Tuesday, June 21

Summer solstice occurred a little after noon today. Happy summer!

We were up around 8 a.m. this morning. I usually take my thyroid med as soon as I get up, so I can wait thirty minutes or so before having breakfast. This morning, I came downstairs and lolled around for thirty minutes until Hubbie asked if I was ready for my orange juice. I slapped my forehead. "You forgot to take your medicine, didn't you," he grinned, as I hurried upstairs.

So it was around 9 a.m. before we had breakfast, but I hopped on the treadmill and did resistance exercises afterward. Mother came over while I was getting ready for the day. As soon as I was back downstairs, I tried to call our beauty shop to make an appointment for Mother and myself for next week. But the number kept being busy, so I gave up.

Instead, I planned tonight's supper, which necessitated shopping after lunch for the ingredients. Hubbie and I ran several errands before going to the WDCS,to the beauty shop to make appointments, and to the bank.

While waiting at the drive-up window, we saw a guy we know in the lane beside us. Through our windows, we asked about his wife.

"She broke her foot," he said.

"Omigosh!" I exclaimed, how in the world did she do that?"

"She shopped 'til she dropped," he joked. "She was wearing a pair of flip-flops, and when she stepped off the curb at (the store that has a sale every weekend), her flip-flop caught on something and down she went."

So many broken bones lately and so many ways to break them...a great-grandson breaks his leg in a shopping cart accident, a great-nephew breaks his leg while roughhousing in a swimming pool, a Master Gardener lady gets her foot caught in her bedsheets, and breaks a foot when she falls, a neighbor breaks his ankle in an accident between his motorcycle and a deer, and now a friend breaks her foot in a flip-flop accident.

From the bank, we went to the newspaper office to drop off this week's word search puzzle contest, and to sign up for a year's subscription, using the gift certificate we won at the silent auction last night. Then it was on to the WDCS, where we shopped for both ourselves and Mother.

Back home, I got a call from our friend who lives in a town about an hour and half east of us. She's visiting our other friend for a few days, and we made a date to enjoy a mid-afternoon snack and a chat tomorrow.

Small world: at the WDCS, I ran into the lady who recently got her second novel published, and she commented that she'd just come from a Red Hat luncheon, where she was the guest speaker. She talked about her new book, of course. Then, when I talked to my friend on the phone this afternoon, she said she and our other friend had gone to a Red Hat luncheon. She was surprised that I knew who the speaker was, until I told her I'd just seen her at the WDCS.

For supper tonight, we had braised pork chops, oven fried potatoes, and wilted lettuce...a recipe that uses vinegar, lemon juice, a little oil and sugar, turkey bacon bits, and radishes.

Before Mother wilted the beautiful lettuce from the garden, I snapped a photo of her holding a big pan of it, and uploaded it to my social network page.

While Mother was preparing supper (she insisted she needed no help with this), I registered my new Kindle e-reader, connected to WiFi, and ordered a free Jane Austen short story from an online bookseller. The e-reader is pretty amazing...as soon as I ordered the story, it arrived on the unit almost instantaneously.

After supper, Mother went home, and I baked a double batch of blueberry muffins, in order to use a couple of cups of the berries that were in danger of going south. As soon as the muffins were out of the oven, Hubbie drooled over them, so I gave him one. I do want to save three of the best looking ones to enter in the fair, and keep a few to take on our next camping trip, but after that, he can eat his fill.

Later, we watched the 2011 Lifetime Movie Network feature, "Final Sale." A young woman is years away from the top of a list to receive a kidney, and she will die in a couple of months without one. Her husband, an LAPD detective, decides to buy one illegally. Except the very young Hispanic girl donor dies during surgery, and is disposed of in a dumpster. Now the recipient becomes determined to stop illegal transplants, even while feeling torn about her own.