A day at home. The only place I had to drive today was to pick up Nancy and go on out to Rhine to finish our league targets. It is amazing what a pleasure being at home can be.

Chelsea and I went for a nice long walk this morning. We met the older lady with the cane. She had just come back from Las Vegas and was saying that she wished she had stayed. Actually today was warm enough that I was able to just wear my denim jacket instead of the winter coat. Don't know how long that will last but one can hope.

I spent the morning working on computer projects, notably finishing that newspaper article. I am ready to forward it on Monday morning. I am just giving Kate a chance to look it over first. Toni has said it is OK.

Nancy and I left at about 10:30 and were back home by about 11:30. With no one else out there it does not take long to shoot a few targets. We had to get our league targets finished because I can't go next Friday and the next Friday is the bust up.

I made a 2XL tshirt smaller for me today. I got it free and wanted it. I did a couple of odd things to give it "a look". I think I will enjoy it this summer. I am trying to figure out how to shorten the sleeves on a jacket that I bought for Dick. To compound the problem, it is fully lined. Any suggestions.

Jim and Michelle came over tonight and we played a couple of games of Rummy. They were hot tonight and each ran away with one. It was a pleasant evening. They are going on a cruise next week. They leave on Friday so I will be taking care of the Bootsie cat.

Tomorrow I will be picking Bobbie up at about 9:30AM so we can go to the class on Fermenting Beverages. We will have a good time I know. I am glad that she won't have to miss that. She spent today taking pictures of her cast and the kitties and sending them. She got some pretty good ones of Big Oscar and that is not easy and the one of Foxy Roxie in back of the plants is just spectacular.

Today is Bart and Barb's Anniversary. They are together in Florida and less than a month until she is home for good.

Love You All

Mary

Strange weather day. It had rained during last night but was just cloudy and somewhat cold when we took our walk, Chelsea and I. She was really perky. She spent the rest of the day asking me to take her out every time I sat down, at least that is how it seemed. The only good thing about it is that this last time, I saw a deer in the middle of the green space in front of our condo.

I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed the stairs this morning. Then did a bunch of computer work.

Dick had to be at Sheboygan Memorial by 1:45PM for his procedure. We left at about 12:30 so I could pick up Mother's prescriptions at Walgreens and drop them off with a couple of other things on our way to the hospital. I took her some of the Mexican Turkey casserole and a dish of apple crisp. She is looking really well. It just poured on our way from Plymouth to Sheboygan Falls and then again on our way to Sheboygan. Mother was kind of disappointed. Today, Deacon Jens was having an Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. If the weather is nice she loves to go over for part of it but she is very wise and does not attempt it if it is wet. We are so proud of her being so sensible. I was glad I stopped in. A break in her day.

The procedure was the Sclerotherapy - the easiest of all of them. Unfortunately, Dr. Siddique checked the left leg and has found a large vein in the thigh area that will have to have a laser treatment. Therefore, we now have scheduled four more procedures. A little discouraging as we thought we might be nearly done. But - encouraging as the legs are improving and this will be even more of a fix.

Got an e mail from Bobbie today. She broke her leg, an oblique fracture of the distal fibula in her lower leg. She is so disgusted. It is, after all, the beginning of the planting and yard work season and for the first time - she is retired. We are going to the class on Fermenting Beverages on Sunday. But instead of walking, I will drive her.

We are hearing thunder in the distance tonight but so far, Sheboygan County is outside of the severe weather alerts.

I went shooting tonight with Nancy. My first one was a disaster and the second not much better. I was encouraged by the last one. I guess I am just going to have to go to see the doctor about my arm. I keep thinking it will heal itself but I think I keep restraining it and need advice on to how to make it better. It just plain hurts.

We will go again tomorrow and at least finish the league targets. Nancy did really well tonight. She will turn out to be competition for Lil eventually.

Have a great evening and stay dry.

Mary

P. S. I did not forget the picture of the flower. It was raining every time I was able to get out to do it.

Maybe tomorrow.

