Water Filter Infomercial

You either HAVE a water filter or you ARE a water filter.

We live in Phoenix, AZ, which is in the Sonoran Desert. Our sunshine state is not know for the quality of our tap water. I’ve heard that Arizona has three years worth of water stored in underground aquifers, for which I am thankful, even though it tastes horrible. So we won’t die of thirst any time soon. I think I could probably crawl out of Arizona to a neighboring state within three years if I had to.

Remember I just ordered a new water filter for the fridge that had the ice maker, the door magnets and the water dispenser fixed? Well, come to find out, my beloved Whirlpool side-by-side refrigerator DID NOT HAVE A FILTER! What? I am semi-grossed out by this news.

After pulling out the fridge to inspect the backside, I discovered lots of broken glass under there. The glass used to be the lid to my most-used and well-loved soup pot. Bummer, dude. It almost looked like someone swept it there on purpose…. but I digress.

I wish I had action photos for you… but no.

Today I am feeling like a boss. With my new filter in hand, along with several attachments and no instructions, I turned to trusty youtube and learned how to splice the water line and install the water filter ALL BY MINESELF. (That’s what our eldest used to say twenty-two years ago.) After the second try, it doesn’t even leak! Feeling like a homeschooler.

My assistants, (okay, I had a little help) my two “willing” teenagers, tested the water, wrapped white sealant tape, emptied the pail and moved the fridge back in its hole. Thank you, my children. We will have yummy water and delicious ice cubes for dinner!

Need plumbing or large appliance assistance? 1-800-LindaIsABoss. BAM!

Who Knew?

We have had our fridge for almost 12 years. It came new with the house. I loved my new Whirlpool side-by-side, ice and water dispensing wonder of the kitchen gods. Notice that was past tense?

Through its 12 years of service the fridge has taken a beating… literally, unfortunately. In my absence, a child of mine, who was old enough to know better, spent an evening taking shots at my beloved refrigerator with a hockey stick and puck. He didn’t even bother trying to cover his tracks by wiping off the black puck marks in all 27 dents. It was a low point of my summer… I cried. Remember, I loved my fridge.

Then the ice maker stopped producing ice. We had a handyman come and “fix” it. Seems he wasn’t as handy as we hoped. To replace the whole ice maker it would suck $158 from my clothes shopping fund (because we didn’t have a ice-maker-replacement-fund at the time)… so I bought plastic ice cube trays at Walmart. BAM. Bring on six more flowy tank tops in bright colors with fringe on the bottom and bling on the front. Priorities, people.

Next the water dispenser stopped pouring water into my cup. I realize this is a first world problem. (No hate mail, please.) This was a while ago and if my memory serves me correctly, it was around the same time the stinky slime puddle was discovered growing three colors of mold under the fridge. Maybe during the clean-up (that made me gag profusely) the hose to the water dispenser got kinked or cut or removed at that time. Who knew?

Finally, the magnetism on the fridge door weakened so badly that if you shut the freezer, the fridge door opened just a smidge. Somehow this often happened after a son of mine made his midnight raid on the fridge and I would find the door still open in the morning. A smidge is a big enough gap on a side-by-side Whirlpool refrigerator to cause havoc inside the once-cold-box. The motor kicked into high gear, due to the warm kitchen air penetrating the cold barrier. This caused all of my vegetables in the two bottom crisper drawers to freeze solid… and the milk jugs in the door were warmer than cold. Ewwww.

After ten years of owning our home with 8 1/2 major appliances (Is a microwave major?) my thrift-minded and possibly doomsday-anticipating husband purchased a warranty for all major appliances. However, as our fridge was deteriorating before my hazel eyes, I did not remember the warranty purchase. I simply put the vegetables on the top shelf and continued filling ice cube trays.

Two weeks back, my handsome husband handed me a two-year-old warranty agreement and suggested I call to get the fridge fixed. WHAT? Maybe he was trying to get the most out of his $75 call-out fee and waited for three things to be wrong with the fridge. Again, who knew?

Last week the friendly repair man came, looked the fridge over, I paid him $75 and he left. Yesterday, he showed up again and fixed ALL the problems with my fridge, with the exception of the hockey puck dents. BUT, the water tasted horrible coming out of the dispenser… and I knew the new ice cubes were being made with the same horrible water.

Today I looked up the water filter number and ordered a new one on Amazon prime. It will be at my house in two days. BAM!

