21 Days of Summer Challenge Day 8

Ok, ok, ok I know I missed the challenge yesterday, which the topic was "Favorite Summer Memory".  I kept trying to think of what my #1 best favorite memory of summer was, but honestly most of the major memories I am fond of happened in the other seasons.  Not that I never had fond summer happenings, just not one capstone time when I would give it that all time favorite designation.  BUT, I did think of something today that I can write about, but I want to add a photo or two when I get home, so I will go back and do day 7 later today.

Now on to today's topic: Summer TV

So my favorite TV shows are:
Survivor- currently not airing at all
3 of the 4 Monday night sitcoms (How I met your Mother, 2.5 Men, and Mike and Molly)- In re-runs
Big Bang Theory- Re-runs
The Amazing Race- currently not running
American Idol (occasionally)- currently not running

That is mostly what I take the time to watch, so right now I am just out of luck on my favorite TV shows.  But it's summer right?  So no temptation to sit in front of the tube and waste away- time to get up, get out of the house and have fun!

Much better!

I just wanted to write a quick note to say that the rest of yesterday and today are going much better for me!  After all the stress about the t-shirts I told the guy that he either need to print some of the shirts in the right colors, or give us a deep discount and he came back and said he would just re-do the whole order since he wanted me to be 100% satisfied.  I still don't get why he changed the color scheme, he said it was to save me on the set-up, but I never asked for that so I'm not sure why it was ever implied. 

Getting used to this new schedule is going mostly good.  Austin did fantastic yesterday with his first full day at the Learning Center.  They claim he is doing well with potty training there, even though he refuses the potty at home.  As far as I'm concerned, if they do the work and he gets it there, then all the better for me!  I realized yesterday in all the craziness of the morning that I forget to set out some meat to thaw in the fridge for dinner, so we had to do a quick frozen pizza for dinner.  I will have to adjust to having meals ready to go when I get home at 5:30pm, either ready to cook, or already cooked in the crock pot.  I guess one big benefit for my blog is that I now have a mandatory 1 hour lunch break which is giving me plenty of time to blog since I live too far away to drive home.  I had thought about going and visiting Austin during my lunch, but I'm afraid that when he sees me it will make him want to leave, so it's easier on him for me to stay away.

21 Days of Summer Challenge Day 6

Today's Topic: LEMONADE Stand

I grew up kind of out in the country, it was a ranchette style acreage subdivision, so it wasn't really the right kind of place to set up a lemonade stand.  I now live in a little town where everybody knows everybody and it's pretty safe, and the neighborhood kids always have stands.  I try to stop and buy a cup when  I see one.  I have a confession though, I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe and I often won't drink the lemonade from a stand because I think kids often lick the spoon when they mix the lemonade and it grosses me out.  

As for recipes, I used to make one where you boil the water and dissolve the sugar before adding fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest, but often I am too lazy to go to all that effort.  So my quick and easy version is I make a batch of Kool-aid Lemonade and then take one or two fresh lemons, scrub them, and then cut them in half.  I squeeze half the lemon into the Kool-aid, then slice up the other half very thinly and add the slices straight to the lemonade.  The rind of the slice kind of help build the flavor, and the tiny bit of pulp from the squeezed lemon makes if feel like real fresh lemonade.

Are the planets out of alignment today?

Oh man, it is one of those days!!!

It probably didn't help that I had a four day weekend, last Friday was a tribal holiday and I started a new work schedule this week where I will take off Monday's to have a day with Austin, then work four full days.  So it was a little hard to get back to the grind today.


So Dustin had to get up way too early so he could go catch his horses at work and get them ready for the horsemanship class he is teaching today.  I know he intended to get up early, but he was up at 4:30am.  I think it's one of those times that he was thinking so much about the class that he didn't get into a heavy sleep and woke up and decided to get going since he was awake anyway.  After he was up for a bit getting his clothes out of the chest of drawers I heard Austin start to whine.  He often has trouble sleeping soundly when there is a full moon, and I think that is part of why he woke up when he heard Dustin.  I left him to see if he would fall back asleep, but by then I was pretty awake.  Eventually I dosed back off, but was awakened to Austin crying again at 5:50am.  My alarm is set for 6:15am, and usually I am able to get up, have a cup of coffee, check my Facebook and shower before I wake him up at 7:00am. When I got in there his binky was wrapped up in the blankets and he was missing it.  I think had he found the binky he would have nodded back off for the usual wake up time.  Since he already saw me though, his day was on.

