Wk 12, Day 6 (Sat, 12-Oct-2013)

THOUGHTS:

• I don't know if it's my husband's friends or the Colombian culture that irritates me regarding time.  But, they rarely ever show up at times they commit to.  When they need something done, it has to be ASAP and no scheduling.  And when they schedule something with my husband, often they don't show up at all or way late, meaning hours or even days late.  They don't respond in a timely manner.  My husband makes excuses for them, but if I or the kids were to do this, we would get hell for it.  His friends wanted to meet with him at 7:00 am, which is really early for my husband and he was available.  We were scheduled to leave for our day trip at 9:00 am, all of us ready including him.  His friends don't show up until almost 9:00 am and of course, these are his close, childhood friends and he starts chatting with them and wanted to chat until 10:00 am.  I was NOT happy with this.
• Anyway, he only chatted until 9:40 am and during the first hour or so, we said hardly anything on our trip, but after awhile, that was put aside and we didn't address until the drive home, which we were able to talk about calmly.  I shared how I'm very frustrated at the lack of integrity and courteousness of his "friends".  I come from a family that when they say they will do something, show up or whatever, they do it.  I really have an amazing, wonderful family and the more I see of what he's been surrounded by, the more I appreciate my family and friends that I had taken for granted for so long.  I am truly, truly blessed to be surrounded by such high quality people.  I tend to be a flake compared to them, but am realizing that's really bad and have been changing.
• I bought this book at the library for $1 probably a year or two ago that has all these interesting things to do all over AZ and the details.  It's awesome.  It's in the car now so when we take our day trips, we can look up on places on where to go, prices, phone numbers, directions, things to do.  We found Snow Bowl there and though the Sky Line ride was inexpensive compared to the Sky Lift prices, it was still expensive for us.  We chose an experience over spending our money other ways and it was well worth it.  Adults (13 and older) were $15 each.  Children (7-12 yrs old) were $10 each.  It was a 30 min. ride up to one of the mountains of the San Francisco Peaks, the highest mountains in AZ.  There is a short hike up once you get to the top of the lift and since the altitude is just over 11,500 ft, this hike that would've been a short walk that a toddler could do, I did initially feel a little bit dizzy and winded.  This was my first time up a ski lift in AZ.  I got to ride up with my daughter and my husband rode up with our son.  The drive up to the ski lift was also beautiful.  We ended the evening after a dinner at Carl's Jr with walking around downtown, which was nice and nippy.
• We noticed the Check Engine light came on when we were about 10 miles south of Flagstaff.  When this happened Thursday, we were 10 miles east of Flagstaff.  Those were the only times this light came on.  Our mechanic says not to worry, but he is looking into it.
• Found early in our trip that the thing that holds the cigarette lighter in the stereo bessel cover of our Explorer, that somehow broke, so we couldn't charge our phone or anything.  Thankfully we knew where we were going, disabled most of the things on the iPhone and was able to save the charge, though, even with only the GPS, odometer going, that still drained battery life quite quickly.  When we had lunch and dinner, for the 1/2 hr each time, we were able to plug in and charge some at both of those places, thank God.  That helped.  
• So, now the things that need to be fixed/replaced are the cigarette lighter, the odometer/tripometer.  Both these are important to have working properly in the car, so will add this to our list below.
• Grateful to our neighbor for receiving our package that my husband's sister sent of Colombia foods to us, as it needed refrigeration.
• Apple Care's tech support finally called me back after over a week.  However, it's still not resolved and since I was on my way out the door, I asked him (Sean) to call back on Monday at 11 am.  
• Very grateful to God that though the cigarette lighter wasn't working so we couldn't charge anything, that we made it home safely and uneventfully with having had a good, spending money only on food, gas, and lift tickets, and $7 in souvenirs for the kids.
• $8 rice cooker from Goodwill seems to work well.  Thank you, Goodwill (and whomever donated you), my husband, and God.  

ACTIONS:

• Took my heart meds, hair supps.
• Drank water and iced tea.

LIFE TO DOs:

• Get some Saturday weekend sub con work done.
• Arrange for pickup of our food package in the mail with our neighbor.
• Upload videos to YT for kids for karate. - Thought I did this, but they never took, so I have to redo sometime.
• Discount Tires Claims called me.  I need to get an estimate on the repairs and fax to them this week.
• Reschedule dental appointment to get teeth cleaned - Maybe Nov.
• Followup with AZ regarding discrepanies in Child Support.
• Look up list of stuff Peter gave me.
• Get some ActivaFulvic.
• Apply at ST, EJ, CW.
• Resolve format issues with some MP3s to my iPod.
• Continue with job search.
• File paperwork in crate.
• Reorganize top of cabinet.
• Find out costs for parts & labor for the things we need done to the Explorer - rear 3rd brake light (whole assembly $120 + labor), passenger side powered mirror ($31 from eBay + labor), passenger front seat powered windows ($120-200 total), left rear tail light ($35 from eBay + labor), rear windshield wiper ($20 from eBay + labor), front hood strut mechanism, rear driver's side door fixing it ($200), belt for the P/R/D ($135), odometer/tripometer, cigarette lighter.

SLEEP:

• 10:45 pm - 6:30 am (7.75 hrs) - Almost enough rest.  Ready for our last day trip of our kids' fall break.

FOOD JOURNAL:

Breakfast  (7:15 am) - eggs scrambled with brussel sprout leftovers.

Lunch (12:30 pm) - a Hot & Spicy McChicken and some fries

Snack (afternoon) - Lay's potato chips, water, and Doritos

Dinner (6:45 pm) - a Western Bacon Cheeseburger, a few crisscut fries & fried zucchini from Carl's Jr.