Senator Barack Obama, Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Hillary Clinton and Ruth Harkin stand during the national anthem.

This morning Samantha said she had to have a Halloween shirt to wear to school today. So, off to the store at 8am. I am so thankful we found one! She was so cute changing into it in the car... Here we are in the Wal Mart parking lot.

I don't know how well you can see them but this morning there were 2 Robins sitting at the very top of our birch trees in the back yard. It was in the low 40's and they looked cold. Fly south Robins, fly, fly!

Small towns are just the best. I love driving down our Main Street on my way to pick Samantha up from school. Some of the leaves did not turn this fall though so there are lots of green still but what trees did turn are absolutely beautiful.

John so wants Samantha to become interested in shooting and gun collecting but she just has no interest what so ever...

We went to see "The Hobo and the Miracle" at the Columbus Children's Theater. It was quite good and Samantha enjoyed meeting the characters afterward. And, no parking tickets this time either!

The moments when Samantha doesn't know I'm watching her are the best. We played on the playground at Slate Run and here she is inspecting the blisters from the monkey bars. She amazes me how her hands can be full of blisters yet she'll go right back to the monkey bars. She has blisters on top of her blisters but she never complains.

John started day shift yesterday. About 8pm he comes into the living room where I was watching TV and says: "I'm bored!" He repeated it about 20 times. He needs a hobby. After a while one of the guys from work called him and they talked about what they had done at work that day so that kept him busy for a while.

Dinner last night was good and I wish there had been left overs to bring in my lunch today... We had ham, stuffing and pasta.

Today is raining as it did all day yesterday and it is dark and grey out. I want to curl up on the couch and take a nap... Or I want to take a bath and then curl up on the couch...

Sometimes a grey rainy day is the best thing. I love to draw all the curtains, turn on a few lights and snuggle up on the couch with a good book or TV show... like a "Law & Order" marathon. Today is a rainy day. I can't wait to finish work, pick Samantha up from school and hurry home.

John is going to work day shift for about 6 or 7 weeks. His hours will be 7am - 3pm and this means that he will be home in the evenings... every evening. This also means that I will have to cook dinner for him every night, not just 2 nights a week as I do now. Don't get me wrong, I do make Samantha dinner every night but it's different. She eats small things that can be made in the microwave or sometimes we eat cereal for dinner or a plate of fruit. The problem is: John likes his dinners in a particular way. He like a meat dish and 2 sides and the 2 sides have to "go with" the meat dish. He won't eat any type of breakfast food for dinner and he would laugh at a fruit plate and then ask where the rest of the meal was. I should note that he will cook his own dinner so it is not like he is standing there all "woman, where's my dinner". I've been making a list of meal ideas so that I can have a variety for him. He is not like Samantha and I who can eat macaroni and cheese 12 nights in a row. You know, I am actually kind of looking forward to cooking. I do enjoy it even though I don't do it all that often.

It is quite warm out but there is a breeze. I am sitting out on the deck in a corner on an Adirondack chair. When I tip my head back to look up at the sky I can see a nail sticking out of the trim on the house. Last summer or so I pounded it in up there to hang wind chimes on. I remember being precariously perched up there hoping I wouldn't fall over the side and into the gravel behind the shed. The wind chimes looked nice but they fell down the first time it was windy and I never got around to putting them back up. I don't even know where they are now.

Kelly has been talking about the movie, "Open Water" for years now. She has some sort of fascination with sharks. Anyway, it was on TV this afternoon. Samantha and I watched it. It was awful. I can't believe I watched the whole thing! When I call a movie awful or stupid it doesn't necessarily mean it is bad. For example, in this case it means I cried a lot and will be thinking about the whole stupid thing all night. I can't imagine being out in the ocean like that where which ever direction you looked you saw nothing but water and sky. Samantha cried too but she won't admit it. She asked for a Kleenex but made it perfectly clear it was only because her nose was running... yeah, that happens when you cry... Ugh! Stupid movie, I can't stop thinking about it!

My child is strange... John is doing some sort of traffic stop training with the 2 new guys and gets off at 8pm tonight instead of his usual 11pm which is way after Samantha has gone to bed on a school night... so, he called and asked if we wanted to come into the hood around 8pm when he gets off and we can all go get ice cream... We said yes... but then, a few minutes later Samantha says to me, "you know Mommy, I might want to take a bath instead of going to get ice cream." WHAT?!? Is this my child, the one who puts labels on the ice cream in the freezer forbidding anyone to eat it or bad things will happen to them... It was hot today so she must not feel well...

