Life is unfair part 2 and could be worse.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

This is a quote from (you probably guessed by now) F.Scott Fitzgerald. I really do like most his work and LOVED the Great Gatsby when I had to read it in school. As opposed to a lot of other books that I got cliff notes for ie: The Illiad and Odyssey.

In any case I stumbled upon this quote and thought it fitting giving my fairly crappy week (s). If you remember this was the beginning of the crappy weeks
Here

So the week after the kid puking on me didn't go much better, got offered an interview at my dream job, which I couldn't go to because there was no way I could get out of work. I know this sounds kind of like a copout but it was anything but. I was working for someone who was on vacation, I would have had to miss 2 days of work for the interview (it was in Orlando) AND it would have cost me about 700 bucks to fly there, just there. So all things considered I just couldn't risk pissing off everyone at the job I DO have, and spend that much money, it was a crappy deal all around, and ironically exactly a week after getting puked at.

Which brings me to today. My wonderful husband managed to get 4 days off in a row, something apparently unheard of on reserve. So I had asked him mmm 3 weeks ago to look into going somewhere, well it turns out through a series of lets say "unfortunate events" some in his control, and some beyond, that things didn't really pan out. I saw this coming what? 3 weeks ago? So now were going to drive somewhere...not really where I want to go, but again I did see this coming.

So this is really where the quote I found comes in

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

So for those of you who actually know me I am NOT a glass half full person....I am the person who calls it empty even it is 3/4 full. I call it realism, John calls it pessimism, I figure potatoe, potato right?

But occasionally I get so annoyed that I have to find quotes like this too make me (for lack of better word) not want to gouge my eyes out.

It all seems kind of trivial what I am ticked about when I read this quote. I mean we really are lucky. John has a good job (knock on wood, after all it is in the airline industry) I have a job, we have a house, enough money to pay for everything, so really what more could I want right? And one the main things I'm ticked about is something that isn't even an option for most people, so with that being said, How mad can I be?

At the end of every Rainbow is...a Hooker!

For those of you who don't know, we have 3 horses, 2 of which I have pictures of here. This first one happens to feature "Hooker." AKA "Molly" though by now she actually responds to the name "Hooker." A name which she earned for being a complete and total witch to the other horses and for eating ANYTHING. I am quite certain that if she found a leprechaun at the end of this rainbow she would be snacking on him in this picture. Which brings to me to one of my favorite new things featured in her photo..her UV/fly mask. Unfortunately for Hooker she wears her mask pretty much year round here since she is light colored and her eyes don't do well with the bright sun here (we also have a UV sheet but she tears it to pieces when I put it on her). I found these masks and thought they were great, makes it seem like the horses are paying attention to you when you talk to them. Hooker's has the distinction of having a flower on it, since I figured she would like to eat it!


This of course is my baby Hokus, baby being a loose term..he's gotta be about 20 now! I thought it was a nice picture of Hokus under the rainbow!


I would much rather find a Hokus at the end of the rainbow than a Hooker!!!


We even had a double rainbow for a little while!

The Great Flip Flop Search...and why life is unfair

Someplace I would rather be than work tomorrow!!!


As many pilot's wives know your life often runs in phases....sometimes everything works great; good schedule, good crews (for John) nothing breaks at home (when he's gone), he makes his commutes, doesn't miss many events, this type of luck is great.

What then follows is karma coming to kick your ass for the "good luck."

The beginning of July was our good luck, John had the 4th off, I didn't have to work when he was home, his commutes were easy....Life was good.

The last 2 weeks however, have been Karma kicking my ass (clearly pay for him having the 4th off) and I say MY because John (right now) is happy as a clam. Let me back up a week. His schedule came out for next month, and being at the bottom of the barrel on reserve I was actually surprised at what a "good" schedule he got. He got 3 days off in a row...twice...pretty good for reserve in LAS. But John was inconsolable as he looked up the lines for the bases in FL (where he really wants to be based but that is a completely different story) a few of the guys/girl in John's class got a line! The horror (at least for John) I talked (tried to) for an hour at midnight one night while he rambled about how he knew in his "gut" he should have bid FL but WE (meaning ME in this case though he did have the decency to say we) decided LAS was best. Flash forward to two days later, it's his last day and a commute day, he gets a FNL (Ft.Collins turn) he should get in 45min before the SWA flight back here, great!!! Not so much; delayed leaving by slow/busy ground crew, ATC made them follow Con-U-All, then ConU slowed, blah blah blah, he missed his commute by about 20 sec and I'm not exaggerating. He ran to the SWA counter only to see them close the door, the gate agent (who was Awesome) tried to open and call the jet bridge people but they had already started pulling away. He makes it home on the next flight but has to sit there for 2 hours. 2 hours that I have to listen to him rail against everyone...ground crew, ATC, ConU, anyone he could think of. I merely tried to explain to him that this is how most of my days went...in which I received the answer of "but it usually happens to you not me." Thanks honey because your ALWAYS (sense the sarcasm) supportive when I've had bad days.

