Stewart Creations

Whee !! We get to go to Ajo again this weekend. It’s going to be Hella hot, but we’ll at least get to play with the new house.

Here is the back shed that the pobracitos were camping in. Although they assured us they were American citizens, the whole conversation was in Spanish. I felt bad about it, it was so hot outside, and really not too bad in the shed, what with the breeze coming through the dark interior from all the broken windows. It’s all boarded up now.

This weekend, I think Dave will finish putting in the toilet. Still no swamp cooler, so it will be hot in there, but we have fans.
I probably won’t be much use to him, I really can’t tolerate the heat, but I’ll make sure the beer is cold.
Ajo is a good place to study, too, as there isn’t much else to do.

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School is very interesting, and I think it will keep me busy this term. I have projects in both Running a Small Business and International Business, and have yet another project for my Honors grant, which is worth $325.00 (and that makes it even more fun.)
I will be looking for more project-type classes as I continue to shop for Online master degrees.
I like that Gonzaga Online offers a variety of Masters programs. I would consider contacting them in a couple of years to see what kind of programs they have and to look at funding. I’m thinking an organizational development masters degree would be the most fun and the closest to what I am aiming for.
Algebra is going to take most of my time this term, though, for studying and practicing. It seems to take a long time to get each new step into my brain. Oh well, it’s still the best ‘job’ I’ve ever had.

redjotter.com
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I just spent over $500.00 on textbooks. Ouch!
This is only for three classes!
The huge price tag is partly my fault, my own poor planning. I knew I would need books, I knew I would have the book voucher at the college bookstore, where the prices are highest. If I don’t spend that money on books, I get it in my pocket, it’s part of my grant, so … Ouch!
If I had shopped around a bit I could’ve probably saved a hundred, maybe more if my paperbackswap.com had one of them. I got a Spanish text that way, and it only cost me postage “paid forward” on the next book of mine I shipped out.
Algebra is the most painful and the most costly, with a $246.00 text price tag.

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Algebra is going to challenge me. I already have some new terms and methods to learn after the first day, and we were just doing the most basic solve for ‘x’ stuff.
I am Gabby sitting, so I thought you’d enjoy a picture of Gabby.

She is a sweetie, I go visit her a couple of times a day and sometimes I read to her. She likes cookbooks and true adventures. I’m reading a baby boomer self-help book about ‘the rest of your life’, (which is what this going back to school business is really all about) but she isn’t too interested.

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Next week I start the Small Business class. I am so excited. I know, I keep getting excited when I think of school, it wears a little on my friends, I’m sure.
So I really been wracking my brain here, thinking up a small business. Here’s a list of ideas:
PlanetCornucopia.com
– I would be posting non-profit news and selling logo T-shirts, 501C3 license.
That’s it, I’m afraid. Only the one idea.
Dang.

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Our favorite fifth-wheel is still for sale, and they keep dropping the price.
We looked at this one last year and at the time did not know that is was a custom order. We thought we could find a used one like it. After searching for a year we went back to look at that one again, to see how long it really was (29′), and to get the model number so we could look for it specifically.
Try this website, for instance for a used rv for sale. We also look on Craig’s List a lot.

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I’m pretty excited. My schedule is light, and I kept a three day week-end, with only one class on Monday and Wednesday. Everything else is piled up on Tuesday and Thursday.
I have one on-line class, International Business, the rest of them have actual classroom settings.
It’s pretty boring around here this week, but of course, we have Ajo. I’m looking at my dishes and furniture with an eye to taking some things down there next week. We won’t really be able to live in the house until we get either the swamp cooler or the AC unit running, it’s over a hundred degrees there every day right now.
This next week we will replace the toilet, add security doors, get the fence up. That kind of thing. And stay at Mom’s house for the air-conditioned bedroom.
Our house is near the corner of Snow Dog and Hope. Dave really likes that, he says “Snow Dog in one hand and Hope in the other, see which one fills up the fastest.”
Pretty funny, Dave.
It’s in Spanish, though, Perro de Nieve and Esperanza.

There’s a wild donkey in this picture, right about the middle. We couldn’t get too close, but they roam free all around Ajo.

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I’m curious about how the new health care plan will affect seriously ill folk. There is an upsurge in a serious form of cancer, mesothelioma, which is caused by asbestos.
Why do we still have this? Hasn’t all the asbestos been safely removed from our buildings already?
My uncle died from something like this about twenty years ago. Back then the cancer was only vaguely tied to asbestos, and he had been a construction worker and drywaller for decades. I guess it used to be pretty dangerous to build houses.
There are some pretty hopeful treatments these days, but mesothelioma is a really nasty cancer. Our scientists are working on it, and there seems to be some room for hope.

