Enough Is Enough!

I am so tired of hearing about Nadia Suleman. How much longer are we going to have to see and hear about this poor excuse for a mother on our television? All 14 of those children should be taken away from her and they need to do a hysterectomy on her so she cannot create anymore babies. She is so arogant and does not want to listen to any advise from experts. She thinks she knows it all. She is probably making millions from all of the talk shows she's been on. From what the "Angels In Waiting" nurses say, she never lifts a hand to do anything for any of the children unless a news crew is there to see her. She loves the celebrity having these children has brought to her and all she cares about is herself.

Didn't Do Much Day

Well, I did not do much today. Ben worked. I went for my daily walk this morning, came home and had breakfast. Then I mopped the kitchen floor. After that, I drove up to WalMart Supercenter and bought some weed killer, came home and sprayed a bunch of weeds on the slope to the north of the house. Had lunch, watched my "soap" then spent the rest of the afternoon on emails and my web community (Not Over The Hill).

Mystery Leaks?????

Well, Ben and I have a mystery that we just cannot figure out.
For years, I have kept a plastic spray bottle of Oxy-Clean in my laundry cupboard. It's just a bottle of powdered Oxy-Clean and water that I use to spray on clothes when there are spots or on the carpet when something gets spilled. I've never had any problem with the bottle of liquid.
Last Friday, I went to do a load of laundry and there was liquid all over the shelf and dripping out of the cabinet door onto the washing machine. I thought the seam on the bottom of the bottle had split or something. I took everything out of the cupboard, wiped everything off and dried the shelf off, the put everything back into the cupboard.
I tossed the bottle that I thought had a split seam.
This morning, I found a new bottle in the garage and filled it with Oxy-Clean and water and placed it in the cupboard again. A few hours later, I went into the laundry room to get a plastic sack and noticed that once again, there was liquid dripping out of the cupboard. I opened the door and there the empty bottle sat and there was Oxy-Clean and water all over everything again.
Once again I removed everything, wiped everything off, dried off the shelf and replace everything into the cupboard, except for the plastic bottle.
We checked the plastic bottle and did not see any bad seams, we even filled it with plain water and we've had it setting on the kitchen counter all day and it has not leaked a drop.
We cannot figure out for the life of us why it seems to only leak when it's sitting in the laundry room cupboard.
Is this theTwilight Zone?

My Uncle Gus's 90th Birthday Party

This is my Uncle Gus Grebe. He turns 90 on March 30th. Today we went to his birthday party, which he planned himself. I got to see other relatives that I had not seen in years. My Aunt Wanda (my mom's sister) and her 3 daughters, who I had not seen in 10 1/2 years. My Aunt Laura and her 1 son and 2 daughters, who I had not seen in over 25 years. My cousin Wayne who I had not seen in 52 years. We really had a great time.
Gus used to be a sports caster on television and radio, both in Los Angeles and in Wichita. He has met and worked with several celebrities and he has won several broadcasting awards. He is really a great guy. Doesn't he look great for a 90 year old? We are looking forward to attending his 100th birthday party in 10 years.

Family

Don't know if I'll get a chance to post tomorrow (Saturday). We are going to my uncle's 90th birthday party. He is not my "blood" uncle, but he was married to my mom's sister (my aunt) for over 40 years before she passed away 2 years ago. He has planned his own party and is paying for everything. It is going to be held at a hotel out in Upland, CA and he has invited a lot of family members that I have not seen in years. He is still very actuve. He has a new lady friend and they go on Senior Trips together all the time.
My uncle used to be a television and radio sports announcer. He worked on KNX in Los Angeles, and he worked for Channel 12 in Wichita, KS for many years.

Video Of Yesterday's Hike

Check it out at YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSpoRmmEOCU

What A Day

Well, this morning I had my doctor's appointment, which I was NOT looking forward too. Not that the PAP hurts, but it is so "awkward".
I just changed to Kaiser Medical this year and so far, I am so pleased with them. They are so organized. I signed up to their website and they send me all the information from each doctor's visit. When I took my lab tests last Thursday, they sent me my results the next day. When I get there early for my appointments, they take me in before my time and I'm usually out before my actually appointment time. It's amazing! I had always heard such bad things about them, but so far, I have had no problem with them.
After I left Kaiser, I went to WalMart Supercenter for a few things, then headed home, made lunch and watched "The Young And The Restless".
Around 1:00 pm, I jumped into the car and drove over to Towsley Canyon and did a 3 mile hike. It was beautiful out, a little windy, but the temperature was perfect.
Below is a photo I took while out on the trail.