Mary

Hello again. We had sunshine most of the day. The temperatures did not go much over 50 but there was no wind and it was comfortable. Bart and Barb called tonight and when I told Barb the temperature here, she just laughed and said that they consider it cold if it is 60. They are well. Saturday is their anniversary and I am so glad that Bart is there with her. She will be going back permanently to Oklahoma at the end of May. Actually she will get there just in time for them to turn around and go to Virginia to meet Adam's ship when it gets back from the Gulf.

We had a pretty quiet day. We drove in to Sheboygan to pay our condo fees. That was really the only time we had to go very far. I cleaned bathrooms and the downstairs den and bedroom.

Chelsea was very disappointed in me today. After my shower, I pulled her in and scrubbed her down. She now is a gorgeous fluffy white vision of beauty. She would rather be a smelly little girl.

I dug up a flower to show to Mother tomorrow. We were talking about the May Flowers and I think that this MIGHT be one. I will let you know. And if it is I will take pictures and post it tomorrow. We are stopping at her house tomorrow and I will also share the Mexican Chicken and the Apple Crisp that we have . I find I can make somewhat larger batches of things because I can share with her.

Now I am tired. So. Wind down I will and go to bed.

Take Care

Mary

Wednesday already. Grocery shopping day. Chelsea and I took a nice Long walk this morning. She was a happy girl. It was sunny, kind of cool but very still and we really enjoyed it.

Then Dick and I went to Mc Donalds for breakfast, to the bank and over to the Pig. I had to go back later to do the majority of the shopping because Dick's knee is really bothering him. He thinks he twisted it.

Then I spent the rest of the morning finishing the article for the Review on the Spring Fling and consolidating most of the leftover items so that Kate, Toni and I can dispense and disburse them when we do a recap on the weekend.

Dick had therapy this afternoon and Jaran had him do a modified version. He did not have to do anything that made the knee feel uncomfortable. So he did mostly balancing and sideways walking.

Tomorrow we get to be home all day. That will be a welcome change after the past couple of weeks.

Today Mother called. She liked the gift bag that I gave her, especially the recipe book. It did turn out nice. With my doing the book and Toni's idea for the cover it really is nice. While I was talking to her I saw the biggest bunny out in our back yard under the lilac bushes which, by the way, are starting to leaf out. Where was he when I was out rabbit hunting. Actually there are a LOT of bunnies around but this one is much bigger than the others.

I was remembering June Bugs today. Don't ask why.

When I owned my little house in Sheboygan Falls, I went down in the basement one day and there was a huge bug down there. It was the kind of bug the kids used to call Helicopter Bugs. They would catch them and put them on strings and fly them around. Anyway, I was not happy to have it in the house so I called Dick who was upstairs, and he came down and carefully took a newspaper and scooped it up ans took it outside to let it go.

The next year another one appeared in the basement so I called Bart, who was home at the time. He came down, took a look at it, shrugged and stomped on it.


Love

Mary

I slept until almost 6:30 this morning. That was pleasant. Chelsea wanted to take a shortcut through the park and I wanted to take a shortcut through the woods because we have not done that for some time. The only trouble is that I have to carry her over the little bridge that goes over the creek. The boards have gaps that are just big enough for her little feet to get caught. I was looking for May flowers. Mother and I were remembering that on the first of May, we used to make baskets and gather May flowers and leave them on peoples front doors. You never hear of that any more. I think there are a few May flowers down at the bottom of my yard next to the wood. I will take one to Mother for confirmation.

Dick got his blood coagulation test this morning and was Right On. It registered at 2.2 which is great.

Then,this noon, I went to the bank, the drug store and to Dairy Queen to have lunch with my friend Beth Hoegger, the choir director at Blessed Trinity Parish. I have told her that as long a she is there I will help her with the Celtic Mass at Blessed Trinity if they have one. We had a productive time and just caught up.

When I got home, I spent the afternoon cleaning and sorting my desk. I also worked on the article for the Review on the Spring Fling. I will finish tomorrow and send it to Kate and Toni for their review before I send it on.

I brought Dick home a cheeseburger and fries for lunch so we had snacky stuff for supper. I had salmon salad and Dick had soup.

Tomorrow we shop and Dick has Physical Therapy but I can spend the rest of the day finishing up things.

