Saturday, July 16

Slept well last night and got up around 7:30. Did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Mother came over while I was getting ready for the day, but we didn't do much for the morning.

I took a stroll around the yard with Hubbie, scouting out what flowers might be available to make an arrangement for next week's fair. Not much out there...the heat has done in most of the flowering plants. But there are a few I think I can use, if they are still flowering by then.

Other than doing a couple of loads of laundry and fixing lunch, I was unproductive. After lunch, we all hopped in the van and traveled several miles to a nearby town, where we bought watermelons and cantaloupes from our favorite melon farmer.

Back home, we sampled one of the watermelons, and then we relaxed...Mother with a puzzle book, Hubbie sleeping in his recliner, and I playing on my computer and e-reader.

Later, we had breakfast-for-supper again...this time Ziplock bag omelets, with biscuits and gravy, and servings of cantaloupe. This was one of those nights when things didn't quite go as desired. The biscuits browned on the top, but were doughy on the bottom, I didn't make enough gravy to suit Hubbie (who likes it on his cantaloupe), and the cantaloupe itself was not as ripe as we'd have liked.

As for the biscuits, we're wondering if an element in the oven isn't heating properly, because when I made a batch of bran muffins a week or so ago, six of them browned just right, but the six on the other side of the pan browned too much.

Mother went home after supper, and Hubbie and I settled in front of TV.

Friday, July 15

Went right to sleep again last night, and was awakened by the alarm at 6:30 a.m. Hopped up, had breakfast, and got ready to go to water aerobics.

Fog this morning made the grass in yards look jeweled and teal colored, and gave the bell tower on the tree-covered hill of the college campus business building a mysterious appearance. Very pretty drive to the pool, where once again the water felt just wonderful for swimming, and the aerobics session was energizing.

Our young lifeguard commented this morning that he was a little sleepy, since he was up until after 3 a.m. Not because he wanted to, but because his other job as a movie theater employee required it...last night was the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie.

I was back home around 9:30, but didn't accomplish much after I got ready for the day. I did wrap and pack into a basket the dishes for the place settings that Mother and I will enter in the fair. Mother had made a gift bag from wallpaper this morning, and I helped her find matching tissue to put in it, and then filled out a fair entry ticket for it. Otherwise, I was unproductive.

After a PB&J sandwich lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands...to the bank, to a greeting card store, and to the WDCS, where I satisfied quite a long grocery list.

Back home, we didn't accomplish much. Mother napped and worked puzzles, Hubbie played on the computer upstairs, and I played word games on my Kindle. We need to take advantage of these down times, because the next two weeks are going to be very busy.

Later, we had a supper of whole wheat pancakes, coffee, and prunes and fresh orange slices for dessert...strange to some, but good to us. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched the 2009 mystery movie, "Law Abiding Citizen," starring Jamie Foxx, and Gerard Butler. A killer is set free on a plea bargain, and a frustrated man decides to exact his own revenge by not only killing the killer of his family, but going after the district attorney and anyone else involved in the case as well. He even manages to wreak havoc from a prison cell. A bloody thriller (not in the British sense...it really is bloody).

Thursday, July 15

I was absolutely done in by bedtime last night, after several non-stop days of activities, so I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and slept until 7:30 this morning. After breakfast, I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises.

Hubbie went to a Master Gardener meeting around 10 a.m., and while he was gone, I did household chores. A thunderstorm, with quite a bit of rain, cropped up while I was working. Got an inch and half of rain this time, which helped the gardens.

Hubbie returned by noon, saying it hadn't rained much at the Extension Office, where the MG meeting was held. It's strange how it can rain hard in one part of town, and hardly rain at all a few miles away.

I fixed us a chef's salad lunch, and afterward, mixed a batch of hand cream, and made sea salt scrub. Mother came over while I was doing that...she'd stayed home this morning.