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Meet Bertha, our new truck. She was so pretty last night when we first drove her home, then it rained. But she still looks glorious in the rain.
The people who owned her since she was brand new used her to pull a fully-loaded horse trailer to rodeos and barrel racing events. They did some shows where you dress up in the fancy breeches. I did some of that in high school on Arabians. Full dress shows. It was fun.

The people who had her new named her Bertha. The gal who drove her most almost cried when we were doing the final thing yesterday, but she liked it when I asked the truck’s name.

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Will they turn out with my little digital camera? I’m using a Canon Powershot, and loving it for the most part. Some of my peeves are strictly user-error type of things that only an old geezer like me would have, like when I don’t notice that the little button has slid over and now wants to record video (which I have not really explored yet).
So let’s take a look at the best magnification I have. This hummingbird is sitting on the clothesline above the feeder.

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There is so much to do in the Ajo house. Look at this wal between the laundry room and the bathroom. And the toilet is all jacked up on blocks, that has to be fixed.

You can just see it through the wall there. I don’t blame whoever did that for raising the throne, though, it’s almost hard for me to get up from the low one we have, too. It’s not the height of the toilet, it’s the lack of elegance that bothers me.

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Next time we go to Ajo, in two or three weeks, we will drag an old couch and two cook stoves to the dump. We will take the flat trailer and some sledge hammers. I would be nice to find a sawzall (however you spell that).
The neighbor boys are ready to help us break the furniture down into pieces. Major destruction is so attractive to boys.
We fully intend to utilize their destructive bent. I’ll have a cooler full of drinks and some cookies, Dave will have all the tools. Sweet!
These two electric stoves (not under an extended service plan), were in the back shed. Wish I’d got pics for you, but I sure will catch the destruction party!

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Joe Ann is our new neighbor at the Ajo house. We are pretty lucky to have her right there. We could do a lot worse for neighbors.

Here she is after a long day’s work.
We met a beautician in Ajo, who says she knows the best acne treatments and has most of the high school kids as clients at one time or another.
The subject of kids came up in conversation because on the other side of our new house we have a gaggle of boys, ranging from six years old to early teens.

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UGH !!!
My sweetie and I spent a couple of days in Ajo, taking possession of our new house.
We found a couple of squatters in the shed, of the human variety, probably wets (illegal immigrants from south of the border), but they of course insisted they were Ajo natives. In spanish. Poor guys, they were skinny and probably thirsty, but it looked as if they had been there more than a few days, so they probably had already scoped out an alternate place to stay. I hope.
How far do you go to protect them? We don’t really want them here, but if you’re aware of the horrible trip they had to make just to get this far, … Oh well, I could go on. …
I feel a lot of compassion for them. Most of them are barely adults, and have had it pretty hard all their lives. They just want a good life, like all of us.
Crossing the desert on foot surely is best weight loss supplement in the world, though, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on either of them.

It even looks hot in a picture.

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and will go get the keys this weekend.
I’m pretty excited to be moving in my new house. Even if it is just a retirement house and a week-end getaway.
We don’t have any furniture to move in, so we won’t need any cross country movers, but we hope to get the utilities turned on Monday.
So much to do! We have to get the swamp cooler running first thing, and the other first thing is to get the dog fence installed.
The dogs really do love Ajo, they get to run in the wash all the time.

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Pam called me today and raved about the color, fit, and style of her new blouse. Just when I was tired of blouses, I get a rave review!
Sweet!

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I finished with the blouses, it really did not satisfy like the handbags do. So I have two more bags cut out and ready to go. It’s not Samsonite luggage by any means, just soft-side bags.
I will have two out of the grey material. One will be lined with a thin satin-like polyester and the other will be lined with a printed light cotton. Both will have outside pockets, a zippered inside pocket and a top zipper.
I’m pretty excited.

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I found out (by accident) that the reason my new Brother CS 6000i took so much upper thread on the uptake is because the tension was tight.
Not TOO tight, really, as I was top-stitching quilts and then making handbags out of heavy material. When I got to lightweight fabric for the series of blouses, I found that the wasted upper thread problem on the uptake isn’t a problem on light thread/light tension. Also the machine is much quieter.
So now I have been making blouses out of thin material like mad. I think sewing might be the best weight loss pill yet, I don’t have time to eat. Of course I’ll find time to eat again, sewing isn’t THAT good of a pill.

This particular blouse is size 3X. There are problems fitting extra large women and I think there’s a big market for good-looking and well-fitting clothes. I sure don’t see much to love in Walmart and Target, and let’s admit it, all of us look for bargains there.

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