Buckle Up, Buttercup

As I type this, I'm listening to the ice pellets hitting the windows of the house. It's actually sort of soothing.

I got up at six a.m. to check the weather and give a final go/no-go decision on a trip to Joliet, IL (by Chicago). The weather looked questionable but doable, so around 6:30 I gave the thumbs-up for it and went back to bed for 30 minutes. When I got out to the airport, I needed to fuel up the plane because it had just come back from a trip to Minnesota last night. Steve C. had cleaned up the airplane and made it look nice and spiffy last night, and all I had to do was fill it up. It shouldn't have been that complicated. Of course, if it wasn't, I wouldn't be writing about it, would I. ;) The tug wouldn't start. I mean Would Not Start. I huffed and I puffed and I started muttering and when the fuel truck got there, I still couldn't get it going. So I went for the tow bar, which had been removed from the back of the plane and was nowhere to be found in the plane, the baggage compartment, the hangar, etc. Now I'm stuck. So I asked the fuel truck guy to help me push the plane out by hand, which he did semi-willingly. We pushed it back in by hand while I waited for my pilot to arrive so I could keep the heat on it. He gets there, he shoots starter fluid into it, takes the thing apart and shoots starter fluid right into it directly, and it still won't start. So we push the plane out by hand, but we can't turn it, so we just pull it straight out, close the hangar, push the plane back closer to the hangar so we'll have room to turn it around when we start it, and finally we're on our way. A little late, but fortunately it wasn't too big of a deal to him.

The flight was supposed to be questionable. It wasn't. It was windy, but otherwise it was severe clear. Even better, I had a tailwind at 4000' going west, which is unusual, and a tailwind at 9000' coming home to the east. A tailwind both directions on the same day. Beat that. ;)

I landed in time to run to the school and pick up Kaylee, and we went to the grocery store because we are totally out of milk, Diet Cokes and paper towels, and we can't have that, now can we? But this is where the real adventure of the day was. Apparently the storm of the decade is on its way here, dropping up to 15" of snow in 24 hours. I hadn't even heard all this yet, until I walked into the grocery store, and there was not one shopping cart available. Not one. We stood there in the empty cart area and waited for someone to come back with one. I'm shopping along, stocking up on things, and the store is out of milk. They have whole milk and organic milk, but nothing else--the shelves are bare. The bread shelves are bare. The whole store has been picked clean. I went to check out, and, well, this is only part of what I saw:
The line stretched from one end of the store to the other end of the store, with people backed up down the aisles as well. I'd seen the aisles thing, but I'd never seen such a string of people that covered the whole store like that. It HAD to be NOW that I was out of milk, Diet Coke and paper towels, didn't it! Good grief. We were there for a good hour.

It wasn't until I got home that I saw the weather channel and saw exactly how bad this upcoming storm was supposed to be. This was why the entire city was out shopping for food and at the gas stations. Impressive.

Kaylee was given an entire packet of homework, twenty pages worth, because the school is pretty much assuming that nobody is going to be going for the next couple of days. In fact, as I was typing this, I got an "alert" that Kaylee's school is closed tomorrow. Obviously flying isn't going to happen either. I do have end of month billing to do, something I CAN do in the middle of a winter storm. Speaking of storm, they were talking about some places getting "snow thunder". Now that I want to see/hear. How cool.

We're getting ready to watch "Harry's Law" after a bit here. I do really like Kathy Bates, and I enjoy the humor and sarcasm and such of the show. She's hysterical. But last week an old lady took a loaded gun to the head of an innocent store owner and robbed him of all the cash he had, and got a "not guilty" verdict because she was old and hungry. I'm sorry, but that does not give her the right to do what she did to another person, and if the show is going to turn all bleeding heart liberal, I'm not going to be able to enjoy it. Give her probation for mercy for her age as her sentence and give her another shot. I'm okay with that. But "not guilty"? Of course she was guilty. She did it, said she did it, there was video of her doing it, and she had no apology for it. In fact, she "deserved" that money because of what the government did to her all these years, supposedly. Ugh. Be real here, don't cram the "I am a victim so I shouldn't be accountable or responsible for anything bad I do" crud down my throat, and I'll continue to enjoy the show. :)

Well, we are bunking down, we have food, we have drinks, we have family, we have heat, and entertainment, and we are as ready for the storm as we can be. Might as well enjoy it!

Weekend Warmth

Friday was a really busy day. By noon I'd been to the mall, four stores, gotten some things wrapped up, gotten food for our Friday lunch (twice), gotten the entire house ready to be gone for the weekend, gotten the cat stuff ready to go, got the bags packed and then put into the car, and made the errand run. After lunch we ran around a bit more, got some things done, picked up Kaylee from school, then took off in the Baron to Missouri for a very tardy trip.

It has been so cloudy, overcast, IFR and nasty around here, that I was delighted to climb up to 10,000', get on top of the cloud deck, and bask in a little bit of sunshine. It was in our faces all the way there, and I just let it shine on me quite
happily. Steve napped in the back seat while Kaylee played with the XM music and played hand shadow puppets and had fun. We were in the sun from the time we broke out on top of the clouds, all weekend long, until we descended out of the blue back into the overcast cloud layer over Kokomo again to come home. It was 55 degrees, warm, bright blue skies and sunny, and man was that nice...

Saturday we went to some local attractions, it was such a nice day that we went to the Conservatory, which Kaylee had been to and liked, we went to Cape Rock, to a place where there was a battleground, to the courthouse, we went to Fort D, and we went for a mile long hike back in the woods. That hike wasn't just a mile long walk, which I can do without a hitch, but it was up some pretty steep grades a couple of times, which after a giant Mexican lunch was a little rough; but it was still a beautiful day to be out and about. Really, 55 degrees and clear skies is really hard to beat, particularly since we are looking at another nasty ice storm around here over the next couple of days.

Sunday after lunch we hopped back in the Baron and flew on home. We were in clear skies right until we hit about Indianapolis, and then an overcast layer moved in underneath us. We were welcomed back to Indiana by more clouds, of course. ;) I had another controller send me to the next guy and say "see ya, Laura", which is always a slightly strange feeling. Steve wasn't feeling well at all, so I put the Baron away and got all the bags unloaded and loaded into the Jeep and closed everything up, and finally we were on our way home, where a couple of kitties were really happy to see us.

I got pictures up on Kaylee's site, and Kaylee did a great job doing her homework, chores, unpacking, and getting ready for the upcoming week.

It's good to be home.

Why Can't I Post?

I have now written two blog posts that ended up lost in the blue space of the universe, and not only do I not feel like writing it out for the third time, I'm doggone irritated about it, too! So yes, I'll copy/paste this this time instead of just assuming it'll work like it always has until now.

