I'm excited ! I've interviewed friday on the phone for a job at the Verde Valley Guidance Clinic which looks very promising! It is located in Cottonwood and if I get the job I would live in Sedona, one of my favorite places as you know.

I'm having to overcome my mental and emotional obstacles to pursuing my dream of living in a place like Sedona. At first I was scared to death, waking up with anxiety and telling myself to forget moving, just stay here! Guess I was scared to give up what I have. Now I am not scared but moderately excited. Then there is inertia - I'm contented, like my job, liking my house more and more as I fix it my way. Esp as I look around and think of leaving it. But I think if I stay here I am cutting myself off from the new possibilities that lie in the place I dream of, that I would be settling for the status quo, preparing for old age by playing it safe. And it seems like I am ready for an adventure, and I'm not getting any younger!

I have to consider the possibility I won't get the job, but I think I will and am proceeding like I will .


I am in a quandry about whether to rent or try to sell my house, which I think is my biggest obstacle. (Any advice is welcome.) No matter which I do, I'm purging my house of unnecessary, unloved, or unwanted stuff that, even though I don't consider myself anywhere near a packrat, has accumulated over the years. I am hindered by an emotional/mental obstacle to throwing away good stuff. I got this from Granny I am sure -you know how she is always passing along stuff nobody wants - a very annoying habit that I am also guilty of foisting on my kids! Every time I want to toss something my mind automatically thinks "who can I give this to?". It's amazing how ingrained this is and how gut- wrenching it is to put stuff in a trash bag to either throw away or take to charity. But I am persisting and it does feel goodto lighten up! I even found a place to take "building materials" for recycling - old boards, tiles, drywall, etc that were collecting cobwebs in the garage. I got my guest bathroom updated with new faucets and towel rods.

Next I will try to get a shower stall door replacement for the master bath. If I sell I might get new countertop in the bathroom too.l

I interview in person with DR G on sunday in Cottonwood. Wish me luck!
I will call a realtor to show my some rentals in Sedona while I am up there too.

Just watched PBS special about Dale Chihuly glass artist - there is a special exhibit of his glass throughout the desert botanical garden that I just bought a ticket for -it should be beautiful lit up at night.

The Bright Side...

They say you're always supposed to look at the bright side of things. You know, like the glass is half empty...

Well today, it was really cold out morning when I took the dogs out into the yard for their morning ritual...and I smiled at the fact that frozen dog poo is much less unpleasant to scoop up and discard than regular dog poo.

A little while later, I went upstairs and crawled back into bed with Carmen. "It's SO cold," she said. Yeah, but if it was warm, I'd be out riding my bike instead of snuggling with you. "True-dat," she said.

Later it started drizzling, raining, snowing, raining, sleating, etc. I didn't feel so positive about that, but it did give us a great opportunity to put up our Xmas tree...

Update from Scott & Alice

Hi everyone-
Scott's Grandfather passed away last Sunday, and we went to Albany on Tuesday night for the Service on Wednesday. It was a really nice service, with so many people, but of course really sad even though he had a long happy life. Scott's Grandmother is still alive. I wish I had known them earlier, they seem like amazing people- nuturing and fun-loving. They had a large loving family- four biological children, three adopted children, and took care of several foster children over the years.
On a lighter note, today we had a party at the house with about 25 friends and 4 kids, a non-shower, I guess you'd call it. It was so nice to see everyone and celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby G. We had a great time. We had everyone write name suggestions & put them in a vase, since we are still stumped.
We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and visiting with Scott's family & with Doug, Carmen & Carmen's parents. I am really excited to play some mexican train if I can stay awake:)
Only 7 more weeks until the baby comes, give or take. We are getting ready little by little. By the way, we are registered for a few things at BabiesRus, if anyone asks.
Love to you all.

I agree with a Republican

I saw Mitt Romney on the Today Show this morning and I liked what he said about the Big 3. He said that giving them the money would ensure their demise. Instead this is an opportunity to help them shed costs and restructure giving them the chance to be competitive and survive. They need new labor agreements to get the labor costs in line with their competition and the retiree burden needs to be reduced. He wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times on Wednesday about it. I agree with the republican view on this issue.

Free Cars for 1 million tax payers

I have an idea. Instead of giving $25B to the Big 3 so that they can keep making cars that no one wants...why don't we give $25,000 to 1 million taxpayers with the contingency that they buy a Ford, GM or Chrysler vehicle. I think the return on investment for the American people would be better. Most of us will get abolutely nothing, which is what we're going to get with the bailout. The lucky few, if you could call them that, will get new cars.

How do you decide who gets them? Lottery. All taxpayers with income less than ____ are automatically entered to win. The amount could be like $100,000 or so. We could even spread it out over a few years, to keep them on life support as long as possible...

I've been compromised

My credit card was compromised today. Someone got the number and charged hundreds of dollars at some porn site. Miraculously, Chase caught it and denied the charges. New cards are en route. Apparently no damage done. This leaves me with 2 questions:
1. How does this not happen more often? With all the people that actually see my credit card number during the dozens of transactions per month...
2. How in the world did they catch this so quickly? What kind of clairvoyent algorithms do they use to figure this stuff out in real-time?

This is the second time this has happened to me, and at least the 3rd or 4th time that Fraud Protection has called with questions like: "Mr Kennedy, did you charge $347 to ILUST4YOUNGBLONDS.COM today?" or "Mr Kennedy, did you purchase $57 at Chevron in Homestead Florida yesterday and $32 at Applebees in Boise Idaho today?" uh....no to the blondes...but don't tell anyone that I ate at Applebees...okay.

I'm just glad that there's some really smart programmers out that that are working on the side of goodness and justice...because otherwise the hackers and thiefs would have their way with us and we'd all be broke. Of course, we still have the politicians doing their best trying to give away our hard-earned tax dollars to the Big Three...because they simply can't make cars that people actually want to buy...but their existence is vital to our national security...therefore we must keep them on life support so that they can continue to loose market share to the Japanese...who arguably make much better cars trucks and SUVS...and wait for them go bankrupt when nobody notices...or when the economy is doing better so that nobody cares. And they accused Obama of being a socialist. Now that both parties worked together to socialize banking and they're well on their way to socializing the US auto industry...the GOP is going to have to find a new bad name to call him.

As for me, I'm going to just going to bury my head in the sand and continue being a good American...by spending as much money as possible...as soon as I get my new piece of plastic.

San Francisco Adventure

Sunday we went to San Francisco for the day. We took Bart over and then we rode the cable car
over to Fisherman's Wharf. It was a beautiful day there with sun and 75 degree temperatures! We ate fresh Dungeness Crab. Kendall gave fifty cents to a street musician playing a dulcimer. She said that when she grows up she wants to play an instrument so that people will give her money!
At Pier 39, we visited the aquarium and enjoyed seeing a fringe group of the Stanford marching band performing. It was a fun adventure of public transportation and seeing the sights in San Francisco.