Sunday already??

Well darn it is Sunday evening already.  Tomorrow starts a full work week.  Unfortunately I caught a nasty cold in PA.  When we landed Monday night I had a bad sore throat.  I was sort of hoping it was from flying or something but it was not as I still had a bit of one on Tuesday morning.  I got through that day without too much trouble and thought maybe I had staved it off.  I was loading up on orange juice and liquids in general.

Wednesday morning I took my normal walk with my friend (even though it was the 4th) but was pretty tired and by later in the afternoon the cold reared its ugly head and my nose started running, and I was getting a low grade fever and was wiped out for the rest of the day. 

Although I got through work Thursday and Friday, I didn't eat much, and was very tired so I slept as much as I could.  I even didn't attend the women's lunch club yesterday mostly to not expose anyone to my germs.  I was feeling better by yesterday but I am still hacking some.  Nothing too major.  I did do some Yoga today for an easy stretch/exercise routine.  I hadn't done anything since Wednesday.  After two boxes of Puffs, chicken soup and as much sleep as possible, I am doing much better. 

So tomorrow should be a good day!  

Happy 4th of July!

I was told it has been nearly a month since I blogged. Tis true!  Sorry about that.

I just got back from visiting my oldest back in PA.  I went with my other (youngest) daughter who lives here in Texas not too terribly far from me.

 I had not seen my oldest since August of 2014 when she got married.  So it has been a long time coming!  We were gone from June 27th - July 2nd.  Well I might as well say to the 3rd as we didn't walk in the door until 1:00AM.  The flight to PA went well and the flight back wasn't bad but there were at least 2 lightening storms outside our window to the South.  We took off nearly 40 minutes late too as the pilot got a different flight plan.  After seeing the storms to the south, I think I know why they had us fly to Dallas then southward from there.  There was also some more turbulence than there was on the flight out. But bottom line, we got home safe and it was wonderful seeing the oldest and her hubby and two fur kids.

It was nice to see what their life is like (well somewhat as Dani was off work most of the time).  We also got to see their cute house which I really like and is in a great location. The house is on a double lot and has a great expanded 2 car garage. Dani's husband has all sorts of car parts and tools in it and he loves to work on his Jeep that he is making changes to. I am very impressed!

During our visit we drove down to the dance studio that Dani co-owns with 2 other gals which is undergoing some renovation and will look great when it is done (doesn't look bad now either but it was literally being worked on when we saw it).  This was the first time we got to see the studio in person.

I also got a chance to have a short visit with a good friend of mine from 30 years ago. She remembered Dani as a baby~!  I plan to keep in better touch with her.  We used to be the best of friends!

We also got in some miniature golf and plenty of eating out. I'm surprised the scale did not indicate I gained any weight when I weighed myself yesterday.  Unfortunately but not a surprise to me,  I got a cold sometime during the trip. The last day there my throat got sore.  I don't go out much and work from home, so exposure to all the germs in the airport, plane, eateries, etc., got to me.  It was still worth it to see Dani and her family after all these years.  Their two dogs get along really well together and have such personality.  We enjoyed playing with them bunches too.

Hubby also had his own trip back to PA earlier in June.  He flew out June 8th and stayed with his friend and they went antiquing for some treasures to bring back.  His friend drove him back a week later but did not spend the night like I thought he was.  He just wanted to get the dreaded drive back over with I guess. Thankfully he got home okay.

The reason we didn't travel together is because we have no desire to put our 4 dogs through the trauma of being boarded.  Two of them are seniors and one has cancer so that added stress would certainly not do them any good,

I had off yesterday and today of course is the 4th. It was nice being off work for an entire week. I haven't taken this much time off at one time before.  I just have to get through tomorrow and Friday and then we have another weekend ahead. Yippee!

June is flying by

Okay I know I haven't written in a while, but not a lot new.  It is getting hotter of course, and it is getting lighter earlier, of course - that part I love though. :)

I was getting the dogs out to go potty just now and the clouds just looked so cool, I had to grab my camera. The way so many of them were scattered it was like a bunch of birds or even angels up there. I can often see things like faces or shapes in things that others can't always see, even things besides objects made out of clouds that I know many can see. I know there is a name for it but I don't remember what it is called. And no it is not crazy!

Here's some of the shots I took. The first one  and last photos had the flash on, so I don't know if it is just dirt/dust particles or orbs in those.

Last Saturday in May

Well summer seems to be here already. It got up to the upper 90's today. Oh well I am not going to complain as again it was a long winter.  Today I saw Book Club with some girlfriends from a social group I started. I think we had 8 altogether which was really nice!  The movie was good and very funny.  I found myself laughing out loud several times! There were previews for the next Mamma Mia movie and I think that will be the next one we'll go see.