So, for the last time, yesterday I took a student up out of Glenndale in KS for 1.1 just to get him up in the air. He's been trying for weeks now, and the weather has just not cooperated. It didn't cooperate yesterday either, but I had enough, so I went ahead and took him anyway. So there. ;) That flight made me late to pick up Kaylee from school, so I got her out of after care and ran her to Target so she could get some pants and a new pair of shoes that she needed. I got her home and fed in time to go back out to Glenndale where Justin fixed a couple programs on my shiny new laptop (yay), which are now working fine. From there I got some pictures up on Kaylee's site from her birthday. I don't have a ton of photos of her and the girls. They're at that age where they sort of want their picture taken, but it's not really as cool for Mom to take pictures, so I tried to get a few of them all without doing the overkill I usually do. ;)

I'm actually starting to get a little twitchy over here. I was talking to Ty today, and he said all this gray was starting to get to him, and he wanted to take a flight and break out on top and get some sun, and was annoyed because his flight tomorrow was going to stick him in between layers and he STILL wasn't going to see much sun. I feel the same way. I'm supposed to head south tomorrow afternoon on a flight, if the weather will let me, so I guess I'll see if I can get out of the gloom for a bit too. But I'm not sure the Baron straight and level in IFR is going to scratch the itch I have. We were talking about the Mustang low and fast at lunch, and that didn't help...

Jet Sledding

I had a whole post done yesterday that got eaten somehow, and now I don't feel like retyping it. But in the meantime, here is a jet sledding video. And I thought tubing behind Dewayne's pick-up truck on the back roads in college was fast and fun...that was obviously amateur hour. :)

Numbers

Yesterday morning, I wondered if I finally had lost my mind. I woke up with a fairly nasty headache; got Kaylee ready for school anyway, fixed and packed her lunch, filled up her water bottle, got her backpack ready to go, set it by the front door, then crawled back in bed in an attempt to kick the headache while Steve drove her to school. Sometime around 11 a.m., with the headache successfully removed, I went to the fridge to grab a water, and sitting on the top shelf was Kaylee's lunch bag. I gasped, looked at the clock, and realized that no way could I get showered, changed, and all the way to her school by 11:30, which is her lunch time. And there is no way I'm walking into that school unshowered and all messed up from the morning, either. Then I stopped and thought "WAIT a minute, I KNOW I packed that in her backpack." I had a clear visual image of me fitting it in there with her water bottle. So did I take it back out in some headache-induced haze? Did I hallucinate putting it in there in the first place? That really messed with me. Plus I felt really bad. Here it is Monday, and she's not going to have snack or lunch. Come to find out, she took it out herself because it was Hot Lunch Monday and she wanted to do that instead...and I wasn't losing my mind after all. Yet. Whew.

I had a four-way conference call for the SMA Coalition last night, and have another one tonight with about 20 people invited from various SMA organizations. We're embarking on a fairly aggressive endeavor here, and tonight is the jumping off place where we include everyone who is interested in "playing well with others", laying out the plan on providing one place to impart information on all the organizations, what they are doing, one unified group towards political pushes for research funding, etc. We'll see how it goes.

So I just got the Suburban back from the repair shop, and left the Jeep there to get a few things fixed. Yesterday I go to exit the Oldsmobile, and something broke in the handle inside, and I had to roll down my window, stick my arm out and open my door from the outside. So today I drove the Oldsmobile back to the repair shop and picked up the Jeep, which still isn't fully fixed, but at least I can get out of the door. Ah, it's good to have more than one vehicle at your disposal so you can rotate them in and out as they get something worked on. :)

Yesterday I was supposed to have a flight to Ohio. It didn't happen thanks to pretty good icing and IFR at the destination that was right at the minimums. Today I was supposed to have three student flights, none of which happened thanks to IFR that hung around all day long, contrary to original forecasts. Tomorrow is supposed to be okay...but this IFR is still hanging on, so I'm kind of wondering how the morning is really going to be. The winter really cracked down these last several weeks. Before, it was cold but at least you could go. These last several weeks now it's just been cruddy! Hopefully we'll get a break on it soon...

Three more children with SMA passed away today. One, a 3-month old named Violet, Cara, 8 months old, and the third a 13-year-old girl named Katie that I've known from afar for as long as I've been in the SMA community. She has a sister with SMA who is feeling very alone right now. This is the fourth child with SMA who has died THIS WEEK. I know of Eight children who have died so far in the month of January. The community is hurting. It doesn't get easier, and I don't suppose it should.

Tonight, instead of listening to the State of the Union address, we are watching "Red". A much better use of our time, since the pundants will be rehashing every facial expression, every word choice, and every hidden meaning for the next two days anyway!

Well, time to go chat on the phone with lots of people all at once. One of my all-time favorite things to do... ;)

Growing

As Kaylee gets older, it gets a little more difficult to know what stories I should and shouldn't post, for her comfort level, but I know the family who reads this blog appreciate hearing the stories, and for now she puts up with it, so...

At Kaylee's birthday dinner, all five girls sat at one table, while the grown-ups sat at another (right next to it). The girls were autonomous in providing drink orders and menu orders, in dealing with the waitress, in making decisions, etc. They were all relegated to the kids' menu, because I wanted to keep it simple. But they didn't choose the ole mac & cheese, hot dog, burgers, or whatever. Nope, every single one of the girls got steak. Steak, baked potato, veggies, etc. Some wanted their steak "bloody", some wanted it "well done", but they all got steak, many of them enjoying being mature pre-pre-teens, several of them even spending a fair amount of time on their cell phones, passing messages to each other, showing each other photos and clips and how to do this or that. I sent Kaylee a text that said "PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY". ;) When the food came, we looked over, and saw that the mature young ladies who had ordered steak were unable to cut the steak by themselves. They were trying, they didn't want to ask for help, but they couldn't quite manage it. So I went over and asked if I could help; Kaylee caved first and let me cut hers, so another young lady let me cut hers as well, and then a third, and then the waitress came over and said "let me help with the rest of them so you can go eat." She got herself a very good tip for that alone. :)

Kaylee's friend Maggie was sick, much to both her and Kaylee's dismay, so Kaylee invited another friend to spend the night with her on a birthday sleepover. This friend really wanted to, but had never spent the night away from home before, and was a little nervous. I told the Mom that no matter what time, if the young lady wanted to go home, I would take her home, no trying to talk her into staying, and no problem, that Kaylee would enjoy whatever time she had with her. She made it until just after midnight, and then she decided she really wanted to be home, but she still wanted to have a sleepover with Kaylee. Her parents said it was fine with them if it was fine with us, so around 12:30 I drove both girls over and dropped them off. Kaylee attended church with the family, then went to lunch, and then called to ask me if she could pretty pretty pretty please attend a party they were going to. I originally said no, and then the other parents said that there were no girls there their daughter's age, that Kaylee would be a nice playmate for her during the party, and that the hosts were completely fine with an additional guest, so I said okay. She's still gone, hasn't been home all day, and I haven't heard from her other than the request to stay. One thing you can say about Kaylee--she is independent! I can't blame her, I was the same way as a kid whenever I'd go off on adventures. I don't ever remember calling my mom when I spent the night at a friends' house, or went to camp, or whatever. :) I'm okay with that. I'd be okay either way. It's our job to raise our kids to be able to function on their own at whatever point is appropriate for their personality, right? You guide them as best you can and then they have to take steps on their own, and you try to keep guiding from there...and pray for guidance and for them to make wiser decisions than they really know how to make yet. :O I have a daughter in the double digits! How weird is that?!

