A lovely day, holed up in our comfortable home, just the four of us. I got to sleep almost a half hour later than usual until I heard Miss Roxie calling quite instantly from the hallway. I always close the door after I take Chelsea out for her mid night walk.

It was just beautiful when Chelsea and I went for her long walk this morning. She is such a happy girl on those walks. You would never guess how tired she is so much of the time. She is coughing a lot lately. She is due for her checkup late nest month.

After our breakfast, Dick went down for a nap, so I spent the morning cleaning and sending out cards and practicing for tomorrow's Mass. There was one song that I was really having trouble getting the alto part down. I think I have it now but of course have to be able to do it with all the other parts singing along and against the melody.

I dusted downstairs too so I am now ready for the music workshop next Thursday. The cleaning company is starting next Thursday, so I did not worry about the floors down there.

I can't figure out why my knee seems more sore the past couple of days and my hips ache so much.

We ate leftovers all day today but I did make a fruit salad and a jello salad to accompany them. The fruit this year is just wonderful and is staying that way. We have been so enjoying the salads.

Roxie and I had the nicest nap this afternoon. I hated to get up. I spent about an hour out on the deck after that reading and enjoying a glass of wine in this most beautiful of days. The deck is shaded in the late afternoon, so even if the sun is hot it is always pleasant with a nice gentle breeze coming through the trees. Mosquitoes don't seem to come up there either.

I drove past the home I grew up in the other day. It is for sale again and is really looking run down. So sad. I am surprised that none of the owners in the past years didn't side it with aluminum or something. It is still wood frame and badly in need of paint. We had such good memories in that house. As George titled his book of poems, Old Red House. Mom and Dad started painting it red when I was very young. A Nice barn red. When I was VERY little we did not have an indoor bathroom. The outhouse was in the back yard. When I was in kindergarten, Dad and our neighbor, Mr. Roe, put the bathroom in upstairs. They took part of a bedroom to do it. People find it hard to believe that 11 people lived in that house with only one bathroom. We didn't think it a problem because we did not know any better and it worked out just fine as long as nobody overslept. Eventually, Dad put just a toilet down in the basement but that was after several of us had gone on our merry ways. Happy house, so sad to see it lonely and neglected.

Mary

What a day. I had to add changing the dressing on Dick's foot wound to the mix. It was more time consuming this morning and will be every other day because we have to change the stocking too. It is not seeping too much and looks OK, I guess. This evening, I just had to clean and dress it. I also cleaned the kitchen floor and counters and my bathroom.

But, we had a date this noon. Dick promised me that he would take me out for a meal once a week and he came through this noon. We went to the Parkview in Sheboygan Falls. We used to go there for breakfast quite often. Lunch Sometimes. So it seemed like a good place to start. It was easy to get in to and we had a good lunch. The main thing is that I got him out of the house for something other than a doctor's appointment.

When we got home, I napped. Roxie really liked that a lot. She figures that I never sleep long enough though.

This evening I picked up Nancy and we drove out to Rhine for the opening of pistol league. I brought my 12 gauge along too. My friend, Norb, who is a gunsmith said that he probably can do things to it to make it less hard on me. So he looked it over and took it with him to try to fix the spring and put a different recoil pad on. He has some other ideas too. He is a gunsmith so I am glad that I talked to him. He took it with him and will let me know what he can to. It is good to have him back in the league again. Bobbie and I always enjoyed Norb and Rocky being there.

Anyway, I shot three targets. They were pitiful compared to my practice targets of last Thursday but they were not impossible. I will keep working at it. Norb is looking for a florescent site for my pistol which would be helpful for siting on the target.

Tomorrow I am going to make a some fruit desserts and salads for us to snack on for the next couple of days. With leftovers and the Celtic Fair, I won't have to do any serious cooking. I am thinking strawberry, pineapple, banana jello with sour cream topping. Num Num.

Have a nice Saturday, the weekend here is supposed to be beautiful.

Love

Mary

So a full day. Tomorrow should be fairly quiet. I won't be going to church because I will be going to Celtic Mass. I am excited to have my words sung for all those people. It should be a very nice ceremony and the weather is supposed to cooperate for the Faire following the event. Mother is really looking forward to it too and Jeff and Kathy and maybe Shane, Georgi and Sara will be there too. I will buy raffle tickets and Take a Chance Booth Tickets and eat good food. I will try to bring something home for Dick.

I have made the arrangements to have the house cleaned. I am using the same company as Mother does and eventually will have the same cleaning lady. They are starting next Thursday. I am so relieved. Things are just getting away from me.

This turned out to be a much busier and more stress than was expected because of the appointment with Dr. Moreno.

Started out pretty normal. I got up at 6AM an took care of all the morning stuff, then went to pick up Mother for her 9:30AM appointment with Dr. Lavey the eye doctor. That took a long time. They were running a bit late and it takes time for them to run those eyes through their tests and then dilate them. But we ended up with pretty good news. Mom was noticing that letters are running together a bit and that the end of lines when she is reading drop off sight sometimes. Dr. Lavey said her basic vision is the same but that the dry macular is slowly progressing due to age. He said not to worry that it will not probably progress too fast and he sees her every six months anyway so we were quite relieved. I was so impressed with him. I noticed that Mother did not hear a couple of his questions so I, quietly, told him that her hearing isn't too good and he raised his voice just enough that she could hear him clearly. It is much better if she can just answer her own questions.

