~factors I'm choosing not to control~

Blackhawk, which I've never flown ... haven't even ever had a helicopter ride.   Some of my former students went the military route and love flying 'em ... and actually, one of my commercial instructors was a Naval Aviator who most preferred the whirlybirds. He was a bit of a butt ... bitter about a wife who remained married to him during her cavorting years as he steadfastly served our Country overseas.  I don't blame him, it just made the W/B (managing his baggage) overly complicated within the confines of a training environment.

That little pencil sketch was something I drew a long time ago - a self portrait of "little" me.

I'm amazed at how much flight training material that I have to throw away.  I can't keep on moving all this stuff around with me!  Because I taught ground school to large classrooms full of hopefuls in a University setting, my notes are more formal than a one on one type learning relationship would indicate.  No one needs my notes now.

My instructing days are behind me.  Today I threw away a 24" piece of fuel line.  Ironically, some very fine notes were refiled in a faded glory box and are awaiting the recycling pick up at the curb.  

factors beyond your control &

factors you choose not to control ... 

found written in my hand and neatly stacked in an accordion file full of lecture notes and carefully curated props.

I'd frequently have something like that written on a white board or projected on the big screen for the kids to think about while the room was filling up.  Sometimes I would "slide-show" poetically majestic full color pictures taken from a flight deck and carefully collected over time, sometimes the black and white of an NTSB accident report was a more appropriate way to begin a lecture.  Flying well is serious business.  I'm glad I got to work with aviation students.  It feels weird throwing that stuff away, like it doesn't matter, or is no longer important ... no longer relevant ... .  I'm waiting for that (good) feeling of having shed something one no longer needs.  Right now I just feel a little sick about it.

I have a lot of really good stuff - books mostly, FAA publications ... cool stuff, that I'd like to give to someone who will use it.  I'll keep a headset.  

(Rock) Garden of the Gods ~ Colorado Springs

Colorado things we did during this visit

Hike around National Center for Atmospheric Research - the trails were great and the Center was made even cooler by being a free resource and having a beautiful lunchroom/cafeteria

Pearl Street Mall area in downtown Boulder -

we spend several hours on several different days during our visit here

there was always something different to see

lots of fun

  

Brunch in Lewisville at The Huckleberry - delicious

(and super cute with outstanding service)

Train ride and silver mine tour at Georgetown, Colorado.

Super fun and very informative.

(And I learned a new word = Tommyknocker)

Palo Duro Canyon (Texas near Amarillo)

cowboy dugout replica - you could practically walk right by this place without seeing it

I was telling my husband that when I was little I used to very carefully lift this dried, crack earthen tiles up and rebuild the pattern somewhere near by - like puzzle pieces.  He said I must must not have had much to do as a child.  

This is the first time we have driven in to Denver via the SE route. The unrelenting flatness was a huge surprise to me.  And I was amazed to see the classic structure of this thunderstorm cloud.  I thought we would be driving right through it but we skated the edges, negotiating the blowing dust on the SW side - maybe 10 large drops of rain spatted the windshield.  I am used to seeing systems with "red" in lines.  These seem to spin off of Pikes Peak in small clusters or as this one, an energized lone ranger.

Large aircraft in the area took it all in stride.  I bet it's bumpy coming in to DEN.

Next pic past the airport area out towards Boulder where we will be staying for the next several days.

Max - 7 months old

Yeah, he's a big one.

I think he'll be bigger than Sammy was (peak weight 160).

Shows every sign of being a good dog.

Early Saturday I drove down to San Antonio and spent a while with an old friend.  She was preparing for a wedding that evening and was able to get me in with her nail people for a manicure while she had hers - chat time.  I can't remember when I last wore red nail lacquer.  I don't like red.  I like a natural palette.  Red couldn't be more shocking to me on my fingers than it would be on my hair ... Woody the Wood Pecker red.  That's not the name of the color on the bottle.  The name of the color on the bottle was Your Husband is Going to Love This! Yeah, with the exclamation mark.  Something like that.  It feels very 80's to me.