Kaylee got a disco ball from her Grandma & Grandpa Chiles, which came in the mail yesterday (perfect timing), and she, in true Kaylee fashion, fell backwards when she saw it and said "I think I just fainted". No lack of drama in this girl, either. ;) She loves it, and Steve set it up in her room, where she and her friend had it running non-stop until the friend needed to go home. Even then Kaylee begged to take it with her. Arriving at their house at 1 a.m., I didn't think a disco ball would go over well, so to her dismay, I said no. But I'm sure there are many hours of disco ball dancing to come. ;)

I woke up to an empty house. Steve had a flight this morning, Kaylee'd had a sleepover, and Roadie was lonely and sleeping on my pillow above my head. I wandered out of bed around 8:30, which felt downright luxurious, had a little breakfast, then laid down on the couch with a new Koontz book and a drink. Later I watched the NFL playoff games, lit a candle, had a drink, fired up my new laptop, and didn't do much of anything productive but a little clean-up. I kind of needed that day to relax. Fortunately Kaylee's birthday celebrations went off well, she had a great time, and now I can think about what is next on the agenda. After a day of rest. :)

Ten years ago, less than an hour from now, Kaylee was born. Happy Birthday, hon!

Birthday Shenanigans

Steve was making fun of me because I woke up early, hit the ground running, and kept on going like the Energizer Bunny. (Er, I'm not usually an active morning person.) But what happened was that I woke up at 6 something a.m. with the timeline of the day running through my mind, I knew I had a lot to do and a limited amount of time to do it, so I just gave up, got up, and hit it.

I ended up running to a celebration place to pick up some balloons and matching plates, dropped off and picked up some mail at the post office, went and got Kaylee's birthday cake (and had to pick up a giant handmade turtle while I was there, which was, let's face it, killer good), dropped everything back off at home and grabbed the kid, took her to Wal-Mart to pick out the two Barbies I'd promised her, got home in time to wrap up a present, print out the Texas Roadhouse menu to determine what we should do with everyone there, get the kid ready, and head out to the movie theater. I pre-bought the tickets for everyone, then as they came in Kaylee would give them their ticket, and the kids hung out in the play area. I gave everyone some tokens so they could play air hockey and dance revolution and driving games and stuff until the movie was close to starting, bought drinks and snacks for everyone, and off we went to see the "Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader". The girls all sat in the back row, and myself and another mom who wanted to see the movie sat a bit away from them. The movie didn't get great reviews, but I thought it was good. If you know anything about the Narnia books and understand the Christian correlation behind them, you can talk to you kids about that so they get the bigger picture, which was what I did with Kaylee. I was a little worried about the violent nature of one of the scenes (it was a sea monster attacking the boat, though nobody was hurt, it was just loud, big, dark and scary), but the girls are 10 now and I think they blew that off pretty well, especially having Group Courage. You know how that goes, don't you? ;)

When the movie ended I packed them all up in the Suburban and went over to Texas Roadhouse. You know why Kaylee picked Texas Roadhouse? Because they'd bring a saddle over to your table, yell a lot, loudly, and do a giant happy birthday thing, and she wanted it all. Craziness. But the biggest craziness was that while we got there right on time, that place was Booked Up! Who eats at 3:45 p.m.?? Apparently the city of Kokomo, that's who! It was almost 4:30 before we even got our food, and that's when I'd told people to come get their kids. So almost all the kids had cellphones with them, and they all shot off messages to their moms telling them to give 'em another 30 minutes. Funny, technology today! The girls all got steaks, and afterward I broke out the guitar cake, which Kaylee thought was "awesome", she got her birthday salute from the restaurant, we opened gifts, and the parents came. The last dad came at almost 6 p.m., and finally we were on our way home, with an overnight guest, who is currently in the other room playing Barbies contentedly.

I've got some pictures to put up, but I have to wait until my new laptop is done with working FrontPage on it. I could put them here, but this is a public page even if nobody (almost) knows about it, so with five other girls involved I'd rather put the pics on Kaylee's password protected site...

She had a wonderful time, a great birthday, all the kids were wound up and had a lot of fun. And now that early morning has caught up to me, and the busy day, and the bit of tension hoping everything goes off smoothly, and I'm about ready for that nap. Oh wait, I have a guest. I can sleep tomorrow, right? ;)

Frigid

I can't think of any other title to fully express today than that. It. Was. Frigid. When I woke up this morning to see if Kaylee had any school delays, I saw that there was currently a windchill of -11. Yeah, eleven degrees below zero. But the sky was blue, so it was time to try to go fly--if we could get the planes out and if we could get them started. The "out" ended up not being a problem. The snow was loose enough and it wasn't overly icy, so traction was no problem, and it hadn't piled up in front of the door, either. The "started" wasn't a problem for Steve in the RG with the plug-in tanis heater. For the 172 I was in with just a tube trying to shoot warm air up into the engine from the bottom, well, it was a little less happy with the cold. I had to talk sweetly to it and keep it running with the prime (delicately) for a little while. Kind of hard on an airplane. But we went out, did a few maneuvers, then came in for some crosswind takeoffs and landings. Landing number two, after we touched down, I felt a rapid deceleration, and said "No need to get on the brakes here", and while I was talking, the plane slewed off to the left and started shimmying, and I interrupted myself and said "You're not on the brakes, are you." He said "No, I'm not!" I said "We have a flat tire." It wasn't mine or we'd have pulled right, not left, so I asked about his, and he said his main was fine too. I said "Leave it running. I'm going to get out and walk to the side and look at the nosewheel. I will not walk near the prop, and don't move anything." Sure enough...
As Chuck said though, it's only flat on the bottom. ;)

We sat in the very cold plane in the subzero windchill temps and waited for the posse to arrive. The airport guys had to officially close the runway until the plane was gone, so I've now closed a runway twice in two years due to flat tires. I got a ride in a snow plow when one of the airport guys had mercy on us and drove us back up the mile plus to the terminal area. Jon had the tire fixed before my 2:30 flight, and we were back in business.

But it was still really cold. Face burning, hands icy even in gloves, I actually zipped up my coat and wore long johns kind of cold. Another hour of flying plus an hour of ground and it was time to do a little vehicle swapping, then finally home around 5 or so. It took me a couple of hours to really feel warm, and I'm wiped out, too. I'll bet that poor plane was happy to be put away in the hangar with a blanket on its cowling and a heater up its engine compartment, too.

I told Steve, I know days like these are the dues you pay to have the more fun, nicer days, and that as tempting as a normal job sounded while I was sitting out on a frozen runway waiting for a ride back, since I'd have succumbed to hypothermia if I'd tried to walk a mile in those temps, there are many more days where I'll be glad to not have normal. :)

This morning I stopped by the store and we picked up some cupcakes for Kaylee's class for her birthday. She had lots of choices, but she ended up picking an NFL goalpost made out of cupcakes with a Colts emblem on it. Right next to it was a butterfly cupcake cake thingy, and she wanted nothing to do with it. Nope, she had to have the football one. So we got the football cupcake thing. She's definitely her own girl. :)

My shiny new laptop is here, and I got it out of the box and charging when I got home from my last flight. It is slowly being set up, and Kaylee is sufficiently jealous, because until now SHE had the best computer in the house. Hopefully it'll be up and running soon, but we have things to do this weekend. It's a birthday weekend, you know!