Hope you are all doing well. Wasn't it wonderful to see the sun? Not as warm as one would like but at least we had the sun.

Remember that you are special.

Mary

Another busy Monday.

Chelsea and I went for a walk in the rain this morning. She was not bothered but I was not really happy with the rain and somewhat flurries. So we headed back when I figured she was done with her business. It was rather chilly but did clear up during the day.

Went to Bible Study at 9:30AM. I stopped at St. Mary's Cemetery on the way to check Courtney's flowers. The pot was tipped over but the flowers looked great so I just set it up. With that wind I am happy that there was no other damage. The three yellow roses still looked fresh as when I put them there. We had a good crowd at the study. There were 8 of us. We discussed the Ascension which is celebrated next Sunday instead of on Thursday which is really proper. After all it is supposed to by 40 days after the Resurrection. It was cold and damp this morning. Fran Woodke commented that our Joe Reindl was wearing tennis shoes instead of his usual sandals. So we KNOW that it was cold.

Stopped at Mother's next. She WAS going to play canasta with a couple of her friends. However, two of them had sons coming into town or something and had to cancel SO they decided to reschedule the game. Mom thought if it was nice she would go across to Church and join the Senior Saints in their card games. I took her one of the gift bags from the Celtic Spring Fling. I know that she will have fun opening the bag. It is FULL of good STUFF.

Dick had therapy at 12:45PM so we at lunch as soon as I got home and hied our way over there. Time will tell. He did say that when temps start hitting 60 or better he will start going on walks with me.

I spent the afternoon trying to coordinate things from the fling and just cleaning generally. I don't think that I mentioned that when we were lunching at the Madison Avenue Inn in Cascade, I saw a china set (not complete but enough for me. because it is fun.) It is Windsor Ware by Johnson Brothers in England with a lovely rose pattern. It was priced at $20. Probably because it is NOT complete and there are no cups at all. I decided to get it. You will all, if you let me feed you, get to enjoy it. I walked up and told Brenda that I wanted to buy it and she said that "the lady over there bought it for you for an early birthday present." My friend Kate. She is a treasure. It told her that the next time Ron and she were over they would experience it.

At 4PM Celtic Women had a Telephone conference. We covered a lot of ground.

So my day is winding down. Dick and Brenda are taking us out on May 9th to celebrate their Dick's birthday. Bill and Bobbie too. That will be a busy weekend for everybody. We will be so glad to see Dick and Brenda. Sometimes Madison is VERY far away. And they, especially Brenda, are so very busy these days.

On of my Celtic friends gave me a flyer on the 2008 Mother Earth Water Walk which is being done by a Mrs. Josephine Mandamin, an Objibwe Indian who walks the perimeters of the Great Lakes to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our waters for future generations. She will be in Milwaukee Tuesday, May 6. I want to see if she will be stopping in Sheboygan. She does traditional water ceremonies which would be very special.

Mary said to just put her name in. I will let you know what I find out.

Love

Mary

This is the whole group. People from Chicago and Michigan and Wisconsin

Front row. Anne Mc Caffrey, Gail Mc Aleese, Joan Kramer
2nd row. Toni Nevicosi, Linda campana Chris Wolff, Mary Kunert, Sue Crawford
Back Row: Joan Sheehan,Betty Plowers , Rosmary Mugan, Kate Herman, Betty Gavitt, Sheila Isakson, Rosemary Beaumont, Mary Schultz, Janet Bielske, Peg Payne

These are the Sheboygan County Memberw who were able to attend the final luncheon.

Back row. Rosemary Mugan, Toni Nevicosi, Kate Herman, Peg Payne and Janet Bielske
Front row. Joan Kramer and Me


We were so pleased with the turnout and the wonderful comaradarie.

Love

Mary

It was the end of a perfect weekend.

Dick DID forget to turn off his watch alarm so I got up much too early and am quite tired now, but the morning was clear and pleasant for Chelsea and me. She seemed to be a little tired this morning. She sat down at least three times to rest. This IS a bit unusual.

