Another Day of Sunshine and Roses

Time to answer my friends e-mail
WHAT CAN I SAY?

You ask, What have you been doing and why haven't you written to me. My reply is, we have been geocaching, I'm sure you guessed that is what we have been up to. Once we got the 2700th cache, we immediately set out to achieve that figure , we did., So far we now have 2,722 caches found.

Let me take you with us as we found eleven caches today. First of all we had to drive about twenty miles to Santa Clarita, Ca.
The caches were all easy. All we had to do was drive from a Target store, to a 7-11, to Mervyns, and seven other equally easy areas. Finding the cache was "kindergarten easy" each hidden under the base of lamp posts!
Just one was difficult, at the TOP of a hill that overlooked the city.
The top, with a floored with multi-colored broken glass glistening in the sun. However, it was just over the top that, we had to go down further to search for the cache. Down a narrow path, where one false move you could tumble down quite a bone breaking distance. Once near ground zero, I gingerly poked around looking for the cache, hoping not to meet a Mr or Mrs rattlesnake. Jack check several brushy areas and came up with a dusty looking cookie tin that held the cache. We tried twice before to find this hidden treasure. This , our third visit was a success, with a sigh of relief for finding it, at last!

As each day is X'd off our calendar, we are getting closer and closer to our upcoming cruise, now it's all a matter of what to take to wear. As for the formal dinners, I think I am OK, but for casual wear, how hot or cold will it be, I'd hate to have to pack too much to take care of the uncertainty..........I have a habit of packing ahead of the time, only to unpack and then pack again, pack and unpack, pack again, until I'm either tired of it or certain that "will just have to do".

Not only are we going on a cruise but may take a trip to Colorado at the end of July, to attend a 90th birthday party for my Uncle Carl's widow, Aunt Ruth. Ironically, Aunt Ruth's 90th birthday is on Jack's 80th birthday! The party will take place in Sterne Park in Littleton. My brother's Kenneth and Loren and their wives will attend, so hopefully, we will be able to also! Only time will tell!

The sun is shining, and what started out to be a gloomy day has become a gorgeous day. As I type this, I can look out of our den window and see the rose bush I created by stuffing a piece of a rose bush into a flower pot. I had unsuccessfully tried to grow a rose like that before but this attempt is a 100% magical feat. The rose is a White Delight, a soft white with a pink tinge and a slight hint of green on one petal, very delicate and absolutely gorgeous, all just from sticking a twig in a flower pot! I feel blessed with this successful attempt.
I feel happy to see the sun shining and our rose bush filled with buds, that promise more roses! I wonder if I should plant another twig but then would I be twice as happy? I think not!
I just want you to know that I am happy that I am your friend.

This concludes my letter

When they ask...............

Every so often you read a questionaire that asks who in your life has changed yours
I've always been at a loss to come up with an answer until NOW! Without a doubt, it is my son, Brian.

While I'm not professional and the pictures I take are pretty average but snapping photos has been an activity that had put me in front of the one hour photo counter at Costco ,a weekly routine. Hundreds of pctures fill my photo albums, large envelopes and boxes! Needless to say between buying film and having them developed, it has cost me a considerable amount of money. You can imagine my delight at being introduced to a digital camera! Who introduced me, none other than Brian! First there was CASIO camera but when better cameras were featured in the stores and friends bragged about their cameras with more pixels, we invested in the OLYMPUS. It was a good sized camera, took gret pictures but newer and smaller models were introduced making it easier to fit into the hand and slip into your pocket with ease.

Digital cameras have opened up our world of capturing all of the important and silly things in our lives via pictures. It's made it easy for us to pop a card into the computer and instantly share pictures with friends and family as I write them the latest news while trying to prove a picture is worth a thousand words! I am a firm believer. Jack and I thank Brian for opening up the world of digital cameras to us.

Before digital cameras came into my life, I had an opportunity to work for Bob, who was in the machinery business. In the beginning I had two boxes of filing cards, one for buyers and the second for sellers. It proved to be disturbing to me as I pulled a card out to match up with either a buyer or a seller. Now I had a problem that was not only maniacal but easily solved with a computer!
Enter, into my life a computer. Enter, too, Brian, who has led me through the maze of programs and necessary information on how to use one. I never learned Dos and the critical things that a true computer person uses, but I've struggled to use it for an endless list of fun and interesting activities. As for the machinery business, I sailed through that with Brian's expertise. He's added software to bring my buyers and sellers to my finger tips. Out with the file card boxes and in with praise from Bob at the efficiency of my work! With a computer, my world has opened up. Now snail mail had been replaced with e-mail, I enjoy programs to design greeting cards and our Christmas cards. I hardly ever send a personal letter without a picture (taken with our digital camera) to brighten up my stationary. It's no secret, Brian has changed my life. But wait..........