Lukewarm, Cold, Warm and Hot

I'm not perfectly satisfied with this background blog photo, considering it's looking out of a back seat window on an airliner and I'm only fond of a few backseats and none of them are airliners; but after some searching through photos of my own, I have yet to find a good one that doesn't have something important framed in the middle of the shot right where the writing would cover it up. So, I'll leave this for now, and keep my eye out for something better down the road. :)

There was much whining and complaining this morning when we found out there was no school delay. Kaylee wasn't happy either. We did, however, get a decent amount of snow by the end of today, enough to make the whole world white again. People on the news are saying things like "Snow Fatigue" and how much snow we've had so far this winter, and how they are getting sick of snow. I don't mind snow, actually. It's cold and dreary I don't like. I did have to kind of laugh though. "Snow Fatigue"? Is that an official diagnosis too now? I wonder if it's medically disqualifying. It might be for me, because I'm all "fatigued" of winter about a week after it starts...long term exposure to Snow Fatigue could be hazardous to your health...hmmm.

We combated our own snow fatigue with an EAA chapter meeting tonight with homemade chili (I brought my own colby-jack cheese chunks to melt in there) and talking about putting skis on planes, how to operate them, etc. We've got a set of skis that a fellow loaned to us for the J-3 Cub; they arrived tonight so we checked them out and started in with nefarious plotting. We just need to get the attaching brackets, a couple bolts, maybe a special set of wheels, and...go for it. Now that should be fun. Heh heh. How hard can it be? ;) We also really started hitting Oshkosh plans, believe it or not, convincing AE to get a bigger trailer and coming up with automated beverage dispensers, an observation platform, etc. It was a nice warm evening--indoors, anyway!

Speaking of fun, I got notification today that I have a laptop on its way to my door, supposedly tomorrow. A new, shiny, non-glued-together, screen-all-working, non-overheating laptop. I guess I'll have to miss out on having it melt down, literally, on my lap after all. ;) But that was a little heart-warming as well!

And...last but not least, the below does a nice job of bringing the heat. I could even skip the visual, it's the sound. Spitfires and Mustangs are hard to beat for the "baddest" sounding single-engine birds out there....



Whew!

Addendum

A beautiful girl I've known since she was a baby, named Kaitlyn, died today, three months shy of 9 years old. I'd just posted her pictures on the SMA Christmas Gift Exchange page...she had been ill off and on for a month, but was doing better, responding to antibiotics, things were looking up, and then she was gone. My heart goes out to her family, her mom Hali, her 12 year old brother Liam...

On a lighter note, on the way home from Awanas tonight, Kaylee told me that when she grows up she would like to be either an actress or a Congresswoman. I laughed and said "Well, hon, they're pretty much the same thing!" Of course then I had to explain that. Don't panic. I'm not thinking that one will stick.

Yin Yang

Okay, so not every day can be golden, right? ;)

Kaylee came crawling in bed this morning really early, whispering "Our school is on a 2-hour delay." Me, fuzzy and tired and slightly irritated, said "No it isn't." The weather wasn't supposed to move in until tonight, right? Besides, how would she know? "My friend from school texted me at 6 a.m. that there was a school delay." I pulled out my phone, looked for an alert text, had none, and said "your friend was messing with you, and what is she doing texting you at 6 a.m.?!?!" Kaylee's phone woke her up because she hadn't shut it off before bed. Nice. Anyway, we get up, we get ready, I'm coming out of the shower and Steve yells through the door "You know you guys are on a 2-hour delay, don't you?" I look at my phone, STILL no text, but it does show up on the website. *sigh* Kaylee goes back to her room and reads after a loud "I TOLD YOU SO!", while I just stayed up and did stuff.

It's time to get going to get to school, so I hunt for my keys, and they are not hanging on the key hook. I grab my coat-and they're not in the pocket. I look in my purse, and they aren't there, either. And then I remember that the last time I left the Jeep, it was only going to be sitting there for 15 minutes before I went back to pick Kaylee up from guitar...but Steve ended up picking her up, so when he came in, I asked him to grab my purse and lock up the Jeep. You know it's progressing badly when I'm now getting OTHER people to lock my keys in my car for me! ;) Sooooo, Steve had to race home to let me into the Jeep so I could get Kaylee to school 10 minutes late after her 2 hour delay.

According to Dr. Oz, that crease in my earlobe means that I'm at a high risk for heart disease. As in a 33% risk increase over "normal". I'm not sure why a crease in my earlobe would indicate that, and neither is anyone else, but supposedly it is a sign. On the other hand, I do not show the facial signs for low Vitamin B, high cholesterol, or undiagnosed allergies. I learned all that in the ten minutes before I picked Kaylee up from school. I have to tell you though, I'm glad I don't usually watch Dr. Oz (or any other daytime tv for that matter), because in looking up that 33% statistic for this blog entry, I saw another Oz show on "7 Deadly Symptoms Never to Ignore", and one of them was about brain aneurysms, and it said if you get a headache pain above or behind one eye, to seek help immediately. Well, ANY time I get a bad headache, that's exactly where it is, above or behind my right eye. My brain hasn't actually exploded in all these years, so I'm guessing it'll be okay. But you could end up a real hypochondriac if you spent much time reading up on all the things that every pain could be!

The weather last night/this morning slicked out the runway and taxiways, killing off the flights for the morning. The one flight I'm probably going to be able to make? The night flight. The nice, cold, dark, long night flight. Perfect! ;)

Kaylee asked me today if I thought it might be at all possible to maybe, possibly get a movie ticket to another movie and let the girls go see the Narnia movie on their own, a question a couple of the girls in her class asked her. Actually, they asked her if I'd just drop them off and let them go alone, and she said "no way". And she didn't think I'd want to just sit in the lobby and wait for them, so she thought I might enjoy going to see a different movie while they saw theirs, and it would be fun for me and for them! Heh. I told her that I was responsible for everyone going to that movie, none of them over the age of 10, and that the chances of me not sitting in there were somewhere between zero to none, but that I might consider sitting in a different part of the theater so they could have some pretend autonomy. And so it begins. ;)

Well, if nothing else I still got a lot done today, had fun at lunch today, and we've been talking about some things we'd like to accomplish this coming year outside of just flying stuff, and I kind of look forward to making some of those things happen too. You have to have stuff to look forward to, right? If you don't think about it and don't make some plans, life just shoots right past you while you're busy doing dishes and pattern work...

