[gja1000]

Hi All! Well Gary and I cancelled our fishing trip to Arkansas. There was a confluence of events that converged to make it unfeasible to go. We are both fine about it, a little disappointed of course, but just fine.

First, Gary is not feeling well. He is having trouble breathing and we saw both his pulmonary and heart doc last week and we changed his medicince a little bit and started him on prednisone for his asthma. It's been a week now and he still isn't feeling much better. So, I'm not sure what is wrong. I was getting very nervous about getting on the road, going out to timbucktoo with him not feeling well.

Second, we have a new Dean at school and we are in a pretty significant budget crunch. I'm as assistant dean and although my contract is only for 9 months (September-May), she told me a couple of weeks ago that she was going to pay me for 5 weeks this summer. I am supposed to get a couple of weeks of summer pay each year for the administrative things I do - but I haven't gotten paid the past two summers. When she discovered this, she wanted to make up for it - which is great! She needs me to do several things by the fall semester, and since I will be teaching from July 11-Aug. 10, it was going to be very difficult to get everything done this summer. She knew I had planned this time in Arkansas and she was fine with that, but of course, since she was paying me, I feel obligated to be here and help with all the things going on at school. "Being here" only means 20 hours a week, so it's not bad at all. I had told Gary that I needed to come home a couple of weeks early to work on some of the things she needs me to do. He immediately said that we probably shouldn't go since we had to come back early and more importantly (although he didn't say it outright), he wasn't feeling well.

Third, our campground is closed until JULY 1ST due to all the rain and some flooding. By the time we found this out we had already decided not to go, so #1 and #2 really are moot points! LOL! We couldn't have gone even if we'd wanted to!

I'm feeling much calmer now about everything. We are both exhausted from getting all the things done at the Austin house so our renters can move in. We could not have gotten ready to go by tomorrow - the day we had set to leave for Arkansas. We are just too tired. I was also stressing out about leaving my yard - not being able to water it for 5 weeks. I have spent a lot of money, time, effort, and sweat getting it looking halfway decent and I was not looking forward to letting things die while we are gone. It was 99 degrees today and without water my yard would have been horrible by the time we returned the first of July. I'm so happy that I will be able to be here now and take care of it through the summer.

We will be going to Oklahoma for Memorial weekend, and then we will travel on to Oklahoma City (yeah I know, tornado alley), so Gary can see his sons and grandsons a couple of days. We'll be back in Austin by June 6th or before.