More Favorite Things

Here are a few more of my favorite things. First, Bill's grill topper. This is a disposable grill topper, it goes on top of the grill, then into the trash after the grilling is done. It keeps the "real" grill rack much cleaner. Bill cuts them in half, because we never use the entire top of the grill for cooking. Bill says he may not be a smart man, but he is lazy, so he keeps an eye out for ways to do things easier, quicker, better.

Another thing I like is the twins new stroller. It has see-through plastic windows in the canopy, that can be covered up or left open. At first I thought, how cute, the babies can look up through the canopy and see the sky! Wrong, it is so the pusher can keep an eye on the pushees in the stroller! Very slick, you don't have to stop and peek around to see how they are doing when the canopy is pulled forward.

OK, if you happen to read this far, then don't laugh. This is my new favorite thing. I bought a front mounted snorkel. I saw a guy using one at the rec center, and googled front mounted snorkel. There are quite a variety of these things, and they are specifically designed for folks who want to swim without worrying about the breathing part. I had a face mask and side snorkel, but the mask kept leaking and made a really red line around my face. This snorkel has it's own headband, so I can wear it without a mask. In the rec pool I use googles, but in my pool I swim with no eyewear. I have a salt pool system, and my eyes are very comfortable under water, no chlorine burn and redness.

Reading for Pleasure

One of my most pleasurable hobbies is reading for pleasure, and since a few years ago, also listening to audible books for pleasure on my ipod. Very little music on the ipod, but lots of books. I use Audible.com as a source for books to listen to. Either way, visual or auditory, I prefer mystery/intrigue and romance novels. I am not into non-fiction nor "great works". Been there, done that in high school, don't have to do it anymore.

I am working on my collection of Nora Roberts books. I have most all of them, I think, and I enjoy re-reading them from time to time. I don't care for her J.D.Robb books, and one of her trilogies involved vampires, and I never got past the second book. I suspect I won't be a fan of the current vampire series Twilight, I have the first two books but have yet to read them, although people who have swear that I will love them. I'm not desperate enough yet to start reading them.

I also read sort of mindlessly. Most of the time I can say that I have read a particular book, but couldn't for the life of me tell you what it was about. And sometimes, I pick up a book from my bookshelf, and can't remember ever having read it. So I can go through my books many times over, and each time is like the first time!

I buy books at the grocery store, at used book stores, but maybe the best place is those antique flea market kinds of places. Bill (again!!!) took me to one of those just off I45 on 2920, and showed me the booth area inside where the seller has an extensive collection of paperback books. Much cheaper than the used book store. I need to get my Nora Roberts book list and head back down there.


But what I really want to tout today are two of my latest Audible.com downloads. The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet.
These two books are written by a dozen or more authors, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline and other modern day mystery/intrigue writers. Deaver writes the first and last chapters, and each of the other authors is assigned a chapter. After the first two chapters, I was amazed at how complex and rich the characters and story line were developing, and flabbergasted at the end when it all came together in such a logical way. A single author usually knows where the book will end up, or at least can edit earlier sections as necessary. But these two books, not so, each author took off where the previous chapter ended and wrote the next one, not knowing where the previous author intended to go, nor how following authors would wind it up. There was no collaboration between the writers ahead of time about the story line or characters or anything. Just listening to the author interviews at the end of the book is mind-boggling, because the entire book is very tightly integrated, nice and tidy at the end. The Chopin Manuscript is the first book, and the second one incorporates the main characters from the first one. I really enjoyed reading (listening) to these two books, and highly recommend them to any mystery/intrigue reader.

John says NO

After the MS Walk in Dallas, I detoured through McKinney before returning to Conroe to see Jason, Ashley, and of course John and Poindexter. Ashley has a new car, a Nissan Armada, and Jason took me for a short ride.

John smiled and showed off his newly learned head-shaking way of saying no. He is very good at saying no, but doesn't have Yes down yet. He either does/eats/gets something or says NO to it.