Golden Girl

No, not "thank you for being a friend" ala old-lady Golden Girl, but "everything I did worked out well today" Golden Girl. In fact, the Army slogan of "I do more by breakfast than most people do all day" popped into my head. :)

Two friends in a row set my path towards the same local cake place that could do a guitar, so on my way home from dropping Kaylee off at school, I looked them up on my Droid, hit the phone number, and by the time I was home 10 minutes later, I had a guitar cake on order to be ready Saturday. Anybody who doesn't love technology is missing out on how handy it is to multi-task! I was kind of excited that it worked out-sometimes it can be hard to get a specialty cake done in four days. :)

I ended up running several errands and making several phone calls, and got it all done so that I hit Wendy's at 11:45 and pulled into the airport at noon on the dot to bring everybody lunch. Oh, and Wendy's was pretty darned impressive too. I show up there with an order with seven sandwiches, most of them different, among other items, and they had it ready by the time I paid and got to the window-and they were right. I told the guy at the window that I was impressed.

After lunch I hit the next round of errands, and ended up done exactly in time to go pick up Kaylee from school, get her homework done, get her chores done, her guitar practice, then her guitar lesson, home in time to make up some dinner, billing, and get a bit more work done, and it was really a super productive and beneficial day that was pretty much non-stop. Tomorrow looks non-stop from a flying point of view, since I'm scheduled from 9 a.m. through to 9 p.m. with a break for lunch and a break to pick up the girl and take her to Awanas. This isn't a bad thing though, considering we're looking at another snow dump of around 5" starting late Wednesday through to Thursday, so Thursday and Friday will probably be toast for work anyway.

In the mail today I got a nice hat and bookmark from the WASP Museum up in Kalamazoo, sent by Mr. S. as a thank you for my participation in the flyover for Ms. Parish's memorial service, which was sweet. Also in the mail, Kaylee's present from Aunt Cathy & Uncle Lon arrived today, so she was jumping up and down to get to play a new DS game. She was also super excited to hand out her birthday invitations to the girls in her class, and was also excited to learn she got to have a friend for an overnight playdate coming up here. So Miss Kay has had a pretty good day herself. Meanwhile, Steve got a lot accomplished too in his own circuit of productivity. This family ruled, today anyway. ;)

I Love This...

• "Harry's Law". I love Kathy Bates, and she certainly nails it as a smart aleck, tough, feisty, blunt, mouthy lawyer. When she said "Ooookay, I'm not a hugger", I started laughing. If I didn't want to be a nice person too, I would want to be her when I grow up...only without that whole defense lawyer thing. ;)
  
• Kaylee's day spent with a friend went really well, she had a blast, and when she came home, she said "K just gets me! She's so much like me! We played with dolls, and you and Grandma always ask me why I have to put 'evil' into the game all the time, and K started right off and said 'let's make these two have evil parents', and I was so happy!" What?? Every story has to have an antagonist to make it interesting, right? ;) Anyway, a new friendship strengthened today, and that's always fun.
• This is a serious one, but Stephanie and her family got to be with Wilma one last time, gave her a hand squeeze for me, and Wilma passed away shortly thereafter. Loved ones got to say goodbye, and Wilma passed quickly and as comfortably as possible, and is now with her husband and many other loved ones, at peace.
  
• Steve is almost back to himself, and was well enough to go fly today. The weather was supposed to be terrible today, but it held out enough for both Steve and I to fly. For me, I took up a guy on his first official flight lesson, which he really enjoyed, which meant I enjoyed too.
• Kaylee's birthday is this weekend, and she decided she would like to go to a movie and eat at Texas Roadhouse afterward, with just a few girls from her class and her airport friends. It's a last-minute decision, but at least I know a couple of the girls can make it, and I think she's going to have fun. I just have to find a guitar-shaped cake asap. ;)
  
• This article came out, and actually made me sniffle a little bit. I think the word "hero" is way too strong for a pilot who just delayed a flight by 12 minutes, but I still thought the story was great. I really felt for the grandpa, the TSA and security goons along the way who just ignored him made me so angry, the pilot DID face getting in trouble for possibly causing delays and customer unhappiness on the other end, and the part where the pilot meets the grandfather at the gate and says something like "The plane isn't going anywhere without me, and I'm not going anywhere without you" almost made me cheer. The fact that Southwest backed his play made me like them even more, too. What do you know, there IS human decency in the airlines, Virginia!

Joy and Sorrow

Joy: Steve is finally feeling better today! He can eat normal food, has started piddling around the house, and is currently harassing Kaylee in her room. He's still a little weak and not quite himself, but the fever is gone and he's finally turning the corner.

Joy: Today Kaylee was invited over to a friend's house for tomorrow for the first time, to make cookies and hang out for a couple of hours. She's very excited. :)

Joy: The Patriots Lost. They ate it, bad, and that brought me such a fun couple of hours, watching them go down in flames. I could not be more pleased.

Joy: Kaylee made more "snowcream", which she likes a lot and it only has whatever calories that are in vanilla and a cup of milk. Splenda and snow simply don't make for heavy caloric intake, but she loves it, and that works for me.

Joy: It was a nice family day.

Sorrow: I learned tonight that a woman I've known since I was a young teen is in the hospital with a severe head injury from a fall, and she isn't going to make it. Her name is Wilma, and she is very close to my best friend's family. The few times I made it back there, I was always happy to see her, too, and her me. She is an amazing woman, who has such a sweet spirit and a giving heart. She's a very Godly woman, and while Heaven may be a better place with her, this world won't be a better place without her. My prayers go with her family right now as they can only wait for her to leave this earth. Godspeed, Wilma. I know she was getting tired, and has family and friends in Heaven waiting for her...

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeepy

I think my body's catching up on a few zzz's itself. I slept a lot yesterday, slept in late this morning, took a nap this afternoon, and am still a little sleepy. Since I don't have any lessons, and Steve is still sick, we're just taking it easy over here for a few days. He tried to make it out and about yesterday and didn't get past the car door before coming back in and crashing. He wanted to go out with us today, decided to stay home and work on some things instead, and when I got home, he hadn't quite made that, either. I think he's doing a bit bitter, just really sapped on energy.

Kaylee and I ventured out once today, to go to Gwenie's birthday celebration at Chuck E Cheese. I know Dale was going to be there sometime today for a party too, but it wasn't between 12:30-3:00. :) The kids all had a good time, most of the adults played "Angry Birds" on either iPads or iPhones and sat around and chatted, coins were spent, food was consumed, presents and cake were distributed, and Happy Birthday to Gwenie. :)

Quick and Dirty

A student on a (successfully completed) long Cross-country flight, who called me "Mom" when he texted in to tell me he'd landed at each various airport, errands, lunch at Glenndale, meeting with a brand new student for the first time, picking up Kaylee at school, lots more errands, work at home, and sleepy and hopefully not getting sick myself. The End. ;)

It'Snow Joke

I ended up getting in two flights today after all. I got out to Kokomo, and the snow was drifted up pretty high over the hangars. I grabbed the shovel, and then flat out just didn't feel like it. So I texted the student I was going to have, and told him that if he was willing to shovel, we could go fly. He was more than happy to do that--he would fly every day if he could. :) Steve C. got it started for him, then he came out and finished up the job, pretty quickly, too. We took off and headed to Muncie to do tower controlled field work, but when we got there, Muncie informed us that "braking action was poor" (Which was not in a NOTAM, by the way), and asked if we still wanted to land or not. Sure, why not. Kokomo's runway was good, maybe this one really was too. And if not, it's a long runway. We don't need no stinking braking action. ;) There was a 60 degree crosswind, which thankfully wasn't very high, about 10 knots, but it was still enough that when we touched down straight, we were fine, but when he started to let out the crosswind correction, the plane got crooked, and we started sliding. Got it covered, but that was an obvious ix-nay on the solo take offs and landings that were planned next, so we did a few other things elsewhere.

