Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Still Kicking
Hubby has been diagnosed with liver cancer, and we are on the last leg of the journey, and what a tough one it has been.
All the kids except for two of them were here this weekend, James will be here Monday night and I don't think Na will be able to make it down.
I've taken a leave of absence from work for the time being so that I can do what has to be done.
Will post more later.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
I'm Back!!
Bet you thought I'd given up on the blogging, not really have just been soooo busy I haven't had the time.
I'm back to work at the "World Famous Watch Man" in the Riverside Casino, and I've been uploading some pictures on my son Roberts site, check it out. It's Bencivenga.us , look under photo albums, mine is "Maneta - Mom.
Later all..
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Just lazy
All is well on the Arizona front, the weather is finally starting to warm up and pool weather is on the horizon, if they ever finish refurbishing the pool.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Jury Duty
I've had to serve on a Jury, I won't go into details about the trial. It would make for a really-really-really long story. However I want to share with you my feeling about having to serve.
I had my doubts that I would be picked, but there you go, I was doing my own thinking again. I dreaded having to spend the time sitting in a court room, as if I have so many pressing things to do like take Hubby across the river to a Casino. I'm glad now that I did take the time, actually I really didn't have a choice.
During the process of choosing a Jury, the Judge had a list of questions that were asked, like have you ever had to call for assistance from the Police Dept, have you any relatives that are on the police force, do you know the attorneys, ect. Now I could have lied and told some whoppers of a story just so that I would be dismissed, but I didn't, I answered truthfully even telling about our old manager Larry and the episode of the oleanders, which got a chuckle out of the Judge when he asked me if I had been afraid, and I answered no, " I was really pissed off at the son-of-a-b___h."
During the trial I learned quite a bit about the process, and how the laws of this land are there to supposedly protect the victim, but in reality only aid the criminal lawyers in truly bending the law to protect the criminal. What an eye opener, and it confirmed the fact "documentation, documentation", and follow through.
Had the police followed through on their investigation we would have gotten the verdict that was necessary, we did find the man guilty of his crime, but not the maximum he should have got.
What an eye opener it was, and though it's a bother a person should at one time in his life serve on a Jury a great learning experience.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Macho or Bird Brain?
I walked back to the bedroom trying to find this trapped bird and hopefully catch it and send it on is way. How wrong was I.
The trapped bird was actually on the outside of the sliding glass door, it has the reflective film on it to keep the sun out. He was throwing himself at the glass fighting with the bird he could see.

This isn't the best picture, but it was taken from the inside and if you look closely you can see him.

Here he is on the side of the screen.
I went outside to get a better picture, but to no avail. So I chased him off or so I thought. I no sooner got back inside and there he was, back again.
He was there all day, trying to chase off the other bird that had invaded his territory. I think he wore himself out. Haven't seen him since.
I haven't decided if he's a bird brain or just one macho house sparrow.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Now it's really complete
My new stove is better than a 10 carat diamond ring.

I don't have to check the temp every time I put something in the oven.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
A new pet?

Meet the house mouse.........
Friday, January 06, 2006
The start of a New Year
We're off and running, we started another project. In the kitchen of course. We finally decided that the ugly tile had to go. so we started the 30th of Dec. on the demolition.

It really doesn't look like we did much at this point. Now you must remember that the stove was as far to the left as possible. Now when using the oven you had to be very very careful when opening the door, not much wiggle room there, it just cleared the cupboard door under the sink.

Hubby finally managed to get the drawers leveled, those were on the right side of the stove, and the trash compactor was to the right of that.

The compactor was moved to the other side of the kitchen, by the back slider which makes it a lot easier to take out the trash.

Almost done, I can't believe how much more counter space this gives me, we only added about 12 inches to the length, but with it continuous it sure seems like a whole lot more. All that's left is the trim work and down the road a new stove.
My hubby hates the words " you know honey I was thinking".
Friday, December 16, 2005
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Sand Drags
The qualifying was to start at 10 am so off we headed, of course we forgot about the time change, when we cross the river we lose an hour so we were an hour early. No problem, we just hung out in the Casino for an hour. Didn't have any luck either.
When we walked back to the track, we found out that I had parked the car in the staging area for the racers. Moved the car to regular parking, and they thought I was going to race the villager, silly them.
It was a beautiful sunny day, not windy at all when we first got there, but by the time the qualifying started, the wind had come up, 20 mph gusts and for us it was flat ass cold.
Watched a bit, then headed home to thaw out. All in all, I'd go again although we didn't go today, the high is only in the 50's and with the wind it feels a lot colder. Getting spoiled aren't we.
These are alcohol fuel dragsters.
This is a top fuel dragster, forgot how loud those puppies are, my ears still hurt. Ah the smell of methanol, really cleans out the sinuses.

