Tracking him like Santa

I told Rick that I feel like I'm tracking Santa.


Hubby was hanging out on the west coast a lot this time out. It was so hard to know that he was just a 2 hour drive away....twice. I would've gladly driven up to see him, but it was a logistical nightmare. I'm not going to drive 4 hours roundtrip if I only get to see him for 10 minutes.....


As it got closer and closer for home time and he was still on the west coast, we thought for sure he'd get sent to South Carolina...aka the Bermuda Triangle. Whenever he goes to South Carolina before home time he is always late...very late....

But guess what? He went to Illinois and then he got a load going to Phoenix!! We started tracking him through the bad weather and each time he passed through another state with weather that could shut him down... I got a little more giddy. For the first time in 3 years, we might get to spend Christmas together.

And then.... they switched his loads and he got a load going to Riverside! That's even better, and he cleared all the snowy and icy states...he should be home free!!!!!

Yeah, well....we'll see about that! I'd like to publicly thank the idiot driver that picked up the load and didn't scale it out for California. And while I'm at it, I'd also like to thank the laws of California which always seem to be more difficult than any other state. (We sure want to have our food and our clothes and everything else we need on a daily basis, but hey...let's treat truckers like crap, not give them anyplace to park their trucks and make it truly difficult to drive in the state...because we care about the environment but not the people.)

Anyway.... as a driver you know the rules. You know you are supposed to take the laws of the states you are driving through into consideration when you pick up and scale your load. Well here's the thing.... the person who picked up the load KNEW he would not be delivering it. He either didn't scale it at all to make sure it would be ok, or he did and was too lazy to go back to the shipper to get it adjusted....

So hubby has the trailer and he is on his way to California...only he can't enter California until they find a way to fix the load.

So because one person was too lazy and rude to do his job right..... The dispatcher is currently trying to find a way to fix this. She has to make arrangements to find a place where they can either re-load the truck and distribute the weight differently and the company would obviously have to pay for the service...and/or...they have to find another truck to meet hubby and take part of the load. So far that's a lot of people being inconvenienced because of one person's laziness. Sure hope he has a Merry Christmas.

Me? I'm mentally preparing for the fact that Christmas just might be taking place in a truck stop somewhere near, but not inside, the California border.

Happy Mother, Happy Blogger... Life is Good

As I was sitting on hold with Palm today, I had a post brewing in my head. Companies should be very wary when making a blogger unhappy.

I was going to share my tale of woe with you. You see, after years of getting the cheapest phone available on my wireless plan and letting my hubby and son get all the cool gadgety phones... I found a phone I really wanted. I waited patiently for it to be time to upgrade and even then I felt guilty for spending the money on a new phone!! I definately needed a new phone, but I didn't "need" to get a pda phone. I had a pda that worked just fine!!

But it was cute and it was pink and I really wanted to stop carrying a phone AND a pda. So I used birthday money and I bought myself a pink centro and it was true love. I love, love, love my phone. It's cute and it's functional and I even made the big leap to....text messaging!!!

Sadly my phone developed a problem that Palm was not going to take care of and I knew better than to even bother with Sprint's lovely customer service. I was not a happy camper... Thankfully I talked to a "supervisor" that decided it is important to make a customer happy. My refurbished Centro is on it's way and the compromise we made is something I can live with. (Still bummed about the problem, but the solution is way better than paying $199 to repair my 6 month old phone!!! Oh and no, they don't sell the parts!! I know they make them... otherwise how can they fix them??)

I never had to mention the blog post I was composing in my head.... and it was a doozy!!

And as if that wasn't enough good news for one day.... I am also an extremely happy mother!!

We have roof problems. We have never ending roof problems. In fact in a more jovial moment, hubby and son contemplated hooking up a webcam so that people could watch the roof leak. I guess there comes a point when you just have to laugh, because otherwise you might cry!

Today, my darling son got on the roof, patched the heck out of it and then took a hose to the roof to test it and so far....no leaking. The big rainstorm tonight will be the true test.

Then Josh said to me... "I was thinking you should buy a couple more cans of the patch and I'll go up and put a new coat on all the old patch so that it will have time to cure before Dad gets home. Then we can put the top coat on when Dad is home."

It might sound simple to you, but it brought tears to my eyes!! He thought ahead. He had a plan and maybe, just maybe we'll get the stinkin top coat I bought MONTHS ago...on the roof so we can stop having Roof Woes!! (You have to put a top coat on or the patch dries and cracks in the sun and then.....your roof leaks...again!)

Obviously I'm choosing not to focus on the fact that it's so not fun that my phone broke, my roof leaks...and a few other things I could add to the list of woe. Instead I'm truly grateful that we've found a few solutions.

And that makes me a happy mother and a happy blogger. I like happy!