We landed in time to go to lunch, after which I came back out for the second flight of the day. This time it was just to be pattern work, but he was kind of bored at Kokomo, so we went over to Marion, which was still pretty snow-covered, though winds were straight down the runway this time. We did two landings there, then I called a halt to that in the interests of a better and less slippery runway back home after an overly-aggressive rudder input on takeoff caused another venture down the not-so-straight-and-narrow path which required a little fancy footwork; so we went on and did some VOR tracking and takeoffs and landings back on the non-slippery home turf.

I landed from that in time to pick up Kaylee late from school, get her started on her after-school stuff, fix dinner, work on some laundry, and all that good stuff. For dessert Kaylee and I made "Snowcream", which is, naturally, ice cream made from fresh snow. Non-yellow snow, milk, vanilla, sugar, mix and serve!

Michelin Woman in Four Layers calf-deep in snow. (Yes, I have gloves I wore too.)
Ah, Winter, How I Love Thee. ;)

House of Ill Repute (Or Just "Ill")

I had to get up and look anyway, even though I knew we'd have to be on a school delay, and we were, so I crawled back in bed. And boy was that nice! About an hour later I got a text--from Kaylee, saying "School Delay! Woo Hoo!!!!" :)

Actually, the roads were better today than they were yesterday, except when I went out to the airport to bring lunch to Nathan, Jon & Steve C...

Steve is still pretty sick. Feverish, now his lungs are filling up, chills and joint/muscle aches still, not hungry, etc. A pneumonia wouldn't be out of the question I guess, or a death virus. Yes, I'm keeping a distant eye on him, so I know if I need to drag him in for some antibiotics. He hasn't been eating much, so he finally got hungry this evening, and I asked him what he'd like to eat. He said "Pot roast and mashed potatoes sounds really good." I said "How about tater tots and leftover ham?" He sighed and said "I want my Mommy." ;) I ended up making the leftover ham, some au gratin potatoes, and some mac and cheese... I am afraid that of the talents I do possess, whipping out a pot roast and mashed potatoes just isn't among them. *sigh*

Awanas was canceled tonight too due to the weather (wusses). The hangars are all drifted over, the weather does not look good for the next week, and it looks like our good flying streak has been halted for a bit here..

1/11/11

And the snow fell down...

School was not delayed today, which really irritated Kaylee when I went to wake her up this morning. Of course it irritated me, too, considering I'd woken up at 3 a.m. and was awake the rest of the night. I didn't really get sleepy until about 6:45 a.m., at which point it was close to starting the day time. Fortunately the weather precluded any flying anyway.

Steve woke up feeling a little better, did a little work from home, and then crashed again this evening with the chills, joint aches, fever, headache.

I was working on something when I got an email in stating that Kaylee's school was going to be let out early, at 1 p.m. This was sent through at 12:33 p.m. You know, some folks work, or aren't by a TV or computer all day. I saw it, but I had 15 minutes to get ready to head out the door to get her. Mmmm.

The roads weren't too bad for normal cars, but I quickly went around a sports car that kept fishtailing in front of me, and once I was sitting at a stoplight when a glance in my rearview mirror showed a red pickup truck at a 45 degree angle to the road sliding right towards me. He slid himself off the road and into a gas station parking lot prior to hitting anybody. But yikes. Kaylee and I were laughing watching a police car right in front of us who kept gunning it and sliding around on purpose. The Jeep, again, did just fine.

I went out and got "The A-Team" from Redbox today. The only problem is, like with other remakes, if you really spent a lot of time with the weekly TV show, then it's hard to get into new characters. Nobody beats the real Hannibal Smith, or Murdoch either. Face didn't do bad though. Anyway, it had its moments and it was a nice blast from the past. Now they just need to do Airwolf. ;)

Chuck brought over the new "Warbird Digest" magazine. In it was a giant picture of Nathan in the Mustang, up close and personal, and it was one of the photos taken up at Oshkosh on that photo shoot. We haven't seen any of those photos yet, so that was kind of cool to see that one. There was also an article in there about the gents from "Ain't Misbehavin'", the P-51 from Alabama that I got to do the photo shoot with down at Indianapolis Exec airport. There were lots of pictures in the article, and I thought it was pretty neat to see more of the pics taken, in print. I even got my name in there twice on sidebars under photos. One says "Here pilot Wes Stowers tucks in tight with the photo plane, a T-6 owned by Nathan Davis and flown by Laura Stants." The second one says "Wes Stowers and Jesse Frey allow a few more photos before peeling away from the photo plane piloted by Laura Stants, to enjoy some ad-lib flying over the Indiana countryside." It was a great article about the pilot and crew chief, their history, and the guys who brought the plane to them...

Monday Madness

I've jokingly said today was a typical Monday, but really, that doesn't mean much. :) The day was actually fine, just busy.

Kaylee has a lump in her neck that you can actually feel as a little ball, and it's very sore. It isn't where a lymph node would be, and I can't come up with what it could be other than a cyst, but if it's not better in the next couple of days, I'll take her in to the doctor to get it looked at.

Steve, in the meantime, has a fever of almost 102, ON Tylenol, has a headache, achy joints and muscles, and is down for the count. Not good.

Meanwhile, I am feeling fine, so I went out and had a flight student this morning, and sent them off on their first ever solo cross-country. I went to lunch, and during lunch got a text from them in the air that said "LOST". Not good. I immediately sent a text back with some reminders of things we'd already covered on what to do. I didn't hear back for quite awhile, then got a text where they said they were 33 miles E of Kokomo, which meant they knew where they were, at least. I wasn't all that worried at first, then I started getting worried, but that person, I KNEW they knew what to do and how to do it. I skipped out on lunch early and headed back to the airport, where I met the student and heard that they weren't actually lost, just couldn't find the runway by the city, but found all waypoints and the city just fine. Whew. They get on the ground, I top off the plane again, and send ANOTHER student off on their very first solo cross-country flight. This one texted me with a "We have touchdown!" when they landed. A bit of an unusual day, with two sick family members and two student pilots off on their own on my ticket, but all's well that ends well. Minus Steve who is still sick over there on the couch. :O

I got back from all the airport stuff in time to run to Aldi's and pick up some supplies, go to the post office and pick up the mail and drop off some last-minute billing, go to SMA Support's bank for a deposit, pick up the kid from school, run to McDonald's for a sweet tea request from the Ill Stants Man, go to Kroger for three things that you can't get at Aldi's, drop off the kid at home, get dinner for everyone, then turn around and head out to a school board meeting that lasted for over two hours. I got back home, took care of Sick Fellow a bit, got the girl some food then ready for bed, finished off the laundry and dishes I'd started earlier, and finally it's time to sit down and relax a bit....maybe...

