Al Capone's Car

About a month ago while in Hot Springs, we visited the new Gangster Museum. Al Capone had a history in Hot Springs, and to honor the opening of the Gangster Museum, the Arlington Hotel has his car on loan from another museum out-of-state for a few months. I'm not a fan of Capone at all. He was an outlaw. However, being my father's daughter, I was rather impressed with the car.

The windows are about an inch thick. After Capone was captured, the car became President' Roosevelt's car. The president needed a car, and since it was after the depression, the government didn't want to spend the money on a bullet proof car. Capone's fit the bill. If only the government could still be so conservative with our money!

Book commentary

Think I need to change my "currently reading list", but before I do, a few words about Memory Keeper's Daughter.

I found this to be an intriguing book. It has been well over a year since I read it, and I don't have the book with me know, so this will be brief. It is set in the 1960's. A wife gives birth to twins. Her husband is a doctor, and he delivers them. One is a healthy boy and the other is a girl with Down's syndrome. The father makes a decision that will haunt him and his wife for the rest of his life.

The story made me thankful that society has come a lot way in supporting familes with mentally handicapped children.

Happy Birthday James!

Happy birthday to the man that I'd be lost without! We're going out for dinner tonight, and we'll see our families over the next two weekends. This photo was taken about a month ago at the Gangster Museum in Hot Springs, AR.

What came in the mail today.

I was surprised to find what came in the mail today. I lost my PDA at Busch stadium on the 4th of July. Along with it, I lost my drivers license, debit card, and credit card - I kept all of that in the PDA case.

James went to another ballgame the day after that and looked for it, but of course he didn't find it. So we made the necessary calls and got new debit cards and credit cards for the both of us. Both accounts were joint, so that's why James had to get new cards too. It wasn't that much of a headache. Since I'd had my car broken into and my purse stolen a year ago, I knew what to do. After the break in, I completely stopped carrying a checkbook and cash.

James brought the mail in this afternoon, and handed me an odd looking envelope. It was crumpled up and the handwriting looked like a child's. I opened it, and it was the contents of the PDA case, minus the PDA of course. It doesn't do me a lot of good now. The cards are no good - the account numbers have been changed, I've already replaced my driver's license. Odd that it was sent back - almost a month after it was lost. The PDA is not a real loss either. . .I got while I was a student. It had gotten where it ran very slow and that made it difficult to use.

Not so fond of Wal-mart

I had to go to Wal-mart today. I don't like to go to Wal-mart. They are always crowded, probably out of something that you want, they put mom-and-pop companies out of business, they make there part-time employees work every weekend (at least that's what the lady that usually cut my fabric for me at the WM in BR told me), they were anti-Christmas a few years ago. . .I couldn't even find Christmas cards that said something besides "Happy Holidays." Know why I went to Wal-mart? Because I love my dog that much. It is the only place that I have found near us that sells her dog food. Not because it's just cheaper there. . .I'd rather pay a bit more for it that have to deal with the chaos of Wal-mart. I almost got hit in the parking lot by a man that saw that he had almost missed the parking spot that he just had to have - it wasn't even a good spot either! I was behind him and he starts to back up - closer and closer to me. So I laid down on the horn until he finally decided to drive forward.

I bought 48 cans of dog food so I don't have to go back there anytime soon.

Moving in update

Well, it's been about a month since my last post. We've been busy. Our belongings were delivered on Memorial Day weekend, and we've been unpacking. I've unpacked things that I didn't know we still had - like a book I borrowed from one of my cousins-in-law soon after we moved to Baton Rouge, and three Sports Illustrated from 1993-94 - Razorback paraphanila. The men's basketball team won the NCAA title that year.

The new flooring is all finished. The next thing is the fence. The back yard is fenced in, but some of it is not in good enough condition to keep our little dog in the yard. The dogs are staying the basement while we are at work - and they are getting tired of it. I'm not sure who did it (probably the little dog), but one of them chewed up a marker 2 days ago and today someone chewed up some cardboard. I don't care much about what was torn up - the marker was cheap and the cardboard was trash anyway. It's just the hassle of cleaning it up. Daisy (the bigger dog) has been to the vet 4 times in the past few weeks. She's been drinking a LOT of water. We're waiting to hear the results on some lab work. We at least know she's not diabetic.

New Flooring

The work on the new flooring began today. I was surprised to see what all the installers had gotten done. All the old flooring had been removed and about half the new floor was installed. They think they will be done tomorrow! We are having our furniture delivered on Friday. I'm so glad. It's been about 2 and 1/2 months since since we've felt at home. Once we got our house in Red Stick ready to show, it didn't feel like our home anymore. In our new house, I've felt like I've been back in college - when the only substantial furniture I had was a bed and a desk that came in the dorm room - we have a bed, 4 fold up chairs, and a card table that I had in my dorm room. I'll be so happy to be moving in.

This is a picture of the entryway taken from upstairs.

The study

The dinning room

The hallway from the dinning room to the kitchen.