In the Marry Month of May

May 31 - What a helicopter ride of a month this has been!  I had all kinds of blog posts planned because we had so many things going on and here it is the end of May and I've only written about our house!

The whole premise for the MARRY in the title of these posts was because it was our 32nd wedding anniversary on the 20th and I didn't even write about that, so here goes:

For our anniversary, I booked us a trip to Las Vegas because we had not been there in 30 years.  Not sure why I had to make the flight so early (6 AM)!  

But the Bloody Mary's helped wake us up (bonus, they were free because the stewardess forgot to come by to collect!)

Because I consider my hubby my "knight in shining armor,"

I thought it only fitting we should stay in a castle:

One of the things that my husband wanted to do while we were in Las Vegas was to go by the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop because he watches that program on TV and is interested in the different things that get sold there:

He did recognize some things from the show and it was very interesting, but I somehow expected it to be more "Hollywood" than it was.  I mean, it is literally just a little hole-in-the-wall pawn shop.  Cory, the son, was in the store at the time but he was behind a desk and there was a big sign saying "no pictures in this direction" so we had to settle for the cardboard cut-out of Rick. 

The other exciting adventure that we had while we were there was to take a helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon and have a champagne picnic on the west rim of the Canyon.  It's a good thing I didn't read about the crash this company had a few years ago before we went!  I actually felt very safe.  We had a terrific pilot.  

We only saw a portion of the canyon but the whole excursion was about 4 hours.  We saw some beautiful scenery and got to see the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in addition to the Grand Canyon and then flew by the Las Vegas strip on the way home.  The pilot made sure to pass by our hotel so we could see what it looked like from the air.  It was pretty cool.  

Our trip was slightly hampered by the fact that hubby was having a problem with pain in his leg and was unable to walk for long distances, even with a cane.  That kind of forced us to stay close to the hotel and the gambling in Vegas is not as fun as it is in Reno, at least in our opinion.  I don't think we'll go back to Vegas any time soon, but we did manage to make some pretty great memories on this mini-stay.  

We even got to see Elvis in his pink cadillac as we drove the strip:

   

All in all I'd say it wasn't a bad way to celebrate 32 years!  

May 20, 1984

May 24, 2016

We  haven't changed much, right?  Tomorrow is June 1 and it is looking like another topsy turvy month.  I'll try to keep you all better informed :)

One last thing, in our trip to the Pawn Shop I saw this brochure:

and it reminded me of the post I did last month in the A to Z challenge about In A Gadda Da Vida.  Sometimes the weirdest things catch my eye!

Hope you had a great Marry May.  Bring on June!

In The Marry Month of May

May 17  -- Update

From this:

Through the measuring...

 ...and then the old stuff comes off.  Quite a noisy, dirty process this roofing is.

Let the sunshine in!  Looks like we really needed some extra protection on the garage roof!

An interesting conveyer belt gets the new material to the roof.  

To this...Not finished yet but it looks so much better!  This is the same spot on the garage roof as in the first picture of this post.  

I really like the color of the new roof.  It is going to look really nice with the siding and trim.   I didn't realize how noisy this procedure was going to be.  When they were scraping off the old shingles it sounded like the house was falling apart.  Then the nailing!  I do have to say that the company we are working with, 21st Century, is being very good about cleaning up after each day.  There was almost more mess around when the old shingles were falling off when it rained or was windy than there is now that the workmen are here!  

So, now they are working on the eves and getting the rest of the house ready for the siding.  I grabbed some of the TyVek that they were using to seal the house.  It makes great, sturdy binding for my mini albums! 

Stay tuned for the next installment and watch for my Instagram photos and quick videos.  There's a great one of some pieces of the roof falling over the side of the house and the conveyor belt in action.  I know you're fascinated!

In the Marry Month of May

May 11

May is turning out to be quite an eventful month for us!  In one of my earlier posts I wrote about my vision cards for the year and how our house is one of the areas I/we will be focusing on.

We moved into this house almost 20 years ago, just before our youngest daughter was born.  In fact, I was about 4 months pregnant and couldn't do much in the actual moving part.  We used to tell people that they should look for the house that was the color of mint chip ice cream.   

To say we've done nothing to the house is not quite true.  A few years ago we had a leak in the roof over the kitchen and, after living through one rainy season with pots on the floor, we patched that section of the roof.

