VET AND DOCTOR ON THE SAME DAY

(It's Friday evening, now, but I just took this photo of Chuck and Patti-Jo, and added it to yesterday's blog entry. Notice she is now wearing a nice new blue harness.)
Patti-Jo is now here. I unexpectedly caught her this morning, and it was a contest getting her in the van. She was terrified. Since I had her, I had to go straight to Beeville with her, to the vet - nails clipped, check-up, parvo shot, bath, dipping, flea drops, heartworm pills, etc., etc. I sure hope R. takes her like he intended to do. He's gone until the weekend though. She and Coconut are enjoying playing, but they got into one nasty altercation over the food dish, so I had to put Patti-Jo in the laundry room for a brief time-out. Tonight, Coconut is exhausted. I guess she has met her match. They ran at break-neck speed circling through the house and over the furniture, for nearly an hour straight, took a break and then continued on. Of course, the cats are aghast at the disgusting turn of events. And Carl is taking a very grim outlook of this developement.

After leaving her at the vet's, I returned home, returned some phone calls, and hurridly got ready for my doctor's appointment, then went back to Beeville. I sat there for an hour and a half, before I got to 'the inner sanctum'. And then it was about an hour and 10 minutes MORE before I got out of there, and RUSHED to the vet's to pick up Patti-Jo before they closed.

Of course my cholesterol was way high. "Lose weight.", she said. And I'll have to take cholesterol medicine too. Only there is apparently an obstruction in my liver, and so I have to have an ultra sound and possibly a catscan. And the lab neglected to do a thyroid screening this time, so I need one of those again. After all that, she'll go from there and also I can get my thyroid medicine adjusted (if needed) and refilled. She renewed my blood pressure medicine with no problem. The cholesterol medicine I 'should' be taking, I can't take with a liver problem, so she gave me some less desirable type of medicine for it until after the testing. Sheesh! What fun! Sooooo I guess it's the straight(er) and narrow(er) for me from now on. Maybe (maybe) I'll walk... 2...miles a day. Not much, but it is 2 miles more than I WANT to walk.

PATTI-JO

Here is R.'s dog...or soon-to-be dog, when he can manage to catch her and take her home. He's gone to Mexico today and will be visiting his sister for a few days, but will be back on the weekend. Note the chewed light cord. When Annie was there early this morning, the large silk bouquets from the urns were removed and the dog had them in her lair chewing on them. Annie retreived them and put them back. I came later and picked up the pieces of chewed off flowers and took them to the trash, destroying evidence of Patti-Jo's wrongdoing. I don't know what R. has in mind for the dog's name, but I am calling her Patti-Jo after St. Patrick and St. Joseph whose feast days are around the time she arrived at the church.
I fed her and filled her water this morning, then came back after Lydia and I went for lunch, and brought her two pieces of Texas toast, which she took, piece by piece, from my hand as I sat on the bench. While I was doing that, Bob, a really nice elderly man who recently moved from my neighborhood to a neighborhood near the church, stopped by on his riding lawnmower and trailer rig. He and I talked for a while, and I was glad to know where he is living now. He asked about the cannas I have growing at my house, so I think I'll dig some up for him in the next day or two. I had intended to get to it this afternoon, but lost my steam in the meantime.
Most of today was spent working on my parent talk for Sunday. I have four pages of the outline and notes. Now to fill it in, tighten it and narrow it down to one hour. I also got photos from the Youth Spectacular sent to the Diocesan Youth Office, and some things ordered for the religious education classes. While I was in the parish office, Eva came by with some delicious bread pudding for everyone. YUM! Mary and Leo came too, to start clearing the things out of what turned into the St. Vincent de Paul storeroom, so it can be another classroom for the next school year.

WARNING!!! GROSS PHOTO!!!

Here is what I did first thing this morning. Ugh! Actually, taking the photo helped me not panic about what was happening. Of course, seeing the photo makes me feel really gross, so I won't be looking at it much. The technician asked if I was going to tell everyone how great they are there. I said, "No, I'll say how I didn't faint or throw up!" I've never fainted or thrown up, but I sure do feel like it each time. Fear and Panic!!!

So anyway, I got up early (fasting), showered and hurried to Beeville for this. Then I rushed back to Skidmore to Mass, which was for a parishioner who died unexpectedly a year ago. A good number of her family members and friends came from out of town for it. Then I hurried to pick up Carl and Coconut to take them to the groomers for thorough flea baths and flea pills. I was a few minutes late for that appointment, but it worked out fine. While they were there (poor babies) I went back to Beeville and got 9 six packs of vincas, and two basil plants to plant over at the church, plus a black bell pepper plant for me. It looked interesting. I was starving by this time, and got a Whataburger to eat on the way back home. I was about 5 minutes early to pick up my CLEAN but traumatized dogs from the groomer, took them home and got my gardening gloves and trowel and went back to the church. I watered R.'s dog, made a note to bring ant spray to spray under her food dish, and then started planting. A lot of the vincas went in the planters by the church steps and then the basil (smells sooooo good!) and more of the vincas went into the planters by the rectory steps. I had some left over, so tried to spruce up the planter on the classroom walkway, but it was so full of straggly plants, that I just removed some of them and planted a single vinca in among the plants, until I can amend the soil and dig out and rearrange the things in there. I watered everything down and then it started raining a little, so I came home. I'll go back tomorrow afternoon and re-work that one planter.