I put the hand cream and scrub in pretty jars, labeled them, and added them and a jar of bath salts to a wire basket containing colored tissue papers and yellow grass. After adding a couple of silk flowers, I put the basket in a cellophane gift bag, and tied it with a big bow. This will become another fair entry.

Mother stayed around for a little while visiting, then decided to go home and work on making a novelty necklace to enter in the fair. I didn't accomplish much else this afternoon beyond washing a load of clothes.

Hubbie and I went out for supper, since I hadn't planned a meal. We came home with enough food for another meal.

Tonight, we watched the Lifetime Movie Network feature, "The Boy She Met Online." A 17-year-old girl meets and falls in love with a boy online, whom she later learns is a recently paroled ex-con. Things go from bad to worse as the young man gets involved in drug running, and eventually witnesses a murder. Will the girl's mother be able to rescue her daughter from a bad situation?


Note: Hubbie's granddaughter was due to have her baby today, but when she saw the doctor, he said she was nowhere near ready, and that it'd probably be another couple of weeks before she went into labor. That must have been a shock to her mother and dad, since they traveled to upper Michigan a few days ago to be with her for the birth, and take care of her afterward. We don't know if they'll just plan to stay there, or return home and go back to Granddaughter's later.

Wednesday, July 13

Up at 6:30, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. The water felt wonderful this morning. Our leader started the aerobics session sooner than I wanted, though. But I understand why she did...she needed to take a friend for a stress test around 9 a.m. Because of that, she also ended the session a little early.

Back home, once I was ready for the day, Mother and I gathered the dinnerware we needed to make two place settings for the fair. Mine is a brunch setting, with mixed patterns of pink/blue floral China dishes, cup and saucer, plus a China coffee pot, creamer, and sugar bowl. The dishes will rest on a blue place mat topped with a white lace place mat.

Mother's theme is Mexican...white dinner plate topped with a smaller black plate, black napkin patterned with hot peppers, and a black cup, all on a black place mat. A small, red sombrero-like straw hat on a stand completes the look for her setting.

After that, I searched for lotions and other things I'd need to make hand cream, bath salts, etc. But I found that I needed supplies for everything but the bath salts. A shopping trip was in order.

So after lunch, I ran errands, while Hubbie worked in the yard. I stopped by a grocery store first...the new store that charges wholesale prices plus ten percent... to pick up cottage cheese, sea salt, and lettuce.

I had difficulty finding the salt, so resorted to asking for help. The manager happened to be available, so he escorted me to an island display of spices at the other end of the store.

Took him a few minutes to locate the salt, but once he did, he asked what I'd paid for the last box of salt I'd bought. I had no idea.

"Well, here you only pay-y-y....you only pay-y-y," he said, as he searched for a shelf price, even getting down on one knee to study the tabs. "Hm-m-m, I was going to tell you how much you saved by shopping with us, but I can't seem to find the price." We both laughed.

From there, I went to a pharmacy store to buy replacement brushes for a between-teeth tool. In line to pay for my purchase, I, and everyone in the line, overheard a woman at the next register demand that the clerk (a teenager) hurry and give her the change that was due her. Seems the lady had given the clerk a hundred dollar bill, and the register didn't have enough change, so the clerk had to call a "code 40" to someone in the back to bring her some money.

Well, the woman waiting became more and more impatient, and more and more irate. "Just go back there and get my money!" she demanded.

A guy in line ahead of me said, "I don't think she can leave her register," to which the older clerk at the register in our line agreed.

"I need my money!!" the woman growled. "I'm in a hurry, and I can't wait around here any longer!"

The poor teenage clerk was on the verge of a meltdown when another clerk finally arrived at the register, apologizing to the woman, and telling her she had been with another customer.

"Well, I need to leave, because I have kids in the car!!" And she stomped out.

The older clerk noted that the lady was lucky she didn't call the authorities about the lady leaving kids in a car in this extreme heat. Then she apologized that I had to witness the exchange.

