I know, I know, I'm awful at blogging

So, Quick update:
We got accepted into the Mexico and Prague study abroad programs (Huzzah!), we'll head down to Monterry Mexico in January. The school also recently added a China program (which one could do in place of Prague) and while Dave is interested in we'd have to apply first.
We also bought a townhouse fairly nearby. Not terribly big, but it does need some basic work, flooring, appliances. We've repainted, I've rewired most of the outlets, ripped up all the old flooring, and with any luck the new floors will be in by end of next week, as will the appliances, air conditioner/heat pump. At that point, I'll just need to finish repainting the cabinetry, and replace the toilet/bathtub. (it sounds like a lot, but it's really not all that bad!)

One of these days I'll figure that the various stories in my life are worthy of blogging notation... but until then, my casual readers will have to suffice with random updates.

Feels like...

Seeing as today is a banking holiday AND the weather here in Phoenix has finally cooled off, Adela and I went hiking up Phoenix's very popular Camelback Mtn. 15 minutes of looking for a parking space isn't usually my ideal way to start a hike, but there you go. Not even 100 paces into this, and I lose my footing, and fall down hill landing fairly hard on my knees and hands. Not wanting to be a baby about the whole thing, I dust myself off and keep hiking.

Animals I would say are much smarter than we are at hiking, but in tricky places, it's best not to attach yourself to them. Unfortunately for me, Adela is a very big and intimidating dog, and people prefer her on a leash. So when we got to the very steep and slick places of the hike (so steep they installed a railing for people to literally pull themselves up on), in the interest of my saftey, I'd let her go so we could both scale up the rocks.

The view from the top of the mountain... well, I don't yet know what it looks like because I didn't make it all the way there. When I stumbled and fell at the begining, I had gashed my knee up pretty good, and my footing was getting more unstable the further and further I got. Again, in the interest of self-preservation, I decided to turn back before I got worse couldn't make it back down again.

When I got home, I looked at my knee... It wasn't so good. Dave helped me clean it out, bandage myself up again. Without actually showing the damage (cuz it's pretty nasty looking), this is the damage to the pants.

At the very least, it was a good hike for Adela. When we came home from the hike, she pretty much konked out.
Ahh it's always good to be home again relaxing.

Maybe Tokyo

Our most recent experiment in cooking, was only moderately successful. We made wontons (most chinese restaurants I've been too would have called them pot stickers, but my recipe book called them wontons, therefore, they are wontons).
A cooking tip to anyone who decides to make them, if you need to refrigerate your wontons for later frying/steaming, do NOT stack them on top of each other. The dough tends to bind itself back together. (particularly true when you've made your own dough)
Needless to say, I currently have more than a few wontons that had to be fried as a duo or trio. And I have more than a few wontons where it's painfully obvious that I have very little to hold my wonton together.

Perhaps I should ask for a trip to toyko to celebrate the pending closing of my house, and learn other tricks to asian cooking?

Counting the Days (part 2 of Moving)