Wednesday Afternoon

Didn't do much today. I haven't even gone for my daily walk yet. I'll probably do that in an hour or so. Just didn't feel like getting out and doing it this morning.
Tomorrow morning, I have to go over to Kaiser and have my PAP done. I hate that. I'll be really glad once it's over.
Hopefully the nice weather will hold out and I'll be able to go for a hike tomorrow afternoon. I keep thinking about hiking to try to keep my mind of the of doctors appointment.

Tuesday

Another beautiful day here in SoCal today.
I went for my morning walk. Did about 1.5 miles today.
In a post a few days ago, I mentioned that I was trying to find some kind of device that I could use to hear my TV at night after my husband went to bed that would let me hear it but not disturb him. I finally found a pair of wireless TV headphones today at RadioShack and I'm really pleased with them. Now my husband won't be yelling at me from the bedroom to turn the TV down. (LOL)

Yesterday's Hike

Here are the links to my photos and my video of yesterday's hike in Placerita Canyon:

Photos:

http://public.fotki.com/KaysWay/my-hikes--2009/placerita-canyon/

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMgzHTY44A

Beautiful Day

Today was just beautiful. We had rain yesterday and that always cleans the air out so nice. The sky was so blue.
I got up this morning and cleaned house. I hate cleaning house, but it has to be done. After that I had lunch and watched my soap opera (The Young And The Restless). I needed to take a walk since I had not taken one this morning, but I'd rather hike in the hills than walk on the city bike paths so I drove over to Placerita Canyon Nature Center and did a 2.5 mile hike. Everything was so green from the rain. The birds were singing and the creek was flowing.
I took several photographs and made a video. Once I get them uploaded to my photo sharing site and YouTube, I'll post those links here so everyone can check them out.

Sunday Evening

I finally got around to blogging today.
It rained all night here in SoCal and was still raining when we woke up this morning. We had to go to the market and then over to Sam's Club to pick up some things. Also had to go to the post office to buy some "Forever" stamps out of the stamp machine. Heard that they are going to raise the price of the first class stamp again in May. Don't know about where you are, but here, whenever they raise the price, they run out of the Forever stamps about 3 weeks before the increase date.
When we went into the stores, it was pouring down rain. When we came out, the sun was shining. Got home and started to make lunch and then it started to hail, then it stopped and the sun came out again. This afternoon, it got really pretty and clear out but there was a really cold, hard wind blowing.
Also went up to Bed, Bath and Beyond. My husband goes to bed about 2 hours before I do every night and he complains that the TV keeps him awake even though he's in the bedroom and I'm in the living room with the TV volumn turned so low that I can barely hear it. He wanted me to buy one of those personal amplifiers that looks like a BlueTooth earpiece for a cell phone. He said that way I could turn the TV down and hear it and it would not bother him. I really did not want to buy one because I figured it wouldn't really work like they claim it does on the TV ads. Anyway, we went to BBandB and they did have them. We bought one and tried it when we got home. Like I said, it didn't really work like they claim on TV. Didn't amplify the TV sound much and there was a bunch of "white noise". Ended up taking it back for a refund. I told my husband to just wear earplugs when he goes to bed.
Downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 8 on my laptop. I'll wait to see how I like it before I add it to my desktop computer. Also have to make sure it's not that much different from IE7 because my husband uses the desktop and if it is too much different, he'll get very confused as he is not all that computer savvy.

5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

4 tablespoons flour,
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (microwave safe)

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract and mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug but don't be alarmed.

Allow to cool a little and tip out onto a plate if desired.

Happy Friday and Happy Spring

Happy Springtime to everyone. Thought I'd give you all a flower, or a photo I took of a flower in my backyard. I call it "Pretty In Purple".
















