Bucket List

As I was looking at other peoples bucket lists to get ideas for my own I realized  (and kind of already knew) how lucky I am to have experienced some of the things I have experienced.  Things as basic a sleeping under the stars.  Or the not so simple like climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge or snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.  Anyways here is my bucket list:

1. Visit Ireland.
2. See a Cirque du Soleil show.
3. Travel to all 50 states.  13 so far.
4. Go to Greece.
5. Get married.
6. Have children.  3 is the number that seems to be stuck in my head.
7. Take more pictures.  And get better at it.
8. Go back to Australia.
9. Go to the Olympics.  Summer and Winter.
10. Take my children to Disney World.
11. Be in the audience of Oprah.  I know her show is over but I think there will still be other opportunities.
12. Pay off my student loans.
13. Get a penpal.  Using actual mail.

Thats all for now.  I'm sure I will add more.  I definitely think this is something that is always evolving.

So Unfortunate...

Last Saturday, May 14 two boys from my high school were killed in a car accident.  Just 6 days after graduating from high school.  They were both just 18 years old.  I am not sure of the circumstances surrounding the accident.  What I know is that one of the boys didn't grow up here, he was a recent transplant from another part of the state.  Him and the other boy were back to his hometown.  I am thinking they were going to the graduation parties of some of his friends.  While crossing an intersection of two highways they were hit.  Neither were wearing seatbelts.  One boys funeral was yesterday and the others was today.

Because they were only freshman when I was a senior I didn't know them.  Well, I guess I didn't know the one boy who was living here at the time.  The boy who was here while I was still in school was in my art class for 1 semester.  I am not even sure which semester it was.

These are the third and fourth teen deaths our town has had to deal with in the last 18 months.  The first was a suicide in November 2009.  I was away at school when this one occurred but because of Facebook I knew how much everyone was affected.  The second, also a suicide, happened in February 2010.  I was still away at school for this one but he was a classmate of my brothers.  I had a summer job with this boy.  This one hit me a little harder.

On Saturday night I was out to the movies with some friends.  When we got out of the movie the girl had texts from some of her friends saying they were there for her.  She didn't know what they were even talking about. It didn't take her long to figure it out.  She was really close with at least one of the boys.  I wished that I could have done something to comfort her.  All I could do was say I was sorry.

All four of these boys were so loved.  And now everyone has to mourn yet another loss.  I just hope that  we don't have to go through this again for a long time.

Five!

Today is my baby's birthday.  Max is 5 today.  I love the munchkin to pieces.

He was my 16th birthday present.  Why a dog and not a car?  I wasn't really interested in driving yet so why by a car that wasn't going to be used?  Yes I had my license.  In fact I had taken drivers ed nearly 2 years earlier the summer after my freshman year of high school.  But that's really a whole different story.

I knew I wanted a dog instead.  A small dog.  We started out by looking at the humane society.  There was one dog there a terrier mix.  She had the coloring of a yorkie but she was bigger.  I decided that she was the dog I wanted.  Since we had another dog at home we had to bring her into the humane society to make sure the dogs got along.

When we got to the humane society Nikki was so excited by all the other dogs she barked a lot.  The other dog, poor baby, was terrified of Nikki's barking.  We tried bringing them outside so Nikki would calm down and that didn't work.  So we couldn't get the dog from the humane society.  So much for trying to do the right thing.

My mom knew that one of her customers at the bank bred yorkies so that was our next stop.  Both of her females gave birth to their litters on the same day, May 14th.  It was mothers day that year.  We originally went thinking we were going to get the runt of one of the litters for cheaper.  It turned out that she (or he I don't remember) was going to be more expensive.  The way we ended up with Max is because the boys were slightly cheaper.  We brought him home 8 or so weeks later.

He gets along fine with Nikki and with the 2 cats we also had.  I think that Nikki and the humane society dog would have gotten along just fine but I wouldn't give Max back either so I think everything worked out the way it was supposed to.  Even though hes a dog I can't imagine not having him.  Even though he drives me absolutely crazy sometimes I really do love the little bugger.

I mean how can anyone resist this face?  I sure can't.

Traffic!?

When the weather starts to get warmer everyone seems to get super excited!  I sure am glad winter is FINALLY over.  You would think driving would improve with no snow on the ground but so far that doesn't seem to be the case.

Other things start to cause problems.  Like the rising sun during the morning commute.  It really likes to mess my drive up.  Last week on a particularly bright morning there were tons of accidents.  Traffic was horrible.  The highway was backed up for miles.  Traffic wasn't slowed it was stopped.  The alternate route was becoming congested and slow.  Thank God for GPS on phones because otherwise we would have been late for school.  I wouldn't have known to go the way the GPS brought us.  The path I would have taken would have been extra long and probably involved a fair amount of backtracking.

Then again this morning traffic was horrible.  It seriously took me 30minutes to drive 3 miles.  3 miles in THIRTY   minutes.  It normally takes three.  No there was no accident.  Just road work that is going to last until June.  One lane of high was for 3 months.  I'm hoping that as people get used to this one lane instead of two things will pick back up.

Today it caused us to be late to school.  Luckily we weren't the only ones who had a tough drive in.  Apparently nearly half the class did.  But still it is hard for me to deal with not moving. On. The. Highway.  I have no patience and a slight speeding problem.

I should add that I am not used to driving in traffic so I haven't built a tolerance to it.  My morning commute used to take about 7 or 8 minutes!  Now getting to work takes about 2 minutes!!!

Finally Feeling Like Spring!

This past week the weather has been pretty great. Blue skies and sunshine! I am really liking this!

The other thing that comes with spring in the mid west though is severe weather.  So far we haven't had much rain or severe weather but it is unavoidable.  The skies change, the air cools and it even smells different. You can feel the rain coming.  And seriously as I am typing this I just heard thunder.  Or maybe it was just a loud car outside. It could be either.

Back to the weather.  It changes quickly and it can get pretty scary.

This storm came in very quickly.  We were out shopping and on the way to the stores the thermometer in the car said it was 100.  Then it cooled way down and started pouring rain.  The wind was also very strong.

This is the sunset after the storm.  Pretty spectacular.

Last spring/summer we got lots and lots of rain.  Which caused flooding like I have never seen before.

You can usually see sandbars in this river!  It was so high that peoples basements were flooded.  Some people even lost access to the road so they had to use a boat to get to the road.

I have lived in this same area of Nebraska for 16 years in July and I don't ever remember flooding like this.  Maybe some higher than normal water levels but never flooding.

Right now while the weather is nice, before it gets unbearable, I am going to enjoy it. And be grateful that it is not so hot that I can still drive with my windows down since my air conditioning doesn't seem to be working.

Spring in Nebraska

Last week it was 76 degrees outside.

  Today its snowing.  I am SO over the snow.  I know I live in Nebraska and the weather can and often does change quickly but I just want it to be spring all ready.  I miss the warm weather and the past few weeks seem like a nasty tease.

Ok, lets be honest.  I am over the snow before it even starts.  I like pretty much everything about living in Nebraska except the snow.  I do like winter sports.  But we don't get enough snow here to do much of anything.  Mostly the snow just makes driving a pain.  Since we had the warm weather the snow isn't sticking to the roads but I still don't like it.