A LITTLE RAIN...?

As I type this, it is drizzling outside. It's an indication of how long and how severe our drought is, that this is worth remarking upon. It started around 3pm when I was on my way to Beeville to finish up our income tax filing, and go to the supermarket. I sure wish it would really let loose and RAIN.
Here's another project-in-progress I am working on. There is an upcoming Mystery Crochet-Along that is going to use plastic bags instead of yarn. I am preparing mine by cutting them in strips across, and then looping them together and rolling them into a ball.

After Mass this morning, Lydia said I had some mail in the office, and I needed to go in anyway for some financial stuff, so I told her I'd needed to go home and get some things first. Before I left, Mary stopped me and she, Annie and I talked about the meeting next week, the parish breakfast coming up, and an added prayer devotion that is starting soon. While standing outside, talking, I saw the dog from yesterday come out of the bbq shack and run to the hall. So when I went home to get my things, I got some dog food and a bottle of water too, for her. When I got back, Reeys was putting food out for her, and was trying to coax her out through the bars of the gate, and having some success. She is getting much 'tamer', but still won't let anyone touch her. He said when he does manage to catch her, he is going to take her home as his pet. So that was good to hear. He said it was him that put the cut milk jugs out for her.

Then we sat on the benches in front of the grotto and talked for quite a while, with the little dog watching and creeping ever nearer. Rose joined us, and Mary and Jesse and Father Sebastian, briefly, too. After that, I went into the office and Annie was helping Lydia, then Eva and her mother came in, too. Reeys was working in the flower beds. I invited everyone to lunch, and when Reeys and then Father came in, I asked them, also. So we all went to the Chisholm Trail. Only I felt bad when Father insisted on picking up the tab.

EXHAUSTED!

I set my alarm today to get up at 6am. I had two teachers out today, plus the other youth leader who was supposed to go with me, taking the junior high kids to their Youth Spectacular in Portland, called before I left this morning, and cancelled, since she had a cold. I really can't blame her, since it was going to be a long, long day. At least it was in Portland for the first time, not in Corpus Christi, at Selena Auditorium/American Bank Center like it always has before.
It was a good day, with the kids behaving and enjoying themselves, and I hope learning and growing, too. There were games, activities, huge airfilled outdoor and in-gym ...well, games and activities, too, I guess you'd call them. That's one of them above - the Bungee Run, where you run to the end of a big elastic cord and try to slap your marker onto the velcroed side of your lane before the cord snaps you back and you fly back to the beginning. Whoever's two markers (in two runs) are farther away from the start, wins. That was one of the smaller 'games'. They had sumo suit wrestling in an inflated ring, gigantic inflated twister for about 20 kids at once, two different kinds of obstacle course/climbing/race contraptions that reached up to about 20 ft. tall, and about a dozen other things. If I was about 10 years younger and 50 lbs. lighter .....or if no one else was around (HA!)....I would have tried them.
Then they had music from a really good Christian Rock band, lots of icebreaker games, lots of singing, presentations and some talks, Mass with Bishop Carmody, and pizza, pizza, pizza.
We got back to the church at 7pm tonight, not much worse for the wear. I mananged to still be mobile, in spite of my recent back problems, even after sitting on the ground with the kids during lunch break. And I managed to get up too.
One thing: this morning, arriving at the church to meet and load up before leaving, I saw that someone had apparently dumped a dog overnight. Poor thing. Actually, Zachary saw it first. But it was so scared that it ran from him, and ran through the iron gate in front of the hall, where we couldn't follow. Trying to coax it out, I noticed someone had cut a milk bottle off and put water in it for the dog. I tossed a ham and cheese sandwich through the gate to it. What was disturbing was that it had a leather collar on that looked pretty tight. That collar needs to come off before long...although I guess the dog was full grown, but smallish. It's ribs were really showing.
When we got back to the church tonight, I looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I guess whoever dumped it, hoped someone coming to Mass would take it home with them, but I doubt that happened because of it being so skittish to where it would run from us, and not let anyone close to it. I did notice that he/she had eaten the sandwich, and also noticed that there were two of those cut milk jugs by the gate - presumably one held food when it was dumped. And there was a t-shirt/rag put down by the wall. So I guess it could sleep on it. Both containers were empty, so I filled one with our leftover ice that would melt and fill it with water. I hope the dog is going to be okay wherever it is.

MELLOW SATURDAY

These are two other recent things I crocheted - a set of 4 mug mats or coasters and a small purse. Gotta have a photo each time, or I can't blog, doncha' know.