Bike to Beach and Back

Lately I've been dreaming and wishing about living someplace where it snows. Not a lot of snow, just enough to enjoy it. It's gotten worse now that hubby has been on the bandwagon. He keeps suggesting that we move to Utah....And then I go on the most amazing bike ride and I have to wonder... could I ever really leave paradise?

Saturday we rode from the Mission Gorge/Kaiser area (for you San Diego people) down to Pacific Beach and back and you seriously couldn't have asked for better weather! It was absolutely beautiful. It was sunny and warm and there was a little crispness in the air when we started.

We were following a ride sheet from the San Diego Recyclers website and kind of missed a turn. In our defense, it's not like they have street signs on bike paths. :-) It ended up being a happy error. Instead of turning off the bike path just shy of the end, we were able to take it all the way out to a little peninsula. On one side there was a marina with boats and the other side was Dog Beach.

Jane and her new bike!!

Candace and Dawn

We stopped at George's Bread for a little snack and a truly delicious cinnamon roll...yumm!!! And then headed back.

This is probably the last time you could do this ride this time of year simply because the ride back by Fashion Valley and Mission Valley malls was a little scary! I know that sometimes drivers just aren't sure whether to wait for you or go in front of you and I can totally understand that...but the drivers that speed up, go around you and then slam on their breaks so they can turn right? They totally annoy me!!!!

Once we got past the malls, it was smooth sailing again and a truly fun ride!! Well, until Jane got a flat. And then it went flat again.. ooops!! Luckily we were almost done and it was good flat changing practice. :-)

Our Turkey Day Ride....

If you're reading this and you don't live in southern California, you might not know about our strange weather. We rarely get any rain, but when we do.....it pours!!! We got hit with a huge rain storm last week. I believe we even set a record for the most rain in a 24 hour period for this time of year.

And so I woke up to the sound of pounding rain on Thanksgiving morning.... immediately different thoughts started going through my head...

"How are we going to ride in this?"
"How can I get out of riding in this without disappointing Jane?"

"Surely, even Jane won't want to ride in the pouring rain"

"Maybe I can go to the gym and do the elliptical if it keeps raining."

Then Josh came in my room, all excited and happy to be heading off to his "Turkey Bowl" (football game) and he asked me if we were still going for our ride." When I delivered a less than enthusiastic answer he said "You should go, you know you'll have fun."

Finally I dragged my butt out of bed, got dressed, checked the air in my tires and started to get excited about the adventure. The rain stopped, but the streets were still drenched and it was cold and everything smelled clean. I called Candace to make sure she was still going to join us, but I got her answering machine. A half hour later she called back with her sleepy voice and said she thought staying in bed sounded like more fun.

At 9am Jane and I headed off on our adventure. We rode out Hwy 8 to Lake Jennings and climbed up our two little hills. (Funny that I call them little now!) And then we got to fly down Lake Jennings to El Monte Rd. It was sooo fun! I love that descent. The road is nice and wide with a great bike lane.

Then we turned down El Monte Rd. to go down to the park. Truth be told, I was a little nervous about this part of the ride. I tried to ride it once before a few months ago and it was harder than it looked. It turned out to be my favorite part of the ride! It's amazing how you can be out in the "country" just a few miles from my house. We checked out the cows and horses and we enjoyed the smell of the pepper trees and the grapefruit. Jane even pointed out that there were pomegranate trees along the road. I never knew they were pomegranate trees!

Here we are at our turn-around point.

The strangest thing about riding down El Monte is that it seems like you end up with a head wind in both directions. It doesn't make sense, but no matter what it feels like you're going into the wind. Then when it looks like you should be coasting downhill, you end up peddling like crazy. Jane and I think we're going to have to come back out there and put a marble on the road to see which way it rolls. It's got to be some kind of optical illusion. Even with the wind and the strange "downhills," the ride was pretty easy. It really showed me how much I have improved over the last few months!

We had a great time riding back and we hatched a plan to take a little "detour" and stop by Candace's on the way home. We'll teach her skip out on our ride...hahaha... We thought it was funny that we never got rained on the whole way....until....ooops... was that a raindrop? First there were just a couple, then a few more, until we got hit with a pretty steady drizzle on Julian. By the time we started heading up Los Coches towards Candace's, it had pretty much stopped.

We giggled as we pulled into Candace's driveway. I thought she'd be hanging out, drinking coffee and feeling guilty over not riding with us.... Instead we caught her on her treadmill!! Turns out she felt guilty enough that she created her own little workout while we were riding.

The last mile home from Candace's was a little bit harder for me. My legs were getting tired. I probably would've been better off not stopping, but that wouldn't have been as much fun. In the end we went about 16 miles and we had a fabulous time!!!!! So much so that we have now decided it's going to be our annual Turkey day ride....and next time... Candace is going to join us!