Chris and Alyona in Texas

Rick and I picked them from the airport last night. They are here to inspect Dallas and see if it is a place they would want to live.
Pics to come.

San Antonio

Jason and Rick on the River Walk in San Antonio Yvonne and Jason on River Walk

We stopped on the way home in New Braunfels and ate at the Gristmill. Paige and Kincade had gone there also with Kincade's friend. It is quaint and the food was delish. Jason came to the conclusion that I get grumpy when I get a noisy table in a restaurant and when I don't like what I ordered; his dad gets grumpy when he's asked to go shopping and he's tired. At least he knows his parents!

A surprise for my birthday

Jason called me yesterday around his usual lunchtime call, 10:30 or so, we chatted for 15 min, then he said, Ok, I'm where I need to be so let me go, and we hung up. About 30 seconds later I heard the doorbell ring and went to answer it. As I was walking up I could see him standing at the door!

I was so surprised. He had been planning this with Rick for about 1 1/2 months - basically the whole time I had been bugging him about coming and out and visiting this summer.

He decided to come for my birthday, which is this Sunday. And also brought a present, something he vowed he would never do.

Pizza from Donatos. My favorite. The one food I always have to have when I go back to Indy. He put it in his rectangular plastic saver that has actually made many trips carrying either Pizza King or Donatos pizza back and forth to North Carolina, Utah, Philly, and now it gets to see Texas. (The pizza is safely put away in my freezer; I told him I didn't want to eat it now, I wanted to be able to savor and enjoy it alone, since we would be hitting all his fav Texas eateries - Torchies, Rudy's, Shakes, and the Deli at HEB, of which we visited all yesterday.)

He really is a good son.
Now I have to talk Scott and Jessica into coming to Texas for a visit. But I understand - they both just started new jobs and Scott is taking time off for Nick's Indy wedding.

Lizard or scorpion?

I had just finished the last blog and opened the kitchen back door to go get my swim stuff and going swimming (I decided since swimming time is winding down to swim after my morning walk). I sensed and kinda saw something fall from the top of the door and looked down on the floor and a little critter started running.

At first I thought it was a scorpion, but as I looked closer I could see it was a baby lizard. I scooted it with a flip flop, trying to get it to go back out the door. Nothing doing, it ran and hid under Rick's shoes. I moved the shoe, it ran under another one. We played that game thro 4 shoes and the legs of a chair; I finally moved everything it could hide under and scooted it towards the door. Got it to the door; I could see I wouldn't be able to scoot it over the bottom. Got a knife, picked it up and tossed it back outside.

I did keep telling the little thing, "Go out. Rick will be upset if you get killed because you won't go back out. And I'm not letting you live in my house with me."

Frustration

Electronics, computers, new-fangled doodads frustrate me. I don't understand them well enough to go outside of my knowledge base at all. And every time I get a new device, I have to learn the new one all over because it is so different. 6 months or so ago I had to get a new computer (unwisely put my computer in my checked suitcase, baggage handlers broke it), which meant once again I had to learn how to work the new one. Just wish the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics wasn't in play on this earth so nothing would ever increase in disorder (meaning break).

One time when I was trying to find pics I had downloaded to my computer and I looked and looked and just couldn't find them, Chris told me when I downloaded to tell the computer where I wanted them put. So I told my computer many times, over and over, "Just put them in my pics!!!" But when I looked they weren't there.

Anyways, I finally got it down and knew what to do and where to find my pics. I'm not sure what law came into play yesterday (maybe Murphy's 1st law: Anything that can go wrong, will) but I downloaded pics to my pics, and I looked and they weren't there! Finally I looked at my downloads, and there they were (onery, onery, onery).

Sometimes I feel like electronic stuff and I are stuck in a Groundhog Day loop.

Hattie

                                                                   This is delish!

Stella 1st day of 1st grade

                                                               Macy in Texas 2014        

                      

                                                  Hattie on the move!

August heat

August is supposed to be the hottest month of the year in Texas, and we are now feeling the heat. But it does seem like it cools off a bit during the night. I'm getting tired of watering my outdoor plants, I'm waiting for Fall to arrive and I'll no longer feel obligated to water them. It's already the middle of Aug and I can't believe it, seems like it was just the end of July. Time marches steadily on.

No Kayaking today. Rick went to the Chiro yesterday for an hour and 10 min, got his neck and spine adjusted and feels so much better. He goes back on Tues and doesn't want to mess it up with the paddling, etc until it gets fixed good. I have been bugging him about finding a good chiro here since we with both went to Guyman back in March of 2013 (this is right after we moved to Texas; Guyman was recommended, but we didn't like his work at all). This new one is an Asian girl/woman (she's in her 30s but when you're pushing 60, that sounds like a girl) and she cracked, pushed, pulled and eventually fixed just like he likes.

Swimming and kayaking

Rick and I have been going out and swimming at 10pm. It's been really fun, looking up at the stars and moon. But that is when he doesn't have to get up early for work the next morning.

Kayaking again yesterday, went to Bushy Creek pond. Next week we will try just below the dam on the Colorado River. I'm a little nervous about a river, even tho it does flow very slowly. The paddling back up might be hard. I can see me having to float all the way to the ocean, if that is even where the Colorado empties.

Why would you want to be a democracy? Benjamin Franklin said they gave us a Republic in the written constitution; why then are we functioning as a democracy?

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of The Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover That they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

Tyler went on to suggest that democracies tended to go through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage

A big pot

At the beginning of summer I bought this pot for $20, which was an incredible deal. I liked how it was painted on the top 2/3rds - olive green with white botches. But the bottom part was an awful black, and I really didn't like it. I had Paige sponge paint it white while she was here. She made it look better but I still didn't like it. So I bought a can of spray paint called hammered burnished amber, sprayed it and I love how it turned out.

Kayaking

Rick and Yvonne kayaking on the pond at Bushy Creek. We super duper enjoy kayaking and plan on going once or twice a week; on Sat morning we launched at 8am and unlaunched at 9:30am.

 

Park City with Scott and Jessica

Scott on the balcony outside his condo in Park City

Jessica, just off work and tired. She didn't want her pic taken, but I think she looks cute.