All this to ask, DID YOU KNOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CHANGING YOUR FRIDGE WATER FILTER EVERY SIX MONTHS? Who knew? We have saved money on 23 replacements filters that we never bought…. that is $456.55! Saving cash like a boss.

 

 

 

Phoenix… We have a Problem!

My parents were blessed to spend New Years in Maui with my sister and her family, relaxing on the beach and enduring the rooster calls on the island. Being the kind and thoughtful daughter, I volunteered for pick-up duty on their arrival home. When they booked the tickets, I remember hearing the return date as January 11th, a date that coincides with a special occasion for one of my nieces, who is from Maui. I thought it coincidental that the dates matched.

Calling my brother, who had taken them for their departure, I wanted to confirm the airline and flight time. All was good. Here’s my sticky note.

I feel the need to point out the extent of my niceness. That 6:49 is A.M. The airport is 30 miles from our house in the same direction all the Phoenix metro traffic heading downtown. Big fat bumper-to-bumper bummer.

Before I volunteered for o’dark-thirty parent retrieval, I checked with all driving family members to see if it was “more convenient” for someone else to go. Nope. Two had to go to work and one to band class. The glitch in this scenario is that our daughter had to be to her reading specialist at 8:00 a.m. From experience, I knew that I couldn’t make it back from the airport in time to take her and I didn’t want to wake her up at 5:15 a.m. either. The princess needs her sleep.

I called a faithful friend who also has a child in the reading class and asked if Nora could sleep over at her house. Sure! That’s what friends are for. I delivered her to her pajama party late on Tuesday night.

My alarm, which incidentally is only set a few times a year, blasted it’s jovial wake-up tune at 5:15 a.m. Please remember at this time that I am a homeschool mom. One of the top reasons we homeschool is so we can get the rest we need… i.e.: we sleep in…. almost every day.

I threw on sweats, brushed my teeth and hair, and went out the front door into the chilly AZ air. Brrrr… in the low 50s. Black skies laughed at me. I am always surprised when it is dark in the morning, for I rarely see this phenomenon.

Traffic wasn’t bad at all and I pulled into the parkade with 15 minutes to spare. After making mental notes of the level and parking area, I checked the screens for arrival times. 412 from Kahului just landed….6:28. Early! Good. This should go quickly. My comfy bed might even still be warm when it welcomes me back!

If you have ever landed at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, you may be aware of the dual runways and the occasional need to taxi for 15 minutes to get to your gate. It adds to the suspense of deplaning. Thankfully I remembered this little tidbit and was not alarmed by a 20 minute delay between the landing time and seeing weary travelers in Hawaiian shirts getting off the red-eye flight. Finally several vacationers trudged by wearing neck pillows and carrying pale green Hawaiian Cookie Company bags. I was a tad alarmed when I didn’t see my very own weary parents. There was no way I could have missed them walking by. There is only one gate for them to come out of. I was there the whole time. But they didn’t show up.

Baggage claim is right down stairs from where I had been sitting for 30 minutes. I decided to take a trip down there to see if Dad and Mom teleported from the plane to the baggage area. Nope. All the Hawaiian shirts were sitting on the floor awaiting their tardy suitcases.

Back upstairs I went… a bit concerned. Could something have happened to one of them on the plane? I called both their cell numbers several times. Both went straight to voicemail. I didn’t want to call my sister to see if she put them on the plane because it was 3:45 in the morning in Maui. I called my husband who was across the tarmac in his office. “I can’t find my parents,” I lamented. He comforted me by telling me they were probably just lost. Great! Where do I report missing persons?

My husband suggested checking my text messages again from Maui. I opened up my brother-in-law’s message and it read, “Mom and Dad arrive Thursday morning at 6:49.” Big fat early morning bummer. It was Wednesday.

Their flight WAS on the 11th of January… but arrived on the 12th of January. I was 24 hours early. I decided not to wait for them at the airport.

A Starbucks caramel apple cider soothed my weary soul before I left the terminal. After handing over my $5.00 for parking and I was on my way home to my snuggly bed.

(In a couple weeks I am scheduled to pick up my niece ON THIS SAME FLIGHT! Hopefully I will get it right next time.)

 

Holy Hockey Stick, Batman!

It’s hard to see, but there are five hockey sticks among our other “sticks”.  This used to be our only holder for hockey sticks in our garage. Not any more.

These are next to the inside door of the garage… divided by lefties and righties.  I’m not sure why these can’t go in the stick holder shown previously.  But that is not all……

These are the hockey sticks by the outside garage door……. obviously this is where the goalies sticks go….. but I’m not sure why the others (which are also divided by lefties and righties) can’t go with the others further inside the garage???  It’s all a mystery to me.

