As I was readying myself for attending the visitation and committal service for Jane this a.m., I came upon my little goody bag from the dental visit last week. There seemed to be more in the bag than only floss and tooth paste, so when looking inside, I discovered the little surprise from Peggy, my dentist and friend. She had given me a pack of cocktail napkins that state: "When in doubt, wear red! Bill Blass". She said she had seen them a while ago and picked them up for me, so at my appointment, I finally got them. What a thoughtful gift, love it that she thought of me when she saw them, and then followed through to buy them! Now I should be more faithful with my flossing to show my gratitude, making the dental work so much easier! She attended the homecoming event for the young man in Mandarin, wounded in Afghanistan, who lost both legs and half an arm. I regret now not going because I know it would have been amazing to show this young man, home to celebrate his 21st birthday, my thanks for his service. It's those little things that matter, right? I must go now because I am meeting Ethel at the Winn-Dixie and then taking her with me to the funeral home in Green Cove Springs.
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There is a lovely woman at the pool almost every weekend whom I recently learned is named Renee who always asks me how many Diet Cokes I am drinking these days. The first time this season that she asked me, I wondered if my mom had put her up to that question but it seems that last year we had had a discussion about being hooked on Diet Coke, and I forgot about it. She said she drinks two 20 oz. bottles a day, which seems to be a reduced amount from this time last year. Hmmm....that is worthwhile goal to attain. Darn this mind over matter thing!!! On a similar note, I have purchased a Mr. Tea and some wonderful smelling Lipton Green Tea to make, but have not yet opened the box.
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Running the household appliances, including the room deodorants plugged in the walls counts as doing housework, in my book. Add to that, bagging up the garbage from the rooms and taking it to the trash bin downstairs counts as cleaning. It certainly does feel that way, to have freshly lined baskets at every turn is quite satisfying! Changing the ink cartridges in my printer makes me feel like my work will go smoother, too. How goofy is that? There is something about a clean slate that appeals to me! Last night I took the last of my nighties from the drawer which means there are about a dozen of them piled in the wash baskets or still in the dryer, waiting to be shoved into the dresser. I shall count the empty drawer as being cleaned!
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Mom mentioned to me in an e-mail and on the phone how busy the good daughters were this past weekend with working on projects around Mom's house. They re-arranged furniture to allow for better viewing of her TV, plus moving some of the wall art from wall to wall. Mom had great fun shopping for different home decor items to use for filling in blank spots, and was amazed at all the pieces offered. Decisions, decisions! Kerry and Jill got busy on hands and knees scrubbing Mom's huge kitchen floor, actually a small kitchen floor, turning the water in the pail from sudsy to black. Mom was shocked to see how dirty the floor was even after having it recently washed by Alayna, with the Swiffer. My take on it is that the vinyl might be wearing out on the surface and holding dirt more readily than it did when new. Lynn took the sheets and such from Mom's bed home with her to launder and then hang on the wash line to dry in the sunshine and breezes. Floors vacuumed, sheets freshened, kitchen sparkling, things dusted, and walls decorated. BUT, did they plug in air fresheners and reline the wastebaskets??? The good news is that Kerry just loves to do this type of thing and she will have a wonderful time when she is here visiting me!
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I wish I had a daughter, at least for a little while. Alayna is getting ready for her first year of college and reported via Facebook buying such cute things for her dorm room. When I was at Wal*Mart the other day, the immediate entrance to the store was lined on both sides with school items, including colorful lamps for desks, clocks to match, throw rugs, decorator pillows, flashy bedspreads, desk mats in all the 60's colors. Oh man! I would have had WAY too much fun shopping for a daughter going to live in a dormitory. Lori, whose son, Dusty, is attending the same college where Alayna is going, reported that all Dusty was concerned with was electronics and all associated with them. Wires, cords, and pluggy-ins, his word for outlets. So, for a little while, Lori and I both wished we had girls to shop for and with, decorating a dorm room. My thought is that the rooms would look amazing for a few days and then----chaos!
