Adventures with nature

We live in the mountains, next to a sand plant and nature is abundant.  Sometimes nature is unexpected, such as the day I returned home and wondered when we moved to the zoo.  Or the time when Creative Guy and I were heading out to the car and the biggest coyote I have ever seen came out of the bushes about 10 feet away from where we were.  I honestly thought for a minute it was a wolf.  Long time blog followers may remember the rodent invasion of May 2011 at Shangri-La O.

Sometimes nature is welcomed, sometimes not so much.

Cute birds on the bird feeder, welcome.

Squirrel on the bird feeder, not welcome.

Ants roaming around the yard, welcome.

Ants in the kitchen and bathrooms, not welcome.

Bats flying through the sky at night, welcome.

Bats stuck between the window and screen....um, yeah, not welcome.(The question we want to ask but are afraid to ask is how did it get there?)

Termites indoors, never welcome.

Scorpions indoors, never welcome.

Snakes in the garage, as long as they slither out without causing harm, tolerable.
Whatever ran out of the garage when I got home last night, again, as long as they run away without causing harm, tolerable.

Deer lounging under the cedar trees, welcome.

Rabbits hopping by, welcome.

The neighbors dog that is allowed to wander at will, really irritating.
The Siamese cat that scampers away the minute it sees a human being, well, I hope it's catching the rodents and snakes...and blue jays (the screechy, annoying ones).

Raccoons knocking over the garbage cans, decidedly not welcome.
Whatever animal keeps walking across the front porch in the wee hours in the morning, that is heavy enough to cause the porch to creak and moan and that wanders around the front year snorting like a pig, REALLY not welcome.

We may be investing in an animal cam or night cam or, as I will call it, "what the heck kind of animal keeps waking me up in the middle of the night" cam.  Then again, maybe I don't want to know...I might never leave the house at night again.

New residents

So...do you remember the post about the critter?  The relatives have moved in.

Papa Bear pulled up the boards the other day and washed away the nest that was being built.  I've heard the scritch-scratching in earnest the last couple of days.  *sigh*  I wouldn't mind if it was the chipmunk family taking up residence.  They are cute.  This family has got.to.go. 

I do believe I will be heading to the store tomorrow for some special treats.

Stream of thoughts...

I need a job.  2nd interview went OK.  I wasn't enthused, it was easy to see.  While I could do the job, I wouldn't love it and that makes it a dilemma.  Not that one always has to love their job but...

Anyway,  I applied to two other places this week.  One is with a local school (which I would LOVE!!  Almost afraid to say how much I would LOVE to work for the local schools).  The other is at Costco.  Who knows.  At least applications are going in.  A job coming back to me would be lovely.

I'm painting a bedroom over at G.G's house.  It's slow going, but it will get done.

I realized today that I'm struggling with living at my parents house.  I LOVE them.  Really, really do.  They have been fantastic.  Yet looking at my space I realize that everything I own is either in a box in the garage or shoved into this room.  I want to organize and make things look good but there's no place to put anything and so it all just gets plunked down wherever there is room...which there isn't much of these days!  Things will work out, just needed to whine a little bit.

Had lunch with K and Adventure Boy today.  He was full of questions.  "What does 'vocational' mean?  Where is heaven?  What does 'whatever' mean?"  There was another word he asked about but I can't remember what it was at this moment.  He did say that he thinks heaven is a town...in Jesus' heart.  His brain is working on overload!

This morning I woke up to the news of the protesters/riot/college students at Penn State having their say.  I am gonna be 100% honest, I'm dismayed by the whole thing.  As one who did Safe Church/Safe Child training on preventing child abuse in churches, it completely amazes me that three men in positions of leadership seemingly did little to nothing to stop an abuser.  Especially if one of the men actually did walk in on an incident and turned around and walked away as has been reported.  The mama bear in me just can't fathom it.  I realize I'm getting everything through the media and there could be incorrect information but something tells me there is probably a lot more to the story.  This could get uglier.  One statement that caught me this morning, again, on the news, was from a reporter in the throng of the protesters saying "not all Penn State students are angry about the coach's firing, but the one's we talked to wouldn't on camera for fear of retaliation by other students."  What?  There's something majorly wrong here.