The GOOD NEWS is my husband was looking on Craigslist for hockey sticks, because obviously we don’t have enough yet.  And he saw an add for a guy that buys old wooden sticks for making furniture…. get this… $2 each!  He shoots!  He scores!  So the pictures that I’ve shared here are the sticks that are worth MORE than $2 each in my husband’s mind.  He just finished putting about TWENTY sticks in the back of his truck to sell to the hockey stick furniture guy!  I guess this is Spring cleaning… hockey style!  My guess is that half the hockey sticks that were in the garage just left!  Whooo HOoooOooooo!

Did I mention that we live in Phoenix, Arizona?  Not exactly a booming hockey town.

Chicken Coop Construction

Third time’s a charm, right?  I hope so!  This is our third attempt at raising chickens.  The other two tries were highly successful and with each adventure we learn a little more.  Nov. 25th, Nora’s Gotcha Day, we bought some new chickies.  Darling little fluffy peepers…. soon turned into noisy, smelly growing birds.  But we love them.  Truly.  From that day, I knew I had approximately three weeks to get a coop built.  Time got away from me… and I ended up purchasing a bigger plastic storage tub to make my planning/collecting/building time last a tad bit longer.

My sweet supportive husband did not want chickens.  At all.  He didn’t even care if we would eventually get two dozen eggs a week.  Nope.  He is scarred from having to clean out maggoty chicken poop a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.  It’s okay.  If I were born in a different era, I’m sure I would have fit right in with Little House on the Prairie.  Oh to have a free range flock!  I dream of wearing fashionable rubber boots and collecting eggs in a hand-woven basket from my huge coop at the back of the grassy property.  But no.  I’m in Phoenix.  In an HOA, nonetheless.  But it’s all good.

Being non-supportive, Mr. Wallet didn’t feel the need to “invest” in chicken coop construction.  Go figure!  The one I would love to build comes in a tidy box with a shiny picture on the front of a two story coop with a run, shutters, metal roof and wood paneling that I admire with ogling eyes.  For a mere $249, it could be gracing my backyard!  Trying to keep peace on the farmstead, I have been pouring over Craigslist, an online garage sale…. particularly the FREE section.  She shoots, she scores!  I found a 3’x3’x3′ wooden shipping crate!  PERFECT!  I did talk my sweet supportive husband into dumpster diving with me in the next neighborhood where new homes are being built.  We totally scored some 4×6 treated beams and a bunch of other useful pieces of wood.

Yesterday was spent removing nails, measuring, sawing and praying.  Today I called my two nephews and niece over from across the street to help me and three of my kids get the legs on this baby.  We should have video taped the whole ordeal.  They are ALL sarcastic and funny and loud.  I was explaining the procedure, “Two of you need to lift the crate,” before I could breathe my eldest nephew named his sister and cousin for that job.  Hardy har har.  The four remaining cousins were to hold legs in place while I screwed it all together.  They were all in place but talking so loudly I finally pulled the trigger on the drill and yelled something …. nice… like “Please use your inside voices” or some other such nonsense.  They all laughed.  In my face.  Anyway, we did get the coop duty done.  Tomorrow is front door construction and heat-lamp hole drilling.

The girls are getting all feathered out already!  HURRY!

The Grass Truly is Greener

Eight long years ago, we moved into our new house.  It was our very first new house …. surrounded by dirt.  Visions of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon combined with Busch Gardens and watered with the fountains from in front of the Bellagio in Vegas lead me to believe that things would grow in Phoenix. My green thumb and my gardening magazines had me waltzing barefoot over lush verdant lawn surrounded (in my mind) by vivid pink flowers in royal blue pots with hanging vines of happy sun-yellow blooms covering our block walls. Eight long years later, I have discovered the error of my ways.

We planted Bob-Sod (grass), which was the wonder of the ages at that time.  Little did we know that it would look fabulously lush and green for four or five years and then haunt us for the remaining years in the house.  Seems that Bob-Sod is a combo deal with two types of grass… one that grows up and one that grows sideways and chokes out all other plant life in the vicinity.  Unbelievable!

Also in Phoenix, the Bob-Sod is our summer grass.  It “dies” or goes dormant for the chilly winter.  So we have to plant rye grass if we want a green backyard during the season when it is actually cool enough to enjoy the backyard.  This was all well and good for four or five years.  Then the Bob-Sod roots got so thick that throwing down rye grass was no longer effective.  Well, no longer effective for growing winter grass.  VERY effective for feeding the 572 million pigeons who moved down here for the winter.