I went to the 10:30AM mass with the Celtic Women. Kate had arranged for the choir to welcome us and they sang the Irish Blessing as a prelude. There were a couple of other Celtic songs too so it was a special mass. To add to the specialness of it - two home schooled children were receiving their First Communion AND Fr. Van Beeck mentioned that the next four weeks are very special feast days. The Milwaukee Archdiocese is celebrating Ascension next Sunday instead of Thursday. The next week is Pentecost followed by Trinity Sunday and ending with the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. Fr. Van Beeck has "declared" a month of "retreat" for St. John the Baptist Church. A time for us to reflect and try to get our spirits in as good an order as our corporal affairs. He says we have IRAs, 401Ks etc. and we need the same for our life hereafter.

After Mass, the Celtic Women met at Antoinettes for a farewell lunch and goodby. It is hard to part but we had SUCH a wonderful weekend that it is easy to move on and feast on the memories. I will send a picture of most of us from our Antoinette's lunch.

Guess that is all. The picture will cap everything off.

Love
|

Mary

It was just about as perfect a day as one could imagine.

Chelsea woke me up too early, but I was already having trouble sleeping so it was not too bad a thing. We had a pretty good walk but I got a good idea of how windy it was going to be on our cemetery tour.

We met at St. Patrick's Church in Adell at a little after 10AM. Beth Dippel from the Sheboygan Historical Research Center and Janet Mersberger, who is on the Committee to Save St. Patrick's met us there and gave us a wonderful history of the church. I will put a couple of pictures on tomorrow and the next few days. We then walked around the cemetery. I was to pleased to point out to Anne Mc Caffrey that there was a Mc Caffrey tombstone in the cemetery. She comes from Ireland and could not believe it. I took pictures of the stones and will send them to her.

Then on to the Madison Avenue Inn in Cascade for a marvelous lunch of chicken salad with hot rolls and fruit. Numm Numm. I told Dick we have to go there sometime because I think he would like it. Maybe we will take Mom.

Our next stop was St. Michaels out at Parnell. Beth gave us a lot of history about the church and those that settled the area. We left feeling we knew many of them personally. She is quite talented.

At that point, we came back to Plymouth to have some tea and cakes and my friend Sylvia Bright Green did some psychic readings for some of the gals. I figure I can have Sylvia read me later. She really did not have a good chance to meet Kate and that was something I really wanted. My two psychic friends to meet.

At some point there, I zipped home to change for the evening with Maya Angelou and then met everybody at Dee O Malley's for dinner. The dinner went well and I wish you all could have been there to hear Maya Angelou speak. We found out that she turned 80 on April 4. She is much taller than I expected. She said she is (or was, we all shrink as we get older) 6 feet tall. She told us stories, all intertwined. The message I took away was that we all have our roots. Our roots are those who made us what we are. We should stop and think sometimes - Will these "roots" look at us and be proud or will they say "Is THIS what we lived and breathed for?"

Then back to the hotel. I had a glass of wine and a couple of crackers with cheese then came home to my love. A glass of Baileys and a cup of decaf are capping off the evening.

Chelsea and Dick are both glad to have me home.

Love

Mary

A treasured day at home. I finished up the last things that I will have time to do before the Celtic Event starts tomorrow and cleaned.

Chelsea and I took a nice long walk this morning. We went around the entire route we have mapped out with no shortcuts at all. My new steps on the slope leading from the railroad tracks work just fine. I feel much more confident now.

I did have to go out this afternoon to pick up some pills for Chelsea. Can't have her running out. She has trouble with that cough sometimes anyway. But there have been no seizures for a long time now. That is encouraging.

The next three days will be full and exciting. I will report.

Love

Mary

A lovely warm day. It went into the 70s today. I got up at 6AM to walk the silly little dog that lives with us. We had a nice walk. She sometimes chooses to vary the route which always amuses me.

Then we went for breakfast to the Wilderness. They are now open for breakfast. The jury is still out on whether we really are happy with it. They are a bit pricier than the Family Restaurant but have the advantage of having a true non smoking section. The food is not quite as good, at least I don't think so but it is OK.

The we went to the bank and the grocery store to get the tickets. Dick was tired so I took him home and headed back to do the grocery shopping. The rest of the day was really full. With a day at home, I did some vacuuming. Then I fixed that slippery incline coming through the woods from the park to our backyard. I dug some steps and put some shale on them to make it easier to traverse. I filled the birdbath and weeded the area around it.