Well, I cannot believe how fast Kaiser gets lab results back to it's members. I just took my lab
tests yesterday morning and this morning, they had already send me an email telling my my results were posted on "My Kaiser" which is there site where I go to for my medical records, test results, to email my doctor, to make appointments, etc.
As expected, my cholesterol and triglycerides are still high. My problem with those is genetics, NOT dietary and since I cannot tolerate the statins, there isn't much they can do for me. Also my blood sugar is "slightly" elevated. It was 104 which is much better than the 112 it was last year.
I was mostly worried about the blood sugar and the thyroid tests. As far as I can tell, the thyroid test looks good as does everything else EXCEPT those pesky cholesterol and blood sugar counts.
I guess now I'll go for my PAP and then see what my doctor has to say.

Thursday

Well, this morning, after fasting since dinner yesterday, I went over to the Kaiser Medical Facility again to do my annual lab work.....blood, urine, etc. The lab tech was so nice. She and I sat for about 15 minutes and just talked. She didn't have anyone else in the lobby waiting, so I guess she was just taking a little break. I really need to see if there are any doctors at this new facility who are accepting new patients. My doctor is at the main facility which is about 12 miles away and takes almost 45 minutes to get there because of all the traffic. Then once you get there, the place is so crowded and you have to wait in lines everywhere. The new facility is only 5 miles from our house, takes about 10 minutes to get there and both times I've had to go there, there were no crowds. I think after my next visit to my current doctor for my PAP, I'll call Kaiser and see if I can get transferred.
Been kind of humid here in SoCal today. Not as hot and clear as yesterday, but the humidity made it feel hotter.

Mid-Week

This morning I got up and made myself my favorite quick breakfast....a poached egg on a warm English muffin with a slice of lean ham and a slice of fat-free cheese and a glass of fat-free milk. Then I put my bicycle rack on my car, strapped on the bicycle and headed over to one of the many bike trails our city has. I did about a 1 1/2 to 2 mile bike ride along the riverbed trail.
After I got back home I cleaned up a little and headed over to the Kaiser Medical Facility near my home. Since my doctor wanted me to have a nurse "calibrate" my personal blood pressure monitor with hers, I thought I'd do that today and I'll fast after dinner tonight and go back over there to do my lab work in the morning. I'd never been there and wanted to have a look around. It is a brand new building and a very nice facility.
Anyway....the nurse determined that my personal B/P monitor is pretty close to the readings she got on her monitor. She said it may be off a few points, but it is acceptable, and that she would send an email to my doctor telling him that she feels I DO have "white coat syndrome". Doctors just never want to believe in "WCS". The nurses usually tell me though that they believe in it.
Would you believe that I'm wearing shorts and a sleeveless top today? Here in SoCal it is 84 degrees and beautiful outside. I have my front door open and I can hear the birds singing. Just went up to check the mail box and noticed that my daffodils are already wilting. They sure don't last long after they bloom. Now I'm waiting for my tulips to pop out.

Morning With The Doctor

Had my first appointment with my new doctor at Kaiser this morning. I had been told that he would do my PAP if time allowed, but I guess time didn't allow because they scheduled me to come back on March 26th and have it. He also ordered a complete blood panel for me which I'll go do this Thursday because I had not fasted for today.
Anyway, he asked me a bunch of questions about my screenings, my medications, my health problems, etc. I told him about my last doctor telling me I was his worst case of "white coat syndrome". The new doctor wants me to take my home blood pressure monitor with me to the lab when I go for the blood work. He said they have a place there where you can walk in anytime and just have your B/P checked. He told me to have them take my B/P on their monitor and then take it about a minute later on mine to see if they are pretty close. He wants to make sure my problem really is "white coat syndrome" and not just my home B/P monitor reading lower than it should.
I told him about the fact that I cannot tolerate medications for my high cholesterol. My cholesterol problem is genetic, not dietary. He said that they have found that high cholesterol is pretty far down on the list for things that are risk factors for heart attack and stroke. He told me that the main risks are:
1. High blood pressure
2. Diabetes
3. Obesity
4. Smoking
5. Drinking
Seems now they worry more about the plaque that is growing in our arteries than they do the cholesterol that sticks to the plaque.
So for right now, all is well. I'll just have to find out what my blood tests results show.