Okay, now that I'm all fired up, I'm gonna go eat dinner.  One GREAT thing about living at home...Yo Momma makes dinner.  :)

Oops!  I forgot one thing!  I'm usually a Star$ girl.  However, on the way home today Star$ was on the left hand side of the road and Peet's on the right.  I figured I could deal with Peet's today...just in a coffee mood.  I think I have a new favorite coffee.  Caramel Pecan Mocha.  Oo-de-lally!  That was goooooood.

Which reminds me...of one of my favorite Disney movies...I think it's a movie night.

Updated: Warning: Extremely disturbing post to follow discretion advised

This morning I was walking to the front door when I spotted a disturbing sight.  Sitting on the old sewing machine are two of the many Isabel Bloom angels that Yo Momma has gifted me with over the years, usually for my birthday or Christmas or when she gets back from her bike ride in May...cuz the mothership of Isabel Bloom just happens to be in Davenport, Iowa where our family and friends are!  If you aren't familiar with Isabel Bloom just click on her name and you will find out what I'm talking about.  They aren't for everyone, but I love them.

Anyway, I easily have over 20 Isabel Bloom angels and friends and have had to find creative places to put them.  Space is limited around here.  They have had a great home on the sewing machine since Christmas...or so I thought.  This morning I was horrified to see this:

Yes, my friends, that is a headless angel.  Now, I have no idea when this happened.  It could have happened awhile back or it could have happened yesterday, that's not the issue.  The issue is that there is a headless angel in my house and I wasn't told!  Upon further inspection, not only has the angel been decapitated but one of the birds that she is holding is missing it's head as well.  Upon further, further inspection I found there to be no, I repeat, no remnants of said birds head or crumbles of grey cement upon the floor,  Very suspicious.

There is an angel and bird be-header in my midst, my friends, and I am on a mission to find them out!

Update:  If you read the comments you will find that this person: 

was the culprit...or the version of this person who lives in my house.  Mystery solved!  :)

This, that and the other thing

This July has not been like last July.  Last July it was just downright pleasant all month.  This July has had more warm days.  Next week is VBS week.  I expect heat, heat and more heat.  Ugh.  At least we have moved VBS to the morning and we aren't trying giving ourselves heat exhaustion anymore.  One can only hope the fog will roll in every night and cool off the sanctuary.

I forgot to update y'all on things that have been going on.  A few weeks ago I got to officiate at a wedding!  Nope, I haven't been ordained.  There are counties in California that deputize people to perform a single wedding ceremony.  The couple who got married asked if I would be willing to go that route and I jumped at the chance!  The one reason that I would choose to be ordained right now would be to be a part of weddings.  Thanks to the County of San Diego for making it happen!  It was very special, especially because I've known the young man who got married since he was 6 years old and hiding under the table during Sunday School.  :)  I did, however, learn a couple of things.  Number 1:  If the couple says "outdoor wedding on a cliff" it's probably a good idea to sew rocks into the hem of my skirt and put my hair all the way up.  Number 2:  invest in a nice looking three ring binder.  Saves a lot of panic over whether or not you'll lose pages.  And yes, I will need to know all this again because in September I get to officiate at my cousin's wedding.  Very, very cool.

In sad news, Hop-a-long hops no more.  I'm pretty sure he helped some other animal get full one night before I went to San Diego.  In more happier news (for me anyway), the de-con on is working.  One more rat gone.  We do now have a chipmunk that scampers across the driveway and up trees and around corners and is basically making himself at home.  Papa Bear came back and the birds are happy.  So happy that they can't seem to stop in time on their way to the bird food and keep slamming into the floor to ceiling windows.  Seriously, there were 3 birds in less than 5 minutes that hit the windows the other day.  I think one hit pretty hard too...it kept trying to fly in the window.  It was just fluttering it's wings and pressing it's face against the glass.  I think keeping the blinds closed, at least part way, would help, but Papa Bear likes them wide open.  Oh well, he's the one who has to clean the windows.