Today has been pretty mellow, so far. I added the lettering to the poster the junior high youth are taking to the Diocesan Youth Spectacular tomorrow. Annie came over - Michelle needed to use my computer to get tickets to something. Savannah was with them too. They were headed to Corpus Christi so Annie could get some new shoes for her birthday. So Annie and I had a good visit while Michelle was on the computer. And as a side note, in the short time between the time Annie called and they got here, I managed to vacuum the living/dining room, Fabreeze the carpet, dust most of the living/dining room (the places that showed, anyway), and spruce up the bathroom. Amazing what a little under-the-gun motivation can do.

I need to think about lunch for tomorrow. At the last minute they said we need to pack food for our group, so I need to see if we still have an ice chest, and then decide what to take. Nothing sounds really appetizing. I guess it'll be ham and cheese sandwiches, pretzel sticks, bottled water and some kind of fruit. Or I could just get lunchables instead of making sandwiches.... Either way, it means I need to make a plan and make another trip to the supermarket in the next town.

MYSTERY CROCHETALONG IN PROGRESS

This is the current Mystery Crochetalong from the Yahoo group, Bumbles Groovy Crochet. It's turning out to be a poncho. I had done this much several days ago, and then set it aside waiting for the next installment of instructions. Those came a day or two ago, but I just got back to it tonight and added two more rows, so it's now a little bigger than in the photo.

Today was a busy day, and yet I still didn't finish much of anything that I had intended to finish. I had to go to the county clerk's office and search for ...titles...deeds...? Whatever the heck - it was time consuming and confusing. I'm trying to straighten out some things that have been left undone, and get the deed to some property in order. Yuck! Not fun. It's going to be a long, boring, job. I also did the banking today, shopped at Goodwill, went to the supermarket, and ran some other errands. My Goodwill finds were 1)a skirt made from some beautiful vintage reproduction fabrics sewn patchwork style into a swirl pattern, 2)two wooden puzzles for Mathieu, 3)two Zoobook magazines for Zachary, and 4)a pocket photo album, of the size that art postcards will fit in. I will probably just use the skirt as fabric, but don't know what I'll make from it yet.

That doesn't sound like much of a day, but it was draining.

THURSDAY AND NO SURVIVOR TONIGHT!

Bummer! I plan my Thursdays around that show. Oh, well... Anyway, here is a photo of my doll sweaters I made recently. They are modeled by Mary Josephine (Josie) and Margie. Josie has a purse to match. I had started crocheting doll sweaters in hopes of getting one to fit my smaller dolls -
the vintage vinyl molded hair dolls that are about 8 -10" tall. The first try with regular yarn worked out to fit Josie, at 18". The second try, using baby yarn and a smaller hook fit 16" tall Margie. I don't really want to try it with the crochet thread, so my smaller dolls are going to have to continue to be wardrobe challanged for now. It is easy to find clothes for the 18" dolls in stores, and I can find some vintage doll clothes on eBay for the 16" ones, but it is extremely difficult to find clothes for smaller ones, except for a few 'baby' type items, but these are not baby dolls; they are like pre-schooler and early elementary age in style.

My back problem is pretty much gone. It's still tender, but that's it. I can get up and down without much pain at all. But it seems I've traded back pain for a headache. I had one most of yesterday, and by last night it was really severe and I was terribly nausous, waking up several times during the night with the pain, despite aspirins yesterday and a napra-whatsit in the evening. This morning it was almost gone, but has come back somewhat as the day progresses. It's much, MUCH lessened from yesterday though.

LONG TIME, NO BLOG...

Whew - it's good to be back blogging again. So much has been happening, but I haven't had time to blog it....because so much has been happening.
Garrett and I went to Austin last Tuesday to get Shabree, so she could spend the rest of her spring break here. On the way back we stopped at The Paper Bear, in San Marcos. That is a really interesting store - so many unusual items you don't see anywhere else. Not that we got much this time. Garrett is really into retro stuff and collectibles, so enjoyed looking at all the vintage posters they had in the floors and on the walls and ceiling. Shabree got an Only Hearts Doll, some paint brushes, and I forget what else, now. I got a couple of clickers, and a tiny little plastic cupid. I'm wishing I would have taken the time to look through the t-shirts and also that I would have gotten the tote bag I was looking at. The picture on the front was of a doll of the kind I collect - sort of. Only it was kind of bright and neon-unreal looking. Naturally, since I passed it up, I am now pining for it.

Garrett wanted to stop by some of the antique stores in Geronimo on the way home, too, but we had spent too much time in The Paper Bear, so they were closed by the time we passed through. I was disappointed we missed them, too. We've always had good luck in The Blue Hills shop. Maybe next time...

So we got back home only to find out that Stewart had come home from Baghdad!!! He didn't tell anyone he was coming, so it was a big surprise. He stayed a week, just leaving today. I miss him already. He said he plans on staying in Baghdad until he gets tired of it, which won't be for a long, long time. He also said that he met G. Gordon Liddy recently, and did his paperwork to get into/out of the country.

