We are starting nine days of vacation today. Yippee! In doing my maternal genealogy DH & I have located about a dozen graves of my ancestors from the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries throughout New England. Many served in various military capacities. For the past 15+ years we have used Memorial Day as a time to visit the graves & do maintenance. Many are in very rural areas but located on private property. Others are in rural cemeteries that have virtually been lost to time. We cut back encroaching forest growth, straighten the stones, & plant a daylily. The oldest military grave dates to 1687. It took us 5 years to find the site. The headstone was buried halfway...we knew it HAD to be the right grave so DH started digging. We were able to get a tracing of the stone's engraving for verification. It's quite a hike off the road to reach the grave site. We notified the historical society of the location back in the early 90's so Samuel's grave now has a permanent Veteran's placque & flag. Buried near Samuel we located the graves of his second wife & 2 of their children who died in infancy. Other graves are in more prominent cemeteries & we visit just to pay our respects & leave one rose. We'll start our trip before dawn on Monday & won't be home until well after dark. All we can reach in one day are those graves in MA & NH. The rest we visit periodically to keep them maintained. Today & tomorrow we'll do some garden work & BBQ. Next week, we'll take the ferry to Orient Point & spend the day garden center hopping. Then, we'll toss a suitcase in the car & take off for a few days...location unknown as of yet. Have a safe & great long weekend, everybody! /tricia

Ooops...I started a tgif thread too...GMTA!!! well I will copy and paste here and let the moderators delete my thread. Happy Friday and Happy Graduation to all our forum friends attending graduations and grad parties! Today is supposed to begin a heat wave here in Philly! High 90's for the next few days! YIKES!!! Its so nice out now...just came in for another little cup of joe. I was out admiring the handy work of a few wayward teens. They were bored I guess and they decided it would be so much fun to try to rip down the neighbors railroad tie retaining wall, What they could not rip down they wrote all over with sharpies. I was at work so I did not see anything but I know who it was....there is a bad element here-I suppose most blocks have some sort of problems like this. I think it may be time to take over the block captain job again-the lady who took over for me is not doing a good job-in fact one of her kids is involved with the bad element. On another note...today is Drews last exam. He has short days next week and done on Friday. I will be SO happy to see this year end!! I didn't post too much about it but its been a terrible year for Drew. He just didn't seem to adjust to high school life and my one time honor student is barely passing. Frank and I have been pulling our hair out trying to help him but he is just not motivated. Hopefully after having summer off he'll start 10th grade with a better attitude! Amy and I will hit the gym while he takes his last 2 tests. I am going to try to get my hair cut today too. My "girl" has gone out on early maternity leave so for this cut I may just go to a hair cuttery type place for a trim. Her baby is due in July so I'll have to have another trim befor she returns in Sept-Oct. Tonight I was invited to see my co-worker off to his prom. A co workers prom you ask?? Yes a prom! Theres a young boy who is really a cool kid. Turn out he is Charles BEST friend!! so my co worker is taking Charles sister (my great step neice) to the prom!! Charles does not want to go-more on that later. After that I was invited to a jewelry demonstration. I do not wear a lot of jewelry but I'll go and see...maybe I will get a jump start on holiday shopping?? Tomorrow I have to work early but I also get done early which is good as its the block clean up and I need to be here LOL!! Someone has to talk some sense into these people! LOL!! No really the block needs a good cleaning and we as a community have to work together to make this a safe neighborhood. Tomorrow night Frank and I are going out to dinner...nothing to celebrate really, well maybe celebrate just getting thru the past year LOL!! Sunday is Pocono Race day. The guys get up before the crack of dawn and set up camp on the infield of the Pocono Racetrack and watch the race. I went once and vowed to never go again!! LOL Its LOUD!! However I do help him get ready so he doesn't forget anything. I will no doubt have to work but I will treat myself to something sinful for dinner!! Maybe get some crabs and go to my moms and pig out!! CLINK to my forum friends and cheers to a happy weekend!! Cheers! Susie

