Jungle Friends

I met this author at a craft show a couple of weeks ago and I purchased an autographed book for my granddaughter, Charly. Then I got to thinking that I should have gotten one for Luke. So I emailed her and she brought the book over to my house on her way to Walmart. So cool to have autographed copies and the author lives in Enid.

Jungle Friends by Brenda Salladay

labor of love

This year I am trying to make as many of the Xmas gifts as I can for my family, knitting, sewing, and craft items. As I make each item, I think of the person that I am making the gift for. Hopefully the love that I put into making the gifts will be transmitted through the gift into the recipient's heart and they will know that they are loved, especially when they wear or use the gift.

I have many items that my mother started to make and I hope to incorporate some of these into some of the gifts, so it is as if I am passing on her love also to my children.

Boycott TV this week?

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/10/15/list-of-organically-created-iparticipate-television-programs/

This week some of our favorite TV shows will be possibly preaching at us - imploring us to "participate" or volunteer.

I am so torn - do I boycott my favorite shows next week so that I show that I do not want to participate in what I think is brainwashing by the Obama's.

Michelle and Barach Obama have enlisted the Entertainment Industry Foundation to have TV shows promote volunteerism, but I am afraid that they might be only promoting the volunteer programs that they want, like Planned Parenthood. I am trying to find out more information. If anyone else has a comment or an opinion or information, please feel free to comment.

Nobel Peace Prize

What the ****? Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? The world has turned topsy turvy. What has he done to promote peace? He has turned the US into a total state of chaos. There is unrest everywhere. The US dollar in the world is now a joke. He has made the US a laughing stock to the other world leaders. In fact, I am sure there are multiple plots to attack the US because our enemies now think that the US is weak and ineffectual and that we are on a downward slide both economically and politically.

I do have one idea. Obama could take the $1 million that he will be getting from receiving this award and give it back to the government to decrease the deficit. I know it is a drop in the bucket, but it would be a sign he wants to actually start decreasing the deficit.

Instead, my fear is that people will think that he now has more money to "give away", just like they thought in Detroit, where 3500 people stood in line to get money from "Obama's stash".

more pictures of Dad's home

More pictures of Dad's home.

This is another view of his kitchen. You can see the table and chairs before we got the cushions and tablecloth.

Dad was pretty proud of his shower. I didn't use this one. It was in the master bedroom bathroom.

Dad bought a three-wheeled bike to ride around the park so he can get some exercise.
Another view of the front of his home.

My Dad in Florida

I took the time to go visit my dad on his birthday, earning brownie points that I will not cash in. But he seemed to enjoy the visit, even though he said it was too short. I couldn't take too much time off from work, so I flew in on Saturday and left on Monday morning. His birthday was Sunday. We had a nice time playing cards and talking about the past.

We went to Walmart and bought cushions for the kitchen chairs, a table cloth and some placemats. I thought the red would brighten up the place.
Here Dad is relaxing in his easy chair.
Another view of the kitchen.
His bedroom. He has another bedroom that is very nice also.


This is the outside of the mobile home.

football season

Well, as most of you know my husband is an avid football fan. Mostly college football, but he has been known to get wrapped up in NFL games also. Before I married him, I didn't know that much about football. My son played football in his senior year, I was in the marching band in high school, and I vaguely remembering my mother watching the Lions games every Sunday (but I thought she was just watching because Ken was, I later found out that was not the case. She was an avid Lions fan). This was the extent of my football knowledge.

Since marrying Dave I had to either get with the program or get out of the living room, so I decided to get with the program. Then he and I decided to jointly run MACreportonline.com, a website for and about Mid-American Conference College football and basketball. We attended many, many football games and I was able to see up close (right on the sidelines) what football was about. I loved it.

This year we are in Oklahoma. No college football games to attend. I realized recently that I really miss it. With the fall season, the cooling temperatures, the different smell in the air, there was a remembrance in my mind of the excitement and anticipation that comes with attending a college football game. There was a sweet build up as you are driving to the stadium. And then when the drums roll and the crowd roars at the first kick-off, you find a sense of peace that finally football season is here.

Art Lesson - Day 3

This week the art lesson was a little harder in that I was the only student and the instructor was trying to get me to work on the feet and hands and some other details, but I kept losing my concentration. These final drawings of the evening seem to be a little different style than last week's, but I am not sure. I don't know which set I like better.

It is fun getting back into drawing again after a 30 some year hiatus. It is a nice creative release. I need to practice more, so I need to have family and friends be my models. I wonder if I can use the webcam to view my models. That would be kind of crazy. Might have to try it.

