Happy and sad, at the same time

Lisa, my niece, sent me a message via Facebook yesterday reporting that Gabe's "Memory Treasure" this week is to learn the hymn, "Jerusalem, the Golden". I am not sure how many stanzas he will memorize or what is required, after all, he is only 7 years old. Lisa said that when Mrs. Unke handed her the assignment, Lisa got 'water eyes', a Justinism for teary-eyed. Oh, yes, those lovely pictures of heaven awaiting us. Ever since then I have had an earworm of that hymn, not a bad thing to have, let me tell you. Last week, she reported, the kids learned "Great God What Do I See and Hear?", and the teacher uses games and such 'tools' to help the kids memorize it. In my comments to Lisa, I told her the students are learning good, solid hymns which will sustain them all their lives, especially when other words fail them. I am just so happy her boys are getting such an excellent education!

How is everyone else doing with the time change? Last night I fought like nuts to not get ready for bed at 7:30 when it was so very dark and today it looked like noon at 7:30 in the morning! The temperatures overnight were at 41 degrees but the sun is warming things right along with the expected high to be 73 when all is said and done. I am so looking forward to having lunch with Betty and Robin at Koko’s, not only for their company but for the great rice. Afterward, of course, I am visiting my lady friends at Great Hang Ups and then stopping at Publix for something, which I cannot remember right now. It will come to me----oh, yes, laundry soap! I love so much the scent of their generic brand of soap and am quite glad the Wal*Mart store brand soap is nearly used up. Justin could have just used it for pressure washing and been done with it, that’s how foul I found it to be. Using the Publix Fresh Scent has my clothes smelling nearly as nice as Lynn’s dried on-the-lines laundry.

One consequence of dropping some of my extra-curricular activities is that it has allowed me more free evenings which is not usually a bad thing, but on Monday nights, it seems to be. In the future, I should save ‘watching’ my radio program to Monday nights since there is little on TV I care to watch. Thankfully I have a vast collection of DVDs to pull me from the depths and last night I amused myself with “Frasier” episodes. Oh, my goodness, I was soooo wishing my sister, Lori, was here to watch with me, and sent her a message telling her this. She wished she was here, too! The one that really tore me up was when Woody, from Cheers, went to visit Seattle, still dumb as a rock. At one point Frasier invited Niles to enjoy some pizza and beer with Woody and him. Niles said he would be delighted to enjoy beer and pizza with ‘these rapscallions’, and Woody, in true form, asked, “Can we order that half rapscallions and half pepperoni?” Just like in the old days, my legs flew up in the air in my laughter, and I remembered scaring the daylights out of Lynx, the cat!!!

Late last week I made the decision to stop waiting around for decisions to be made and sent Mike an e-mail letting him know we are going ahead with the repairs. I feel if we take lots of pictures of the walls--before, during and after—we should be fine with the insurance people. They, then, can finish my floor installation and all my bins can be put away and the rooms made to look nice again. This week I am having some ladies come for “Dinner and a Movie”, now that the cabana is closed (excuse me, I need a moment here to regroup….okay, I’m good) and I hate having the bins and such spread into my family room and foyer. They are better placed there than to have the guys moving them around, because they have more than enough to keep them busy back in those rooms! It would be a safe estimate to say there are less than 50 bins between the two rooms right now…

This reminds me that I must buy a closet light fixture to replace the blinking, sizzling-sounding one in the Timmy closet. The paint is purchased but yet in my car and I can carry them up one at a time so they are ready for Mike to apply to the ceiling and walls. I have a gorgeous pendant light in the cabinet but would certainly not present well in the seldom-opened closet. Sure wish I had good place to hang that light because it is so me...

Dee and Julia sort of talked me out of selling my house now, telling me it would not be wise to make such a decision because of the trauma of The Great Flood. Of course, others have said the same thing, but then some others were concerned about my peace of mind and stressed spirit. The depressed market would not allow me to make any money on the sale right now, or perhaps ever, I am aware of that, but now is certainly the time to buy. There are more assessments coming down the line for the condo building, not the least of which is for the forensic plumber and his findings, the repairs that need to be made so this never (or likely would not) happen again. It is a tough decision to make, and especially if the health care bill is not recalled, in a few years I would face paying sales tax besides the other closing costs. Ugh! So, now versus later……….hmmmm………On days when no disasters occur, I sure love living here. But on days when disasters occur, I am so out of here!