Can you take another posting?

Last evening a group of us from The Palace attended the weekly Happy Hour event at The Club. The new room was being used for the Spanish fiesta dinner so the HH was held in the "old" barroom and part of the dining room. They offer free appetizers and supposedly half priced drinks but no one ever check to see if that is true or not. The man who attends our water aerobics was there and fell head over heels in love with Ashley Rose. She is in her 20's, and he is near 70 and a married man, so....oh well, he can dream!

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The lady I had met a month ago, Sharon, was at HH, and I was delighted to speak with her again. She is a professional photographer, does weddings, graduations, and the like, and is also music director at OP Methodist. A truly delightful lady! She told me about being on a mission trip to SC with the youth group, where they worked to build a wheelchair ramp for a child who had been injured in a car accident. Sharon was so enthusiastic about their work, even about sleeping on the floor in an old Baptist church and using porto-let showers! She is older but not old, if you know what I mean. Such fun!

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After the appetizer function, none of us had opted to partake of the overly high-priced fiesta, most of us went to sit on the "shelf" at The Palace. Ashley Rose very nicely offered to go to my car and carry my soda cases upstairs for me. I was only going to get one at a time, a "prn basis", but she hauled the whole works up for me. Such service! She then ran upstairs to Ellen's and came down with a blue glass, which I love, and ice cubes for my soda, and Ellen's. It is a cobalt glue stemmed water glass which is often admired by me, so Ellen forced me to take it home. Mo wanted to know where they came from and Ellen confessed that came on room service trays at the Ritz. When asked which Ritz, she shyly, slyly said, "All of them...." So, now I am a receiver of stolen goods and lovin' every minute of it!

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One of our members is a concrete man, no really, flesh and bones, but works in concrete. Rick took care of pouring the approach and porch for the drop-off area for the preschool, this on the west facing side of the building. This photo was taken during VBS last week.

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Late afternoon yesterday I had gotten a phone message from Mike K. to report that our new classroom building at church has passed all its final inspections and is good to go! We are done! It is finished! Bravo! Since I could not reach Mike, I called Cliff, our contractor and fellow member, to rejoice with him as well, and offer congratulations. He, too, was pleased and told me that he had a call in to my former spouse to let him know, since the permit was taken out years ago on his license. This has been a long process and now, Mike wants to get people together chop chop to move the church office and the storage building. Once the temporary trailers are emptied, they can be moved off the property and we no longer have to pay for their rent!!!! A huge cost on a monthly basis eliminated. Mike is wondering if the phones are also ready to be moved, because it won't pay to move everything over if the phones and such are not working. Word on that is pending but he asked me to be ready to make calls and contacts to get people there to help with the move. Might be kinda tight to arrange on short notice.......BUT, we are done!!!! Rejoice!

I so prefer waking under my own power

Tuesday morning I was awakened abruptly by something not explained, but I will guess the painters or other workman made a big noise that disturbed my early morning sleep. All day I was out of whack, yawning during water aerobics even though I had tried going to back to bed to try to rest my eyes before going down. Today I was awake before 7:00 a.m., under my own power and my own idea to get up. That feels much much better than waking up with a jerk............

Here is a continuation of Wednesday's pressure washing team outside my patio doors on the third floor of my building, as taken from my river room. You can see how the apparatus is right against the tree. That reminds me, Judy R., remember when that raccoon was in the tree, the night we watched the space shuttle go up, with Chrissy and the scrapbooking ladies????

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Sunday afternoon and evening was spent poolside with Miss Chardonay who very excitedly reported showing property that afternoon to a friend of mine from church. I had spoken with this lady friend before she left and had not told me she was going to see a townhouse, but she was caught up in dismay about the new liturgy (didn't like it!) and the organ being too loud (no, it wasn't!). I had said, "Oh, I think you are having a bad day", so which she agreed and then left. So when Pat told me they looked at a condo, I was so surprised. The two ladies got into a spat about which of them was my best friend, and I am happy they did not ask me to settle it!

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As Pat and I wiled away the time poolside, Ellen and her daughter, Ashley Rose, came along with the dogs and sat with us. All three pets were on leashes and are smaller dogs so it was not an egregious violation of the rules. We sat and talked for a while when Ellen reported the advice from our downstairs neighbor that perhaps to help Ellen move on, she should move...WHAT? That is out of the question! Well, what Mo meant was to another unit in the building and I said, "Okay!" Pat, as a Realtor, was able to show the available units to give an idea of the other sizes and shapes, since they are all different. What fun! I saw one upstairs that was totally gutted and rebuilt with all sort of upgrades and such, and barely used after the renovation. It was someone's second home and they seldom came to use it. It was gorgeous!!!! We saw some lovely homes, floor plans, and great ideas. Even saw my upstairs' neighbors furnished and occupied home, which is equally gorgeous. The key thing is that all those other units were empty, making them all the more appealing than one crowded full of collections and "whimsy", as Ashley Rose describes her mom's home!

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We went to Pat's and enjoyed some time on her patio, with the nice summer breeze moving through her porch. Hers goes the length of the unit which is terrific. I can look down into patio/porch from my river room. After enjoying some refreshments there, we all moved up here to my house, since Ashley Rose had never been here. Ellen wanted her to see my colored glass and my whimsy pieces, which are nothing compared to hers. Normally I do not add my room to the tour because of the condition of my desk, but made an exception for these two ladies.

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As I was showing Ellen the needlework piece Lisa made for me, Ashley Rose was sniffling.....she caught sight of the long piece above my door to the river room with Timmy's hug in it. He had laid down and the teacher traced his arms outstretched. On it the teacher wrote: "Here's a hug from me to you. Wrap it around you when you feel blue. Love, Timmy", with the 'Timmy' being in his own penmanship. She just lost it. I told her that I loved that she loved it, and she came back with "I love that you have that!". I then showed them the photocopied version of the original hug which ReddiArts did, laminated, so I can actually wear it as a wrap whenever I want. Pass the Kleenex, please.

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By the way, Ashley Rose approved of my whimsy because it was organized whimsy, so I got a pass!