and here’s mine while I kneeled beside her

we were going out to fetch the paper
saying Barack Obama is now our President Elect
something I already knew from looking at online websites

I’m home today, waiting for the furnace maintenance guy, catching up laundry
and probably knitting a couple hats on the small peg loom

~~love and Huggs, Diane

On the last visit, in the parking lot of the same shopping plaza, I spied an elephant.
A fake elephant, thank goodness, but still. . . .

I didn’t have my camera with me right then, but when I mentioned the elephant down the way, the clerk said it had been there awhile because of another tenant in the building.

This morning, what with the time change giving us an extra hour, Husband and I decided to go out for the breakfast we didn’t get to have together on Saturday because I was being a volunteer at the church blood drive.

The restaurant is only a couple blocks from the elephant in the parking lot, so I made sure to have my camera handy.

Knowing Husband is much better with lighting and angles than I am, I asked him to get these pictures.

We just never know what’s gonna be seen in the land of the free

~~love and Huggs, Diane

Kinda wrong somehow, the weather looked like a perfect Autumn day.

I did take pictures Sunday, from the end of the driveway.

click on that one ^ to see neighbor’s decorations

Here’s what I did Wednesday during my solitude

peg loom knitted hats of 4-ply acrylic
two newborn for donation to the hospital nursery,
and one in Pittsburgh Steelers colors for a dear friend

My life seems real nice when I have time to be sitting in the breakfast nook with the sunshine coming in through the windows, sipping tea, while listening to my new Darius Rucker CD, purchased from Amazon, but I’m too inept right now to provide a link.

This morning, I’m waiting for the maintenance guy to come check over the treadmill.
It has developed a noise for undetermined reasons.
Might maybe be cat hair stuck in a gear, who can say… .

Update:  the treadmill guy says that the trouble is in the motor.  I didn’t quite catch exactly what, but it is under warrantee and the company will reimburse for labor.  The part should be in early next week.  I hope by Wednesday, since I’m already Unavailable for a job then because the furnace guy is coming.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

This afternoon, Husband and I are driving by car an hour across the prairie to see son Lucas and to meet his sweetie’s parents.
Major social occasion here.  I’m not sure exactly what happens when his parents meet her parents and there is a wedding to begin planning for Summer, date not yet set.

I needed to deal with the camera chip to be ready for this definite photo op, so this morning I went to a store and spent time with a machine ordering prints of memories.

The words on the screen said a file could not be displayed, so I skipped it.  When I got home, I put the chip in the card reader and looked around on my own screen.  The computer was going a bit nuts, with pop-ups saying something I already knew.
You probably have similar stories to tell.

Anyway, after awhile of futile attempts to DELETE already,
I went and pestered my In-House Computer Support guy,
who took the chip, put it into his camera (which is just like mine) and re-formatted the chip, bringing up a delightful No Images.

In order to prove that all is well, he took this photo of me wearing my hometown hoodie, which was purchased last summer when I went back to the Valley for high school alumni reunion.  Fall is first weather comfortable to use it.

perhaps I should go gel down my cowlick

Our weekend is off to a great start, and promises to get better.

Here’s hoping yours does the same  
~~love and Huggs, Diane

I’ve some ups and some downs the last few days.
Today, along with the dark gray rainy weather, was especially down.

Youngest Son Chris is having apartment problems, but he says it is his story to tell, so I can’t write about it for my blog.

Husband wanted me to come across the room so he could wrap his arms around me and mention that fretting does not bring out the best in me, and to tell me that these things have a way of getting sorted out and getting over.

Then he kissed me, lips then forehead.

It’s a good thing, sharing LIFE with him.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

ps Tomorrow, I’m working a day in Kindergarten.
I hope that Play Dough is not on the schedule.

I thought I would take advantage of an afternoon free and do grocery shopping before the weekend.  Actually we only needed a couple items I could remember from the list under a magnet on the fridge, and I wasn’t sure if we have enough milk, but I stopped at a store anyway.

One of mine and Husband’s habits to do together is going out for Saturday breakfast.
One of our guilty pleasures is real maple syrup on our pancakes and french toast.
Yes, I do carry a bag with a bottle of maple syrup and one of Cholula sauce to use at our table in the restaurant.
If that is bad manners, I’m gonna shrug and tell you to get over it.
One of the items I remembered from the list was syrup.

