TGJFRTO of 2012 - Day 3

Saturday morning we left El Paso headed for Albuquerque.  At one point traffic was diverted off the freeway by the Border Patrol and an officer with a large German Shepherd circled the car; fortunately for us, it was not trained to sniff out dirty camp laundry.  And the Border Agent at the guardhouse took our word for it that we are all American citizens.  Go figure.  (Could it have been our glow-in-the-dark complexions or the fact that we travel like the Clampetts, but without the rocking chair?)

We stopped in Truth or Consequences for gas, bathroom, and lunch. I don't know why it's called that...that would necessitate doing a google search.  We scored with customer appreciation day at Sonic and fed the five of us for $14. (Yeah, I know it's not organic, grass-fed, or sprouted, but I find that when we're on the road I forgo some of my high-falutin food philosophies.)

After checking in, we headed to the Sandia Peak aerial tram and took a 15 minute ride from the base (6559 ft) to the peak (10358 ft). If you don't like heights , do not get on this tram. Surrounded by windows, hanging from a couple of steel cables, with the occasional sway back-and-forth from the wind, looking down at the boulders and sheer drops below....  But the view from the top is amazing. And the temp 20 degrees cooler. Which we Texans appreciated. We hiked around up there for a while (avoiding the edge like the plague, cause nothing will put a damper on a vacation like someone plummeting down a mountain),  checked out the closed-for-the-season chair lifts on the back side of the mountain, and then trammed back down. Which was not as knot-in-the-stomach-inducing as the ride up...I assume because we weren't smack in the front of the tram car.

Next we stopped at Trader Joe's to pick up some stuff for dinner.  (And some stuff not for dinner.)  (Chocolate-covered almonds and dark chocolate mint creams, anyone?)

Historic Route 66 also winds through a stretch of Albuquerque, and is lit up with neon lights, but unfortunately for us, they were either out of service or not on yet when we drove it at dusk. Also, it's a rather eclectic-artsy-sketchy part of town with lots of vintage (and some just plain old) style motels, restaurants and other businesses (slightly reminiscent of the Montrose area at home) so not really conducive to stopping with three boys for photo ops.

And we capped off the night by doing laundry.  Finally.  And our noses rejoiced.

Tomorrow, Moab, UT. 

TGJFRT of 2012 - Day 2

M & I woke up to rain in Fort Davis. Which made me wish I'd hit up the Historical Site the day before, but whatevs...we headed there after breakfast anyway. Fort Davis was an army post on the old San Antonio-El Paso Road during the 1800s. The army barracks have been restored and many of the old buildings, or in some cases the foundations, still remain. It also happened to be Junior Ranger day so M strung warrior beads and scored a Junior Ranger patch. From there we headed to Buffalo Trails Scout Ranch to pick up J and the boys. BTSR is back up the highway the way we'd come about 25 miles, then another 12 miles on a winding ranch road heading into the mountains. Oh, and did I mention the loose livestock? And the low spots where water may be running over the road from the week's rains? Cause, yeah, they have flash floods out there when it rains a lot. The first low spot was only about 300 yards off the highway, with water over the road. After reversing all the way back to the highway and weighing my options, which were few, I went back, got out, looked it over, and hoping the flood gauge by the side of the road was accurate, decided to try it...praying all the while. Oh, and absolutely no cell phone connection either, so no way to call if something happened. But, it was fine...as were the four or five other low spots. Needless to say, since it was still drizzling and looked like more rain was expected when we arrived, we did not stay for the scenic tour. We arrived in El Paso that afternoon, got settled into the hotel, and set out in search of the laundry room, because, hello, stinky camp clothes. Sadly, none was to be found, so the "no shoe removal" rules have been implemented until stink remediation has occurred. Also, I forgot a toothbrush or two at home (well, I forgot one; an unnamed scout forgot the other) but what's a road trip without a stop at the Walmarts, right? J's nephew, wife and kids also live in El Paso (at least for one more week...how's that for good timing?) so we met them for dinner at - what else? - a Mexican food restaurant. Isn't that what you eat in El Paso? I've got some tired guys on my hands, so bedtime will be much welcomed tonight. Tomorrow, on to Albuquerque.

