Cooler Days Ahead?

It was over 90 here yesterday and they said a 100 in El Cajon. Hailey spent Saturday night with her friend Haley T. The family went to a play at the school and invited Hailey to go with them. Sunday morning I picked up Hailey and Haley and her little sister Tyler. They spent the day here and then it was back down to Lakeside to take Haley and Tyler home.

A Beautiful Day

ER and I had brunch out on the front patio. I never know what to call that area. It was a small front yard that is enclosed with chainlink. My stepmom, Marlise, tried for years to get a lawn to grow there. The small area was dry and dusty and miserable. So a few years ago we paved the area with sandstone. A homemade job...very uneaven but I love it. There was already a drain put in by my Dad years ago that runs under the carport. Otherwise paving that area would be a disaster waiting to happen. The house is in a low spot. So without that drain the patio would turn into a pond when it rains. I bought two table umbrellas at Home Depot for the Walmart plastic furniture that I had bought. It made a lovely place to sit and watch humming birds. I have a feeder hanging from the small porch overhang at the front door. The only downside is that the umbrellas blow over in strong winds...if I don't get out there quickly and roll them down. After three years the umbrellas needed replacing. Was going to do that this summer but happened to see just what I wanted at Wallmart. Love that store.

There was a tree in the corner of the yard that finally just got too old. Branches were falling so now it is a stump. We planted yucca around the stump so it doesn't hurt me so much to see it.

And of course the fire pit that Elizabeth bought for me at Christmas. The area is perfect.

My Dad got this place back in the late 1960's. He had made a loan to a friend...a second mortgage. The friend defaulted on the first and the loan company was forclosing. That meant my Dad would loose the money he had loaned on the second. So he went to the loan company and took over the first. The house is very old and started out as a two room with a large round rock fireplace. Mostly built with redwood. It was added on to in 1940 and then my Dad made some changes too. They used the back bedroom and changed the front room into one larger room. In the late '70s he built a new master bedroom and bath.

The ceilings are low and since my dad was 6'2" wondered how he liked living here. It was planned to be temporary. He owned a hill off Woodside Ave. and always planned to build a big house up there. After he moved here Marlise didn't want the big house. She liked it here. This place has a special feeling that is hard to describe. He died in 1985.

He liked the look of palm trees and palm lined drives. This property has a long driveway to the road and he planted palms along both sides. The neighbor on one side would like them removed. The neighbor's property is higher than our drive and I think it would make a real mess to remove the trees...and it would ruin the look too. I love those trees. The people that owned his place sold out and moved to AZ. He and his wife bought when property values had hit the high mark. They paid a couple of hundred thousand more than the place is now worth.

The previous owner had gotten permission from my Dad to drive from his back yard down into our driveway. Then after my Dad passed away he built a paved drive way down into ours and built some sort of building there. Marlise, was so mad about that, but she never said anything to him. I made it very plain to him that new owners would not be using my drive. That there was no easement to our drive and that it would be closed off. That didn't make me flavor of the month when the new owner asked me to relent on that and I refused. Though when they wanted to put in an above ground pool in the back corner of their property I let the work men drive up the bank on our side of the fence and even take our fence apart so that they could take all the supplies for the pool in.

After my Dad passed my stepmom lived here until she died in the summer of 2000. I bought the place from the trust. I like living here too. Marlise let the little house in back to ER. We separated in 83. Our son Dave was living with him too. Then two years ago my Daughter came with her two children. Now she is living in the little house. Hailey and I were on our own for so long it seems strange to share a place now. I have my own space and spend a lot of time there. Otherwise I would go nutz. Last year Megan went back to live with her father. So mostly it is just Elizabeth and Cody.

Yesterday I visited Jackie and had lunch there. She has new puppies and so had some puppy time. The big girl puppy is so cute. I could fall in love, but since I lost my dog because ER left the gate open don't want to get another. I will stick with our cats. We have five.