Shabree and I went shopping in Corpus Christi while she was here, went to the movies to see 'The Shaggy Dog', and just hung around. And we had a little family birthday party and bbq for her. She, Zachary and Mathieu 'camped out' over in front of the cabin one night too. Only Mathieu didn't last long, before he went home to his parents. And not too long after that Shabree and Zach decided to move camp into the cabin with Grandpa. Ha! So much for camping out.
Shabree and I made her birthday cake. I baked the cake in a bowl and she iced and decorated it. It turned out really cute, but the 'skirt' could have been bigger.
Stewart and I took her back to Austin on Sunday afternoon. He wanted to stop in Cabelo's - did I spell that right??? - on the way home. HUGE store - all sporting goods...at least downstairs. I didn't go upstairs. I ended up just going out to the benches and waiting for him.

During all this, I somehow developed some major back trouble. Two mornings, especially, I could hardly get out of bed. It took like 20 minutes of struggle and cold sweat to manage to get upright and walk/drag down the hall, holding on to the walls as I went. It's better now, but still pretty bad.

I have been crocheting since I can do that sitting in the recliner. I've started on a mystery crochetalong project with one of my yahoo groups - BumblesGroovyCrochet. It's turning out to be a poncho in stitches fancier than I would have tried otherwise. I've finished two doll sweaters and a doll purse, and one small heart shaped purse. I need to take some photos of all that. Maybe tomorrow.(One last photo of Shabree...this was taken on Sunday, in my office, after Mass and classes.)

MORNING OF A HECTIC DAY

This is a photo I took yesterday outside of Austin. The sign is in a church parking lot, but it is situated in a location that leads one to believe the sign might be referring to what is in the background. LOL!
Anyway, about yesterday. Garrett accompanied me to Austin. We missed our exit, and so took a very long 'scenic route'. We picked up Shabree and started home, stopping at The Paper Bear in San Marcos to shop. We didn't get a lot, (a doll, paintbrushes, tiny plastic Cupid, two clickers, candy...) but enjoyed looking at everything there for an hour or more.

When we got home, Carl and Coconut weren't there. Chuck usually takes Carl with him over to the cottage when he goes, but he doesn't take Coconut. So I was worried. I called over to Amy and Reagan's and Amy told me that yes, (whew!), Coconut was there....and so was STEWART! He frequently doesn't tell anyone when he is coming, and arrived home from Baghdad yesterday afternoon, late. It was he that took Coconut over there. So Shabree and I went over and the grown-ups sat around and talked while the kids rode bikes and ran around. Stewart will only be here for 6-7 days, so it's not long, but better than nothing.

We are all going to be busy with one thing or another the next few days. Today, Stewart is in Austin taking care of some business and Shabree and I are going shopping for her birthday presents. We should be on the road already, but I let her sleep until she woke up on her own. Then we've got Mass tonight.

CREEPY CLOWN

I didn't win the Creepy Clown Contest over at Swapatorium. This was my entry. I got this clown, which is an old vintage carnival prize, at Codi's in Corpus Christi.
Here's the paragraph I sent in with my photo entry:

TITLE: Muerto Ten-Fingers

She heard a barely audible creak and turned
in time to see the door slowly pivet.
In the opening was Muerto the Clown, and for
just a moment, She thought she perceived slight
movement of his hands, as one fingered his tight
buttons and the other languidly massaged
the swell of his stark white belly. A sound,
part languid, satisfied groan, and part the
letting out of a held breath seemed to
eminate from the corpulant figure. But that
couldn't be... Could it...?

Today has been an exhausting day. I hardly sat down. Laundry, cooking dinner early, gathering and taking out the trash, lots of phone calls, hurrying in to the parish office to get some paperwork done there, taking in some things and finding more work waiting for me there, some of which I had to bring home to spread out on the table and take care of, forms filled out, letters and notes composed and typed, everything organized and sent to the diocese and to some parents. etc.etc.etc.etc.etc......... In all this, I forgot I had an appointment with the income tax guy, so missed it. Chuck got home early, and wasn't too happy about that. He went to see him about 2 hours after my missed appointment, but he still needs to talk to me, so maybe Thursday..... ugh... Then I went to Beeville with Barbara to help her with the puppies again.

Despite everything I did get more of the doll sweater done that I am crocheting. The pattern didn't give sizes either for the hook, the yarn OR the finished sweater. But using an F hook and worsted weight yarn, it looks like it will probably fit an 18" doll. My next doll sweater will be with baby yarn and a smaller hook.

QUIZ - WHAT COLOR GREEN ARE YOU?

Green IS my favorite color, but I don't really like mint green.

You Are Mint Green

Balanced and calm, you have mastered the philosophy of living well. Your friends seek you out for support, and you are able to bring stability to chaotic situations. You're very open and cheerful - and you feel like you have a lot of freedom in life. Your future may hold any number of exciting things, and you're ready for all of them!

What Color Green Are You?

"BUILD ME UP, BUTTERCUP"

I let several photo opportunities get by me today, so you are viewing one of the wildflower photos from yesterday. Most people around here call them buttercups, but the real name is wild primroses....I think.
Chuck is still working 7 days a week, so it was just Zach and I going to Mass this morning. We didn't get there as early as I wanted to, but everything worked out fine. I'd stayed up until 2 am, and Zach didn't go to sleep much earlier either. He fell asleep with his glasses on, and didn't even wake up when I removed them.

