Memorial Day Weekend - 2010

Thursday, May 27th Bonnie arrived. Claude picked her up at the airport and I stayed home to work on the slideshow of Katelyn's life for her graduation. I was able to finish scanning all the older pictures and have them saved on my computer.

Then Friday I brought my computer up to the breakfast table. Claude brought his laptop to the breakfast table also. Bonnie and Claude worked on genealogy and I worked on setting up the slideshow.

Friday evening Jake arrived and the Marx family arrived. We had chicken salad ready for sandwiches as everyone arrived at a different time. Michael had been on a business trip and came separately from Andie and the kids. He had soccer games to referee in Lexington so he spent Friday night and Saturday in Lexington. He came to Sadieville Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Then spent the remainder of his weekend in Lexington. It was great to have a full house of family again.

Hayden was very happy to have someone else to share his vast store of knowledge of all things dealing with space, solar systems, etc. Bonnie listened carefully to all he could share with her.

Bailey found the pickle picker. It is a little tool that you press one end and out comes some claw-like wires. You put this into the jar of pickles or olives and you can let the claw-like wires grab the pickle or olive and you pull them out of their container to eat. Claude always purchases jars of baby dill pickles for Hayden and Bailey. Bailey made quite a feast out of pickles and chips. She even tried using the pickle picker to take chips out of the Pringles can. Amazingly, she was able to get one out! She did sleep with a 'yucky' bowl in case that magnificent feast didn't settle well on her little tummy.

Our neighbor passed away on Tuesday, May 25th. Friday evening Claude and went to his visitation at the Sadieville Christian Church. Pete was just a wonderful person. He had a prize winning smile and was always cheerful even though his health was really bad. It was a very nice visitation and we appreciated getting to know some of his family a bit.

Saturday morning Claude and I attended Pete's funeral. We wanted to be sure we made it to Evan's Orchard with the kids on Saturday because rain was in the forecast for the remainder of the week. Andie got the kids ready while we were at the funeral and loaded them with Bonnie and Jake in her van and off to Evan's Orchard they headed just before we returned from the funeral.

Claude and I hurried home to change and join the rest of our family at the orchard. Claude called to me, "Sandi, you better come see this!!" I was not sure what to imagine but when I got into the living room, but this was what we found.

It was sort of a Bailey version of Ghostbuster symmetrical bookstacking in the library. I collect turtles and have many around the house. Bailey is tall enough to get to the canned goods in the pantry. There you have the perfect storm of Bailey'dom'. It would have been interesting to listen to her tell the story of what she was playing while she did it, but it was still VERY interesting to find the finished product of her game and just wonder what was going through that tiny noggin'!

We met every one at Evan's Orchard and had a great morning on the playground.

This time the animals were there. Bailey is extremely interested in horses or 'y'ittle ponies. There was a tent with the pony carousel so she and Hayden were able to have a ride. Then Hayden even rode the camel. He just let his body go limp and bounced along with the movement of this lumbering camel.

It was great to have Uncle Jake here for the weekend. At Evan's Orchard Hayden ran him around the wood fence maze and Bailey used his wonderful shoulders to check out the goats. Jake showed his agility by running in the Rat Racers. At the end of a long hot morning at Evan's Orchard, Jake was the perfect shoulder taxi for Hayden to the picnic table for lunch and Bailey had a great place to cuddle and eat her lunch.

This trip to Evan's Orchard the 'corn box' was also open. I just love this play on the old 'sand box'. Hayden managed to take the big ball that is made like an oversized soccer ball and another toy made to throw and create the Planet Soccer and a comet flying around it. The boy does love his study of outer space stuff. Hayden made another birds nest and used corn from the corn box for eggs in the nest. We did go down the slide at least once but the sun was shining on it and it was a little bit hot.

Claude actually got an opportunity to have some quiet time with his mom while watching the grandmonsters play. 

