My Can Opener

OK, I've written how this is my first time living alone in my whole entire 46 years of life. Well, when I realized I would be furnishing a new apartment for the first time ever to suit me, and ONLY me, I was, needless to say, ever so excited at the prospect of new things and the endless possibilities that this presented!

The idea that I would be able to purchase a frying pan, glass set, pot holder or any other NEW item for my apartment was thrilling to be sure. But more so was the idea that if the frying pan developed a crusty old bottom . . . the glass set went from a set of four to a set of three . . . the pot holder miraculously caught fire by the stove . . . I knew who did it! It was me and it was OK because I paid for it!

First thing I did was run out and buy myself top quality utensils and cutlery. In my world, this includes a can opener because can openers cut cans. I did not want to buy anything that I did not like. I have always wanted a bright red electric can opener. Something about a bright red electric can opener makes me think that it will open the cans faster. Call me crazy! Here was my chance to possess this elusive dream! The day I went to look for one, I did not find THE one that I was looking for. This presented quite a dilemma for me. First of all, there was NO WAY I was buying an electric can opener that was NOT red. The only other alternative was a manual can opener. I seriously contemplated heading to another store. I've owned manual can openers before. You can sometimes risk your money when you buy one. It's like playing the lottery. Will I hit the jackpot and this particular manual can opener work? Or will I have wasted my money and never see it again and have a useless piece of metal occupying space in a kitchen drawer to show for it. I convinced myself that it would not hurt to JUST have a look. I walked over to the kitchen utensils aisle and looked at the many manual can openers available these days. To my surprise, there was one with a red handle! Actually there were several and in many different colors, but all I saw were the red ones. Again, I keep in mind that I want nothing but top quality for my new home. I picked up the wonderful manual can opener with its bright red rubber grip and shiny metal parts that . . . I swear . . . whispered my name. The handle somehow felt quite right in the palm of my hand. I was filled with a sense of hope that this bright red, shiny manual can opener with the good rubber grip could open ALL cans. I was just so caught up in the simplistic beauty of it. I had to have it! So . . . I bought it . . . really, I did.

I brought this bright red, shiny manual can opener with the good rubber grip home with me and gave it its own drawer. OK, well, there are a lot of drawers in this kitchen and I still haven't gotten around to buying much. I kid you not, sometimes when I would open the drawer, it would wink at me when the light hit it just so. I've had this bright red, shiny manual can opener with the good rubber grip for about 8 weeks now. If I had a hammer, I'd smash it into a thousand little pieces. Otherwise, this ugly bright red, shiny manual can opener with the good rubber grip would be the death of me. It worked great when I first got it! As I've used it, more and more, it has lost its oomph. First, trying to grip the can with the can opener is an hour long procedure in of itself. Then, once I've gripped the can, getting it to PIERCE the can is another hour long procedure. Be I ever so lucky to get both of those things accomplished, once it starts to cut into the can, for some bizarre reason it cuts into the can lid instead of around the can lid! I've grown to hate this ugly dull orangey red, crusty manual can opener with the rubbery grip. I am not even sure whatever possessed me to buy this monstrosity!

It is time to go out specifically to buy a new bright red electric can opener. So this weekend, I'll pack my purse and make a day of it. If I do not find the bright red electric can opener in the first store I enter, I will head to another one. And another one and another one, until I have my bright red electric can opener! I am still quite upset over the money spent on this monstrosity of a piece of junk disguising itself as a manual can opener that lured me into a false sense of hope. Trust me; I've learned my lesson on this one. Next time, I want top quality items for my new apartment, I plan to go straight to Wal-Mart and bypass Family Dollar!

Working Out!

OK, I've already shared this with some of you guys, so it may be old news, but I wanted to share it with those that had NOT heard of "The Plan."

First of all, I read somewhere that the best workout is one that is split up throughout the day so that it can keep your metabolic rate high enough so you could burn calories all day. So, I decided that I would do the same. I had big plans and decided I was splitting my work out into three 20 minute walks in the morning, noon and evening. So, first thing in the morning, I would get up and walk over to Sonic for a breakfast burrito, which was about a 20 minute walk. Then around noon, I'd walk over to BK and get a hamburger and that was another 20 minute walk. Then in the evening, I'd walk over to Taco Bell for a couple of tacos and that was another 20 minute walk. It was quite disconcerting to find out that I was NOT losing weight!

OK, J/K! My idea of a joke for a message board. But I needed to give you some background information before I told you what happened and all I can say is, be glad I didn't forget the point of the story! That's a totally different post!

