Thursday, August 26

Up around 7 a.m. and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Before we had breakfast, though, Hubbie took two of the female cats to the vet to be spayed. That's the last of the adult cats to be spayed or neutered, but now there are two female kittens and a male kitten that will need the same procedures in a few months. After that, we will have stemmed the tide of kitten production.

Mother came over while I was on the treadmill and continued to work on her puzzle. Once I was ready for the day, I sorted another stack of trip photos and memorabilia, generating a nice pile of booklets, pamphlets and the like for the trash.

After a lunch of hot roast beef sandwiches and veggies, Mother went back to her puzzle, and Hubbie went out to the yard, where he discovered that a vine growing out of the compost heap is producing what he thinks are acorn squash. The vine in the zinnia flower bed has several more butternut squash on it, too. It has already yielded one nice ready-to-eat squash.

While Mother and Hubbie were occupied, I spent time at my office computer uploading photos to our state newspaper, which is compiling a coffee table book of images submitted by readers and then voted on by those readers for publication. I'm late submitting my entries, so I don't know if there will be enough time for any of my photos to get adequate numbers of votes to be published. But already this evening, a woman posted a compliment to my dashboard on one of my tulip images.

After I was done with that project, I changed clothes to go to a pizza/pool party at a local country club. All three of us were invited, because it was a thank you party for the staff, volunteers and family of Caring Hands Hospice.

The event was from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. About thirty attended. There were lots of children who enjoyed the pool, though they squealed that the water was cold. The only adults who braved the pool were those with children young enough to need close supervision.

It was a perfect evening for the party...pleasant, low humidity weather, with a bit of a cool breeze. Very nice for those of us lounging around the pool, but chilly for those who exited the water.

The club is built on a hill overlooking a beautiful golf course, with pretty mountains in the background.

We each ate several pieces of veggie pizza, though it wasn't the healthiest of meals. Mother and Hubbie indulged in the cookies from a local bakery, too, but when I read the ingredients list on the boxes, I found they contained yellow dye.

We enjoyed visiting with folks. Naturally, at any staff gathering, there has to be shop talk. So a lady joined us at our table to ask if I would be willing to pair with one of the guys I serve with on the advisory board to make radio commercials promoting our hospice program. Of course I agreed.

Around 7:30, the group began to disperse, and we were ready to leave, too. Back home, we watched a couple of one-hour shows before heading to bed.