After school today I wanted to do something... so did Samantha but we couldn't figure out exactly what we wanted to do... We went home and I helped Samantha with her math homework... yes, you heard that correctly, I HELPED SAMANTHA WITH HER MATH... (Remember, I chose a college based on the fact that math was not required.) So, I must have had some momentary brain swelling that caused some area of math clarity to open up... It was rather hot out today... So, when we were done we decided to go to the park... the one with the living historical farm because they have a play area that is in the shade... We played for a while but then decided that we really didn't feel like doing much of anything after all... We came home and here we sit... waiting to go have ice cream... Plus, John says he has some juicy gossip about something that is going on at his work and I can't wait to hear...

Surprisingly I am way less stressed at work even though I have 3 shows coming up and they have trained another guy to do technical work out in the field which adds to what I already have to do... but I am calm, serene, at peace with it all... Something happened last week at work that should have really shaken me but again surprisingly, nothing but calm... Last week Ron came back from a show and he was really cranky and he yelled at me... He said some really mean things to me in front of everyone... Now, I have gotten into shouting matches before at work but they were 2 way conversations... er, I mean, shouting matches and I never detected hostility in their voices they way I did when Ron said the things he did. It was almost scary how angry he was... I was so stunned I just picked up my things and left...It was time for me to leave anyway... but still, I did not respond at all to Ron... That is very unlike me, I always have to put my two cents in and I have to have the last word... Usually when something like this happens at work I cry but not this time... And, even later on when I re-played it over in my mind, I could not cry... That really shows me that Ron means absolutely nothing to me...

Like I said here we sit, I am on the front porch and Samantha is playing with chalk on the driveway and something with her hula hoop... Anyway, a guy just rode by on his bike with a wiener dog on a leash running alongside him... Boy did that look ridiculous... Enough for now... we are off to get ice cream...

B-2 Bomber Flyover

We had the coolest weekend! First of all, the weather was beautiful, totally fall like with cool mornings and warm afternoons. And once again I just have to say how much I love fall.



On Friday John took the day off. He picked me up after work. We had a little over an hour until it was time to pick Samantha up from school so we took a drive out to the air show local to scope everything out. John brought his camera to catch some of the planes flying over. We pulled off on the side of Rhor Rd. and were able to see the Thunderbirds flying by as close as if we had been at the air show! I have been excited about the air show for a few weeks but now my excitement has peaked, I CAN'T WAIT!



The air show is the Final Gathering of Mustangs and Legends. There are about 150 P-51 Mustangs left in existence and there will be 100 of them at the air show along with some of the legends who flew them including members of the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPS.

On Saturday morning we got to the air show about 8:30am and boy was the line long... it moved fairly quickly and once inside the gates we met Kelly, Tim and the kids. Kelly borrowed a wheelchair from her school. There was no way she would have made it just on her crutches. We got a great spot to sit and watch everything. After we got set up John and Tim went to check out all the static displays. It was amazing to be so close to all those planes from WWII! We watched Mustangs, bombers, various fighters, the B-2 stealth bomber (freaky), the Thunderbirds and some bi-planes.

The Thunderbirds were awesome. Originally I had been more excited about the older planes but now I totally get the attraction to the Thunderbirds. They fly 6 planes, 4 together and then 2 solos. One of the solo pilots is a woman, Major Samantha Weeks. When we were in line waiting to get in Samantha and I were talking about how cool it is that now women can do everything in the military. John told her that they can be fighter pilots and bomber pilots, everything. I said,"that's right, girls can do everything and we do it better." To which Samantha replied: "and in high heels." Several people in line chuckled.

We stayed until after the Thunderbirds which was about 7 hours. Kelly & Tim had to leave because they had to pick Kelly's sister up at the airport & Sean had a birthday party to go to. We decided to leave as well because Samantha had a really bad headache from being out in the sun and all the noise. I felt bad for her because the walk to the car was really long. We had wanted to stay longer but she was really miserable. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the car and along the way we got to see quite a bit more. They had a bunch of bombers flying and a they made it look like they were dropping bombs. There was tons on fire and black smoke. The noise was terrific but not for Samantha though. When we got to the car she climbed in the back seat and was sound asleep by the time John got the wagon loaded in the back.

I hope Samantha is not developing migraines. She seems to get headaches when she is outside for an extended period of time and it doesn't matter how much water we have her drink either. But, when she gets one she falls asleep for an hour or two and when she wakes up she is completely fine.