Our Home

Our Home

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Two More to Go

Two more to go and Sarah will be done with the chemo part of her treatment. We will find out next week when she begins her radiation treatments. I cannot say enough about the folks at the Stoddard Cancer Center at Methodist hospital here in Des Moines, we are so glad we stayed to have Sarah take the treatments here. These folks are wonderful, considerate and bend over backwards to make the patient feel comfortable.

We haven’t been doing too much, it has been cold. I am told yesterday a year ago, it was in the eighties here and yesterday the temperature didn’t get above thirty and it was eleven above this morning. I apologized for not being AZ so it would have been warmer here.

Speaking of AZ we are going to be in Mesa next winter, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we have been graciously accepted back into the fold of the Décor Team. We are looking forward to it and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again.

I have been working very hard at Enterprise Car Rental moving cars here and there. To show you have difficult this job is, yesterday we had to take three new, no miles on them, Kia Sorrento from the office to the airport, twenty miles, then the three of us got into another car and rode all the way to Davenport, IA, a hundred fifty or so miles. I finished a book I was reading on the way over, it was pure torture to sit there and ride all that way. When we got to Davenport I got in a 2013 Ford Explorer, two miles on it, and took it to the airport in Des Moines, then we all hopped into the car and rode to the office. I am telling you it is just plain hard work. Actually, I love it, I like to drive and sometimes I get to just ride and read. It doesn’t pay much but it almost buys the groceries.

Last night we met Norma & Orren for dinner at a Mexican restaurant here in town. We had a good time and the food was good.

I am on the slots on Facebook so if any of you are also playing them, send me coins or spins. Also, I need lives on the addictive Candy Crush game, I am stuck on 38 but I’ll get off it eventually, most of it is luck but some strategy is involved also.

I am reading a book by Lee Childs, seems like it will be a good one. Just finished one by the same author that had an ending I didn’t see coming. Mike Cord gave me ten or so books to read; most of them are Clive Cussler but a couple also from Lee Childs and Vince Flynn. I had never heard of Vince Flynn until a couple of years ago I was standing in line at Wal-Mart in Branson, MO, I was looking at some paperback books and a lady behind me asked if I had ever read any of Vince Flynn’s books, I said no and she told me I should. I found one in the library here at the apartment building, read it and enjoyed it so I will read more of his writings.

NCAA wrestling tournament begins today here in Des Moines. The media is saying 25,000 people will descend on this town over the next couple days and dump many millions of dollars on the local economy. I never liked wrestling, I think because I never understood it and I really didn’t want to spend all day at a meet. Our oldest son Robert tried it one year in high school, it didn’t last very long, I hope it wasn’t because I wasn’t as gung ho about it as I was other sports. I do know this it is a HUGE sport here in Iowa and it was in Wisconsin.

That is all for now, not much happening.

Till Later – Dreams Do Come True

Monday, March 11, 2013

FOUR More To Go

Confession time, I had good intentions of writing before now but I have become addicted to the slot games on Facebook. My brother and I send coins back and forth to each other; sometimes I include others if I know they are playing these stupid games also. We talked this morning and he asked me not to send him any coins for awhile because he get booted out of his current game. It is fun, time consuming, mindless game but I enjoy it while listening to music. However, it has wormed its way into my reading time; I have to get back to the reading. I also have another game I play, frustrating as it is, Candy Crush or something like that. I have reached an area where the only way to clear it is by dumb luck, so we’ll see if I can be dumb enough for it. It seems to me the only purpose for these games is not for the enjoyment of the players but to try to entice you to buy more lives, levels or coins. As I have said before anyone who pays for the coins or lives, is nuts, I haven’t reached the level of having to pay to continue playing, we’ll see what happens then. Of course, I have bought games before and I guess this is the new way of buying games.

Sarah is down to FOUR more chemo treatments and then no more chemo, she is thrilled about that as am I, I don’t like to see her have to go through the after effects of the treatments. She has tolerated this whole affair much better than I would have been able to do.

We have decided to get the camper out of storage on April 20 and begin moving our stuff back to it. We don’t have to vacate the apartment until the last day of April but I want to take my time moving and be able to test everything in the camper before moving back in. It will be nice to get back in the camper, this apartment is ok and has been a Godsend but I want my home back.

I am currently reading a couple of books one is an old one by Andy Rooney, he was on “CBS 60 Minutes”, on Sunday night, it is called “Pieces of My Mind”, it is a collection of his columns and writings he would give on TV. They are old enough to bring back memories of when I was young. One of them was about the media, of which he was a part, in their reporting of a story. He said the reporter’s obligation is to report what is factual; the reporter’s obligation is to investigate the story to make sure what they are being told is in fact the truth. The reporter should not just take as fact what the subject tells them but to research and tell the truth and keep bias out of the story. What I found interesting about the piece is even though it was written twenty odd years ago, it applies to everything today. My greatest fear is the younger generation is not learning history and will not learn from it.

The other day there was a piece on the radio about the New York school system, 80% of the students graduating and going to junior college are illiterate, 80% of them. What I am wondering is, http://www.caliteracy.org/rates/, this piece gives some troubling data. It seems to me all the government wants to do is throw money at the problem instead of finding the cause of the problem. I know many people think they know the cause but really don’t. I believe the powers to be need to ask the front line troops, the teachers, what they consider the cause. I don’t mean the teachers who are the union reps or the administrators I mean the ones doing the actual teaching. Then instead of taking the money to pay admin salaries put the money where it is most needed at the classroom level. I don’t have an answer for the cause of illiteracy but I would bet it could be identified, if it hasn’t already been, and corrected.