So anyway, what I've REALLY been doing is going to the weight room on the complex and using the treadmill. I couldn't help noticing that it was ALWAYS available and whenever other folks were in there, they'd give me a look like I was dressed funny. So I stopped going in my PJs but that didn't stop the looks. Anyway, I normally go in the mornings and in the evenings and spend 20 minutes strolling on the treadmill between the two workouts. J/K! It's more like 15/5! J/K again! Anyway, today I decided to RUN over there at lunch time and do another 20 minutes. I came to my senses before I started running, but I still managed to get over there in record time to find no one on the treadmill again. Gotta love that! So, I'm strolling along and had been on the treadmill for about 5 minutes, barely breaking a sweat might I add, when the treadmill kind of jumped and jerked and the thing started going really fast! All I can say is that thank heavens I was already clinging to the sidebars for dear life otherwise I could have had quite a tumble! I think I may have figured out why I was getting the funny looks. What do you think? I can't believe NO ONE told me! Cause now I REALLY don't think that they were looking at me funny cause of the PJs!

And I'd love to tell you what happened last night when I went to check the mail in the dark because it's almost as funny, but since it happened to me and I think that it's REALLY embarrassing, I think I won't!

Sandia Mountains

Today, I should have stayed home! I felt great this morning and I really wanted to go up to the mountains, so I pushed myself and went. I had a relapse while up there, but it was well worth it as far as I am concerned. The temperature in Albuquerque was a comfortable 82 degrees. Up in the mountains, it was a crisp 54 degrees! I loved it! I didn't bring a sweater and my friend thought I might freeze my buns off, but coming from New Hampshire, to me it was the best fall weather ever! Rain was forecasted and we encountered rain clouds, but no rain came down on us. You can see the rain clouds clearly here.

If you look closely, you can see my apartment. It's the one right smack in the middle of the picture with the red roof. :D
Look at how clear it looked just to the right of the rain clouds! I thought it was just so awesome to have so many views from the mountain top!

In this picture, if you reach out, you can almost touch the clouds, but hang on to the rail because you might get dizzy! ;D

This must be what heaven looks like.

Stuck Indoors

So today, I had made plans to go to the Albuquerque Botanical Gardens and maybe even the zoo. Depended on the weather, cause rain was forecasted. But then I had a friend call last night and invite me to go to the Sandia Mountains with her. Since that is not as accessible to me as the gardens and zoo, I jumped all over that. But alas, I had a rough night tossing and turning with chills and feeling feverish. Sometime this morning, I developed the body aches and as the day progressed, I downright felt awful. So I'm stuck in my apartment, at the very least for today. But I remembered taking this picture of this plant with my camera phone and wondered how it came out. It's pretty clear. Not being from Albuquerque, I couldn't possibly even begin to tell you what kind of plant it is. I was out walking one evening and saw this and had to take a picture because I had never seen anything so bizarre. Well, ok, since moving here, I've seen LOTS of bizarre things, just had never thought to use my camera phone and take a picture before this particular evening. :) If you know what it is and can educate me, please do so!

Birthday Bash!

I went to Lubbock the weekend of September 15 - 16 to celebrate my 46th birthday with my family. My oldest sister, Lilly, and her husband, Clyde, threw a birthday BBQ for me with some help from my older sister, Eva. I get a huge satisfaction out of calling them oldest and older! :) It was well attended and I saw folks I had not seen in 9 years! I even met a great nephew that I thought was still a baby, and he is 8 years old! That is what happens when you have a large family. You forget who was born and who got married, who got divorced and who turned what. As life goes along, I expect folks to continue looking as they did the last time I saw them. I could not get over the changes just since May when I was there last. One nephew moved to Austin, a great-nephew flew to China to study, another great-nephew moved to El Paso and another great-nephew to San Antonio, Texas. The last three, all from one niece's family! So she must feel as if things are really changing for her! A baby was born, prematurely, but is not in the pictures because he was not made aware of my coming to Texas. That was the official excuse! ;) A great-niece started walking, although I never witnessed this, since she was carried the whole time I was there. This time around, no one had gotten married or divorced and no one was pregnant. A nephew and his live-in girlfriend got baptized in a swimming pool and we almost missed that! My mother insisted on witnessing the event but there were no wheelchairs and trying to figure out how to get her to the poolside was a challenge and took lots longer than we ever thought it would! Anyway, here are some pictures of the weekend and baptismal.