"If that's the worst thing that happens to me today, I'm good," I laughed.

From that store, I went to a dollar store to buy baby lotion, vitamin E cream, and petroleum jelly for making hand cream. I also looked for a black cup to use in Mother's place setting, and there were some at $2 each. That's inexpensive enough, but I decided to see if the everything's a dollar store had one. And they did. At that store, I also bought a gift shrink-bag with bow for making a gift basket.

I was back home around 3 p.m. Spent a few minutes finishing a novelty necklace I made at a craft extravaganza last fall. After that, I relaxed for a while...or tried to relax. We nearly hit the ceiling when we jumped because of an enormously loud thunderclap that sounded like a bomb dropping. The thunder announced the arrival of a heavy thunderstorm that dropped an inch of rain. Startling thunder continued throughout the storm, but none was as loud as that first clap.

Later, I was supposed to go to an arts council meeting, but was just in no mood for it. I tried to call the council director, but there was no answer. So I'll contact her tomorrow to see what information the meeting yielded.

Around 4:30, I started a supper of goulash, or pasta fagioli, by adding a can of pinto beans to leftover spaghetti sauce from last night, and pouring it over cooked macaroni. We had the goulash with tomatoes topped with cottage cheese, and slices of sourdough bread.

I accompanied Mother home afterward, since the ground was wet and slick in some spots. I might need to start walking Mother back and forth across the yard everyday, anyway, because she is getting more and more wobbly on her feet.

Later, Hubbie and I watched the 2009 movie, "Walled In." A female demolition agent unearths awful secrets within the walls of a building she's scheduled to raze.

Tuesday, July 12

Slept late this morning, until around 8 a.m. Skipped my exercises, because the treadmill is in the spare bedroom, where Daughter was sleeping.

Mother came over while I was getting ready for the day, and after Daughter got up, we visited until lunch time. After lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands...to the auto shop to check on Daughter's car, to the newspaper office to drop off the word search puzzle contest, and to the WDCS for a few groceries.

At the auto shop, we were told that the mechanic couldn't find anything wrong with Daughter's car beyond a loose battery cable, which he tightened. Daughter had been having trouble starting the car, as well as with the car stalling when it idled. The mechanic started and stopped the engine, and idled it several times, without encountering a problem. So later today, Hubbie and Daughter went to the shop to retrieve the car.

There was no charge, and I hope the problem has been solved. Had Daughter let an auto parts store/shop in her town do what they wanted to do, we'd have been faced with a $560 alternator job.

Back home after running errands, I started a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering, and then completed tags for Mother's and my county fair entries. Mother usually likes to do this task herself, but she wasn't feeling up to snuff today...complained of dizziness and a backache.

The nurse at the doctor's office called today to say Mother's blood work was fine, but there was a small amount of blood in her urine. Mother is to hydrate really well and then return to the clinic for a follow-up urine test in two weeks. I'm thinking she might have a bit of a bladder infection that might be causing her backache.

Later, I boiled spaghetti and made a salad for supper. Everybody seemed to enjoy the meal. There was enough spaghetti left for me to send home with Daughter, and enough sauce to make another meal for us tomorrow night.

Daughter left about 6 p.m. to travel to her town, about two hours south, and Mother went to her house.

Around 6:45, I went to a community theater board meeting. Tonight, new board members were seated, and some members whose terms expired this year stayed on, but I opted to decline. After 30 years, it's time to hand the reins over to younger, more enthusiastic folks. It'll be sufficient for me to simply attend the performances.

It's a little like saying goodbye to an old friend to leave the community theater, but come the winter, I'll be glad not to have to leave my warm house to go to night meetings. With my leaving, there are now only two members left on the board who have served as long or longer than I.

Back home, Hubbie and I watched the 2009 Lifetime Movie Network feature, "Crimes of the Past," Starring Eric Roberts and Elizabeth Rohm. A father says goodbye to his young daughter, promising he will return, but he never does, until she is grown. Turns out he was a CIA operative forced into retirement from a severe wound. He wants to re-establish a relationship with his daughter, but is it too late?

