Month: September 2006

Start of Fall

We’re well into September now, which in Phoenix means that the temperature is no longer above 100 degrees every day. We’ve had some really nice nights lately. Nice for us means about mid 60s at night. Sure beats 90 or whatever it is during the height of summer. Of course it also means that the swimming season is coming to a close. With our thinned-out blood, anything below 75 degrees is too cool. Really. And it’s amazing how quickly the blood thins.

I received some news last week that literally took my breath away. The man who interviewed and hired me at Mercer, Art Wright, passed away last week. He had liver cancer. He’s been out since April, but this was certainly not expected. My last conversation with him in April was interesting. I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was doing OK. He then said that if I believed that, he had a bridge to sell me. I had no idea how sick he was then. I had no idea how this would affect me. Art took a chance on me back in the day, and I’ll always appreciate that. Who knows where/what I’d be without him doing that.

We celebrated my mom’s 60th birthday last week with a surprise party at Catherine’s. My mom was genuinely surprised. My birthday is next week. I’m a year older. Woot! The girls are doing well. I’ll have some more pictures in the next week or so.

Lake Pleasant

We spent a good amount of time yesterday at the lake. My dad has been trying to get us to go for a while, and we’ve always had one lame excuse or another. Actually, it was always something legitimate, but we wanted to make sure that we really got out this time. It was a nice morning, surprisingly uncrowded for a Labor Day weekend. Gwenyth didn’t really dig the life jacket too much, but she ended up managing.

Abigail tried to ski for the first time, and got up on her first try. My dad has these nifty skis that basically lift you out of the water, so she was able to use those. Grace, Lucy, Julie, Abby, and I all got on the tube at one time or another. We all had a really good time. Abigail and I are a bit sunburned, Gwen got a little bit too much wind and now has a  cold, but we’ll survive. The potty situation was something else, which I won’t publish. If you really want details, email me privately. Let’s just say that it invovled a trash can, wipes, paper towels, and a big black garbage bag. Fun!

I need to teach my Sunday School class today on very short notice, so I must be going. The lesson is on Job, a good message. I’ll be spending much of tomorrow fixing up the rental house. We’ll see how I am at doing recessed lighting and installing a microwave. The guy at Home Depot insisted it was no problem. More later. Oh yeah, new pictures to the right.