Busy Saturday

Today, hubby and I volunteered at a recycling event from 7:30am to noon.  It was really busy, but we had lots of people bringing large trash items and general items to recycle.  The town does this once per year so that people can bring things they want to get rid of and they won't have to pay a fee to take it to the local landfill.  As an upside, the city gets the money from anything that is able to be recycled.  We had so many people come through that we were having to turn people away during the last half hour because we ran out of space to put things.  After that, we can home and took showers then went out to grab a bite to eat and buy groceries.   All in all, it was a pretty productive day.

Helping A Stranger

This evening I had to pop in to Walgreen's to purchase some feminine products.  As I am standing there looking for my item, I hear this young guy (maybe 25-ish) say to someone on the phone "here is a lady that looks nice".  He then walks up to me and asks if I will talk to his girlfriend, Trish.  He hands me the cell phone and Trish tells me she is in desperate need of some tampons.  She tells me what kind and all of the details, so I pick them out for her.  As we are finishing the call, she tells me he was really embarrassed to be there and he may ask me to help him check out.  Sure enough, as I am handing him her item, he says he doesn't know what to do at the checkout.  So, I tell him to give me his money; I paid for the item and then handed him the bag with the change on my way out the door.  I have no idea what his name was, but the poor guy looked so uncomfortable being in that section of the store.

Hopefully he gets better in those situations, but for tonight I was able to help him and his girlfriend.

Angry Birds

Yesterday, hubby downloaded Angry Birds on his iPhone.  I can totally see why people get addicted to that game.  You get so wrapped up in getting through the level that you just don't want to stop.  I am still on level one, but it is lots of fun.

Little Man

How could you not fall in love with this face?

Daylilies

The daylilies are blooming.  There are more buds waiting to bloom.

Texas Fires

When we are younger, we didn't worry about things.  Instead, our parents constantly worried about us even though we told them not to. Then something shifts and you begin to worry about your parents while they tell you not to.  That is where I am at, and honestly have been for a while.  But right now, I am specifically worried about their safety.  They live in the general area of the fires we have been having here in Texas.  They had a fishing cabin along the Brazos near Palo Pinto and that area has already been evacuated.  This morning, CNN is saying the fires have reached Strawn, which is not too far from their home in Stephenville.  I am really concerned that if the need arises for my parent to evacuate, they won't.  They have lots of pets as well as cattle and they won't want to leave.  I am justing keeping my fingers crossed that the firefighters get the break today with the weather that they are saying could happen and they can get the fires under control.  We have firefighters from 34 states here helping out.  That is phenomenal and truly appreciated.  For now, all I can do is watch  the news and listen to the police/fire scanner for that area.  

Neti Pot

Austin is known as the "Live Music Capitol of the World, but some of us think it should also be known as the "Allergy Capitol of the World."  People who have never dealt with allergies before, will get allergies at some point when they come to Austin, it is inevitable.  Some people are lucky and they just deal with allergies during the spring, unfortunately, I am not one of those lucky ones.  I have always used allergies meds, but now I have decided to use a different approach.  Instead of using decongestants and antihistamines, I have decided to use a neti pot and attack my allergies that way.  My symptoms are in my nose, so why not.  I have been scare of trying a neti pot for years because I have always heard it makes you feel like you are drowning.  That is a feeling I can't handle.  So, with my new determination, I purchased a neti pot and tried it for the first time.  Yes, it felt uncomfortable at first, but as soon as it broke through that clog and started flowing, it felt great.  Afterwards I felt like I had been swimming and gotten water up my nose, but when that feeling went away, I could breathe freely again.  I will definitely keep using the neti pot and see if that helps my allergies.

