Where is the time going?

Saturday went by so quickly and yet, not so fast. Hmmm.....Might be because the ladies had bad night's sleep due in part to their sunburns and not being able to get comfortable . Linda's case is worse than Lynn's and had lathered themselves with aloe lotion to ease the heat. But what fun we had!

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Lynn reminded me that we were having breakfast at Grumpy's that morning so we got ready quickly to head over there. She treated us, with Lynn and Linda having apple pancakes, and me, my usual of a fried egg with rye toast and crispy bacon. I did not care for my toast somehow but the bacon and egg were good. Kathy B. and Brian came in and met her daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and Kevin. Kathy and Brian were not at the dinner on Friday night even though they signed up but I did not inquire as to why. She did remark about my interesting highlights in my hair, some put there by the sun and some by old age. It will be weird when I return to using the silver remover when summer is over to see if folks notice that!

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As we drove to church to set up for Holy Communion, I assured the ladies that the kitchen would be cleaned up from the dinner but as we walked into the Fellowship Hall, there was Judy C. doing the wet mopping! I told her we would wait and I would do the church stuff setting up first and in the meantime, she put the communion-ware into the Fellowship Hall for us. Lynn helped me get things ready and we enjoyed chatting with Judy while doing so. That Mystery Dinner was an absolute hoot and Linda is planning to take the idea home with her to use at First German for a fund raiser or just plain fun, like this one was! Jim B. sitting there with that giant ham bone on his plate was hysterical!

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Once that opportunity to serve was completed, we went to Chamblain's Book Mine near Roosevelt Mall to check it out. Mary Lew, my muse from water aerobics, had told me all about it and since my two guests are such readers, well.....WOW, what a place! If there is one book, there had to be 100,000, even display on ledges over door ways! Early on in our visit, I had found a book of the history of the Jacksonville fire which was in 1901 but once I figured out the pricing, it was not such a deal after all, still $40. It would have been great to page through and look at the photographs of what once was, and then pass it along to Brenda N., a Jax native who soaks up the history. She suggested recently that the two of us visit the 18 churches written about in the book, Saints Dunstan and John. It is a great idea, of course, but I wonder if I could pin her down for the entire day!

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Only Linda bought a book and then we went to Steinmart. We all found something there to buy, with me finding this great purple/gold/ruby Aztec print jacket, lightweight fabric for winter. Here the ladies have ruby sunburns and are looking at winter clothing! I also picked up a box of CHRISTmas cards already, half-price, and absolutely lovely. Why not? It is time to make decisions regarding our Ladies' Advent Service while the temperatures are still in the high 80's!

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When we arrived back home, Linda in quite a lot of misery from her sunburn and from walking, we changed clothes and went to the pool. When asked if they preferred staying in, Lynn declared, "I did not come to Florida to sit in the house!" so good, off we went. Linda took her book and remained in the shade while Lynn cooled her burn in the cooler waters of the pool water. More folks were out there than I expected and we had great visits with other bathers. Our lunch was enjoyable from the cabana and before 4:00 pm, we were back upstairs! We found the Badger game to watch at first and then turned on something else to entertain. For dinner I reheated our leftovers from Thursday's feast, which amused my neighbors who were at the pool. When they asked where we were going for dinner, I told them we were eating in and they laughingly asked, "Are you using your kitchen????" Leftovers, hello?

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For our evening entertainment we watched "The Lake House" which made us cry, I had forgotten the twists and turns of the movie and then I went to bed. I had had a good night's sleep but was weary nonetheless. I pray the ladies do too so we are fresh for church and Clark's afterward!

My company is here

Lynn and I are enjoying an adult beverage at the Bahama Breeze on Thursday at lunch. Lynn's was margarita take-off and mine a strawberry mojito, almost like a salad in the glass!

Linda and I posed with our adult beverages at Bahama Breeze before our meals were delivered.

Somehow or another I neglected to post on Thursday, possibly because we were so incredibly busy around here! Lynn and Linda arrived safely but later than I expected since their itinerary changed. Man, it was great to see them waiting at baggage claim!!! When we got home, we talked a little while before everyone set off for their rooms, since we were all a bit tired. Linda hoped to be up early enough to watch the sunrise but she overslept and missed it.

