Friday, Sept. 10

Up at 6:30 to go to water aerobics, but didn't get there. Oh, I tried all right, but immediately down the road, near the community college, I became part of snail's-pace traffic. When I finally arrived at the four-way stop, there was a road worker directing vehicles. He wouldn't allow me to turn left to go up the hill to the college gym. I had to proceed across the intersection, where I promptly became part of another line of bumper-to-bumper cars.

At this point, I called Hubbie to let him know my predicament. He called our auto service guy, who said road workers were paving at the intersection of Main Street, and had traffic snarled in all directions.

At last, I arrived at the stoplight and turned left onto the highway, where presently, I was crawling along again behind a long line of vehicles. By the time I got to a point where I might have taken a road to the gym, I had already sat in traffic for forty-five minutes. Aerobics was underway, and I was still nowhere near the college, where I probably would have had to park way up on the hill near the student union again, and walk down to the gym.

So I gave up on it and traveled to the street that highway workers recently completed, which passes by the WDCS and out to the interconnecting road that leads to our house. Frustrating morning. But not as frustrating to me, I figure, as it was to folks on their morning commute to work.

It was very thoughtless of the highway department not to have given notice in our local newspaper that work would be going on in that area, so we could take an alternate route.

Back home, I finished the birthday card for our friend in another town. Then Mother came over, and we cleared away our card making mess and gathered some materials for a scrapbooking meeting next week.

She went home after lunch, and Hubbie and I ran a few errands. Wow, it was like a sauna outdoors after yesterday's heavy rain.

We went first to the store that is going out of business, where I bought more greeting cards, since they are now four for a dollar. I also picked up a couple of plastic totes for our crafts. Hubbie bought planters, cans of cat food and a couple of bottles of grape juice. Grape juice and grape jelly are not my favorites, but Hubbie loves them.

From there, we went to the WDCS for a few items, and on to the greeting card shop (funny, huh?) to take advantage of a half price reed diffuser, but there were none left. However, a clerk said they were to get more next week, and she will call me when they come in.

Then we stopped by a grocery store to get cottage cheese before returning home.

Mother came back over as I was in the process of sorting tools and supplies for quilling and embossing crafts to be stored in the totes I bought today. I generated a pile of trash from the canvas totes that the crafts had originally been stored in. Everything is nice and neat in those two plastic totes now, which will make it much easier when we decide to tackle one of those crafts again.

After we finished that task, Hubbie and I peeled and sliced pears to be blanched for the freezer. Got five quarts. Then it was time to heat the pea soup for supper. We had that with PB&J sandwiches, followed by the last of the watermelon for dessert.

Later, we watched the 2009, R-rated movie, " The International," starring Clive owen. Editorial reviews decribe it as a "sprawling bank resorts to murder and arms sales to retain its power."

Note: our local newspaper reported the story of an explosion in an underground shaft in our town that injured seven men. The blast occurred around 2:30 yesterday afternoon. I heard it and wondered what it was. Mother thought it was just the sound of a semi truck going by on the highway, but I didn't think so.