The Great Jones Family Trip of 2012 - Day One

Seven-year-old M and I hit the road Thursday morning to begin our portion of The Great Jones Family Road Trip of 2012. Two almost miraculous things occurred in the launching of this journey, one of which is that I left with my house clean upon departure. It's always my goal to arrive home to order and cleanliness after a vacation; it just so rarely happens. As I am not always known for my early rising habits, the other borderline miraculous event was that I actually managed to get up at 5:00 am and pull out of the driveway at 6:07. I wanted to leave plenty of time for stops on our long drive to West Texas to pick up DH and the two big brothers who had left the Saturday before for a week of Boy Scout camp. I was a little nervous about the gas situation - it goes fast in a gas-guzzling SUV and there's not a lot to choose from when you're Deep in the Heart of Nowhere - so to be safe, we stopped to fuel up just about every time the gas gauge got below a half a tank. (And we may or may not have gotten a snack or two while we were at it.) After nine hours hauling west on I-10 (and you gotta love the 80 MPH speed limit out there), we finally exited at Balmoreah and stopped at the state park to check out the spring and pool there. Scuba divers in deep west Texas...who'd a thought? From there it was south to Fort Davis, which I though was a cute little town. Kind of in the middle of stinking nowhere, like everything else, but quaint. We got settled in our room (up narrow wooden stairs, no elevator) and ate dinner at the Fort Davis Drugstore. I was a little concerned about leaving some of our luggage in the car, but when I asked a woman if it would be safe, she said she didn't lock her car or her house. (And guess who's not from a big city?) Next on the agenda - is it just me or has this day been forever long? - we headed up into the Davis Mountains to a Star Party at the McDonald Observatory, where we were meeting up with the scouts. To say that M was happy to see J and the boys is an understatement. The night was quite cloudy, but thankfully it cleared up enough to get a good look at the moon and Saturn. And, finally, a little past midnight, blessed sleep back at our hotel.... More tomorrow as the vacation adventure continues....

An Adventure of a Plumbing Nature

Yesterday afternoon, my kitchen sink clogged up.  Naturally, this occurred just as dinner preparations were commencing.  Call me old-fashioned, but I find that a sink that drains is quite helpful when preparing, cooking, and cleaning up after a meal.

Have I mentioned before that we don't really consider ourselves handy people?

What we do consider ourselves are people who can make lists for handy people.  And people who can write the necessary checks to pay said handy people.  But handy ourselves?  Not so much.

What follows is the internal thought process that took place:

"Jack's not going to be happy about this."
"He's going to think I've been stuffing vegetable peels down the disposal."
"Now we're going to have to call our handy people."
"When the handy people come, we are going to have to have them here for the whole day."
"That means I'm going to have to make a list of things for them to do all day."
"I don't want them to come tomorrow."
"I'm not ready for them to come and spend a whole day in my house."
"I wanted to go to Nordstom tomorrow and use my gift card."
"I'll have to go to Lowe's at least once, if not two or three times, to get necessary supplies for the handy people."
"I bet I'm going to get reminded about not putting vegetable peels down the disposal."
"I wonder if I can blame this on one of the kids?"

At this point I noticed that the other side of the double sink was draining.  I said to myself, "Self, that side is draining.  Hmmm, that must mean there's a clog somewhere above where those two pipes intersect."  (Or something to that effect.)

I gave myself the "you're a smart woman and you can figure this out" pep talk, and informed my eldest and partner-in-stuffing-things-down-the-disposal-crimes that we would not, in fact, be reading library books after dinner, but would instead embark on a plumbing adventure.

So when The Man arrived home from his day at the office, saw the standing water in the sink, and asked about it in a possibly-not-so-happy-tone, I responded with great optimism that The Boy and I were going to fix it after dinner.  He may or may not have been skeptical.

Boy Number Two decided he wanted in on the plumbing action, and not being one to turn down free help, I readily agreed.  We set to work.

Step One: Pull everything (except for the hefty water filter tank) out from under the sink.
Step Two:  Get emergency towels at the ready, along with an empty laundry basket to place emergency towels in.  (I don't think that's an official plumbing step, but I was just trying to cover all my bases.)
Step Three:  Turn off the water under the sink.  (That is an official step, and an important one.)

Now at this point, I was in uncharted territory.  I knew we/I would have to do some disconnecting of pipes and such, and I just hoped it wouldn't be too big a deal.  (I was having visions of having to call a real plumber at 8pm because I created a kitchen disaster.)  Well, without getting into lots of pipe jargon and plumbing speak (because I don't know any of that anyway), I began unscrewing the joints around the bottom bend/elbow piece (trap?).  (Who knew that each joint had its own little PVC screwy thing holding it together?  How convenient is that?  I didn't even need tools.)  When I took that off, no water came out, confirming that, yes indeed, Virginia, there was a clog in there.  I proceeded to unscrew the PVC section going up to the disposal, and lo and behold, carrot peels.  Lots and lots of carrot peels.

My plumber's helper and I dug out the offending peels and, with a gush into the waiting plastic bin - presto, chango - no more clog and an empty sink.  My helpers fetched the plumber's tape, I wrapped it around the threads, reattached the fittings, and, voilà, clogged fixed.  It took all of twenty minutes.

I even fixed the handles on the upstairs bathtub faucets that have been backwards for months.  The hot now properly indicates hot, and the cold - well, you know.  That took less than a minute.

I feel like a plumbing genius.

There's a reason I'm so tired today

Oh my, it's been a while since I blogged.  Undoubtedly, I've had plenty of blog-worthy thoughts, but I suppose between cooking, cleaning, the occasional attempt at homeschooling, and procrastinating on the Internet in order to keep from doing really worthwhile things, I just never got around to it.  And now it would be too much of a mental exercise to think back over the past month and come up with a recap.  So I'll just begin with where I am today.  Which is tired.