Just before lunch we finished our play by watching the pig races. Hayden is on the left and Bailey is on the right. There were 3 races. This was the little pigs first race of the season. They run for their Oreo cookie treat at the end of the race. Great sport!!

We ended our visit to Evan's Orchard with lunch under the big tent. Hayden made North and South America out of his hot dog bun. Andie got them honey sticks for a treat.
The adults enjoyed the apple cinnamon donuts. Then we were ready to head home for quiet time, blessed quiet time...what a great invention.

Saturday afternoon Papa brought Tiny out and we feasted on smoked brisket, pork tenderloin and some other meat. We had beans, salad and rolls. It's always fun to hear Papa and Bonnie catch up and retell old stories.

At one point in the evening Bailey and I took Tiny out in the back yard. Tiny trotted out to middle of the back yard to do her business. I made a HUGE deal out of how good Tiny was being to go out and do her 'winkle'. Bailey was duly impressed. We put Tiny back in the house and Bailey and I headed for the porch swing. Pretty quick Bailey jumped off the swing and ran into the back yard. She squatted down like she was look for a bug in the grass. I waited a minute and then Bailey turned and looked at me over her shoulder. I asked her what she was doing. Her reply..."I'm doing a winkle."  Thus goeth the lesson from Tiny.

Bonnie would celebrate her 81st birthday while visiting with us. It would not be until the next Saturday but while we had so many of us together and, more importantly, while we had the queen of cake and cupcake decorating with us, we decided to have birthday cupcakes for Bonnie. In the spirit of Memorial Day and Bonnie's Birthday, Andie selected cupcakes decorated like pies. She made blueberry and cherry pie cupcakes. Hayden helped with the mixing and preparing. Then he served Gramma Bonnie her special birthday pie cupcake.

Sunday was just a family at home day. Bonnie made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We did haircuts. We cleaned the fridge for lunch and dinner. The plan was BBQ'd chicken for dinner but we were all very full and all of us were heading to Michigan Tuesday for Katelyn's graduation so we determined cleaning out the fridge was the best course for that day. Andie brought her new sprinkler for the kids to play in. Hayden assured us it was named Io after a moon for one of the planets. This because it had water spurting out of several places and the moon, Io, has lot of eruptions on its surface. Hayden managed to get several major splinters in his foot. He is just a splinter magnet.

Now, I've mentioned before Hayden's love of studying space. Here are a few pictures to prove his love for all things done with outer space.  You'll see a beach ball with a beach ring around it, chalk drawing of our solar system, Claude & Hayden with the planet Uranus made out of blocks (Did you know??? Uranus rotates differently from the other planets. This is true.), the water sprinkler ball that is named Io after a moon, and the water sprinkler named Io with a hula hoop around it for rings.

Monday was the day for departures. In the afternoon the Marx family and Jake would all leave for their respective homes. Then I hit the washer and dryer to get our laundry done before our trip to Michigan the next day. Monday was also the day my trial MicroSoft software ran out on my computer. I had purchased earlier the permanent version before Bonnie arrived. Monday I spent a bit of time entering my product key and getting the new software going. Then we packed and got our stuff in order to leave for Michigan early Tuesday morning.

It was a full and fun Memorial Day weekend for 2010.

Stake Conference...

This last weekend was Stake Conference. For those who read this that are not member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stake conference is held twice each year and all 8 congregations in our 'stake' boundaries come together for their meetings. For this stake conference we had a visiting general authority. His name was Elder Paul Pieper of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy.

Claude had priesthood leadership training Saturday afternoon at 4pm. I went in with him. We had a very early dinner together. Then I dropped him off at the Church.

I then drove over and visited Mimi for a bit. She loves having my purse to play with. I always feel funny saying that in that way but she does enjoy holding and moving the purse around or just holding it close on her lap. I actually pulled out an old purse and wrote her name all over it. Papa was going to give it to the nursing home so Mimi could have a purse to use to keep her hands busy when we aren't there.