When we left off from part 1, we were gimping back to the rental agency. Once there, they decided to give us a new car trailer, and they hemmed and hawed and tried to make it the best they could so we wouldn't have any more problems. By the time they were done, and everything was re-hooked up and ready to go, it was past midnight. So, off we go headed south on I-15 once again. Right as we are going over the 45th South overpass, the passenger tire on this new car trailer, blows out. Personally, I don't think the term "blows out" is sufficient. By the time we pulled over, there was NO tire left around the rim. I think "exploded" is better. Anyway, so we call the rental agency again, and tell them to bring an extra car carrier (we happen to have a perfect knowledge that they have one there available!) for us to switch out on, because we can't gimp back in the state we are in. They say, sure sure, it'll be 45-75 minutes. An hour later, we call back "Sure sure, it'll be 45-75 minutes, and I'll call you in 15 with an ETA". An hour later, we call back "Sure sure, it'll be 30-45 minutes, and I'll call you in 15 with an ETA." An hour later, we call back "Sure sure, it'll be 30-45 minutes, and I'll call you in 15 with an ETA." We were pretty shocked when the help finally did arrive a little after 4 am. He doesn't have the extra trailer with him, but he can take the bad trailer, and we'll drive separately back to the rental facility (Dave in the truck, me in the Toyota). So, we see him get the trailer loaded on to his truck, and we drive off. We sit at the facility for about 30-45 minutes waiting for him to show up so we can get our new trailer. So we call the agency again, the poor guy, as he was exiting after us, something sharp ricocheted underneath his truck, and sliced his brake line. He was inching along at 5 miles an hour to make it back to us. He finally makes it back to the facility, and again, the help hemms and haws about the trailer, and making sure it'll be good. They finally got it all hooked up with another new trailer for us, and refilled our gas tank, and it was a little after 6 am at this point. Dave and I had tried to pretend to sleep during much of this waiting in the cab of the truck, but it's not really all that comfy, that and there is lots and lots of noise on a freeway. We head south on I-15 again, and we make it to Dave's sister's house in Elkridge (just outside of Payson) so we can do some moving swapping (I'll give you my rugs, if you give me your distiller...) and to pick up some rice to take to Vegas and Phoenix. But, we are so exhausted tired from a very long day packing and cleaning, and a very long night not really sleeping and yelling at the rental agency, that they wisk us to bed and take care of all that needs to be done. It's amazing how much better you feel after 4-5 hours of real sleep. They are nice enough to feed us some lunch, and off we go to Vegas, and then Phoenix. The rest of the story is fairly uneventful, it's slow driving, but we drive all night, switching every 2-3 hours to let the other person sleep. It was kinda fun to be driving in to Phoenix with the sunrise. We land, unpack the truck, find a rental unit, put the rest there, get the apartment mostly set up, and collapse into bed. Wake up early the next morning to take the truck back, so I can still make it to a work I've never been to on time.

I do apologize for the lack of photos, but we weren't really very photogenic this weekend, I'm kinda glad I don't have photo evidence. Maybe next entry.

Next time, we hire movers. (no probably not, because I'm a total cheapskate, and alls well that ends well, right?)

The best laid plans....

So, we moved to Phoenix. This is one of those times, far easier said than done.
I had planned/hoped that while Dave was at school, that I would get the house packed, and loaded, and ideally cleaned by the time his plane landed Saturday am. Well, I got the house mostly packed and loaded, and the upstairs all clean, even with all of that, it took the two of us 8-10 hours to finish it off. While I knew it was ambitious to start with, I had forgotten how long it takes to scrub a fridge or oven to make it look like new. So Saturday night, we finish hooking up the trailer (to tow our Corrolla), and it's about 9 pm. We figure we'll drive to Dave's sister's house about an hour to the south, do some trading of her stuff for our stuff, and decide if we want to keep travelling from there, since we were both pretty beat. On I-15, we make it to 90th south before a car signals us to pull over. Apparently the emergency brake for the trailer had been on the entire time. while we're at the side of the road, the brake fluid line breaks (presumably from the heat from all the brakes?), and there is steam and smoke, and general chaos for a few minutes. So, between the inability to remove the emergency brake, no brake fluid, we call the rental agency. They promise to send someone out, and in the meantime, with the encouragement of a very friendly Highway Patrolman, we gimp off the freeway to the nearest empty parking lot (thankfully, very close by!) As luck would have it, there was also a sconecutters in this formerly Lowe's parking lot, and they serve 24/7. Since we really hadn't eaten since lunch, this was a welcome break. As we finish up eating, the help arrived. In his discussions with the rental agency, they came to the conclusion that we should drive back to the rental agency, and they would outfit us with a new trailer. and we were gimping our way back to 21st and redwood.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter of this adventure:

And all that Jazz

So, I have been given much grief of late for being neither on facebook, nor having a blog. So by popular demand, I have started both. No guarantees as to regular updates, but we're sure going to try.
So, to give a brief rundown to all of my facebook friends (where I'm going to try to create a link to this), Dave, my husband got accepted into Thunderbird, which has an awesome International MBA program. He's in Phoenix now, as classes have already started. I'm moving down next weekend. Our house in the avenues, that we've spent the last 4 years restoring is finally under contract! Hurray!
I have a fantastic dog named Adela, and, I promise photos will be added soon (soon for me is with in the next month!). She is a long-haired german shepherd.
Not much to comment on at this point. So, check back soon, and maybe I'll have something more exciting.