I stayed up way too late Sunday night finishing Francine River's book, A Voice In the Wind, at the recommendation of my mother-in-law (she recommended the book, not the staying up late).  It took me a few chapters to get into it.  It's set in the world surrounding ancient Rome and everyone has those long, hard to remember names, but once I got into it, it was a gripping read.  Also, fairly gory.  A depiction of a coarse culture, in some ways not unlike our own today (God have mercy on us), and yet I couldn't didn't want to stop reading.  And so I persevered to the bitter, cliff-hanging end.  And woke up on Monday morning tired, put the next one in the series on hold at the library, and thought, "I'll get a good night sleep tonight to make up for it."

Was it Benjamin Franklin that said, "Don't count your hours of sleep before they hatch?"

Because when "tonight" arrived, around 1 am, we were awakened to the delightful howls of a vomiting now-six-year-old (oh, yeah, that's one of the things we've done over the last month and a half - had one of two birthdays).  Oh, joy.  And so I spent the rest of the night dozing on the lower bunk - which, BTW, I had to make at 1:30 in the sweet middle of the night since I washed the sheets, oh, I don't know, two weeks before and hadn't put them back on yet.  Every 30 minutes or so, I was jolted awake by his "noises" (I was going to say "heaving" but feel like I'm starting to run the whole vomit story into the ground) until about 4 am, at which point he seemed to settle down for a bit, and is now, after a morning of childrens' television, asleep on the sofa with one of Jack's giant Cool Whip bowls beside him.  (I wonder if he'll still want to use that one for his raisin bran, or if we'll have to trash it?  He's pretty partial to his Cool Whip bowls.  And his raisin bran.)

So now, before the dinner prep begins (and does anyone else besides me get tired of having to feed people three times a day?), I should get something productive done.  Wouldn't that be refreshing?

Here's hoping there's a good night of sleep ahead of me tonight.  Sweet dreams.

Close Encounters...

of the police kind.

And, no, I wasn't speeding.  Or running a stop sign.  (Hey, don't judge.)

It began with an innocent attempt at grooming someone's fingernails.  "Will you please go get the clippers out of mommy's drawer by her bed?" the mommy requested.

A few minutes later, we heard a familiar beep-beep-beep.  Within minutes, if not seconds, a quick string of beeps, followed by the shrieks of an ear-piercing siren, shattered the relatively peaceful quiet of our Saturday night.  Alas, we were stumped at the source of the alarm.  To our knowledge, no one had been near the key pads.  All boys were questioned and summarily dismissed as suspects.  Our nerves still a wee bit rattled, we chalked it up to what we hoped was an electrical fluke.

Then, just as jittery nerves had settled and boys had been herded to bed, there was pounding on the front door.  Two police cars were parked at the curb.  From inside we could see the sweep of flashlight beams as the perimeter of the house was examined.  The cavalry had arrived.  Adorned in my oversized and well-worn Chicago Cubs t-shirt and striped pajama pants, my driver's license was expeditiously handed over for their examination and record keeping purposes, while Jack, in good citizen mode, stood outside smiling and thanking them for their prompt response.

It wasn't until the next morning that we realized the remote access key fob for the home alarm system had been in that drawer.  The suspected perpetrator was questioned about his notice of, and attention to, said button-bearing device.  Assuring him that we had the power to cut him a deal with the DA, he agreed to bargain and readily admitted his unknowing misconduct.

Buttons, by their very nature, beckon to be pushed. Especially by little boys. Elevators. Remote controls. Phones. Cameras. You name it, the button-containing device is irrelevant. It's a temptation difficult to withstand.

I'm hoping the recidivism rates for this type of offense are really low, 'cause I'm not sure how much grace the men in blue are willing to extend, and I look terrible in orange.

I felt the earth move...

under my feet...

Did y'all feel it?  It was the thunderous shock of me not turning on the computer ALL. DAY. LONG.  I'm sure there was lightning somewhere as well.

Yes, it was an exercise in restraint.  Self-control.  Minimizing distractions, if you will.  My family was stunned.

I make no promises for the morrow...for I know not what the morrow brings.  All I know is, for today, it was necessary to keep this magnetic techno-monster at bay.

The last week or so has been a little, well, melancholy, for me.  Lots of introspection.  (Yuck.)  Lots of self-examination.  (Yuckier.)  And loads of internal criticism - with a side of condemnation, and a little bit of dread on top.  I wish I could blame PMS....

This is my SSMT verse this go round:
But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; let those also who love Your name be joyful in You.  For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround her as with a shield.  Psalm 5:11-12 NKJV


He defends me.  His favor is a shield, protecting me not only from the arrows of the enemy who seeks to steal, kill and destroy, but from the inner voice that can be far harsher, uglier, and more critical than it should be.  Please don't misunderstand.  I'm not excusing my mistakes.  I make plenty of them.  Regularly.  But much of the time, I am my own worst enemy.  On so many levels.  Maybe you can relate.

So when thoughts of self-condemnation rain down upon me, He puts up a shield.  To protect me from me.  Now that's some favor.

Oh, for grace to love Him more.