I spent a quiet day today. The only times I went out were to church, which is always how I gather myself for the coming week and to shoot for the pistol league at Rhine.

Church was very comforting. Fr. Van Beeck pointed out a "truth" that he brought to my attention once before and was brought to my attention last night at the party for Hazel. Suzi's son, Jerry, mentioned that his wife, Laura, had recovered from surgery on a brain tumor. I said that it must make them treasure every day that comes to them now. He said they lived like that for a time, but now he is so relieved to be back to taking things and life for granted. It was like a revelation - Intense appreciation or really intense feelings cannot stay that way forever. It is comforting, healing and wonderful to be happy in the just plain NOW. And to appreciate the ordinary.

To get to Fr. Van Beeck's message. He said that if God asked us to do some really heroic thing or really difficult task in his name, we would be right there to answer the call. But usually, God only asks us to do the every day things to the best of our ability in His Name. It is hard to do that.

Last night was kind of a sparse blog. I was sure glad that Dick and Brenda were there. They figured out the easiest way for me to get out of there and back to Hwy 57. The way I came in was with directions from Google and was very complicated. It was very comforting for me to see Dick waiting in the parking lot to be sure that I had turned the right way to get to Good Hope Road.

I went to shoot at Rhine today. While I was there, the sister of Harold Diedrich's wife, Diane came in and told us that Harold and Diane's son John, only 39, had died during the night. We are all shocked. I can't imagine what the family is going through. John has two young children too.

When I was young and rather new in California, I rented a house, with Jacquie, my future sister in law, from Doris and Ronnie, also future in-laws. We had a washing machine but no dryer and hung our clothes on a line in the back yard.

One day we hung our clothes and went shopping. To our shock, when we got back, every pair of underpants that we owned was gone. So we called the police. They sent out two officers to take the report. It was quite embarrassing, as one of the officers was Al (can't remember his last name). He had gone to school with some of the Johnstons and though he tried very hard to keep a straight face, it was pretty hard especially when the standard questions are such as "Can you give us a description of the stolen property." "How many items were taken?" and so on.

Anyway, surprisingly, they found three or four of the underpants scattered a few blocks from the house. They decided it was a college prank, but it cost Jacquie and me quite a bit to replace all of our underwear. I am not sure if renters insurance would have covered underpants, but we didn't have any insurance anyway. It was a different time, a different place.

Hope your week is good. Ours is filling up.

Love

Mary