And last year we replaced part of the fence in the backyard that had just about fallen completely apart.

There are many reasons why we haven't done much to the house over the years.  In the beginning, nothing needed fixing.  Then, as little things started to pop up, my husband, who is a pretty handy man, was busy working, sometimes odd shifts like graveyard or swing shift which would throw his sleeping habits all out of whack and make the timing of doing things inappropriate.  (He couldn't start making repairs when he got home from work at midnight or 3 AM and he would need to be sleeping during the day).  Now, when things are really needing attention, his back will not allow him to handle the strenuous activities.

So, we've made the decision to have a company come in and replace the roof and gutters and put siding on the house rather than paint.  I've gone around and taken pictures of what things look like now so we can compare them to the finished product (and so I can have another subject to scrapbook about - let's be honest)!

Pretty shabby looking, but I don't usually look up at the roof.

This is in our driveway at the moment.

There are men on the roof as I type this.  Inspection tomorrow, Friday they start putting new shingles and gutters on and it should be done by Monday!  Cross your fingers all goes well!  

In the Marry Month of May 2016

May 8 - Sundays are good days to reflect.

It has been a week since I finished the Blogging from A to Z Challenge with my musical abecedarium.  I had a lot of fun trying to come up with a musical word or something that I could tie into the musical theme with every letter of the alphabet.   I think I did a pretty good job.  In case you are interested, here is a list of what I came up with:

A = A Cappella
B = Bell
C = Cowboy Jack
D = Drums
E = Eight Track Tape
F = Funiculi Funicula
G = Guitar
H = Harmony
I = In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
J = Jazz
K = Keyboard
L = Lyric
M = Mother
N = Note
O = Ode
P = Pickstrap Picks
Q = Quartet
R = Radio
S = Saxophone
T = Ticket
U = Ukulele
V = Venue
W = Woodstock
X = Xylorimba
Y = Yodel
Z = ZZ Top

Just click on any one and it will take you to the post for that letter.

In this reflection post, the organizers of the A to Z Challenge ask us for suggestions, tips, anything that we liked or did not like about the challenge.  It was the first time I had done an abecedarium and I really had fun.  Some things that I found helpful were:  planning at least half of the letters beforehand.  Even if I didn't have the complete post written up, at least having the main theme of the letter was a time saver.  I don't think I would have been able to complete it had I not done so.  Having Sundays as "free" days was great too.  One of the weeks I was really busy with my "real" job and having Sunday as a catch up day meant I was able to keep on track without falling behind.

I  have learned a couple of good tricks for next year from Natalie at "There She Goes," such as making a list of the blogs I liked and trying to visit different ones every day.  I did follow quite a few if I found I liked them and they started showing up in my news feed but after the first few days, I really didn't look past them and I think that since there were about 1000 participants, I should have visited a few more.

I do appreciate all the comments I got from everyone and I liked the fact that the organizers kept the "spam" and riff-raff posts at bay.  All in all, I have to say that it was a very educational experience in a lot of ways as well, not just the things I learned from doing my own posts (like xylorimba) but also the things I learned from others.  I have added quite a few books to my "to-read" list thanks to some of the posts I read, heard some good music from others and had a laugh or two over a cup of coffee!  I even went on a trip to Manhattan, and watched some old TV shows.

I say hats off to all the participants and I hope we can do it again next year!  How about you?  Did you have fun reading my posts?  Find any other interesting folks to follow?

The Marry Month of May

May 1 -- Well, I survived the A to Z Challenge last month.  I am pretty proud about that, so I will display the badge...

Since I was so busy doing the blog, though, I did not post my selfie for the month of April:

Or the cool shots I got of the full moon on the 22nd.

Do you see a witch on a broomstick in this one?

And, I finished the book about the Baseball Road Trip, The Summer That Saved Baseball (it was okay.  Somehow I felt it was missing something but I don't know what); and have picked The Devil Wears Prada as my book for the category New York Times Bestseller.

All in all it was a pretty busy month of April and May promises to be just as full with our first concert on the 19th, our anniversary on the 20th (that's why it's Marry May, not Merry May), a scrapbook day on the 21st and then a trip to Las Vegas from the 24 through the 26th (that goes along with my vision board for travel this year!).

I have a few days in the beginning of the month to get myself organized, thank goodness.  How about you?  Got a busy May coming up? Love to hear about it!