"May your walls know joy..."

Only a few moments ago I got home from having dinner with the Ladies' Group gang at "Up The Creek" in Oakleaf Plantation. Oh, yum! We ended up having ten ladies as our number grew from the original six or so who signed up. At first I was going to order the prime rib but I also wanted to have some fried dill pickles so instead I ordered the appetizer sampler. This way I got some of each of the appetizers which included fried shrimp, fried green tomatoes, and hush puppies. I sent those along with Suzanne in a to-go box along with the other stuff I couldn't finish such as chicken fingers, the balance of the pickles and some onion rings. I don't know what I was thinking and I did not know how large it was going to be. Yikes!! We had a great time and Suzanne will eat for two days on my leftovers. It was a pretty heavy load she carried out of there.

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Terri and her step-daughter, Lindsey, came along tonight, my second meal of the day with Terri. This a.m. she had to come to my neighborhood for an MRI and since she saw I was on Facebook already, sent a text asking me to meet for breakfast afterward. Sure!!! I got up and dressed, waiting for her summons when she was done. We met at Grumpy's, our usual Saturday place, and enjoyed a lovely breakfast and chat. She still had to go to work, but has some flexibility in her schedule. We knew we would see each other later in the day, which is so funny to us! Twice in one day does not happen very often and I am tickled that she thought of me.

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Wow, last night we had another window rattler of a storm roll through here. Areas of Jacksonville had street flooding where cars had to be towed away after they stalled in deep water. We had over 2" of rain in a short period of time, and here along the river, we had VERY high winds. It was so windy, I was afraid the screens were going to blow off----or have something blow through my windows!!! The weather station did not indicate high winds but only mentioned the flooding potential so I do not know what the speeds were, but I am guessing the gusts were more than 30 mph.

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Ellen, Maggie, and I came upstairs when the thunder became insistent, leaving our inebriated friends at the table poolside, to fend for themselves. Yikes! These two women frequent the pool area weekly with the same results, and this time they picked us to hang out with. One of the women is a very attractive person who simply cannot hold her liquor, and fortunately lives only steps away from the cabana, not in our building. She introduced herself to me yet again yesterday, as she forgets, I guess. It is more sad than funny, more tragic than anything else. As the three of us stood in the lobby waiting for the elevator to come, we exchanged looks and Maggie, age 27, spoke for us, "....and that is why I do not drink too much...." My single strawberry margarita and Ellen's pineapple juice with rum was so insignificant compared to the tequila shots with beer the young ladies were consuming. They were 20 years older than Maggie and not that much younger than Ellen or me....As Ellen said, "Too bad it didn't start storming about 30 minutes earlier" so we could have avoided their company!

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When I got to my door, I noticed something hanging on the knob. Ellen had come by earlier on her way out to the pool to pick up her pool noodles which were on my stove. It seems she had brought me a little gift, which she had personalized for me. The front of the ornament reads: "May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibilities." That alone was a tremendous gift to receive, but on the back she had written this message: "Thank you for the sunshine that you bring into our lives! With love, Ellen" I got this as we were seeking shelter from the storm so I felt like I should give it back to her, as I dropped the ball on the sunshine thing, it seemed....