Dick had his physical therapy at 3PM today. On Friday they will reevaluate him to see if there is any improvement.

Today I was thinking of an absolutely beautiful day. Many years ago, I was in real estate, and all of the agents decided to take a day and go to Catalina Island on the ferry. We started at the office with donuts and mimosa (champagne and orange juice) then we carpooled down to take the ferry to the Island. It was a beautiful day. We wandered around the shops and streets of Catalina which is a beautiful tourist spot. Then Cal, one of the other agents, and myself had lunch up on a balcony overlooking the ocean. It was a picture perfect day and I felt so elegant.


Love

Mary

Hello - this was an at home day. Except for a hair cut at 2:30 for me. Then I swung by WalMart and picked up a couple of outside stuff that we needed. A new cover for the grill and a rake.

Today I had nowhere to be and could have slept late. Wouldn't you know that this it the morning that my back starts to ache at about 5:30 so I got up at 6 and Chelsea and I went a-walking. We did the WHOLE route that we have kind of mapped out which gets us really loosened up. Chelsea is like a young pup in the morning. She sure sags the rest of the day but I know she loves those walks.

It rained today. Not too hard but off and on for several hours so things did get a good soaking. We did not get the thunder and lightening that was possible. I am a bit sorry that did not happen as lightening will get the trees excited and cause them to burst into green.

I did a bunch of vacuuming today. Just have the bedroom and office left. I got behind with my tests and all of Dick's appointments.



If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

I have heard this before. It came in an email from a friend today with LOTS of interesting facts. My question is that if this population is walking how are they reproducing?

Have a wonderful Thursday.

Mary

Another beautiful Day. It started out a bit cloudy and when I got up the temperature was 41 degrees. I have made it a rule that if it is below 45 I put on my winter coat. So. Winter coat it was. Chelsea took a short cut through the west side of the park. Then we continued as we usually do to the east side of the park. There - between the soccer nets were 5 HUGE geese just a grumbling away. I decided that it is after all OUR park so Chelsea and I continued on our usual trek around the edges of the park to the path that leads to the back yard of the condo. Two of the geese were very suspicious and started patrolling and kind of making lots of goose noises under their breath. Chelsea never saw them - never heard them so we made our way around the park without any serious altercation at all. BOY are they BIG!

Bible Study at Blessed Trinity this morning. We had a pretty big group and a lively discussion. We are all impressed with the Pope's visit. It think he did a good PR job and addressed many of the problems faced by the church in America. We had another lively discussion on homosexuality and the church's view on that. I am afraid I do not agree with the church's position.

I think you know that I have an oven downstairs. There is a "summer kitchen" down there for those of you who don't know. It is very handy when I cook meals like Thanksgiving or if I want to bake in the summer. But I found that it bakes HOT. So Bobbie lent me her oven thermometer and I find that it cooks about 52 degrees hot on all settings. I called Magic Chef and found that this model does not have anything to adjust the temperature. She said that the sensor might be at fault but agreed that if it is consistently off 52 degrees, I should just be able to work with that and save the repair fee. So I will.

Writer's Club in Plymouth this afternoon. Everybody but Sue was here. She is still working. We celebrated Kate's, Jena's and Lynn's birthdays with cake and presents. Everybody had something to share. AND we gave new words for a challenge for next month. They are: hyacinth, really green, trellis, fishing season, crocus, morning dove, graduation, springtime. Now we have to make a poem using all or most of these words.

Is it morning dove or mourning dove?

Love

Mary

Today was absolutely beautiful. The sun shone, the temperatures were perfect, the birds were singing.

I got up at 6 and walked Chelsea early then went to the 8AM Mass. That will be gone in mid June. I will have to change my Mass time. There will only be ONE Sunday Mass at St. John's and that will be at 10:45AM. So I guess I will have to change and go to Mass on Saturday evening at 4PM or otherwise go to St. Thomas Aquinas in Elkhart Lake or Kohler who will have an early Mass. Ick. When will the church wake up to the fact that they discourage so many vocations by eliminating married priests and women priests. I understand that other religions are also facing some downturn in vocations, BUT they have a bigger pool to pull from.