Monday Evening

Not looking forward to tomorrow. This year I had to change doctors because the company I used to work for changed the health care plans they offer to us. I had been going to my last doctor for over 4 years and I had been a member of his medical group during that time. The company I worked for dropped the insurance plan I was using and the only one I could afford that they were offering this year was Kaiser, which means I have to go to a Kaiser doctor and a Kaiser facility. Tomorrow I will see my new doctor for the first time. Plus....Kaiser called me last week and said that they had just received my medical records from my last medical group and they noticed I am due for a pap smear so my new doctor wants to do that during my appointment with him tomorrow. Oh joy.
My last doctor told me to let my new doctor know that I had the worst case of "white coat syndrome" he'd ever seen. He put me on blood pressure medications 4 years ago, but whenever I was in his office (or any doctors office), my B/P would be really high. It finally got to where he told me to take my B/P a few times a week at home and record it and bring him my numbers whenever I had an appointment with him so that he would know what my B/P "really" was. I'm going to take my B/P readings from home to my new doctor tomorrow for this reason.
Just the fact that I've never met this doctor before and the fact that I'm going to have to have my pap, my B/P will probably be way up there.

Monday Morning

Well I really feel energized this morning. Maybe I need to hike every day (LOL). I'm not even sore from our hikes. My brother emailed me and said he was sore this morning but then, he's not used to the hikes. I walk every day so that helps.
I did almost have a mishap yesterday when we first started out. The trailhead going down to the Walker Ranch area is very steep from the road above. Since there was rain awhile back, the water had made a "rut" on the trail plus uncovered a lot of rocks, so we really had to watch our step. My brother was about 25 feet ahead of me when all of a sudden my left ankle twisted in the "rut". I started to lose my balance, but I at the same time, I was trying to keep from falling flat on my face and go rolling down the trail. Since I was on a slope, naturally my momentum was heading down that trail really fast. I must have "danced" about 10 feet before I finally caught my balance and was able to stop and catch my breath. All the while Keith is yelling "are you ok?" If I had actually hit the ground, I don't know how far I would have tumbled or what bones I may have broken.
But all in all, once I recuperated, we had a really nice hike.

Sunday Hike

Today my brother and I went for another hike over in Placerita Canyon. This time we hiked the Waterfall Trail. It is a short hike....only 1.2 miles round trip, but it takes some energy and burns some calories as it is steep and you have to climb some rocks to get there. The trail starts out in a green meadow and climbs up the side of the hill. Soon you enter a narrow canyon with tall rock cliffs on both sides. A wet-season creek runs down the middle of the canyon. You finally come to a dead end at a 25 ft. waterfall. Last week I heard there was a lot of water coming over the falls, but since we have not had rain in about 5 days, the creek has gotten smaller which means there was not as much water at the falls. But it was still very pretty.
Had a fun weekend with my brother and got in some execellent cardio exercise.
Here is a video I took while we were hiking the trail:

Saturday With My Brother

My brother (Keith) arrived a little after 10:00 am. We messed around the house for a little while then headed over to the Placerita Canyon Nature Center. There were a lot of people there. Saturday is a very popular day there because they have docent led hikes and animal shows. We went over to the picnic area which sits in a Coastal Oak grove and had our lunch, then went back to the car, got our backpacks and cameras and headed off for our 4 mile round-trip hike to Walker Ranch and back. The Canyon Trail is a moderate difficulty trail that goes through the bottom of the canyon along the wet-weather creek and then up the slopes, through more oak groves to the Walker Ranch Camp Grounds. When we got to the "turn-around" area, we saw that some Boy Scout troops had set up camp there to spend the night.
Here is a picture I took of my brother along the trail:

After we got back to the house, we jumped into the car again and headed for Office Depot to buy me a webcam for my computer. I had been getting Office Depot Rewards Points from when I bought a printer from them and when I buy my ink cartridges from them, so I had a "gift card" worth $10.98 to go toward the camera. I got a MicroSoft Webcam that normally costs $39.99 for $29.99. When we got back home, Keith went into my wireless router and made it secure. I'd been using it for 1 1/2 years without it being a secure connection. Guess I'm lucky that no one every got into my network.
So now we are going to try to set up the camera and get everything on it work.
Tomorrow, we have another hike planned up to the waterfall in Placerita Canyon. Hope the water is flowing.

Friday

Warm and sunny here in SoCal today. In the 70's.
I'm getting ready to go for my daily walk. Didn't get out this morning. Had a few other things I had to do.
I'm looking forward to the weekend. My younger brother Keith is coming up from Orange County for a visit. He and I are planning a couple of hikes. Also we both like to mess around on the computer, so he might set up a webcam and a secure network for me on my desktop and my laptop.
Should be a fun weekend.

