Forecast

7 Day Forecast. June in the Sonoran Desert. And this is mild! I can *almost* (no, not really), deal with this kind of hot. It's when it gets up to 105 and above that it is totally intolerable. It's like a furnace. and yes, it's really dry. I think the humidity is about 7%. My eyes, nose, throat, skin - dry. Beyond dry. Pedicures are a medical necessity, because something happens to the skin on the bottom of your feet when you live in the desert. It gets like leather, and then cracks. Which hurts like crazy.
There are fire alerts everywhere. No fireworks for the 4th of July, 2nd year in a row.
So I limit my outside time to early morning and after dinner. Because the heat makes me not feel good. I don't know if it's my auto-immune disease, or what. But I'm sapped of energy.

Did I tell you how much I love my air-conditioning? We had to buy an entire new central AC unit; we did it in December. It works great. Glorious. My husband and I have little mini-wars about what to set it on. He likes 75. I think that's a little extreme.

What's it like where you live??

17

Do you remember what you were doing the summer you were 17 ? For me, it was the summer after I graduated from high school. I worked a lot - I had lots of regular babysitting jobs. I was in demand.
I didn't have a boyfriend, having recently broken up with Dan Newhall. And I wasn't even sad about it.
I was going away to college in the fall - 6 hours away from home - and I couldn't wait. My parents drove me crazy. Especially my mother. I had a lot of great friends, and we hung out together all the time, listening to music and doing other stuff that you don't want to hear about. (It was the 70's people).

Today, my youngest child turns 17. He is the greatest kid. He is so kind and loving. He adores our animals, and almost always takes the time to play with them - especially the cats. He is soft-hearted. He's always been an animal-lover.
He has recently acquired a girl friend. No, we haven't met her , it's early days yet. Is it the one he really likes? Or is the one he really likes going to finally make up her mind and then the new girl will have her heart broken? Or will the one that couldn't make up her mind have her heart broken in the end?
The best part about this whole scenario, is that he talks to me about it. He trusts me. He knows I won't make judgements, and will just try to help him figure it out. He knows I'll give him some good advice. One day a couple weeks ago, he was stressed. He told me that he was avoiding the new girl, that she'd been texting him all day. He was avoiding because he didn't know how to handle it. I suggested that he text her back right away, that she was probably upset that she hadn't heard back from him all day. So he did. And then he felt better. And I'm sure she did too. And it progressed from there.

He is job hunting. He took the SAT's on Saturday, although - with this kid - we're not sure that he is University-bound. He might end up going to the local community college for a year or two, then transferring to the University. We'd save a ton of $$, and with my being unemployed...
We will have to see. He'll be a senior in high school in just a few months.

So today he turns 17. I always ask my kids on their birthdays if they want to hear the story of their birth. It's become a joke. They've all heard it 1000 times. The joy, the excitement, the blessings of their births.

He's a young man now. I feel that these were good years for him. I think he'll look back on his younger years and feel happy. And he looks forward to moving ahead with joy.

Happy Birthday to my son!

Neglectful

I neglect my blog. Can I tell you why?

I think it's because for a long time now, I can't decide what I want my blog to be about.

I think I want to write about more personal things.

But then I think that might be too personal.

I want to write about what I'm working on, my "art". But how totally self-involved is that?

For a long time I've written about where we live. Because it is truly amazing.

I could write about the fact that my husband was stung by a scorpion just the other day. He had to go to Urgent Care. I almost asked him if I could take a picture of the bite. But then I thought, ugh, how disgusting is that??

I almost wrote about kissing bugs. But you don't really want to hear about that, do you?

Do you want to hear about my boys, growing up? What they are up to? They are teenagers, and the oldest is almost no longer a teenager. My youngest turns 17 tomorrow. I don't know if they want me to write about them. Or post pictures of them. Although, to be honest, their stories are pretty fascinating. You could learn a lot about kids from hearing about them.

Do you want to hear about my unemployment struggles? I was laid off last November. The longest time I ever went without working was 2 weeks about 30+ years ago. This is difficult. I might start to write about that. You never know, it might get me a job offer?? (A girl can dream...)

So anyway, I don't want to ignore my blog. I rather like my blog. Even if only 1-2 people read it.

So, I'll be back soon.

Wow I don't have any pictures to post? I must have a picture to post.....

Happy Mothers Day - to Mommies of all sorts!

Happy Mothers Day!

To Mommies of all species!

This is my friend Cathy's mini-horse - who surprised her yesterday with a new foal.

Precious.

Night

Sometimes it takes my breath away. Soft wind, night sounds of crickets and other night creatures, it's dark outside. And I'm waiting.

 So it happens...the big super moon rises over the mountains. Majestic. Magic.
It lights that side of the sky as it rises.

Over on the other side ....still dark.

And the night waits.

Bunnies

We feed the bunnies. Not on purpose. But the horses are messy eaters, and there is hay all over the place. The bunnies try to clean it up for us.

It's hard to get a good picture of them, they are very good at camoflage.

This is Belle, our mustang. She is wearing a fly mask to protect her eyes from the flies. We buy 'fly predators', they are little bugs that eat fly larvae. We also have goldfish in the water troughs. They eat fly and mosquitoe larvae. It's supposed to help a lot.

We still have flies.

And bunnies too.

Horse Love

Yes, it's true. I've been addicted to horses since the age of 2. Where our backyard ended, a stable began.

Do you know how good horses smell? Their breath is the sweetest thing in the world.

This time of year, my horses take naps in the sun. It is too cute - these big huge animals lying down in the dirt, all happy and drugged by the warm sun after the cool nighttime.

Belle, our mustang is in the front of the picture. If you look towards the back of the arena, you'll see Dozer, our quarterhorse. :)