Happy New Year!

The century is a decade old. The year eleven makes the head math a little more difficult, so I've decided to only look forward and treat this as year one.
But we have to look back just a little, no math involved. Last night we were colder than both NY and Skagway. Yep. We went below 30. Around here that is called a hard freeze. The bridges were treated with chemicals to prevent icing. Snow fell all the way down to the valley. We have desert plants that had to be covered, and the water pipes had to be insulated. The wind was the worst. It makes things go bump in the night and blows the blankets off the covered plants.
After a few days of hunkering down in our wonderfully restored house, we are getting ready to venture out today. We have the long underwear on, the parkas are out of mothballs, and we have found the wolf-fur mittens. NOT!
We do have to run some errands, pick up a few cases of booze for the annual brawl tonight, restock the larder for the next few cold days, and NOT prepare our classrooms for the next semester. That is the best part. We do have a lot of fun, but the things we DON'T DO still bring joy, also. We only have a few boxes remaining to be emptied. We will take down Christmas stuff, then we can decide where to hang art. Drive those nails, baby.

Happy Birthday, Peggie

The big 60.

Peggie slept in today. It is only fitting to do so on one's birthday.

At 11:00 a masseuse showed up to deliver one of Peggie's Christmas presents. So it was nice to get a double gift. Casey and I made ourselves scarce so it would be peaceful and quiet for the massage.

The fat quarter campaign is and has been amazingly successful. She has fabric from NY, Sitka, Skagway, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as local finds. Thank you heartily for all the thought and love that went into your choices. We look forward to those which, for whatever reason, will arrive later. Keep 'em coming!

What time is it?

It is the 21st century.

So we had Christmas with our children and granddaughter. We had a great time taking turns opening presents. It is fun watching Ariana (almost three) sit calmly to open her gifts, then show it to everyone, then wait while others open gifts. Not the hurry-up we were used to with multiple children. We sipped coffee, ate scones and had a good time. When all the gifts were open, except for a few for Ariana, she was tired and ready for a nap. So we said goodbye, turned off the computer and straightened up. Yes, it is 2010. Casey was at our house in person. Greg, Tomoko and Ariana were virtually present via Skype. We are truly blessed to have this technology just when we have loved ones living 2500 miles away. We have skyped before, but usually it is like a video phone call. This was a virtual visit. We loved it. It was a new experience. More personal than I thought, and it felt much more real. Well, it was real, but maybe if you are near my age you know what I mean. If not.....

Today is the day after Christmas. Peggie is still suffering from her cold. Casey and I went to Nikki's(niece) to meet her new baby, Adam. Fearing we might carry germs, we did not touch him, but agreed he is a cutie. We were able to visit with relatives and had a good time. Peggie will have to arrange another visit when she feels better.

Yesterday, to make it easier on me fixing dinner (Peggie is sick, ya know) we changed our menu to Bill's chili and tamales instead of ham with all the usual fixin's. Smythes came over as per usual and we had a great time as per usual including breaking open Casey's new Apples to Apples game. Peggie was able to concoct a marvelous pitcher of marguaritas. Holiday cheer.

Peggie's birthday is the day after tomorrow. The fat quarters are pouring in. Pretty soon she may have several yards of fabric. If she can figure out a way to put it all together, that is. Perhaps a quilt or two. They are often constructed from several small pieces, aren't they?

In other news, tonight;

Casey has gently chastised us for ignoring the rest of our lives.

So here is other news.
On the 19th, thanks to our children, we attended the final concert on "The Final Encore" tour of the Judds. In 1991 we attended the final show of their "Farewell Tour." At that show, Vince Gill was one of the opening acts. In the current show, there was no opening act. Just two and a half hours of Judds. It was very enjoyable as they sang some old favorites, Wynona did a solo session, and they closed with Christmas songs, including a breathtaking acappella version of Ave Maria by Wynona.
We went to Mesa early in the day to deliver the old hoosier to Casey's new apartment in Dobson Ranch. We helped her empty some boxes and Peggie put together her kitchen. Then we went to a Park and Ride garage, parked, and rode the light rail "Metro" over to Phoenix for the concert. It was held at US Airways Arena, where the Suns play, not at Wells Fargo Arena, where the Sun Devils play, and where Casey's commencement was held. We ate a nice dinner at Majerlie's and walked the two blocks. When the concert was over we joined others on the full train back to Mesa. We were happy not to be in the after event traffic. Except for the whole middle-of-the-night thing, midnight is a very good time to travel I-10, since fewer people are on the road with you. And it is a good excuse to stop for middle-of-the-night breakfast at an Eloy truck stop.
Thank you to all who have sent Peggie a fat quarter or two. This is making her birthday really special. It is fun to get the mail everyday. Some people have delivered in person, and anyone else who wants to do that is more than welcome to. I am starting to think she may actually receive 60 by the time this is over. For me, this is the most fun since I got her all 31 Baskin Robbins flavors 29 years ago. Or the time she threw me a surprise 40th the year I was (honestly) 39.
We also managed to stay awake after midnight to sit in the spa and watch the lunar eclipse. We didn't sit in the spa for the entire 3 1/2 hours. We only watched the beginning until the moon was almost covered. Then we went to bed. We've seen other lunar eclipses. They always happen when sane people are asleep. Whoever schedules these things should have made it on the 19th when we were on the road at that time of night anyway.
This week Peggie has been down with a terrible cold. We hope she will be much better by Christmas. I am sure I will catch the cold and have my turn with it next week. But I hope not.

