A pretty quiet Saturday. I had a great night and woke up to very little pain. Though I ached off and on all day, it was a MUCH better day and I believe that the corner is turned. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

I felt good enough to do some baking today. From mixes so I did not have to be on my feet for too long a period of time. I made brownies which I was able to share tonight. I will tell you about that. I also made a Tastefully Simple beer bread.

I had a nice nap this afternoon. Roxie just loves it when I nap on the livingroom couch. Her head pops up and she rushes over and jumps on me. I usually cover my legs with an afghan and she uses the blanket between my legs as a hammock. There are days when she starts nagging me in the early afternoon and I think she is trying to tell me that it is time for our nap.

Then my friend, Nancy, picked me up at about 3:30 to go to Mass. She is so good. She called this morning and asked if I would, perhaps, like to go to Mass at Blessed Trinity and then spend some time with Mother. I was so grateful. I do miss my visits with Mother and won't be able to drive to Bible Study this Monday either. Nancy visited a relative of hers after Mass and then picked me up at about quarter to six to go home. So Mother and I had a lovely visit. I shared the brownies with Mother and with Nancy. Nancy came in the house, of course, when she picked me up, so Mother had another visitor. As Nancy and I graduated together, our mothers also were in Christian Mothers and knew each other quite well when Nancy and I were growing up.

The Blessed Trinity Celtic Faire quilt is hanging in the church. It is a Christmas quilt - Lots of snowmen on the quilt with a border of mittens. Absolutely beautiful. I will buy chances at the Celtic Faire. I sat with Joan Schueffner, one of the quilters. I told her that if they ever run short of quilters, I would still be glad to do a square or two. Seeing it actually got me wishing that I could get downstairs and do some quilting. Hope the feeling lasts until next week when I can.

Tomorrow will also be quiet.

Mary

I had a mixed night. Terrible in that I woke up at about 12:30AM with my hip so sore that I had to get up, take a pill and stay up until the pain subsided somewhat. However, then I did get back to sleep and woke up feeling much more comfortable. Today, I just ached a bit most of the day. Always bearable and generally better than the past few days.

We spent a very quiet day. Got ourselves cleaned up and fed. I watered the plants on the deck AND walked out to get the mail. I took a good nap this afternoon.

Excitement. Today, the "invitation" came from Commissioner Stenn Salvesen to join the Pro Football Pool I have been in with family and friends for the past four years. Am I excited! It means that we are getting closer to Packer season. Dick and I are watching a Packer Training Camp Special tonight to start getting in the mood. Do you believe that the first pregame is in two weeks? And I know nothing about the current team.

Needless to say I signed up. Immediately!

Roxie has decided that the cute little bear that Brenda and Richard sent is her toy. We find that poor little guy in the middle of the floor almost every morning and heaven only knows what he goes through before she tires of him.

We had a delicious salmon dinner with Olive Oil and Garlic Linguine this noon. And tonight some of that soup I made yesterday. It is one of those that tastes even better with reheating.

I am bravely watching the housework pile up around me. With Chelsea at summer camp and Dick and I not going in and out a lot it is getting dirty much slower than usual (except for the kitchen, both Dick and I are dropping a lot of things.) Perhaps it is good that I am noticing as it means that maybe I AM really getting better. A couple of floors are getting sticky. I remember - in my raising children days - hearing a fellow Mom announcing that when she started sticking to the floor, she would scrub it.

Tomorrow will not be much busier but my friend Nancy is going to come and pick me up for church. I am so grateful. I missed last week because it was too soon and I was in a lot of pain. I missed it in my heart too. Mass just brings me into focus for the week and keeps me centered.

Hope you had a wonderful week and that your weekend will be fun and fruitful. It is supposed to be nice. Maybe some rain tomorrow but we really need it. Brat Days are this weekend. I hope they are successful. A lot of good is done from those funds. I remember years ago, when Brat Days were downtown Sheboygan on 8th Street. The whose street from Fountain Park to at least Pennsylvania was blocked to through traffic and lined with stands. People wandered the streets drinking and eating and there was music. I really only got involved in one, maybe two of those events. Now it is much more organized and located in Kiwanis Park. Lots of bands, lots of food, not only brats, and lots of market area.

Enjoy yours.

Mary

Today was the busiest day that Dick and I have had since my surgery. He had his coagulation test and I had a dentist appointment.

I got up at 6AM, a little sore, so I tried to rest but had trouble with that too. So. I got things ready for our dinner.

Bobbie came at about 10 or so to be our chauffeur. It has only been a week since my surgery and I have to wait another week. I am still in enough pain that I would not trust myself in a car anyway.

She brought Chelsea for a visit. What a joy. Our little girl looks great and seemed happy to see us and be home for a while. She did not object to leaving again though. She loves rides and is treated like the little princess she is at the Mays.