While I was giving my talk this morning, I told my junior high students that they could use my office to work on the poster they have to get done for the Youth Spectacular. I showed them where various supplies were and told them that it wasn't really a 'private' office - I don't keep anything confidential there, it's more like a resource room - so to use what they need, and feel free to look through things to find whatever they might want to use. Not quite halfway through, I had to take some necessary papers that an absentee teacher left in the conference room, to the right classroom for the substitute to use, and so dashed into my office, on the way, to drop off some materials someone returned. GOOD GRIEF! They had supplies of all kinds strewn all over. Glitter was everywhere! The poster was barely started, but each of the girls had their own large, glittery name signs for their rooms, and a couple were dismantling the walk-in closet. (photo op. missed)

But they are neat kids, and I really like them all. Also today before, during and after class time, several of the students (of all age groups) were especially sweet, earnest, and/or endearing - even a couple who took restroom breaks, and then came all the way around to the conference room to raid the fridge before returning to their classrooms. LOL! It was an extra joyful Sunday morning.

After classes and everything else was over, and it was just Zach and I - him mostly running around and climbing trees but also helping me with a couple of things, and me doing a little paperwork, organizing and 'housekeeping', I moved on to check out my office. They definately took me literally when I said to look and see what is available for the poster or to read or use, because there wasn't one surface, cabinet, shelf or drawer that hadn't been shuffled around. They didn't leave the huge mess I feared when I had seen the big containers of glitter scattered everywhere earlier, but I did have to straighten and put away a lot of things.

After we got home and changed clothes, Zach and I did a little gardening. We cleaned one easy flower bed and potted the 'patio tomatoes' and basil. (photo op. missed) Then we played a game like I had promised him last night. We ended up with Parcheesi, and part way through he got his small army set and set up a barracade, surface to air missels and supply storage around his start section, and used soldiers and a flag for his playing pieces and set up tanks at strategic spots around the board. (another photo op missed)

After the game I took him home in time for Boy Scouts and 4-H meetings. My friend, Barbara, called and was ready to go take her 5 remaining Lab puppies to town to try to sell them. She had changed her mind about going the other day, at the last minute. We got a late start, I thought, and stayed much too late, although it was nice to take my crocheting and get a little done on a doll sweater pattern, while enjoying conversation, after getting the puppies (yet another photo op missed), pen, crate, etc. unloaded. She wants to go back tomorrow, but I'm really not too keen on staying so late. She can't manage to lift/carry and load/unload everything herself though, so I guess I will help her out.

BLOOMING BLUEBONNET

I should be preparing for that hour long talk I have to give on Sunday. I've got the basic outline done, but it sure looks 'skinny' without the rest fleshed out.
I spent too much time this morning, on the internet looking at crochet patterns. I found a pattern for a cute doll sweater, and think I'll work on that next, while I wait for the next crochetalong. Some of my vintage vinyl dolls need clothes badly.
When I finally dislodged myself from the internet, Zach called to see if I was ready for him to come over and help me with yard work. I went to get him, and Mathieu wanted to come too, and was crying because he couldn't. So I relented and was happily surprised when he played in the front yard the whole time, filling and and emptying and re-filling flower pots. He didn't go towards the street once. He was extra good (comparitively) the other day in Corpus too, so maybe he's maturing a little.
But before we left to come back to the house, we walked around their yard and over by our cabin and all around the front field, looking at wildflowers. They are few and small, but there are some. The photo is the first bluebonnet that bloomed there this season, although by now there are several others in bloom too, and more that are still very small yet. And the other photo is of Zach showing Mathieu a sensitivity plant, and demonstrating it's name.

As soon as we got home, we started in on rehanging the shoes on the shoe tree. That took a lot longer than expected and we were all red-faced and sweating terribly when it was done. We were going to take a break and then plant the tomato plants and other things in the back yard, but Amy came to pick up the boys to go buy a birthday present. As soon as I finish my water, and put another coat of spray paint on the 3 shoes that need it before they can go on the tree, I'll call my friend, Barbara, and tell her I'm ready to pick her up and head to Beeville with 5 puppies in tow.

NON-RELATED PHOTO FRIDAY

I keep forgetting to take a photo or two of the wildflowers blooming, so here's a photo of Mathieu from yesterday. This was taken while we waited for our meal at Cracker Barrel.

Actually, the wildflowers aren't doing so well this year. Too much drought, I guess. After having lunch with Lydia at The Chisholm Trail, I went to Beeville to take care of some errands. On the way I noticed bluebonnets blooming - but only in places and in narrow strips along the edge of the road. I guess when we did get a tiny bit of rain, it was enough to run off the road, and moisten the edges enough to grow the flowers. Away from the edges, there is a lot of brown.

Usually, it is Indian Pinks (Indian Blankets) first, then the Bluebonnets take over. But I didn't see a single Indian Pink today.

After going to the bank and getting the oil changed in Chuck's pick-up, I went to Goodwill where I bought a small glue gun and a lot of glue sticks in a small cigar box. Actually, it was the cigar box, for the most part, that I bought it for. Then I went on to Walmart and got some things for religious education classes - cups and posterboard, and an esperanza bush, a lemon tree, two sturdy cherry tomato plants, an eggplant 'plant', and a basil plant.

