with the electric by turning off stuff at night to see how much we could save. 10 AM every day we take a meter reading and calculate kilowatt hours.

We've always had a high electric bill. Every house we lived in our bill was way more than the neighbors. That's because we pretty much are techno geeks....and we always followed the thinking that it was better to leave computers running than turn them off and on all the time. Maybe that's true for the computer. Maybe it's better for the switches or whatever.

But for kilowatt hours.....turn 'em off. Right now, without the AC running, we can save nearly 20% on our electric bill by turning off computers and media (TV, Tuner, etc. that use standby power even when shut off). We have 5 power strips in the front of the MH so it's pretty easy. Just turn off computers and then throw all the power strip switches.

Before doing this it always looked like a space ship bridge when we got up in the night with red and green lights glowing and blinking all over the place. Now...pitch black! No electrical hum. Silence. Priceless :)

Posted by Joan at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you are an RVer you will really get this. Many RVs have Day-Night Shades, a kind of cloth accordian double layer shade that moves up and down the window, secured by tension cords top and bottom. Now the shades are hard to keep clean. They've got to be vacuumed with the "slot" attachment to the vacuum, one strip at a time. If they get spotted they can be cleaned with Folex (the miracle) spray cleaner. I just did that routine on one big shade last week.

Today we decided to put some sun insulation shield up on the big back bedroom window because it faces south. So we needed to raise the shade and measure. But darn! The shade would not go up all the way. It just needed a a little turn of the screw on the bottom to loosen up the tension. Easier said than done. The screw came loose, the cord holder broke and the cord was almost free. Caught it in time before the shade ate it up and it disappeared forever in the depths of the accordian pleats.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to string two cords through a hole in the cord holder that was big enough for one and a half cords. (Can you hear all the four letter words?) I accepted the mission because it was somewhat like sewing. What I really needed was a tiny crochet hook. What I used was a paper clip :)

Lying (laying?) on my back on the bed, Jim holding the cords above me to be sure they didn't disappear, I spent about 15 minutes poking, prodding, coaxing the da#$ cords through the tiny holes. Finally ....success. Then new longer screws were inserted through the cord holder, drilled into a stronger surface on the wall. Mission complete.

We were going to put up the insulation but were both exhausted. In the words of Scarlett O'Hara...we'll worry about that tomorrow. We won this one!

Posted by Joan at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)