A fond farewell...

....at least for a while. I am not sure what my circumstances will be when I am traveling but will have the laptop with me in case I do have connectivity wherever I am staying. If you are Facebook users, look for me there as I have access to FB from the cell phone, as well as e-mail receiving and sending. Sigh...I am ready to go, want to get this show on the road, and in hopes that all the plans have been made and finalized.

Judy R. got me a ride from the Worship Conference to her house, or at least to Winona, from whence Lori or David can bring me home. I know not what time it will be when the Conference wraps up on Friday but do know that once we are in the car, Barb and Tami with me in tow, we face a three hour approx. ride to Winona. I might have them leave me at a restaurant in town rather than up at Judy's so it is easier for Lori or David to find me as dusk falls. It might time right with David's getting out of work. Oh oh, not all the details are finalized!!!! Thank heaven for cell phones!

It is time for me to haul my suitcase outside to wait for Mike and Judy to get here. Good thing I bought more mints yesterday at Publix because I feel as though I still have funky breath this a.m. after twice brushing me teeth. My neighbor, Pat, invited me to have dinner with her, homemade spaghetti sauce over pasta and salad. She made her own salad which included chopped onions and then sqeezed half a lime over the salad. Very interesting but oniony!!! And garlic toast! Love doing that before flying and breathing on folks!

Talk with you soon!

What a delightful breeze!

My doors are open, front and back, as the warm air blows through. Earlier today I heard the A/C kick in so I had to adjust it up to keep from cooling the outdoors. When I was in the pool this afternoon, I was plenty cool, as the sun kept going behind the clouds instead of warming the water, and me, like it’s supposed to do.

At five minutes to 4:00 pm I took delivery of my hamburger from the cabana, not realizing she was going to open for dinner tonight. Rats! At first I was going to simply carry the burger upstairs with me for my dinner but the smell of it drove me wild and I dived right into it. My plans were to go back out for a bit with the neighbors but none of us ate anything except for leftover wedding cake from the wedding that afternoon in The Club. The head of the dining room brought out three flavors of cake to share, which is weird for a wedding cake---I think! The nice young lady who runs the cabana now instead of Danny Cabany made me one of the drinks served on Independence Day, which I am still sipping at in my room.

Justin came over yesterday afternoon for a little while, getting a chance to be met by my house guests and taking care of a few things with the two computers. He began running the Windows updates on my new laptop, beginning about 3:00 and it ended this morning around 8:30. Wow! I was concerned about it taking this long, assuming something was wrong. Justin said if I had to reboot the computer, I might lose all my data. NO! I got in touch with the two Steves who worked on it and the Sr. Steve assured me I would not lose everything, and to be patient. Apparently my computer can to dealt with from another location (i.e. their office!) and I am not sure if that’s what happened this a.m. or not. I am just glad it restarted and we are good to go.

Justin also picked up a photograph I had here for him to give his father for his birthday. In going through a few things here recently, I came upon a sepia shot of his dad wearing his bus driver’s uniform, for which Justin could simply get a frame. Makes a nice gift, especially when that poor guy had no idea what to get for his father.

Justin also installed my USB hub on the new computer, a sort of extension cord deal for the laptop, since I ran out of places to plug things in. Have two of everything makes for an outlet shortage. Justin did disconnect my DVD player which I don’t need any longer since the new machine has a built-in player. One or two less items on or around the desk is nice, only he didn’t put them away…they are lying about my room now! For now…

It was most difficult for me to say good-bye to my young friends and their teacher yesterday, but I managed without blubbering terribly. The same could not be said when Justin left me, as I won’t be seeing him again for two weeks. I hate that! But, after all, he is a big boy now and I cannot expect him to travel with me all the time. The last time he was ‘home’ was for Alayna’s graduation party, June of 2010. Justin left here with several bags of goodies harvested from my fridge, some leftovers from the kids’ stay and other stuff I just had no use for before leaving town. Lovely parting gifts for him!

My sleep was good last night and I am sure it will be tonight, especially when I finish this adult beverage. Before going to bed last night, though, I worked on the countless travel arrangements needing to be taken care of before departing Tuesday. I ended up renting a car from LaCrosse to drive across the state to Mom’s, and keeping it for several days, for the ride back over to Lori’s. It was more cost effective than trying to do a one-way rental, which got me only as far as Green Bay! I would have still needed a ride from there to Manty, for heaven’s sake!

So, I will have my own wheels for part of my time away, taking me to Manty and then back to LaCrosse for Lori’s birthday party the next weekend. That’s a lot of trips forth and back across WI, plus part of MN from the Worship Conference. Judy R. firmed up a ride for me from St. Peter, MN to Winona, for which I rejoice! Lori or David will come fetch me from Judy’s house on Friday night, and then I will see Judy again the next weekend, either at Lori’s party or only at the Shakespeare play where she works. Yay!!! So, now, I can sleep!