So I get him up and go to get him milk and Cheerios.  As I go to pour the milk it hits the side of the cup and knocks it over spilling milk all over the top of the island.  I get that mopped up and get Austin situated watching cartoons.  I sneak into the bathroom for a quick shower and get all the other stuff done (take out trash, load the recycling, laundry, dishes, etc.)  that I needed to do minus watering my garden, which I can do tomorrow. 

At work I start checking my emails, and there are a bunch since I haven't been to work since last Thursday.  I get one from the t-shirt printing company that I work with who was doing an order for my sorority alumni chapter.  He sent me a proof last Friday and said to let him know if it was ok and they would print the shirts this week.  The color scheme was off so I sent back an email to inquire about why the colors were different.  In the mean time I check my junk folder and there is an email from the printer from yesterday saying the shirts are done, was I going to pick them up or should they mail them.  Oh crap, the proof was not right, and they printed them anyway, ugh!  So now I'm stuck with either accepting them as-is or being the mean one and demanding that they print new ones.

And the day is only half over, sigh, I hope the afternoon and evening go better!

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 5

Today's Topic: Summer Vacation

We don't really do a summer vacation because that is when my husband is super busy at work in his field season.  If we do summer trips it's more out of necessity than pleasure.  This summer we are taking a mini trip back to Colorado to see Soundgarden at Red Rock's Amphitheater because that is when they are touring and it is Dustin's Father's Day gift request.  The last two summers we took mini trips back to Iowa for Dustin's nephews high school graduation parties.  Let me tell you, it is MISERABLE to visit Iowa in May and/or June, my southwestern lizard skin cannot handle the humidity and heat back there!


We have been taking a real vacation to commemorate our anniversary every year since we got married, which is in October.

• 1st: Estes Park, Colorado where we stayed at the historic Stanley Hotel and visited Rocky Mountain National Park.
• 2nd: Moab, Utah where we visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
• 3rd: Durango, Colorado and visited Mesa Verde and took a trip on the Durango-Silverton Railroad.
• 4th: Colorado to purchase a truck and visit family. (Ok so maybe this one didn't count as a real vacation!)
• 5th: San Francisco, California and road trip up to Vina to see some friends from college and back along the coast and by way of Armstrong Redwood Forest.

For our sixth we are planning to go to San Diego, California to go to the Zoo and Sea World.  That is unless we move and then we might consider Yellowstone National Park.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 4

  

Today's topic: Summer Goals

Wow, this challenge is keeping me on my toes when it comes to blogging, I will be over 200 posts before I know it!

Hmmm, summer goals.  I haven't really set any out in writing or anything, but I guess in the back of my mind I would like to go camping more this summer.  I would also like to finish Austin's quilt, but that will be a goal until it is finished.  It may be by the end of summer, but it may not.  I'm sure he will have it before he goes off to college, LOL!

I am a little bit not committing to too many things since at any time we might get a new job and be moving, but then again we may not, but since it's up in the air I hate to set anything in stone.  I am not doing too many things to the house, other than those that are necessary since we hope to be selling it in the next year or so.

I don't know if it fits as a goal, but we are going to Colorado in July to see Soundgarden at Red Rocks.  That should be a fun trip.  It would be even funner if it ends up also being a house hunting trip if we get one of the jobs we are currently applying for!

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 3

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Today's topic:

What do you think of when hear the word Summer!!

I'm a little late tonight, so I'll keep it short.  I think of blue skies, green grass, lemonade, home made ice cream, watermelon, grilling, fresh tomatoes from the garden, fireworks, and county fairs.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 1

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Ok so I know I am out of order, but I barely saw the link up today, and the Saturday topic was much easier to write about, so I am going back and doing #1.


About Sarah

I am a thirty something lady who happens to be wife to Dustin, six years in October, and Mom to Austin, two and almost a half years.  I work for an Indian Tribe in northern Arizona as their Water Quality Specialist.  I am originally from Colorado and lived there the first 26 years of my life until Dustin brought me to the desert.  This place is really beautiful with vermilion cliffs all around and tons of hiking opportunities which I love.  We are in the middle of Grand Canyon North Rim, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.  We don't really fit in the community very well though, and we have no family close so we are more than ready to move on.  We are in the process of applying for jobs, but as everyone knows the market is very competitive at the moment.

I have many hobbies besides blogging, I love to sew, quilt, embroider, crochet, garden, can, cook, decorate cakes, scrapbooking and photography.  I am currently working on my son's quilt, which is taking me forever.  If you want to see photos of the pieces I have finished appliqueing you can click on the "quilts" label and it will take you to those posts.  My garden is growing pretty well now that we finally stopping having frosts at night, but I have not done a post about it yet, hopefully soon.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 2

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Today is day 2 and here is the topic:

Summer.....Love it or Hate it?