After visiting Mimi I headed to the Dollar Store to get the paper supplies for Katelyn's graduation Open House. Then to Walmart for some binders. I also scored a pair of capri pants to wear around the house. I have an old pair that is really showing it's age and found a pair just like them with which I can replace the old pair.

Chores done I headed back to the Church for the evening session for the adults at 6pm. When I got there Claude explained, to my horror, they were going to call speakers from the congregation. I suggested we go for an ice cream run. We were not called to speak. We had a wonderful meeting. Followed by a run to the Dairy Queen. That's the thing about ice cream, you talk about it...ya gotta do it.

Sunday morning had us leaving early. Our ward choir was singing and they were going to run through things at 9am before the meeting was to start at 10am. I don't get to practice or sing with our choir often because of my travel on Sunday's with my calling as stake Relief Society president. I was assured by my hubby and the choir director that I could do these numbers and had sung them in the past so I should participate. Now, in the first place is have a problem with coming and singing with those who have taken the time to be at all the practices and have sung these numbers before. These good people have done what needed to be done to be prepared. It just seems wrong to me to sing when I haven't 'paid my dues' so to speak. Plus people seem to think I can just read the music and sing it and hear it without a lot of practice. Really???? I was always the pianist and not the vocalist. I have an okay voice but I don't hear the notes like some people do. I read from a page and my fingers go there. Many people have developed an ability over the years to see the note on the page and know what it should sound like (pitch and all) in their heads. Me...not so much. I love to sing, don't get me wrong. I always dreamed of being able to sing solos and such. But my lot was playing the piano or organ for others to sing and that is what I have done all my life.

I told Claude and our choir director I would try these songs. I got to the choir seats and the first piece he pulls out is a number that is really fast, lots of words said very, very quickly and lots of notes going up and down and all over the place. That was it. I could not and would not flub up the entire spirit of the meeting by trying to do that number. I gathered my purse and scriptures and headed back to the congregation seats to sit with my father. Not gonna do that number.

James, the choir director went through the song with the choir and then assured me they were not going to sing that one. They would do the other two I was told originally they would do. I assured him I would sit in the congregation with my father. Thus began the struggle. James stopped practicing with the choir and came to where I was sitting with everyone watching and tried to get me to come back up to the choir seats. Oh my goodness. I thanked him politely and said 'no'. He finally went back up and finished his rehearsals. Then he challenged Claude in front of everybody to have his wife listen to him. Claude assured him I only did that when I wanted to. But then Claude came back to the bench and proceeded to beg and plead and promise me things like lunch, vacuuming services, clothes, etc., etc., etc.  I assured Claude I was going to sit right there by my father through this session of stake conference. As it neared time for him to go back to the choir seats, he quietly reached down and got my purses and scriptures and headed to the choir seats. Can you believe that??? I couldn't. I succumbed and took my place in the choir seats. The choir did sing two numbers that I struggled through.

After the choirs second number everyone left their seats and headed to places their family had saved for them in the congregation. Well, Claude and I had no saved seats. So we stayed in the choir seats. I'm a decided alto (often I sing tenor) and so my seat was behind the piano. Claude left his in the bass section and came and sat with me.

This session also had people called from the congregation to come forward and bear their testimony. We were not called. There were some very sweet thoughts and feelings shared during these testimonies. The people called were from the youth age to the senior age.

The Elder Pieper stood to take the last hour. He spoke for about 45 minutes. He is an interesting person to listen to. He just got back from living in the Ukraine where he served as a mission president I believe. His paying job before that had his family living in one of the 'stans' as Claude called them when he was in the Peace Corps. Claude visited Kyrgystan. There are several other countries in that area that all end in 'stan'. Elder Pieper and his family lived in one of them and I can't remember now which one, Usbekistan or Kasakstan (spelling is probably really butchers on all the 'stans'). His family and one other were the only LDS (Mormon) families in the entire country. Elder Pieper also grew up on a farm in Utah in a family of 11 kids. So his stories and experience are varied and very interesting.