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Thursday morning we went to Bible study at Victory with Justin and then had lunch at Bahama Breeze. Oh, how I loved my lunch of braised beef with yellow rice. It is my new favorite meal at BB! From BB we stopped at Publix so Linda could buy what she needed for her mac 'n cheese and then headed home to start cooking. Lynn mixed up her key lime pie to put in the freezer before we went down to the pool. Linda's and my contributions could wait until later to be put together. And off we went to splash around for a bit.

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We had a scant seven people for the dinner for various reasons, not the least of which was the church dinner Friday night. Regardless of how many ladies we had, the food was amazing, Paula Deen recipes, and much much laughter. Even a few tears..but more laughter. Judy J. made us a lush dessert with cream puffs, ice cream and Saunders chocolate sauce over the top, which went nicely with Lynn's more tart pie. Talk about refreshing!

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Friday morning the ladies were up in time to see the sun rise and have some morning coffee before we headed to The Club to eat breakfast. I had French toast and the two ladies had omelets and potatoes. From there we went to the Island to get a pedicure for Lynn and me, Linda abstained. Our next stop was Great Hang Ups where Dee showed Lynn and Linda my water color vignettes, as yet unframed. While we were there, another lady came in for her photographs which Dee had reworked for the client's mom's 90th birthday. Peggy was so delighted with each board of photos, and there were tears all around. Poor Linda could not even see for awhile, until Dee went to get tissues. Each board of history was more lovely than the next and so perfectly captured the story of the client's mom. Fantastic, but we needed rehydration which we got in the form of pina coladas at the pool. Now my lady friends/sisters are red over pasty white from too much sun in the pool, and at the pool. Maggie and Ellen came out a bit later which was great fun, as Maggie discussed recipes with Lynn and Linda. She loves to cook as does Linda. We made some friends with visiting folks from Detroit (talk about pasty white!!!!) who were here for a wedding being held tonight. Who has more fun than us!!??!!

Biding my time....

.....until I leave for the airport to get my guests. Linda first text messaged me and then called to report their arrival in Chicago. At my urging they were going to get something to eat as it will be late when their plane lands in JAX with not many options on the path from the airport. Linda said she does not like to eat so soon before going to bed so I hope they get enough supper to tide them over until morning!

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My kitchen is laid out with breakfast-type foods at the ready, the coffee maker cleaned and prepared to brew some coffee in the morning, plus the mixer and equipment for Lynn to make her pies when she gets up. Her key lime pies need to be frozen so must get them ready before we leave for Bible study. I have no worries that Linda and she will be early risers regardless of being on vacation. Which is why I have everything ready to go! Linda is pretty comfortable making herself at home and I am sure Lynn will as well.

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The Palace cats are meowing something fierce downstairs and sounds really loud up here. The remodeling noise has subsided for the day, replaced by the sound of the fountain and the cats. Yesterday, I mentioned Jeff apologizing for the dust which prompted me to grab the Pledge today to wipe some of the surfaces before the ladies arrive. Justin did the chandelier for me Tuesday. Fewer ladies than usual are coming to the dinner tomorrow night, due in part to us having a dinner at church the next night. No worries, we will have a great time with whomever is here, and have more for us! Good thing I reminded Martie because she totally forgot about it.

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Today I picked up my Smithfield spiral ham which is touted by Paula Deen (my end-around to get out of cooking!). As I told Jessica earlier, I feel like a darn fool in the grocery store, this time Wal*Mart, because I don't know where anything is anymore. I had to ask a man if they had hams, which he showed me. And then I had to ask another man where the Half 'n Half and heavy cream were located, and he took me there. A lady in the produce department told me to look in the juice aisle for key lime juice but there was none. Eventually I got the right juice at Publix, which is where I should have started anyway! The reason I went to Wal*Mart first was to get some movies, managing to find one I was looking for, "Letters to Juliette" which just came out of DVD and "Amazing Grace", but struck out there. In the $5 bin I found "The Lake House" with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. It is such a great movie, involves a bit of time travel and a story about architecture, and a house on a lake! Go figure! Perhaps Blockbuster will have Amazing Grace for us to watch.

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One cannot watch movies without popcorn so I bought some Orville's to make, the teeny packages plus some pretzel crackers. Justin carried up some of the bags from my car this late afternoon when he was done working, and was rewarded with a jug of laundry soap. The 24-pack of Diet Coke was so heavy for me to carry up so he did that for me, plus the 24 pack of toilet paper (garbage in, garbage out!), and my laundry soap. Want to make sure that the ladies have plenty of soap if they need to do a wash, as George Castanza would say.