The Color of Accomplishment

We've moved fairly slowly on our family day off, and most of us have even taken a nap at one point or another, and yet we've managed to get a whole lot done around here. I finally got the billing 100% done and sent out, I got all my SMA Support checks for the end of the year entered and ready for deposit tomorrow, I got some correspondence caught up, I got several things picked back up including some household chores, gave two backrubs each to Kaylee and Steve who both have their own soreness things going on, and we *insert trumpet noise here* got our Christmas tree taken down and out, all our Christmas stuff is almost back out in the garage, and our living room is put back the way it normally goes. Some trips to the garage and a bit more picking up and things will be back to as normal as we get around here.

Our schedules are busy for next week again, but we've got some big snow storm that's supposed to hit Monday night/Tuesday. Lately anytime they've said "big snow", we've gotten just a fraction of what they said, so maybe that will be the case again. Tomorrow I've got two students who will hopefully get to do their first solo cross-countries, and then I think everybody's out of business for a couple days.

My laptop is on its last legs. In fact, it's been limping for months now, but I've ignored the line down the center of the screen, the two clamps holding the screen together on either side so it won't fall apart, the slowness, and the fact that it will automatically start doing capital letters on its own, or will suddenly highlight everything on the screen, or will quit scrolling properly, or will skip letters when I type. It's been irritating, but I know to hit the shift key really hard and then it will stop typing in caps or highlighting everything, for example. But now I have to add to the list of issues a screen that flickers bright down to dim-can't-read it and a charging cord that gets so hot that it will burn you if you touch it. That's not good. So I think it may be time to retire this very old laptop, that if nothing else, has held on for a VERY long time. :) Here's hoping I can actually get FrontPage to run on a new laptop...or I'm hosed. :O

Well, my Colts lost, barely, but if they had to lose, at least so did Michael Vick. Now if somebody can take out Tom Brady, I'll call it a wash...

Alphabet Soup

We got up fairly early this morning, me to determine if the weather was good enough to go fly or not so I knew if I was going to the CAF (Commemorative, formerly known as Confederate Air Force, name changed due to political correctness) meeting. It was pretty windy, and VERY cold, but the student hadn't flown in a few weeks and was eager just to get up, so get up we did. I marched off to Kokomo, in the 25-28 knot winds and the -7 degree wind chill, yes I said Negative 7, also known as Seven Below Zero, in my long johns and long coat and gloves and hood, and we flew until a snow shower came through and dropped our visibilities down to "time to come on in and land". It was quite a day for cross-wind take off and landing practice, with snow blowing across the runway, obscuring visibilities, etc. Meanwhile, Steve, Chuck and Nathan went down to Sheridan and attended their first CAF meeting, to check it out.

There are a lot of aviation groups out there. There are even quite a few warbird groups. Each group may have a different focus, but there are enough of them that it makes it tough to be able to participate in each of them. You have the EAA and the AOPA groups, which are the mainstays of most pilots. With the main EAA membership you also have a local chapter (which meets at Glenndale). Within EAA you also have the National EAA Warbirds division, and a local EAA Warbirds chapter (which is meeting sometimes at Indy and sometimes at Sheridan). And the EAA IAC Aerobatic National group, and the local IAC chapter (which meets at Kokomo), all of which require separate dues, of course. So that's, count them, SIX memberships within EAA alone. (They have more, I'm just not involved with them.) Then you have NATA, which is the T-6 group. In order to do the formal formation training, you must be a member of NATA. There's also the CAF, national and local (which is now meeting at Sheridan). The CAF actually owns warbirds across the country, and members can fly them if they meet certain criteria. There are a few more alphabet groups, but you get the idea... At least there's always a meeting or an event to go to if one is so inclined, should a person actually join or participate in all of them. :) I'll probably go to the next CAF meeting just to check it out for myself, but I don't think we're joining up, at least just yet.

I spent the rest of the day finishing off the December billing (yes, I realize it's mid-January) and watching the playoff games...c'mon Colts...

*Cough*

Kaylee's school was evacuated today due to a gas leak. They called in the local gas company, who recommended that nobody go back in the building the rest of the day while it aired out. So the kids got to spend from lunch on in a different building, doing not much of anything on a Friday. Kaylee still had three tests today; Spelling, Math and Reading, so I guess Something got done after all. When the teacher walked out to the car and said Kaylee had something to tell me, I thought she'd gotten in trouble. Nope! Thankfully they smelled the leak and evacuated everyone before anyone got sick or harmed. :)

Happy Friday!

Weathered Out

It wasn't really supposed to snow much if at all today, until late tonight, but it lied. ;) We were eating lunch and there was just a spitting of snow here and there. By the time we left, the roads were covered and slick, and the snow was falling so fast the visibility was bad. We had our own little blizzard going. I saw three accidents on Markland on my way to pick Kaylee up from school. At one point I saw a really sharp new Dodge Charger, black, which had been a car I'd been looking at at one point. Mr. Charger was creeping along on the road, wheels spinning out, and when he changed lanes he was obviously pretty much a sled. Like the Chrysler 300 was. Me, I popped my 4-wheel-high drive on in my '95 Jeep and kept on cruising, just fine, no terror of sliding into someone at the most mundane of times, no worry about dinging up a brand spanking new car. It's sure a lot more relaxing driving the Jeep in the winter than that Chrysler was...I'll take the Charger in the Spring, but for now, I'm juuuust fine. ;)

Keeping Busy

I'm having trouble concentrating on this right now. We're watching a tv show where these two folks are trapped in a cabin in the jungle with an angry assassin with an automatic weapon outside waiting for them to come out so he can finish the job. Meanwhile, inside the cabin is a very large nest of very large, nocturnal Brazilian banana spiders. Tarantula-looking things crawling All Over The Place, getting more active as it gets dark in there. They keep zooming in on these things, and my heart rate has just ratcheted up into the "good workout zone". I'll take my chances with the gunman. No joking, the second I looked around and saw that creeping crawling nightmare, I'd choose death-by-bullet over death-by-a-thousand-spiders any day of the week. Man I have to come up with something else to think about before I go to bed tonight. That is NOT something I want to revisit in my dreams. Doggone tv show...

