Plane on a Train

Just a bit ago I saw three more planes loaded on the train go by!  It was pretty awesome!  They take the wings off and ship them on a rail car behind the airplanes.  I will try to get a picture next time!

While I was watching, I saw someone lose control of their car run over trash cans and just miss running into the apartment across the street.  Yikes.

Other than that, finally home and resting :)

Howdy

Fourth of July was spectacular here.  Practically every firework is legal and everyone has them, even giant mortars that go way up in the sky and are brilliantly amazing.  From about 4 pm on, it was the most impressive fireworks display I think I have ever seen!  The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder (?), but wow was it beautiful!  I could see fireworks in any direction I looked!  Like surround sound, but 360 degrees of viewing fireworks in the sky!  The best part was I didn't even have to leave home to see them because everyone was lighting them off!

Other than that I haven't been up to much.  With the health issues I have had this summer, I am pretty much mostly home and hoping that if I rest I will be allowed to make the trip home for a few weeks at the end of summer.  Hopefully I will see y'all then.  But I will try to get some more pictures posted soon.

Twice the shade

Twice as effective, twice as 'ghetto'.  Where there is a will (and little money), there is a way!
I now have two car windshield sun reflectors in my front apartment window to keep out the sun and heat.  Excellent use of $15 and relatively 'green' since I am not using electricity to cool down my place. (Not that I have an air conditioner, but that is what people with $ use to cool down their homes!)

Fourth of July in Montana

Wow!  So pretty much every firework imaginable is legal here!  People buy tubes to shoot these amazing amazing fireworks in the air.  For the most part, it appears people use common sense, although I will say I saw some guys shooting bottle rockets out of a moving car!  INSANE!

Anyway, not only are they legal, but it is totally fine to shoot them off the week before and after 4th of July.  And to be honest, people have been shooting them off for at least two weeks now.  All night long, I hear fireworks.  I sit on my porch and watch the free show provided by the people delighting in shooting them off.

I have heard that actually on the 4th of July so many fireworks are shot off that the air outside everywhere is hazy with the smell of gunpowder.  Ought to be very interesting tomorrow!

For my friends back home in SR....  wish you could see this show, night after night!

Saturday, June 29, 2014

wow.  So this is what it is like to live in a clean and very organized house.  MY very clean and organized home.  Wonderful.  Love it!  Just sitting on the couch, looking at my clean carpet, all the books and papers organized in the bookcase, bins with pens, notecards, highlighters, etc.  wow.  Wish y'all could see it.  Those who have ever seen my apartment or old office, this is probably hard to believe, but believe it!

The furniture is back....

Cleaning carpets is definitely a day+ job....  By the time you move everything out, actually clean, let it dry, and put the furniture back.  But here it is  :)

Cleaning...

Today was really warm, so I decided to steam clean the downstairs carpet.  Treated the spots first, then steam-cleaned the rug.  Got all the bunny items cleaned up and stored away.  Did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom.  Scrubbed walls, replaced water filters, cleaned the steam cleaners, cleaned the tracks for the window and sliding glass doors, etc.  It is nice to have a day to do something like this.  (With my old job it was really difficult to get time to clean like this.)  Long day, but the hard work keeps my mind off sadder things.  This has been a really long year, and these last two months have been one shoe after another dropping. It is amazing that I think things can't get worse and then something else happens, and another thing happens, and yet one more thing happens.  I have ceased thinking that this is as bad as things can be, because it could be so so so much worse.  But God has been teaching me a lot and I have changed and grown so much in these last two months.  Whereas I used to have a meltdown with so many problems, it was only a few minutes of tears as I prayed about it and then started taking positive and constructive action to find a solution.  And these many problems have been teaching me to be thankful for what is truly important in life:  my faith, a God that never abandons me, that my health isn't as bad as it could be, I have a roof over my head (at least for the moment), food to eat.  I know this is where God wants me to be for the time being and I trust that He will take care of me.  It's not easy, to be sure, but God is faithful.

Here is the floor.  It is actually cleaner now than when I moved in!  Those two little stains in the center were here when I moved in and they won't come out, but I got many other stains out.  Now for it to dry, and then tomorrow morning I can put the couch and end tables and such back.  :)

Now it is time to sit down and grade papers.  This is my back porch, and I put a little candle in the stone basin and use a fork to toast marshmallows and make s'mores and enjoy the sunset and the trains going by.  I can get away with a fork instead of a stick since candles don't put out much heat, unlike a fire!