I picked up Nancy at about quarter to 10 and we went out to shoot. I am having lots of trouble because my arm is so sore. I guess I will have to look for some help as I am unable to heal it.
Wasn't a great score day. But We will be able to finish league. Nancy is doing very well for a beginner, especially when you consider who her teacher is.

This afternoon she and Toni came over at 1:00 and we finished the pretty nametags that we are doing for the fling. Only five more days til the event. I think we are pretty ready. Only time will tell.

Had a nice quiet rest of the day. We had pasties for supper and I tried to burn the house down. I turned on the wrong burner, the one UNDER the pasties instead of under the veggies. Dick said that Bart is right. I am trying to burn us all up.

I had the doors and windows open all afternoon. Good thing after the extra crispy pasties. Most of the smoke smell is gone. And it cooled the house off nicely.

Have a good week.

I love you all

Mary

I like Saturdays. This was very nice one. We did not get the promised rain overnight. Chelsea and I had a very nice walk. It was kind of cloudy but quite pleasant.

Nancy, Toni, Janet and her grand daughter Nichole came over at about10AM and we filled the gift bags and did the lion's share of the work on the name tags. I will have to take pictures of these name and put it on this site. They are worth coming to the Fling for. I fixed some roast beef wraps for lunch. They were pretty good too. We stopped at about 1PM with only a couple of little things left to do. Toni and I are going to put the glitz on the name tags tomorrow. That is the main thing left to do.

It is a lot of fun to do things like that.

Jim and Michelle came over at about 5:00 for dinner and cards. We had the Diane Sawyer Mac and cheese with a nice crisp salad and after a game of hearts and a game of rummy we had strawberries, meringue and whipped cream for dessert.

The most wonderful thing came in the mail today. My poem "The Herald" was accepted for the 2009 Wisconsin Poet's Calendar. I am very excited. This makes the second time that a poem of mine was accepted for a calendar. So I am twice blessed. I will put it on the blog but not until after the calendar comes out because that would not be proper.


I will put another poem I wrote in so you won't feel cheated.

Mary

IMPERIAL DUNES

The dunes drift like snow

(Or does snow drift like sand)

Peaceful and glowing in the moonlight

The sands shift.

And gently ripple

Like fresh snow kissed by a gentle breeze.

Stark endless beauty

We are but a grain of the sand.

We had a relatively quiet day.

Started out with a nice brisk walk, as usual. I hope to get out to terrace the little steep incline in back of the house soon. It is OK now but if we get rain, it will be slippery.

I cleaned the kitchen floor quickly. Last week, I did nothing because of my tests and it was filthy. Then we trucked Dick over to the Plymouth Clinic for his therapy. I think he is doing well. He goes through several different low impact exercises for 30 minutes. I am seeing that he seems steadier at the end than at the beginning. I guess that is good.

When we got home there was a message from Dr. Siddique's office. He had been called into an emergency and it was possible that we would have to cancel. She would call by 12:30 (when we would be leaving) to let us know. SO we proceeded with Dick's shower and washing stockings and all and just as I was dressing the callous on his foot they called and DID cancel. We now have our next appointment on May 2. So have two weeks off. Neither of us were disappointed. We both laid down for naps and I don't know about him but I slept for a hour and a half.

Then I did some other odd chores around here and vacuumed the den downstairs.

Tonight, Nancy Roehre picked me up just before 5 and we went out to shoot league pistol. That was fun. She is a joy and I am so glad that I have someone to shoot with. I do hope that after Bobbie finishes her year off, she will come out to shoot league at Rhine again. She is so good and would be impressed at how good Lil has become. Real competition. It would be such fun to have several of us gals shooting.

We were talking about the "green push" that is going on these days. The "footprint" that we leave behind when we die. She commented that our generation and previous generations were much better at wisely using things. We saved string and glass jars and scraps of fabric. We grew small gardens and preserved our produce for the winters. We still do a lot of that. Kate Herman said that when she lived in Kohler they called her Canning Katie because she canned produce for the winter. AND it was not a compliment. I, and Nancy too, said we are still trying to be frugal and use everything that is possible.