The digital camera and computer has not ended Brian's changes in my life. A new phase blossomed on Christmas Eve, 2003 when sharing Christmas Eve dinner with Brian, as he explained the fun he' was having in the newly popular hobby of geocaching. It sounded appealing to me but Jack showed no interest until one pretty day, Brian took us out to find a series of caches! It was my introduction to a GPS, (global positioning system) which with the help of satellites lead you to within roughly twenty feet of a hidden object, called a cache. Jack and I enjoyed the hunt and in no time, Jack was busy in our garage, painting altoids containers to match a possible place to hide it, adding hooks to hang a cache in a tree or bush. He learned the 99 cent store candy section had ideal containers to hide a cache in once emptied of the candy or gum within.

Our list of found caches slowly grew and to add to our hobby we had hidden between us, over one hundred caches! We were no longer newbies the day we logged our 1,000th cache! Brian made sure we were awarded a magnetic Kilo Club pin! Our geocaching friends were very pleased for us.
Our huge surprise found our story in the Calendar section of our Los Angeles Times. We didn't get a small write-up but rather a three page spread complete with pictures. That story led to a coast to coast story on the CBS Evening News. As a result, people from all over commented on the two of us. We were now classed as "legends"
We were so proud when Brian was featured in a video made by the students of USC, A video that has also been shown on the East coast.

We thought our excitement was over until we were awarded a trophy for being the Geocachers of the year for our group of Southern California geocachers.
The trophy is a travel bug which gleans mileage. It has been to the Tower of London and in the hands of a couple known as Senior Hikers has made it to the tops of some very risky and steep terrain. At our age, we do not take unnecessry chances.
In September, we will pass this trophy on to new owners. We do not try to out do those who have enjoyed the trophy before us. Our mission is to give it as much mileage as we possibly can.
We both thank Brian over and over again, not just for the excitement he has added to our lives with this popular hobby, a hobby that has introduced us to a myriad of friends, and to the digital camera and computer. He has made us, in our eighties, forget our age but rather enjoy life to the fullest. It hasn't been a teacher or a preacher who has affected, has changed and made my life fun and exciing, it has been my son, Brian! THANK YOU, BRIAN.

Old Christmas and greeting cards

When boxes of greeting cards are overflowing and no longer fit their
designated home it's time to sort through them and lighten the number of cards saved.

However, I simply cannot toss those cards from my high school Home Economics teacher, someone who thought well enough of me to keep in touch long after I graduated from high school. Cards from her go back over sixty three years to 1940, when they began finding their way into my mailbox in 1944.

I cherish that first Christmas card featuring my teachers three small children cozily tucked into bed. A colorful CHOO CHOO train spanned the top of their blanket. Three small smiling young faces peered above that quilt.

It was the beginning of her annual Christmas cards that stretched through the marriages and the death of one of her children . It continues through the loss of her husband and as I write this, she is wheelchair bound and cared for by a daughter. I just cannot toss those cards.

Through the years I saved a clever card from my stock broker. It displayed Santa in his brilliant red suit against a white background covered with stock market symbols. Do I keep it? No! I envied the designer with his clever expertise in designing a card, however, I reluctantly tossed it into the "round file". The beginning of reaching the end of my goal. Fight clutter!

Toss that different card with it's Chinese symbols against a gleaming gold background, that Santa in a fireman's suit slithering down a firestation pole, the card picturing a doll house made by a casual friend's husband. A touching picture for her, but not for me, TOSS IT!

This should I, or should I not keep a mountain of cards and pictures from over sixty years went on until the clock slipped past midnight. There comes a time to shed the weight of all of those cards and lighten up my life with order and more needed space. I was adamant as I tossed and tossed cards in spite of that lingering feeling of guilt.

As I slipped into bed I felt freer, lighter, unleashed from the drag of unnecessary items.

Among those cards, and pictures were pictures of friends children, children we barely knew and wouldn't recognize if we saw them today!
While I felt a twinge of guilt at tossing their pictures, it felt good not to be in charge of them any longer. Ridding my life of needless items has been the equivalent of a pardon, a step toward freedom of space and thought.
I can smile as I take baby steps to rid my house and belongings of clutter and I can happily feel smug as I view the front covers of Women's Day and Family Circle magazines as they splash article after article on Defeating Clutter peering from every cover of EVERY issue!