Dick's visit to the anti coagulation clinic was a success. His count is 2.1 so the next check is in a month again.

When they came back, Bobbie headed down to the winery to rack, as it turned out, two of her wines. The kit had to be racked which was a BIG production as it is 6 gallons and needed to be racked twice, once into a primary fermenter and then back into the secondary. She said that the hardest part was cleaning out the carboy because that is such a lot of wine. And racking 6 gallons takes a lot of time. She also racked the strawberry. There is a lot of wine being prepared down there.

We had kicky steak, rice, broccoflower and fruit salad for our lunch, then Bobbie took me to the dentist. I now have super clean teeth and found out that the dentist chair is ergonomically perfect for me with my gimpy leg. After an hour in that chair my leg did not hurt one little bit. When I left I told them that I might come back.

I received a beautiful card today from my friend Bob, celebrating the life of his life partner, Steve, who passed on July 20. I did not hear about it until Tuesday when the obituary appeared in the paper but I had known that Steve was very close to leaving. Steve himself designed the card and I will treasure it as I have all of his and Bob's beautiful artwork.

I finished up a dump soup for our supper. I had gathered a bunch of veggies and broths into a container in the freezer and today browned some Italian Sausage to which I added some chicken broth, a couple of cans of diced tomatoes and the container of stuff. I also had some leftover Spanish rice which became the starch. Boy is it good. I finally have something to put back into the freezer for backup. I had wiped everything else out in the past week. I kept some out for the next couple of days of course.

We had a little more rain today, and I mean little. But I think it is enough to satisfy the outdoor plants for a day or so anyway. Everything looks healthy. I am getting lots of tomatoes on my plants.

Bobbie and I are going to see the new Harry Potter movie next Thursday. I can hardly wait.

Have a lovely evening. Wear red tomorrow in honor of our servicemen far away overseas in danger. We can't forget them.

Love

Mary

 

I miss my girl. Bobbie, I am sharing the picture that you took of her with her "shawl". She looks so sweet.

Love

Mary

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis De Tocqueville

I found the above quote on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac today. I liked it. We should all keep this in mind. The government is NOT giving us anything that we are not paying through the nose for.

We stayed home all day today. Good thing. I was really sore again this morning. So I rested as much as possible and just tried to exercise just enough to keep the muscles stretched. I called the nurse to ask what to do about my hip hurting so much. They said that I should back off on the exercising and let the pain be my guide. I am also doing the same thing with the pain meds. I hate taking them but am trying to just take enough to keep things at bay. I feel better tonight than I felt this morning.

Bart called this morning. Yea - good news. Barbara will be going to Germany for the Army as she did when she went to Florida and to Washington DC in the past two years. She will leave in mid August and come back just before Christmas. She and Bart are so excited. They wanted to take a trip to Germany. Barb has uncles and cousins that live there. And now they will just have to pay his way. He will go sometime about half way for three weeks. Similar to the way they handled the other assignments. She is certainly the perfect candidate for the job. She is so competent, she has done this assignment before, she speaks German and she has her passport. This will be so great for them.

We called Jim and Michelle tonight just so we could hear Jim's voice for ourselves. Had a nice comforting visit with both of them. Jim is sorer today than yesterday, which is understandable, but sounded strong. This was reassuring to Dick and me. They sent pictures of the car and it is really a smashed up piece of junk - our poor little Hyundai.

Yesterday when Katie Dippel came to pick up the Mass folder for St. Michael's Mass, she glanced over at my desk and said. " Oh - your statue moved." Roxie had moved. So Roxie got a little extra scritching. Which we all know that she KNOWS she deserves.

I heard a report on how swine flu is projected to spread in the next three years through the US. It reminded me of a "mini" epidemic that hit the Orange County Four Wheelers on one of our jeep runs. We were out in the Borrego Badlands camped in a usual circle. A goodly number of the families were there. Then in drove the Bernicas, one of the families, consisting of two parents and four kids. They pulled in with a camper full of sick. On the way down some of the kids started with a stomach flu that just swept through that family - then it started moving through the rest of the camp. I never saw anything like that. Every family was affected in some way though not everybody got sick. We called it the Pollack Love Bug and it became a Jeep Club Legend.


That is all that I have to report today. Not bad for a slow day at home.

Love
Mary

 

The day started off really good and is ending up OK. I had a nice quiet morning. I managed to get a couple of loads of wash done today.

John Nevicosi picked me up at about 11:30 to to to his wife, my friend Toni's Tastefully Simple Party. I had a very good time but found that by 2:30PM I was exhausted. I bought some really fun things, including a wine slush that I want to try when we have the family here for dinner some time. I met some nice people and noshed my way through samples of about 15 of the Tastefully Simple products.

I had prepared a Chef's Salad for Dick's dinner. When I got home he was sleeping so I took a nap too.