I love summer!  We went swimming this morning, I look out my french doors and see pure green beauty in my garden, the flowers are blooming, I love to grill, ...what's not to love!  I also love summer thunderstorms, especially when lightning is off in the distance and you can watch it safely. 
 

The only thing I dislike about summer is the bugs, I hate the smell of deet, but hate mosquito bites even worse.  We don't have them here, but when we visit the midwest in the summer I also despies ticks and chiggars.

Flowers

I was on a short work trip to Flagstaff, AZ the past couple of days to attend a springs assessment training.  I will write more about it later, but for now I want to share pictures of the cacti I took while we were on a field trip to Montezuma Well.

First Camping Trip

We took Austin on his very first camping trip this weekend.  We tried last summer, but the trip failed miserably and we haven't gotten back since.  This past Friday through Saturday we held a Kid's Camp for the youth I work with at the tribe with the North Kaibab Forest where Dustin works which is the ancestral homeland for the tribe.  Since we were both involved with the camp we took Austin along and made it a family experience. 

Friday we picked up the kids in the morning and headed for the forest.  We had 13 Paiute kids participate, and the two daughters of Dustin's co-worker who headed up the camp efforts for the Forest Service.  All the kids besides Austin ranged in age from 4-15.  When we arrived they broke the kids into groups and we went to two of the learning stations, then lunch and then the other 4 stations.  The learning stations were Leave No Trace, Timber/Silviculture, Firefighting/Fire Management, Paiute Games and Traditions, Archaeology/Paleontology, and Geology.  Then we had some free time and then dinner.  After dinner we did a camp fire and smores.  After that we loaded up in the vans and drove to Jacob Lake (which is really just a wet meadow) where the Wildlife Department set up bat nets to try and catch one to show the kids.  Unfortunately they were unable to catch one, but the Biologist taught the kids about mammals and talked about what she does for the Forest Service.

On Saturday we took the kids on what they called a Service Learning Project, which really was more of a tour of timber management areas.  They compared areas that had been treated with areas that were way overgrown.  We also went to the area of the Warm Fire which was a massive wildfire in 2006 that burned at high intensity and wiped out a large area of vegetation.  We treated the kids to lunch at the Jacob Lake Inn.  Then we went to a place called Three Lakes where I did a brief water quality monitoring lesson.  By that point we were all pretty tired and the kids were at the point that they were tired of learning, so I made it short.  Then we headed home and had all the kids returned before 5:00pm. 

Austin did great, he was born to be outdoors!  He was so good around the older kids, and at night he slept way better than Dustin and I.  I definitely know that before we try to tent camp again we need to invest in a bigger air mattress since we put Austin in the middle and we both ended up half hanging off the sides around him.  We had great weather the whole time other than getting a little chilly at night.  I think the kids all had a great time.

Handy Mommy

It seems like recently a lot of stuff in our house has needed maintenance.  One of those projects was my water heater.  The main part of our house has a full size propane water heater, but the addition has a bathroom and it has it's own mini-electric water heater.  A couple of months ago the water started getting really abnormally hot.  Then it went cold.  I called the tech support line and they said it was probably the lower thermostat, but also recommended that since we live in AZ where there is hard water that we think about replacing the heating elements.  I went ahead and ordered the thermostat and elements.  Dustin went in and replaced the thermostat and the upper element.  He attempted to drain the tank to replace the lower element, but the drain faucet would not flow to empty the tank.  Also when he tried to pull the element out, with water gushing behind it, it appeared to bend out where it would not clear the hole.  We decided to just put it back together and leave well enough alone since the upper element that we  replaced was not too badly corroded. 

It still seemed to be flaky about temperature, and I noticed the lower element dripping, so I decided to attempt to drain it by allowing the water to pour out from behind the lower element.  It took forever since it is a 50 gallon tank and I had to use a baking pan to bail it out.  I had to use a bunch of towels to catch the water that I missed in the pan. Once I finally got it drained we got a better look at the element. It was VERY corroded and did fork out, which the replacement one did not.   I took a channel locks pliers and squeezed the element together and it bended easily.  I had to continue crimping it to get it out.  When it finally cleared the hole it was so corroded that the metal had disappeared in several places and the wires were exposed.  The corrosion must have caused it to fork out.

From the hole of the lower element we could look in and the whole bottom of the tank was full of calcium deposit flakes which is why the drain faucet would not flow.  It's crazy how hard the water is here.  If I had to go back I would have definitely invested in a water softener for this house when we bought it.