With a sigh of relief at completeing that chore, and as I view a shelf neat and orderly, I can take a deep breath and tell myself, FREE AT LAST!

Things today are just DUCKY!

After a visit to a lab, after fasting. I went for bloodwork, before my next Dr's visit. Jack (Garagedude) and I headed for a Coco's restaurant to enjoy a strawberry waffle topped with whipped cream! Am I making you drool? Are you counting your pennies to see if you have enough to go there, too?
It was a treat BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. As we walked toward the entrance to the restaurant, there in front of our eyes were two ducks, a male and a female! What a surprise! It made us curious. Where did they come from in the middle of a busy commercial district! I would never say our breakfast was for the birds, but it was a breakfast that quacked us up!

That is the start of another pretty day. We have a ratty looking table that is cracked due to being out in the weather, it was stained due to a new roof that was not properly sealed against rain, so it was water stained.
For months, I have searched for another table like it, with no success.
I've tried Sears, Target, Big Lots and others! I' was exhausted from trying to find one on the internet. I learned that if I spent $1500 to buy a lot of them, I could get FREE shipping, but who needs fifty tables?
Imagine my delight to find a similar table at Linens and Things!
My search has ended and the ratty table will be great for
painting small items and other messy chores, where condition is not a factor. The new table will be useful in our patio, for holding coffee pots and pitchers of lemonade and other useful purposes.

That's not an exciting happening for you, but for me, THE MONTHS OF
SEARCHING AND AGONIZING OVER A SILLY TABLE IS OVER
AND I'M HAPPY! Happy as a lark, happy over a $19.95 table!

Question: Can YOU be happy for only $19.95! I'd love to hear your story!

My Day

Fresh strawberries on cereal, what a delightful way to start my day! What next? I wrote an e-mail to a friend who not only recently lost her husband but also lost her son. Didn't want to start my day without taking care of that issue.

Her son was on drugs, he neglected his health, and had he lived, he would have needed constant care. She was not well enough to take care of him. Should I say it was a blessing he didn't survive his hospital stay?

She lives in an assisted living home, and after suffering two strokes, all I can say is my heart goes out to her. It was important for me to keep in touch. I didn't want to start my day until I finally wrote to her to show her I am thinking of her. I feel better now, that I did.

Garagedude and I wanted to find our 2700th cache. It's a goal we set for ourselves. Today, we not only made it but we found five more!!! To celebrate we came home and popped open a bottle of wine! SPECIAL WINE? YES, it was our last bottle of Azure Bay wine we bought at the 99 cents store. We laughed as we toasted each other with our cheap wine to celebrate our geocaching finds. Is it an expensive wine written up in Wine Journals, or featured at Wine Festivals? NO, but that 99 cents wine was our way of celebrating in our own style. Pricey or Not! We couldn't have been a more fun day.

We stopped at a cache called Honey, Honey. It was next to a place that sells honey. What a joy to be able to pick up those popsicle sticks and try out each flavored honey, Sage, Orange, Clover, Eucalyptus, Cactus and Wild Flower! I TASTED THEM ALL! We finally chose a jar of clover, the kind I recall I enjoyed at our house as a kid!

While Garagedude was on the phone during our stop at a roadside stand, I picked up a cantaloupe. It was huge, the coloring was good, it gave in to my touch (not hard as rock) and as I brought it up to my nose for the BIG TEST, it had a wonderful cantaloupe aroma, one I couldn't resist. We bought it, so we are now the proud owners of that huge ball of fresh fruit purchased at that roadside stand where we stopped only to make a telephone call so we wouldn't be driving and talking .

It's been a fun day!

P S, I'm tired, now it's time to enjoy my 99 cents wine and take off my shoes and relax.

It's been a great day, sunny successful in our hobby, a day we shared together, couldn't ask for more!!!!

Hello World

At 85 years young, I am filled with a zest for life. And one of the things that keeps me young is to be able to communicate using the computer.
I enjoy sharing things that I discover with others using email. Being an avid geocacher means that I share my experiences caching with my life partner Jack (geocaching name: Garagedude) with the community at geocaching.com.
Now I am entering the blogosphere.

I have always kept a diary. My bookshelves are full of the daily books that date back to the 1950's. Now, with Internet technology, I can use my blog to jot down notes, share ideas, or just to express myself.

Welcome to my blog.