A Trip To Our Nation's Capital - Day 1 - Getting ready to Go!

Shortly after taking a bus trip to Chicago, we signed up for a trip to Washington DC to be taken the following spring.  We discovered on that first bus trip how nice it was to allow someone else to do the driving, the navigating, the parking, paying the bills at the restaurants, making special arrangements, and all that, so we decided to give a longer trip a whirl.  For seven months, we paid a little bit out of each paycheck towards our trip so we wouldn't have to put it on our credit card (which worked out quite well).  Finally... the time for our trip arrived!

Day 1...

Because we had to be on the bus bright and early Thursday morning, and because the loading area was an hour from home, we decided to get a hotel room nearby the night before.  Prior to checking in, though, we opted for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants... Shorty's in Garrett, Indiana (Check it out).

On the way to Fort Wayne, with our bellies full and ready for a good night's sleep, I couldn't resist taking pictures of the beautiful sunset...

Because we were traveling with Dave's mom, we decided to get a hotel with two bedrooms.  We stayed at Stay Inn Suites.  It was a nice place and the bed was actually comfortable - something I don't often say about hotels!

Bedroom #1 (downstairs)

Bedroom #2 (the loft)

Overlooking the living room

Overlooking the kitchen

Let me tell you... it was soooo nice not having to do homework in a hotel room for once!  After watching tv for a little while, playing with my Nook and showing Sue how it works, we all retired for the night with great anticipation of the adventure to come...

FORE!!!!

What is it about taking a metal and graphite club and hitting a little ball around a cornfield, through some trees, and across a creek or two that appeals to so many people?   Golf... It can be the most frustrating game on earth.  It can get the best of you in a matter of minutes and can make you cuss like a sailor!  On the other hand, it can be very rewarding.  Whatever it is... it has my husband and me hooked!  We love to play, we love to watch, and we love to go to tournaments to see the pros play.

Learning to play golf was my suggestion.  I thought it would be something fun to do when we traveled... a way to see some beautiful countryside, get some exercise, and have fun together.  Dave wasn't really interested when I first suggested it, though... "It's an old man's sport," he'd say.  It wasn't until his friend, Joe, asked him to play that he suddenly became interested.  Humph... what the heck?!

No matter.  We soon discovered that golf was much more than an "old man's sport".  It's challenging and frustrating and rewarding and tiring and FUN!  We just can't get enough of it!  How can a simple game like this be so addicting?  I think it's that elusive hole-in-one.  Everyone longs to make one.  Very few actually do.  I'm not sure how, but somehow a few years ago I miraculously made one!  :-)

One of our latest ventures in golf is figuring out our handicap.  Normally we play best ball.  Sometimes we use my shot, but most of the time we use Dave's.  I sometimes drive the ball just as far, if not farther, than Dave - and that's from the men's tees, not the ladies!  (Yah, that's right... I play with the big dogs)  And, I've been known to sink miraculously long putts.  On the other hand, I've also had to yell my share of  "FORE!" and go hunting for lost balls.  But, in order to figure our handicaps, we each have to play our own shots and count our own scores.  Oy, I really suck at this game!  And, tonight - our first game on our own in a few years... slapped that reality right into me.  If I wasn't in the weeds, I was in the ditch.  If I wasn't in the ditch, I was in the pond.  If I wasn't in the pond, I was in the neighboring field.  Geezopeet, I couldn't catch a break to save my butt.  My final score for 9 holes... well, let's just pretend I played all 18 holes... and made par.

The Crazy Cat Family!

I was reading back through a couple of blog posts and realized that I mentioned something about adding to our cat family.  Well, I suppose I can't just mention something like that and then let it go... I am the Crazy Cat Lady after all... and these are supposed to be my adventures.

Let's begin by making it clear that we did NOT set out to add to our cat family.  We very innocently enough adopted an adorable little peach colored GIRL cat from the animal shelter.  We named HER Emma.

After a very short time, though, we discovered that the people at that particular animal shelter don't really know how to tell the gender of kittens very well (and, I suppose we apparently don't either, for that matter...).  We ended up with a BOY named Emmitt instead.  Oy!

