My weekend
All the rain we had in January and February has caused wildflowers and other things to bloom like crazy -- we are in a ten-year drought, so suddenly the soil doesn't know what to do with all the moisture. So allergies are TERRIBLE -- apparently the worst in sixty years for Arizona.
My allergies are so awful I can hardly breathe, so I got up, just took some Benadryl and will have to call the pastor and tell him I can't teach Sunday School today, because I will presently be unconscious due to the antihistamine. Sheesh. It's only 6:30 out here -- Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time -- so I have to either stay awake by propping my eyes open or set an alarm and hope I wake up for it, so I can call the minister when he's actually AWAKE.
I have been scrapbooking again; it's been quite a while since I pulled all those supplies out. Greg is remodeling his house, so last weekend we spent Sunday afternoon at his place. He worked on the house while I set up scrapbooking camp on the back porch. All was going well until he came out of the house and casually threw the first aid kit on top of my album. He had bashed his finger with the hammer and peeled off an inch-square section of skin. The bruise had already formed and it was bleeding like crazy, so I had to patch him up AND try to keep the blood off the scrapbook.
Once a month, I have "Game Day" with two other couples. We play board games and card games and eat good food. We do it up big, with a nice dinner, taking turns bringing main dish, side dish and dessert. Yesterday's game was Balderdash, which Greg had never played before, but he and I both won, so not bad for his first time out.
After Game Day, we had to go to a BBQ for his coworker's wedding reception; this is what they did instead of a formal reception. The house was PACKED and there was tons of great food, but we were both too full to eat it. Figures.
We're planning a camping trip for later this month. By then, the temperatures will probably be a lot hotter, so it will be a treat to escape Phoenix and be in the mountains amid the pine trees. We have to attend a wedding in Sedona that Sunday of the camping weekend, so we're trying to find a campground close by so there won't be a long drive that morning (the wedding is at 11 a.m.). Plus we'll need to find some showers; a few campsites have coin-operated showers or "honor system payment" showers with a little drop box for your $$$. I mean, sure, everybody goes without showering for two days when you go camping, but we can hardly show up at the nuptials unwashed and smelly. Yuck.
Sedona is an artsy-fartsy community about two hours north of Phoenix. The whole state is littered with mountains, so there's one highway that goes north-south in the central part of the state and takes you all the way from Tucson up to Flagstaff, which is the city south of the Grand Canyon and the location of Northern Arizona University. (U of A is in Tucson; ASU is in Tempe, a Phoenix suburb.) Sedona has red rocks -- the soil is blood-red and the mountains are, too. Oak Creek Canyon is where Slide Rock is located; erosion in the creek has created a natural waterslide, so families bring their kids to go down the rock waterslide. There's a lovely cathedral built on the cliff of one of the red mountains; it's called Cathedral Rock. The wedding we're going to is in a park at the bottom of Cathedral Rock. Very cool. Greg is happy because it's casual dress (shorts are allowed) and there's no dancing at the "reception", which is just a huge catered Italian meal at the park.
We saw "Sin City" on Friday night. It was very cool but of course very, VERY graphic. Lots of extremely gross parts. If you have a queasy stomach I would recommend strongly against it. But the black and white film with splashes of color was a very cool effect.
A friend's new house has scorpions. Yikes. The babies are the most dangerous because their venom is more concentrated (since they're so small). Of course, the babies are the ones who look transluscent until they get older, so you can't see them. So if you get scorpions, you're screwed. Sure, there are exterminators, but you have to use a special treatment to get rid of these pests and I think the guy has to come back for a few years in a row.
My allergies are so awful I can hardly breathe, so I got up, just took some Benadryl and will have to call the pastor and tell him I can't teach Sunday School today, because I will presently be unconscious due to the antihistamine. Sheesh. It's only 6:30 out here -- Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time -- so I have to either stay awake by propping my eyes open or set an alarm and hope I wake up for it, so I can call the minister when he's actually AWAKE.
I have been scrapbooking again; it's been quite a while since I pulled all those supplies out. Greg is remodeling his house, so last weekend we spent Sunday afternoon at his place. He worked on the house while I set up scrapbooking camp on the back porch. All was going well until he came out of the house and casually threw the first aid kit on top of my album. He had bashed his finger with the hammer and peeled off an inch-square section of skin. The bruise had already formed and it was bleeding like crazy, so I had to patch him up AND try to keep the blood off the scrapbook.
Once a month, I have "Game Day" with two other couples. We play board games and card games and eat good food. We do it up big, with a nice dinner, taking turns bringing main dish, side dish and dessert. Yesterday's game was Balderdash, which Greg had never played before, but he and I both won, so not bad for his first time out.
After Game Day, we had to go to a BBQ for his coworker's wedding reception; this is what they did instead of a formal reception. The house was PACKED and there was tons of great food, but we were both too full to eat it. Figures.
We're planning a camping trip for later this month. By then, the temperatures will probably be a lot hotter, so it will be a treat to escape Phoenix and be in the mountains amid the pine trees. We have to attend a wedding in Sedona that Sunday of the camping weekend, so we're trying to find a campground close by so there won't be a long drive that morning (the wedding is at 11 a.m.). Plus we'll need to find some showers; a few campsites have coin-operated showers or "honor system payment" showers with a little drop box for your $$$. I mean, sure, everybody goes without showering for two days when you go camping, but we can hardly show up at the nuptials unwashed and smelly. Yuck.
Sedona is an artsy-fartsy community about two hours north of Phoenix. The whole state is littered with mountains, so there's one highway that goes north-south in the central part of the state and takes you all the way from Tucson up to Flagstaff, which is the city south of the Grand Canyon and the location of Northern Arizona University. (U of A is in Tucson; ASU is in Tempe, a Phoenix suburb.) Sedona has red rocks -- the soil is blood-red and the mountains are, too. Oak Creek Canyon is where Slide Rock is located; erosion in the creek has created a natural waterslide, so families bring their kids to go down the rock waterslide. There's a lovely cathedral built on the cliff of one of the red mountains; it's called Cathedral Rock. The wedding we're going to is in a park at the bottom of Cathedral Rock. Very cool. Greg is happy because it's casual dress (shorts are allowed) and there's no dancing at the "reception", which is just a huge catered Italian meal at the park.
We saw "Sin City" on Friday night. It was very cool but of course very, VERY graphic. Lots of extremely gross parts. If you have a queasy stomach I would recommend strongly against it. But the black and white film with splashes of color was a very cool effect.
A friend's new house has scorpions. Yikes. The babies are the most dangerous because their venom is more concentrated (since they're so small). Of course, the babies are the ones who look transluscent until they get older, so you can't see them. So if you get scorpions, you're screwed. Sure, there are exterminators, but you have to use a special treatment to get rid of these pests and I think the guy has to come back for a few years in a row.