Anyway, he spoke for about 45 minutes, then he said he felt impressed we needed a break of some kind. He felt the kids might be getting restless. So he had all the young men and boys up to high school senior age come to the choir seats. Uh oh...Claude and I are sitting in the choir seats. Claude looked at me and he nodded at the piano bench. We both moved quietly over to the piano bench. Then all the choir seats filled to overflowing with young men and boys. Then Elder Pieper had them sing hymn number 270 "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go". There were two fathers from our ward in the choir seats with their boys. One of the sons was just too young to know how to read even and his dad was holding him and helping him. The other young man has autism and the dad held the book and his son grinned and tried to sing along. Claude observed a older brother pointing to the words so his younger brother would know which words to sing. One young man standing by us couldn't find the page. I found it for him and he sang right out. He accidentally closed the book and tried to find the page again. He thought he had the right page, but he didn't, however he was singing the right words. Our bishop's son was grinning so big at me he couldn't hardly sing. Then he would blush bright red. It was an extremely moving bit of time.

There are three verses to this hymn. The first verse ends with "I'll go where you want me to go." The second verse ends with "I'll say what you want me to say." The third and final verse ends with "I'll be what you want me to be." Here are the words to the chorus of this beautiful hymn:

I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord,

Over mountain or plain or sea;

I'll say what you want me to say, dear Lord;

I'll be what you want me to be.

I needed Kleenex. Tears flowed freely as these young men sang out so beautifully on a totally unprepared hymn. It was a moment dictated by a prompting of the Spirit to Elder Pieper. It was a moment full of the Spirit because of these young men's voices and their very presence.

It was a great meeting and a great stake conference.

We came home and I started to work some more on a slideshow of Katelyn's life for her open house. Saturday and Sunday were good days.

Yesterday I started the laundry, cleaned a bathroom, helped Papa get his prescriptions straightened out and picked out songs for Wednesday at the nursing home, and worked on the slide show.

Bonnie gets here Thursday, the Marx family gets here Friday, and Jake gets here Friday. I've got tons to accomplish before anyone arrives. So I'm off to keep things a movin'.

TGIF, and TGI Saturday...

And we hit the weekend with a full plate...again.

My mum-in-law will be here in a week. When company comes I really try to get things done ahead so I can enjoy their visit as much as possible. So Friday was spent trying to get computer things in order as much as possible.

I got another Blog entry done. Yeah me!!

I managed to get my Relief Society newsletter completed as much as can be done. Now if anything else comes in to be included I can just add it and send it. Yeah me!!

Papa came out with his new prescriptions. He uses a mail order drug system and it takes a bit to get the first ones going. I tried, in vain, to get these two new ones added. But they only want it faxed from Papa's doctor. This just means Monday I must go in and visit with his doctor to get them to assist me. I'll have all the papers filled out as much as I can and just stand there until they get the faxing done. Oh boo-hoo!!

On the upside, Papa had blood tests run on his doctor visit and they all came back 'normal'.  Yeah him!!

I got my software loaded on my new computer. It came with a two month trial service. That ends the last day of May and I don't want to be loading software with Bonnie here so I went ahead and completed that project. Yeah me again!!

In the evening we went to Sadieville for their MusicFest. The Friends of Sadieville Renaissance did this once each month last summer to raise funds for the FSR. We sell food at City Hall and have karaoke in the Waring Pavilion. It is just fun to see the community come out and enjoy the music and have a bite to eat and visit with each other. We're a small community and it is helping me to learn who more of my neighbors are.

This was the first MusicFest for 2010. It turned out to be a 30% chance of showers evening. That 30% managed to find its way to Sadieville on several occasions. This hampered the attendance a bit. But Merle was a diligent DJ and kept the karaoke going. We had the food inside the depot, except for the funnel cake lady and the grill. We served and cooked food between showers. It was a delightful evening.

