Western Sky Middle School

Here are some pictures of Abbey's new school. She will be teaching 8th grade literature studies. Congratulations Abbey!

A Hard Days Work

Well Nora has been gone for about a week to Michigan for work. She has about two more weeks to be away. There is not much for me and the bunnies to do but lay around. So I just posted some pictures of what my night has been like for the last week or so. We are all looking forward for Nora to come home and get back to normal living. It is getting hard to keep up with everything with just one person at home. Well that is pretty much the update.

Our Weekend

Scott and I spent most of our weekend redoing our master bedroom closet. I had a good idea how I wanted to set it up. I think I literally spent an hour in the closet organizer aisle at Lowe's. I went in with one plan and came out with something completely different. Luckily it turned out to be a much better plan.

Our closet originally only had two clothes bars with a shelf above each. Since our closet has a ten foot ceiling, like the rest of our house, this old set up was not very functional. Unfortunately, when the orginal stuff was installed it was glued, nailed, and then painted onto the wall. Scott emptied out the closet, took down the old stuff, patched the walls and then painted. I spent the time putting together all of the new cabinetry. I love putting things together! Scott and I both installed the cabinetry and new clothes rods. We have two more lower clothes rods to attach. I changed my mind and decided not to use the rods that we had. Today I am going to get ones that are the same as the top rods instead. The ones we had to install attached to the cabinets.

I attached some pictures of what we ended up with. I had taken pictures last night when the closet was completely empty but my camera decided not to cooperate and did not save them on the memory card. I retook them today but I already started putting everything back in. It is really hard to get everything in a picture of a closet. Hopefully, you will get the general idea.

We did learn something. If you buy ready to assemble closetmaid cabinets, buy an extra cabinet. There were several occasions when I started to assemble something and I discovered that a corner was bent or the finish was cracked. By having an extra one on hand you can just swap out the damaged piece. After many trips to the store, this is what we finally ended up doing. The cabinets are nice but it was hard to get an entire package that did not have something damaged in it. Can you believe I already returned the damaged items? I am known for not taking things back so this was quite an accomplishment.

I think that that is all I can say about our closet installation. Everytime I take on a project like this I am very thankful I grew up with a Dad who was handy. Everything I can do during these projects I learned from him. Thanks Dad! I can't wait until you can see my handy work in person. Although Scott did a lot of work too, it is widely known that I like these types of projects and I have done them in the past. When Larry, Scott and I were unpacking the pods, Larry asked me "Where do you want your tool box Nora?" I think that that question sums it up quite nicely.

Did I mention that it was really hot? We both were soaked with sweat - GROSS. We finally gave in and turned on the air conditioner. Speaking of air conditioners, we bought a portable room air conditioner for the garage - or should I say for the rabbits? The brand name is Mastercool. Check out the website: http://www.adobeair.com/ . It is a really cool way to cool the air. We haven't tried it yet. I will let you know how it works when we do.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now!

Buckeye Arizona

This past Sunday Scott and I drove further west to a city called Buckeye. It was a very easy drive. One to two lane roads all the way there. It took about forty minutes to get to our final destination - Buckeye Primary School. This is one of the schools that is interested in hiring Abbey as a full-time teacher. There are mostly vegetable and dairy farms between our house and Buckeye. However, it was a nice change from the usual highway jaunt. The area around the school was also quite rural although we did see some fast food restaurants and new community developments. I posted some pictures of the school for everyone to see. I also thought that it is quite a coincidence that the school is known as the home of the roadrunners - a childhood nickname that I think all three of us girls encountered at least once. Weird huh? Finally, Scott talked with a lady that he works with who lives in Buckeye. She laughed when he said that it was pretty rustic. She said that if we had kept traveling further west we would have seen the new school and some other development projects. Who knew? I almost forgot to post another coincidence. There seems to be a Mrs. Williams working in the district too. I couldn't resist taking a picture.