Art Lession - Day 2

Day 2 of the art lesson. I didn't do too bad. I guess I need to work on making things larger. Still using the contour and shape techniques to draw the model.

This second one might be one of my best so far. I even got her face in.

Art Lesson - day 1

I signed up for Adult Figure Drawing classes here in Enid. They are in the evening, right after I get off of work and they are close by at the Episcopal church. The instructor is Patricia Bradley and there is one other student besides me. So I should be able to get better and better at drawing human figures. We learned two techniques, gesture and contour. Then we combined the two techniques on these two drawings that I did. I need practice, but didn't do too bad for the first day.

Live Model - Standing










Live Model - Sitting

Adobe support is the worst

I want to document my horrible experience with Adobe Systems, Inc. customer and tech support.

I purchased Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Standard upgrade from Adobe's online store in September of 2008. I have the program installed on my Windows Vista Home Premium laptop and previously had it on a Windows XP Professional computer. I then removed it from that computer and installed in on a new Windows XP computer. That hard drive crashed. When trying to install on the new hard drive using Windows Vista Business I received the error that I had the product on too many computers. I contacted customer support who after three phone calls suggested I
install the Adobe Acrobat 6.0 first. Then the message I received when installing the program was that the serial number was invalid.

I contacted the customer service and tech support for Adobe about 11 times over the last two weeks and did not have a resolution until now. Tech support, after being on the phone with them for 2 hours at a time, said it was a customer service problem, customer service said it was a tech problem.

I was on the phone four times with tech support - used Windows Installer Utility, CS3 Cleaner Utility (level 2 and 4), deleted cache.pcd, reinstalled, uninstalled, and did just about everything I could think of - and still no resolution to the problem. Tech support sent me back to customer support three times and then customer support sent me back to tech support. I know I was a difficult customer to deal with. That was because of my frustration at having to call so many times, having to answer the same questions over and over again, and not getting any satisfaction. Most of the techs asked the same question they just asked me, like they were reading from a script and when I tried to ask questions other than what was on their script, they had to start over with their reading.

At one point I was told to connect directly to the internet through my modem and not my router. I tried it, but could figure out why that would cause the problem. One tech suggested that my MAC address was the problem.

I was sent to so many different areas of tech support that my head was spinning. Each person, in their Indian accent, would assure me that they would be the one to get this resolved for me. Then when they couldn't figure it out, they sent me back to customer service. Customer service then sent me back to tech support. What a miserable run-around.

I was able to finally install the Acrobat 9.0 Standard program after one of the techs finally said something that made sense to me. We renamed the Flexnet folder and that stopped the invalid serial number problem. Why this wasn't suggested to me on the first or second time I called tech support is beyond me.

This is the worst tech and customer support that I have ever dealt with.

I lodged a complaint against Adobe with the San Jose BBB so that Adobe will be aware of the horrible experience I had with their customer service and tech support.

Obama perpetuates racial dissent

I am disgusted that President Obama would comment on the actions of a police officer during a call to the home of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He clearly either did not know all the facts of the case or he purposely chose to take the side of Mr. Gates, thereby denigating the authority of the police and, in my opinion, perpetuating the idea that all whites hate blacks and especially the police cannot be expected to deal with a black person in a respectful way.

I think that this is one of the worse things that the president has done. He is pitting whites against blacks in this situation. He is speaking before he knows all the facts. He is showing that he thinks he has more power and better judgement than local governments.

I think he wants to become the dictator of America. We need to watch this man very carefully before he achieves his goal.

Small town America

Besides missing my family and especially the grandkids, I enjoy living in Enid, OK. Especially last Friday. If you don't know me very well, I will let you in on a secret about me. I love fireworks. The last few years I haven't been able to see really good fireworks except on TV because we lived in the Detroit area and trying to find a location and deal with the traffic and the people was just not something I wanted to do. But hear in Enid, the crowds are not too bad and the venues for the fireworks are worth going to.

Friday night was the American Legion 4th of July tournament for baseball with a fireworks display after the last game of the night. The ballpark is very nice with roomy seats and plenty of leg room. The games are only 7 innings and if one team gets ahead of the other by 8 points after the 5th inning, then the game ends, which is what happened last night with the Enid Majors winning 11-3.


The fireworks started promptly after the end of the game. It was enjoyable to watch the fireworks from the comfort of the stadium seats.


