Ted's First Stained Glass

Ted has a new love! STAINED GLASS. He has been taking classes all summer at the local college, and he finished this piece on the last night of the class. He has already signed up for the fall semester and we have great plans for all the projects we hope he'll be able to complete.

Doesn't the new beard look great????
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Stay tuned...

Jon's Birthday

Jon T turned our weekly Happy Hour into a fabulous birthday party...for his sister, Jane and himself! They were born on the same day, one year apart. How unusual is that??? Jane and her husband came to the mountains from Peoria, AZ, for the occasion.

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He hired this band, KINGS OF COUNTRY, to provide the entertainment. They played for an hour before dinner and for a half hour after dinner. It was excellent!

I counted 35, 36, and 37 people in attendance. Seems some people moved around a lot! The weather was great. We had steady cloud cover which meant it was comfortably cool. The monsoons skipped us again, as they have all summer. I didn't get any pictures of the food, but it was wonderful. Jon, Patricia, Judy and Ellie collaborated to provide 3-4 kinds of meat, salads, beans, breads, and multiple kinds of birthday cake which I could only look at, and drool! They outdid themselves!!! (Check Sally's blog to see what pictures she got that I missed.)

Donna showed us her style.

...and I have a new picture of Ted and ME! (Thanks to Sally!) Yes, Ted has regrown his beard and I like it!

Stay tuned, we're getting our skirting this week.

White Mountain Roundup

"The White Mountains Roundup is a nonprofit cultural heritage event celebrating the National Day of the American Cowboy." It occurs the last weekend of July every year. Since Show Low is smack dab in the middle of ranch and cow country it is seemly to recognize this event in this town. We see grazing, open range cattle and meadows with fabulous horses EVERY DAY. The cowboys and Indians are the real deal. Everything here has a western motif, and we celebrate in style.

Part of the celebration included a western artists' fair. The paintings were beyond my budget, but enjoyable to look at.

Chris Isaacs is a local celebrity. He lives nearby in Eagar and is very well known on the Cowboy Poetry circuit. He organizes the White Mountain Roundup every year and each year it is bigger and better than the last one. It is fun to hear his stories and he mentions land marks that we locals all recognize.

Andy Nelson emceed the first half of the program and his humor was great.

And then it was Juni Fisher's turn to perform. Juni has won many awards for her talent, but today she earned another one. The monsoon hit Show Low during most of her performance. It thundered, lightning flashed, the entire power system blacked out...not once, but three times during her singing. Bless her, she carried on without the acoustics on her guitar, the microphone, the stage lights, or any house lights...three times!! The gods were angry! She was quite a trooper! I bet she remembers THIS performance in Show Low, AZ. BTW, she was wonderful! Every time the thunder boomed, she shouted back at it! They were having quite a conversation.

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She made an amazing offer to everyone who bought one of her CDs. If you got it home and decided you didn't like it, you could send it back to her...and she'd send you something of hers that SHE didn't like! What a deal!Jerry Hall and Trick Shot were a very talented group. They were funny, had great voices and played mean guitars. Their only unplanned moment was when the coffee pot in the background fell off the fake campfire. The gods were still angry!

Chris Isaacs always emcees the last portion of the show. For the last four years it has followed the same format. The finale was wonderful. Always patriotic, always heartfelt and ALWAYS ended with a rousing rendition of Happy Trails to You...until we meet again.

Stay tuned...

CASA

For an excellent explanation of the CASA program, read my cousin's comments on the previous blog entry. I'm going to try to explain what all that means on a day to day basis.

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First, I had an hour and a half interview to see if I was suitable for the next steps of fingerprinting and polygraphing. I was given the first section of a 3 inch binder to read and study. It contained all sorts of explanations and definitions all relating to child abuse and neglect...and the court system. I learned about minimal standards of parenting, and that I was culturally competent. I earned 7.5 hours of training credits. Last Thursday, Ted and I went to Phoenix for 4 days, as the next step in my training involved two 8 hours days of inservice training which gave me another 15 hours of inservice training. I also received the next two segments of my training manual to put in that 3 inch binder. (It is filling up!) We listened to excellent speakers from Child Protective Services, an Assistant Attorney General from the State of Arizona, and two Ph.D. level psychology professors from the Phoenix area.

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I was surprised that I was one of the oldest people at the training. There were 35 of us, mostly professional type women in the 35-45 age range. Amazingly, there was a sitting judge from Yavapai County who was training to be a CASA in her spare time! It seems judges love our program.

