sick

I brought home a salad from work yesterday and about an hour after I ate it, I got sick and threw it up. So I missed my kick-off meeting last night. Tai gave me a zantac to make me feel better. First time I have ever taken 1 of those but guess it worked cuz I ain't thrown up since.

I'm sure Michael will harrass me for missing the meeting but hopefully he or Patty will let me know what it was all about.

Well I had told Patty, I would work everyday if it would guarantee me getting my vacation time off...so hopefully I don't throw up at work today.

schedule

Well my work schedule is sorta back to normal...no more of this 6 hrs bullcrap this week. The Thai kids are leaving this weekend and thank god that Tyson leaves on the 5th..he spent so much time in Thailand with his girlfriend, that he works worse then they do. Zane went home to TX last night and will be gone for a week, which is a bummer. But at least our work schedule will be back to 40 hrs a week by the time we both get back from our vacations...unless they hire to many foreign kids real soon.

Christine has the day off today, which means I am in charge of all the other lineservers. I have no problems (yet) with the new Singapore kids...they work great. I will even go as far as to say that 1 kid has become my shadow and I swear can read my mind sometimes...no matter what I plan on doing, he is right there with me & with all the stuff I need to do it with.

Yesterday after work, I walked over to the rec center to fill out my paperwork for their biggest loser weightloss competition (Brenda's scales are 6 pounds off). Tonight @ 7pm, I have to go back over for the kick-off meeting for everyone thats signed up. Which means I will be getting to bed a little bit late tonight...hopefully it doesn't mess up my waking up schedule tomorrow. Then Sunday night I have some orientation class at the gym...been 2 yrs since I have gone into a gym. So I will have to figure out how to work all that into my schedule later.

vacation time

Hurray! Michael gave me the time off that I asked for. I get 4 days off to go see 4 of my kids. I leave after work on June 2nd. (and I better not get stuck in another damn snowstorm & traffic jam). My youngest son will be 13 on June 3rd.

I haven't seen 3 of those kids for over 2 years..wonder if they will even recognize me. My second son that is stationed in South Korea is flying into Phoenix on the 1st and taking a bus up to Kingman, so if the younger ones don't recognize me, then he will have to tell them who I am. Actually I'm excited to be able to see them again, but also a little nervous.

I don't think Tai was to happy, that I will be out of the park for awhile but thats his problem not mine. I don't care if I have been with a guy for 5 days or 5 months or 5 years...my kids will always come first before any guy. Yesterday was the day that Brenda & Susan had picked for "my wedding"...HaHaHa, well that didn't happen which is just fine with me. But was surprised that Brenda didn't say anything about it when she came into Yavapai for lunch.

This is what I bought today
~course these prices are with the green bag discount.

1 bell pepper=.36
2 small roma tomatoes=.62
2 cans of tunafish=2.50
1 bottle of vitamin water=1.34
2 Larabars=3.22
1 Luna Bar=1.61
Strawberry yogurt=.62
Health Valley crackers=3.14
2 pizza flavored burritos=.88
italian dressing=2.06
1QT vanilla soy milk=2.51
diced up cantaloupe=3.59
salad tray=3.59
Tylenol PM=10.34

Geez, I can remember years ago buying 2 & sometimes 3 cans of tuna for $1.00. Guess those days are over.

I ended up going to the store twice today cuz I forgot stuff the first time. Luckily I remembered my green bag both times, cuz even though most of the store employees know I live & work in the park they still won't give you the discount without the green bag. I coulda gone to Flagstaff today with Brenda....but thats 1 & 1/2 hrs each way and I probably would ended up spending even more money then I wanted on stuff I didn't really need.

My roomie bought a frozen pizza a few nights ago, but didn't think to look at the directions on the box. It wasn't made to cook in a microwave. The directions said 16 minutes in oven, so she popped it into my microwave for 15 minutes. OMG! you could almost break a tooth trying to bite through the crust.

The Biggest Loser~Grand Canyon style

I have 1 week to pig-out on my favorite foods, just hope Yavapai gets the espresso chip ice cream back this week, because starting June 1st I am signed up for "The Biggest Loser~Grand Canyon style".

We have to make a team of 3 people. My newest manager, Patty, was the one who told me about this competition and then she talked a Maswik manager into joining with us. There's a kick-off meeting for everyone on May 29th @ 7pm.

Was rather strange how in the last week or so, I ate more desserts at work but the last time I stepped up on Brenda's scales, I actually lost a couple pounds which didn't make sense to me.

This competition is only for 12 weeks, and maybe by the end of that time I can fit back into a pair of pants that I had brought to the canyon with me from FL....cuz they don't fit at the moment.

Damn, its cold

My computer says its 34 degrees outside....but at least yesterdays snow is gone again.

Whatever happened to "April showers, bring May flowers"? well whatever flowers had tried blooming before got all covered with our hailstorm yesterday. It might snow again later today and we should get rain & thunderstorms tonight.
Some of the Thai kids & Singapore kids were all excited yesterday when they realized it was snowing. 1 of our bussers wanted to take the snow home to her mother in Thailand.

Well I need to jump in the shower & get ready for another crazy day at work. We have so many kids at Yavapai now, that I only have a 6 hour shift today & I get the weekend off again. I like the extra time to do stuff around the park, but I won't be liking the next paycheck. Hopefully it warms up this weekend so I can do more hiking.

I miss breakfast in FL

Today work was crazy (what else is new lately) but there were only 3 lineservers working and 2 of them were new kids from Singapore. While I was making all the toast for breakfast, I starting daydreaming about a little diner that I loved to go to in Tampa for breakfast. Now I hadn't thought about that place in months.
But I loved their huge veggie omelots, homefries with melted cheese, and if I wanted to stuff myself I would get something called "Blueberry cobbler crepe" or something like that. Since being at the canyon, I can't even remember the last time I had an omelot or anything like the yummy blueberry dessert that I had in FL. What I wouldn't give for 1 of their breakfasts today....or maybe its just the idea of getting to relax at breakfast time instead of running around Yavapai like a chicken with its head cut off that is so appealing.

Now pigs were never my thing, but the owner of the restaurant obviously loved them, as the diner was all decorated in whimsical pigs decor, which used to make me chuckle the first few times I went in.

Susan, if u ever read this~then you & Jaime should go try the place out....its right down the street from where I used to live. Here's their website http://potbelliesrestaurant.com/

colors

The desert may be covered with clouds or snowflakes but in my world it's always a sunny day.

Actually in the first picture, taken July 2007, I am watching 7 condors flying around the canyon.

Cloudy days make the best pictures for a sunset, as the sun goes down it's light bounces off every cloud in so many amazing colors, I'm sure Crayola couldn't match it.

If anyone had mentioned Arizona/desert/or just the Southwest in general to me in the past, I would picture some dry,hot,brown, plant-less land that went on forever with nothing in it but rolling tumbleweeds...sorta like the old John Wayne movies that my parents used to watch.

Sure it gets hot during the daytime hours in the Summer but once the sun goes down it cools off very fast...I learned that you really do need coats & sweaters in the desert, which I didn't own the first time I moved to Arizona.