Today, I felt about the same as I did yesterday. I am finding that my leg and knee are sore as heck at the end of the day now. The first couple of days I woke up sore.

Dolores called today and we had a nice talk. I called Nora this afternoon and we had a nice talk too.

I hope you like the picture. Today in the mail was a card from Richard and Brenda. It accompanied the cute little bear that is seated under my computer. I tried to get a picture of Roxie right next to the bear but she tried to beat it up so this was the next choice. Not bad though. I love it. He has a sweet face.

Today, two of the samples we tried were drink mixes with rum in them. We had all of a tablespoon sample of the slush of each but they were good. Somehow, they reminded me of my mother in law, Lily. I don't think I told you this story, forgive me if I do repeat.

Her sister, Ruth, worked in the school cafeteria in Costa Mesa, CA. One day, she and a couple of the other ladies that worked with her stopped by Lily's home after they were done with work. They started to be having lots of fun, so Lily mixed up some Margaritas for them all. After a couple rounds were downed, Lily ran out of tequila. She found a bottle of 150 proof alcohol that Victor had purchased down in Mexico and substituted that for the tequila.

Needless to say, in short time those three ladies, not Lily, mind you, were bombed. Well, she couldn't send them home like that, they certainly couldn't be driving in that condition. So, she loaded them up in her jeep, with no top on it and road them around town til they were able to function.

We asked her why she wasn't drunk too and she informed us that she had better sense than to drink those last margaritas.

Have a good night and enjoy your hump day tomorrow.

Love

Mary

Today was much better. I woke up this morning with very little pain. I am quite sore and tired tonight, but that seems normal since I have been up and trying to exercise as prescribed off and on all day.

Again, I worked on computer projects. I think I am about caught up on CWI deadlines. I need to work on an article for the next newsletter but there is at least a month before that will be pressing.

Got a call from Michelle today. Not a happy call but it could be much worse. She was on her way to pick up Jim. He was in an auto accident and totaled the Hyundai. As I said, it could be much worse. Jim was not hurt, at least according to what he told Michelle. Apparently he pulled out into traffic behind a big semi and did not see the car in back of it. He is probably very shook up. I sure was when I hit that car over on Clifford. Dick and I are so glad that he was not hurt. Lets all pray for them tonight. That is a lot to digest and we need to give thanks that he is OK.

Bobbie came over this afternoon to help us out. She left Chelsea sleeping. Probably glad of the quiet. She watered the outdoor plants for me, then it rained, but it did not rain all that hard or long and the plants were really dry since they had nothing since last Wednesday. Then she did a little shopping for us. She cleaned the currants and put them in the freezer so that they will be ready to mix up when we are ready for another batch. When I am better, I am going to harvest lemon balm here and at Mother's and get that frozen for a batch too. She will be back on Thursday to take Dick and me for appointments. If all continues to improve as well as it did today, she will bring Chelsea back too. I do miss the little fuzz ball a lot, but still would find it too hard to be taking her out as often as she needs it.

Bobbie said that she is eating really well and is perky as all git out but is coughing. There is no change in that for better or for worse.

So that is the day. Good things and not so good things. Like most days I guess, but these ups and downs were rather dramatic.

SO. We head into Tuesday. I am planning on feeling even better tomorrow morning.

God love you all. Be safe.

Mary

 

Bobbie and I were talking about headstones the other day. She did not recall seing this picture on the blog before. It is the headstone of my Grandpa Michael Deeley's first wife Margaret Kenna. She died when my Auntie Marge was just a baby of a fever she contracted at a picnic she attended with Sarah Spratt. Then later, Grandpa married my Grandma Helen Ziegler.

When we were planning the cemetery tour for the Celtic Women, I told Beth that I had to look for a Deeley headstone. As you can see from the size of it, it was not hard to find. And Grandpa must have used granite, not marble because it shows very little wear from the elements.

Anyway, Bobbie, here it is. It is in the Cemetery at St. Patrick's Church in Adell. That church is in danger of being torn down. There is a group trying to keep it maintained from year to year.

Mary

A strange Sunday with no Mass. I prayed though. But it just isn't the same.

I had another rotten morning. It was noon before the kinks got out of my body and I was able to move almost normally. I guess that must be normal. I feel pretty good tonight, stiff but bearable.

I rested a lot today. I also got the worship folder for Fr. Shea's mass put together. After Beth's approval, I can get it to her for copying. One down, one to go. The one for Blessed Trinity is easy, I just need to write a new cover sheet and make sure that Sandy has the songs and all. She does all the work and an excellent job at that.

So that was our day. Dick talked to Bobbie and Chelsea is doing just fine. She is eating better than she does here. I miss her and hope I will be more mobile soon so she can come home.

Now I am going to bed. Pray that tomorrow morning will not be a repeat of today.

Love
Mary