A new picture

After bath time, Gabe is hanging out with his baby brother, Angelo. Lisa titled this "He just loves his baby brother!" It's written all over his face, too!

It looks spooky out there….

…..with areas of the river obscured by what seem to be very low clouds. It is likely fog but since it is not evenly dispersed, the effect is somewhat eerie. A few minutes ago there was thunder and some lightning but not enough to coax me off my big ‘gas powered’ computer. In the morning hours the rain just pounded against the windows but it was brief, now much lighter showers which are preventing me from going to my car for a 12-pack of soda from the car. Fortunately I have a ‘stand-by’ 2-liter bottle of Pepsi here to hold me over. And I had some water already today—yay for me!

Much of the day I have been chuckling while also furrowing my brow in regard to this evening’s State of the Union Show, oops, I meant, Speech. Folks all over the media, not only on the networks I listen to and follow, are referring to the event as being ‘prom-like’, since it has been proposed to have the various congress-people intermingle in the House. The elected folks are hustling to find ‘dates’, yes, they are referring to each other as being dates, to sit next to during the speech. We shall see how this all plays out, making a joke out of this whole thing. Trying to put a wedge between the Conservatives and the Progressives by having them sit together. Clever! There has also been discussion as to whether or not certain of the Supreme Court will be there, it is their option, as they are not ‘allowed’ to participate other than to hear the report. PresBO sort of went after them last year following their handling of a case before them which he was not supporting.

I am quite proud of myself right now, I hope it lasts. A few months ago, when I had the water heater replaced, one of my new faucets in the back bathroom, the origin of the flooding, did not work. Well, the same plumber who installed the water heater came to check the faucet and ended up having to scrape and dig in the spout as there seemed to be an obstruction lodged there. It must have broken loose when the water off and then turned back on. Brian had to wiggle the faucets under the sink, which really freaked me out as I was concerned about the pipes breaking or something. Finally he got the water to flow through the spout and all was well. At least, I thought so….some time later I went in there to check on things and found that the hot side of the faucet did not work, no water came out. I felt that if I ignored it, eventually water would work, but it had not. I got my courage up today to go back there, turned the faucet to ON, and turned the little faucet under the sink. Ta-da, hot water flowed into the sink! This whole business has really turned me into a big, fat chicken in regard to water and its plumbing.

Rosalie gave me a call from the road today as Hal and she make their way our direction. They are heading first to Melbourne and will be here for church and Bible study Sunday, and the afternoon of visitors. I hope some people come. Charlie and LaMora are supposedly going to come which Hal will enjoy, as will I. I have made some phone calls to those no longer at GS and hope they get the message and call me back. When I let Joe Z. know they were coming, he got quite excited and hopefully someone from the family will see to it that he gets here. If not, well, he can greet them at church. I am a bit concerned there won’t be enough time at church, since there is a kid’s game function taking place right after the Fellowship Sunday event. Whew, what a full, fun day that will be!

Now more thunder, heavy rains and even a tornado watch for my part of the world, and south of Clay. If this keeps up, I might reconsider my trip across the river and across town to play Trivia tonight. Rats! That is something I truly do enjoy but it would be foolish for me to venture out when I do not necessarily need to. The lightning is back again, too, so I might want to finish this up quickly to shut off the big computer. 

Right now I cannot stand the smell of my bathroom, and not because of anything it would be rude to discuss. Instead, I sprayed some foaming cleaner in the shower stall and am letting it do its thing. At first the smell is not offensive but now has reached the point where it brings back bad memories for me, which I cannot put my finger on. I am thinking Justin and I might have used this product in cleaning his bathroom at the lake house, which truly WAS a bad memory!!!! Oh, the battle of wills that took place in those days, trying to get him to take care of his room and bathroom!!!!

Thursday is my mom’s birthday and in thinking about the lake house, I am reminded of the time one of my sisters had flowers delivered to Mom at my house, for her birthday. This was when Mom still wintered with me, and I had a cat named Boots. As she sat at the dinette table working on her cross-word puzzles, Boots would pester her. The day the flowers arrived, she placed them in the center of the table for all to enjoy. Boots absolutely claimed those flowers for himself, wrapping his very robust body around the vase, as though to keep Mom away from them. It was so comical to watch!! 

Several years ago, shall I say many years ago?, Mom made a small pillow cover for a crocheted pillow we had at our house, blue with pink elephants on the fabric. Justin was quite a fan of “epheloes”, or as we know them, elephants, so his doting grandmother fixed him up with this special pillow for his stuffed animals, I believe. Whatever happened to that pillow and its cover, I cannot recall, but a few years ago, Lynn gave me a special pillow dedicated to sisters, about the same size as the other pillow. Well, I use that pillow every single day, and think of Lynn every single day as I prop my head on it in bed. Due its repeated use and consequent launderings, the pillow is getting holy, not in a good way holy. There are lateral tears in the fabric on the non-embroidered side, in more than one area, and stitching would not prevent further tearing as the fabric is weakened there. IF I knew where that pink and blue elephant pillow cover was, I could press it into service on this pillow and thus, prevent my head from going between the iron uprights on the headboard. I am not about to go tearing into those plastic bins again so will have to tolerate a less than attractive but holy pillow!