It was a cloudy day but still and the temperatures went up as high as 48. Quite a lovely day to be out and about.

I baked the pies for the turkey dinner. I made four. One will stay here for our dinner and the others I will take to Blessed Trinity when I go to Mass at 10:30. I will be picking up the dinners after Mass.

Mom wasn't feeling too well today. Jeff was there and he called because her ribs ached and she felt kind of dizzy. I called this evening. They did talk to the doctor and he said that she can wait to make an appointment next week if she is not feeling better. She said that the dizziness was gone already and she will just see how things go.

I went over to the Craft sale at St. John the Baptist church. I won one of the silent auction items, a cooking basket. It had baking and mixing bowls and utensils, including a cast aluminum bundt pan shaped like a rose. I also won a raffle prize with movies in it. I will pick that up on Monday during school hours. Kind of a lucky day for me.

DEEP THOUGHTS FOR THOSE WHO TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY.
>
>
> 1. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
>
> 2. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
>
> 3. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
>
> 4. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
>
> 5. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

Goodnight

Mary

I am so cold. Bobbie and I worked out at Rhine tonight. The clubhouse was actually warm enough but I just plain got chilled on the drive home. It was not a long enough drive to warm the car and I had to stop at 1st National to drop off the deposit from the club. As if I wasn't cold enough, I had to walk accross the street to drop the deposit in the night deposit.

It was an eventful day. I dropped off a couple of entries at Lakeland for the writing contest held in conjunction with the Festival, then went to Sheboygan Falls for a couple of errands including dropping off some copies of my book at the Research Center for sale. When I got back to Plymouth I had time to stop at St. John the Baptist church office to register as a member there. I was glad to see that my friend Marlene Schueffner was manning the office today. It is hard to come to a new church. I remember when I joined St. Simon and Jude in Huntington Beach and feeling SO alone because I knew nobody. At least in Plymouth, I know several people and will find my place sooner. I told Marlene that I was going to lay back for a bit before volunteering for much. I did tell her I would like to be a Communion Minister however. That only involves participating during the Mass and I am there anyway.

I finished that last two targets for the pistol league tonight. I am sure that Lil (my friend who is my competition) beat me this time. That's OK. We have fun anyway. And each league I get a bit better.

I got the current count for the Senior Event at Blessed Trinity. That will be my last project there. I ordered the lunch from the Pig in Falls. I am pleased to say that we have 26 people signed up. I ordered enough for 3 dozen as I am sure that a few will have signed up this afternoon and one or two on Monday.

Tomorrow will be quiet. I need to bake the pies for the turkey dinner AND I want to bake some bread. I want the smell of fresh bread in the house.

>
>Andy Rooney said on "60 Minutes" a few weeks back:
>
>
>I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except
>numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are
>things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black
>Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like
>the UnitedCaucasianCollege Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment
>Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens...Jesse Jackson
>will be knocking down your door.



Have a nice weekend.

Mary

This morning was very windy and cold. I went to Lakeland College for the Great Lakes Writers Festival. Jane, Ann, Sy and Sue from the Sheboygan County Writers club were also there. It was a nice time. At 11:00AM the two presenters Sebastian Matthews and Marilyn Taylor read some of their work to the entire group. Quite impressive.

Then, the writers club group all car pooled over to the Log Cabin for lunch and some visiting. At 2:00PM Sebastian and Marilyn did workshops for all who wished to attend. This is entirely free. Jane and I went to Marilyn's poetry workshop. She focused on word choice and diction. We got a nice web site for a thesaurus and did a few exercises that were fun. I like little exercises - we sometimes do them at club too. She had us write a poem using six of about 12 words that she had us list and also we "filled in the blanks" on two poems already published with some words blanked out that we got to fill in. That was fun too.

I will DO one here so you can see what we did. This was one that we had to choose words to involve the emotions. The original poem was Washing Sheets in July by a Jane Gentry. I do not have the words that SHE had in the blanks so you will have to put up with mine. I will put MY words in caps. My half of the room had to be kind of negative. The other side of the room had to be positive.