At Walmart, I had an 'amusing' old lady incident. After paying for my things, I got in the pick-up and drove into the outdoor garden area, so I could give the worker my sales slip and get my lemon tree. He, a high school boy, maybe, or else a recent graduate, came up and I handed him my sales slip.

He 'said', "Okay, you want to get it."

Me: 'What?"

Him: "Are you going to pick it up?"

Me: "You want me to do that?!"

Him: "Um, yeah."

Me: "I thought y'all did that."

Him: (walking behind the pick-up...) "Well..."

Me: (getting out of the pick-up and following him)"I don't know if I can lift it to the truck bed."

Him: "No, I'll lift it. Some people just like to pick out which tree they want."

Me: "Oh, okay - I get it now." (D'oh!)

I must have been wearing my glasses. I've always said I can't hear well when I have my glasses on.

Back on the highway, when I got close to Skidmore, I decided to turn in the cemetery and see if there was any evidence of wildflowers there. There was barely anything but brown - no wildflowers anywhere. Of course, last spring they mowed over the bluebonnets and Indian pinks before they even quit blooming. So - no seeds to go with no rain. Then I was thinking that maybe the esperanza I bought might be better planted at the cemetery. It's a native plant, but even the native plants aren't doing so great now. I'd have to carry water to it daily until it was established, I guess. I have no idea how to work the water system out there. They have faucets, and a cistern, and an electric switch...but I've never been able to crack the code of how you get it to produce water. (D'oh again.)

After I got home and unloaded most of the stuff, and relaxed a while, I drove over to the church and took some of it, plus things here at the house that I needed to take over to the classroom building, and got it all arranged and put away. Then I went over to the cabin and unloaded the lemon tree there and watered it well.

Tomorrow I'm renting Zachary in the morning to help me get the fallen shoes back on my shoe tree in the front yard. Some of them will probably need touch-ups with the spray paint, too. I painted another pair of shoes this afternoon to be added to the tree - little girl's mary janes - one purple, one hot pink. If we have time, I want him to help weed the front flowerbed and maybe help plant the tomatoes and some other things.

Thank you to everyone who commented or emailed congratulating Zach on his birthday. :)

PATRIOTIC COSTUME DAY

Today must have been patriotic costume day. Amy, Mathieu and I went to Corpus Christi this morning, and when we passed this woman on South Padre Island Dr. I turned around and asked her if she'd mind if I took a photo of her with Mat. Later, in the afternoon, we were in another area and there was a guy by the road wearing an Uncle Sam outfit. We couldn't pull over at the time, so continued on our way to take Mathieu for a pit stop and get something to drink. Then on our way back we passed a thrift store, and the van swerved in there automatically. Honest. ;) After we came back out and retraced our path, Uncle Sam was nowhere to be seen. Mathieu was disappointed.

Our other stops were Party City, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, CrackerBarrel, The Catholic Shoppe, Home Depot...and I think that was it. Amy got most of the things she needed for Mathieu's Sponge Bob birthday party next month, and a John Deere cover for her riding lawn mower. We really enjoyed both the food and the shopping in Cracker Barrel. Amy got a really great I Love Lucy shirt, and some birthday presents for both Matthew and Mathieu. We both got some Easter things for the kids, and I got birthday things too. They really had some good toys there this time, and Mathieu had a ball looking at and playing with them, helping us decide what to get. I don't think we've ever had that much luck at Cracker Barrel before. I'm regretting not getting him the chatter teeth he wanted, too, though. They were $5, but 'iffy' plastic and with a winding mechanism that just didn't look reliable enough. Still,...only $5... Oh - and at Party City and the Thrift Store (where I bought quite a bit of stuff), I got Coconut a pink hula hoop and a soft, looong, crinkley, rattley, squeeky alligator baby toy. I want to teach her to jump through the hoop, like I did with the daschund I had as a child. Naturally, she is scared to death of it. But I did get her to go through it 5 times (and actually jump once) with the aid of chicken gizzards. And Chuck got her to go through it once tonight, by demonstrating how Carl didn't mind walking through it.
This evening, during commercials on Survivor, I called families of the junior high youth group. I need to get the paperwork in for registrations for the Junior High Youth Spectacular by Saturday, and only one parent had responded so far. Everyone was eager to go when I first brought it up, but no one is getting their registration forms filled out and returned. We have to pay quickly, and the fees are non-refundable and registrations are non-transferable, so it is kind of irritating. This isn't costing the students or their families anything. The parish is paying for it, but I don't want to pay $$$ and then just loose it. And after the calls tonight, I only ended up with one more 'yes' - everywhere else, I had to leave a message on a machine, and hope they get back to me quickly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZACHARY!

