I see a second job coming on! I want too much and cannot keep up with the necessities, so the only way to make more is work more. I want and see improvements in the future. A kitchen that finally has tile on the walls instead of the exposed drywall that is U-G-L-Y without an aliby UGLY! A counter to match, floors to finish it off. Doors to accent the front and the back of the house. Power that will not short out and catch my house on fire. With or without the help of others. It's time for paint inside and out. The garage needs to be converted to a work room especially for the summer!

I had a friend ask me the other day why we needed to pay to live. My answer is material. SOOOOOO VERY SAD!

The yard has to take a back burner other than Lawn Doctor and mowing, moving a pile of mulch from the tree cut down last year and trying to turn the vegetable garden to replenish the dirt stolen to fill holes that Bertha dug, it's full of lawn debris. I wanted to have a strawberry patch on the side of the house that has never materialized. I want to have a planter garden on my back porch and should plan to do one, but cannot seem to get it right! I wish that my garden was ready for planting again, but it just isn't!

But for the things that don't cost money, I plan to walk, mow, rake, water, sweep. Oh wait, gas for the mower and water for the lawn cost money. IT HAS TO BE GETTING WARM HERE SOON! Finally my treadmill is in the garage-THANK YOU ALFRED AND JOE!! I can now plug it in and walk away to noise called music in until the warmth of the sun is felt until the late evening for the purpose of shedding excess poundage! I plan to take Ashe with me. I'm ready to feel and look 25 again, yeah right! I've decided that 40 isn't the limit for me anymore, that I want to live until I'm 60+ and look as good as Gwen heading toward 70!!! I want to take my kids on trail hikes like I did when I was young without feeling like I'm going to die halfway through! Altitude gives me attitude!

I feel this year will be a good one. Closing doors on some things opens others. Shutting the window to the wind and rain that causes so much turbulence with the shades, cleanses the outside of the house without having to use a hose to wash away the dirt. :-D

I'm watching Dog and reading about dogs, coyotes, and wolves.
I'm listening to my dog eat.
I'm listening to Dog give a prayer about some person that he went to visit in a hospital that has only known pain.
Someone in the news today was bitten by a coyote and now the people that have moved into the area taking over the coyotes home, want a soluntion for their problem.
I read about a wolf that walked 100s of miles away from its original pack to find her own.
Once in a while a cat shows his face, after lounging all day on my bed! I wish Scorpio would wash the laundry, make my bed, clean the bathroom, kitchen, mop the floors, something! Selfish cat!

April 19, 2008 Firehouse 1 Dedication, in rememberance of Fire Chief 101

Where it all begins, in the hands of Uncles and Aunts, Grandmas and Grandpas. Living by example, where does it get us. In the pilot seat, watching after me. Uncle Kevin is pictured to the Left.

Uncle James and James Jr. (right) A huge surprise to Uncle JR and Aunt Karen. They found out they were having a boy the day of grandpa's viewing. Karen had her tubes tied and was on birth control for regulation when she got pregnant. He has a lot of similarities to Grandpa Hurtubise! You can hear Uncle James point them out every now and again! Ashleigh mentioned the other day that she wanted to go back to Missouri for Spring Break. I may have to seriously look into doing that!

The in memory decal that my Cousin Michael made. (Left) He wasn't able to make the dedication, which was a little sad to me. But I believe that he had to be out of the Country for the dedication. It was out of his hands.

Right, Ashleigh is sitting in "the truck." The boys didn't go with me to the dedication, so it was some good Mommy, Daughter time. We met up with Mom, Johnathan and Lloyd just inside the kansas border and road together to Witchita to visit the space museum there in witchita KS. That was cool. Felt like we were missing someone when we went! Robert of course, and my boys!! I really wish that they would have come with, but they both had excuses. I let them make their own dedcision. I wish I would have made them go!

The TRUCK, to the left... SO VERY COOL! I think that it is cool that all the Osage Beach trucks are WHITE instead of the traditional red.

The Truck's Logo. (Right) Something I've always been so proud of, even though I really wasn't a part of the community, it was very cool staying with a fireman grandfather. The experience of living with a scanner that NEVER turned off. The movement of him when he was running to a fire. The overwhelming feeling of being proud!

This picture to the left makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over! I as so proud of the accomplishments that my Grandfather, AND UNCLE, have achieved. The warmth of the summer suns that are etched on my memory, grandpa's dedicaton allowed to have him live on in the hearts of his community and his fellow service brothers. My grandfather was not soft on the outside, until you looked him in the "eye" and saw his friendly soul. When he would smile at you from within.