Sunday I preached at FPC for the last time as an employee of the church.  It was on the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.  The sermon went well at both services but I have to say I'm pretty glad to be done with being the worship leader and preaching on the same day.  Even though it only happened a few times a year, it's just too much to do in the service.  Before I gave the sermon at the 2nd service, my friend Beth, her husband and a friend of theirs the song below.  Beth started in singing the first line and I found myself in tears.  As the song continued and the harmonies came in I had to close my eyes and just pray that I would be able to stand up and preach.  It was just so good...and it sounded even better than the group who sings it below...but I am biased.  :)

Because I know you are anxious for an update...

Hop-a-long is still with us.  Tonight, upon arriving home, I opened up the house to air it out (84 degrees upstairs...yikes!).  Within seconds of walking away from the door I heard the sound, the "hop-hop-hop" of this injured blue jay that has adopted our house.  The other night I heard the sound, the unmistakable sound of an animal in distress.  It was such a high pitch screech that I was sure Hop-a-long had met his demise.  The next afternoon, I spied him again, though, hopping underneath the trees.

A couple of mornings ago I heard an awful racket outside my window (at a time when I should have been asleep).  I peeked through the blinds to see Hop-a-long being picked on by two other blue jays.  Of course, I couldn't let that happen...just one little tap on the window and the bully blue jays scattered...and so did Hop-a-long.

Every time I leave or when I come home, I'm checking to see if Hop-a-long is still around.  That's a bad sign.  I'm getting attached to an injured blue jay.  Sigh.

Hop-a-long

It's becoming a wild animal refuge around the house lately.  We had the Rat Invasion 2011, followed by the Great Alligator Lizard attempted invasion.  We successfully eliminated the Rat Invasion...which came to a stinky conclusion.  The Great Alligator Lizard attempted invasion was re-routed someplace other than the house.  Which was good because that thing was HUGE!  There would have been no sleeping in this house if that had gotten in.  But now, we have a new resident.  Introducing Hop-a-long, the Blue Jay. 

Hop-a-long has a damaged wing and has taken up residency by our front porch.  It's rare to walk outside these days without Hop-a-long making his presence known.  I don't mind Hop-a-long.  I feel kind of bad for the bird, actually.  So does Papa Bear, evidently.  I was recently instructed to feed Hop-a-long at night, just put a little food out for him.  And maybe some water.

I'm okay with that, but I'm done with feeding the flock of blue jays that scare away all the other birds that we actually like.  Like the doves, the little sparrows and other cute birds with awful names (tufted titmouse?  really?) and sometimes, when they aren't too obnoxious, the pigeons.  Though the pigeons have this habit of flying into the windows.  Even with the blinds partly covering the windows, the pigeons still insist on trying to get through the windows.

Yep, a wild life refuge around here...well only the ones we actually like!

Cow in the neighborhood

That was the subject line of the email I received from my mother today. It was from a neighbor. Seems she and her husband were driving home the other night and almost hit a black cow as they turned into the neighborhood.

Now if we were living in say, Central CA or Texas, on a long country road out in the middle of nowhere, then almost hitting a cow wouldn't be so shocking. But on the Central Coast of CA? Cows in the neighborhood are rare, very rare. We have stray dogs (or dogs that just run loose...grrrrr), lots of deer, plenty of squirrels, singing coyotes, fox, birds and snakes. The neighbor up the road has emu's and I think at one point they had llama's too. Somewhere in the mountains we have a mountain lion, I'm sure, but a cow? That's a new one.

There used to be someone who owned a lion. It lived up the hill from G.G. I remember it getting loose one time and the school being on lock down...or maybe I dreamed that. Somewhere in the surrounding neighborhoods there are chickens and a rooster. I'm not a fan of the rooster. I know that there are skunks out there, I've smelled them. We've had rats in the garage, but I'm pretty sure that Papa Bear eliminated them. The next door neighbor had a horse once. The local Bigfoot Museum people are convinced that a Bigfoot is living in the woods around town. But a cow in the neighborhood...that is definitely a new one.