Speaking of sleeping, Justin also loaded my mini-laptop with every single episode of Seinfeld, and showed me how to play it back on a continuous loop for my sleeping purposes in the dormitory. Judy C. says she is fine with that, so if I want to sleep, that is what I need to do! Plus Nyquil capsules will be helpful for dropping off.

We are not sure what the bathroom situation will be either, we might have to wander the halls to find one instead of right in our rooms. Yikes! Must limit my fluid intake the latter part of the day, and definitely NO water! The church in Palm Coast has 6 people going including my friend, Bonnie, formerly of Victory. I gave her a call today, reporting I saw her name listed on the seminar e-mail we got. She said she saw Judy’s name but not mine but then realized she was looking under the D’s instead of the L’s. She has a rental car because they are being housed at Bethany College instead of at Gustavus. We will have a ball, all of us, and Judy R. told me to brace for ‘late night talks’….I can do that!

"Can we please call you Auntie Kim?"

Here is the entire crew from Rocky Mountain High School, plus Mike Chappell. From left is teacher Kari Muente, Nicole, Mike, Sydney, and Denver

The closing night wrap up of VBS took place at my house, with the teens settling in to watch a movie. Anna, our pastor's daughter, joined the fun, as did three young men who helped out this year. Nice kids all!

After loading the kids' belongings in the van, we posed for photos at The Club entrance

Saying 'good-bye' was hard to do, but I smiled through it....first with Sydney, who is my twin (she is quite particular about neatness and order!)

....and then Nicole. I could not have asked for better, nicer, sweeter kids to be my guests!

Posing with my newly found 'family' in front of the well at The Club

Leftovers from Thursday

At Bible study on Thursday, Pastor Hoyer showed us a couple books he is reading to review for Northwestern Publishing House, including one written by a non-Lutheran but ‘Christian’ man titled “40 Days To Better Living: Optimal Health”. The author wrote about things we can do in our daily living to improve our bodies, minds and souls, using Bible passages to reinforce his points.

It surprised me that NPH, although I guess it should not have, carried materials from non-Lutheran sources. Pastor H. assured us that every book NPH carries has been read by a Lutheran pastor or theologian. When Justin and I were leaving The Cheesecake Factory where we had our lunch, we met a lady from the class, Dawn, who had just picked up the book from the bookstore. As you might guess, this is not a book I am likely to pick up, as I told Linda, I am so sick of hearing about this topic already. Spoken like a true fatso!

No Jesus?

Snitched from a posting of Lisa's on Facebook this a.m. (She is my niece in WI, with three young sons)

by Lisa M Ellison on Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:26pm

Last night on our walk we passed Grant Grade School (which is only a block from our house). I asked the boys why we sent them to St. Paul's all the way out in Howards Grove instead of sending them to Grant. Gabe said, "I don't know but if you sent us here, I could walk to school." I looked at him and said, "Yes you could but they don't teach about Jesus at this school." The look on Manny's face was priceless. He looked up at me with confussion and said, "No Jesus? That's not fair.' Gabe said, "I want to keep going to St. Paul's just so I can hear about Jesus." This is why they go to a Christian Day School! GOD IS GOOD!

The end is near…

…but for now, the kids and their escorts are enjoying a Harry Potter movie in the family room, getting ready for tomorrow’s premier of the final in the series. They are going to the World Golf Village to the IMAX to see it, which made Justin envious to hear. I guess it’s in 3D there, not sure if that’s true for every showing or just for the IMAX. Shortly, I will be going to bed but the grown ups will see to it that things are buttoned up when they leave. The movie is lengthy so a pizza was popped in the oven to hold them over. There is also microwave popcorn and small bags of snacks for them to enjoy while they watch.

Earlier, when enjoying greatly a phone conversation with Linda J., I saw the moon rising, pink against a steel-grey sky. Now, it is nowhere in sight, hidden by the clouds. Around 4:00 pm or so thunder was rolling as a storm came down the river, but not a single drop happened here. I even stepped outside to make sure as some of my Facebook friends were reporting rain.

On my TV is an episode of “Frasier” titled “The One Where Woody Comes to Visit”, the bartender from Frasier’s days on Cheers. Or rather his nights on “Cheers”. It always makes me laugh, some of the exchanges are simply priceless. “Niles, would you like to join Woody and me for some pizza and beer?” “Why not? I’d love to share a pizza with a couple of rapscallions” to which Woody replies, as Frasier is ordering the pizza, “Could you make that half pepperoni and half rapscallion???” Tears me up every time! Woody is concerned that Frasier’s life is boring and that he has no plans, but it was really that Frasier rather cleared his schedule to spend time with Woody. It came back to bite him, making himself appear sympathetic rather than successful and happy with his life. While Frasier feels sorry for Woody, who has little success business-wise, he is happily married with two children back home. It ends up being a horse apiece. The parting scene has the two men drinking a stein of beer, tapping their glasses and saying, “Cheers”.