Skipping ahead a bit... We were negligent cat parents and didn't get Emmitt OR Mia fixed in time and... well... you know what happens when cats go into heat...  Several weeks later, we figured out that Mia was definitely pregnant, but had no idea when she was due.  At the end of a few days of vacation... and in the middle of the night... in the middle of our bed... we quickly discovered exactly when she was due!!  Mia delivered four adorable little babies... and not a single one was peach or orange (our favorite cat colors and what we were hoping for) like Emmitt, nor were any of them Siamese, like her.  There was a dark gray one, two light gray with tiny bits of orange, and one tortie with an orange stripe running up her nose.

Even though they were the most adorable little boogers, I just kept saying that there's no way we can keep them... "We already have ENOUGH CATS!"  But, Dave just kept saying, "But, they're Mia's babies!".

We're such suckers... we kept them all.  :-)

So, to our cat family we added...

 

 

Christopher... aka "Kwistafuhr Jack Wobbin"

Elsie... aka "Elsie Fuhdittles"

Ethel... aka "Ethelump"

Lily... aka "Lily Bear" or "Fuhdilly"

Life around our house is never dull with these nosey, rambunctious little balls of fur.  They get into just about everything... including the ceiling tiles in our basement via the water heater.  Oy!


P.S.  Emmitt was fixed shortly after they were born.  Christopher has also been fixed.  The girls... not yet, but soon!

A College Degree... Me?!!

When I graduated from high school twenty some years ago, I had absolutely no desire to continue on with college.  After all, I had learned all that I really needed to know for my secretarial career in all of those office classes I took in high school... Typing I and II, Accounting, Shorthand, Office Lab, Marketing, etc.  And... frankly, I was sick of school.



The description of that high school Office Lab class - the half-day class that was to fill my senior year - described it as an intensive course designed to take students directly from high school into a fulfilling career as a secretary.  Perfect!  And, it was enough for several years.  However, times change; businesses change; management changes; people change... everything changes.  After hearing stories of people who've been forced out of jobs because they lacked a college degree, or of people who've had a difficult time landing a new job because they also lacked a college degree, I thought perhaps I'd better take this serious lest I find myself in the same situation someday.



I also found myself wondering if maybe I should have taken my education further all those years ago.  I felt that I was missing something - I just wasn't really sure what that was.  There was also that part of me that longed to tackle the challenge of a college education.  I've tackled lots of challenges over the years... I taught myself to knit and actually made things that fit... and that I was proud to wear in public; I learned to do quilting, stained glass work and cake decorating; I learned to do the nearly lost art of tatting; and I finally took a class and learned to properly do hand applique.  But, still there was something missing...


After thinking about it for awhile and reading about the types of classes I would be required to take, I finally decided to enroll in Indiana Wesleyan University.  I began my college journey in 2008.  Honestly, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I had imagined or feared.  By the summer of 2010, I had earned my Associates Degree.  My original thought was to stop with that, but I was actually enjoying college classes.  Having a Bachelors Degree would (hopefully) open more doors for me down the road, so I decided I'd better keep going or I'd never finish.  I took a couple weeks off, then started right back in.

The Bachelors program wasn't exactly the "cake walk" that the Associates program seemed to be... the professors were much more stringent, the classes much more demanding, and the content much more difficult.  Oy, what was I thinking?!  I should've done this right after high school so I didn't have to worry about keeping up with a full-time job, or a household, or a husband, or a bunch of cats and laundry and yard work and everything else that comes along with being an adult!  I finally understood why some people never finish college... or why some people never even start it!  But, I knew I had to see it through all the way to the end or I'd forever feel like a quitter.  I had my own personal cheerleaders cheering me on... my wonderful husband, Dave, all of my quilting and knitting friends, and my family.


Miraculously, nearly four years to the day after starting college, I finished!  And, something else I never did even in high school... I actually graduated with high honors... Magna Cum Laude... ME!!!  :-)

What an accomplishment... what an awesome feeling!!

Me with my biggest cheerleader, Dave.

Me with my dad and stepmom.