Monday, May 3rd, 2025, we would actually leave our home. It is very easy for me to spend all my days in my home. I have lots to do and love being in this lovely little home. However, there were things to be taken care of this day that were outside of our home.
We first drove to Simpsonville, Kentucky to meet Lindy Meadows. Lindy is Laura's daughter. Laura is my BFF and would be having major surgery on Thursday. Lindy and Casey, her sister, hatched a plan to make matching t-shirts for their family. Everyone would take a picture of them in their t-shirt and these would be given to Laura after her surgery on Thursday. Lindy was kind enough to contact me to see if I wanted to be in this with them and Laura is like my sister. Oh, how happy that made me. Monday we drove to Simpsonville and picked up my t-shirt. What sweet daughters Laura has.
This afforded Claude and I the opportunity for dinner out in Frankfort. We opted for Chili's. Then we went across the parking lot to Walmart so I could purchase new flowers for my parents grave. I was very happy with one of the bunches of silk flowers and, fortunately, they had two exactly alike. It take two or three, depending on the arrangement, to fill the flower vase on my parents graves. Once back in the Jeep, Claude drove us to Sunset Memorial Gardens and I replaced the flowers. I noted they had placed a marker number for the plots in this area. When my mother died in 2012, hers was one of only three or four burials in this newly opened section of the cemetery. Now there are lots more plots and I am sure this marker helps others to find their loved ones more easily. Claude pronounced the flowers beautiful. He is such a 'guy' that this comment was really appreciated. I stood quietly for a moment and looked at this spot. It is hard to explain, but I felt my parents very close to me for a moment. I know they are very busy doing heavenly things, so to feel them that close for that moment in time was cup-filling for me.
Tuesday, May 4th, 2025, I received a text message from AT&T telling me to change my modem or I could experience problems with our Internet. At my age, you must question everything to be sure it isn't a scam. I decided to not respond to the text message until I called AT&T to verify they sent the message. Joseph, at AT&T, was the person I talked with. He was very cheerful and very, very helpful. He assured me he could do that right over the phone with me. Yeah!! As he got the information to send me a new modem and explain to me what to expect and how to return the old modem if necessary, he commented how nice it was to talk with a happy customer for a change. Isn't that a very sad statement on how we function as a society? He was so happy, he checked our billing for our Internet and said he could lower it by $10 per month. Yeah!! So, be nice people, be nice!
Before we ended the call about the new modem, Joseph said he could also check our cellphone bill with AT&T. This is bundled with DirecTV and is ridiculous. Joseph said he couldn't do anything with the DirecTV portion (this I already knew), but he could put us on a newer plan that covered the same things we have with this very old plan and save us another $60 per month. Hallelujah!! We made the change. It was very pleasant to work with Joseph. I commented to him that he made an old person very happy. He said I didn't sound old. I explained I am 74 years old and have earned every gray hair on my head. He laughed and I laughed. Then Joseph assured my I sounded like I was 30 or 35 years old. I left that call very happy.
In the evening, Claude and I had an appointment to attend the temple in Louisville. After I showered and put on my makeup, I had Claude take a picture for me in my Laura t-shirt. The t-shirt has a saying Howard has said about Laura for years, "It's not the size of your arms, but the reach of your FIGHT!" Laura is fighting cancer. How great is that for a t-shire. And, Lindy had the presence of mind to have it made in pink which is Jessie's, Lindy's sister, favorite color. Laura is truly going to love this surprise and it should be a boost to her as she heals.
Wednesday, May 5th, 2025, for breakfast I had my usual bowl of cereal. Claude made a fried egg sandwich. I took this picture and posted it on our family Facebook page. A great opportunity to share my feelings about a bit our family history.
"This is one of my favorite memories of Evan, Claude's father. He loved fried egg sandwiches. They were a mainstay of his diet particularly near the end of his life. The picture is actually Claude making himself a fried egg sandwich. Evan left his mark on his son in so many ways.
"I love hash browns. Evan would always make me a big plate of hash browns when we visited. He marveled that such a tiny person (I was tiny once upon a time) could eat a big plate of hash browns.
"Evan was such a good man and I am grateful for all his characteristics he passed to Claude.
"Ya'll have a great day and contemplate the value of a good egg sandwich...or whatever characteristics you want to pass to the next generation."
Thursday, May 6th, 2025, would be a goal driven day. I woke up early and did my home PT and walked the treadmill. Then I showered and started the laundry. I started looking through the 83 potential shore excursions for our Greek Isle cruise.
I did find this love picture on Facebook. Now purple is and always has been my favorite color. I shared the picture on our family Facebook page and assured my family they didn't have to, but it was okay if someone made me this cake. Andie asked about the recipe. I posted the recipe in the comment section.