Fluffy was the only one that wasn't fixed. He started catting around, yowling, and pissing on everything. So off to the vet. Over $400! He has been very quiet since and now even lets me pet him. To get him to the vet we had to get him into the carrier. He ran under the furniture and finally Dave and I cornered him and got him secured. I think he knew.

Spring Break is Over

We had a nice Easter weekend. Elizabeth's friend Dennis was here with three of his children. Nice kids. On Friday evening we cooked hotdogs and roasted marshmallows. It was nice having a fire in the fire pit. E.R. brought the marshmallows and he bought a bag of tiny marshmallows. Six year old Carly thought they were wonderful and just for her. She had a great time putting them on the metal roasting sticks. The children were very well behaved. It was nice having the kids making noise and having fun. On Easter Sunday we had dinner and everyone was invited. David didn't sit with us for dinner though. Sunday the children went home to their mom.

Today Hailey is back to school.

Photoshopping

Stayed up to work on an entry for our little challenge on my Photoshopping board. The theme is movie poster. So I worked on an idea but it wouldn't come together and I was interrupted about a million times...so quit. Tonight managed to do something else. It is not too bad but with the talent already entered...don't stand a chance of winning. Still it is fun to do.

I entered some photos in the MyOlympus Group contest and did dreadfully. One entry got a big fat goose egg on votes. I'm just happy to have gotten a few votes on the other two entries. Next month's themes are birds, trees, and minimalist...whatever that is. Trees is unlimited which means photo manipulations. The other two have to be straight forward photos. Only some croping and brightening etc. I might enter this for April. All photos have to be taken with Olympus cameras listed for the group.

We have a pretty happy group on the Photoshopping board. NIK is running the Movie Poster Challenge. I plan to have a flower theme challenge for April. Hopefully that isn't too early for all the northerners still covered in snow.

Our days have been wonderful. I sat out today and watched the humming birds and enjoyed the fresh air. Tomorrow evening we are going to light up the firepit and let the kids burn marshmallows.

Sunny Days

That's what we are having in So Cal. A beautiful spring. Yesterday Janey and I had lunch at a new Thai resturant in Santee. Jackie and I went there on Friday and the food is wonderful. The lady said that they had only been open six months. They don't have much of a lunch crowd but she said the dinner crowd was very good. The resturant is on Mission Gorge Road almost to the 52. It is in an old strip mall that is almost overlooked when driving by. It was worth going again for the wonderful food. Will for sure go there again. I had the cashew nut. It comes with choices of chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp...I had it with the shrimp. YUM!

Elizabeth and Hailey had a spat the other day and Elizabeth wanted an apology from Hailey after Hailey told her that she never liked Elizabeth...just a kid saying that though when upset. So yesterday Elizabeth was taking Dennis' children to the park and Hailey wanted to go too. She decided to apolige to Elizabeth. She asked me if it was all right to call Elizabeth on the phone because she didn't want to make the apology in front of the other kids. So they went to the park and had a good time. All of Hailey's friends are on a school trip to Washington DC and New York. Hailey could have gone but I couldn't talk her into it. She has talked to her friends on their cell phones. Hailey seems pretty cheerful but I think she is a little sad.

ER is home and said his visit with family was pretty good. He was very tired though. Still he went out yesterday to do some tractor work at a neighbor's place. He keeps busy. We also went to Home Depot yesterday morning to get some metal to fix a broken chair. I just had to go through the garden section and I bought a nice cactus. We also got some tomato plants. Growing a few tomatos is about all the gardening E.R. does.

Another Sunny Day in So Cal

A bit hazy today but gorgeous all the same. A white crane flew down near the wood pile this morning. Than another one flew down too. They must be a pair. The first one seemed like it wasn't doing very well swallowing something. I took some photos and the second crane flew away. I didn't get any photos of it flying. Then the first one seemed to recover and it flew away too.



When I put the card in my computer card reader it wouldn't work...the photos still show when the card is in the camera so need to find another card reader and try again.



With Hailey off to school, E.R. still in KY, and David down the road on his bike, I'm in the house by myself. Doesn't happen very often. It seems so quiet here. Well a cat walks through the house once in awhile but then they are very quiet walkers.