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I think I am in heaven, or very close to it. Well, not really, but having my doors opened for the breezes allows for the sound of my downstairs neighbor's voice to waft this way. She is a student of voice as well as piano and cello, looking for a graduate school, but living at home in the meanwhile. She gives me the chills, and I wish I could hear even better than I do. Cassidy is singing an aria but I cannot make it out. Once I did recognize a familiar song, "La Wally", which Sarah Brightman sings on one of her CDs, but I don't think that is what she is practicing today. What could be more lovely than having breezes from the river and the music moving through my rooms?
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Having more than one funeral in a week might be common up north but is extremely rare here at Good Shepherd. Today was the visitation and committal for Jane Brown, with her memorial service being tomorrow at the church, with a luncheon afterward. This means I will not be attending the water aerobics this week at all, since Thursday is Bible study at Victory. Justin will be gone to DC already, he hopes, so will not be at class. The service for Mary Chancy is on Saturday late afternoon, with a luncheon, or lite supper, following. As I mentioned to Ethel, that will trample a bit on my cabana time, ahem, ahem.....Like a good mom would, she scolded me for that, saying I can make an exception. Of course I can and will, I was only poking her with a stick to see if she would nip! Hopefully having Mary's service on a Saturday will make it easier for the musicians to be there to play the hymns and liturgy so we don't have 'problems' like we did for Jane's. Rachel from Victory is coming over to play the piano for us tomorrow and Suzanne will play her viola. It meant a lot to Kristi to NOT have MIDI music and it looks like that finally is going to work out. Oh, for the gift of decision making!!!!
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In working on the newsletter for the coming month, on which I am lagging behind, I got a response to my looking for info about the Pioneer program for the fall. Oh, oh! The lady who basically runs the Pioneers and other kids programs has decided to take a break and try to regroup, saying her brain is fried right about now. Oh my goodness, it's spreading!!!! She said she was not sure who was going to take over these programs (gulp!) so I will have to leave that section blank for now. People are dropping like flies, in more ways than one, it seems. The teams doing the yard work were getting exhausted from mowing the lawn and doing the blowing and edging, etc., so they chipped together to hire a landscaper to do it for us. Good thing we did not use our fund raised money to buy that riding mower! The one donated by the Browns is now sitting idle in the garage. I have no problem at all with them hiring it out, and in fact, I had tried to hire the landscaper from our congregation to do the yard on my behalf one week a month, but he was too busy to take it on. My check is in the mail to pitch in for the lawn care because it matters a great deal to me how the property looks. They have the same problem with getting folks to come clean and do the yard work at Victory so it's no different there than here. It is a lot of work, especially with such large properties to maintain, with only a few willing and able folks. The amount of effort I can exert is writing the check to pay my share of the burden for the landscaper!
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My upstairs neighbors have listed their condo for sale again, saying they would like a house and a yard for their son to play in when he's old enough. In my opinion, there is plenty of time before Beckham is able to play outside but it's their decision to make. I sort of hate the thought of not having them here, more than sort of, strongly hate the thought of them moving away. With Jessica staying home with the baby, we see each other more and get to do some hanging out. As she says, we can still visit each other and all that, but I suspect that would fade after a while, too. At the pool the other day, one of my lower floor neighbors was walking in the pool, working off an injury to her back. She was telling some other Club members about how she is not fond of her neighbors and so on, while I was telling other folks how much I like my neighbors, that they would do anything for anybody, etc. I guess it has much to do with attitude and behavior. Saturday, I was at first pinned down in my house during the huge rain/thunder storm, then managed to sneak over to The Club by car. I was telling one of the guys, Jim, about feeling apprehensive during the storm and he assured me that if I ever ever need anything, I should just call him. Gus was nearby and he said, "You can call either me or Jim...." This was not news to me, but it sure was wonderful knowing I have these folks around me, offering to hold my hand when the storm prevents me attending Club functions!!!!