Monday, July 11

Up at 6:30 this morning, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. The water at the pool was pleasant, but quite a bit cooler than it was last Wednesday. It was a good session, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Story from the pool: the lady who stands next to me said that her grandson, who is a paramedic in a large city in another state, and encounters all sorts of odd emergencies, told her that his crew was recently called to a hotel, where a 25-year-old man had to have a private part of his body extracted from the suction filter of a hot tub. To use a modern expression: I'll bet it sucked to be him.

I was home from water aerobics around 10 a.m., and after I was ready for the day, Hubbie and I went to the WDCS to shop for groceries and incidentals for ourselves and Mother.

Back home, as we were having lunch, Daughter called to let me know she was having problems with her car. She doesn't have a regular mechanic to turn to, so I suggested she come to our town, so we could take her car to our auto shop.

After I finished talking with her, I went over my lesson plan for a meeting with my Literacy Council student at 2:30. Daughter arrived just after I left to go to the college library.

Today, the student practiced reading a story and then responding to questions about what she had read. She also learned how to use "a lot of," "many," "much," "a little," etc., in sentences.

We covered weights and measures: how many cups in a pint; how many pints in a quart; how many eggs in a dozen; how much a person weighs.

Part of the lesson was learning to pronounce words with "ed" added: thanked pronounced as "thankt," cooked pronounced as "cookt," brushed pronounced as "brusht," as opposed to hunted pronounced as "huntud," and opened pronounced as "openud." When presented this way, the student could properly pronounce the words, rather than saying thanked as "thank-ed," or cooked as "cook-ed."

Thanked was a real tongue-twister for her. Most words that require moving the tongue from the front of the mouth to the palette give her trouble, and we have to repeatedly practice until she manages it.

It was about 4:45 when I got back home. Mother had prepared a supper of leftover Swiss steak that had been in the freezer, baked potatoes, mixed vegetables, and tomatoes topped with cottage cheese.

Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie, Daughter, and I watched the 1996 Lifetime Movie Network feature, "Murder at my Door," starring Judith Light. A disturbed young man returns home from college, and soon a young woman is found dead. His parents begin finding evidence of his involvement.

Then we watched the 2002 movie, "Hypersonic," starring Antonio Sabato Jr. Daredevil pilots enter a contest to win $25 million.

Sunday, July 10

Up around 7 a.m., but skipped my exercises again, so I could get ready to go with Hubbie to another town about two hours east, to visit his niece and her family, who are here from Sweden. Daughter agreed to stay the day with Mother and Shih Tzu while we were gone.

We arrived at the other town around 10:30, and stopped by Hubbie's sister's house for a few minutes, before we all traveled the couple of blocks to the church where Hubbie's daughter presented her Uganda trip slide show. This is about the fifth time I've seen her presentation, though this time she had added a map, and a video clip of the people at the Uganda mission singing during a church service.

After the presentation and church service, the ladies of the church provided a barbecue lunch, with homemade baked beans, coleslaw, and macaroni and cheese, along with purchased potato salad. Desserts included an array of fruits (leftover from a wedding shower the church hosted yesterday), as well as cream pies, brownies, and a really good grape salad that the ladies had prepared.

Following lunch, we returned to Hubbie's sister's house, where some family members were preparing a birthday party for the visiting nephews. Naturally, those of us who'd attended the lunch at church weren't interested in partaking of the hot dogs, chips and dips, and cake for the party.

By this time, it was around 2:30, and time to head home. I called Mother before we left and learned that Daughter had everything well in hand. We arrived back home around 4:30.

Mother had fixed a supper of slow cooker chicken, which we had with leftover mashed potatoes, steamed zucchini/yellow squash, and green beans, as well as sliced tomatoes and cottage cheese.