Which brings up the question, what would you do if you walked out your front door and were greeted with a stray cow? Would you try to catch it? Would you shoo it away? Would you call animal control to come round it up? The neighbor who sent the email said that the cow just ran down the road after they came upon it with their car...they didn't hit it, don't worry. Should they have followed it to see where it went? My mind is filled with questions and I have to say, I'm a little curious about this cow, now.

I wonder if that's what has been waking me up the last few nights. I've heard the swish-swish-swish of what could be a tail brushing against the house. But usually the motion lights go on when something as small as a raccoon...oh yeah, we have raccoons too, runs down the porch. If I'm woken up again tonight, I'll have to check out what's out there.

A cow in the neighborhood. This one I really want to see.

Cake and deer

Adventure Boy turned 4 this week. He requested a blue angel cake. No, not a blue angel food cake. A blue angel PLANE cake. It was easier than I anticipated. Not 100% satisfied with it but I did love the recipe I found for yellow cake. It was yummy!

BTW, in case you are wondering, Rice Krispy Treats that you buy in the store don't get stale. I tried to make them stale...it didn't work.

In other news, there are some new residents at our house. Two of them are a little camera shy, but Buck was fine posing for the picture. He just wasn't gonna get up.I've told them that they are welcome to stay as long as they don't eat the roses, lemon leaves or dahlias. We'll see if they comply.

Cleaning

It's Saturday. All week long the fog has been a welcome friend in the mornings. Today, not so much. The air pouring through my window is much warmer than it has been the rest of the week. Perfect day to sort through things that have been piling up.

First up, the top of my vanity. Seriously haven't seen the top of it in probably over a year. It's the dumping grounds for anything that doesn't have a home. The garbage can starts piling up, paper recycling is filling and so is the bag for the Flea Market at the end of the month. There's a stack of pictures for K, cards bought but never sent, a pile of things for the bathroom cupboard, papers to be filed.

The catch-all drawer is next. Hair bands, more hair bands, hair clips. Huh. It's always funny that just about the time I get all of these types of things organized, I decide it's time to cut my hair (the appointments Monday). At least it will all be in one place! Make-up that's old, out! Paintbrushes, I wondered where those went. It's quite a feat but when the drawer is back in place, the top of the vanity is cleaned off there's a sense of peace within my soul. I like this clean look. It looks fresh, new, inviting.

So I start on the bills and stuff that's been piling up. Recycle, recycle, recycle, file. There are cards from Yo Momma from Christmases past, a card from M & L from two years ago...the message is pretty appropriate for right now...can't part with those. The envelope with papers from my last class at Fuller (I got an A, by the way), the receipt that says I paid a lot of money for that class, all filed away. Amongst a card from Meg I find an I-tunes card that has been missing for a long time. And there's 20 in a card from Staff Appreciation Sunday in October. I think it's been way too long since I went through this stuff.

It occurs to me, part way through, that this cleansing, this purging is much like the cleansing that I find in Christ. Not surprising that's where my brain goes, I'm preaching on forgiveness and love Sunday morning. Cleaning off, cleaning out this stuff helps me to feel a little less chaotic, out of control, more centered. Much like my relationship with Christ, I feel more centered, less chaotic, less out of control when I wade through the junk, confess, let go of things that are binding up my soul and allow Christ's love, compassion and forgiveness to enter in. It's good to go through this purging, both the physical stuff and the emotional stuff, to let go of what's holding me back from feeling peaceful and find that beauty that is around me and in me again.

It's Saturday, a little warm, but a great day for cleaning.

Home

The weekend was a blur of information, images, thoughts, visceral reactions, food, smells and more. There is much to unpack, both literally and mentally. I'm wondering about the future of the Church universal and the Church personal. I'm pondering the state of youth ministry in my own situation, I'm thinking about the body of believers that I worship with, about those who will welcome some fresh ideas and those who will put up a wall, a very, very large intimidating wall. I'm thinking about our upcoming trip to Mississippi and the tug I'm feeling from God to change things, to sacrifice, to go outside my comfort zone. There is much going on in my brain and there is much to filter. I'm sure this space will be used to filter all of the stuff inside my head in the coming days and weeks.

Right now, I'm going to sleep.

