A Time For Everything

So we live along a stretch of East Loop 820 in Fort Worth. The highway narrows down to two lanes a bit north of us and at rush hour, as you can imagine, it gets clogged up for several hours.

A few weeks ago, lanes were shifted, barriers put up along various sections, and work begun.

But on what??

Well. It turns out the DoT is adding a lane in each direction.

Yippy skippy! About dang time...

Only...

It's going to take about four years.

I get that these things take time, but this is a stretch of approximately half a mile. WHUT??

Unfortunately, there are a few challenges--the highway crosses over a small lake on one end and merges into another highway on the other. Along the southbound side of the highway is water overflow drainage, so they have to do whatever it is they need to do to allow that overflow to remain available, which I think, means building a ledge/bridge for that new lane.


Luckily I rarely have to utilize the highway. Only to get to the gym, but that's at the butt crack of dawn and I can take back roads if I have to. :0)

So, yeah, four years of road construction.

It looks as if I'll have my streets finished in the next day or two. They'd lined up the big equipment and trucks filled with asphalt yesterday, and this morning when I left the house, the road construction crew was already hard at work at the end of the street. Oh, yay! I can't tell you how happy this makes me for several reasons.

First, I've missed walking in the mornings. I was coming to the office early and walking around the building, but now that school's back in session and I'm the one driving Sonshine, I can't leave the house that early. Once the end of my street, the end of the street just south of mine and the cross street that runs along the west end of the blocks are done, I can start walking again. The green is what's torn up and extends farther south. (South being the bottom of the picture.)



Second, being outside generally helps keep me emotionally healthier and, of course, the exercise in and of itself makes me feel better physically which then helps with the emotional. I'd never have considered myself a depressed person, but my emotional state is easily affected by certain things which unfortunately are very prevalent in my life at the moment. So I have to be watchful and aware.

Third, my weight loss efforts have been going relatively well. Until this week. Because I slacked off in the exercise aspect, even though according to my app I didn't consume more calories that I should have, I gained back the few pounds this week that I'd lost last week. However, overall, I'm doing great.

In the very beginning, when I first started the whole thing, I weighed 168lbs. That was according to the floor scale I bought. The Wii however registers my weight 1.9lbs. less. So adjust that starting weight to 166.1lbs. since I now use the Wii exclusively to weigh in. Last night I weighed in 153.7lbs. for a total loss of 12.2lbs since February. I'd gotten under 152 last week, but gained it back this week. :( Once I can start walking again, then I should be able to shed those pounds and continue losing.

In other news, yesterday, as I'm sure you know, was the 11th anniversary of the 9-11 Attacks on our nation. The JROTC at Sonshine's school held a short memorial ceremony. Sonshine was honored by being asked to play Taps during the raising/lowering of the flags to half staff. Subsequently, he was asked by the principal to play TAPSs to the whole school over the PA system. Cool, huh? And it was apparently so good (to the students who probably wouldn't know any better) they thought it was a recording. :)


Did you participate or watch any 9-11 memorials?

Thank goodness it's Friday!!!!

Yesterday was a crazy hectic loooong day and I can hardly wait for four o'clock.

Oh, man--I didn't take pictures of the mound of pasta I cooked. A whole turkey roaster full of spaghetti. But everyone, except my own Sonshine, loved it. Here's the food before it was cooked, though:



Once the masses were fed and the kids were all dressed, we headed to Dallas.


Thankfully, the band director grew up on that side of town and was able to direct us to the stadium without us hitting traffic--unlike the football team who walked on the field a mere 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. The officials gave them some extra time to warm up and ... we lost.

So far, 2 out of 2 games, we are the only band that has been dressed in marching uniforms and has actually marched. The other bands stand on the field and play. What have they been doing all summer??

And just as a side note, every HS football stadium in north Texas seems to be built the same way: home side facing due east, away side facing due west. What this means is that if you're the away team, you're in the sun until the sun falls below the stadium. And when it's 100+ degrees outside...UGH!! Luckily we were able to hide out under our bleachers for a while and the kids were only in the sun for about 45 minutes to an hour.

On another note, I want to know why FWISD, in its infinite wisdom makes us play a school in another district where we were warned not to respond should we hear impolite things said to us or on the off chance things are *thrown* at us. WHAT???

And not only that, there is road construction on every major highway in the DFW metroplex. I swear I'm not exaggerating. So that meant we were re-routed home (the long way) because our main thoroughfare was closed. We hit another closure and had to take a bit of a detour. We had FIVE buses and huge Enterprise rental truck (hauling instruments) in our caravan with the band director's bus leading the way. Then we hit more traffic backed up on another stretch of highway closer to home, so we got off the freeway, detoured around the traffic and got back on the freeway on the other side.

After all that, I had to follow the Enterprise truck to the rental place to bring the dad back to the school and his car. By the time I got home, it was almost one am. I am not a night person.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Children ARE on school buses late at night. Please don't cut them off because you're in a hurry.

Also, if you see a caravan of buses (and possibly a large rental truck) try not to get in between them. (or for a very long time) Sometimes only the first bus driver knows where he/she is going and the others are following. When you get in between them it makes it difficult for all vehicles to make it through traffic lights and such.

Thank you.

Now for some pics of our night. The kids had fun last night!



My Brown-Eyed Girl is home and this weekend we will probably head to the lake.

What are your plans for the weekend??? Whatever they are, stay safe.