Beth and I were talking on our pre cemetery tour. She mentioned that a man is doing research on the suicide of a young woman who lived with her father and brothers in the late 1800's. I told her that I bet it was the young woman that my Grandpa, John Bowser, told my Mother about. The poor woman, according to Grandpa, lived with her brothers and father after the mother died and was mistreated. She walked down to Long Lake and drowned herself. Grandpa remembered them bringing that poor body up from the lake in a buckboard with her long dark hair streaming down the back. (Such a memory for Grandpa to carry in his heart. Maybe this is why he was so quick to respond when Aunt Gee came to him telling him that she was afraid of her husband some years later.) Anyway, they buried that woman "over the wall" of the church cemetery near Mauthe Lake. Thank God that the "church" got wise to that barbaric custom. Not only did that poor tortured soul get "confined to Hell". (Not really) But the family felt that way too. I loved what my Mother said to the sister of a suicide. "God will be gentle with him when he reaches the gates of heaven.' My wise gentle Mother.

Love

Mary

Dick was delighted. He got to stay home all DAY today.

Chelsea and I had a delightful walk this morning. Sunshine and no wind. We went our entire route. I wonder how long she will be able to keep that up.

Beth Dippel picked me up at 9:30ish and we drove the "Cemetery Tour". We went first to St. Patrick's in Adell. That church is just beautiful. Beth is going to try to get someone to open it up for us on the 26th. It is made of stone that the parishioners hauled up from the lakefront. We believe that it is the original church constructed in 1854. We wandered through the graveyard and I found the gravestone of my Grandpa Mike Deeley's first wife. It is huge and very pretty. He must have loved her very much. She died of Typhoid Fever after attending the County Fair with Sarah Spratt, leaving my grandfather and my Auntie Marge, who was just a baby. Later he married my grandmother Helen Zeigler.

We then proceeded through Cascade to St. Michael's in Parnell. The gravestone of my Great Great Great Grandfather has been restored. That was a thrill to see. I spent a long time interpreting the little poem on the side of the monument. Now is it easy to read.


Next we went on to the Our Lady of the Angels Cemetery in Armstrong. It is so sad to find the church torn down. There is actually no sign of it at all. We wandered around there too. Just to get our bearings. We checked out Johnny Bills giant Celtic Cross up on the hill in the new part of the cemetery. AND this time I found Aunt Mae O Connor.

We got back to the house just before noon. I had time this afternoon to drive over to 52 Stafford and Antoinettes to confirm our meals there.

We had strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight. It was supposed to rain this afternoon but so far nothing. I am just glad that it was so nice when Beth and I were out and about. Pray God that it will be just like that on the 26th.

All my love

Mary

OK I had to do it in two uploads. The previous one is the denim quilt - this is the tree quilt. The back of it is not too wpectacular. It is the front that has color and character.

Have a great Thursday. The weekend is just around the corner.

Love

Mary

Denim Quilt

Denim Quilt Flannel Back

Tree Quilt

Hello again. It was WARM today. The temperature topped at 77 degrees here in PlymouthWI. BUT it was windy. And I mean Windy. When I took Dick to his physical therapy session, we had trouble opening the doors to the car and had just as much trouble walking to the building and back to the car.

It was much less windy when Chelsea and I took our walk. She is like a young puppy when we walk but pays for it the rest of the day.

Dick and I had breakfast at the Wilderness for the first time since they have started serving breakfast since they reopened. It was good but not great. We will go back again.

Then we dropped off his glasses at Advanced Eye Care to have his lenz replaced. I left them there and we picked them up after his PT. It was kind of funny, I called from the clinic to ask if they were ready and she said, "Well, those glasses were picked up earlier." I laughed and said that I wondered who picked them up. She checked again and also laughed and said that they were indeed ready.

I also took the little recipe booklet that we are preparing for Spring Fling over to the printer and got that done. It was also Market Day.

Whew. Does everything have to happen at once?

Take Care. And all my love. I will send the pictures of my last two quilts.

Love

Mary