21st Century Mom

Whooo Hooo!  I finally upgraded my phone, and here it is!!!  It is fun and exciting to have such amazing technology at my fingertips.  The only complaints I have are 1: it is smarter than me and I have so much to learn on it.  2: the battery is supposed to not hold a charge long, but my experience yesterday was it lasted from the time I had it until I went to bed, and I was playing around on it quite a bit. 
I charged it over night and today will be the test as I'll have it to use and see how long the battery lasts.
I did get a portable charger to use when we travel, so hopefully this will be the solution if that becomes a problem.
The poor girl who sold me the phone was so patient with me.  I really researched long and hard about this, so I knew what I wanted.  She initially didn't realize you could 'text' and 'phone' at the same time.  She understood they had integrated these two systems, but I was the first one who wanted to see it work.   At first she told me that it didn't work that they had this technology integrated, but the phones wouldn't do it, but she turned one on, and tried it, and it worked.  She thanked me for bringing this up, because she didn't realize the Thunderbolt was the phone that used this integration.  Then when we were all set up and I paid and we were trying to get me started, she couldn't stand how slow the 'typing' was for me, and at one point said, 'please, let me do it for you this time.'  Ha, ha, that will be my biggest issue, is typing on this little keyboard.

Jaker Tale

There is always a story with Jake, and today was a funny one.  When I am in Montana City, he gets to walk on almost a daily basis with Dazy, the labradoodle, and two chocolate labs,  females also, Ahni and Kazi (not sure of the spelling).  Dazy was in daycare today while her mom went to Portland for a day, so it was just Jake, and the two girls.  Since they are sisters and have always been together, they usually just play together, although they will 'greet' Dazy and Jake, but that is about the extent of it.  Jake was his usual self, he ran and said 'hi' to them, and then they all went off running in different directions.  When we got finished with the walk, the three dogs were running around A and K's yard, and Ahni loves to play ball.  Well this dog can do the darndest thing, she can throw the ball up a few inches, and then bat it with her foot and chase it by herself.  Of course she resorts to this after all the humans have ignored her.  And when she gets tired of that, she throws it in the air and catches it, repeatedly!! 

Jake kept trying to get one of them to play, and figured a while back that Kazi isn't going to play, and when she does, she bites the other dogs feet so he doesn't play with her.  But he worked on Ahni today, and he even got another ball and ran past her dropping it in front of her making her try and take it from him.  But noooo, she was quite content batting her own ball, thank you very much.  So Jake figures out there is only one way to this girls heart, and he STEALS her ball....

And then the fun began.  This dog can run almost as fast as him when it comes to her ball, and boy did she chase him after that.  They ran, and ran, and ran...and he finally tired out and dropped the ball.  She picked it right up and started running but he was pooped.  He looked at me, and since I didn't move, he started walking home again. 

And they say dogs can't talk.  Home we went.

Thunder!!!

In August of 2009 we had just moved to Piedmont, SD and I experienced my very first 'biker week' during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and the roar that penetrated the Black Hills was amazing. I knew a quilt had to come out of that astounding week.  All though  I love 'tee shirt' quilts and briefly thought about that, an image kept popping into my mind of 'spokes' and 'flames'.  I knew this was the direction I had to take, and began working on a design.  I finished the design and then finally the quilt.  I still have to 'quilt' it and will post pictures later of that process.  The song Motorcycle Mama  popped into my mind frequently, and I thought it was a pretty dated song, she'd now have her own bike, and in my quilt she does.

Dear Jane Quilt

My sisters Alice and Pat and I are eaching making a Dear Jane quilt.  I am making the blue and white, I think Pat is making the same, and Alice I believe is making the original (the multi colored).  It is a 24 month block of the month, and the piecing is pretty small so it will take us a while to work on this.  We are ordering it from Stichin Heaven Quilts where I have had their blocks of the month.  It will be challenging, and fun.  I will blog and keep you posted as we go along.

Jaker Tales

I haven't told a "Jaker Tale" in a while, so I thought I'd share one today. 
The first story is one that I didn't find amusing, and I'm sure neither did my neighbor.  Yesterday after our walk through the woods, we girls stood around 'gabbing' while the dogs played.  And if you ever want to see some dogs play hard, you need to see Jake play with his friend Dazy, a large, fun labradoodle.  She chases him, he chases her, she bites his neck, he bites her back.  And if Dazy doesn't start it, Jake starts with her, they are both energetic, and tumble, roll, bite, run and just have a great time wrestling around.  While they played, we gabbed some more, and missed when Jake took off down the street.  The problem was he ran into a neighbors driveway, (one that we don't know and who has never met Jake), and began barking and jumping in front of this poor woman who was just going out for a run!  He aged her twenty years I am sure.  I apologized but it really can't help when someone is so frightened.  So today I went back with a bag of Park Ave. cookies and an apology note.  Her two little boys were very happy I came to apologize, and she and her husband were as sweet as could be.  Jake now owns a shock collar.