Going Through Memories

This morning I went for a 1.5 mile walk. While out, I ran into my friend John Garcia who was also out walking. John and I worked together at Lockheed for many years. I remember when I worked in the purchase order office and he worked on the receiving dock. I was about 20 and he was about 23. He and his wife now live around the corner from Ben and me. John retired a few years before I did.
This afternoon I started going through a big box of old photographs, picking out the ones that I want to scan and save on flash drives. A year and a half ago, we were evacutated from our home when a wildfire came raging over the hill just north of us and threatened our neighborhood. At that time, I grabbed my BIG box of photos and all of the photo albums I could find and threw them into the car. I saw a news story on TV the other day about a woman who had to evacuate her home the same year due to a fire in her area. She said she could not grab all of her photos as they were evacuated on the spur of the moment. Luckily her home did not burn and she did not lose her photos. She has started a business scanning photos for people and putting them on CDs. After seeing that, I decided to start scanning some of my cherished photos and putting them on a flash drive which will be very easy to grab in the case (God forbid) we ever have to evacuate again.

Finally Got On-Line Today

Today was Ben's Wednesday off from work so when he's home, I can't get on the computer as much to work on my "Not Over The Hill" webpage and my two blogs here at Blogspot. He is always wanted to run around somewhere.
He wanted to go up to our new Target Store because they sent out some coupons out in the mail and he wanted to see the new store and buy some of the stuff on the coupons.
I've been playing around with the background themes on my blogs. The ones that they offer are just so 'blah". I think I've finally found some that I like better. I almost thought I had lost all the older blog posts and widgets on my "Just Chit-Chat" blog, but started playing around with it and thank goodness everything was still there.
Didn't get a "health" walk in at all today. I'll have to get out tomorrow and take a nice walk or ride my bicycle.

Photoblog

Well I did it....I started a new Photoblog. If you would like to check it out go to:

http://photoblogbykaysway.blogspot.com/

Maybe A New Photo Blog

Beautiful day here in SoCal. Warm and sunny, beautiful blue sky.
We did our "monthly" grocery shopping this morning. Prices just keep on getting higher. Keep noticing too how sizes are getting smaller on some products but they are charging us more for them. Saw 20 packs of Coke instead of the normal case of 24 cans.
Need to get out for my daily walk soon.
I've been considering starting another blog here. When I was here before, I had a Photo Blog. I've been thinking about starting another one. Photography is one of my hobbies, so I take pictures all the time. I've been told by many friends that I am really good at it. Cloudeight Stationery picked one of my photos for their "Fall Beauty" screensaver last year.
Spring is in the air.....do you feel it?

Monday-Monday

Cloudy day today in SoCal.
Got up and sent my husband off to work then had breakfast and then did a little cleaning around the house. (Yuck).
Drove up to our new Target store. It just opened a couple of days ago. I'm a little surprised that they opened a new store in this economy, but guess that is a good sign (?). Anyway, it's a nice store. Big. Even has a grocery store inside. I guess you might call it a "Super Target". But the grocery section is not as big as the one at our WalMart Supercenter.
Came home and decided to take advantage of the overcast day and do some weed pulling. I like working out in the yard, but if it's really hot, I don't like it. The neighbor's cat (Marmalade) "helped" me in the yard. While I pulled weeds, he ran around acting crazy. He keeps me company all the time.







Came in and checked my emails then fixed lunch and sat down to watch my favorite soap (The Young And The Restless).
I need to get out in awhile and go for a walk since I didn't take one this morning. I try to get out every day and walk for at least 30 minutes.
Hope everyone else is having a nice day.

Sunday Afternoon

The time change messed me up this morning. I slept in the extra hour so I didn't get out for my morning walk.
Had to do some laundry, so got that out of the way. Checked my emails and checked out a few sites on the Internet.
Watched a little TV. I love those shows on HGTV that show you how to "stage" your home and I love "House Hunters".
Had lunch. I made cheese quesadillas. Watched a little more TV, then we did a quick trip of to Sam's Club for a few things.
Came home and wrote up the menu for the coming week. I have always planned my entire weekly menus ever since we got married. It made things to easy back when I was working and I've just continued it into my retirement years.
I might try to get a walk in later since we now have an extra hour of daylight, but I have a slight headache right now, so if that does not go away, I won't be going anywhere.
Tonight two of my favorite TV shows are on...."Desperate Housewives" and "Cold Case", so I'll watch one and record the other.
Sounds like a "Lazy Sunday" here at my place.