When did I move to the zoo?

Friday evening I arrived home after a couple of glorious days away. So good to just be. Be quiet. Be serious. Be silly. Be contemplative. Be aware. Be sad. Be happy. Be shopping. Be listening. Be watchful. Be me. Just be.

Arriving home I pulled into the garage, opened the trunk and began to pull out the many items I collected when I heard a bird crying. Nothing unusual around this house, but this bird cry was different. I'd heard it before but not at home. Huh.

Took my stuff inside and went upstairs to visit. That's when I heard the bird again and Yo Momma says "It's a peacock". THAT'S IT! I knew I'd heard that sound before...at the zoo! Turns out there's a white peacock roaming around the neighborhood. Guess it spent the day in our neighborhood and then moved across the gully to another neighborhood. I never caught a glimpse of it, but I've heard it several times in the last couple of days. Yo Momma did some research and turns out the tail feathers can be sold for up to $500. Yikes! Me thinks someone in the area is without a very valuable pet.Edited to add:
No joke. I pushed publish and the peacock started talking again from the neighbors tree. Crazy.

Sunday's ramblings

It's too warm outside. I walked out of the garage toward the front of the house and this warm gust of wind made me think that it's summer time. Seriously. Which bums me out 'cuz I just got one of my Christmas presents in the mail, fabulous sweatshirt that says "Washington D.C." on it and I really want to wear it but it's too stinkin' warm.

I wore it tonight anyway but sweat my way through R.A.W. I haven't really worn a pullover hooded sweatshirt in a few years...switched to zip ups and all my other sweatshirts don't have hoods. But putting this one on with jeans and tennis shoes reminds me of my college days and makes me feel good. It's strange how something as silly as a sweatshirt can take me back a couple of years...or a decade. Geesh.

Speaking of college, if Fuller accepts my late registration, I am back to being a grad student again. I've been trying to work my way through their Certificate of Youth Ministry. It's been slow going but there are only two courses I need to take, so I signed up for a Distance Learning Course. Which means I'm going to need to study again, take tests and listen to lectures. Can you feel the excitement rolling off of me? No? Neither can I. I like learning, I don't like tests and studying stresses me out. But I'm determined to get this Certificate done! The chunk that it's taking out of my savings account is hefty but that's what I get for attempting to feel qualified for the position I'm in.

The weekend has been pretty non-eventful. I've done a lot of laundry, shredded a bunch of mail (so many American Express applications I can't believe it!), thrown stuff away, cleaned off some spaces, put other stuff in spaces and spent a lot of time pondering the lack of entertainment on television. After pretty much going non-stop since Thanksgiving, it has been nice to have a down weekend...though I'm going to pay for it tomorrow 'cuz I told my housemate that I would make sure the ornaments were off the Christmas tree and I didn't do that. She comes home tomorrow...that's the first thing on my list for the morning!

Short post

I love Christmas...I don't love cleaning up after wrapping Christmas presents, especially there are still presents to wrap but I ran out of tape. If my housemates weren't returning home before me tonight I would just leave the mess but if I did I'd never hear the end of it. Good thing there's a spare room!

Adventures of the night

At 1:20am I realized that the scratching noises that I thought were coming from outside my window, were actually coming from somewhere in my room. Last time I heard that sound a random potato bug had found it's way in the house and into my room. Lovely. This time though it wasn't a potato bug...it was something a little more sinister. The thing** got away from me before I could remove it to another preferable place...like outside! Not cool. So at 1:20 this morning I was cleaning, getting shoes, dirty clothes, etc. off the floor so that the thing would not surprise me when I picked something up. I was pretty sure that I had it cornered in one particular area but getting it out of that place could have created quite a racket and I didn't want to wake the whole household up last night. So I decided to just trust that I had sufficiently cornered it. Yeah, bad idea.


I was awake. Wide awake. I couldn't turn my back on that side of the room. So I turned on the TV. And was awake. There is nothing on at between 2 and 3:30 in the morning but infomercials, bad sitcoms, news that freaks me out even more than the thing in my room, oh and the occasional televangelist. Yippee.