With the root problem evident, a few years back we aerated the lawn.  By foot.  That is really close to by hand.  We used the age old aerating tool that looks like a shovel but replacing the blade were two metal tubes that poked dainty hole in the lawn, presumably allowing the rye grass to grow.  This was true.  Sadly.  Everywhere where there was a hole from the aerating tool, the rye grass grew.  But that was the only place it grew.  The “designated grass area” looked like a bald man who just got bad plugs.

Once again, winter is upon us.  We decided to kill off the Bob-Sod by not watering it for the last two months.  I like to tell people we are going for the foreclosed look in the backyard.  I don’t think the Bob-Sod died at all.  Tonight my husband used a de-thatching blade on the lawn mower to break up the roots and prepare the soil for rye grass.  It was comical and I was prepared to remember this day for all eternity with a photograph of him wearing a white mask over his mouth and nose that was scotch taped to his face, but no.  A de-thatching blade on dirt simply makes HUGE dirt clouds.  Dirt clouds that you can’t even see through. Nor take pictures through.  When the dust settled (on everything in the backyard… and our neighbors’ backyards) I went out with the hose and feebly tried to clean things off.

So tomorrow just might be the day the rye seed goes down, followed by manure and sand, followed by the creative devices I will concoct to scare away the 572 million pigeons.  I used to use the baby swing, but I don’t have one anymore.  (HEY!  Tomorrow is 50% off day at Goodwill!  Baby SwingS, here I come!)

Back Off, Airbag!

I’m thankful that I am still here to write a blog for your reading pleasure.  The airbags did their duty, probably a bit more intensely than required at 35 mph, yet I am trying to keep a sense of humor in the midst of it all.  Please excuse any humor that may seem off color in our circumstances.  Remember also I am currently using narcotics.

My cute husband and I were enjoying a moment of peace and tranquility on the back patio yesterday morning, holding hands and loving the balmy Phoenix weather in March.  He squeezed my hand and conveyed a heartfelt, “I’m so glad the accident was not that bad.  I could have been going to two funerals this week!”  BAH!  I told him that his sentiments were kind but I knew he was WAY too cheap to pay for two funerals…. there would have been just one.

This morning I visited the spinal surgeon.  He had good news and bad news for me… but the good news outweighed the bad by 98%.  I am not free to discuss my injuries to the world at large, but spinal surgery was negated.  Thank God!  Then he proceeded to tell me that my spinal condition is appropriately degenerated FOR MY AGE.  What the heck was that supposed to mean?  I’m in my 40s!!  If he were a car salesman, this was the equivalent of kicking the tires and saying, “She’s got a few more miles in her despite the apparent neglect.” Good grief!

It has been 11 days since the accident and today was the first day I had a surge of energy and applied makeup!  Small steps.  It was my fourth or fifth visit to the chiropractor since the accident.  As I graced the waiting room the receptionist hollers, “OH MY GOSH!  You look so much better today!”  Yeah, thanks.  It’s just makeup.  I feel the same… still sore, achy and drugged.  My Dad always said, “If the barn needs painting, paint it!”  I gathered from her exuberance that my natural beauty was more in my mind than in reality.

I arrived home exhausted from more outings than my typical one-per-day.  While sitting at the table eating another wonderfully fabulous dinner that was delivered to us by our rockin’ homeschool peeps, my 9-year-old says to me, “I like your hair.”  Okay, seriously?  It is a day #2 hairdo with the back completely oily from a massage, and one flat side from my nap.  She kept going with her sincere flattery, “It makes you look like a teenager, Mom.  It’s pretty the way it’s not all puffy like usual.”  Wow.  What do you say to that?

By day of recovery #5 I finally felt like reading.  I read four whole pages of the 1850’s historical fiction of which I was in the midst…. during days 6, 7 and 8.  Yes, only four pages.  Then day #9 my reading juices were regenerated and I finished the book.  It was the last 1850’s historical novel I had in my possession and I was still on the couch for the better part of the day.  CRISIS!  I perused my bookshelves and discovered several stories that we were supposed to read for American History last year.  Yesterday and today I read Farewell to Manzanar a biography/history lesson about an internment camp during WW2 for 10,000 Japanese Americans on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas in California.  Every summer when we drive to Lake Tahoe, we pass right by the historical marker sign that reads   <—– MANZANAR.  Being the history loving nerd that I am, the desire to stop has surfaced every single time we pass the sign, but we have yet to stop.  Now that I’ve read the story…. we are stopping, baby.  10,000 American citizens who were considered dangerous simply by race… put in a “camp” like prisoners for THREE YEARS!  Unbelievable.  I’ve added this story here because I was hoping to see barracks, a mess haul, latrines, a pear orchard, etc.  The end of the book describes Manzanar today as a dusty, deserted piece of land with a few cement slabs if you know where to look for them.  Maybe I don’t need to stop as badly as I thought I had for the last 12 years.  We’ll see this summer.