Hope you feel better soon Stacy. For the first time in a month I'm aware that it is Friday... well very early Sat morning now. My lay-off has come to an end for now and I go back to work on Monday. I didn't know how bad I needed an extended break. I'm alive and living again! A rather strange day. New bartender and I struck up a friendship. Alas she is less then half my age so it will be just friends. She had guessed I was "not older then 33" which puts her off by 11 years. Still it was so good for my ego to have an interested gal being friendly. Just took a walk down my drive as Dolly had been barking at something. Nothing out there to be found but it is one beautiful night out there. Out here in the Thumb we don't get much light pollution so the stars are very clear. The Milky Way makes a neat white stripe across the sky. Some lightning flashing out over Saginaw Bay which is 30 miles north of me. Probably rain by morning but clear and cool right now. Not in the mood for alcohol or I'd take a bottle and go have a sit in the moonlight. My outdoor cat Tippy got into a bad fight and came home all bloody. Thought he might lose an eye this morning. Patched him up and put some boric acid eye drops on his wounded eye. Must have felt good because he didn't seem to mind my putting stuff in his eye. Happy to report the swelling is way down and he looks better tonight. Going to buy a storm door in the morning. Only one in stock a couple weeks ago and I need to get another. The garage didn't really need one but both doors are on the front of the house and it looks funny to only have one storm door. Dad said I should close off the porch but I don't know if I have that much energy. Grew potted tomatoes and peppers instead of flowers the last couple years and don't know if I want to lose the porch space now. So it goes. I need to take some cyclobenzaprine so I can get back to sleep. Doc gave it to me for my back problems but it makes a pretty decent sleeping pill. Way better then ambien but not as good as some opioids. I'll feel buzzed all day tomorrow from it so I only take it when sleeping is otherwise impossible. : ) lyra

Sneaking in late.good job Nancy starting this thread! Alexa, please post a picture of you all done up to the nines. Stacy have fun with your pork haul, been following the conversation on your thread. Good luck with car shopping toomy 10 yr old, 150K van is still going strong but starting to creak.maybe Ill let DS #2 have it. Yikes! AM these years will fly. Sharon the weather is finally turning cool here too and I may try canning again, good luck with yours. Hang in there Goldgirl, one day you will have a life again. LindaC (still want to go to LindaWhatever) let us know what you do with those apples. Pat T: One more semester! One more semester! One more semester!!!....... One more semester! One more semester! One more semester!!!.......that enough? Maggie I have no concept of close up the house, but good luck. Annie, DS #2s English teacher has a photo of a giant fork stuck in a road on her website. I chuckle every time I get there. I hope that chef puts out food worthy of your standards, I know youll be analyzing every dish to see if you can do better. Bring us some good recipes, and pix of salmon hauls. Mimsic feel better. Wednesday night approacheth. Duane, 11 dogs.wow. Glad you have the work but oh boy thats a lot of poop to pick up. Stacie, glad your gallbladder is cooperating until you can deal with it! Doug, my in-laws are dealing with a bunch of elderly cats. You guys are all saints. Hey if the pizza turns out, I have some caputo flour I can send ya. I picked up some at a local Italian store (same one I get my 6-in-1 tomato sauce, also beloved by pizza heads). My DH is the pizza guy here so I may get him to make something tonight. Hmmmm..cool weathermaybe pizza. Sherrmann we are busy w/bdays in October too. I notice lots of bdays this time of year.means people are busy in February when its cold, and nice and warm inside? Darfc. Shaun watch out I might just crank call ya while you are working the phonesFeel better! Rhome410, nice haul, welcome again to the forum. Dedtired I feel your pain. DH has more time off work