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3:00 p.m. - 2008-10-10
Leaving town

Friday, October 10, 2008

Hey, Kids.....I'm going away for a few weeks on a vacation.

Actually, we are going first to Rye, Colorado to help a BIL move. He sold the big house he and his wife ( Retired Husband's {(RH} sister) had built a few years ago. Since her death nearly 2 years ago; he has been trying to sell the house and finally got an offer that works for him.

He is buying the house that the buyers of his house had for sale. In other words, they are trading homes and they are paying extra for BIL's home... So, part of the deal was that they would close on Thursday, October 16th and all move on Friday, October 17th. The new owners want to get into the house before the snow falls and our BIL feels the same. He wants to get off the mountain before snow falls and he needs to get settled in his new house. He teaches at a college in the town he is moving to and will need to be back in class by Monday, October 20th. So, RH and I volunteered to drive out there and help pack, move and unpack.

They are all using 2 Men and A Truck Company. The plan is to coordinate moving each household from it's original location to the new place at about the same time.

or in this case, it will be 4 men and 2 trucks.....

Based on our many years of moving, I plan on packing a survival box. I will be filling it with toilet paper, paper towels, soap, 2 sets of sheets and 3 sets of towels, paper plates, some plastic forks and spoons, a can opener and any other necessities that we might need for the first night of the move. It helps if you can sleep on clean sheets, and find something to eat with and take a shower after a long day of moving. We hope to help unpack most of the boxes before we leave on the following Monday.

This will be a tough move for BIL. He will be leaving his last memories of his wife in the home they planned and built so carefully together. He said he just can't enjoy the home anymore because he expects to see her when he walks into the door. We think moving into a new place will really help him with his grief and give him a place without all those memories...even though they are precious to him.

After that, we are headed towards Tombstone, AZ. where I am meeting a few Diaryland.com bloggers in person. We will be spending a couple of days in Tombstone and then will be moving on towards Phoenix, Az. to meet with some old friends.

By the way, we plan to go to Rawhide in Chandler, Az.

It's an Old West tourist town. We haven't been there for many years and decided it would be fun to check it out again. And while we are in the area, we are going to find.....

HEART ATTACK GRILL which is also in Chandler.

If you look it up on the Internet, you can see the size of the portions of food and also the costumes that the waitresses wear. I think it will be worth the trip.

One of their specialties is the Quadruple Bypass Burger!!! I don't think we will be purchasing this one...unless we decide to share it....with several of our closest friends....

So anyway, in other news. We have two hummingbirds that are still hanging around. One of them is very young as it's tail feathers are very short. We think the other one is SQUEAKY...the one who was fighting with Hil-DA- GUARD. We haven't seen Hil-DA-GUARD for a few weeks now.

Here's some interesting facts...." female breeding birds leave in September, with the young of the year following; the last juveniles depart abruptly at first frost (mid-October). By mid-November the fall migration is essentially completed throughout North America."

Whenever we go away from home, I always clean the house before we leave. Not more than a good surface cleaning so when we get home, the bed sheets are still fresh, the towels are still clean, the house doesn't have to be picked up....It gives me a few days to get the laundry caught up before I have to start housecleaning again.

I got my account summary from my 401K plan today. OMG....I lost a lot of money in spite of being conservative in my portfolio. It was because of bonds with banks.....but I spoke with my financial person again and he said he does believe that these bonds are going to come back. In fact, he said they are still paying the dividends and I have some that are due November 1st. Hopefully, I will get back some of my money. It's really scary since I know so little about bonds and stocks and have always told my financial advisor that I just wanted secure, steady bonds.... But, as he said, who knew the bottom was going to drop out like that. He also said that September and October have always been bad months for securities but they come back quickly. I hope he is right.

It does make me a bit angry that I worked so hard to save that money. It has never really earned a lot of extra money for me in all these past 5 years but at least it was steady. Now I have less than what I originally put into the portfolio.....I can only hope that once the election is over and once the economy gets a little more stable that I will get some of this back.

Speaking of the election....RH and I voted by absentee ballot on Thursday. We knew we might be out of town and if we got stuck out West due to snow, we might not make it back in time to vote on Election Day. So, we watched 3 of the debates and after last week's debate....we decided we knew who we had to vote for. In our area, the media says that the vote registration is through the roof and that absentee ballots are much, much higher than normal. I KNOW this election is going to be history making....no matter which party wins. I can only pray that whoever wins does the right things for our country. We need to get back our integrity and our trust all over the world.

PLEASE VOTE, YOUR CHOICE COULD MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.

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