Post Wreckage Wisdom

Before this past Saturday, the previous car accident I participated in was in 1999 in Anaheim, California.  Thankfully I have been fender bender free for 14 joyous years. (However, in my current state of narcotic use, I could easily and most probably be missing large periods of my life in my memory banks.)  When one meanders through life without hitting other vehicles, you tend to forget many important facts regarding collisions.  This morning, at 4:06 a.m., I am here to inform all those who need informing on said subject.

1.  Accidents happen when you least expect it and when it is not convenient in your life.  In my case, I was casually  heading to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a much needed shower curtain liner for the main bath due to visitors who were scheduled to arrive at my home in exactly four hours.  My daughter and two friends were descending upon our house for Spring Break from college in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mere 14 hour drive to Phoenix, Arizona.  Two days after their arrival, three Canadian relatives were also visiting for a week.  Hence, the new shower curtain liner was MANDATORY.

2.  Teenage drivers are a danger on the road.  Out of a neighborhood shopping center driveway (right next to Charming Charlie’s purse/accessory mother ship store) a small white vehicle came flying directly into my lane from the right without any warning time, hindering me from doing all those things you know you should do when you figure out you’re are going to hit another car, i.e. brake, scream “Sweet mother of God!”, brace yourself so as to increase muscle injuries, curse the driver’s day of birth, yell at your kids “Hang on, Mommy’s going to hit someone!” or any other such nonsense. I glanced at the car and slammed into it.  That is all.  I never saw the driver’s face as she was looking to her right the entire time she was entering the four lane road, planning on crossing two lanes of traffic.  The kind police man asked me how long I had between my visual awareness of the other car and impact.  “One second.”  I have since wondered about her actions.  Did she just find the queen mother purse to match her favorite hot pink and cheetah print shoes, and couldn’t wait to get home and unite the two, creating the perfect ensemble?  Did she just eat at the Mellow Mushroom and was in a pasta induced coma with garlic permeating from her pores?  We will never know, dear reader.

3.  When the kind police man finished my inquisition and then glanced in the back seat of the van to witness a tear-stained little Latina child, he should have used his kind policeman voice and asked a politically correct question like, “Who is this little sweetheart?” or “I see we have a princess in the back seat.” or “Honey, are you ok?”  But NO.  He got the wrath of the blubbering adoptive mother when he blurted out, “Who is THAT?” like I picked up an illegal alien down by the border and was transporting her color-coordinated, well manicured dimpled self like a criminal. I will admit I answered a bit tersely, “SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!!!!”  My tone set him in his place and his kind police man voice surfaced as he praised her for being in her booster seat and wearing her seatbelt.  I am a protective mama first, and an injured car passenger second. Don’t ever forget that!

4.  Auto injuries are curious beasts.  Due to the impact of the airbag underneath the steering column of our van, my shins took a real beating.  I did not know there was an airbag under there, nor was I aware that it was hinged from the bottom and the molded plastic cover was capable of shaving your legs so thoroughly upon explosion, you might never need to shave them ever again due to the absence of several layers of skin and hair follicles.  Thank God I was wearing jeans.  As was predicted by my ER doctor friend, other injuries will surface when the most intense injuries subside.  After four days of lying on the couch with my legs elevated and iced every hour around the clock, I was able to stand without tears accumulating in my eyes.  Then I realized my right shoulder was not working as well as it had been performing before the white car jumped in my path.  Yesterday x-rays were had and after two days of icing my shoulder every hour around the clock, we will hopefully have some answers tomorrow as to my gimpy limb.  When that is concluded, I do not know what will make me cry next…. the seatbelt bruise line across my entire torso?  Or some other area still in shock waiting to surface.  I will surely keep you posted, even though I am aware of “women’s tea rules of courtesy” of not speaking of sickness or operations.  This ain’t a tea…. it is my blog, and where else can I complain with my sense of humor intact for the enjoyment of others?