so he has decided to go on a closet clean out rampage. My closets too. Grrrr. Sometimes being single looks good. Hey Ellen think reciprocation.vacation in New Zealand? Photo ops! Lyra, mixed blessings, eh? Stick to your guns, sweetie. Tobyt, by now you should know is OK for non-liner postings, LOL. Youre an old timer and have earned it! SharonCB, welcome home! Susie hang in there, I think the market will turn around, but not for a while. I have friends in similar boats. Terri, keep your finger on that farm job. Somehow I bet that teen wont last long and theyll be calling you again. Bri29 enjoy the projects, gotta love em. Me? I surf WAY too much. Awwww David. You need a HUG. Sending you a big one. Looking forward to the real thing in November. Peppi, glad to hear the house survived that rain you showed us. And a Foodsaver set up looks PERFECT for that new couple, good thinking! Katiec, my favorite librarian, keep on trucking. Jojoco were couch potatoes. Im jealous! Happygram youre not as much of a lurker as you think you are bwahahaa. Hey we have our own quilter on the forum, Teresa NC7. Go check out her excuse me thread on conversations, if you havent already (too lazy to check). Sprout26, Im craving Utah againtime to think of skiing. Happy Anniversary! cotehele, I have a funny Il Trovatore story (were BIG operaholics). When the kiddies were young, we took them to a student preview. We had prepared them by showing them the movie, telling them the character/story, playing the music (especially the Anvil Chorus) and of course showing them the Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera. DS #2 fell asleep in the car on the way there. He woke up crying I dont want to sit through a three hour opera!. The minute the house lights went down, and the curtain up on the castle scene, his eyes got big and he was enthralled through intermission. We sneaked down from nosebleed to third row center after intermission. After the show he proclaimed mom, if I can sit here, I want to go to operas! Ka-ching, ka-ching.um grow up a bit, kid when you can sit through the Ring cycle, well add you to our subscription. LindaC, every time there is an empty seat by us, I put you there in spirit. Kathleen.enjoy a quiet weekend. I like alternative busy ones with quiet times. [hint: I open a Word document, make it a smaller window, and catch up from there.] Chancesmom, give that girl a hammer and nails and put her to work on that demo. We put ziplocks of time capsule stuff in our bathroom walls when we were remodeling a newspaper, a letter, etc. I asked the future owners why they dont like my gaudy Italian powder room, LOL. Rachel, good luck moving. No info on the new kitchen? My turn? Yikes! Friday we had my inlaws over for dinner, DH put a chicken on his beloved Big Green Egg. Im the only one in the family that doesnt like chicken/beef on that thing. It was a late dinner because he had spent the afternoon in downtown LA talking with a Bee Keeping company. Because of our garden, we now have a hive on our side yard (pretty sure its Euro not African beasties) and DH wants to keep it but move it down to the bottom of the garden. May not be doable, but hell try. Its next to a row of oleanders and he says honey from those blossoms are toxic, so we wont be harvesting any. Saturday we started setting up our sukkah or booth for the Biblical Festival of the Tabernacles which starts Oct 13th. We come up with humorous decorative themes remodeling (hanging power tools from the roof), disco, my favorite a few years ago was mentally ill bible heroes. Lots of those! This year Im thinking it would be topical to choose either Jewish bankers (good AND bad) or Jewish political candidates. LOL. Last night we took the kids, as part of DS #1s bday present, to see The Capitol Steps; he is into politics. We went out to a good Japanese restaurant, his favorite, before hand. Good laughs. Poor kids bday falls on Yom Kippur eve this year. Bound to happen as he was born the day after YK. Today DH and I are going to a swap meet to pick up more parts for the sukkah. I think Ill put up a pizza (Dougs fault) for tonight. I have to start planning Yom Kippurs dinner meal on Wednesday nightDS #1 has asked for salmon in puff pastry, and I suggested it would be good with an avgolemono sauce, with orzo pilaf on the side he is delighted. Whew, it was easy doing this on Word, with the TGIF thread open in another window, then cutting and pasting! Clinking with water to everyone (big water drinker)!