It was fun to share some time with her.  She'll be hosting a long "Girl's Weekend" for a bunch of us in August.  I suggested we go tubing on the Frio, or some such, on one of those days.  (Shouldn't that be "Girl's Long Weekend"?  No surprise that they can figure out where we are from and where we have been by the words we chose and how we use them.)  Next up, meeting an Alabama friend and her two little ones for a sleepover on the Riverwalk.  They selected to wind down their week here in Texas by staying an extra day so that we might have a few moments together.  The girls did not like the riverboat tour.  They thought 99 degrees in the shade with a heat index, which took it up to 110 (the lady bringing lots and lots of ice(d ... lol) water told us that once we found some AC and yet another order of chicken bits and fries) was a bit much.  Rather than sticking to their seats they were sliding around. As soon as we were off the boat we starting standing in line at Margaritaville with a pager that promised to ring in 25 minutes or less.  I felt that a Margarita was in order, but we left before being seated to order dinner - we left as soon as the man on stilts handed the girls their balloon poodles.  Next up - Stone Cold Ice-cream place (all I had eaten for the day was found around the edges of the Charcuterie) ... next Ghirardelli.  I did tear in to the sample offered there but resisted further temptations.  Dessert is just not fun when you're actually hungry.  I ended up splitting weird nachos for dinner.  They were topped with fake cheese spread (like you expect at sporting events), some other stuff (I did recognize and enjoy the avocado bites) and shaved slices of radish.  I've never seen radishes on nachos.  It wasn't yummy.  The water was perfection though.

I don't have grandchildren.  I don't even have grandchildren on my mind yet.  These two little darlings helped me see what I might hope for some day.  If my kids do decide to have kids I think I'll like it a lot.

what we thought we ordered ... what we actually got

San Antonio is such a hospitable place so it surprised me how easily I drove away once my girls were safely at the airport.  I was stuck (briefly) behind someone driving 65 in a 70 while everyone else was doing 80 or better.

It was nice to get home.

Father's Day found a couple of my own at home celebrating their excellent Dad.

We bought a house.  Yes,  f  i  n  a  l  l  y  !   It's not the river house that we have been renting for the past two years.  Surprisingly, it is a house in a neighborhood of homes on small lots - quarter acre lots.  It doesn't have a stitch of landscaping so to speak.  I love that about it.  It has a nice pool and a super blank canvas yard.  It also has a master bathroom with just a shower (no bath tub).  First inside project - upgrade bathroom!  I get to pick out a tub and I am so excited.  Like Pointer Sister's Excited!

Outside project - landscaping!  It's the little things.  Closing mid July - pictures to follow.  

What else?  

Denver next week ... .  Visiting Three.  I like Colorado.

Pictures from lately taken by V.

I miss making my notes here - life gets busy.  And it's a weird sort of busy because I'm not really doing anything.  He went on

Yesterday, -SHRA as the pictures indicate, was filled with early church and later my chorale's concert (which went well).  The sermon drew from Ephesians 4.  Essentially, "Love people more than issues" was the point.  The pastor began his sermon with this illustration, plucked form the news I guess, a 73 year old woman has divorced her husband because they voted differently in the recent Presidential Election. He went on to muse,  ...she would rather be alone than married to someone who thinks differently on the issues.  I did get sidetracked thinking about that.  Could he possibly believe that or did it just suit his purposes to say so?  The starkness of his statement seemed ironic as I briefly explored the idea of ALONE compared to LONELY.   I packaged it like this ... it was expedient because I feel bad when I stop listening to what a speaker is attempting to communicate ... I thought maybe this: she, the 73 year old divorceé, was looking at a kitchen knife, unable to escape the blaring buffoonery of say CNN broadcast at old man volume, when she decided to do them both a favor.  Was it for the best?  Probably not, but maybe for the better - the divorce thing. 

Here are my notes from the Sermon -->

He also went off on a snarky rant clothed in good humor about the "church music" issue this particular body still seems to be struggling with.  That in addition to the announcement that the Senior Pastor is off "praying" about the direction of this church (for I think he said a month) made for a sorta awkward feel in the room (or maybe just in my seat, it's a very big congregation).  

The words from the WORD make sense.  Ephesians 4 is actionable on an individual level.  

On a different topic - near here a family began to build a home - a huge home, a family home for a man, his wife, their two sons and the son's wives (one each presumably), and their yet to be born children.  As it was explained to me, this is a traditional family home within the muslim sensibility.  I'll add a picture of it later today because it is really quite something to behold.  It's built on a tract of land abutting the city limits - in other words, it's in the County.  Two things leap out to me - well, more than two and all of them odd and alarmingly so, the enormous structure looks intentionally defendable, and there is a huge pile of rock debris accumulated from - has to be a basement.  In this neighborhood people sometimes cut swimming pools in to the rock, but it's incredibly expensive to have that done.  I was told that it's a family home but no property owner is listed on the tax record.  A local realtor said churches, while being built, are exempt from public records.

I mention that here - the building - because it's an issue.  It's an issue and one never sees people (to love) anywhere around it.