The MS Walk in Dallas

Saturday, March 27, was the MS Walk in Dallas and thanks to my friends who supported me with their contributions. This is the first time I have walked. I had supported the MS 150 bike ride to Austin for several years, when my friends Ken Sharples and son Kevin rode in that event, and the MS Walk in Dallas when sister Diane (who has MS) was walking. But this year was my first time to walk, being retired and all, I have time to make the trip to Dallas for the walk. Plus I get to see grandson John!
We arrived early, before 7:00 a.m. (for the 8:00 start), to get parked and meet up with Diane's team, she is a team captain. Last year the weather was below freezing, with a wind chill in the teens, but this year the sky was clear and temps would hit upper 60's. But NOT at 7:00 a.m., I thought it was still rather coolish and windy.
Diane and Richard visited sponsor's tents and tables, meeting with the pharmacy rep that supplies the drug Diane takes, Rebif, an interferon drug. So far it seems to be working great. But it is pricey, and they worry that Obama-Care might force her to change drugs or pay more of the cost themselves.

The day got much more pleasant when the sun came up. Richard and Diane, Jason and John are ready for the walk. The rest of Diane's team showed up just before the start, but we all got separated along the way. My camera batteries died right after the start, so I will have to post more pictures when I get them from Diane.
The start was amazing, music had been playing, the National Anthem was sung, and a drum line and cheerleaders motivated the crowd at the start. Along the 3 mile trek there was a singing group entertaining us, a young girls dance team, lots of water, fruit and many porta-potties. We walked past the end of the runway at Addison airport and I watched planes take off over our heads. Subway had lunch for walkers, I picked mine and ate it later in the day. I have one blister, but no soreness or stiffness the day after the walk.

Short video of the start of the walk.

The Power of Routine (and how hard it is to break old habits)

Routine and habit can be a good thing. When I was getting up early to go to work, I had a morning routine for showering, dressing, eating, and driving to work. But heaven help me if something disturbed that routine, or if events got out of order. How embarrassing to get to work and realize something was missing, like deoderant or earrings, or heaven forbid, some article of clothing, like underwear! An entrenched routine can be like going on auto-pilot, things get done without requiring a lot of mental attention or decisions.

BUT one habit can conflict with another, to wit: since January I have been swimming at the rec center as often as I can. I have a swim bag I keep packed with my snorkel and mask, towels, and when I leave I toss my wallet into a side pocket. My ID card is in the wallet, and I don't have to take my purse. When I get back home, I put wet towels in the dryer, shower and dress, and run whatever errands I need to, grocery store, hardware store, and so on.

On more than once instance I have just grabbed my purse and left, leaving my wallet with cash, debit and credit cards, driver's license etc. in the side pocket of the swim bag. The first time it was to Kroger's, fairly close, and I asked them to hold the basket aside and I drove home and got my wallet, making a mental note to not do that again. The second time it was also to Kroger's, and I repeated the process, including another mental note.

The third time I had gone to twin-sit in the afternoon, stopped at Kroger's on Hwy 2920, pretty far away, and just had to leave the basket there, as it was getting late and I wasn't going to drive back there. More mental notes.

The fourth time I had told myself to remember to take out the wallet and put it in my purse as soon as I got home from swimming. So when I pulled into an awesome parking place at WalMart, and got out with a lighter than normal purse, I cursed myself for leaving the wallet at home again. But I drove back home, did a few other chores, drove back to WalMart into a not-so-great parking place, loaded up a basket, got into a checkout line only to realize that I had forgotten to get my wallet AGAIN when I had returned home an hour before. Cursing myself, I tried to figure this problem out. Had the few chores at home so distracted me that I was on auto-pilot when I left the house to return to WalMart? Was my routine failing me? I always remembered to put my wallet in the swim bag when I left for the pool. It was the minor detail of transferring it back to my purse when I returned that was causing the breakdown.

The next time was when I drove to Dallas for the MS Walk for my sister. I had been to the pool in the morning, left for Dallas in the afternoon, and stopped in Corsicana (Collins Street Bakery, yum and not for the fruitcake) and had no wallet in my purse. DANG! I had enough gas to get to Plano, and my sister would spring for food and gas for the return trip. Jason, bless his heart, was going to get cash for me to have for the trip home also. I wondered what would I have done if I had not known folks in Dallas. No gas, no ID, no cash, credit or debit cards, what a pickle. When I arrived at my sister's house in Plano, I grabbed my swim bag (which I had packed clothes in for the overnight stay) and saw my wallet STILL IN THE BAG. So this time routine had served me well, but only by pure chance.

