Family

Cabela is 12!

Cabela relaxing at Desert Oasis

Today, our elder dog, Cabela, is approximately twelve years old. I say that since when we adopted her from the Humane Society here in town, she was estimated to be about two years old but her actual birth date was unknown. That was ten years ago this month at the time we were having our Arizona house built.

Cabela is probably a pure bred miniature pinscher “blue” but we have no history on her other than she was found near the rodeo grounds up in Constellation Park here in Wickenburg. We figure she was cropped and bobbed by her original owners who managed to let her run off somehow. I pity their loss. At the same time, we feel fortunate to have this little dog despite her high-strung personality and a tendency to bark at most everything. She truly must think she’s ten feet tall and bullet proof.

At twelve, Cabela shows few signs of growing old. She is quite active, can still jump and run at full speed and when on a leash can drag “The Daddy” along to where she wants to go. Despite being headstrong, she can be a nice companion here at home and still sleeps on the bed with us, sometime stealing the covers. She is quite the character and we love her.

Beethoven Is Ten Today

Bay Bay at 10Happy Birthday to our beloved Beethoven (a.k.a “Bay Bay”) who is ten years old today. He is the youngest of the two Miniature Pinchers that run our household. We adopted him about eight and a half years ago and, needless to say, is a beloved family member.

Image: Bay Bay at 10 – click to enlarge

As older dogs go, he is still very alert and seems happy most of the time. Of course, he is showing some signs of having joint pain and has turned grey in his face. He loves to sit with his “parents” watching TV and being wrapped in a warmed-up blanket. We hope he is having a good day.

Belated Gifts for Verna

Sleeping Beauty Turquoise and Coral Set  Kingman Turquoise Set

Since Verna’s Birthday and Christmas are very close together, we celebrate each separately, including gift-giving. No “combination” gifting allowed. No Sir. That is the case for this winter season when we went shopping for a birthday and a Christmas present for her. Also, since I have no calibration on what she considers a “perfect” gift to be, she goes with me to pick and choose.

We were both not particularly in the mood to do any shopping prior to last month’s holiday, so we mutually decided to forgo any shopping until after the crowds dissipate post-holiday. Today is our weekly shopping day for groceries, etc. and since we get out of our jammies on shopping day, we went to the Old Livery Mercantile in town (technically, a touristy souvenir and gift shop) to see what might be suitable as a birthday and then a Christmas gift.

Verna has long wanted a nice Native American Squash Blossom Necklace, so we started looking in the display case where many beautiful examples of N.A. crafted items are located. After several trips around the jewelry cases, she was split between the two pictured above. I suggested that she could have one for birthday and the other for Christmas. So she got ’em both.

The one on the left is Sleeping Beauty Turquoise with Coral and the one on the right is Kingman Turquoise. Both are hand-crafted by Native American Artists in the Southwest, not sure if Hopi, Navajo or ? but they are both beautiful. Click on either image to enlarge.

Milestone – One Decade of Retirement!

block-10.pngToday marks the tenth year milestone since I began my retirement from the Aerospace Mill for which I worked many years. I must say that those daily routines of getting up out of bed, commuting to the office, participating in whatever the plan of the day might have been, finishing up for the day, commuting back home and attending to home matters were comfortable for me right up until the last day. Now, however, at a decade down the road, I must also state that I don’t miss the old ways a bit.

During the last decade before retirement (starting 20 years ago), Verna and I spent a lot of time planning for the retirement we were to have. It turned out that by the grace of God and our own foresight, we managed to get our basic plan together. Thankfully, my employer had good a retirement plan and an incentivized 401(k) savings plan, both of which we participated in. Upon retirement, we exercised our choice to roll the 401(k) into a managed payout mutual fund designed just for retirees. We opted for the retirement pension payout as well. Bottom line: we’re doing OK.

Sure, there were still some unknowns and other events post-retirement that would shape our destiny, but the foundation for our sustenance was set by the time we were out of there. We weren’t prepared to lose our California house to flooding, for example, but our insurance payout and a fortunate find of a “flipper” to take that property off of our hands made it a sweet departure from home ownership in California. Otherwise, we would have had to do the fixing up and “flipping” ourselves for which we weren’t exactly prepared. Between that example and a couple of other post-retirement glitches, we have managed to stay afloat.

Pardon all the metaphors, but it seems that we’re set for smooth sailing for the next decade of our retirement, God willing.

From Ancestors to Descendants

alex1.jpgToday is the fifth anniversary of the birth of our eldest Great Grandchild and the first Great Grandson, Alex. Happy Fifth Birthday to Alex and many happy returns.

That’s a recent photo of Alex at the right, nearing his fifth birthday and like all boys that age showing some maturity (his pose) and some less mature dirt on his face, typical of most normal five year old boys. Alex, his cousin Maci and brother Mikey were on a park outing when this photo was taken.

The three kids I mentioned are our three great grandchildren aged 5, 3 and 2, respectively. The kids live in the Santa Rosa area of California with their mothers, our eldest two granddaughters.

Our eldest granddaughter is the mother of the two boys aged 5 and 2. The second eldest granddaughter is the mom to our only great granddaughter (at this time).

As we watch these kids grow up at a seemingly accelerated pace, we realize that we are growing older at the same rate. We further realize that our youngest descendants are rapidly maturing to become parents themselves in years to come. We can only hope that we might still be around to see the beginning of that next generation