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So, here is what I will be doing after I earn the 30 training hours and am sworn in by our local judge. I will be given a court order to carry with me as I interview the mother, father, mother's attorney, father's attorney, the child, the child's attorney, the foster parents, the school, the physician, the Child Protective Services Casemanager, and any other involved adults in the child's life. Because of the court order, they have to talk to me, or face the judge to explain why they violated a court order! But, I need to be persuasive, not confrontive in my interviewing. Then, I will write a 3-6 page report for the judge, tying all these people and their services into one presentation and making recommendations to the judge as to what I think needs to happen next for this child. And this is a volunteer job! To me, the best part of the job is building a lasting relationship with the child. I will stay with the child for as long as he/she is in foster care and for some kids that can be years. I will visit with the child in a "BIG SISTER" fashion, doing various activities and becoming a lifeline for that child while everyone else in his/her life changes. I'll be making a difference. Wish me luck and send me your prayers, I'm going to need the good wishes of everyone who cares about me and what I've chosen to do with the rest of my life.

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This sign was outside our hotel and I HAD to include it because 118 degrees impressed me, and I thought the message was timely for me.

A friend sent me an email yesterday describing AZ weather: "The best parking place is determined by the amount of shade rather than the distance, Hot water now comes out of both taps, You can make 'instant' sun tea, You learn that a seat belt makes an excellent branding iron, The temperature drops below 95F and you feel a little 'chilly', You discover that, in July, it really does only take two fingers to steer your car! You burn yourself while trying to open the car door,, You break into a sweat when you walk outside at 6:30am." (It was at least 100 degrees when we took the dogs out at 6 am! The overnight LOW was 93 degrees.)

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Because of confidentiality issues, I won't be able to share my child's story with you, but I hope to let you in on what I'm doing as it happens, court hearings, etc. Maybe, you'll find it as interesting as I do!

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Stay tuned!

Fingerprints and Polygraphs

I have now seen the inside of the Apache County Jail BOOKING ROOM. In order to become a CASA (more on that later) I had to be fingerprinted at the jail. Ted had to wait outside. I was cautioned that my purse would be searched and I decided that I was better off leaving it in the car with Ted! So, I pressed the call button, was advised that there was an inmate being processed and they would be with me shortly. Twenty minutes later, I pressed the button again. A Sheriff's deputy arrived at the door to admit me, and we passed through the garage with locked doors and cameras everywhere. She had to call at each door for it to be electronically opened, just like on TV. The only surprise was how LOUD the noise of the locking/unlocking process was. If I were going in there under arrest, the sound of the doors locking behind me would stay with me forever! Anyway, I was electronically fingerprinted. She had to help me every step of the way, and she commented, "The ones we worry about are the ones who can fingerprint themselves!"

The next step in the process was to be polygraphed. So, last Friday, I met with a former FBI agent from Flagstaff, who handles all the testing for future CASAs. He went over all the questions beforehand, asked if I had any concerns about any of the questions, then hooked me up to the machine. YEP! It is just like on TV. I had a monitor around my diaphragm, another monitor around my upper chest, two monitors on fingers and a blood pressure cuff. The hardest part was sitting still! Each run through of the test (there were 3) took 7-10 minutes and I couldn't move! My hand was tingling (I need carpal tunnel surgery) and my nose itched!!! Anyway, the questions aren't a secret, so see what you make of them.

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1. Is your name ....

2. Were you born in ...?

3. Before the age of 45, have you ever intentionally hurt someone because you didn't like them? (We had to discuss my divorce on this one!)

4. Have you ever falsified any information on a government application?

5. Have you ever committed any major undetected crime?

6. Do you intend to tell the truth on this test?

7. Have you ever lied on any major application in the past?

8. Have you ever had any illegal drug involvement?

9. Do you consider yourself to be trustworthy?

10. Have you ever taken credit for another person's work?

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I passed!

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All in all, it was a pretty interesting experience. Someone as "squeaky clean" as me would never get the chance to experience these things first hand, and I am a very curious person.

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Next time...CASA

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Stay tuned.....

4Th of July

Twenty-four of our best friends gathered here for our 4Th of July pot luck. We've hosted these holiday parties for 4 years and we seem to have it down pat. Ted organized the outside, screen rooms, tables, grills and trash can. I handle the food, and do the hostessing. (I got the better deal!)

I've included lots of pictures of seniors taking food very seriously! Ted had the grills set up outside, with the buns and condiments at hand. (See Stevvy in the screen room doorway?)

(See Stevvy again?)

The potluck dishes were outstanding, and we had TONS to eat. Several people have hosted parties this year, and we ALWAYS have a good time and eat WELL!

Stay tuned.............;)