A couple of ATVs, the kid in the far lane kept trying, he never did win, but he sure gave it a try, I don't think he was any older than 7.

Just a couple more shots of the races, love those rooster tails.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Busy, busy, busy

Haven't posted lately, we've been helping a neighbor with a house that he bought, fixing it up to resell. Hubby has been doing a lot of building and I've had a paint brush in my hand for so long now it's locked in.
Almost done, and non too soon either. We had just finished screening in our porch and we both need a rest, and I want to enjoy my porch now that it's not so hot anymore.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Sunday, October 23, 2005
I can see or at least it looks like it..
Last Friday we headed to Vegas again, this time to pick up Hubbies new eye. (He still can't see any better though). The Dr. did a pretty good job of matching the color, and personally I think it looks pretty good.
This trip was a whole lot better than the one we made a week ago, we ran into the worst down pour that I think Vegas has ever seen. At times I couldn't even see the road and when you are on the freeway that's pretty scary. Even with the windshield wipers running as fast as they could the only thing I could see was a dim outline of the tail lights of the car in front of me, if that guy would have gone off the road, I'd have been right behind him. Thank heavens it wasn't a snow storm....
I'm still not use to seeing him with an eye and at times I have to do a double take. It has does wonders for his self-esteem. There is some fine tuning that still has to be done, so we have to make another trip to Vegas next Friday, but the trip is well worth the time. The eye socket has to adjust to something being there again, and in time should move with the other eye. It does move some now, but down the road it will track even better.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Latest Project
It's just between the palm trees. This is what the front looked like when we moved in .
Well the boat sailed off into the sun set last weekend.
We started out making a stronger post to hold the humming bird feeder because the shepherds hook really swayed in the wind and on days when it was really ripping around here the feeder would be empty in minutes, I would say a few choice words and the hummers would hover in front of the windows asking for food.
So Monday morning after I got the clothes hung on the clothes-line, we took our favorite drive to Home Depot (I should buy stock in that place, most of our money goes there, even more than the casinos get) just to pick up a couple of posts to make a hanger for the feeder.

This is what it ended up as, our very own wishing well. Notice the size of the palm trees, I can't believe they have grown that much in a little over a year and 9 months. If the wind manages to blow hard enough to empty the feeder now I'm afraid that's not all that will be gone.
The hummers are really enjoying their new diner.....
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
A better picture
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
A little more work
We then decided that it was time for the dishwasher to go, we never use it and it had a habit of emitting this horrendous odor. To put it mildly you needed a gas mask if you were going to risk opening the door. I had tried running it with bleach only, spent copious amounts of money on products that promised to leave it smelling fresh & clean. Yah right. Finally emptied a whole box of baking soda into it, which helped mildly.

At any rate, the dishwasher had met it's demise and out it came, Hubby built shelves in the void that was left and the end result is rather to my liking, and has given me a wee bit more counter space since the various items that graced the counter now have a home of their own.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Most Interesting visitor
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Face Lift
Last week we decided that the kitchen could use a little paint on the ceiling and on the walls. It should only take us a day to paint. So off to Home Depot we head.After an hour or so, that's right an hour or more, we are headed home with paneling for the ceiling, two new light fixtures, a new ceiling fan, (the old ceiling fan hung down a little to far and to walk under it was to put the top of your head in danger and I couldn't open the cupboard doors with the fan on) and light yellow paint for the walls. I have that sinking feeling that our two hour job is going to grow into a monster again.
It took one whole day just to put up the furring strips to hold the paneling, we found that part of the original ceiling was starting to detach itself from the rafters and it would not have held up without the furring strips. Another 2 days were spent getting the paneling attached to the ceiling, thank god for neighbors. It took 3 people, Hubby, myself to hold it in place and another person to use the staple gun to shoot it into place, At times I felt like I needed a 45 mag. to shoot, I can see the humor now, but at the times I got rather distressed when I say go left, my left of course, only they were facing the opposite way and moved it their left, which was my right.
The light fixtures went fairly smoothly until we both had a brain fart, and wired the second light backwards, it didn't start a fire, but we did burn out two switches, until we noticed that we had wired the switch wrong. We self installed pull switches to the light so that we could leave the ceiling fan on all the time, but still turn the lights off.
The next few days were spent painting, washing the outside of the cupboards, installing trim and all the piddley stuff that has to be done to get things back to a usable space, (I got to eat out a couple of those days because you couldn't use the kitchen to cook in). I only had one more project for the kitchen and it's face lift would be complete. That was to put something in that hole in the wall.
Little Louie finally had a place to call his own, Little Louie is another story in itself, one day I'll tell you all about him.Done at last....... (Now as I look around, that hall way could use some paint......)