That's enough for me tonight, peeps... MORE TO COME TOMORROW....

To the Right Uncle Kevin and a former Chief, that read a written statement by Kevin. I need to get his name! Sorry, I don't have the program. I am often in AWE of my Uncle Kevin. To me he seems so frail, but he is one of the strongest men that I know! I have seen him carry more weight on his shoulders, than I have seen for someone that has only been alive 12 years longer than myself! He took Grandma and Grandpa into his home, a two bedroom house wile grandpa was confined to a hospital bead. Taking them in included taking in Uncle Steven. They had to add on and grandpa didn't get to see Kevin's efferts to the end. I think that he would have LOVED the house, and he would have really loved working outside building gardens, had he been able to! Grandpa really loved to garden! I wish that I knew how!

To the left, in this picture, Cousin Derek, Cousin by marriage Kevin, Cousin Phyllina, Uncle James, Uncle Phillip and a very small piece of Lloyd! Trying, unsuccessfully to get my Uncle Phil's attention. I love to be in my presence of my Uncles and cousins. I miss that when we would all meet somewhere. Not just the cousins but the Elders! ;-)

To the right, Uncle Phil, Uncle James DQ Lloyd! Phil was calm and collected as he rides the bucket to the sky. I have a few other pictures of him looking down at us little ants on the ground, he looked so cool. Uncle Phil is someone that I look up to! He hasn't changed much since I was a little girl. I wish that I would have been able to be around him more! I should take a road trip to Oklahoma, before we all have to resort back to horse and buggy as a form of transportation, and it would take months to trek to the OK state from Northern Colorado!

To the left, Aunt Dotty and "Uncle Jeff" are with some people that I don't know!! I will have to ask Aunt Dotty to name the people that are with her looking up at the bottom of the buckert of the firetruck. I do not know the two people that are in the middle.

To the right, Mom, Aunt Evelyn Kay and cousin Phyllina Hurtubise road to the sky. Mom has like to have her head in the clouds, like the sky chair at the old Eliches, you know, before they moved it downtown and lost all the old luster about it! Mom would ride roller coasters, sky chairs, log rides, spinning rides. She was real fun! I'm glad that I had the opportunity to "hang out" with my Mom and her sister. When they were younger, they had fun spirits! Why am I talking about them in the past tense?

To the left, Uncle kevin gave rides to all of us, slowely but surely. Cousins Travis and Derek are picture to the left here, with Derek's girl. Up and down the boom bucket went. Above power lines to the clouds above. (Side note, I should lighten up this picture so you can see the boy's faces.)

When we went to Missouri for Grandpa's services, Ashleigh really took it hard! I can relate. One of the firemen that work with Uncle Kevin [Jeff] became Ashleigh's friend. You seem them walking toward the bucket in this picture. (right, I hope)

I guess I will build from the bottom up! The picture to the left, I hope, is of my Aunt Kay, her grand daughter and daughter, Amanda, and Grandma Patsy Josephine Hurtubise. Posing in the bucket of the fire house's new fire truck that was built for the slopes of the Lake! Grandma was moving quiet slow! Something I can honestly say that I am not used to because, to me, she seemed to always be on the go! I recall a comment that one of Kay's neighbor's said to me when she came to one of the family reunions that she was a cool grandma because she would run with her grandchildren! She IS absolutely a wonderful Grandmother! I love her to death!

One Picture at a time, this one first landing on top, but later, I'm sure will be on bottom, and I have little energy to modify this evening... A progress in motion! Still waiting and it's been at least two minutes. How dare this computer make me wait! Patience is a virture, I've said over and over, and wish I had.

I love my family! Both sides! I admire so many things about my cousins, my Aunts and Uncles. I miss them all!! When we were little, I think my parents collectively tried their hardest to keep us all together. I am grateful for the times that I've spent with them, even under our circumstances! They helped us grow in so many ways! As I put an old memory stick that was lost under then dusty desk, I found the family pictures taken for Grandpa's dedication! I need to get them uploaded to my phone, and uploaded to the net for the publication at a local Walgreens.

Trying to load my music! That seems to be going pretty good, if I listen to the little chimes that say, your tasty music is ready in the iTunes. Looks like it's not going to work until I modify the picture to be smaller, or upload one by one! Above is Uncle Kevin (grandchlidren, I need to get their names, Amanda's little girl and boy) and Uncle James (son, James Jr.)with thier children, grandchildren and Ashleigh.

Oh well.

I will have to add pictures later, back to the story at hand.