Against the white garage,
hollyhocks SPAR.
The sheets, wet, adhesive
as I hang them, smell
of SULPHER and MANURE SCENTED air.
Flags of order in the WANNING sun,
How they CONVULSE in the ANGRY breeze!
Watching them TWISTING on the line,
I STRUGGLE with and old LOST DREAM.

It is amazing how many diverse ideas can come out of a group.

Anyway, it was lots of fun.

I will also share the Cadfael Book of Days intry for today.

November 2nd. It is only that the step from perfectly ordinary things into the miraculous seems to me so small, almost accidental, that I wonder why it astonishes you at all, or why you trouble to reason about it. If it were reasonable it could not be miraculous, could it?

Ellis Peters

Have a great day tomorrow. I have tons to do.

Love

Mary

It was a holy day today and I went to church in Plymouth at St. John's. The church was packed. It was the school mass plus a lot of parishioners. Their priest DOES give a nice serman. I had always heard that. He directed it to the kids today but included the adults enough to make it interesting. He spoke of the Communion of Saints. Explaining that it is the saints in Heaven, the sould in Purgatory and all of us.

I called the harpest that Beth Dipple had given me the information on. She is available and will be here for an Irish Christmas at The Plymouth Historical Center on December 9 from 1:30 to 3:00PM. She sounds like fun. She will play the harp and regale us with stories of Irish Christmas customs. Her husband will be with her and he belongs to the Celtic American Church. I am so looking forward to talking to him. He might possible even be a good future speaker.

Every year I get ornaments for all the kids and their spouses. This afternoon, Dick was working at the dining room table so I decided it was go good time to wrap them. Don't be too impressed. These are the ONLY Christmas presents that we have so far. And I have them because they come out sometime in late August from Hallmark. BUT they are wrapped and I feel good about that.

We had tacos and tostadas for supper tonight. Hadn't had them in a long time and they really tasted good. I still have some of the banana cake which mad a great dessert.

I finished the prototype of the Celtic Women's sweatshirt jacket. It was easy and looks good.

Tomorrow I will be going to Lakeland College for a Writer's Festival. I am meeting some of the members of the Sheboygan Writers Club. We will have lunch together as well as attending the speakers talks. Should be fun.

Bobbie sent us an e-mail about our Oscar. He apparantly chased his tail around wildly for about 45 minutes one evening and had her very amused. Sure miss him. It is fun to hear about theie antics from Bobbie. I really appreciate the stories and the fact that she and Bill have them until we can get them back.

Take care.

Love

Mary

Well - Dick has finally fallen off the perfect wagon with his blood count. Sue was right. The anti biotics did goof it up. So he has to change the dosage for a bit and see her in two weeks to see if we have him back where he belongs.

Then we went grocery shopping, registered to vote and picked up his prescriptions. So it was another morning of running around.

The rest of the day we got to stay home. I checked out and make sure things in the freezer were labled and then made a cake with some bananas that I found in there.

Worked a bit on the quilt for Donna and on a sweatshirt jacket trimmed in the Celtic Women fabric. Whew. Quite a day.

Watched Dancing with the Stars and still enjoy it. I found out that I could vote for more than one so I voted for Emmit and for Joey. They were both really good tonight.

Today is the official Halloween. As I said Plymouth had their trick or treat on Sunday. We didn't have anyone come anyway. Halloween is the eve before All Saints Day and traditionally the night that the bad spirits roam the earth.

Tomorrow is a holy day and I will be going to 8:00AM at St. John's.

Mother and I were discussing All Souls Day at lunch yesterday. (We both remembered the day incorrectly. We were thinking that is was today, but it is the day AFTER All Saint's Day.) Anyway, when we were young we were told that on All Soul's Day, if one went into church and said 6 Our Fathers you saved a soul. So we used to go to church and pop in and out of church saying 6 Our Fathers each time so that we could save LOTS of souls.