E.R. called me and said he would be headed home on Friday. He has been in the snow storms back there. Had to drive several hundred miles on black ice. On the way to IL His brother said he could drive better being he was a truck driver. So E.R. let him take the wheel and they wound up in a ditch waiting for a tow truck. Someone came by and volunterred to pull them out with a chain and E.R. said OK to that. Paul, his brother, thought they were all going to get killed. It worked out fine though and they were back on the road with E.R. driving. E.R. said it was cold in KY but he is having a nice visit back there with his family.

Cats

We have five cats. Tuffy is a big black shorthaired cat. His fur looks like satin. He is a miniture black panther. Tuffy was purchased at a pet store from an animal rescue group. We got him an his sister at a discount because they were all ready five months old and no one had offered for them. It was late August and they don't like to be selling black cats near Halloween. They were both living in the same cage and were both wary of people.

Hailey renamed them Tuffy and Angel. Their birthdate was listed as March 30, 2005. Not too long after their first birthday Angel followed me outside one evening when I was bringing in things from my car, and was never seen again. Tuffy ran back into the house with his fur standing out like a plush toy. We knew Angel must have crossed paths with a coyote. One sometimes comes through our yard at night.

When I bought this house it came with a gray and white cat named Katy. Katy belonged to my stepmom. My stepmom passed away in 2000. Since E.R. was renting her little house and living with our son David, he stayed on and took care of the property for the trust until I bought it from the trust. We took care of Katy for those years until this place was mine to move into from the storage I used to manage. I had dreamed about going to Arizona or New Mexico, but since it is hard to move David I stayed here. I didn't only get the place I got my ex too. It has been interesting.

David met some people down the road that had to move and couldn't take their cats with them. So I said OK we will take them. They came by soon after and handed us two cats, and mama cat and her six month old son. They didn't even tell us their names. The mama cat was friendly and liked to be petted but she growled at Tuffy and Katy. Hailey was told to leave her alone. To let her get used to our place. Didn't listen and got bit on the arm. Trip to doctor and antibiotics for Hailey. I named the mama cat Stormy. Stormy is a short haired silver colored tabby. She fits her name. Stormy settled in and Katy and Stormy ignored eachother. Not Tuffy. He took all that growling personal and the two have disliked eachother ever since. I named Stormy's son Fluffy Boots. Fluffy is fluffy what else and tabby colored. Tuffy and Fluffy don't get along but mostly stay away from eachother.

In the spring of 2006, Stormy went catting around and got PG. On July 5th she had five kittens. Lots of photo ops. We couldn't keep all those kittens. My daughter and her two children Megan and Cody moved here that spring too. Hailey and Megan both wanted a kitten. So we kept two.

We named the fluffy kittens Tuxie and Smokey. Tuxie is black and white and Smokey is an almost black sooty color. Katy was about eighteen or ninteen and one day went to sleep and she was gone. So we now have five cats. After the experience loosing Tuffy's sister Angel we try to get all the cats inside the house every evening. Once in awhile one will refuse to come in. Then we worry.

Sunny Day

Spring is really here. Every thing is growing and green.

I've been fighting off a cold and lots of coughing and Hailey too is not getting over her cold. This must be the cold that doesn't go away. It starts with a very bad sore throat and then feel bad for a couple of days and then the coughing and sneezing. About the time it seems all over it all starts up again with a head ache, aching bones, and sore eyes that feels like the flu but not quite as bad. Then it goes back to feeling like a chest cold. I once was sick the whole month of December and pretty much missed Christmas because of something like this.

Hailey just talked me in to letting her stay home today. I've been making her go to school all week because she has missed so much. This week end we need to buy her some camouflage pants and a black tank top for her dance class. They wore this costume last year but Hailey has outgrown her stuff. Finding camouflage pants for a teenage girl is not that easy to do.