Justin and I attended Bible study today, a new class looking at how Christ crushed Satan’s head, and the ramifications of man’s fall into sin, the Promise made in the Garden and the fulfillment thereof. I looked ahead!

The other night I called Jessica, my upstairs neighbor, to see if she needed anything from the store. Being quite close to her delivery date, it is not easy for her to lug her 15 month and herself through the store. She asked for organic skim milk, which I found interesting. Joanne, when she lived with me, drank some funky milk, too, only hers was soy or something like that. One of my other friends from church also uses the organic milk so she doesn’t get hormones and something else. I have no problem with hormones, considering skim milk to be as innocent as anything else. I am willing to roll the dice when it comes to milk, especially since the cost difference is significant.

It’s getting so late, I think I will end this for tonight. Perhaps in the morning I can add more but for now, this will have to do. Sleep the sleep of the just, all! Good night, Linda J.!!!! My sides still ache from laughing and I have stains from my tears…..

The Tuesday wrap up

My arms ache from water exercising yesterday, as we practiced a few new routines using the bar bells. Certainly we used muscles in different ways than we had before, this I can tell! At least the sun is back our enjoyment, and for that of the kids staying with me. They had a great day boating, tubing, and canoeing at the home of one of the members from Christ, Keystone Heights. I wonder if their arms ache from trying to paddle the canoes....they don't appear any worse for the wear. They came in from VBS just minutes behind me, we timed that well! It seems their classes were smaller last night than on opening night but it is not uncommon to have the classes fluctuate some, even grow, before the week is out. They retired to the family room to watch more Harry Potter movies, getting caught up before going to the premier of the newest and final movie Friday at the IMAX at World Golf Village. Whoo hoo! The group is always letting me know that I am welcome to come along but I would be such a hindrance to them, especially on the walking outings. Besides that, I have things to do here!

One of those things was meeting Justin at CompUSA last evening before Trivia to buy a new computer. He had done the research and was steering me from the all-in-one desk tops that are modified laptops toward getting a laptop to use as a desktop. I know, confusing, right? He can rig it so that I can use my wireless keyboard and mouse, not having to 'worry' about using the keyboard on the laptop at all. In fact, I think he can work it so that my existing monitor will work in concert with the new one so I can a sort of split screen deal going on. I think the application for that is limited in my case, but can see it when transferring photos and such. I hate to sacrifice desk space to a laptop plus an additional monitor....we shall see. It did cost a bit more than the figure I had in mind, the cost of the repairs plus maintenance on the old computer, but not by much. Today I will take the new laptop to The Computer Guy to have my information transferred and hopefully I will be up and running soon.

We took 3rd place at Trivia, our team of three people since Jesse didn't make it and Erica had to work. I messed up on two questions that I should have known the answer to but answered wrong and risked too many points on. Rats! Like I told the girls this a.m., I always know the answer right after he gives it! The nice people at the Diner allowed Justin and me to special order our meals, with me again having the sliced rib eye steak, bathed in fried onions, and draped in provolone cheese. Justin took his the way it came, without the tomatoes, but mine was more plain. He took home the bread mine came on because it's nearly enough for a meal for him. More like a baguette than a bun or roll, but certainly more than I could handle. Give me the steak, onions, and cheese, and I am a happy girl!

Reading the radio's website is not making me happy, though, as it is heavy local news day. A day or two ago some young boys were 'handling' a rifle in their family home, and one 11 year old boy was accidentally shot in the head. The medical folks struggled to save him but he died yesterday. Not only did he die, but a toddler drowned in a pool in Arlington, and another child was fished from a retention pond, unresponsive, but still alive. My mouth is so dry I can barely swallow right now. Some folks hang on news like this but I was NOT in search of it, just looking for my radio program. Aching hearts in our neighborhoods this week.

On a lighter note, in more ways than one, the sun is brilliant on the river and Sydney was trying to take a picture from the river room. I fear that will not turn out very well due to the brightness, hard to take a picture against the light, but I hope it does. They have just left for the day, my first glimpse of Denver, the quiet young man. He keeps a low profile in the mornings, not a breakfast eater, it seems. Off they go on their days' adventure in the Oldest City, on a hot hot day!

Well, I guess it is time to stockpile the incandescent light bulbs---Lowes, here I come! They carry Sylvania-brand bulbs, made in the USA. Try as they might, the Republicans could not get the "greenies" to back down on their support of the foreign-made mercury CFLs replacing American-invented incandescent bulbs. Do you still recognize your country?