It was another busy flying day, for both Steve and me. I was glad that while it was still in the 20s, at least the winds weren't blasting like yesterday, and with the calm winds and bright sun, it was actually a good winter flying day. We've had one trouble these last couple of days--we both have flights from first thing in the morning up through 5 p.m. or later, meaning it's been hard to get Kaylee from school. Today I was in one airplane with a cross-country phase student while he was in another airplane with an instrument student, and we talked over the airways about who was going to pick up "the package", who was in after-care already. It also means we haven't gotten to December's billing, I haven't gotten to the post office, I'm out of school lunch supplies, and I haven't gotten thank you notes done either. I could do some of this at night here, but man, I'm tired! I'm supposed to be busy tomorrow from 10-3, after which I'll get Kaylee, then see if I can start getting some of this stuff done. In the meantime, I think I'll go to bed early tonight. :)

*Yawn*

What's a girl who is trying to recover from a lot of inactivity and over-eating to do when she gets up, runs the kid to school, then has flights out at the airport from 9 a.m. through to 6 p.m. with a break long enough to run to Wendy's for lunch? Can't drink a lot of water. Those planes don't have rest rooms. Can't exactly eat small healthy meals. Makes it a little tough to get in a bit of exercise other than walking to the plane and back, pulling it out and pushing it away a few times...ah well, there will be plenty of times this winter where I'll have too much ground time. :) I was scheduled from 9-11:30 a.m., 1-3, 3-4:30, 4:30-5:30 and 5:30-6. Busy. The winds were kind of rough today, up to 28 knots 40 degrees off the runway last I heard, which made one guy cancel (so I took another guy in his slot), and my 5:30 guy canceled too at the end there, but I was still out there until about 6 doing some pretty good-sized crosswind takeoff and landing practice with folks. What's funny is that none of them made it all the way to the end of their lesson--everybody worked at it until they got a good one in, and ended there happily. It's pretty exhausting to fight it that hard for long, and I'M tired too. Hey, you try riding out practice crosswind landings at 19 gusting 28 in the pattern all day long! :)

Ah, I miss Summer...

I got a feeling 2010 Air Show Season from radiokaos on Vimeo.

Yep, It's Monday

Steve got up bright and early this morning and headed down to Florida with Chuck and Nathan. Just a quick turn-around trip, but hopefully the boys got a little warmth and sun while they were down there. :)

Kaylee got up amazingly well for her first time of rising early for school, we actually got there right on time, and there have been no post-holiday meltdowns even. Well, I'M impressed, anyway!

My only event of any interest was a Discovery Flight this morning. It was cold, and a little windy, but it worked out for this gent's first time ever in a small airplane. After the flight I had an interesting shutdown where after I pulled the mixture out, the plane kept running. I advanced the throttle to kill it, which usually works if that happens, but it didn't kill it. So after waiting awhile, I went ahead and turned the mags off. And...it still ran. So the fuel is off and the key is off and she's still purring along. Okee dokee! When it did finally stop, the prop spun backwards for a few rotations too, something I can't say I've seen a whole bunch of times. A few, but not a bunch. Anyway, one plane down for maintenance, an inconvenience since it's supposed to be busy all day tomorrow, and the other plane like it is already booked up and busy for the same times tomorrow. Hopefully they get it up and running (or should I say, able to stop running), soon...

Guess I'd better get back to end of year accounting for SMA stuff and end of month billing for Glenndale stuff. Whaddya know, that business aviation degree? I actually use it. ;)

Quotes of the Day:

"Life is better, in my opinion, anyway, when one dresses in overalls and confidence than in power suits and doubt."

"There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be."

I'm not actually sure I agree with the last one completely, but I do to a degree. Complete self-acceptance and total comfort in one's own skin, yes. But on the other hand, if you're not always "becoming", no matter how old you are, then you're missing out on some important life things, too, in my opinion...of course I'm only 38, so what do I know? :)

Back Home in the New Year

Kaylee amazed us all by being the only person other than her Aunt Cathy to wake up at 5 something, then 6 something a.m. in order to be able to go downstairs and say goodbye to her Grandma & Grandpa Stants this morning. She's been sleeping in all morning her entire vacation here, so to wake herself up that early just flat out impressed me and Steve, anyway. ;) Of course she was a tad tougher to wake up an hour and a half later when it was time for us to start getting ready to head home. Though I can't blame her, as I didn't want to get up either.

We loaded up the airplane with even more stuff than we'd come down with, and didn't have any help with winds for the trip home, either, which isn't very fair. ;) It was so warm yesterday, and it was SO cold today that it was a bit of a shock to the system. The airplane heater couldn't keep up with the chill for the back seat, so we buried Kaylee in coats and blankets and had the heater going full bore, and it was still cold back there. It's a good thing we had all those extra coats and blankets, because she was okay once she was under them at least. In fact, she fell asleep, which is mighty rare for that girl.

The flight home was uneventful, so of course we had to have a little "fun" when we landed. It is freezing here. It is actually quite a bit below freezing here, to be technical, and when we landed we had a 24 mph wind blowing that below freezing air around us, too. We filled up the RG with fuel, unloaded it into the Jeep, put it away, then went over to the big hangar and pulled out the Cheyenne and fueled it up too, for another trip to sunny Florida tomorrow. We left the tug running because it is notoriously difficult to hot start. This was fine, until it ran out of gas. We found that we have no gas in the gas cans in the hangar. So the line guy took our gas can back up to the terminal and filled it up for us. We fill up the tug, I cross my fingers and give it a go, and the tug starts right off the bat. We're feeling pretty good about this, until we go to put it into drive and push the Cheyenne back away. It won't move. The blasted belt has fallen off the tug...again. I pick up the running tug so Steve can shove some blocks under it so he can lie on the icy concrete in the freezing wind and try to get the belt back on. We shut the tug down again so he won't lose an arm if it doesn't go right, and figure we're hosed on getting it hot started twice in a row. He finally gets the belt on, I win the lottery and do get it started again, we get the plane put away, and we are iced over numb and tired. So the cure is, of course, a big ole fast food meal to take home. :)

There was no visible sign of the earthquake here-even our model airplanes on stands were still in place. And the cats didn't make a mess of the house either, somehow. Bonus! We watched the Colts beat Tennessee, and they are officially in the Playoffs now, by a lot of hard work and the skin of their teeth. My guess is that their run will last one more game. If they do win that next game against the Jets, then the next team they play is the Patriots. Cue closing music and the end of the season, barring some freak of nature happenstance.

Kaylee is doing better than expected so far with the end of the vacation stuff. She is usually a bit of a mess after spending almost two weeks with her grandma and then her cousins, because they're so good about spending so much time with her, that's it's hard for her to go back to not being the center of the universe. :) But I kept her busy with chores, then her new Fairy DS game, and so far so good...

Kaylee and I made a run to Target, then came home and we all unpacked our bags, Steve took care of getting the cats' stuff back in order, I got my camera batteries charging and my photos downloaded, got all the laundry caught back up and put away, did a couple things for SMA, got the dishes put away, got my inbox organized, even got all our Christmas Photos Up. I am The Woman, and I am as ready for Monday as a person can get. ;)

1-1-11

So far so good this year. Day One, complete. ;)

The ladies all went shopping today for several hours, and Kaylee spent most of her Christmas money on various items, quite happily. The guys mostly watched tv and played a little Foosball. I did a little photo organization, a little phone organization, took a little 30 minute siesta, you know, things of great import like that. We had a delicious chili dinner, watched some of the dance recital of Morgan, Rania and Tanner, the girls did a Fashion Show upstairs, we watched "Despicable Me"; had a nice vacation day with more loved ones.

I also look forward to being home, unpacked, pictures edited and uploaded, lunches with friends, and semi back to normal. I do NOT look forward to getting up early for school, flying in the freezing cold temperatures, putting away the Christmas stuff, and not seeing our families for another good while...

Hope everyone had as peaceful and enjoyable holidays as we did. :)