I titled my blog, "What I Think," but so far haven't put much of that in. I've been thinking about the election. Clinton and Obama are truly fighting it out. I know a lot of people like Obama but I'm not exactly sure he would really be good for the country. I thought Hillary would have an easy time getting the Democratic nomination. Not so. Which ever one does get it I think that if the other would agree to run on the same ticket as vice pres they would have a good chance of going all the way. But I wonder if that could happen with the animosity they are showing to each other. And if they did join up would anyone believe in them. Both have a lot more money than Mc Cain. Though it looks like Mc Cain will get the Rebublican nomination. That will make a big difference in how much Mc Cain will have backing him. I'm thinking now that Huckabee will run as vice pres with Mc Cain. It all comes down to women, race, and white America. And who do you trust? We will just have to see what happens.

So much for political thoughts.

Killed My Board

When I started my Photoshopping board I tried very hard to install phpbb3. I downloaded the program and did everything said to do but nothing would work. Finally I found that a program on my brand new server would install phpbb2. It worked and we were up and running. Many old friends from Janee's joined and some new ones too. The only down side was the spam bots that swarmed like the plague. They can actually join a board. Then later come back and post their muck. Most were pill pushers but one was a hard core porn pusher. I did write about all this. Adding a mod to the board was said to help stop the spam bots from joinning a board. Which I was afraid to do in case I messed everything up. One mod changes the place that the generated letters show for visual conformation. It is said bots are now being programmed to over come this.

So I would check the board several times a day and if I saw a strange new member with jumbled letters for a name and strange hobbies for a graphic board...like camping and skiing instead of working with graphic programs and one other sure sign that I don't want to tell...I knew to delete them. Which I did often. That cut way back on unwanted posts. I read up on these spam bots and they will join a board and then come back later and post. That gives the bots time to check their e-mail and log on. It really seems to me that there might be human hands involved in this process.

My phpbb2 board has a warning in red print that says it needs updating. Dumb me! I tried and killed the board. So had to install a new one in a new directory. I did try to recover the old data but my backup was flawed and the board wouldn't install over itself on my web site. These things are tricky. Anyway many of the members have found their way to my new board and so we are again happy campers to have a place to stay connected. The new board still has that red warning print but I'm going to ignore it for now.

The only good thing is a reprieve from the spam bots. They haven't found us yet. I did make an index page for my site with directions to the new board and after the first day I got a brain storm. I put the link in a graphic.

Another trip over to Borrego Springs

Jackie, Jocelyn, Hailey, and I drove over Saturday morning. Then instead of driving out to the desert through Julian we turned left at Santa Ysabel and drove out past Lake Henshaw. We stopped at the Santa Ysabel mission too. I've been passed there many times but have never stopped before. We looked through the little one room museum and at the artifacts and photographs there. Very interesting.

In Borrego we went to the park visitors center first. Hailey wanted a book "Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert." So got that for her. We walked around there for awhile and then we drove up to Coyote Canyon. Good place to see wildflowers. Then we drove back to a really nice resturant and sat on the terrace for lunch. Lunch was great. We had Chinese food and Hailey enjoyed Broccoli Beef and I had lovely Cashew Chicken with steamed rice. We shared our food around. There was too much for just us. Jackie got pork dumplins and Joyceln a noodle soup with lots of chicken and vegetables. So was glad they ate some of ours.

Then we went to a gift shop...what else?...and looked through the rocks and things. Hailey got a bag of polished rocks and a carved stone butterfly pendant. Jocelyn had spilled some of the liquid from the food Jackie had boxed up on her lap and wouldn't get out of the car. So I bought her some silver earrings. Hailey can't wear earrings now because she let her pierced ears heal closed.

Then we decided to head back out of Borrego a different way than we came in. We went out towards Julian. We stopped at a monument to the Butterfield Stage stop. We talked about maybe driving there on another trip sometime.

This was the view of the mountains from the Monument

Before getting to Julian I had to drive up Banner Grade. That is one winding road. Not as narrow as it used to be but still dangerous to speeders. I took it nice and slow. We stopped in Julian but the wind was so cold that we didn't walk around very long. The town was full of tourists as usual.

We enjoyed seeing the wildflowers too but I got better photos on Monday. Still it was a nice trip over and back.