Story, number two: Because Jake jumped over the top of the fence and made a hole in the netting last time I was here, I can't leave the doggie door open for him to go in and out when I leave him.  So I have to keep him locked in the garage with the doggie door closed.  Today I had a doctor appt. and errands, so the big man was alone about 4 hours, and you can imagine my surprise when I came home and found him out in the driveway waiting for me!!  I can only guess the doggie door wasn't 'locked' tight, and he somehow managed to lift it up, and when it fell back down it locked (it was locked when I checked on arriving home).  Either that or he figured out how to open and and close the door to get out.  But I'm betting on the doggie door. 

Tomorrow he goes to the kennel when I go out. 

-Linda

SPRING AND/OR CABIN FEVER

Needless to say, we are ready for Spring, which for us is no snow and highs 50's. So tonight we took the leap of faith , lit up the firepit (thanks Chicky and Steve) and the grill, and ventured out to the patio.  

We grilled very tasty T-bones from our O'Hara beef supply and had a good time. Of course, Jake agreed with us that the T-bones were excusitely flavorful and tender 

New phone, or not...probably not yet

I have waited patiently for the Iphone to come out on Verizon, and it finally did. Here is the  iphone 4, which was amazingly disappointing as it doesn't multitask!!!  I have lived for years with the free phones, or almost free phones and this last phone I've had 2 1/2 years, it is a basic cell phone which can take pictures.  But I want to put a phone a speaker phone and look something up... something I commonly do while on a phone and on the computer. 

It isn't really a 4G, they told me it was just the '4th' iphone so they gave it that number!!

Now Verizon is finally coming out with real 4G this week, called the Thunderbolt and it sounds like it has everything I want, but they want $250 for it!!!!  So it looks like I'll be waiting until they come out with newer phones and for this price to drop.  The geek sights say HTC/Verizon will be coming out with a faster 2 core processor phone (Thunderbolt is still one processor)  in the near future (no date yet) so I'm hoping this lowers the price of the Thunderbolt.  I don't need the speed of a 2 core processing phone, and some reviews say the Thunderbolt will still be better, but either way, I have set a limit on what I will spend on a phone, it it isn't $250. 

So cross your fingers that 'the little red one' hangs in there.  The little buttons are starting to fail, and it has a really week signal.  It has had the battery replaced once, the front broke off once and was replaced and since you can no longer get it on Verizon, I'm hoping it lasts until the 'phone of my dreams' and budget comes out.

Check out this great MSN video: Bear Cub Invades Car

Check out this great MSN video: Bear Cub Invades Car

Silly bear, it should know it is too young to drive!

THAWING OUT IN SOUTH DAKOTA

3 days ago every inch of ground surface was covered with several inches of snow. Persistent temperatures in the high 30's and 40's have quickly melted all but the big piles of snow

Today has been a gorgeous day. We took Jake out for his walk after lunch. Temperature was 40, no wind, blue sky, does not get any better than this!

It has been a while since I last posted, but I'm back in the game! JIR

NEVER TOO OLD TO GRADUATE...AGAIN

On February 14th I graduated from HCLI Members Only, VA's 3 week long national leadership program for senior leaders. This picture was taken in Mount Vernon, Virgina where graduation ceremonies were held. Handing out the graduation plaques was Joe Williams, long-time VA administrator.JIR

A great day with the Chix.

The Chix 'hiked' out at our neighborhood today, more like a walk out here, but we covered 5 miles.  After weeks of cold and snow or some warmth with blasting wind, we had a beautiful 50 degree day filled with sunshine and clear, clear blue skies.  There were 11 of us hiking, but three more joined us for lunch at La Casa Ramirez.  To make sure they could try some good new food, we had tapas of a spinach tortilla, chorizo and manchego cheese and olives.  We followed that with picadillo and rice, and of course dessert was CAKE!!  They had not tasted the wedding cake so after much pleading, I finally made a cake.  But I did have to have a little hiking chick (notice the sun hat and the brown boots), with a little new growth forrest tree, both made from modeling chocolate.  That path the chick is walking on is brown sugar.  This was my first attempt at modeling chocolate, and well... I love the baking, and the frosting/decorating, but I really don't get a big thrill out of making little creatures, so I'll probably not do too much more of them.

I forgot my picture for the hike, but someone else took one picture and I'll post it when she sends it to me. 

Oh, I also had a usb card plugged into the tv, and we had pictures of Cuba and Miami going the whole afternoon, they loved it.