Rookie Cop

I was accepted to be a part of a citizens group that goes in to each of the city departments (fire, EDC, city manager's office, police, etc) and learns about what they do.  It is a more in depth look than what you learn from the normal citizen perspective.  It is one night per week for 10 weeks.  We are in week 8 and this week was the police department - which is my favorite one.  On Tuesday night, we spoke to the Chief and a couple of the Lieutenants for several hours learning about the ins and outs of their department.  Then last night they took us to their training area and we got to run a mock drill.  We had on full training gear (vest, neck protector, face protector, and a helmet) and they even let us carry the training gun with the painted soap bullets.  Each of us played the role of a rookie cop and two off duty officers were "bad guys".  We couldn't watch the people before us, so I went third in order to get to watch the remaining 8 people behind me.  Each of us did a routine traffic stop where the bad guys were non-compliant and potentially had weapons.  Each scenario was different.  In some they had knives, some they had guns, some they were drunk with weapons, and in some they were just acting stupid but had weapons.  In mine, we pulled them over and got both of them out of the car; however, my guy, the passenger, had a gun hidden under his jacket.  We had him get out of the car and lay down on the ground and as the training officer was dealing with the driver, the passenger raised up to fire at me (thankfully he missed).  I was able to then return fire and killed him.  Although I fired six shots, he said I actually hit him with a mortal wound on the first shot at about 25 feet away.   After each scenario, they told us what we did well or did wrong.  My mistake was that I took my eyes off of the passenger for a split second, which was just enough to give him time to reach for his weapon. 

Most everyone said their heart rate was really pumping as soon as they put on the vest and went outside.  I did really well and kept mine under control until I saw they gun pointed at me; then the heart rate jumped up, but I was able to keep it under control enough to return fire and take cover.

One lady started shaking her finger at the bad guy like she was scolding her kid - it was hilarious.  A couple of members of my group forgot to keep their eyes on the bad guy and got shot, but only 2 out of the 11 of us were killed.  All in all, we did really well and it was a total blast.  It gives you a very different perspective on what the police do during what we think of as a routine traffic stop.

If you have a citizens group in your city, I highly recommend you join.  It is fun and informative.

Applebee's Mixup

Did you hear the story about the Applebee's in Michigan who accidentally served alcohol to a 15 month old little boy?  When I first heard the story on the radio, I wasn't sure if the DJ was making a joke or not.  Check out this story.  If the bartender can't tell the difference between the color of apple juice and margarita mix, they are in big trouble. 

Getting a Tan

This is Abbie.  She was hanging out in the yard "getting a tan" and was not happy that I disturbed her quiet time.  I think she was really just seeing if the other dogs were brave enough to come and take the balls.

Tall Grass

Typically we have tow mow the lawn once a week and when it gets near the one week mark, the dogs begin pulling up the tall grass.  They can't stand when it gets too tall.  It's not like we let the grass get a foot tall.  Anything over 3 inches and the dogs start pulling it out.  Anytime we are outside with them, we have to constantly keep telling them to stop pulling on the grass.  If we could just teach them how to trim it evenly all over, then we wouldn't even have to mow.

Growing Nicely

Everything is growing nicely.

Thank You

Thank you to all of you who stop by and read my blog.  I noticed this morning that I now had 10,000 visits.  That's fantastic.  Thank you again for reading what I have to say and a special thanks to Katreader who got me interested in blogging.  I never thought about blogging until she showed me her blog and encouraged me to start one of my own.

Hill Country Home Repair

Yesterday we had a storm door installed on our back door.  A guy from Hill Country Home Repair, contracted through Lowe's, brought the door out and did the install.  He was fantastic.  He arrived right on time and finished the job in exactly the amount of time he stated.  He took the time to adjust the settings on the door so it wouldn't slam shut, just as if he was installing the door at his own house.  The quality of his work was great.  I even saw him sweeping off my back porch when he was done.

I will definitely add this guys name and number to my list of contractors to use in the future.

Potato Ricer

I have seen on cooking shows where they use a potato ricer in various dishes, but I had never used one.  This past week, hubby and I bought a potato ricer and tonight I decided to make mashed potatoes using the ricer.  It was easy to use and made the potatoes come out very creamy.  I left the skin on the potatoes, so it was a little messier that it would have been if I had taken the skin off.  Hubby and I both liked the way the potatoes came out, so I can definitely see us using it more in the future.

Lazy Saturday

Today has been a lazy day.  I have only been out of the house 3 times today, which is pretty unusual.  I went out once to get hubby's car inspected, the second time to grab a Sonic burger for lunch, and the third time for a trip to Walmart to grab a few items we needed.  All total, I was out of the house maybe 90 minutes.  The rest of the day was spent literally laying around watching TV and sleeping.  Sometimes your body needs those kind of days.  Only one more day left in my vacation and we don't have anything planned for tomorrow either.  What did you do today?