I got the front bushes around the bird bath trimmed this morning. At least the house looks pruned from the street. It rained again and the temperatures were really pleasant. Tomorrow it is supposed to shoot up to 95 or more. Not much to look forward too. I already decided that we will fry out. I am fixing venison steaks and brat patties. We have tossed salad AND cole slaw so that will be plenty for supper with those temps.

Tomorrow, except for shooting pistol with Jim and Bobbie and church, I don't have any plans. So. perhaps I can catch up on my computer contacts.

I was reading the chapter from II Corinthians for our next bible study and liked this verse. "Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed every day." 2 Corinthians 4:16. I like that - the older we get the more we become.

Tuesday, we are going on a bus trip to Lake Geneva. I have never been there. Dick was there for a Library meeting of some kind years ago. We are taking a boat cruise around the lake which will give us excellent views of the mansions that have been built on that lake. I love water cruises, having been introduced to them in California by going on Christmas cruises around Newport Harbor. Those cruises have a double benefit. You get to see all the lighted and decorated boats in the boat parade and the beautifully decorated homes (I should say mansions) around the harbor. I remember that on one cruise someone brought chili that was so hot it burned all the way down to the tummy. But it was good, left a wonderful taste and really warmed us up on the chilly water.

Happy Sunday.

Mary

This has been a nice day. Dick went to see Dr. Met - the eye specialist. He saw no change in Dick's eyes and says that he can go back to seeing Dr. Ziegler unless something changes in his vision. That is a relief.

I had lunch with the girls in Plymouth. I saw my friend Mary Schroeder for the first time since she retired. She looks great and said she is finally really starting to relax and realize that it is true. The bank is having a wine and cheese reception on Tuesday night. I am glad she came because Dick and I will be unable to attend because we are going on a day tour to Lake Geneva that day and won't be back in time. I am really looking forward to the trip. It is time to be getting away again.

This evening I watched the first half of the movie Scarlett, based on the supposed sequel to Gone With the Wind. It is much like the book. Very exciting, lots of action and comings and goings but not the same Scarlett of Gone with the Wind. I guess I'll have to watch the second half tomorrow.

Here is a soup recipe that we got from the nutrition specialist, Rita Pittenger, at the Clinic. It is very good and you can basically eat all you want as each cup only has 20 calories.

ALL YOU CAN EAT SOUP

2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
½ head cabbage, chopped
1 and ½ onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
½ cup chopped parsley or 1 T. dry
½ can strin beans
½ pkg. Frozen spinach
¼ teasp. Pepper
2 teasp. Chicken soup base
up to 2 teasp. Chili powder – to taste
up to 1 pkg. Taco seasoning – to taste

Coat 6 qt. Sauce pot with non-stick cooking spray. Add celery, onions, carrots and garlic. Cook five minutes.

Add remaining ingredients and 10 cups water. Simmer until carrots are tender, stirring occasionally. Keep some for use within 2 days. Freeze the rest.

Have a nice Weekend - stay cool. Not going to be an easy task on Sunday when it is supposed to get up to 95 or better


Mary

Here it is Thursday already. The "German Fest" choir went to Glendale to practice. A week from Sunday is the big day. I must practice some more because the songs, as they are in German, are more difficult for us English speakers. We stopped at Alpine Village and had dinner together. I ordered Beef Rouladin and noodles. They had some wonderful crusty rolls too.

Joan Schueffner, Dottie Koene and I pinned the church quilt today and I took it over to Mary Bainbridge who will do the initial machine quilting for us. It is beautiful. Anyone who wants tickets can let me know. They are $1 or 6 for $5.

I was thinking about one of our cats, Taco, tonight. He was such a dimwit. When Dick and Jim got them, Dick told me that if they liked me best he was going to "kill them." Those who knew Tack remember that looking into his eyes was like looking into nothing. He had no brains at all. He grew to love us and was afraid of any strangers. Most people never saw him. And we swear that he thought that there were three sets of people in the condo. The upstairs people, the downstairs people and the basement people. He actually responded to us differently in each area of the house.


Shortly after Dick and Jim got him (we were not as yet married) Taco disappeared for a couple of days. Dick and Jim were beginning to think he had somehow managed to get outside and was lost. Then Dick turned over the couch and heard a soft mewing. He reached in and pulled out this terrified wierd animal. Dick called to tell me that he had found him. When I came into the house, Taco ran up to me mewing as if he was trying to tell me the indiginities that he had experienced in his hiding and being extricated from the couch. Dick let him live anyway as we all know he would. This man who says that if you get an animal, you go to the Humane Society and save a life.

Love

Mary

Quite a productive day. I got the first batch of currant wine into the jugs. It smells really nice.

We took the "good stuff" that we got out of the basement to St. Vinnie's, I got my hunting lisence and we got some shelves for basement.

We went to the Interstate for lunch. I got a Reuben and was it ever good.

Tonight there was an environment meeting at church. Sr. Marcia used to do all the planning but now that she is gone, the committee will have to do it. There are rules and there are precidents and there are plenty of imaginative people to pull up the slack. We decided on what we are going to do for the Assumption and for Celtic Faire. It will be a case of going as far as we can see on the road ahead and then looking to see what is beyond that when we get there.

This morning on The View they had a guest who was a new mother of twins. She described nursing them and indicated that she was going to nurse them until they were about two. All I could think of was my dear mother-in-law Lily, who nursed all of her kids. She always said that she nursed them until they were old enough to bite her. Once they bit they were off the breast. A very wise woman that Lil.