Our police officer came and warned us of a major storm headed our way. There had been reports of a tornado touching down as this storm passed through one community. He suggested we close early. It was only about 30 minutes or less until the end so we hurriedly started the clean up process in the Depot. Cindy went up the street to the pavilion to warn Merle and the group singing with him about the storm. Bless their hearts, they said they would take responsibility for themselves. These are die-hard karoake singers. Eventually the lightening got really strong around us and Merle packed his stuff in his van.

Just before we all left, Richard came down to the Depot (City Hall) in a state. He lives over the little Baptist Church by Waring Pavilion. Someone managed to enter his apartment above the Church and ransack it. They took cash and his pain meds (without their container). His door was locked. The robber had gone up a hidden stairway only someone that knew the Church would have known about. In my mind, they had obviously done this before. They left credit cards and a checkbook. They only took cash and pills. We were all sick about this. It is hard to imagine why people get in a position they would do something like that. Our police officer was right at hand and he went to check out the situation and make a report.

Saturday I committed to work on a slideshow for Katelyn's graduation open house. I have all the pictures of her from my computer and CD's in the presentation. Then I started scanning pictures in my photo albums I haven't scanned yet. This is a good thing. One of my long term goals is to get all my photo album pictures scanned before they change colors completely. This will be a bit of that long-term goal accomplished.

What fun it is to travel back through the years of our oldest grandmonster's life. It is going to be fun to get this done but I have a lot of hours ahead of me to finish it. I'll work on it some more this afternoon.

Then Claude and I headed into Georgetown for the late afternoon and evening. This is our stake conference weekend. Claude has priesthood training meetings at 4pm. We went in earlier and had dinner at Arby's. Then I dropped him a Church and I went to visit my mom. After visiting mom I got a few shopping errands complete and then headed back to the Church for the Saturday evening adult session. It was a good session. Then we went for ice cream before heading back to Sadieville.

I received an eMail from Miss Katelyn requesting pictures of Claude and I before we had kids. There aren't a lot of these kinds of pictures. I sent her everything I have saved digitally. I tried to explain that Claude and I only met 1 year prior to our marriage. He was really engaged about 10 months of that time to someone else. Then we were only married 13 months and 13 days until Nissa was born. I also explained to her that we didn't have digital cameras in those days. You had a roll of film with 12 or maybe 24 pictures on it. You took until the roll was full, then you sent it off to be developed and early on that took about a week of time. Later it could be done in days or as you waited. How quickly technology has changed. At any rate, I'm sure some of those pictures Katelyn will get a kick out of...her grampa in fatigues and no beard, Claude and I in cap and gown like she will be in a few weeks, our wedding picture, etc.

The beauty of my having a laptop is that I could take my computer to the living room upstairs and my box of CD's with pictures and work on it in the same room as my hubby. Yeah for the new computer!!

Now I'm up early and ready to see what fun I can fill my Sabbath with.

A Day Long Date...

Yesterday Claude and I had most of day away from the house and together. Most of the time we have two cars for a reason. We are both headed in opposite directions. But yesterday was a perfectly wonderful day with the two of us doing things together with the Jeep being our carriage of choice for the day.

Claude heard about a class on 'social networking'. It was lunch and training at the Georgetown College Conference Center. That was our morning project together.

Claude headed to City Hall in Sadieville to take care of business while I got ready to leave. I had it in my head we needed to leave at 11am. I was wrong...can you believe that. We were to be in the car and headed to Georegtown at 11am. Because of my miss cue there I called Claude at City Hall at 10:40 and said, "Don't you think we should be leaving now?" He assured me it started at 11:30am. I checked my calendar and he was right. Oh the humanity!!! So I headed downstairs to get a bit more computer work done before he came home to pick me up.

Now, I have several projects I'm trying to complete before Bonnie arrives next week and I got immersed in one of them and completely forgot what time it was. I heard Claude's footsteps upstairs when he returned. I just kept on working until I heard this bass voice call down the stairs, "It starts in 13 minutes...think we should go?" Oh my heavens, now I was wrong two times in one morning!!