Saturday night I wasn't going to go to the park to the see the symphony orchestra and fireworks, but Dave encouraged me to go via email (he was at work), so I took off and drove over towards the park. People were lined up along the back roads, so I pulled over as close as I could get and stepped out of my car to watch. The fireworks were even better than the night before, but next time I will have to try to be at the park when they go off to get the full effect.

All in all, I loved the firework displays in Enid.

Step-Fathers Day coming soon

When I was 24, my mother remarried. She had been married for 25 years or so to my father, who was a moody and depressed person. I have had occasion to see how mean and unforgiving he can be now that I am grown up. I can only imagine what it was like living with him for my mom.


But she was able to divorce him and marry a man that was devoted to her, and he was very nice to my mom's three grown children. While they were married and before my mom died, Ken had a very generous heart when it came to his children and my mom's children. He personally helped me out a lot. Mom and Ken drove down to Ohio to get me when I was miscarrying. They paid for me to fly out to visit them in San Antonio, TX when they lived there. We had so many wonderful family get-to-togethers at their house. It seemed that we were always welcome. Both of them never forgot our birthdays or our children's birthdays. Ken created a calendar every Christmas with all the birthdays and anniversaries and passed out a copy to each of his kids and mom's kids so that we would all know what is going on. Ken kept up the tradition of sending cards and making the calendars after mom passed away 13 years ago.

Ken has loved us kids unconditionally, never being harsh or mean. This is more than my dad has done.

Ken is not feeling well now and has asked Hospice to come in for a while to help. I wish I could be there in Michigan. Since I am not able to be there in person, I do want him to know how much I appreciate him and what he did to make my mother happy.

Happy Father's Day, Ken.

Grandson Luke's visit

We are having so much fun with Luke and Mindy here to visit in Oklahoma. Luke is an awesome 2-year-old. Very talkative, very lively, and enjoyable. Sure there are the screams and tantrums, but not as many as there could be.

Dave wrote an article for the paper about Luke.

I posted some pictures on photobucket:

Enid, Tornado Alley

When I was in Michigan I thought it would be fun to take a trip with the Storm Chasers. I have always had an interest in the storms in Michigan. I relished the power of the storms and wanted to know more about how they form and stuff. But I was lazy and other things occupied my mind in between the storms. But everytime there was a storm I had to hold myself back from standing out in the middle of the storm. I had to remind myself to be sensible and not tempt fate.

So then Dave up and makes me move to Enid, Oklahoma. The center of extreme storms and tornadic activity. I am both excited to be in the middle of these wild storms and scared. I guess that is good. Cautiousness is a good thing. I find myself watching the interactive map online and during the worse part of the storm, one of the TV stations out of Oklahoma City has full coverage of the storm with storm chasers right in the midst of the storm giving back information.

I think I am still lazy and will not "study" about the storms, but I do like learning about them through listening to the meteorologists and watching the interactive map of the storms.

This will be interesting living in Enid, OK. I do think I will get a small suitcase packed with some extra clothes, food for Riley, some of our medications, and maybe the backup drive that I purchased that has all our computer files on it, just in case there is a tornado or even a fire. Fires seem to be another natural (or unnatural) disaster that happens frequently in OK.

i must not eat the cookies

I went to the store yesterday just before the major part of the storm hit (see pictures below) and bought groceries. But I forgot to get the 100 calorie snack cookies for Dave. So I told him I would make cookies. I made some old-fashioned sugar cookies. They are are pretty good. I have to tell myself they are not here, they are not in the house, no, we have no cookies.

oklahoma - saturday 2/28

Well, we are still in Oklahoma. I don't quite know how we are doing. Dave seems to be settling in to his job. He is getting to write articles. He has a regular column every Saturday and they can be read on the internet at http://enidnews.com/.

Since I work at home I not able to make friends as easily. So I feel a little isolated. I just need to find the right thing to do to get out and meet people. I have lots of ideas, but haven't settled on one yet.

It is also hard to be so far away from my family. Aydan turned 1 on Thursday and today Kari and Mark had a party for him. I hope they took lots of pictures.

Tonight I consoled myself by making a version of Chi-Chi's seafood chimichanga. It didn't have the distinctive taste, but it was good. Earlier in the week, I had made chicken chimichanga's and they were good also.

Now I am making french bread. I hope to make french toast for breakfast for Dave and I tomorrow. Then I think we are going to go hiking and then possibly eat at a restaurant we found out that way. Sundays are nice because I get to spend time with Dave.

another gorgeous day in Oklahoma

With Sunday the only day Dave and I have both have off from work, we try to find something to do together that we both enjoy. But a lot of things are closed on Sunday in Enid, OK and if we want to do things outside, the weather sometimes doesn't cooperate. It did today.

