Reaping the Whirlwind

What a month. What a summer. Where in the heck did it go? Because it is officially fall now. Sheesh. I had a wonderful time in SF with my sister the last week. Of the 10 days gone, I had to give 2.5 to a work conference (which paid for my ticket out there!!!). That was additionally beneficial because I WON AN IP.AD.

Yes, you read that right! One of the conference vendors donated a 32GB WiFi iPa.d. Not 3G capable, but who cares? No 3G phone service where I live anyway! So it's basically a larger iP.od touch, but oh, so much cooler! Also at the conference I got to meet up with Janet W for dinner. That was a lot of fun! She even brought me some books! Whoo-hoo!

I can't believe how much my nieces have grown! Especially G, the oldest. What a young lady she is. It's wonderful! We had so much fun playing, even if I had a few headaches while I was there. She was extremely understanding. She is a really good kid. Especially with her 1 year old sister. Very patient, and more gentle/tolerant than you might expect a 7 year old to be!

S, my 1 yo niece, is hilarious. Shy at first, but once she warmed up to me it was great. She walks holding on to just one of your fingers. Actually, it's not really a walk, more like a full-speed-ahead charge! When you give her that finger to hold onto you'd better be ready to move! She's chattering up a storm, and is a great eater. Particularly loves bananas. Her favorite person is her big sister G. Wants to have and do everything her big sister does. It's so cute. Gonna be interesting when she gets a little older. [g]

I even got to spend some one-on-one time with my sister, which was fabulous. Those moments are too few and far between. She is such a good mom, both kids are wonderful. She is also amazingly patient, although she doesn't think so!!!!

My bil was on work travel the last half of the week, and we couldn't have timed our flights any better. His flight had landed at the same terminal I was leaving from right before my sis was dropping me off. He walked up just as I was starting the goodbyes. Which was fortuitous because I hate saying goodbye in the first place, and saying goodbye to niece G is much worse! She was just starting the "I don't want Tia to go" and the "Why does Tia have to go" bit when she spotted her daddy walking up. :) A great distraction!!!

(Please pardon the exclamation points. I blame it on excessive tiredness and coffee)

Other People's Words

Found an interesting link on BBC today, about the difference between religious tolerance and freedom that I think is worth sharing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11200987

From there I found another link about the meaning of the word "liberal" that I thought fun. And confusing in a light-hearted sort of way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10658070

Just some things I'm thinking about lately. Especially the first one. It amazes me how people can believe in religious freedom so fervently, yet show very little tolerance. For me, they should be one and the same. I've been reading up on Is.la.m, and am finding (duh!) that the basic beliefs are extremely similar to Chri.sti.ani.ty (gasp!), J.ud.ais.m, and other religions. If people would just take the time to shut their mouths and use their brains to learn about what they don't know, instead of blindly following the loudest pack leader...

When Your Feet Hurt, It's Hard to Sleep

Apparently two days of painting makes my feet hurt really, really badly. And just as apparently, I have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep when my feet do hurt this bad. I'm sitting down right now and they hurt without any pressure on them. Yikes.

Shani, her mom (M), and her sister-in-law (A) came over Sunday and yesterday to help me paint the laundry room and kitchen. Oh, what a chore. But it really needed doing. I had taken Friday off, and really wanted to start that day and go through Sunday. I knew it was a big job. But I couldn't convince the others. Mostly M.

Traveling Tales

Finally, finally made the drive over to Pburg that I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Last weekend was the weekend I was supposed to go to K with my little sister and her family. I even had Friday off. Except we just couldn't see paying the high prices to stay two nights up there. It's prime tourist season, so...

We decided instead to head over to DL to see the old territory prison and museum. It's about an hour or so to get there, and is a nice drive. They were having a free-admission day, so it seemed a good day to go. Shani was doing some volunteer work earlier on Saturday, so we didn't leave until about 2pm. Which was plenty of time to get there and see the prison and the attached car museum, as well as the toy/doll museum across the street.

The prison was suitably creepy, having been built in the 1800's and subsequently added on to. The car museum was suitably cool. They literally started with the horse and buggy and moved up to the present day. Well, up to the 80's, I think. I had no idea it was so big. Every time I turned a corner, there was another room! They had some pretty nifty cars.

I must admit, I have never been all that into cars. But I was wandering through the room with the cars from the 50s-70s, and came upon the original Mustang. Now that is a very nice car. But it was the one just down from it that made my hear skip a beat when I saw it. Seriously. I have never reacted to a car like that. It wasn't even an original, but a replica Shelby Cobra. Blue and white just like the one in the picture I linked to.