My sister (and BFF) Regina and I went to Las Vegas in October for a Phil Collins concert. We had a great time, concert was good, and the weather offered the last bit of summer for us. We stayed at MGM Grand and I discovered "The Lazy River" - so much fun. We have to do this again soon!

Life is short and there are no guarantees

Yesterday we found out our neighbor and good friend, Brenda, had been killed in a car accident less than five miles away on Friday. It has been surreal to think we won’t see her working in the yard with her dog LittleBit, won’t hear her yelling at LittleBit to “shut-up!” – always made us chuckle. Won’t be the lucky recipients of her beautiful flower arrangements or the lovely Christmas wreaths she used to make for us. I have a nursing log she made for me for my birthday last year. It’s got various plants and succulents growing on it with rocks she collected when she was a truck driver. Brenda had a big heart and was always helping people out. I remember last summer when she rode her mowing lawnmower over to our house with LittleBit. She had a cooler with a six-pack of beer and we sat in our backyard enjoying a cold beer and laughing at LittleBit’s antics. The last time I saw Brenda, was just a few evenings ago when I was on the front deck reading. She yelled over to me “Hi Kimberly”. I’ll miss Brenda.

I'm having a fantastic summer! This is me, Regina and Sue at the Waterfront Blues Festival on July 5th. I've had the chance to do a little traveling (Spokane and Sequim) and plan to do a lot more (Las Vegas and Alaska) this year. Next year I would love to go to Europe. Life is good, having fantastic family and friends is even better!

I started a travel blogsite!

If you like to travel, please check out my new blogsite:
https://auntiekimmers.wixsite.com/thesecondchapter

Rhetta Jean says it's the next best thing to actually being there!

Best sister, best friend - thank you Regina for making my 64th birthday the best ever!

Happy 64 Birthday to me!

I can't believe I'm going to be 64 in a few days! Don't get me wrong, no way am I ashamed of being 64, quite the opposite! I am so happy to have reached this age. There are plenty of people that didn't get the chance to be 64, I am grateful that I have that privilege. Cheers to me!

My Retired Ass!

Since I retired from PGE, I do not have to stress out over the weather anymore! It snows, I don't care - I am free to enjoy it without worrying about how I am going to get to work. You have to understand, working for a utility it is a condition of employment to report to work no matter the weather. You do not have the luxury of staying home because "the weather is bad". I'll never forget the winter of 1996 during  major outage, I had a co-worker use the excuse that she couldn't go to work because of her asthma. Whaaaaat????? It was a call center for Christ's sake. We were dealing with a major outage. I worked 12 hour days for two weeks without a day off. I didn't see Cyndi until the outage was over. Yeah, asthma my ass. Guess what Cyndi is doing now - she's a supervisor in customer service. Guess what I'm doing now - yeah, that's right, my ass is retired and I do not care!