We didn't have anything planned. We did have breakfast planned. We used to enjoy going out to eat for breakfast because it got us out of house and it was usually cheap. Since moving to Enid, we have been trying to find a good breakfast spot. There is no such thing. We have tried every place. IHOP, Wee Too Restaurant, Raymie's Restaurant, the Dutch Pantry and we cannot find another place that has breakfast on Sunday. Yesterday we thought we would try the Willow Inn (not an Inn). The internet said that it was open on Saturdays, not Sundays. Nope, not open. From the looks of the place I doubt the breakfast would have been acceptable.

So we have decided to give up on breakfasts. I will start cooking our favorite breakfast meals and try different recipes for breakfast. When the weather is warmer we will try to eat our breakfast outside. To get out and way from the apartment, we will have to do other things. Today we started with poached eggs, hash browns, bacon and english muffins.

So with nothing concrete in mind, we headed out at about 11 a.m. to see what we could find to do. We started driving north on U.S. 81. I got out the map and the GPS and noticed that we were headed to Kansas. At U.S. 11 I told Dave he had three options, north to Kansas, east to Ponca City, and west to the Great Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge. He wanted me to decide. I said west and I am glad I did. What a nice spot we found. We found a 1.25 mile nature trail with marshes, woods, and a lake. I didn't bring my camera, which is a shame because we saw an opossum, an armadilla, a herd of deer, a woodpecker, and lots of ducks and geese (mallards, wood ducks, and Canadian geese). Definitely a place that we will return to many times. As the seasons change the scenery will change.

walking still

Well, I am doing pretty good with the walking. I have been walking almost every day the track has been open. I think I only missed one day. Now I have to figure out how to get Dave there. I know he wants to lose weight, but he hasn't figured out when he get go over there during the day before he goes to work.

And I haven't lost any weight. That is a bummer, but I am not going to give up.

On another note, the tornadic weather did not come our way here in Enid. The sky got pretty dark and a little rain and some wind. But that is all.

Exercise - day 3

Well, I have go to the activity center three times now. Hopefully I will keep it up.

On another note, Dave and I have been married for five years now.

Exercise

Starting a resolution. I will walk at the Activity Center every day that I can. There is an church across the street from our apartment complex (about two blocks away) where we can walk on a track and use exercise equipment (if we want to). They open at 7 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. most days. I am going to try to walk first thing in the morning. I am already. I bought a 2 gb MP3 player and loaded it with music to walk to. I think I have the right shoes. We will see how much my feet hurt afterwards. The track seemed to have a shock absorbing type of material on it, so that should help. I have to walk 15 times around the track for a mile. I might have to get a counter or something, or just make sure that I walk for 30 minutes or so.

Hiking in Glass Mountains

Dave and I went exploring today and had a little adventure. The Glass Mountains are called this because of the gypsum and selenite cause the sun to reflect and make the mesas look like they have glass on them.

We wanted to climb to the top of the mesa. There seemed to be stairs to the top. But at the very top, the steps stopped and there was just rock to climb and it was fairly steep. I think that we were more worried about how to get down once we got up. Both of us are out of shape and need a little more conditioning. But still it was disappointing to get almost to the top. After we climbed back down, we decided to hike around the valley a little. Then we went back to the car and got our lunch to eat. The PB&J sandwiches hit the spot.

Then we thought it would be good to explore some more. We found a path. At least we thought it was a path. But it turns out it was a small creek bed and as we walked along it it became slightly muddy. Then all of a sudden Dave stepped into a very muddy spot and sunk into the mud up to his ankle with one foot. While pulling out his foot, his shoe stayed in the mud and his other foot sunk into the mud. We were laughing quite hard by this time. Dave got out of his other shoe so that now he was on dry ground in her stocking feet and his two shoes were buried in the mud. I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pant legs and went into the mud to get Dave's shoes after we tried unsuccessfully to tried to pry the shoes out of the mud with our walking sticks, but they were stuck too tightly. I was unsuccessful. Dave's shoes are still in the mud, left for posterity.

We headed back to the car, barefooted and sock footed, carrying my muddy shoes. My feet were cold and caked with mud. We cleaned off our feet as much as we could and threw my dirty shoes in the trunk.

Exploring with Dave is always an adventure. Stay tuned for next weeks' adventure.

If you find time, check out the pictures of Glass Mountain.
http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/koalahug15/Glass%20Mountain%20Oklahoma/