I AM ALIVE (BUT TIRED!)

In a nut shell, I have been slaving away on a problem I am having with the City of Richardson.  They are getting ready to allow the current trash transfer station in my neighborhood to build a SUPER trash transfer station there.  OMG!  It is already a pain in the butt.  We are getting ready for a contested hearing.  I have been busy taking documents some of my neighbors have collected over the last 7 years and converting them to searchable PDF files.  Not just that, but getting relevant documents from the city of Richardson.  They are not cooperative, they tend to staple unrelated documents together, and then they have to manally sorted.  It is a pain, to say the least.

I do believe I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Now we need to move on to fund raising.... we already owe the lawyers $8000, and they project the cost to be $150,000.  Our chances of winning are almost nil, but we are hoping to get some concessions.  Wish us luck.

I hope you all had a nice EASTER.  We did.  Angie and the girls came over for the afternoon.  Last night I had the girls come over and plant candy seeds (aka..... jelly beans).  This morning after church, they came over and found all the seed had grown into suckers.  Blow pops, tootsie rolls, and dum dums.  

Of course, Angie tries to find something new every year.  I came up with this.  She came up with a game where they build an egg (plastic egg is decorated) and then they take him to fulfill his bucket list.  Eric, Morgan and I were on team Morgan.  Gary, Angie and Chloe were team Chloe.  Needless to say, the instructions were not clear.  Team Morgan finished about an hour before team Chloe.  We had to build a parachute and let him parachute off the bridge. Then ride a bike, drive a car, ride a wild dog,ride down a slide, hang from a stop sign, and I can't remember what else.  We also had to document it.  We took pictures.  Being the jerks that they are, they made a video and put music to it.  

We didn't have a watermelon so we decided to have a jelly bean spitting contest.  We had great fun, but it is harder than it looks.  Eric spit his the furtherest, but the dogs were the real winners.  They got to (like we could stop them) eat all those that were short.

The last thing I'm going to post about Easter, is Annie eating her eggs.  Angie puts small pieces of Beggin Strips in an egg.  Annie can eat them fast.  She will eat them til she throws up.  Here is a short video.  She is good at opening the egg. 

She is definitely the master at doing this.  Coco has never been able to figure out what to do.  Stella is not a foodie type of dog for anything NOT chocolate.  

Margie, Gerry and I played at a course called Lantana, up north of us near Denton.  The place had 88 sand traps.  It was AWFUL.  Of course, Sheila shot lights out while Gerry and I suffered.  She won low net or low gross over everyone in the tournament.  I can't remember, but there was only one stroke difference.  Congratulations Sheila.  Here she is collecting her prize..... 4 or 6 golf balls, I can't remember.  I know, it sounds weird, but they only give away golf balls.  After playing in 3 tournaments during the season, you are allowed to enter the end of year tournament.  That is where they give away the big bucks.  We all are trying to get in all of our play days before it gets too hot.

Last night, Sheila and I played partners in the couples scramble.  I know, the rules say it must be one man and one woman.  However, we are special.  We both played terrible.  Guess you can't win them all.  Everyone there had a great time.  I conned Sheila in to playing dealer in our par 3 poker game.  She is so much better at it than I am.  I do believe it is going to go smoothly this year without Sheila and me being so heavily involved.  We are trying to get Firewheel to be totally responsible for running it.  If all nights go as smoothly as last night, it will be a piece of cake.

I don't know if I have told anyone or not, but Gary is wanting to become a farmer.  It may have something to do with the fact that Morgan wants a motorcycle, a cow and some chickens, and Chloe wants a boat.... but anyway, he says we only have a few good years left so we need to get our farm.  We are supposed to go this week with a realtor.  We are looking for at least a couple of acres... just depends on the set up.  I swear, land is really expensive.  A lot of say 50 acres with say a trailer house on it is about $600,000.  It is awful.  We have a couple that have a few acres that are nice houses, and hopefully we'll find one of those that appeal to us.  Then, it's just a matter of Gary making a decision.  Sheila will tell you.... he will flip back and forth like a fish out of water.  Then, I step in and put my foot down.  We will have to wait and see what looking does for us.

I have started art lessons on Monday afternoons.  I am painting a picture of Sedona AZ.  Hopefully I will get it finished in a month or so.  Have been too busy to work on it during the week.  Maybe someday.....

Right now, we're looking at places that are about 2 hours away.  That's about how far you have to go to get a lake that has some water in it.  It is so dry here.... terrible drought.  It just doesn't rain.  It sprinkled a little tonight, but only enough to scare Stella into hiding... not enough to fill a puddle.  

I am going to close for now.  I have been soooo busy, just not doing anything fun.  You all take care, and if you come to Texas any time soon, bring rain!