Saturday

It's Saturday. It's bright and sunny out. Temps are in the mid-60's.
Got up this morning and went for my morning walk. Came home and had breakfast.....a poached egg on an English muffin with ham and low-fat cheese.
It would have been a really great day for a hike, but this was Ben's (my husband) Saturday off. On the Saturday he works, I usually try to get out for a hike or a bike ride.
I've been surfing some of the blogs here at blogspot. When I blogged here before, I had two friends that I met through their blogs, but now I can't find them again. One was named Becky and one was named Debra. I thought they were both on the "Bloggers Over 50" list, but have not been able to find them there either. Maybe they quit blogging. It was about a year ago when I was in contact with them. That was back when I had two other blogs here..."Hiking Santa Clarita" and "Kay's Photoblog". I remember one of these ladies had a photoblog. Can't remember which of the two it was though.
Tonight we are supposed to set our clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Saving Time.

Handyman

Well, the handyman made it out today. He looked at the work we want him to do and he said he'd have to go home and run some numbers and get back to us with an estimate on a price for the woodwork and the exterior paint job. Once he figures it all out and gives us a price, we have one other guy we want to contact to see how he compares with our regular handyman in price. With our regular handyman, we will have to go out and pickup all the paint and caulking for him, whereas the other guy would already have all the paint and supplies. We live in a gated community where they have a construction office and that is where the other guy works. Of course we would have to pay for the paint, but WE would NOT have to go to Home Depot or Lowe's ourselves. So now we just sit and wait for a few days. With the rain coming in again, it will probably be mid-April before we can even get anything started, but at least we'll have an idea what it will cost us.

Cloudy

Today started out kind of cold. It was 38 degrees when I got out of bed. The sun was out and the sky was very blue. As the day went on, white clouds started to fill the sky and now it is totally cloudy and looks like it might start raining.
Once again we are sitting here waiting for our handyman to come by. He was supposed to come by last Tuesday afternoon to give us an estimate on painting the outside of the house, but he never showed up. We called him and he was stuck on another job that had to be done before it started raining. Made me a little angry that he didn't call that day. A big problem with him is that he has a full time job during the week and can only do the handyman stuff on weekends. But he does such good work and usually does not charge as much as professionals, so that is why we like to use him so much. Hopefully he will show up this afternoon after he gets off work.
It's Friday which means one of my favorite tv shows is on tonight. That show is "Ghost Whisperer". I love that show.

What A Beautiful Day In SoCal

For those of you who are "buried" in the snow, here are a couple of photos I took of some flowers that have already bloomed in my front yard flower bed.

After the rain we had all day yesterday, today it was beautiful. Blue sky, big white fluffy clouds. I just had to get outside. I decided to take a drive out to the "countryside", at least as much countryside and you can find outside of the city of Santa Clarita, CA. We do have a few rural areas just north of us. I drove up to Vasquez Rocks County Park. This natural area has been used in movies, television, music videos and commercials. It was used as the town of "Bedrock" in the movie "The Flintstones". I took some video footage while there and have turned it into a YouTube Video. Here is the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ-ZpUa9i2Y

If you'd like to learn more about Vasquez Rocks, here is a link to some information on the Internet:

http://www.santaclaritaguide.com/VasquezRocks.html

Rainy Day

We heard we were going to have a "little" rain today and that it would probably not get here until late afternoon. I had plans to go with my friend Sandi out to Ontario Mills Mall to meet our friends Vicky, Elektra and Sandy for lunch. It's about 53 miles out there one-way. Sandi said she would pick me up at 8:30 a.m. because it usually takes an hour and a half to get there, then we walk around the mall and then have lunch.
Well, when I woke up this morning, it was pouring down rain, but the girls wanted to meet anyway. Sandi showed up about 15 minutes late. We headed for the freeway and the minute we got on the on-ramp, we noticed that the traffic was dead stopped. We never did see a reason for it....no accident or anything, but instead of taking the normal hour and a half to get to the mall, it took us two and a half hours.
The five of us wandered around the mall for awhile then went to the food court to have lunch. They sure rip you off at those mall food courts. I went to the Kenny Rogers Roaster and got a 1/4 chicken, 2 sides and a drink and it cost me $9! I could have gone to a "real" restaurant for that kind of money.
Anyway, I have known all of these ladies for a long time. We all worked at Lockheed together at one time or another.
Sandy is the "quiet" one. I've known her for about 37 years. Tried to get her connected with my older brother at one time, but it didn't work out. She married later in life. Her husband also worked for Lockheed and was about 15 years older than she was. He died of a heart attack about 10 years after they married. Sandy never had any children.
Vicky is a sweetheart. I've known her for about 35 years. She and Sandy have known each other since they were 5 years old. Sandy helped Vicky get her job at Lockheed. Vicky is a little teeny tiny lady who has cheated death twice. The first time was a head-on collision several years before she married. She got out of that one with just a broken leg. Then she married Ron, her long-time boyfriend. They adopted 2 girls from Korea because they had not been able to get pregnant, then after the girls got here, Vicky discovered she was pregnant. They had another girl. About 25 years after Vicky and Ron married, they were in another head-on collision together and Ron was killed instantly. Vicky almost died, but she is a fighter and she survived after being in a coma for about a week.
Elektra is a character. I've known her for about 30 years. At one time she was my "boss". She is a gambler. She loves to bet on anything and everything. She is really a good poker player. Seems to win all the time. Elektra has been married 3 times. The first and last ended in divorce. The love of her life was Mike. He was her second husband. Mike died of lung cancer. Elektra never had any children.
Sandi is the computer expert. I've known her about 20 years. She lives close by me. We were never really close when we were working, but since we've retired, she and I get together every now and then. She is married and has 2 grown kids.
We had a fun time even with the rain and the traffic. We are more like family than friends because when we all worked together, we spent more time with each other than we did our families.

Day Two

Well, I had several people actually read my first blog and I even have a few followers now. Wow! That is so cool!Today is bright and sunny here in SoCal. Blue sky and big white fluffy clouds. But tomorrow they are saying we might get a little bit of rain again. That's ok. We really need it. I heard last week that they were talking about cutting back on the water they give to the California farmers in the Central Valley. That is NOT good.

This morning I went and had my "ever so important ta-ta squeeze" over at Kaiser Medical Center. Now I have THAT out of the way for this year. I never went for mammograms when I was younger. In fact, I did not have my first one until 2007 when I was already 57 years old. I was alway afraid of going because of all the "horror" stories you always hear. Well my first ever mammogram, they found a lump in my left breast. Since I had never had a mammogram up until that time, they had me come back in 6 months to see if there was any change. It had grown a little bit, so they sent me for a biopsy. I was lucky. The lump turned out to be benign, but I still had it removed, just to make sure. Now the problem is, the company I used to work for is saying they "might" take away some of the health plans they offer to retirees and the only one they will offer is one that I will NOT be able to afford. If they do that, I will not have health insurance anymore until I reach age 65 and can get medicare, and that is still 6 years away. THAT is scary.

Right now we are waiting for our handyman to come by. We want him to give us an estimate for painting the outside of our house. Also need a little woodwork repair around a couple of window panes outside and a few other spots on the outside of the house before he can do the painting. Hope he's reasonable.

Day One

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kay. I am 59 years old. I am married to Ben. We have no children. We live in Canyon Country, CA which is about 40 miles north of Los Angeles.

I have two brothers, one older, one younger.

I grew up in Sunland, CA and attended Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, CA. I gratuated from there in 1968.

I worked for Lockheed Martin Aerospace for 37 1/2 years. Retired in February 2006.

I have blogged here before, but gave it up for awhile. Now I've decided to give it another try.

I belong to the Cloudeight "Not Over The Hill" web community and spend a lot of time chatting with friends there. You will find the link to my page there and some of my other websites under "My Links" on the left-hand side of my blog page here.

I am an amateur photographer. I love taking photographs and even dabble in digital videos a little. I love to hike on the mountain trails around where we live. I have combined my love for photography and hiking and have posted my hiking photos at Fotki.com and Webshots.com and my videos on my YouTube Channel. You can find the links to those websites under "My Links" also.

My plan for this blog site is to just chat about anything that comes to mind. I'll tell you my opinions on things, if I have an one, and I'll tell you about my hikes and other activities.

So for now I guess that's about it. Hope you'll enjoy this site and maybe end up being a follower. Hope you'll also check out my other websites.