5.  God takes care of His children.  When God found our new-to-us van on November 30, 2012, He was testing my thankfulness at receiving such a good and perfect gift from Him, despite it being red.  Red is my least favorite color.  But I WAS thankful for the van… the low miles, the reasonable price, the stow-n-go compartments to haul more junk, the awesome air-conditioning, the radio controls on the back of the steering wheel, etc.  And I was content knowing that I couldn’t see that it was red while I was riding in the van. I imagined that it was a purty royal blue color.  So I am pretty sure I passed the red van test and now get another new-to-us van that is not red.  I will keep you posted.

Currently my pain meds have once again done their duty and I am ready to drift back to a psycho-dream filled sleep.  Good night for now.

DRE-E-E-E-EAM, dream dream dre-eam

When you grow up, you assume your life is the normal life of all the other kids in the world.  When you get older, you realize just how non-normal your growing up actually was, well, compared to all the other non-normal lives you learn about as time goes on.  Confused yet?

All that to say, I grew up thinking everyone dreams in color.  I do.  Of course I’m not the weird one, am I?  Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that more than 80% of people dream in color.  Not so weird after all, thankyouverymuch.  Yet another fact caused me to pause and consider my abnormalness once again…. 95-99% of people forget their dreams. What?  Almost every night I have vivid dreams and can tell the tales of them the next day.  My children take great pleasure in asking me what I dreamt last night and then rolling on the floor holding their sides due to laughter induced dream tales.  Some dreams have stuck with me for years… for 24 years, in one case… like it was yesterday.  Some are so real that I write them down to ponder later.

While we were away at Christmas I had this great dream (that my children loved) about my husband wanting to redo the greenhouse (that we don’t have) on the back of the house (that we don’t live in).  He was all inspired and wanted to show me his plans, but he insisted the best view was from the neighbor’s back driveway.  The only glitch was that he was naked and I wasn’t walking outside with him.  I’m the modest one in the family, for goodness sakes alive, even in my dreams.  So he talked me into driving over to the neighbor’s back driveway in our station wagon with tasteful “wood” paneling on the sides.  He drove me over there and proceeded to do a 13 point turn in the little driveway until the car was facing our greenhouse (sideways on the driveway.)  But the inevitable happened and he backed up too far and we went down into the ditch and got stuck.  I told him I would climb out the window and go call AAA but he yelled, “You cannot call Triple A, I’m naked!”  And that was the end.  I did not find deep meaning in that dream.  I pray we never own that house or car!  But it WAS funny!

Sixteen years ago, after watching Father of the Bride 2, my husband decided we should move from Spruce Grove, Alberta to Phoenix, Arizona to be near my parents.  I whole heartily agreed.  We put the house on the market and prayed for a quick sale, it was winter after all. Then I had a dream about a lady coming to buy our house. I awoke quite relieved and explained in detail what she looked like to my husband. For ten long months, our house sat on the market and many people came to see it.  Every time I opened the front door, if it wasn’t the lady in my dream, I was disappointed.  Phoenix was calling my name, after all.  Finally one day she came.  I recognized her.  And she did buy our house.  Truly, I think God gave me the picture of her as a sign of hope that there was someone coming.  It gave me a measure of assurance.

Do you remember your dreams?

Pizzeria Bianco

There is the semi-famous pizza place in downtown Phoenix that has a reputation for fabulous food.  Two or three years ago, an article ran in the paper naming a memorable activity to do each month of the year in our fine city. Pizzeria Bianco was listed for April…. because there is almost always a two-hour wait to get into one of the 12 tables inside the vintage brick building… and April is one of the last months before it is too hot to wait outside for two hours.  I cut out two of the mentioned activities and put them on the side of the fridge… the side no one sees unless they are invited WAY into the kitchen. (The other activity was seeing the bat cave and we did that last year.)

So, when Rick’s brother and his wife were visiting America, we took the opportunity to go to Pizzeria Bianco.  This was Rick and my second time going down there and putting our names on the list.  The first time, we were unaware of the two-hour wait…. and had prearranged activities that hindered our possibility of sitting in one of the 12 tables that night.  THIS time, we planned accordingly and L O V E D every minute in the tiny brick structure.  There were fancy names for the salad and the pizza that we devoured…. that I wish I could remember to impress you all.  But you’ll just have to be impressed in your mind without Italian foody words.

All that to say, if you’re ever in Phoenix and have an evening to relax, I highly recommend Pizzeria Bianco.  (It is just East of the Science Center.)  Fabuloso!