Are we there yet?

Just twenty more minutes.
That phrase is older than our marriage. It has become our standard joke answer since a trip we took during college and I underestimated the time for the trip by a considerable amount.
Anyway, we are all finished except for putting everything back. The work is done. The ceilings are textured plaster, not sprayed popcorn. The walls are freshly painted in southwest tones. The floors are in and looking beautiful. The venetian blinds are installed. (And they are PERFECT)
As I type this, the floor crew has dropped by to patch some chips made by the furniture movers, the murphy bed company is trying to schedule a crew to straighten out the poor job movers did on the re-install, the carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow to clean the stairs, and about half the boxes are empty and our shelves and cabinets are filling back up. Since we have a lot of very old wood furniture, we are re-oiling each piece, one at a time before we refill it. The famous dry heat is hard on wood.
Very soon, I will drive the first nail to rehang some art. Scary prospect. As you all know, getting it right the first time is not my forte.
So, in sewing terms, "it is all done but the hem"....and the buttons and button holes, and then it has to be washed and ironed before you can wear it.
It will be about twenty more minutes (days).

Casey S. Thomas, B.A., M.Ed.

Casey was hooded and conferred and recognized at two ceremonies at America West Arena over the last two days. Her proud parents attended both.
We stayed overnight at a Best Western so we could spend the day with her on Thursday prior to the evening event. We planned to do some shopping, both for our newly redecorated house and for Christmas, then spend the afternoon hanging out at her "old" apartment while she readied herself for the commencement. However, this blog is titled "Peggie & Bill--Adventures!" so the plan had to be altered. It was the first day of rain in many weeks, we had a timeline to meet, so it was the perfect time for car trouble. Leaving the last store on our route, the Jeep decided not to start. It didn't seem like a dead battery, but getting a jump still seemed like a good idea. That didn't work, because the problem wasn't a dead battery. Luckily, we had taken out a road service policy with Good Sam prior to heading for Alaska. So a phone call and 45 minutes later, a tow truck shows up. The policy will pay to tow us to the nearest repair facility, which happens to be a Jeep dealer. The truck's cab will not accomodate all of us, so Peggie and Casey ride in the Jeep as it is loaded and driven to the shop. We wait through two episodes of "King of the Hill" while Casey is getting nervous. She thought her days of sharing our adventures were a thing of the past. HA!
The problem was a loose connector on the wires between the battery and the starter, nothing major, and when I went to check on a free shuttle ride for Casey, so she could get ready, they said the Jeep was ready to go. The mechanic thought the problem was caused during original assembly and was just waiting for the right time to fail. It only cost the price of labor and tax. This is just the kind of thing that could have happened in the boonies somewhere, sometime, or when we were actually on our way to something with no time to waste. Serendipity.
In the interest of leaving no loose threads, Casey got some things for her new apartment, we got some things for our "new" house, and some of you will be receiving packages for Christmas.

The fat lady sang...

...but we still have a curtain call to sit through.
THE FLOORS ARE BEAUTIFUL !!!!!
Yesterday, on purpose, Peggie arranged a day out. I arranged for the movers to return and replace all of our furniture from the storage pod. I had drawn a schematic so I would know where everything went. The following things were put where they had been before: the phone booth, the dining room table, the four dining chairs, the dining room chest, the murphy bed. Everything else has been rearranged. When Peggie got home, she actually agreed with my placements.
We will post pictures after we decide where to hang our artworks.
We have not moved all of our boxed items back onto shelves and cabinets yet either. There will be a slight delay while we go to Tempe for Casey's commencement activities. (She has her Masters of Education)
The curtain call has to do with some final touch-ups to the paint and a couple of chips in the floor.
So now we have Christmas to get ready for and a bedroom to empty so Casey has a place to sleep when she comes. Oh, and the new window blinds we discovered we needed. And the new cable outlet because we moved the TV and computer.
And....I believe I mentioned once before that there would be things we didn't anticipate. So whatever those are. THEN this episode will be over.