Tomorrow the choir practices at the Bavarian Inn again. We are going early and having dinner at a German restaurant that Beth knows. I am looking forward to some really good German food.

Til tomorrow.

Mary

Dick and I went out for breakfast and then on to the grocery shopping his morning. We also picked up Dick's prescription and prints of the Clifford family. Mother had some well preserved tintypes of them. We took them to the Sheboygan County Research Center to have negatives made. I had three prints made from the negatives. One for me, one for Mom and one that she can send to our cousing David Bowser, who is an avid historian and family tree searcher. He lives in Texas and has written a couple of books.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. All is well and my teeth are now clean and sparkling. On the way home, I stopped off at Mary Lee's to pick up an ornament that I won in a drawing. Eileen was getting ready to go to her dentist appointment. Isn't that wierd. She is a funny person. She has had trouble with her teeth as long as I can remember, but insisted that she is never going to have ultra sound cleaning again because the last two times she has had problems right after the cleaning. Myself, I would rather have the ultra sound anyday than have them scraping and grinding on my teeth.

When I was a little girl, before Uncle George became a dentist and we started going to Two Rivers for our dental work, the Sheboygan Falls dentist was above Stroub's Drug Store, now a beauty shop and an investment firm, on Broadway. He had charts on the wall for all his young patients and if you had a good checkup you got a gold star and a coupon to stop at Stroub's soda fountain for an ice cream cone.

Have a nice evening. It is really pleasant outside. We even opened the deck door and turned off the air.

Mary

Bret called tonight. It was such a delight to hear his voice. It has been about three weeks. He is busy, working 7 days a week, often. This is good right now because he really needs the money and it will help him get a bit ahead.

Bible Study was good this morning. We finally got beyond Paul's introduction to the IICorinthians letter and into something besides his explanations of why he had not showed up when they wanted him to. We discussed a lot the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant of the Old Testament and do we really need the Old Testament and what is the obligation of Christians. We really covered a lot of territory.

We started with a prayer that I had found in an article in Family Circle written by a Sophy Burnham. This paragraph was special. "I once asked a Hindu teacher the best way to pray. He answered with a story. Once there was a dog who was attacked by a pack of wild dogs. He fought his way free, limped home bleeding and presented himself at his owner's feet. And what did the owner do? He carried the dog indoors, washed and bandaged his wounds and set his broken bones. Every day he gave his dog food, water, a soft bed. And soon the dog got well. the dog did not ask for anything. The dog merely presented himself. 'That is how you pray', my teacher said. 'For if you ask for trousers, you will get trousers. But if you simply present yourself, every blessing will be yours.' "

Today I was remembering a neighbor, Joyce. Bret and her son Chip were the same age. She had an older son Mark who had, like Bret, been a very cooperative little one. If he was doing something not acceptable, Joyce would simply tell him that this was not OK and he would cheerfully go on to something else. Then came Chip who was sweet as a bugs ear but very determined and always experimenting even unto trouble and danger. For example, one day they were cleaning the garage and he found a bird cage. He asked his mother if they could get a bird. She said later or something like that and the next thing she knew Chip was 30 feet up in the tree in the front yard. He saw a bird. He was 4.

Then she got pregnant with their third son Matthew, and spent the first six months of her pregancy throwing up. This was a woman who had never had a sick day in either of her first two pregnancies.

She came over to the house one day and said. I have had to eat so many words in my day. I used to say that if children were told from the beginning what is safe and acceptable there will not be a problem with them doing and getting into things they shouldn't. I also had the gall to say that morning sickness was all in peoples heads. I hope I have learned something.

This is a lesson we all need. This kind of came to mind and has been swirling there since Mr. Tom Cruise had the nerve to say that all mental ills can be healed with diet and medication.

My friend, Helen said that unless you have lived in a house and eaten at that table and slept in that bed, do not judge.

We bottled the Gewertziminer today. It tastes good.

Enjoy Tudsday. We are shopping and (Ick) I have to go to the dentist.

Mary

Today was the hottest ever. The temps topped off at 93 degrees. We were warmer that Bossier City,LA where Leslie is from what I could see. But we were still cooler than the Lawton OK area where Bart is. The coolest of the kids to visit would be Bret in California. There is a 30 to 40 percent chance for rain tonight. Parts of Wisconsin are under a drought warning. The choir sang at the 10:30 Mass. Fr. Gene prayed for rain and we, the choir, sang Rain Down. We tried to shower heaven with requests for showers.

Mother and I were wondering how we ever stood the heat back in the days before air conditioning. She remembers hanging wet towels on screen doors to help cool any breeze that might come through. I guess that since there was no air, we just suffered. I do remember going to bed in that heat and lying in bed prickly with heat praying for sleep so I would not be so aware of it. Then by morning it would be at least bearable. Then in the winters, we faced waking up in the morning with the fire in the coal furnace burned down to about nothing and high tailing it to the kitchen which would be warm from the stove because Mom got up before we did to make it so.

This does make a person aware of the reason that many homes years ago had Summer Kitchens. That way, they did not have to heat the house while preparing meals or even heating water for washing. Yes, they had to heat water for washing. I remember commenting to Mother how hard it must have been to wash all our clothes and diapers in a wringer washing machine and Grandma Bowser said that she had had to do all that on a scrub board. Wow. Mother was born in 1916 so all of these wonders have occured in less than 100 year.

Have a cool Monday.

Mary