At the first store, I misjudged how interesting might be the Clearance aisle, and used up 20 minutes there.  So much for an afternoon stretching out and teasing me with possibilities.
I put a book bag into the cart because I could not miss out on its 90% off = $3.49 price tag.  It looks like it will be good for carrying my large peg loom.

The shelf had a big empty place where Mahalia’s favorite can food flavor should be.  Oh, dear, she won’t eat other brands, or even other flavors by the same brand.  Yeah, I do spoil her.

Into the cart went the 32 ounce jug of maple syrup.  I looked at the tag hanging under it, with the price saying $9.99, and yes, indeedy, that is a good one.

At the checkout, I was just about to swipe my card when I noticed a price of $22.39 on the screen.  The cashier said it was for the maple syrup.  Um, no, I checked the shelf tag said much lower.  So she paged somebody to go verify.

Well, it seems the $9.99 was for just a bottle of syrup, the jugs had been moved too close.

I told her to take it back off, sorry to make her work harder, but that is a whole lot higher than I paid late last summer at SAM’s for the same size jug.

Then I went to a different grocery store which would have the proper flavor cat food.  There were two cans on the shelf, then empty space behind them.  I sure hope the company is just behind in production, not discontinuing it.

I bought those, and some cans of a different flavor that Oscar is willing to eat.  It will be a pain at 6 in the morning, this keeping track of whose is whose bowl of food.

Even though I wasn’t at SAM’s, I still needed maple syrup for tomorrow’s breakfast date, so I went to get some.
The 32 ounce jug had a $21.49 price, which means it is 67c an ounce.  The bottles beside it were 81c an ounce.

I didn’t save much by driving down the street, cat food or no.

Maple syrup is an odd item to judge hard times by.
We earn our money, live frugal with so many other things.

Doggone it, folks can complain about the price of a gallon of fuel for a car, but that ain’t even close to $21.49 for a quart of maple syrup.

Husband says we now have it in hand, it will last through several weekends, so enjoy it.  Our breakfast date is much less expensive than events he’s heard other couples like to do for fun.

Golly, this has been a long day.  I think I’m gonna put on some soft music and crochet a potholder.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

Well, I’ll tell ya, we might have had a shortened day time-wise, but it sure did feel hours long enough.
All the students in my Social Studies tutoring group have aged a grade level since I had them last Spring, so I pretty much know their quirks.

One kid kept picking at a cuticle.  It’s the same thing I did at that age in similar situations, so I tried to ignore it.  Finally, when blood dripped on a paper, I handed him a tissue and told him to go to the nurse’s office for a cover.  I have a ready supply in my school bag, but this kid needs a change of scenery all too often.

When he got back, it was time to move to another room for a Homecoming Spirit Day celebration, including something called a Pig-Out Plate.  Quite a potluck spread of snacks laid out.
I had the assignment to keep the various bags and boxes from toppling off an overloaded table while the students filed past and loaded their plates.

I noticed the kid with the band-aid kept tugging on it.

Sigh.  If I had the time, I would teach him what to do with a hook and yarn to keep those fingers busy.

As it was, I decided to put my own hand between his finger and his eyes and tell him to leave the cover on to do its work.

He looked upset and said that “A Band-aid doesn’t do any work!“

So I asked him why he had bothered to go to the nurse and get one if it doesn’t work?  And then I asked “What does it do while it is wrapped around your finger?“

“It keeps the blood from dripping onto the paper.“

“Ah, yes, then it is doing good work. Leave it alone!“

The expression on his face said he was perplexed with word uses, but he left the band-aid on his finger.

He decided he didn’t want anything to eat, just some pop.

At the end of the hour, I snapped up a scotch chip cookie, wrapped it in a paper towel, and tucked it into my school bag.  It was all I had time to do, what with supervising and trash pickup.

One kid had been with the Speech Therapist, so a teacher had filled a plate and put it into a zip-grip plastic bag for him to take home.

When owie finger kid protested about food on the bus, he was reminded that Dad comes to get this kid, and so he can take food with him.