This is a picture of me with my oldest brother, Gilbert, younger
"middle" brother, Manuel, and Eva. We took these photos outside Manuel's home. He just purchased a 3-bedroom/1 bath home and Eva drove me over to see it. By chance, Gilbert was there and I seized on the moment to take pictures because we RARELY see Gilbert. His wife is one of those sisters-in-law that has to be in a good mood to allow him to visit, you know the one, every family has one! ;)

This is my oldest brother's widow, Maria, her daughters, Frances and Annette, but we call her Nette, and Nette's husband, Juan. I had not seen Maria in 9 years! The last time we saw each other was at a nephew's wedding. These family members came to Albuquerque, NM a few weeks ago, NOT to see me, but to gamble! Maria won $25,000 in the lottery, bought herself a newer used car and they drove to NM to gamble and sight-see! Isn't her luck wicked awesome?

OK, this is the now infamous birthday cake! You can tell it was purchased by someone not close to me cause they did not spell my name as I do, but as it is customarily spelled by the general public. Still, I thought it was a sweet thought and I do appreciate having a birthday cake at all! :)

This is a picture of Lilly, my 87 yo mother, Felipa, (but everyone calls her Lipa or Ama), Manuel and Eva. By the time we took this photo, the party was winding down. The party was at Lilly's home, as are most of our family gatherings. Not necessarily because she has the largest home, but because she's the oldest sister and that's just a burden she has to carry all her life! :) I LOVE telling her that! That she's the oldest I mean! :b

I forgot my camera on the day of the baptismal. I know, I know! What kind of aunt am I? I took this picture with my camera phone. This is my nephew, Richard, (Lilly's son, but we've always called him Ricky even though he's something like 35 years old now!) and his girlfriend, Leslie at their baptismal. The church is a young church. And by that I mean, they've not been around long AND all the members are really, really young! They've grown to a population of a little over 100 and the pastor is 25 years old! Praise God!

This picture was actually taken back in April before I moved to New Mexico and after coming home from New Hampshire for the first time in 5 years. This is Eva, Maria, Fred's wife, older "middle" brother, Fred, Jimmy, the youngest brother, (but still way older than me, I tell him!), Manual and his very young wife, Priscilla. I think she's 28 (maybe younger) and he's 60! Let's just not go there, ok! :) You know there's one in just about every family too! ;)

This picture was taken in May when I went home for my mother's 87th birthday bash. This is Lilly, her daughter, Brenda from New Mexico, (she's the one with the three children that moved away to El Paso and San Antonio and studying in China!) Eva, Ama, and Jon, Lilly's son, from Dallas. This is in my mother's kitchen. Notice all the distracting objects in the background? Her entire apartment is like that. She's also a clothes horse! We have NO idea what to buy her anymore and so we give her cash, which is her favorite thing! :)

I hope you've enjoyed looking at pictures and reading about my family as much as I enjoyed telling you about them. I could have gone on and on about them too, but, please, there's just so much you can add on these blogs! And truthfully, just how long do you have?! :)

Getting Started!

OK, so I have started this so many times. Believe it or not, I've been suffering from writer's block. I don't know what it was about a huge blank space and realizing that folks would be reading it and some just from browsing and coming upon it and not necessarily because I invited them to read it, was just quite intimidating to me. Then I got to thinking . . . geez, that's kind of like having a captive audience! Why wouldn't I want to come on here and just write away to my heart's content? Now that I'm single and living alone for the first time in 46 years, I still have a lot to say and no one to hear it.

My friend, Heidi, is the one that encouraged me to start a blog. I went to her blog and copied it! Not word for word and not the colors or back ground or anything like that, but I didn't know how to get started and she's got hers all set up so I just went down her list and started posting all the same kind of posts she had. teehee! Color me embarrassed! But blogging was not something I was sure I could learn on my own. I have always felt pretty computer literate and seeing someone else's blog can be just so intimidating! So, I thought I'd stop looking at blogs and just write mine. I hope it's something I can learn to be comfortable with.

So, now I've started and although not sure how or what to continue writing about, I think for now, I just broke ground and that's a good start! :) My intentions are to share some of my paper creations also, but that may not happen as often as I have something to say. :) All of my scrapbooking things are in New Hampshire and I'm in New Mexico. Makes it hard to be creative.

Anyway, I just turned 46 and am living on my own for the first time. I hope that writing and sharing my thoughts on here will keep me sane and I will NOT start talking to myself. It's not so much the talking to myself that makes me uncomfortable, but rather, I'm worried I might start answering me. :o I'm reminded of a night not so long ago when I went to the NM State Fair. I'd be in the middle of a group of people and . . . well, I'm not a quiet laugher. When I hear, see, think of a funny thought, I tend to BURST out into laughter. So, I'd be in the middle of a crowd of strangers and see or hear something funny and burst into laughter. Folks around me would turn to me and literally step away. I realized then, some things, are better done in groups. :) Like laughing out loud. :)

So, if you hear me burst out into laughter on here, please join in. I don't want to feel alone.