I love reading, I go nowhere without a book. It used to be more difficult but with the advent of eBooks, I always have one available on my IPhone. I have both the Nook and Kindle apps on the phone so my choice of books is endless. If you have kids or grandkids buy them a book and get the interested in reading. Just to be clear I don’t own any stock in a book company.

We are almost to spring; I am looking forward to no more snow. It is suppose to snow more today, I guess we received a couple inches of snow last night but it seems to be melting faster, good sign.

We were invited to Candi & Russ’ for dinner yesterday, it was great. Candi made a strawberry, rhubarb, apple pie, I loved it. We had a great visit and we thank them. Candi is a cancer survivor, twice, and doing well.

We need to go to the store today, I hate grocery shopping now, not that I liked it before, but the cost of food has risen dramatically in that past few months. I have trouble finding enough food to buy on a hundred dollar budget. I guess I will have to give up my ice cream and M&M’s.

I guess I will call it quits for now, it is time to eat.

Till later – Dreams Do Come True

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Five to Go

It is March already, although when we first moved into the apartment I didn’t think March would ever get here, but here we are. I didn’t need the calendar to tell me because the girl’s High School basketball tournaments are this week and I can see all the cars parked for the games and we have had SNOW. The weather people called for one to two inches and we received over ten inches, so much for their computer models.

Well, it has been awhile since I wrote so here goes with the update.

Sarah is doing GREAT, she has some tingling and numbness in her fingers and toes so the doctor has been adjusting the dosage each time and she has less tingling so that is a blessing for her. Her attitude is still great but she can’t wait for this all to be in the past.

Monday, February 11, we went out to eat with Russ and Candi, one of our favorite places Smokey D’s. If you like BBQ and you are in Des Moines or just passing through, they are at the 2nd Ave exit on I80-35, great food and plenty of it.

Wednesday, February 13, we went out to eat with Mike and Shari to the buffet at Prairie Meadows. Of course I had to play the slots for a few minutes, didn’t win anything. If any of you see my Facebook page, you will see I have taken up playing slots on the computer, doesn’t cost me anything. My brother Larry got me going on these games, some are fun others not so much. I will play until I have no more credits and then wait for someone to send me credits or the game gives me free credits. Now I suppose there are a lot of people who pay money for the credits, they are constantly asking you to buy credits, but I guess I’m not into it that much. Actually, I can’t see where it is to my advantage to buy them, it doesn’t make sense, but someone must be paying for credits or they wouldn’t be asking for them.

Sunday, February 17, we went to Orren and Norma’s, we took a couple of Papa Murphy’s pizzas and had lunch with them. Orren has been recovering from a bad case of pneumonia but seems to be getting better daily, it will take some time for him to get his strength back. We are planning to go over again tomorrow afternoon to see them. Norma is putting together a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, I think she started it in 1982, not really but the pieces are too small for me, I won’t touch it.

I have been getting two to three days work in at Enterprise, it is not much but enough for me. As I have said before the work isn’t hard, where else can I get paid for driving a car from point A to point B, or better still ride one way and read a book the whole time. There have been a couple of times where it has been a bit stressful the past couple of weeks due to the snow and the idiot drivers out there. According to the state of Iowa you aren’t suppose to be texting while driving. Ask me how that is working. It AIN’T. I had someone the other day just about get me because they weren’t paying attention to their driving. Then you get the ejit sitting at the stop light and it turns green, do they go, NO, they are sitting there catching up on the texts or emails.

Next week the boy’s are in town for the state High School basketball tournament. Again, they are calling for snow on Monday and Tuesday. I will be happy when April arrives, not to say we can’t get snow in April, but it is less likely to happen. Besides we have plans to move the camper out of storage and into the campground on April 20, so hopefully all the cold weather and snow will be gone by then. I was going to take the camper to the dealer who winterized it and have them dewinterize it but I decided if there are any leaks I will deal with it instead of paying the dealer to tell me there are leaks and then charge me to fix them also. Anyway hopeful everything will be good. We have gone out to the camper a couple of times and it seems to be OK, I guess we will know when we move back into it.

I found a great way to get magazines without buying them. No, I don’t take them from the doctor’s office. I got a library card and get them from the library electronically on my IPad. I download most all of them, then go through them, and read what I want, with the IPad it is almost the same as having the magazine. The other thing I did, which I said I wouldn’t do, was sign up for Netflix, I watch movies and TV shows on the IPad, of course, you have to have a good WIFI connection, which we normally have. There have been two instances where Mediacom, the local cable/internet provider, screwed up the billing and payment for this apartment and we were without for a couple days, but when it is working, I love it. I am listening to satellite radio on my laptop as I am typing this.

I don’t know if we are going back to Mesa, AZ next winter or not. I have written Mikki, our boss at Cal-AM, but haven’t heard from her. I suppose I should call, I’ll try to do that next week. If we can go back and work, we will go back to Mesa, if we can’t work, we will most likely go to FL for a couple of months. Even though we have bought a townhouse, we probably won’t be there that much, because I still want to travel and see a few places in this great country while I still have the ability. The townhouse will be a good place to come back to especially if one of us gets sick or disabled.

I think I have said we are looking at the possibility of trading for a motor home, still looking but we haven’t found anything to our liking. Well that isn’t quite true I did find one but by the time I inquired about it the dealer had sold it. Oh well, if we are to have one we’ll find it.

That’s about it for now; hopefully I won’t wait so long to write again.

Dreams Do Come True