More confusion noted.
People have different ways to get home.
The way our brains work is a wonder.
Some folks take longer to make connections than others.

Sitting on our back porch, I ate the cookie, and I found it to be wonderfully yummy.  Usually homemade goodies at school functions are forbidden for health code reasons, but I’m so glad somebody decided to bend the rules today, and I got to taste it.

I’m sure ready for the weekend.

And no, I won’t be going to watch the parade or the football game.

Although any excuse to get out of school early is fine with me.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

It was not always thus, and I surely did not grow up saying it.

However, after I got married, the tale of potty paper was told to me at various times, separately and without prompting, by my own husband and a few in-laws.

It is family lore at its finest, yet I still mix up details.
I’ll bet someone will make corrections and updates as needed.

It seems that young George was attending Kindergarten, as most children are expected to do in our society.
The classroom had its own little rest room, and the teacher would give permission for the students to use it.

Young George was next, but came rushing back out very soon, telling the teacher that he couldn’t use it because “Somebody left a WHOLE HERD of potty paper in there!!!“

As soon as possible, the teacher called his mother, laughing so hard that she could barely make herself understood over the phone.

Even my somewhat fastidious father-in-law was heard to say potty paper when one of his grandsons called from the bathroom.

Over the years, I have potty-trained my baby brother, our own 3 sons, as well as many children in daycare.

This morning in the church nursery, we had 2 youngsters on ‘accident’ watch.

Potty paper was foremost in my thoughts.

In the afternoon at Yarn Group, the subject of toilet tissue was brought up by someone else.
Really.
She was telling about how often she makes a purchase, and explaining that she has several rolls of toilet tissue close at hand in the bathroom of her apartment.

Now, Now, I know you are jealous that you were not sitting at the table whilst we talk about shopping trips and storebought items, chatting over our hands working with yarn and tools.

As she was winding down the story, she was almost apologetic about how she had gone into detail about a need for having enough toilet tissue, saying that maybe somewhere in her youth she had run out or something.

Well, this triggered a memory for me I must have squashed down and stained black in my memory.

When I was a kid, Dad was always taking his offspring (and any buddies he could fit in the truck) out of town.  With or without another adult to help, we went fishing, berry picking, gathering nuts from wild trees.

Tappan Lake Park wasn’t fully developed in the 1960s.  Looking at that website, I can tell ya that improvements have been made in the last 40 years.

I remember the rest area was a smelly pit in the ground with a building over it.  In the Women’s side was a wooden bench with two holes, one had a white toilet seat, the other seat had been broken off by vandals.
My youngest sister was barely old enough to be potty-trained, and she was already scared in an unfamiliar place, so I let her use the hole with the seat.

After we both did our business, I discovered there was no potty paper.  I yelled out to dad our situation.

He learned that the hand pump for water had also been busted by vandals.  He asked if we could drip dry, but I told him I had done #2 and needed cleaned good.

I heard him searching through the truck, then his footsteps going away from us.

The two middle sisters were getting anxious waiting their turn over the hole, but without dad we weren’t sure what to do.

He came back, sloshing lake water in the bait bucket.  He came into the Women’s side of the restroom, took his handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped my sister’s bottom with it.
Then he dipped the cloth into the bucket, wrung it out a bit, and proceeded to bend me over and wash my backside.

Then he dropped the handkerchief into the hole, turned to help my sister adjust her clothes, and told me to make way for the other girls.

I was so shocked by what had happened.  I was about 8 years old or so, and I knew about germs, and touching personal parts.  I think my middle sisters decided it would be okay to just get to it, then pull up their pants without wiping or saying anything to Dad.

To this day, whenever I use a restroom, before I drop my drawers, I make sure there is potty paper or I have a napkin in my pocket or purse to use at the end.

Lake water from a bait bucket didn’t kill me, but it did make me more cautious.

People should always appreciate a custodian who does the job well.

So I was recalling this at Yarn Group, and maybe some of the folks are thinking this is way too much information.

On the other hand, we keep getting together every Thursday afternoon, cuz nobody wants to miss out on what other tales might get an airing.

~~love and Huggs, Diane