Highschool Reunion

I know I have blogged about this before, but I am pretty darn excited! My 20th high school reunion is coming up in September. It has been in the works for a while and thanks to the many people that have worked on it.

I had a small class, but living in my hometown means that I have bumped in to many classmates over the years. There are many others that I haven't seen in a long time.

A fellow classmate has started a website for our school. Check it out!

www.marymountrichmond.com

Inherited talents

Yesterday we went to visit my parents. While we were there, DS wanted to play a game. I got my mom to go with him to pick something out. They came back with a couple of games and and some painting supplies. My mom sketched some things on a pad and then got DS to paint them. Soon after she called out - "well, I know who didn't inherit the art talents in the family!"

Blog titles

Sorry that my titles are cliched and lame. I never claimed to be a writer. I just title them by what comes to mind. I read such awesome posts on other sites. I just keep hoping it will come to me.

Water Water Everywhere

The rains of the last few days reminded me of rainstorms we had several years ago. They hit me close to home - in my driveway, in my house, yard and garage. We had problems with the street drains and sewer pipes being too small and overflowing into our driveways or not draining properly. The county did finally fix it after a lot of neighborly nagging, hassle and work. But it was worth it! After these last 2 days of rain that equaled 3.8" on my FIL's rain gauge - we didn't have any problems!

See some photos from those past rainstorms.

Photos, Photos Everywhere!

I am on a roll. I love photo projects and have been working on several for the last couple of weeks.

I have been scanning many photos and putting together collections that other famiy members have been sharing. I get really excited when they share photos that I have never seen before.

First I put together one for my father - photos of his hometown and family. He has dementia and I thought it might be something he would enjoy - familiar sites and memories.

Now I am working on albums for my mom and her sisters. This is taking a little more work and organization. But it is so worth it I think to be able to enjoy the photos now!

I reap the benefits

I reap the benefits of others gardens. I have a brown thumb and have rarely tried to grow things. I have never tried a vegetable garden, only herbs and those don't last very long for me.

So I was pretty excited that on Sunday two people said that they had fresh grown tomatoes for me. I have been enjoying them this week.

Tonight I am going to do a cheese tomato pie that is one of our family favorites. Sounds good, doesn't it? It ain't fat free - I can tell you that. But with these beautiful tomatoes staring at me, I have to do something special with them!

How many cousins?

My mom is from a large family here and I have always enjoyed getting together with relatives. It is part of the reason that I stayed in my hometown. We had a reunion back in June and had a great time catching up with everyone. The summer reunion had the great grand children invited and there are more than 70 of them.

When I was younger I used to bump in to cousins around town a lot. I remember one friend who would get frustrated and say "oh no, not another cousin!"

Here is a photo of my grandfather and the jersey that he got that Christmas after the last grandchild (#36) was born.

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning! Oh, What a Beautiful Day! Wow, this morning I woke up and felt the best I had in many days! I slept with the windows open and a fan blowing in the room - just enough of a breeze and noise to lull me to sleep.

I stayed over at my brother's house in the country. It was an incredible morning - and a great place to wake and immediately pay attention to the day. All the windows open and the doors open to a screen porch. I could hear the birds chirping and wind rustling the bushes and the quiet of the house all at the same time.

Break in the Fog

There has been a break in the "fog" that my dad has experienced for the last 24 hours. Tonight he recognized us, he smiled a lot, told jokes and reminisced about old times fishing at the river.

We will keep an eye on him one more night at the hospital and hope that all goes smoothly and he can come home tomorrow.

Thank you Dear Lord for allowing the fog to lift for Dad again!

To sleep or not to sleep. . .

Okay - so last night I was up off and on all night. My father got admitted to the ER with a fever of 101 which caused him to have delirium and have difficulty standing and walking and basically doing anything else. Luckily Dad was where they could look into his condition and figure out what needed to be done. And also I am blessed to have several brothers who jump in when these situations have come up and take charge. We worked out a shift system so that after the first several hours in the waiting room, we took turns being with Mom.

Dad's fever broke in the middle of the night. The delirium has worn off some, but he is still not really aware of where he is or why. He is still sleeping a lot.

The hospital is still trying to figure out what caused the fever although they have ruled out many things.

With his dementia, the fever is probably what caused the delirium. It is just hard to know what to do - call the doctor, go to ER, or wait it out. Last night though, I know my brother Patrick made the correct decision by taking him to the ER.

Blackberries now

I finally got to the blackberry patch this past Saturday. And boy were there some good ones there! The largest ones were hiding underneath leaves near the bottom of the plants. Wow - are they sweet!