General

Christine from Chris’s Coop sent me this award, The Van Gogh’s Ear Award. This award was created by Roger at Idaho Photo. Here is what Christine said about me on her blog when she gave me this award:

Fab Grandma Karen– not only is she a grandma, she can sew and make jewelery!

Thanks Christine! I love that someone thinks I’m worthy of an award.

So now that I have been duly awarded, I am paying it forward and giving The Van Gogh’s Ear Award to:

Becca at How Will It End. She is a knitter, a painter, and maker of pirate maps.

PG at Annoyingly Boring. He is a very talented photographer, and inspired me to try harder to capture the moment.

Gaelyn at Geogypsy. She can spin a good story about all the places she has been in her NPS career.

Kelley at Magneto Bold Too . Just because she is so awesome.

Remember this? I thought I would never see or hear from them again. But, they came home yesterday. And it looks like they are happy to be here. I don’t know what happened, I have not talked to her, yet. I may never know, and to honest, I don’t think I want to know. I am just happy they are back. My heart is exploding with joy.

One of my blogger friends, Talina, from Harvest of Daily Life, posted a picture of her refrigerator, and issued a challenge to her readers of showing theirs, too. So, I accept the challenge and do it one better. I am showing you my refrigerator AND my pantry. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are:

My little freezer:

The refrigerator:

The OTHER refrigerator, you know, the one with beer, wine, and eggs:

My snack cabinet:

My spice rack(s): and the crockpot

Fabgrandpa’s snack cabinet:

The pantry:

So, now that I have shown you mine, show me yours, hahaha!

When Monday arrived this week, we counted up and found that I still had $45.90 in my pocket, and FabGrandpa still had $30. It was a great week, and we still were able to have some fun. We went out to breakfast twice, both times at Black Rock RV Village Cafe. They have a pretty good breakfast special. We drove over to Quartzsite, and browsed the flea markets there. We also did the drive up to Lake Havasu City and had both lunch and dinner up there.

Because we did so well last week, we only took $200 out of the bank this week. So, doing the math, FabGrandma style, (hahahaha) the bottom line is, not counting the disastrous week of Christmas, we had $75.90 in our pockets, took out $100 less than we were “allowed” to, add all that to the bottom line from week 7, and that puts us under budget THIS week by $297.21, which ALMOST makes up for the horribleness of week 8. And THAT makes me feel all better.

Don’t Ask. Really. We were THAT bad. End of story. I’ll resume with week 9 where we tighten our belts and be really really good. (in the hole about $350, but it WAS Christmas, and we DID have to stock up on groceries, and we DID go crazy. And we are SO not counting this week. It was the failure of the century)

OK, so I said I would pick up with Project 365 next week, but I couldn’t pass up this great cloud formation. Deer Valley Road at 19th Ave in Phoenix, December 26, 2008.

The weather in Phoenix today started out sunny and warm. It was such a nice day that I did not think about taking an umbrella with me when we went out to do our weekly shopping. So, as I was walking along the sidewalk from one store to another, in the rain, I brushed past a young man on the sidewalk with a scowl on my face, not making eye contact with him when he asked for 30 cents so he could “catch the bus.”

In an instant after I walked past him, I felt so guilty, because I have always believed myself to be a nice, benevolent person. Because there have been many times in my life when I needed something, and thanks to the generosity of friends, strangers or acquaintances I barely knew, I received whatever it was I needed without asking for it.

I have not thought about my friend Michelle in many years. She was one of those people who came into my life “for a season”, and who helped me out the kindness of her heart. I had known her for a couple of years, when I found out that my then husband had been unfaithful to me in a most awful way, a way that I can not talk about here. I went to an attorney to talk about a divorce, and found out that I needed $1800 to pay for it.

Later that same day, when I needed someone to talk to, I turned to Michelle for the comforting shoulder to cry on and the ear to listen. When I told her what was going on, she immediately, without hesitation, offered to pay for my divorce. I was astounded, as it had not been my intention to ask for a loan—I just needed to vent over what was happening. She told me that she had been left a trust fund several years earlier, that meted out to her $1800 every year once a year, and that she usually gave that money to her church, but that she thought I needed it more and that she thought her church would understand. And she made it perfectly clear that it would not be a loan—it was a gift from her to me. The thought of Michelle went through my head in those few steps I took away from the tatooed young man.

So, I turned around and walked back to the young man on the sidewalk. He had a surprised look on his face, but told me that he rode his bicycle to town, and did not want to ride it home in the rain. He was short just 30 cents for a bus ticket. He said he would give me a postage stamp in exchange. I gave him all the change in my purse, and shooed away his offers of an AA battery out his MP3 player, or the offer to play a song in his harmonica.

As I walked away, I still felt ashamed of myself, for not IMMEDIATELY offering to give him the 30 cents. I have always believed that we should be kind to everyone we meet, because we never know which one is going to be our guardian angel. That elderly woman, who is tottering along, blocking your path? That obnoxious child who is screaming at the top of his lungs in the grocery store checkout? That tattooed, multi-pierced young man on the sidewalk? Which one will it be? And because that 30 cents? Will it still “count” as a good deed done, because I walked on past with a hardness in my heart first?