Yesterday

Yesterday was appointments day.  First, to the tax man...good news!  We get a refund from the feds, but owe a couple hundred dollars to the state.  Oh, well...it could be worse, right?  Phew!  I'm glad that is over with.  Got a new accountant (same firm) because our previous two retired!  I like Michael...he's very pleasant, easy to talk to, and can talk and compute numbers at the same time!  We got to talking about the Whitewater Preserve (he has NEVER been there) and I'm going to send him some of my photos of it.

Next...to the dermatologist for surgery on the squamous skin cancer bubble on my left arm.  Yup.  It bubbled up last August and it was only burned off.  By December, it was BACK.  I went to my own doctor, she looked at it, and I decided to go the PPO route (NOT the HMO route, as before...).  I have a bigger deductible, but I didn't need a referral.  I got in that very morning, the derm doc looked at it, biopsied it, and yesterday she removed a huge chunk of it and surrounding tissue.  I go back in 10 days to have the stitches out.

This morning, I'm dropping my car off to have the spark plugs changed out.  I notice she just doesn't have the "oomph" she used to have...oil change, fluid check...all that good stuff!  Our daughter will swing by, pick me up and we'll head up to the Living Desert Reserve for a nice walk with the granddaughter, who will be 1 year old in early April.  Time to get out memberships renewed!

Oh, and here are a couple more of my favorite books.  I like Michael Crichton, especially TIMELINE and Eaters of the Dead (13th Warrior).    I also like the John Grisham novels and I've read all of them except his last one....that's on my summer "to do" reading list.  Finally, I liked Cold Mountain and Missing by Charles Eidson (also called "The Last Ride").  Again, this was a movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett.  EXCELLENT READ!  I may read it again this summer.  Here's the info:

he year is 1886 and old Samuel Jones, broken in body and soul, has ridden hard to reach his daughter’s remote New Mexico ranch—ridden hard so that he can die there. But Maggie Baldwin, grown and with children of her own, wants nothing to do with this man who abandoned her and her mother thirty years earlier to live with the Indians. Nothing, that is, until renegade Apaches shoot Maggie’s husband and kidnap her oldest daughter. Then she has no choice but to ride with the dying father she detests in a desperate attempt to rescue her child before the girl disappears forever...

GREAT READ!  Hang onto your hats for this one!!!
Here's the link on Amazon:   http://www.amazon.com/The-Missing-Novel-Thomas-Eidson/dp/0812972384/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=02YCCRKK9QGTFD4KY0B8

Finally, I also like historical books.  I am currently getting through Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, who is the author of In the Heart of the Sea, and The First Frontier, by Scott Weidensaul.  It's about the struggle between the early American settlers and the Native Americans, as the settlers pushed onto Indian land.  For me, this book is a revelation because I have ancestors on both sides of that conflict:  English and Pequot.  And, we know who won that conflict.  I also found that I have two ancestors on the Mayflower, so that has also been an interesting read.  

So, ENJOY!  I'll get new photos today at the Living Desert.