I ran up the stairs and got in the Jeep and we headed to Georgetown knowing we would now be late. As we left I realized I left my 'crackberry' charging on my desk in the basement. I really missed the little thing. I'm more attached then I thought I was. So now I would spend a full day without my new little friend.  Is that the third thing I did wrong in one morning???

We were a few minutes late to the center. Everyone else was eating. We quickly got our food and found at spot a table in the front. The lunch was great, a big sandwich on a croissant. I LOVE croissant sandwiches. I bet peanut butter & jelly would even be more elegant on croissants. They even had a pickle spear that was the kind of pickle I like best. We ate quickly to catch up to where everyone else was at.

When we sat at our table I asked everyone if they watched 'Criminal Minds' Wednesday evening. No one but Claude and I had. We found it amusing that the night before training on 'social networking' the premise for Criminal Minds was the criminal used social networking to lure his victims. By-the-way, there was NO training on this concern during our session. However, they did have a quote from the TV show. Criminal Minds starts with a quote and ends with a quote spoken over the pictures of the show by one of the characters in the show. This was one of the quotes used Tuesday evening on Criminal Minds, "The Internet is the only thing man has created that he doesn't understand." Hmmmm...

We were informed:

• There are at least 200 social networks worldwide and more added all the time.
• Facebook was started in 2004 by a college student (Mark Zukenberg) in his dorm room. It was originally only accessible if you had a '.edu' domain in your eMail address.
• The fastest growing group using Facebook is 30+ years old now.
• We spend 3,000,000,000 minutes a day on Facebook.
• Facebook is the most mainstream of the social networks.
• Facebook is the largest website for uploaded pictures.
• MySpace is really where all this started.
• 1 in 4 Americans is on MySpace.
• There are 50,000,000 mails sent a day on MySpace.
• MySpace is now owned by Rupert Murdock (I'm thinking Eagles singing Dirty Laundry, one my favorite songs of all time, here)
• The bad thing about MySpace is that it opened being public to everyone, no real controls when it started.
• In February of 2009 they found and removed 90,000 known pediphiles from FaceBook.
• LinkedIn was a site I knew nothing about but it turns out Claude has used it since his Peace Corps days.
• LinkedIn is more of a professional person/company site.
• LinkedIn was founded in 2000 and has 40,000,000 members.
• LinkIn is a great free way to market yourself for a job and your company.
• The information on LinkedIn is ALWAYS public.
• LinkedIn is a great place for a non-profit to be.
• Twitter tells people everything you do using your cell phone or the Internet and only 140 characters.
• Georgetown College has someone that Tweets each play of their games.
• They spoke briefly about Digg and Blogs.
• Problems with social networking are: Identity theft, Predators, Cyber-bullying, Posting of embarrassing photos and comments (once something is posted it NEVER goes away), and the release of sensitive corporate data.
• We should ask ourselves before we post anything these two questions: 1) Can a stranger find private information about me? and 2) Is there anything you don't want your employer or grandmother to see?
• They spoke a bit about corporate usage of social networking. Even a CEO having his own spot on FaceBook should be monitored before he posts.
• There were obviously several people in Human Resources there who were interested in the affects of people's Facebook (and other accounts) and using that data in hiring situations. Hmmmm...I never thought of that one.
• Norton/Symantic has identified several scam concerns when using social networking: chain letters, cash grabs, websites to click on and the site is actually a mechanism to troll for your personal data, and hidden charges.
• Remember that the employer owns what comes from their site and on their time.
• There are libel cases pending in the Supreme Court for statements made on people's personal blogs.
• The Library of Congress is archiving all public Tweets from Twitter. There are 50,000,000 of these each day!! (I'm thinking Dan Brown is writing his next novel on the Library of Congress and Tweeting. Really.)
• We were cautioned to go to spokeo.com and check our own name to see what information has been pulled and is out there about us and available to everyone. There are websites like Peoplefinders and Peoplesearch that collect your personal data and display it for others for a fee. They also get public records from court houses about your home, etc. One man in the audience suggested we also google our home phone number and be amazed at what we find.
• We were cautioned to check our Privacy Settings in FaceBook regularly. You may have them set the way you want, then you get a note from FaceBook that says they have made a change or upgrade in how they do things and that could pop your Privacy Settings back to default and not what you selected. Check the privacy settings regularly.
• We were told to have a junk eMail account for ordering things that can't be tracked back to your kids eMail if the family all uses one eMail account.
• Parents should all be aware of togetherville.com where parents can check what their kids do and say on the Internet. Not sure how that works but it was very strongly recommended.