Purple Velvett Cake
Ingredients For the Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar1 tsp baking soda1 tsp salt1 tsp cocoa powder1 1/2 cups vegetable oil1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature2 large eggs, at room temperature2 tbsp red food coloring1 tsp white distilled vinegar1 tsp vanilla extract1 tsp (or more) purple food coloring
Ingredients For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 pound cream cheese, softened2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature1 tsp vanilla extract4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
Instructions:
- Preheat and Prepare Pans: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder.
- Mix Wet Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, red and purple food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla until smooth.
- Combine Ingredients: Gradually mix dry ingredients into the wet mixture until the batter is smooth.
- Bake: Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Prepare Frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy.
- Assemble Cake: Frost the cake layers and assemble the cake.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings: 12 slices
Friday, May 7th, 2025, was a day I will call "Together".
Claude and I both woke up feeling very dizzy and off-kilter. We both decided to patiently get through the morning. We had our breakfast and sat for a bit together. In the afternoon, we sat at my laptop and made shore excursion decisions together. It was an hours long process. We decided three of the islands, we will stay on the ship and the others we picked shore excursions for. After doing this together for several hours, I looked at Claude and suggested we have an outing. He totally agreed. We had a couple of errands to run, so we did those first. Then we went through the drive-thru at Sonic and got a small chocolate shake each. We sat in Kroger parking lot and ate our shakes. Then we went in Kroger for separate reasons. Claude wanted to get bread and milk. I needed to check on refreshments for a Relief Society function on Sunday the 16th. We met back at the front of the store and headed home. Once there, we did our chair yoga together. At the end of our day with each of us relaxing in our recliners, I reflected on our day and thought how lovely that word "together" is. It is so nice to get to this point in a marriage and enjoy being with and having each other. "Together"!
Saturday, May 8th, 2025, was another at-home-kinda-day. I got up and did my home PT for my arm, ice up for a bit, then walked the treadmill. I was set to have a very productive day.
Claude had given me his write-up of our Key's trip. I needed to read it and make sure all the order was right and punctuation was correct. I did that while I iced my arm. I gave the document back to Claude and he made his corrections and eMailed me a working copy to make our PowerPoint of our trip. I do this in lieu of a scrapbook.
I decided to take all the other things off my desk and get as much done on this PowerPoint as possible on Saturday. I was actually looking forward to. I opened the new PowerPoint document. I got to the fourth page and my laptop completely froze up. I tried touching all the icons as it is a touch screen. I tried getting the mouse to move to click on something. I tried control, alt, delete to get the task master screen up, I tried pressing the power button to shut down the laptop. NOTHING worked. NOTHING. I closed the laptop and let it sit for a minute. When I opened it, I went through the same process of trying everything and it still was frozen on the PowerPoint page. UGH. I decided to just leave it alone for a while and see if that helped it catch up to all my entries. I started crocheting around a little girl burp pad. Then I tried again and nothing worked. I decided to unplug the laptop and let the battery wear down. This would take hours but at least then it me clear itself. Claude awoke from his nap. He went to Sandiland and pressed the off button with his finger and the laptop eventually turned off!!! I left off for a while. When I did turn it back on, it worked and all my documents came up and I could move around again. Hallelujah. I have received messaged stating HP would cease supporting my laptop would in July 2024. This meant, if it wouldn't work, I might have to get a new laptop. I really, really, really didn't want to do that. Thank heavens for a hubby with a heavy pointer finger on his right hand!! Thank heavens for a crochet project so all that energy I had for accomplishing things could be channeled in a different direction!
For dinner, Claude made BLT's. Then he made us strawberry shortcake for dessert. Yum. We spent our evening starting viewing the Ken Burns documentary about baseball.
Sunday, May 9th, 2025, today was Ward Conference. Great talks in sacrament meeting by Bishop Barber and Pres. Holt. We had a really good Relief Society lesson taught by Elizabeth Christensen. After meetings, Claude went to get our lunch while I attended a meeting with the Stake Relief Society presidency and our ward Relief Society presidency.
Claude got us salads from Panera for our lunch. They actually have my Asian Chicken Salad I love. what a treat! Claude took his nap and I sat to watch a Josh Gates before I came in to Blog. Alas, the Josh Gates Expedition Unknown episode was about his search for the Yeti in Nepal and Bhutan. What I did not remember, is this is 5 episodes long!! I did sit and watch all 5 episodes while Claude napped. I do enjoy Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown.
When I checked Facebook today, I saw this and shared it with our family Facebook page. "Tortoise shaped house in Gobi desert, Mongolia. Be still my turtle-loving heart!!
Now I have Blogged. I will walk my treadmill after Claude finishes. Then we will do our chair yoga before sitting down for a bit more Ken Burns and Baseball. A good Sabbath Day!!
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