Zach is turning 11 on Saturday, but he had a mostly family party today. He did have one friend there, and the rest were cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents and an adult friend. They had a bbq dinner followed by cake. The kids played outside mostly - riding bikes, exploring the field and empty pond and jumping on the trampoline.
Yesterday Coconut came home from the vet. She's doing fine, but was looking kind of bad last night. Maybe she overdid it and her tummy and incision were hurting. She seems her normal jumping, running self today.
My sister suggested today that I am a magnet for crazy people. I know she must be right. I had told her of a recent encounter with someone, and then that person showing up on my doorstep two days ago with an odd reason and a rant. This same person did the same thing some years ago, when our paths crossed. Then this morning I got a phone call from another person who touched on a number of stange subjects. This person calls me in clusters maybe once or twice a year.
I'm really tired tonight. I could hardly stay awake through the finale of Project Runway. I stayed up for the late edition, since I had an hour and a half phone call earlier this evening (not from the crazy). The outcome of tonight's call was that I agreed to accompany a friend to Mexico again in the near future, and to help her with selling her 5 remaining registered black and yellow lab puppies in Beeville on Saturday afternoon.

MY DAY SO FAR

I took Coconut to the vet early this morning to be spayed. She has to stay overnight. Afterwards, I stopped by Walmart to get tomato plants and a flowering hanging plant. They didn't have any hanging baskets of flowers that I liked, and I forgot all about the tomatoes, but I DID get these two dolls for our two youngest granddaughters. I couldn't believe I found a Little Red Riding Hood doll! This was the only one they had. Besides the Goldilocks doll, they also had Little Bo-Peep. Actually, they had two other new doll lines that I hadn't seen before either. Both were pretty interesting, and reasonably priced, but I didn't get any more. I also got Zach's birthday gift - a horseshoe set and a camoflage tarp, that he'd wanted. I got Mathieu some color/number/shape cards, and both of them some hotwheels cars in plastic Easter eggs. Besides a couple of mundane items, I bought some potted mums and a wild geramium ("mosquito plant") to put together a hanging pot of my own. Then as I was leaving, I could have kicked myself, because before going in the store, I had walked around in the outside garden center and planned to buy a lemon tree and an esperanza bush at the check-out. I had forgotten them, too. But I wasn't going to go back inside and wait in line again.
This is what I had for lunch. One of my grandmothers - Mommy - used to make this, often, as part of my lunch when I would stay with her and Poppy sometimes, while Mother was at work. It's cut up tomato, mayonaisse and fritoes. Yum!
When I returned from town, I stopped at the Post Office and a local woman was there, with her trophy on the lobby table, telling people about the award she won recently from a photographic society, and showing them the photo. I asked if I could take a photo of her with her award and the winning photo. The photo, which she took several years ago, shows the treeline and sky. In the sky is a single dark cloud, with a contrail going behind (or through) it. She said it followed her along the highway she was driving on for quite a number of miles. "I'm not going to say what I think it is.", she said.

WHAT KIND OF AMERICAN ENGLISH DO YOU SPEAK?

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

30% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

5% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

SPRING/SUMMER IS HERE!

I titled this as "Spring/Summer" because spring is mostly a brief whiz-by here. It is so brief as to be almost non-existant. These are from one of the rose bushes blooming around the parish grounds. It looks like it might be a 'Joseph's Coat' rose, since there are all shades of yellow, peach, pink and orange roses on the same bush. I took the photo after classes this morning.

Today has been a really good, but hectic day so far. Mass was good, the music was good, classes were good, the weather was good... I even broke out the white sandals to wear to Mass this morning. I think winter is gone and spring/summer is here to stay. I made the announcement about the quilt squares again - just an update, and several people said they are excited about the project and are working on their family quilt blocks. I also made the announcement about donations being accepted to defray the cost of taking the junior high students to the Diocesan Youth Spectacular this month, and got quite a good little bit in donations so far.

Classes were a bit hectic since we had one teacher out, working with the Boy Scout barbecue today, and I was supposed to take Mrs. Castaneda's 2nd year students for a special class today, as well as my own junior high and high school group. Then as it turned out, one of the kids needed another registration form for the youth spectacular, so I had to go back home to get one to copy for her, then rush back. Also the person who had volunteered to provide breakfast this morning, had forgotten, I guess, but I always keep something on hand for those occassions. This time it was cheesy fish crackers. And we had plenty of juice in the fridge. I've got to buy more cups though, because we were out. There were lots of absences this morning, which I figured there would be, since there were a higher number of the kids at the Saturday evening Mass, and the Boy Scouts were all working with the bbq plate sale beginning at 11 this morning.

Tony, my assistant, was there, but he wasn't feeling very well. I don't know what I would have done without him today, with all the busy-ness going on. He took care of some office work, took the attendance of all the classes, checked on which air conditioner-heater units were working properly or not, and helped supervise all the various comings and goings today....kind of like directing traffic. It's all the 'little' helps that are not so little. They add up to a lot. I wish he could get to feeling better, consistantly again. Next week he won't be there, and I'll be missing one, possibly two teachers too. And I have a parents meeting, so there will be quite a bit of juggling around. The dates for First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion have had to be moved up by a month, because of Father Sebastian's vacation, so that is causing some extra scrambling too. Also one of my teachers told me that she is going to take next year off, so I am going to have to find a good replacement for her by August. I expected she was going to leave us though, since she gave birth during this school year, and it has been difficult for her to do everything, especially with her husband sometimes having to work 7 days a week, and her older daughter with all her activities and with classes of her own on Sundays.