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Earlier this evening, I heard Travis calling my name. I had my doors open so he could just holler through the screen at me. He had brought me a glass that I had sent tea home with Jessica and I gave him back the bowl from the chicken soup. Later, I was emptying the dishwasher as my microwave was cooking my supper and Jessica came by. She was carrying the baby's bathtub to her car for the long weekend trip she is taking with her mom. I told her about Lynn making the pies tomorrow and she went upstairs to get me a zester for the lime. I don't have one for some reason.....Jessica came into my river room and saw my artwork and said, "Wow, Kim, I didn't know you did anything!" She sure didn't mean it the way it came out. She is also interested in scrapbooking so when summer is over, we are going to get busy working on her baby book and finish my Alaska pictures!

Getting things ready for my company

Boy, is it ever busy around here! And that is not me being busy....there are workers on the patio just below mine installing new ceramic tile and the saws are making quite the racket. I imagine that little Beckham is not at home today as the noise might affect his napping. My poor kids had to put up with telephones ringing, and being loaded and unloaded from the car to run to the Court House for building permits, etc. Or spent time on job sites where it was noisy and a tad bit dangerous. Beckham would not last very long at all hangin' with Miss Kim! A few hours ago, when I was coming back upstairs from the mailbox, I saw Jeff outside his unit. I asked him if he was out riding his bicycle and he said he was trying to clean up from all the work going on inside his house. He apologized to me for the dust and I said, "There's dust?" I really had not noticed and it was too late now, since my doors had been opened all day!

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Justin came over after work and got a few things ready for the ladies. He arrived as I was talking on the phone to Butch, the handyman, whom Justin often thinks is Connie. Ooops! I am not sure he's met Butch when he's been here doing work for me. A couple weeks ago I had spoken to Butch downstairs, as he was doing work for someone else in the building, and asked him to change another valve in my secondary bathroom vanity. His schedule was full at the time and told me it would be sometime in September before he could get to it.Well, that's now! I had gone into the bathroom to check on the towel situation and make sure all was good for whomever uses that bathroom, and discovered the towels were soaking wet. Yikes!!!! Sure enough, the valve I asked Butch to replace was dripping, and the floor of the vanity was sagging. Guess I will be replacing yet another bathroom vanity, not grudgingly, because it holds a dated sink style and faucet set. It will be my last updating of bathrooms, I think, as the other guest bath was redone last year. Lowe's sells the vanity and sink combo sets and I think the faucets might come with it. I cannot recall if I got them separately or not. I just have to pay for it and Butch will pick it up on his way to my house. He also has to saw a hole in the other bathroom's vanity floor to accommodate the shut off valve as he did not do that when he installed it. Found that out the day I had the leak from Jessica's ice machine a few months' back.

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Justin helped me figure out something on my computer which I had accidentally 'moved' from where I wanted it. The fix was simple and I did it fine once he told me what to do, a cut/paste situation. He was not able to help me change the color of my text in this blog though so you all might have to get used to the blue that shows up. Since Saturday, I have been unable to coax the program into doing what I ask of it. Even the helpline was no good to me. Justin also helped me get the guest bed set up and dressed, pushed the boxes and such to the side to make the room look more presentable. Hopefully my guest will only spend a few hours of sleeping in there and it won't give them bad dreams. Justin also dusted the chandelier so it looks nice for the dinner on Thursday night. Whoo hoo!

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Justin and I went to La Nopalera for dinner tonight and had a dilly of a time finding places to park. The parking lot was absolutely packed, with cars making spots where there were none. Around and around we went, waiting for people to leave and then, just as we had decided to go to the store on Hwy. 220, a couple places opened. The seating was immediate which is odd for the full parking lot, but Justin thought that most of the people were in the bar area. I thought maybe in the party room on the far end of the bar where the Ladies' Group sat last June. They were out of strawberry margarita mix so I had mango instead and Justin had a regular one, which was so tart it spun his head around. I am not a tartness fan which is why I like the fruit flavors better.

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In my parking lot, I met an acquaintance who used to be part of our monthly dinners. It surprised me to see her and I hoped it was not me she was coming to see, as we were leaving. Nope, she was coming to see Randy, our newest resident in The Palace. He only moved in here last week when Kerry was here and already had met someone! How funny that it happens to be someone I know. Saturday Randy had come out to the pool and I introduced him to a few more folks. His cable was not hooked up yet so he said he was going to watch the football games elsewhere. I had told him that he was welcome to watch TV at my house and I would not bother him because I watch most of my TV in my room. Randy asked me I enjoyed a glass of wine and I had to tell him I did not but that was fine, I did not need wine to watch TV. He went to the River House to watch their flat screen TV for the college games, as he was wearing one of team's mascots on his shirt. It was a nut of some kind, but I cannot remember which team. Perhaps Ohio? I stink at this!