Fast forward (or at this speed crawl) to this week. My job has been pain this week, teachers calling in sick (though they actually were sick which is better than usual), John calling and waking me up 3 times last night/this morning, my day ending in blaze of glory...more like a puddle of puke, from one of the kids. Suffice to say I'm tired (John called at 1:30am, 3am, and 9:30am) the last time simply to see if I was awake (I wasn't) and tell me he's going back to sleep. I've had a crappy day at work, and now I get to go home and try and play find someplace to park the horse trailer in the barn that I can still get the truck out around it, so our neighbor can borrow the truck.

I call John on my way home who is happy as a clam in Wendover NV with 2 mechanics, another FO and a CA. They flew there last night to swap out a plane that need to go in for scheduled maintenance, at any rate (something broke parts will be there tomorrow am) they have had 2 nights in the casino's at Wendover, and John is thrilled he's not sitting in someone's house on reserve this is his old type of stomping grounds, with the added bonus of 4 other fun airplane people to hang out with. As I am talking to him trying to tell him about my crappy day he's talking to another crew member. As he his blowing me off, he said "We are on the hunt for flip-flops the casino has a dollar store" I believe the other FO had already acquired a pair and the CA was in search now with John in tow. Now in all fairness this was supposed to be a 4 hour trip...not a 4 day one so no doubt everyone needed something at this point, toothbrush, deodorant...or in my husbands case a phone charger...but Flip Flops?

You have to love the irony, last week I had a good week and his was crappy (at which point mine became crappy) and this week my week is crappy and his is great.....but really, I get puked at and his biggest problem is where are the $1.00 Flip Flops.....just goes to show ya life isn't fair :)

Lazy Days...

So with John working 5 on 2 off, or worse 6 on 2 off, and me working 5 days a week it's been a little crazy around here! But I saw D (short for Demon) chilling out the other morning and just had to grab a pic.



He look so happy and content....and least someone around here is having a lazy day!

Santa Fe International Folk Art

As you can see from this picture that is where my mom and I went last week before she left. Apparently they hold this once a year, and it was pretty cool to attend.


This should have been a sign that when we got there the line was about 4 blocks long, and for those of you that know me, this is hell. I am not a good line persons...or have much patience!


Once inside I think there were about 150 booths of different countries from around the world. In each booth they had at least one person from that country, and of course crafts made from that country. This girl was from Morocco!


This was the Hatti booth. The knight and horse you see are made entirely from beads!


This elaborate headdress was in the People's Republic of China booth.


I LOVED these little boxes....can you see why? I believe they were from the Ukraine booth. It was interesting to note that the Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan and a few others, all had the same feel and type of art work, since they were all former Soviet countries.




This was the Uzbekistan booth and if you looked closely at the pictures they were very similar in design to what was painted on the boxes from the Ukraine.



This was from the "Folk Art Festival" booth. It was like the gift shop of the Market!!



One of the hundreds of hanging designs that adorned the tents.


They even decorated the trees!


Over all I am glad I went, despite wanting to kill people and run them over after a while (again not a patient person). However my biggest complaint is that most every thing was WAY overpriced. I bought 3 things; one was a Frankincense burner from Oman (which I tried to take a picture of but my camera and I are not agreeing right now). I bought a necklace from Tibet that is supposedly "good luck," and a small purse from Pakistan. All together I spent about $35 and that is only because I would buy things that weren't a completely rip off. If you notice in the picture from Uzbekistan there are paintings hanging, I would LOVE to have one of these however they charged about $3000 for one. I am quite certain I can buy round trip airfare there, plus the painting for that price (and no that's not using ZEDS). But I suppose it is Santa Fe after all. Everything would have been half the price if it would have been in Albuquerque!

A Castle.....in New Mexico?!

As you may remember John and I went to Las Vegas NM last week and we discovered a Castle!! One of the next pictures has some background info on the castle in it I won't go into a ton of detail other than it was built in 1885 by some guys from Chicago, it opened and closed a few times. It was one of the only places west of the Mississippi that had electricity and burned down...3 times I think! It is now the home of the United World College, and the castle is one of the dorms!!

So this wasn't actually in the castle, it was in the prism building which was really cool! All the "windows" are prisms and there are rainbows all over the room!!


Castle from the road!


Fireplace in the main room when you come in the door.


I thought this was a cool picture looking out the window in the dining room to another part of the castle.


This was the fireplace in the main dining room. It was made to look original. The castle was vandalized and in 2000(ish) the college spent 10 million to put it back together the way it was.

This is what used to be the "Ladies Lounge" back when it was a hotel.


Again the main room when you walk it the fireplace is at my back.


Stairway upstairs, we didn't get to go there as it is dorm rooms!

Circle of Airports!

So....long story short. John finished IOE on Friday night at 9:45pm, so we were never sure if he would get a schedule for the weekend or not, so we checked it every hour for 3 days, to make sure they didn't sneak something in. Turns out he never got a schedule and didn't have to work on the 4th, which was a nice surprise!

So today we figured it would be best to play it safe this morning (after all he did have the holiday off) and off he went to LAS this morning. Once there he talked to the company and found out that he didn't need to be back until Thursday! As you can see from the circle of airports that PHX was today's airport of choice to connect at. Yes I am from the Midwest and end sentences with prepositions. So now John is home until tomorrow night :)