I have decided to leave the ID card in the swim bag all the time. Simple solution, you say, I should have figured that out sooner? JanMa is losing it? I had thought of that earlier, but feared it might fall out somewhere. BUT the side pocket has a zipper, so for now, that is where the ID card will always be. Now I just have to remember to always take the YELLOW swim bag, and not use a different bag.

Twins - 6 months old

Jake and Claire are 6 months old, and are at a window of opportunity for learning so many new things, and learning to use all their senses. Eating from a spoon is a good example. Here is Claire before I feed her cereal...
And here she is after eating. She opens her mouth readily for the spoon, doesn't spit it all back out immediately like she did a week or so ago, but she does like to stick her fingers in her mouth. Maybe to feel the cereal, or maybe just because she sucks on her fingers and once they get goopy with cereal, they taste even better.
Both babies are teething, and putting anything they can get into their hands into their mouth.
I missed the pictures, but while laying next to each other (sporting their going-outdoor-for-a-walk clothes) they grabbed each other's hands, and began a tug of war to try to get that other hand into their mouth. Claire was tugging on Jake, Jake was tugging on Claire, so they never got to chew on each other's hand, but not for lack of trying.
Headed out for a walk sporting the latest in head gear.
Both twins are strong, they can support their weight on their legs when I hold them in a standing position. They are sitting up strong in the bumpo seats and in their activity seats. They got a jumping seat from cousin Travis, and are getting used to that.

Bathroom Painting Project

Last fall I started working on my bathroom, putting in new tile. I had been pondering and mulling for months before that, and finally decided that I wanted my bathroom to feel like the beach. So I picked out some beachy sand white tile. (See pictures at previous post http://janretirement.blogspot.com/2009/09/master-suite-transformation.htm)

The next step was to paint the bathroom walls, which involved major decisions about color. I wanted the wall color to be a beachy blue. So I looked at colors, bought some samples, and painted different parts of the bathroom walls. Sherwin Williams sells quart sized samples for about $7 or $8. It isn't "real" paint, but a good representation of the color that you can paint and see how it looks in the actual room in different light. Home Depot also sells samples, but smaller sizes for less money, about $3 for a pint. I ended up with 5 samples painted all over the bathroom walls, over a period of 2 weeks and multiple trips to the paint stores, refining the choices. I was careful to label each sample on the wall so I would know which color sample it was!



The next choice I made was to have a professional do the painting. I had intended to do it myself, but there are a lot of EDGES in the bathroom that have to be cut in, and not much large wall space for easy rolling. I called Martin, my friendly painter who had painted my kitchen and exterior of my house, to come take a look. After I explained to him that I was retired and on a fixed income, yada yada, he cut his price down and included some ceiling painting upstairs where a water spot had discolored the paint. I also purchased the Home Depot Behr Ultra paint that includes the primer. He really liked the paint, and only had to do one coat, which was plenty of coverage.
Before...

After.....
Next, I bought new towels. I wanted to find bright, striped towels that would have a beachy towel look. Apparently brightly striped towels are not in fashion, but after much on-line searching, I did find some brightly colored towels, Lasting Color bleach safe towels, at Bed Bath and Beyond. I dashed over to my local store and bought several colors to see how the bright colors look, if I still feel peaceful in my bathroom.

Check back in another month or so for pictures of the new faucets in the sinks and tub. That will be the next update, but not til I make several trips to the stores and peruse many options.

Mimi leaves, life goes back to normal

Mimi left today to return to Birmingham, her home away from home where her friend lives. He is an old high school friend she reconnected with several years ago via Classmates.com. They spend some time in Asheville, then some time in Birmingham. The picture below was taken last year on her birthday. We had a good time, but I'm sure she is glad to get back to her neck of the woods, and I look forward to swimming and babysitting again, and not eating so much.
But we had a few more visitors the evening before she left. Karen came over to say hi, and then Bill drove up for one last firepit evening, and of course jalepeno sausage from Lawson's Meat Market and Head Country Barbecue Sauce.