I forgot to take some before pictures but last year we had bought the tail end of a roll of outdoor carpet (plastic type) and split it lengthwise because it was not very long. It has held up fairly well but was starting to fray and often would  fold up from the wind at times.  So I asked hubby to see if they had any new in stock this year so we could replace the area between the two steps with the full width of the same color.  So he got it a few days ago and laid it out this morning.  It has much better coverage. I love it!

Short Catch up

Yesterday was the first '3rd Saturday of the month' lunch with the new empty nesters group I started. It was really nice but it is interesting to me how there were Sooooo many women interested in it at the start and for each lunch there hasn't been more than 8 people show up. Granted I made the 2 Saturday groups at 12 maximum to keep the group manageable, but I should have guessed that many would lose interest or drop out.  I know there is a chance of other things coming up. At least some gals are showing up and I'm making friends so that's a good thing.

I also actually worked a few hours yesterday as well as today.  I'm sure it doesn't mean it will be an ongoing thing but it was nice just the same.

Today was clean the bathrooms day.  Though not a fun job, I'm glad when it is done.

This morning we got rain although I didn't think we were supposed to get much. There was even a small tornado that touched down about 8 miles away.  It rained sometimes hard too, until early afternoon. It really cooled the house down nicely.  We haven't turned on the air conditioning yet but there have been some humid, pretty hot days. So far the ceiling fans have been enough for us but it was nice today having it cool down to,the upper 60's.  It will be nice sleeping weather tonight.

Sunny Saturday

I was just on the back balcony setting for a spell...as they used to say in the old days.  I haven't really sat out there this year yet, just have used the back porch.  I don't have any big plans today so I figured I could just sit there and listen to the birds for a while. I love being outside when it is warm out. 

Yesterday was a very eventful day!  The youngest graduated with a Masters Degree in Education.  I took the day off to attend with my hubby and we left in what I thought was plenty of time at 7:00 am. Graduation was at 10:00 am. I decided to avoid the main highway through Austin as in was a work day and a Friday, not a good combination for traffic!

So I took the toll road and we got maybe 15 miles down the road and traffic came to a slow crawl.  I heard on the radio that the road was being SHUT DOWN due to an accident so luckily we were right at an exit which I took, along with what looked like hundreds of other cars.  It was stop and go (mostly stop) until we got to the street off the frontage road to head to that highway I was trying to avoid. Again we were with many others with the same idea.  I was very thankful that we were not stuck on that toll road any longer as it was still shut down for hours!

Getting to Austin, we passed another accident that was on the side of the road and when we got to the highway there was a motorcyclist sitting at the side with a police car, so not sure what happened there but I was concentrating on getting to the graduation.  Did I mention the urge to use a bathroom was starting to nag at me too?!!

We got down to the apartment where my daughter and her fiance live at 9:30AM.  Thankfully he was waiting for us as he had already dropped off Stac at the coliseum. We had to park and get a shuttle but after all that, we did get seated in time for commencement -made it by less than 5 minutes!  I took a little while to de-stress from that drive!  I suppose if I normally commuted every day it wouldn't have been so bad, but keep in mind I work at home so driving is rare these days and I got gas for the 2nd time this year the other evening.  I got my car back in 2007, and it still has less than 25,000 miles on it!

After graduation we had a nice lunch in a nearby town and then headed home.  Luckily the drive back home was uneventful.  I did take that same toll road though because there was bound to be traffic on a Friday afternoon on the highway through Austin. 

I have to say, it is so weird not working overtime. I am so used to having to work part or all weekend and having time to do what I want is foreign to me.  I don't feel like cleaning either so not sure what I'll do the rest of the day.  It may just be Sci Fi movie time.  Whatever I do, it will be much more relaxing than yesterday.  LOL !

Another nice day~

I was chatting with the oldest the other day and it was to get hotter in PA than here. Their high was somewhere around 90 degrees!  But today is nice, sunny, with a light breeze and is 85 degrees currently.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my Empty Nesters Lunch club.  Out of 12, there were 6 of us which was fine by me as it was a nice small group. We got to know each other better and had a good time. The Mexican restaurant that is where we usually will meet was booked up since it was Cinco de Mayo. We ate a a fairly new place I had not eaten at before. It was pretty good and it was very nice having lunch with some women that I feel like I am actually becoming friends with.

This morning I worked a few hours, and did some laundry. I have been wanting to see the new Avengers movie and hubby really wasn't keen on seeing it though he would if I asked him. So I posted on a local  women's group in facebook to see if anyone was interested in going. I didn't get much response other than a few saying they weren't going.  So I deleted it. I'll just see it when it comes out on TV.

Here's a video I took this morning. I zoomed in as best as I could. There's a new baby deer in the neighborhood.