After classes and finishing up some paperwork, and locking up, I went to the Boy Scout BBQ and picked up plates for Chuck and I. He is working 7 days a week too, at the moment. My daughter-in-law, Amy, and youngest grandson, Mathieu, came over to see if I wanted them to get my plates for me, but I already had them. They stayed awhile to visit, and so Mathieu could play with Coconut. Amy looked so tired. She had mowed yesterday and stayed up until 2 a.m. last night making two cakes for the BBQ. They also donated 20# of cooked potatoes for the potato salad and a lot of rice too. Reagan was at the fire station barbecuing briskets all night. Zachary was working in the serving line this morning, as were many of the boys that I know from church. I wish I would have thought to take a photo of the line. I complimented them on being so efficient. And they looked so - dare I say it? - CUTE in their uniforms. Another Scout helped me select a drink, and then perusing the wide choice of desserts, I selected home baked sugar cookies and then Lucas recommended the brownies, so I got a baggie of those too, and he and the other Scout helped me carry the plates, desserts and glasses of tea to the car.

I was considering going over to the cabin and out in the pasture to gather up horse poop, (What fun!) and maybe some goat poop as well, to work into a very small garden patch here at the house. I am considering fighting the bugs for some tomatoes, at least, this year. But after eating the delicious bbq dinner, I am lacking the ambition to do much of anything except maybe plan next Sunday's parent meeting.

CAFFEINE WITHDRAWALS

Thursday I missed the parish council meeting. I had a headache and general malaise since Wednesday, and finally on Thursday afternoon/evening, I just went to bed for a two hour nap. Today, the headache is only intermittent, so I guess my system is getting used to not operating on caffeine. My blood is no longer fizzing and foaming.

I got my hair trimmed two inches yesterday. It was still two short to donate to Locks of Love, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. I am really tired of it being this length and getting tangled and caught on everything.

Also this week I called and made appointments with the doctor (more blood work if I want perscriptions refilled) and the vet (to get Coconut spayed). I also called yet again to see about why my kitchen window is not fixed yet. It was broken by the cable company in ...Dec.? and is still not fixed. Sigh...

Today I had to go into the parish office to sign something and catch up on some things. Lydia and I had lunch at The Chisholm Trail...where I should have taken a photo of the wide little clump of buttercups/wild primroses blooming against the side of the building. We stopped to admire them and talk about spring wildflowers but I didn't think about taking a photo. So the photo for today is two books I got at Goodwill for Mathieu and Zachary.

It is Lydia's birthday and yesterday her family got her a little Jack Russell Terrier. She was talking about how she didn't expect JRTs to look like her new baby dog does, and I was describing Coconut, who is of the same type as hers - the very smooth, long-legged kind, not the shorter, scruffy-furred ones. So then I came home and loaded up Carl and Coconut and went back to the office to show her and Father Sebastian. Then coming back home, I saw Vicky, my cousin, unloading supplies for the Boy Scout BBQ at the fire station, so stopped there to talk for a couple of minutes.

Then tonight, it was Mass and Stations of the Cross.

ASH WEDNESDAY

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Catholics who go to Mass here, today, will have their foreheads marked with ashes in the shape of a cross. It symbolizes belonging to Jesus, and a turning back to Him more resolutely, in preparation for the coming joy of Easter. The ashes themselves represent repentance and penance - Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting. They also symbolize our mortality..."Remember man, you are dust and to dust you will return."

I broke my rule about not posting a blog entry unless I had a photo, the last time. But I intended to come back and blog about my day and add a photo then. Only I accidently deleted the photo in my camera. It was a shot at a graveside service.

A man in our tiny community had been seriously ill for some time. Members of our church and another church had been doing what we could to take care of him - providing meals and care, and taking him to dialysis, when he would go, but he was just is such bad shape, physically and mentally. And it was such a horrid Catch-22 type of situation to get him the aid he needed. Snafus like...he had no electricity, but the electric company couldn't hook him up again because he had no septic system, and he couldnt be hooked up with a septic system because they are no longer allowing new ones...and on and on. He has no SS number because he wasn't a legal U.S. citizen...or was he? (Conflicting information.) However, years ago, he had um...bought...a S.S. number on the black market, but had since lost the card and didn't know the number. He couldn't get some kinds of aid because although he had no income and his house was in horrid shape, he had a nice barn/shop on his property that was worth over the amount whereby your property value is considered low enough to get aid. Anyway, some medical aid had been gained toward the end, but he died in his home a few days ago. There was miscommunication or denial from the cemetery, because they have no indigent space, so that he was unable to be buried locally. He had to be buried in the next town. Mass for him was Monday, and about 15 or so locals attended, then went to the burial site afterwards for a graveside service there. He has no known living relatives. Ex-relatives and step-children's whereabouts are unknown. So it was just a very sad thing.