I think that ranks right up there with Pagan Babies. We would save our money for the Pagan Baby drive at St. Mary School. Everytime $5 was collected we had saved a baby. We even got to pick the gender and name it. Such a deal.


Never knock on death's door........ Ring the doorbell and run. He hates that.


Til tomorrow

Mary

We had a BEAUtiful day today. The highest temperature I saw was 59 this afternoon. What a nice break. It has been unseasonably cold this fall. Tomorrow a cold front is coming in and it is going to drop back down to the 40s. But today was a treasure.

Dick got Chelsea out of the bedroom this morning and shut the door so we managed to get her out on her walk at 6:00AM STANDARD time. Much better than 5:00AM. It was even light. I LIKE walking when it is light. So does Chelsea but of course she doesn't understand that time has a lot to do with it.

Bible Study went well. We were discussing Sunday's readings which are focusing on the Great Commandment. To love God first and then to love your fellow man. Sometimes that isn't the easiest thing in the world, is it? Not everybody is easy to love. And it is not always easy to remember that God comes first. We are faced every day with issues that are bombarding us constantly.

After that I picked up Mom and we did a lot of things. We picked up a packet for Mom to use to apply for the lifeline necklace, got her blood pressure checked, (her reading was really good 168/68 so she is to stay on the medication and same dosage for the time being). Then stopped at the Mall at Mary Lee's where Eileen had two books for Mom and Mom bought a present for her bridge club gift exchange. I gave Eileen the pattern for the spider web wall hanging and picked up two Christmas ornaments.

But we weren't done yet.

After leaving Eileen, we went to Applebee's for lunch. A good lunch if I do say so. Our final stop was back at the Clinic where her Ear specialist cleaned and adjusted her hearing aids. Then home. After dropping her off, I did stop at Walgreens to pick up prescriptions for Dick. Now I find out that they were partial prescriptions and we have to stop again tomorrow. Ick.

Tonight was the Rhine Plymouth Board Meeting. I was home by 8:15 or so. Good thing because I am tired and want to be done.

I read something in a magazine today. It was in a bunch of quotes that people attributed to someone who really had an influence in their life. So here it is.

"Someone who is priceless, can't be worthless."

That is all of you.

Mary

Mom and I had the nicest visit this morning. We discussed everything from Madonna's adoption to why war is the answer to peace. She is a marvel.

I talked to Barbara and Bart today. Barbara has an ear infection but her inspection at work went OK after a battle so this week was a mixed bag for them. Bart sounds Ok.

Chelsea started waking me up at 5:13AM. I had tried to explain daylight savings to her and she swore she understood. But I think she lied. I let her out to piddle and then tried to go back to bed but OH NO. At 5:30 AM there she was again and I just gave up. I guess we will have to go through a period of retraining. She was definately unhappy with Dick and me because we waited until 5(6) to feed her tonight.

For some reason or other, I really miss my kitties this weekend. It is hard for me to know that they are out there and not with me. I am sure they are fine, because they are with Bobbie and Bill and animals are not as possessive as people. But it is hard for me to go to bed at night without my Oscar cuddling me for a while. It is sad for me to sit at my desk without them taking up TOO much of the desktop. I miss my Roxie dragging all the little things off and leaving them in the hallways. I miss them greeting me in the morning and when I come home.
So many people say that I should just get them - who would know. Dick doesn't feel that way. I wish with all my heart that he did. I feel like a total nut about this but it is really hard.

This is a rather busy week ahead. I take Mother to the ear doctor on Monday after Bible Study. Monday evening is Rhine Plymouth Board Meeting. Tuesday, Dick has a blood test and we will shop. The end of the week I will be attending part of a Writer's Festival at Lakeland. Should get me going again. These things usually do.

Pray that the house on Hunter's Glen sells. We sure could use it.

Love

Mary