Well must be summer cause the puter is acting up AGAIN!! Seems it goes on the fritz about this time every year...I even took the tower out and placed it in front of the ac unit as suggested by someone here but still no luck. I will post until the old boy kicks so if I disappear you will all know why!! Lets see...Drew has been out of school for a few days now. His final grades were not at all stellar but he did manage to pass and be promoted to the 10th grade. Amy is going back to school next week...not to live but to take a few summer classes...kinda get a jump start on her sophmore year. I know its good for her so I support it. However it will mean no summer vacation for the family. I am not too bummed tho-means we can put the cash away for our move!! Everyone please send good thoughts and/or prayers to dear brother on Tuesday. He will go back to the hospital for xrays and mri to determine if he can begin to put weight on his legs. The resident docs at the home say they feel he can but we have to wait to see what his surgeon says. It will be a wonderful day for him if he can!! It will also mean he will be able to go home by the end of the week and begin out patient therapy!! Oh poor IOWA!! What a devistating flood!! My heart breaks for all involved and I hope the situation improves quickly!! Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads!! Cheers! Susie

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)!

Stick to your guns Susie. I can feel your tension and hope you take good care of yourself. You will never be there for mom if you don't attend to your needs first. Being healthy and strong allows you to give more with less effort. Sounds like your mom is throwing a guilt trip at you so shrug it off. So hard when you want to help someone and they turn good intentions against you. Moms good luck with all those children... hope the sicky ones recover, those to be come healthy, and those that hope find their dreams. I didn't post yesterday as I was on the road for hours. My alma matter had invited me to attend a lunch/lecture/ and what was probably a wake. A dear departed "sociological technologist" was appreciated with a presentation of his final study given by one of his associates. Lunch was steak strips with a fancy peppery sauce. My table was joined by three beautiful current students happy to enjoy a free lunch. I couldn't hear those across the table from me but the young lady next to me was excited about pursuing a career in enviromental law. We had an alumni at the table currently working in that field so the talk was hot and heavy about what law school might be a good choice. The study was presented after lunch and was about the Internet habits of young people. It looked at the integration of technology into the social lives of high school students... facebook, my space, and creative outlets. Later we met in a quiet room of mostly faculty and memories of the late 60's and 70's and the school's founding were shared by those who were at the scene of the crime. Then we got down to business with cocktails and a connection time. I was a bit of an oddity because most students are fairly wealthy and go on to graduate programs and fancy careers. The college has some intest in using me as an example of what can be done with a liberal arts education without law school. They like that I was able to reinvent myself over and over to meet the challenges of my life. For awhile I sat with the Dean and drunkenly bent his ear about skills I've found critical but aquired after school. I stopped for a burger at a the Harrison Roadhouse which is just off campus and sobered up for the long drive home. For me drunk is about three drinks these days so an hour and food was plenty to get me on my way. I so needed that touching back with a place and people that gave me my adult life. Back to work today. A pocket full of business cards and head full of projects. : ) lyra

I'm sorry for your loss Christine. Have a great day with your mom Nancy! Friends are coming your way this weekend Linda P, so I hope it doesn't rain all weekend :-( Deanna, I guess you're hooked on those preserves, heh-heh! You don't reckon a jar would make it my way, would ya? /end of blatant begging. What is it about cleaning? I've got the carpet cleaner coming to give me a price for carpets, some upholstery and duct cleaning tomorrow morning. I've been doing without a housekeeper for awhile now and DH keeps bugging me about getting her back (usually when I ask him to clean out the vacuum canister, nyuk, nyuk.) But I rather like cleaning my own house. It's also another thing that keeps me off my butt when I get home from work. The last couple of ping pong lessons my instructor spent 1.5 hours with me instead of 45 minutes because another student was on vacation, plus he's a really nice guy. So I was getting a tremendous workout. Then the other folks in the ping pong club have been pulling me into playing doubles games (as charity to me obviously because I'm not in their league AT ALL), so the pressure's been on to improve and not embarrass myself! A group of us went out for Chinese food last Sunday. The next 2 weekends I have no lessons because the community center the club uses is having Halloween goings-on. So I'll be playing at my girlfriend's house and the robo-ping pong center instead. We have a small tournament and barbeque coming up in November. Ping pong practice at the robo center tonight, then I'll come home and clink to my CF pals!