At 3:30am (still awake) I heard the unmistakable beeping of a big truck backing up in the neighborhood. Curious. Then I heard the sirens. Hmm. I sniffed the air and didn't smell smoke, looked outside couldn't see anything and got my laptop out to check our local fire website. As the computer was waking up, the sirens got closer. It was 3:30am in our sleepy little neighborhood. No one is driving around a lot but still the sirens kept going. Again and again. By the time the truck made it up the hill and to the neighbors house I was wondering where is it written that at 3:30am in a sleepy little neighborhood the rescue vehicle must use their sirens to alert everyone in the neighborhood that they are coming up the hill...slowly. I prayed for the neighbor who was having a medical emergency, turned off the computer and tried to go back to sleep...which finally happened around 5am.

Of course I had to be up at 7am. I cautiously exited my bed, raced through a shower and got ready for my day because I had made plans to go meet K at 8 for coffee. I am a really good friend and I had a really BIG coffee.

I had something going on until 1:45 this afternoon, but believe me as soon as I could, I hightailed it back home. I couldn't get the thought of the thing out of my head. So at 2pm when Yo Momma and Papa Bear arrived at home they found me in my room with a shovel and garbage can pulling things off of shelves and attempting to find the thing. Yo Momma, ever the helpful Momma, joined in while Papa Bear made really bad jokes about my needing a shovel to clean out my room. Yeah, he's lovely.

We moved everything, I mean everything, in my room and the thing was no where to be found. it has escaped somewhere within the house. Which doesn't make me any less freaked out...I think I'm going to start wearing my work boots around the house.

**I would post a picture of the thing but I don't want that image in my head anymore and I don't want to name it because, ew, so for those who are curious start thinking astrological signs and you'll figure it out.

Hot

It's hot. Stinkin' hot. It shouldn't be this hot in here in May people. Really. At 5pm our outdoor thermometer read 102. The thermometer upstairs read 92, the one in the stairwell read 85 and the one downstairs read 80. I've opened all the windows and doors, turned on all the fans and have managed to get the indoor temps down about 12 degrees at 9:15pm. I will say after living in the Central Valley, I do appreciate that nights get cooler on the coast. Still it's just too hot!

The thing that is getting me through this hot spell, besides the fan I've dug out of the closet is the constant reminder that I am leaving town in less than 48 hours. In fact, if I did the math it's probably close to 38 hours. YES! Guaranteed that it's gonna be cooler at the Lake than it is here. Oh, yeah and there's the whole week away from normal work. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I suddenly got a little nervous the other day, though, when I realized that I will be spending 3 days talking with God. It hit me that I am opening up myself to God in a way that I haven't in a very long time and that's a little nerve wracking. God tends to show up and start talking, which always leads to something that I never thought would happen and, well, I'm just a little nervous. I'll keep you posted!

Great, one of the neighborhood dogs just annoyed a skunk. So much for cooling off the house! 37 hours and I'm gone!

Edited to Add: I just checked the forcast for the Lake...they are predicting snow flurries for next Friday. I realize that's a week out but hello from 100 degree weather to snow flurries in a week. Can anyone say Global Warming?

Home and rain

The team made it safely home on Thursday night with only minor delays. We spent the morning wandering the French Quarter, feasting on beignets at Cafe Du Monde and buying gifts to bring home. 9 days is a long time to be with people 27 other people, going pretty much everywhere with them. I know we were all a little irritable, physically tired and emotionally exhausted by the time we got home on Thursday night. Yo Momma, The Dad and I stayed up until 12:15am California time talking about the trip...my body was definitely telling me that it was 2:15am Mississippi time! Overall it was a good trip, there is much still to be done in Pearlington and I'm pretty sure that I will have to go back in the future, though maybe with not so many people.

I would have updated things yesterday but by the time I was ready to begin thinking about using a computer the power went out. We've had rain, rain and more rain plus a lot of wind the last two days. I'm pretty sure the rain gauge outside my room was overflowing at some point last night and it holds 6 inches. The rain and power outage were the perfect excuses, though, for some much needed rest. Still not 100 percent rested, but I'm getting there. The power is on now and there are movies to watch, so I'm going to enjoy the rest of my day off and just vegg out.

