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Summer viewing

It’s summer and as I’ve mentioned before it gets pretty hot in Arizona. We actually had a Heat Advisory Warning that started last Thursday and expires today. In an attempt to avoid the stifling heat I have been working on different projects, some sorting, sewing and some other miscellaneous craft projects. While I worked on the projects I wanted to have something I could watch. I was looking for something good but not too riveting.

I was flipping through Netflix and after some deliberation picked a show I watched sporadically during it’s first run. Murder, She Wrote.

I am so glad that I did. I am totally hooked on this show. I mean, it’s Angela Lansbury, she is amazing and so very charming. The writing is really good and the show holds up really well. There aren’t any cell phones and computers have been featured or mentioned maybe three times, at least so far, I’m about halfway through the third season.

I think my favorite part of watching the old episodes is seeing so many great guest stars. A lot of the guest stars were stars of their own shows many years before like, Chuck Connors from The Rifleman, Forrest Tucker from F Troop, Noah Beery from The Rockford Files, John Astin from The Addams Family, and nearly the entire cast of WKRP in Cincinnati (except Loni Anderson and Tim Reid). Not to mention recurring characters like those played by Tom Bosley, Jerry Orbach, William Windom, Julie Adams and Ron Masak.

I’ve now gotten the entire family hooked on watching. We just watched a cross over between Magnum P.I. and Murder, She Wrote (MSW). The first part was the Magnum P.I. episode “Novel Connection” and the second part on the Murder, She Wrote episode “Magnum on Ice”. It was great seeing the crossover and we’ve already talked about watching Magnum P.I. once we’re done with MSW.

 

I’m adding this last image because it made my daughter laugh, well, me too.

Road trip: Flagstaff

My daughter’s bestest bud from Hawaii was in town visiting family, and they invited us along on an overnight trip to Flagstaff.

Walnut Canyon

We hiked one of the trails at the Walnut Canyon National Monument. The Island Trail is a loop that takes you right past and even throughsome cliff dwelling rooms/ The loop is only a mile long but is a bit strenuous due to an altitude of 7,000 feet and the 185 foot vertical descent into the canyon, and the return ascent. It’s a great hike and even though I nearly died on the way back up the stairs I had a great time.

Downtown Flagstaff

 

 

We had fun shopping at Heritage Square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saying hi to the carriage horse.

 

 

 

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We saw this cute Airstream trailer at The Big Heap Vintage, Antique and Handmade Design Festival. There was a lot of groovy stuff at the festival like antique furniture, pretty ironwork, vintage trunks and suitcases. There was some beautiful handmade work too, there was a booth with Steampunk fashion, including some niftyhats and jackets. Another booth had some really intricate wire and resin butterfly jewelry.

Father’s Day

Several years ago we started a new Father’s Day tradition. We really needed to do something different since both of our father’s have passed, so much better than sitting around being sad. This year we celebrated a week early since we have something planned for next weekend.

So, now every June we make the trek out to Scottsdale to eat at LoLo’s Chicken and Waffles. The food is amazing and the portions are ginormous. I usually get the Chicken and Waffle special but this year I was looking at the sides and decided I was going to try something new…Chicken, okra and potato salad. I was not disappointed and we all had enough leftovers for two meals.

We gave our guy two posters Marvel movie posters exclusive to San Diego Comicon. We already have a few and these will round out the collection nicely.

The detail here is amazing. I love how the colors in the shield seem to pop out from the paper.

I love this poster.  It might be my favorite.  Check out the shadows of the Guardians, it’s really the coolest part of the poster.

Happy Father’s Day! Wishing all fathers, brothers, uncles, friends and anyone else that has cared and taken time to support others, a happy and relaxing day.

Incentive to clean

My house is normally clean and tidy, well, fairly clean and tidy, I do have a teenager and many pets living here after all.  So, on a normal day my house is looking pretty good. The exception to this is when I am involved in a project, and since I’ve been involved in nonstop projects since last June my house has been in various states of crazy for a year now. My usual approach ends up being me concentrating all of my focus to the project while neglecting most of the house cleaning in favor of getting the project down in as little time as possible. On paper that sounds great but it really isn’t feasible. Projects are inherently unpredictable, little things that should take just a few minutes end up taking ten times as long, Murphy’s Law at its most devious. The delays add up and ultimately screw up any chance of making a schedule and sticking to it. Of course, this means that the project isn’t getting that much closer to being finished and the house still isn’t clean. It definitely starts getting a little overwhelming.

The current problem with this system is that my daughter’s BFF is visiting from Hawaii and I’ve got to get this house under control. Last June, we started transitioning her room from Disney Princess cute to Geek Girl Eclectic. We painted the room, I built a loft bed but there was sorting and a few other things to finish. I also needed to get the rest of the house back in order. Nothing like company coming to accelerate my cleaning schedule. Yikes!