It was a good class. Claude and I were happy with the meal and the training.

Then we hopped in our bright yellow carriage and headed to Frankfort. Our destination...Buffalo Trace Distillery. We wanted to add a case of rootbeer at our home and we needed candles for Jake and Nissa.

Then we headed to Lexington for a meeting Claude had in the afternoon. In preparation for this time together, I printed possible big trips for us in the future. I had about 7 or 8 possibilities. As Claude drove I read them in 'date for trip' order. We talked them over and narrowed it down to 3 possibilities. Claude carried them in with him to his meeting and had a minute to review them before the meeting started. I stayed in the Jeep with the windows down, enjoying a nice clear day and a Spring breeze, and read my Ensign.

Claude was about 1 1/2 hours in his meeting. I enjoyed the quiet reading with no phone or ability to do anything else or be distracted in any way. I need that every now and then because I seem to have no ability to create that setting myself.

When Claude came out he had picked the one he felt best about. I agreed. Now we just need to put that plan in motion.

Then we both agreed we should complete our day together with dinner and dessert in Lexington at someplace we don't have to eat in Georgetown. We settled on BD Mongolian Grill. It was a great meal. Then we headed to Coldstone Creamery for an ice cream dessert. Yummy!!!

We got back to Sadieville about 6:30 in the evening and then settled down for an evening in front of the TV. It was a great date day together.

I'm Happy About...

As I drove home from Georgetown yesterday afternoon, I noticed that all the candidates I voted for (whether they won or not) have removed their signs from the sides of streets and highways.  I like that. That is a responsible citizen. I did notice one other who was out picking up their signs. Now, I know that signs are expensive and it might just be a financial thing. But I truly appreciate them clearing up after themselves.

The entrance to Eagle Bend has been chock full of political signage. We have 3 homes for sale on our block right now. You really just couldn't tell they had 'For Sale' signs because they were the same size and shape of the 'political candidate' signs. Kind of ached for these home owners a bit. It is not an easy thing to sell a home this far out in the country. So for several weeks their 'For Sale' signs have not really helped advertize for them very much. Now you can tell there are 'For Sale' signs at the entrance again.

I remember us helping Andie and Michael get ready for a yard sale before they moved from Maryland to Kentucky. We made the signs to put up and covered them in plastic because of a rain concern. Then we placed them at specific intersections. But we made a map and knew where we put them. As soon as the yard sale was over, we were able to retrace our steps and pick up each of those signs in their neighborhood. I'm sure others appreciated this cleaning up after ourselves.

Claude and I are headed to a training class about 'social networking' today. It is a lunch training at Georgetown College. This after watching a new 'Criminal Minds' last night where the killer used 'social networking' as the premise for his murders. I hope they teach us things that are responsible and don't teach of to fear this type of end to our 'social networking'. I stayed away from Facebook and Blogs for a long time. Now I'm grateful for keeping a better journal with my Blog and for finding lots of friends from way back in our past history on Facebook. We've shared marriages, births, deaths, and just catching up on Facebook. For all of it's possibilities of negative things, there is a lot of good that can happen by a quick note to friends. If I learn some really new and interesting facts, I'll share them on my Blog.

One last thought...a quote in a talk we heard at the Scott Education & Community Foundation on May 4th: "A life without dreams is a nightmare."