More pictures and stories from the trip will be up in the next week or so. Thanks for reading along!

Bathrooms and ants

It's been fun this summer at Home-Sweet-Home. Every summer the ants invade; those little annoying insects that show up at first, alone, but are soon followed by a million of their closest friends and relatives. I honestly don't know what they found when they first showed up. I had the kitchen spotless. Dishes were done, food put away, nary a crumb on the counter and still, the ants came marching one by one.

Then they showed up in the bathroom, marching around the shower. I don't like sharing a bathroom with ants. So I took action. I got the ant spray and went around the house looking for entry points. I sprayed around the foundation, I sprayed the porch beams, I sprayed around windows. And still the ants came marching.

All this time Yo Momma and The Dad (nickname still in transition) were gone. But then, one day, Yo Momma came home to join me in the fight against the ants. Well, actually she came home because it was time to come home. The first morning that Yo Momma was home the light in my bathroom suddenly gave out. That's when we noticed the water. Water that was pooling in the light fixture. And that's when I started sharing a bathroom with Yo Momma and The Dad. Turns out the shower from upstairs had a leak and was drip, drip, dripping down through the floor into the ceiling of the bathroom downstairs and directly into my light fixture. Nice.

So the upstairs shower door was replaced. No more sharing a bathroom with The Parents. But today the floor was torn up, which means the toilet had to come out and the shower is inaccessible, which means I'm again sharing a bathroom with The Parents and ants.

I still don't like sharing a bathroom with ants.

Cable

I pay for the cable at our house. When I moved in there wasn't any and I knew that one way that I decompress is by zoning out to a good sitcom. So I had cable installed and was a happy camper for awhile. It seems, though, that times have changed in a big way with cable TV. Most sitcoms are gone, reality TV has made it's ugly presence known. I will admit a bit of a fascination with some reality TV shows...Bridezillas is one...but in general, I tend to flip the channels a lot more than I used to. So when I got the latest cable bill and found that the rates have gone up, yet again, my first thought was "do I need cable anymore?" Could I survive on Netflix and movies I already have? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'll tell ya, after flipping through over 100 channels and finding nothing that catches my interest, cable may be on it's way out!

Traveling and home

Over the last three weeks I've been on 8 airplanes, in 7 airports, 7 states and in 3 different time zones. The first week and a half was spent with 17 other people in Mississippi , followed by four days at home and then 6 days with The Family in Massachusetts. I'm having a hard time figuring out what time of day or even what day of the week it is, not to mention what month we're in!

As I've traveled, I've come to appreciate home that much more. Each place I've been there have been good things about that place. In Mississippi I was enthralled with the beachfront from Bay St. Louis to Gulfport. I could easily imagine living in a home along the beachfront, looking out each day at the Gulf of Mexico and enjoying a slower pace of life. But then I remembered that the slower pace of life came from the ever present humidity in the summer and that many of those beachfront homes had yet to be rebuilt from a massive hurricane. Probably not where I'm going to wind up.

Massachusetts is beautiful with all the green lawns, foliage and trees along the road. Yo Momma, The Dad and I drove around many small towns with beautiful brick homes and lots of history. We showed our true California roots when driving past town signs that read "established in 1693"...Wow! I enjoyed the rocking thunderstorms that came through town and the smell of rain on the pavement. But the more I drove around, the more I longed for the beach on one side and mountains on the other to help guide me home, for lanes that were actually painted on the pavement and not just imagined by the other drivers on the road. And though I didn't experience nearly the amount of humidity, the hint of it was always there. Don't think I'm going to call Massachusetts home either.

Driving into my town yesterday I realized that I really like home. I like the mountains and the beach. I'm okay with earthquakes and droughts. I don't like fires but understand their original purpose. I can handle CA drivers who run the new red-light in town. I don't even mind the tourists and beach goers who clog up the roads in the summer time. I like hearing the birds outside my window...though if they showed up around 8am that would be better. I like the home that I share, where my memories of growing up are stored. I like my home.

It's good to travel and it's good to be home.