Happy Day After The 5th!

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day holiday! For the 4th, David and I traveled to North Carolina with our friend, Mike, for the Norfolk Southern festival in Spencer North Carolina. All 20 of the Heritage Units were there for a couple days of viewing the fleet. It was fantastic! Those are some sweet engines!

It was HOT! The North Carolina Transportation Museum was great about reiterating that people stay hydrated and take advantage of places in the shade, multiple places where bottled water was available and the indoor part of the museum where there was air conditioning. Unfortunately, where there was air conditioning, there was not Heritage Units! But although we were all melting for a couple of days, everyone seemed in good spirits; lots of smiles and lots of thanking the volunteers at the event for putting it on and staffing it.

It was a whirlwind trip! We left Monday afternoon, traveling overnight and camping by the tracks when we got there. In the heat for 2 days, with a hotel for cooling off and showering the next 2 nights, and drive all the way home from North Carolina yesterday. Today, I’m tired!

This week’s statements:


1. I ___ wear___
2. I have had a lot of ___
3. Public speaking makes me__________.
4. My car always has_______because_______.

My answers:

1. I don’t wear much in the way of hair products. Just one curl enhancer that I don’t wear every day.

2. I have had a lot of coffee mugs! (and a coupe new ones this week!)

3. Public speaking makes me feel empowered or nervous. It depends on the subject and the audience. If it’s something I know well and an audience I know will receive me well, it’s easily empowering, like when I taught public access classes or in school. I do remember a time that public speaking made me nervous. I was giving an award to a volunteer in front of an audience of about 1000 people who had no idea who I was. I was nervous enough that I couldn’t read the cue cards I’d made for my speech. I felt bad because I had to wing it, but I was quite sincere about what I was planning to say and got most of it out. I watched it on TV afterwards and it was okay. I didn’t even look nervous! (But oh, I was!)

4. My car always has my walker in the backseat because I have another one that I use in the house.

1. Is love at 1st sight possible?

Love enhances the sight of the one you love but sight does not enhance love. Seeing someone for the first time can enhance shallow emotions but love needs a bit more than one meeting to grow into a real emotion.


2. How did you choose your pet's name?

Alexis Kaline and Carla Yastrzemski are named after Hall of Fame baseball players, Kaline after my childhood hero and Carla after David’s.


3. What are you considering giving up (cable, home phone)?

Why would I give anything up? Is giving up some sort of technology a trend I missed?

We might consider adding the data plan at some point in the future for smartphones, but that’s not’s a serious consideration right now.


4. How much do you pay your babysitter?

Our baby sitter calls the kids her grandcats and doesn’t charge us.


5. How "young" is old enough to babysit?

I started babysitting at 15. I babysat the kids up the street on their parents’ bowling night.

Honestly, if I had kids I wouldn’t want a babysitter that didn’t drive. I’d hope it was never needed, but I’d want him or her to be able to get my kids to wherever they needed for help in an emergency.

(A broken arm needs treated but it doesn’t warrant a 911 call)

**   Talking about the weather! We have an expected high today and tomorrow over 100 degrees. In Toledo! Wow.

First off, It’s only been a joke whenever I’ve asked, “Where’s that Global Warming I was promised?” Second, I don’t believe that there is global climate change for which we are responsible. I think some of the polluting things we do may move change along a little faster, but in consideration of the earth’s history, global climate change is a normal cycle. I’m still glad I’m doing my part to slow it down!


**   I just have to post another pic from the Festival!

The Heritage Units are just such beautiful locomotives!


**  Tuesday night I got to takes photos at night! It was the first time I did night time photos outdoors of something specifically lit for night time photography.  There were a few people there with their cameras:

David took this one with my camera on the scaffold-platform that was set up:

**   I was thinking yesterday how bad it must be to be be July 5th. Seriously, how many people in the USA even called it July 5th? It's the day after the 4th of July. With the 4th on a Wednesday this year, people complained because they had to work the day after the 4th. Even when Independence Day is one the weekend, July 5 is the "Independence Day Holiday" or the "day off for the 4th."

A day will come that July 5th gets its revenge for the centuries of being deprived of its own identity. I predict the world will end on the 5th of July. It will escape the shadow of the 4th and become know by it's own name; Doomsday.

Just something to think about the next time you refer to it as "day after the 4th."


**  One thing I really loved in North Carolina was the flowering trees, I mean trees that flower in summer! I haven’t looked up the type of tree yet, but they have pink ones and white ones all over. Just beautiful!

I tried to get David to dig one up to take home, but he and Mike both said “nuh-uh.” I guess they didn’t want to dig up a tree in the heat. I understand!


**   I do want to make a big public “thank you” to David and Mike. Pulling it out and putting the wheelchair back in the car every time we stopped, pushing me and putting me in places to get good shots; they were wonderful to me. Remember they were railfans before I was around. With the heat, it would have been easy to suggest I stay in the hotel and read at any point during the trip or for David to even suggest I just stay home when the event was announced in the first place. I really couldn’t have said “no” to those suggestions and lived with myself for asking so much.

My quality of living is good. My smile stays large and my attitude ever the optimist I’ve always been because of the wonderful people in my world who help and support me. Guys, you’re awesome!