Sunday, June 12

Up around 7:30, and did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Mother came over as I was getting ready for the day and put a pork roast and veggies in the slow cooker.

I spent the rest of the morning doing the usual Sunday things...laundry, reading the newspaper, etc. Hubbie spent his time in the yard.

After lunch, Mother went home, and Hubbie and I went to the museum for a program on our local marble quarries. Because there is no longer a market for it, the quarries aren't mined for marble anymore.

But during its heyday, the quarry that the speaker talked about, owned by his family, was one of three that were in operation. From that quarry came different colored blocks that were shipped by train to finishers, who cut it into desired slabs and polished it to a high gloss to be used inside buildings as walls and floors. Some truly huge blocks were even tooled into columns.

The marble from this quarry can be seen in many buildings not only in our state, but in over half the states of the country, including Hawaii. A five foot tall, eight foot wide stone of beautiful red marble marks the grave in the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, in Springfield, Illinois. A photo of the marble stone can be seen at www.illinoishistory.gov. This same red marble, highly polished, also graces some of the floors in the White House.

Locally, many homes in the historic district feature unpolished marble on exteriors, while business feature it in polished form on interiors.

Back home, Hubbie went back out to work in the yard, and I grabbed my camera to snap images of the veggie garden and lovely lilies in the flower gardens, which I uploaded to my social network page.

Later, Hubbie discovered that the black male cat was missing again. Hubbie searched the sunroom, including under the hot tub, where he'd last been seen. It finally became apparent that the rascal had scooted out of the house at some point when the door was open.

Hubbie searched the yard to no avail. Just before dark, Mother buzzed me on the intercom to say there was a black cat on the roof of our house. Sure enough, it was him. He was frightened and trying to claw his way back in through the upstairs bathroom window. Hubbie got the ladder and climbed up to rescue him. Cats never learn, so we can expect him to sneak out again at the first opportunity.

Once the cat was found, we settled in for a couple of Lifetime Movie Network features. The first was the 2005, "A Killer Upstairs," starring Bruce Boxleitner, and Tracy Nelson. A woman is murdered, and a teen boy who had an affair with her is suspected. His mother (Nelson) has to prove his innocence.

The second feature was the 2009 "Dead Lines." A fashion designer, who champions the environment and women around the world, opens a store. But then an employee is murdered, and other frightening things happen that threaten not only her career, but the life of her daughter.

Aggravation: Friday night, while at the Small Works on Paper reception at the art gallery, I picked up a free issue of a slick advertising magazine that features local businesses and organizations in photojournalism format. A two-page spread this month is devoted to the Australian program held recently at a local school, and sponsored by the arts council.

The spread features several of the photos I shot of the artists who conducted the program, and the children who participated in it...for which I was given no credit. I'll be picking this bone with the arts council director at our meeting next Tuesday night. Shooting an event like that is work for which, as a volunteer, I am not paid, so I don't think it's asking too much to get photo credit.

Aggravation 2: Recently, Hubbie bought six pepper plants at the local farm store that were identified as sweet banana peppers. Well, today, he found that a pepper was big enough to pick, but when he brought it in and tasted it, he found that it is actually a hot pepper.

We absolutely do not want hot peppers. We want sweet banana peppers. So Hubbie will be complaining to the store and "suggesting" he get a refund. Those dadburn plants were over $3 apiece!

Aggravation 3: For some reason, Javascript is not working on my laptop, so the "publish post" function of my blog is out of commission. The past couple of days, I've been writing my blogs on my laptop, and posting them from my office computer. If I don't soon find the problem, I guess I'll be calling my favorite tech again.