Uncle Sam purchased a new computer for me. I am grateful as I haven't had a computer at home for a while. I've been trying however, to upload pictures to the interent and have found that the dial up, as I've known for a long time, just isn't sufice! GRRRRRR....

I was going to reflect on my grandfathers dedicaton to the fire house. Seems I may be losing this entry right here because I'm overloading the darned dialup! It's time to upgrade, but the economy has pulled me down in an upside down casa that needs major repair.

Oh well, I'll make it and I know this because I have a dream, I have an awesome dream!

Today is my brother's birthday!

I know times are hard for him right now. He's lost his job and cannot find replacement employment and I image he feels frazzled.

I wish there was something I could do for him, but I'm afraid there isn't... other than to be an ear to listen and a shoulder to lean on.

Happy Birthday Bro! I hope everything gets a little lighter for you here real soon!

When Dad and Betty lived in Longmont, we would meet as a family once a week. I believe that Betty would make dinner for my family on Thrusday nights. We would meet at their house after work, school and daycare and enjoy each other's company. I truly miss those days! Sometimes I really wish that Dad and Betty lived closer to me, only because I am selfish and miss the ability to drop in on them at any time!

Back in September my family headed to the Springs to visit the Vances and spend some time with them. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to take some picutres at Garden of the Gods. I ended up only using my cell phone for pictures instead of using the camera that Richard bought me for Christmas the year before and I didn't use my old camera because I couldn't find the memory sticks.

Dad played with his camera and we thought that he was taking good pictures, until we got back to their house and discovered that the setting on his camera was change. I captured a few good pictures on my cell phone, but they aren't that good, considering that they are only 2 megapixal and they are off of my cell phone. Anyway, I like the above picture of Dad, Betty and the kids.

The sun was so bright, they all needed to wear shades! :-)

I often miss being able to have lunches with Dad in Gunbarrel like we used to do when he was working at the IBM plant. That short 20 minute meeting with each other helped ease our souls and know that we were there for each other! I've always enjoyed my Dad's company!

I know that my parents are my support and I am grateful to have them in my life! Although they are not as close as I would like, they are in my heart and I think of them often. We often have a blast with each other and my kids love to be around them, just as I do! Sometimes time gets away from us and before we know it, too much of it has passed by!

Little Look Alike

Ashleigh and the boys didn't have school on Friday and Monday this past weekend so Ashleigh had the opportunity to hang out with Grandma Gwen.

When Gwen came to my office to pick Luke and Ashleigh up for the day on Friday, I thought that her hair looked real cute and thought that Ashleigh would look cute with a similar style! I asked Gwen if she would mind taking Ashleigh to go and get her hair cut like hers since she has been looking oh so shaggy for some time! Gwen agreed and the idea back fired on me just a little bit!

Gwen decided to take Ashleigh to Cost Cutters. I haven't gone to that salon since I first moved to Longmont and they fried my hair after perming it, so I would never think of taking my kids there, and for whatever reason, I thought Gwen would know better than to take her there as well, but.... Gwen returned to my office around 10:30 in the morning with Ash in tow to show my the butcher job the girl at CCs did to Ashleigh's hair!

Right away I thought I made a bad choice by asking Gwen to take her to get her hair done, but Gwen agreed with me that it wasn't a good cut job, so made a phone call and got Ash in at 1:30 to have her hair redone. When Gwen and Ash walked in the office after that cut, all of us in the office said that Ashleigh looked like Gwen.

Now that Ashleigh has her new do, I have to take some time in the morning to help her get ready as she doesn't know how to use a curling iron like I did at her age and letting her wash and go just isn't going to cut it! Just like when she cut her hair and had it all in the sink back when she was in pre-school, I didn't think it was so nice at the moment, but I do think it was a good thing that she got all of the mop chopped off!! I cannot believe how much hair this girl has!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Bomb

February 3, 2009 was a little exciting!

We had a bomb threat at the bank across the street!

That day had a weird air about it! Neil exclaimed, "The bank has been robbed!" He has the West view of the offices facing Wells Fargo and saw some police activity going on and that was his first guess as to what was going on over there.

It was interesting to watch as it unfolded. The employees of the bank were let out of the building one by one and directed to go somewhere out of my site behind the building, eventually the Roosevelt Park to the North of the bank (just to the right of this picture posted).

We didn’t hear a thing. Sirens, the tire screeches of the police cars, nothing, only Neil’s exclamation as to police activity across the street. I think, however, I was the only one interested in the activity! I believe the police showed up around 10:45ish and were wrapping up their investigation about by 2 p.m.