I got home at about 11:30, just in time to finish up lunch. I had put some chicken legs in the slow cooker so just had to heat some beans as we had Waldorf salad to finish up the meal. Bobbie joined us. We sure like her making the wine her. After lunch, we went down and racked lots of wine. Her peach, rhubarb and rhubarb/elderberry wer ready to be racked and my Lemon Balm. Next week will be time for at least one more of her wines to be racked and we will bottle the White Zin. It would have been just too much today as Dick and I had to be at Dr. Moreno's office at 2:30PM.

Here is where the trouble began. That blister that is seeping is also showing signs of infection. So he trimmed the dead skin off. I will have to clean and dress it and put ointment on it twice a day. He has antibiotics. He can't wear his fancy shoe, so he can't walk and we go back to see Dr. Moreno on September 22nd. I am very discouraged. Brian, one of our favorite nurses, dressed the wound and was very encouraging. He and Dick say that I did all I could. Dr. Moreno says those blisters can turn very quickly and apparently that is what happened. So. pray very hard. I am afraid of the slow healing.

I'll lean on you and
you lean on me and
we'll be okay

-- Dave Matthews

Tonight I went to Blessed Trinity to practice for Celtic Mass which is on Sunday. I think it went quite well and I was home before 8:30PM. Good thing because, surprise!!, I am exhausted. We have the football game on. The Steelers and the Titans. So far they are tied. I need the Steelers to win for my points in league. I worked very hard on that.

Til tomorrow.

Mary

Today was shopping day. By the time I got everybody fed, medicined, walked and cleaned it was after 8:30AM. So I went to the bank and then to Piggly Wiggly for the shopping.

I spent the rest of the day working on small projects and reading. I am trying to get some reading in every day to get back into the habit and the pleasure of it.

Bonnie from Bonnie's Housekeeping came by at about 12:30 to give us an estimate of her costs. Her service is the one that cleans for Mother so I feel pretty confidant. They are less expensive than Merry Maids. They do use my equipment and cleaning products. Merry Maids uses their own. With the experience Mom has had I think I will feel comfortable going to Bonnie's. She will call me at the end of the week to tell me what she has available and we will go from there. They have a minimum of 2 hours which should work quite well for what I want done. I can probably even have them do extra stuff in the extra time. That will be a relief. I just have trouble keeping up and frankly, my knee hurts when I vacuum.

I did some more reading this afternoon and watered the plants in the front of the condo. The new grass planted beside the road is doing so well and we have not had rain for several days to I felt that I wanted to give it a drink so it will stay healthy.

Dick's blister is still draining so I called Dr. Moreno today and we will see him tomorrow at 3PM. Tomorrow will be very busy though everything is nicely spread out.

Mom had her eye doctor appointment at 9:30AM, then Bobbie will be over for lunch and to work on wine. We have peach, rhubarb, white Zin and lemon balm to be working with. We can easily put off the white Zin if we need to as Dick had to be at the doctor at 3. Actually that is more than enough time to get the racking done.

Tomorrow evening is the last practice of the Blessed Trinity choir before the Celtic Faire on Sunday so I will be going to Sheboygan Falls at 7PM for that.

Now I am going to watch the president speak. Then it will be close to bedtime and I can listen to the opinions of his speech tomorrow.

Have a nice evening. This is such beautiful weather, it is hard to think that winter will rear its lovely head soon.

Something very special happened today. When I took Chelsea out on one of her walks today, imagine my delight and surprise to find, perched jauntily, like a lovely green hat, on the stump carving that I have on my front stoop, a BEAUTIFUL rosemary plant. I do not know for sure who left it but I have my suspicions. Bob Fleming and talked at length about herbs and he said he had several on his deck. Perhaps he wanted to give me that moment of pleasure. It would be so like him. Such a good friend. Now I must work very hard to keep it alive until next year.

Love and enjoy your evening.

Mary

This was a very busy day. Chelsea and I had a lovely walk this morning. It was cool again and very clear.

This morning, Dick followed through on his promise to spend some time outside the house. We drove over to Kmart and spend about an hour just looking around the store. Of course, we bought a few things that we needed. It is always good to have a purpose or the shopping isn't any fun. He did well. We spent almost an hour in the store and found a heating pad, a coffee pot and a couple of other things we needed. We got home in time to have a light lunch before Nancy picked me up to go shooting pistol.

That was fun. I had three good targets. All 30 on the paper and 28 in scoring position with several in the black. Nancy is having trouble with her pistol not chambering the bullet. We lucked out, though. When we got upstairs, Jerry and Nancy Coenen and Pat Becher and her husband were pulling in to practice too. So Jerry is looking at and going to check out her gun to see why it is jamming. It looks like it is catching on the magazine, but we, Nancy and me, don't have any idea what to do to correct that.