My Worst Nightmare

This week was another week of change. Larry moved out on Wednesday. He is back in Michigan. It was a sad day. I have worked with Larry for about nine years and live with him now for about a year. It will be different not working with Larry but it will be nice to have the house to ourselves for a little bit. Nora is also back in Michigan for the week. She had to go back for work. She will go back once a month for the next few months. Then we will see what happens for her work. OK a little background if you did not know I am not particularly fond of spiders. I usually cry like a 6 year old girl and call for Nora to take the bad monster away. But on the other hand spiders seem to be very fond of me. They hunt me down and attack me without mercy.

With that said let me set the stage for yesterday morning. I wake up early to see if I can get into work faster if I leave early. Everything is fine at this point. I am on track. Life is good. Now I am opening the front door when a dark shadow scoots under the door. Now instantly my mind raises with some questions. What could it be? Should I look at it? What if it is what I think it is? Where is Nora? Oh crap she is in Michigan! What am I going to do? Shut the door you fool!!!! My mind cries! So I slam the door closed and run for the bug spray. I race back to the door after I get the spray because I do not want this terror of the desert to call for reinforcements. I open the door with my foot just to put some distance between me and the porch monster. As the door slowly opens this huge black spider is looking at me. It looks into my soul and tells me how it is going to eat me in my sleep. So I spray it and spray it. It is either going to be killed by the chemicals or it is going to drown. It was me or him. In war you take no prisoners and believe me this is a war. A long standing war between me and the arachnid family!

Now at this point my hand hurts from pulling the spray trigger so much. I drop the sprayer on the porch close and lock the door with one eye glue to this beast. After locking up the house I get to the car as fast as I can. All day long I think about getting home to verify the kill. There is no kill until a body is found. Now I finally make it home from work and slowly walk up the porch and see the body. It is dead. I won this time. However the stakes are getting raised. They are starting to send in the big guns. This was no ordinarily spider. This was a Black Widow Spider. I believe I was lucky to come away with my life! A picture of this beast is attach. Now for those of you of the faint of heart please look away. For everyone else if you look close enough you can see the red hour glass on the under belly. I must say that this did make for an interesting morning yesterday. The body of the spider is still on the porch waiting for Nora to come and get it:)

Taliesin west

The History

Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright established the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932 as a self-sustaining community of apprentices and architects who would learn and practice the philosophy of organic architecture by sharing in architectural work, building construction, and the related arts. Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today, it houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, a school for architects, and is open to the public for tours. It is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona in the United States. His summer home, Taliesin, is in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

The Visit

Today Larry and myself took a tour of this campus. It was very interesting. This is one of the buildings that you study in school. Wright is one of the greatest modern architects of our time. I never really thought I would be able to see this building in my life. We took a 90 minute tour of the building. The weather was great and the tour guide was interesting. It always surprises me when going into one of Wright's houses how low he designed everything. Larry had to crouch a lot when entering room. I have attached picture from my visit. I hope that you all like the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. To activate the video click in the video window and then hit the play button. I hope it works.

Friday Night Dance Off

Well guess what Scott and Larry had hooked up when I got home from shopping today? Dance Dance Revolution for our Playstation 2. Guess who really sucked? The girl who danced for sixteen years. Guess who rocked? Mr. rythym himself Scott Adams. Larry did better than me too! Did I mention that I sucked? Anyway I posted some pictures of our little dance off. Scott was supposed to take my picture but it is not on the photo card. Darn! Once we were red faced and out of breath, we played a video trivia game called buzz. Poor Larry didn't have a chance. After playing with the Rodeheffer girls, we are both hard to beat!

Tomorrow we have a pool guy coming to give us an estimate. If I have my way, we still won't be getting one any time soon. I am feeling really cheap - especially since I do not know what I want to be when I grow up. Sunday we are going to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright school called Taliesin West. Larry wants to visit it before he leaves Arizona. It should be fun. I will keep you posted. Until then dance on! (I really am a Dork)