Cancer

It is with great sadness I write today.

After fighting Myloma (a type of leukemia) for 12 years my Father-in-law's battle is now over. Last year the Doctor's stopped the chemo treatments and stated there was nothing more to be done. Eventually his body would reject the blood and plasma transfusions. Last Friday a phone call sent Bernie to his dads side, he had been sick since the previous week and had taken a turn for the worse. The time had come and his body was failing. He went peacefully Tuesday morning surrounded by his family.

I thank God everyday for bringing Bernie into my life. He celebrated 5 years cancer free on March 5th.

Our Alaskan Vacation

The following images are from our Alaskan vacation.

Oops!! I'm sorry, I mean the view from our front porch this morning.

This is lovely, scenic Fort Grant in the snow.

ILLNESS.

I have spent the better part of two weeks nursing the sick and afflicted. I spent hour after hour administering love and understanding. I consulted many professionals and spent hard earned money on remedies. In the end the Virus won. After the Worm finished eating the inside of the computer I erased its memory and began its rebirth. So I am now able to use the computer again.

Hello, Is Anybody Out There?

This was the scene from my front door this morning. Under those clouds lies a large mountain. On that mountain at around 10,000 feet lies a cell phone tower covered in ice and snow. It has been that way for about 2 weeks now bringing with it no cell service. If you have been trying to reach me I'm not ignoring you I'm just not in service.

Merry Christmas From Us To You,

I sent cards (Bernie helped me find the mailbox. It was scary but I did it) I hope everyone got them. With Jackie in Kansas and Bernie at work it will be a quite day. We'll go in town later and I will try and call everyone. I hope the day brought many smiles to the kids and peace to the adults (Not! I hope all the kids are running around crazy yelling and playing, driving there mom and dad nutz) Bernie and I received very nice gifts from each other. I got an ipod nano and Bernie got a digital video camera. Alas, Santa could not fit a house in the sleigh but all is not lost however, the box (my term for the trailer) is easy to clean. Love to everybody and be safe.

Update.

Well the homeless thing just got better (really, in a way). We took down our offensive fence so now our dogs can run freely and pee happily on every ones grass (ha.ha.) I went and got a storage bin in town, we put everything from our offensive tent in it. Funny thing about that they gave me bin #51, I now call the storage bin Area 51. We looked yesterday at our holding tank only to realize our tank had not cracked. Upon investigating further the sewer line is backing up, funny thing, its on the State side. They will have to fix it or move us to another lot. I have a nice one already picked out. So we'll see what happens. On Tuesday, Jackie leaves for 3 weeks, she's spending Christmas in Kansas with Maggie so she is excited. It's cold here and snow is expected tonight goody, goody. I'm still having evil thoughts about taking the dogs for a walk down to the housing guys place he might appreciate the yellow snow dotting his front yard ( hand slap, bad Karen).

Homeless Again?

Last January unable to pay for rent in Texas on our measly income Bernie and I decided to come back to Arizona. We sent Bernie to Arizona first to start working for the State again and I would follow later so that we both were not unemployed at the same time. As it turned out our lease expired on March 1st and the State still had not called Bernie. Unable to pay rent in Texas I gave up the house, the job, and put everthing in storage. Jackie and I then drove to Corpus Christie and lived/vacationed on the beach. After about a week I got out of my snit, a brief visit to Fort Hood, some monetary help from Jayne and April, and we drove home to Arizona. In late March Bernie finally got called to work at Fort Grant, unfortunately we had no where to live in this area. Bernie's parents graciously bought us a small travel trailer and we put our name on the housing list. That was in March and now 9 months later we are still in a 12x25' travel trailer. My storage bin in Texas is larger. We have made the best of the situation, with the 3 of us jammed in here, we try to be patient. It seems however it's always something. First, the sewer leaked, we got that fixed. Then monsoon storms hit, the roof leakes(we have caulked, asphalted, everything it rains, the roof leaks). Then the hot water heater gets stupid we get that fixed only to run out of propane every 2weeks because the cold weather up here uses lots of propane to keep the water warm. We use a space heater and electric blankets to keep warm. While I'm whining and complaining its best for me to say that this situation has not been unbearable just complicated. We have looked for homes to rent in the local areas but, most are out of our commute range as we work different shifts (they won't let us work on the same shift) we would double any commute and the closest city is 35 miles away. The other factor is price, rental homes average $1000.00 in this area way more than we can afford and still have money for two commutes to work. So we stay in our travel trailer and hope we get a house soon. The icing to this shit cake is yesterday with the temps. in the teen's our holding tank cracked now all our water spills to the ground. NICE. I got a visit from the housing committee this morning they want our fence down because we did not get their permission to put it up, and the tent we have been using for storage needs to come down because it looks like somebody is living in it, they can't have that, they are here to help. By the way they say " houses are hard to get into you have to be on the list" . Mother Fuckers let people jump over us on the list and move in, there's even people living in houses here, that own houses in town. So no using water, we'll have to drive to the truck stop for showers. We are grateful to have a job a lot of people these days don't. Having a home to go with the job would be even better.

Successful Event

This weekend I dragged Bernie and Jackie out for some exercise and participated in the Arthritis Foundations Jingle Bell 5k/walk. Bernie and I also enlisted friends from work Hanna and Reno. Hanna brought her daughter who in turn, brought a friend. So the 7 of us left Fort Grant at the butt crack of dawn ( you know I really hate mornings we can just go from 3am to noon and not hurt my feelings any) and drove to Ried Park in Tucson. Hanna being a true soldier drove with the young ladies ( 3 teenage girls yikes! that was brave) while I rode with the men ( much safer). We had an excellent time the walk was a nice 3.something deal and only a few old people passed us. The dog costume contest was great we all vowed next year we are dressing up even more and the dogs are going to. We contributed 180.00 dollars to the Foundation and hope the next event will be even a bigger success.