Today we shopped at WalMart to get Mimi a new MP3 player. I picked a 4G RCA model, that looked easy to use and was relatively inexpensive. We stopped at Jennifer's house on the way to the airport, to see the twins one last time and so I could load her new MP3 player with the songs off her old one. Mimi also had one last gift for the twins.

Jake sports a new cap
Claire has some new head ribbons.

I got Mom to the airport in plenty of time to get through security, she has a knee replacement and always has to do the wand and hand pat-down. Then I called Bill at Hobby about lunch. I had not seen his new office (he is the new Chief Pilot at Wing Aviation) and potential apartments he is looking at down there. After driving to Hobby and back today, I can certainly understand the need to move closer. I could not make that drive every day, I was worn out just from the trip today.

We drove by the apartment complex he is considering, then down to Pearland airport (small county field) to check out hangars, then lunch at Kelley's Country Cooking.

The restaurant sort of reminded me of Vernon's, it isn't a catfish place, but they have daily specials, choices of meats and veggies, great cornbread and rolls and a decent salad. Bill had the fried shrimp Tuesday special, I had chicken fried steak and veggies. I had plenty leftover to bring home for dinner, including some of his fries. The waitress was great, and I asked if it was a local place. She said Dad had 6 locations, all over south side of Houston and Galveston. So I guess she is family, but she was very friendly and pleasant.

Back home, I picked up paint at Home Depot, a bathroom painting project, don't miss the next blog posting about that project!

Crazy Weather for the first day of spring

The trip to Dallas last week offered up some really crazy weather for March 20 - 21, the first day of spring. Fortunately, I had checked weather.com before packing for 4 days, and with a forecast for March 20 of highs around 45, I had forgone the sandals and crop pants and packed long sleeves and a sweater. Nevertheless, I was not prepared for 5 inches of snow in Plano/McKinney on Saturday night and Sunday, the first day of spring. Two days later, in Conroe on Tuesday, I'm out in the Miata with the top down, enjoying 70+ degree weather.

Snow starts to fall Saturday night.

My car is getting a nice layer of the white stuff.

Sunday morning, Diane's back patio is covered with about 4+ inches of snow.

So is my car.

Several inches of snow even covers the side of the car, the door, the windows.

Jason's backyard in McKinney is covered with snow, really a pretty sight.

Snow in December or January is one thing, but the third week in March? The spring planting is done, the calediums and impatiens are out, grass has been greening up, only to be covered by a spring snow.

As Mom and I drove south toward Conroe, the snow disappeared, the sun came out, and the temperatures rose. March 21/22 snowfall in Dallas area is an anomaly, but a unique experience and pretty sight to see. As long as the roads are clear and we could get out of town!

Visiting with John in McKinney

I got to spend some time with grandson John while on our visit to Dallas/McKinney with Mimi. I take advantage of any excuse to travel up the road to Dallas, planning to get a John visit in while up there. Jason and Ashley have been so patient and accepting of my visits to their house and have made sure I get time with John. Not that I don't want to see them, but once the grandchild comes along, the children/parents are just a means to the end... sort of... It is so awesome to see this baby grow into a toddler, knowing that Ashley and Jason are doing such an awesome job as parents.

Mimi and John and Jason

John gives his mom Ashley a big kiss.

Then Poindexter gets a kiss too.

John, JanMa and Jason, ready to put together the picnic table, a present from JanMa.

John also got a present from Mimi, a catchable ball.

John loves the box, Jason gets out the parts.

John really loved the table, ESPECIALLY the umbrella. He watched it open up with big eyes and a "ooohhhh" expression.

Of course, he also liked the box, it made a great crawl through tunnel.

John sits at the picnic table with his ball and plate and sippy cup.

An indoor picnic of goldfish.

John goes into his room by himself, climbs up into the chair with a book. Jason told me there was a photo op, so I jumped at the chance. Lillie, this one's for you.

John has shown an interest in music and dancing, he is dancing to a cartoon on TV.