Snap

I took Kaylee back to the mall today to exchange a pair of shoes she bought for a smaller pair.  While we were there she grabbed another dress off the $2 rack, and I grabbed a $3 dressy tank top.  You can't beat a dress for $2. 

The flight I had this afternoon, he was supposed to go on his long cross country.  But the weather, which had been perfect and gorgeous all day long, turned on us.  There were thunderstorm cells in his path down south, it was becoming unstable, and the winds had picked up to 18-20 knots at his destinations, one of the runways being a direct crosswind.  Nope.  So instead of sending him off solo, I went up with him and we did hood work, unusual attitudes, which he did Not enjoy, and then I had him do takeoffs and landings with a direct crosswind (or close) at our home runway, to see how he did.  He wasn't perfect, but he left me feeling pretty good about him.  The last one I killed his engine (simulated) and had him dead stick it in the crosswind, and he handled it great.  If these winds keep up, I might let him go off on his cross country next time.  I'd rather he have a calmer day, but sometimes in the Fall around here you don't get a choice, for weeks straight.  So it's good for both me and him to have confidence in him handling stronger than usual student solo winds.  The hard part is going to be getting his 3 hours of night in, when it's not an hour past sunset until 10 p.m.  So we don't even start until 10 pm.  That stinks.

Richard is slowly feeling stronger, his kidney and liver functions are being normalized, not there yet but getting there, he's eating more and has a bit more energy, is able to get up and walk a bit, but can still use some extra prayers!

Tonight was my school board meeting.  I could swear I just had one. This month just whipped by.  One thing that came up in discussion was a young lady, well, about my age, who had a mole on her calf.  It was removed, found to be cancerous.  A tumor the size of a grapefruit was then found in her groin, and removed successfully.  And then tumors started cropping up everywhere, and I mean all over her.  Then one was found in her brain, and that's it.  She's moving to hospice this week, she has two little girls, one two years old, one ten years old.  As we were discussing this, one of the board members mentioned that her mom had a mole on her leg that was removed, found to be cancerous, and within five years it had spread to her brain and she was gone.  That is scary stuff.  It makes me want to find a dermatologist and get checked out, since I'm fair skinned, freckled, and have been fried so many times by the sun that I lost count ages ago.  We not only used to not do sunscreen, but more than once I used baby oil and cooked myself attempting to tan.  Let alone all the times I didn't intend on getting sun burned and did anyway on airport ramps, airshows, swimming pools, etc.  Hearing these stories is scary.  That, and the fact that pilots who spend much time up in the higher altitudes are exposed to a lot higher levels of radiation and higher numbers of skin cancers than ground pounders.  I wonder how much a dermatologist costs.