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Speaking of stinking....last night as I took a potty stroll, I remembered stepping on something in my doorway to the bathroom---vaguely. This morning, I saw a chubby worm-looking slug on the floor, sort of squished. Ewww! As I got myself positioned back on my bed, I looked up at the crown moulding over my TV armoire and saw a dark spot that was not there yesterday. Sure enough, it looks like bug doo doo and I am guessing this squished one came from there. Justin will have to get the ladder in to reach up there with a stick to wipe that spot. There is no way I can reach that from down here, this ceiling is so high. But I really HATE stepping on things in the dark. Good news is that the pest control people are coming to spray our units next week Tuesday!!!

This program is kicking my butt!

I have tried and tried, once more this a.m., to change the font and colors in the previous posting and it just won't take! The writing under the photo of my shoes was supposed to be red so it would stand out and no matter how many times I tried, although it shows up the way I want on the page, will not post that way. The font was dark violet on the page, but posts as blue. Go figure!

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At yesterday's church meeting, we heard reports about our pending 'service with variety' and there is going to be a prototype of the Order of Service available for us to view. Plans are now to have two such services, both at 9:00 a.m., in October and November, which would be during Bible study time, with preview classes a week prior to each of the planned 'early' services. Then a week after both of them have been held, there will be a class to complete a survey so we can express our likes and dislikes. Already I had planned to attend at least one of the 'blended worship' services so I like the idea of having a run through the week prior to the service being held so I can be fully informed.

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What a great story on F & F this a.m. A group of men from one family were fishing when their boat sank. Seven males, including a 5 year old boy, were clinging to a floating cooler, wearing life vests, and the grandpa said it was faith in the Lord which saved them, not the cooler. The other grandpa said he asked the Lord to spare his boys. They testified that God saved them, kept the mouths of the sharks closed during the night as they awaited rescue. The Coast Guard was nearly ready to call off the search that night when they were spotted. The whole family is witnessing about their faith in the Lord, over and over and over. I hope all the listeners hear their story and expressions of belief.

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A friend who is a Lutheran school teacher at F.G. has been 'talking' to me about ideas about how to remember her student, Yeupheng, who passed away after a lengthy illness the day of the church picnic. I told Karen about the memorial flower beds we had at first, the bench with the brass plate and tree dedicated at St. Johns, the little statues folks had given over the years, the artwork, etc. It was great that she felt comfortable enough to ask me about it and I was delighted to be able to share this information. And remind myself of all the ways people remembered Timmy with us.

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Friday we came up from the pool and Kerry was putting something away in the fridge, or grabbing a soda. She said, "Kim, somebody was here and put a box in the fridge...." Sure enough, it was a box with two cupcakes in it, the note written on top of the box was from Ellen, saying one cupcake was creme brulee and the other Boston cream pie flavored. She had told me via text message that she had a special dessert for us but we were not at home. Later, Ellen saw us at the pool and knows I keep my door unlocked so she dropped it off. Kerry couldn't get over all the people coming and going, visiting us, sharing things, etc. On my kitchen counter are the cleaned dishes from foods folks have brought me, such as the large portion of homemade chicken noodle soup Jessica brought me and the plate which held the oatmeal scotchies from Shari. A good Lutheran would have something to put in the dishes when I return them, but I guess I fall short. Unless I could put a handful of potato chips in each one! Kerry bought two bags of them, BOGO from Publix, and we have the remainder of the first one yet.

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Kerry told me that there was an elevated security level when she was going home on 9/11 and she had to check her carry-on bag through, without having to pay the extra fee. She had consolidated everything into the one bag, putting her duffel into the carry-on. This was not something I had considered happening and am glad they did not charge her for the bag. She has since reported that she wants to "go back by Kim" which means she wants to come back here, because reality has slapped her in the face. Kerry got home to a mess and when cleaning out the fridge and such, accidentally put the base from her slow cooker on the stove where the burner was yet hot. Oops! She uses her cooker lots and was a 'nice one' from Lisa a few years ago. That is the price we pay for cleaning!