Once again, the girls ate heartily. Afterward, Daughter was ready to pack it in and head to her town, about two hours south.

Mother went home, and Hubbie and I settled in front of TV. We tried a couple of movies I'd recorded on DVR, but after watching about thirty minutes of each one, decided we didn't like them, so I landed on a one-hour show to take us up to news time.

It was busy, but good weekend. Tomorrow will be busy, too, since I'll go to water aerobics in the morning, and then meet with my Literacy Council student for a session tomorrow afternoon.

Saturday, July 9

We were up at 6:30 this morning, but I skipped my exercises so we could get ready for a visit from Daughter, and four great-granddaughters. Before they arrived, Mother and I prepared fruits, veggies, deli meat, and cheese for the kids to skewer on stick for a luau lunch.

The group arrived around 12:30 p.m. The kids had a great time making the "shish kabobs," which they eagerly ate for lunch, along with plastic cups of Hawaiian punch. Each girl wore inexpensive leis, and used straws decorated with paper pineapples for their drinks.

After lunch, Hubbie drove us to the old movie theater downtown, to see "Mr. Popper's Penguins," starring Jim Carrey and Angela Lansbury. I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey, but this is a pretty cute movie, and we all enjoyed it.

I called Hubbie as soon as the movie was over, and he arrived to pick us up about ten minutes later. The reason I didn't drive us to the theater myself is that we were a little late getting started, and I knew that parking spaces would be at a premium, so that we'd have to walk a few blocks to the theater.

Back home, Mother had started a supper of a choice of hamburgers/turkey burgers, or hot dogs, with sauteed potatoes from the leftover boiled new potatoes. This was a meal that suited the girls, too, so they ate heartily.

At 6:30, we all (except Hubbie), went to a local middle school auditorium to see the community theater production of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." The girls had dressed in pretty sundresses or tops and skirts for the play. I quickly grabbed my camera and took a picture of them before we left home.

At the theater, I parked at the side of the building, where there are handicapped spaces, and a ramp for wheelchairs.

Unfortunately, the usual entrance to the auditorium was locked (according to a couple who'd walked around to the front of the building). Another lady informed us that we'd need to go all the way around the back of the auditorium and then to a side entrance.

Daughter wrestled Mother's wheelchair out of the van, and then she took over the duty of pushing the chair around the building...no small order, since the pavement was up and downhill and full of potholes.

But at last, we arrived at the appropriate door. Inside, the girls sat in the very front row of theater, but Mother and I opted to go a farther to the back. This necessitated Daughter pushing the wheelchair up the aisle to the top, where we parked the wheelchair, and Mother walked back down a few rows to an aisle seat she found comfortable.

We'd had the presence of mind to bring along cushions to sit on, since the seats in the auditorium are wooden (fine for kids, not so fine for adults).

The girls were mesmerized by the play, the cast members of which were all very young...from kindergarten age to no older than junior high. The costumes and set were very colorful, and the director of the play had taken liberties with the Grimm's fairytale by adding modern dances to the ballroom waltzes.

Scene changes took a long time, but without those lags, the play would have been no longer than thirty minutes. As it was, it ran less than an hour. Afterward, the cast members came down off the stage and chose kids to dance with. All four of our girls were chosen.

In leaving the theater, we were able to go out the door on the side of the auditorium where the van was parked...thank goodness...I dreaded having to go all the way back around the building.

At home, we enjoyed bowls of ice cream, with a choice of toppings...blackberries, bananas, and chocolate/strawberry/caramel syrup. Mother went home afterward, and the girls played for a little while. Then it was time for bed.

Hubbie inflated the air mattress and put it on the living room floor for the girls, while I gathered sheets, pillows, and blankets. Daughter slept in the spare bedroom.
The girls went to sleep as soon as their heads hit their pillows. They'd had a big day of travel and activities.

Hubbie and I were ready to hit the sack, too.