Then I napped.

I fixed Dirty Rice with Italian Sausage for our dinner. The critters started bugging me while I was messing around in the kitchen. Then I noticed a little bit of catnip left in the jar that Bobbie had brought several months ago. It was tucked behind some other stuff on the counter and I had forgotten about it so I gave it to Roxie. Was she ever funny. She started eating it and ended up lying on her side with her head just barely able to get to the last of the catnip in bowl. A total experience. She was the happiest kitty I ever saw.

So a busy day. I am glad it is over now and am about ready to hit the bed. Mother used to say "Up the wooden hill to four corners." Of course we lived in a two story house so it was a bit more appropriate.

Love

Mary

What a nice Labor Day this turned out to be. I was busy this morning with my usual stuff. Stuff is such a nice inclusive word. I had to walk two doggies, (Our neighbor, Dick , was Up North enjoying the color change so I had Katrina to walk too.) Katrina is funny. She stops every ten feet or so to just give kisses and love. She pees funny too. She squats and then lifts one leg or the other to relieve herself. We had several good walks. I tried to take her on different routes and to just be with her has she was alone in the house. She, as our Chelsea, is used to having SOMEONE in the house most of the time.

Chelsea was not neglected either. Chelsea is doing better than she was a couple of days ago. She is still old but some days seems more subdued than others.

I talked to Bret today. I had forgotten to tell him that his cousin, Brit, is moving to Los Angeles in October. She will be the head of two areas of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A nice leg up. She sill be head of Photography and Works on Paper. I know that she did her main studies in Photography. I still need to ask her if she would like to see the stereoscopes of my friend Bob's parent's wedding. She did her Masters on Stereoscopes, as I remember. I hope that she and Bret can get together once in a while for a lunch or dinner or holiday as they are family and it is good to have SOMEONE of blood close by. I know how much it has meant to Vikki, my niece on the Johnston side that she and Bret are connecting more. Blood is thicker than water.

This afternoon Bobbie and I went to see Julie and Julia. It was charming and wonderful. Bobbie had gotten interested in the blogs that Julie did during the year that Julie did Julia Child's recipes and blogged. She said that she could see why Julia was not too excited about meeting Julie. There was a lot of oddness and melt downs in the blog. And after all, Julia was in her late 80s and early 90s at the time. But it was a beautiful story and well worth seeing, if only for Meryl Streep's performance. I want to get her cookbook now.

Jim and Michelle called tonight. They spent a day with Bart and Marlise and Don. I am glad that they are connecting. They took "Chip" Kunert their new dog with them and that was an adventure. It went quite well, after all Chip is just a puppy. Apparently some blood was shed but they couldn't tell from whom so it could not have been too important. They are doing well at their job and looking for others. There are prospects but I gather that they are grateful that, in this market, they are in the position that they can deep looking until it is right as they have an income coming in.

Did I tell you that I saw a Blue Heron, several flights of geese and two hawks flying overhead in the past two days? It is the onset of Autumn and I imagine the critters are trying to figure out the signals that are changing day to day. I am amazed that it is so gray at 6AM when I get up. Soon it will be really dark and I won't be thrilled about taking my girl out. She does not seem to worry as she knows that her MOM will take care of her. Guess that is how I feel about my God. I get scared sometimes but know that in the end Jesus will take care of it and it will all be for the best.

Take care and go into the week with joy.

Love

Mary

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
- Robert A. Heinlein

This morning while I was watching Good Morning America, Bill Weir said that he was a Cheesehead. They featured the Packers meeting with the kids who bring their bikes to the practices for the opportunity to interact with the players. This has gone on for years. Anyway, he ended the segment saying, "Eat your heart out, Brett Favre, The Vikings eat children."

It was indeed a quiet day. I took Katrina, our neighbor's dog, out a couple of times today today. She is such a loving doggy but I am glad that we have Chelsea. Katrina leaks when she gets excited and I would not be happy cleaning up after a piddling pup.

I spent some time on getting ready for the Celtic Music Workshop that I am going to conduct on September 17 her at our house. If any of you want to come, you are welcome. It is for the Celtic Women but we welcome anyone that has an interest in our purpose, even for one evening or one event.

I a made a blueberry cheesecake today and is it ever good. I hope I can find someone to help us eat it. As usual it is SO big that it will last much too long.

It was a nice warm day today and some of my tomatoes are starting to ripen. That is good. I hope to be able to eat them fresh and perhaps preserve some of them. I am thinking Braciole de Manzo. To die for. I do love to cook.

Tomorrow I will go to see the movie Julie and Julia with Bobbie. I do like Meryl Streep and it is based on a great book so I am looking forward to it. Always good to spend time with Bobbie too.

That was the day so tomorrow is Labor Day. I am going to put the flag out to celebrate the day. Enjoy it. Remember the reason for the day. Did I ever tell you that Bret was born on Labor Day? I remember getting to the delivery area. There must have been six women all in labor at the same time and one of the nurses said. "Just because is it Labor Day didn't mean that you all had to come in a the same time."

Love

Mary