I eventually went to the Daily Times-Call’s website and read about the activity going on across the street. Turns out that it was a bomb threat. None of the police came into our building to tell us what was going on! I thought that was a little strange, especially if there really was a bomb, and it detonated as we have the whole front of our offices facing that bank!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

What would you do?

Today on our way to lunch Heidi and I encountered a vehicle that was driving very erratic!

This man swerved to the left and almost hit an oncoming car. Veered to the right and almost hit a parked car! We all came to a red light at Third Avenue and Hover. Heidi and I were going to head South on Hover to our destination, and this man was headed North on Hover. He proceeded to turn North onto Hover only to have a car honk at him for pulling out in front of the oncoming traffic.

Heidi suggested, prior to the honking, that we follow him. After the honking I decided to listen to her! We followed him up Hover toward Mountain View where he continued to swerve left and right. At one point he almost jumped a curb, and if he had done so would have hit five or so pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. At that point Heidi called 911 on her cell phone.

We followed this man into the parking lot of Conoco on Hover and Mountain View. We called dispatch back with a license plate and strongly urged the dispatch to call for the police to stop him. Heidi stayed on the phone with the 911 dispatch as we followed this man out of the Conoco
station, where he pulled East onto Mountain View, without signaling or looking for that matter for other cars. We ended up getting stuck behind another car and watched as this man veered to the left, then to the right again, almost hitting two other pedestrians. It shook them up to the point that they moved away from the edge of the curb.

He had his right blinker on for three blocks, before we came up on another red light at Francis and Mountain View, so we weren’t quite sure he if was actually going to turn South on Francis. The light turned green and you could seen that he was trying to look for something on the floor of his car. We were directly behind him, with dispatch on the phone warning them that he was going to hurt someone if they didn’t get a patrol car to us quickly.

This man realized that the light had turned green, pedestrians on the sidewalk, he made a wide turn onto South Francis, almost hitting the car in the turning lane on Francis to Mtn. View, veered to the left and then to the right again, jumping the sidewalk and coming to a stop!

I put my hazards on, pulled in front of him and jumped out of the car to approach his car. Heidi was still on the phone with 911 trying to give the dispatch our location to get a patrol out to us!

I put my hand up to indicate that I didn’t want this man to leave. He already had his window down, so I approached his window and asked him if he was ok. He told me that he was. I asked him if he was on anything. He told me that his doctor gave him some anti depressants. I asked him if there was something wrong with him again and told him that he was driving very erratically. He told me that he was looking for his wallet and he knew that he needed to slow down. I told him that I didn’t think that he should be driving and asked him where he was heading. He told me that he was going home. I asked him where he lived. He told me Third and Bowen. I asked him if I could drive him home, because I really didn’t think that he should be driving with the way that he was all over the road and I told him that he almost hit pedestrians on more than one occasion. He agreed that I could drive him home. I asked him to sit in his passenger seat and I would drive him. He got out of his car and headed for the passenger seat. I reached in on the driver’s side of the car and pushed the driver seat all the way back!

Just then Heidi was telling me not to take him anywhere, that I needed to wait for the patrol car and they should be there any second. I went to my car, got out my little wallet and headed back to this guys car so if he changed his mind, I would be in the way and he couldn’t go anywhere, but he sat quietly in his car in the passenger seat. Just then a police officer was headed North on Francis. He pulled up behind this man’s little brown Geo Metro and then another office pulled up in front of that officer.

The officer asked for my ID. He wrote down the information, got my phone number and told us we could be on our way.

We came back to the scene after we ate and saw that the police had parked this guys car in the church parking lot that is on the corner of Francis and Mountain View.

We never intended for him to get into trouble, but I honestly believe that he would have hurt someone had we not gotten involved!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Matthew will be 17 (half my age!) on the 14th of March!

He has been a wonderful child with the exception of both of our bullheadedness I am very proud of him!

He's responsible, mostly considerate, hard working. I know he doesn't think that I understand him but I do in my own way!

Matthew was a light in my life from the very beginning. We've learned together along the way and I wish that I could have given him the stars about!

I hope he fulfils all his dreams and never let's go of who he is! I know that he will stand up for what's right!

I love Matthew more than he will ever know!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

IMG00945.jpg

I was reading Betty's IN MEMORY blog about Eddie and I had completely forgotten that he liked the Steelers! I do wish that I would have gotten to know Eddie more than I did.

He was gentle and I could feel that emanating off of him! I miss him!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile