Family Time

It's been quite awhile since I blogged but time either stands still or rushes by at the same time.  We've been busy but I can't put a finger on exactly what we've been doing without looking at our appointment calender.
I know we saw a lawyer and made out wills and power of attorneys.  We got hair cuts and I got pedicures and manicures and saw the eye doctor.  Both of us need upgrades on or left lenses.  We had a burglar alarm installed in the house which will make us feel better while we're not home.  We even got the neighbor across the street and a grandson signed up and ready to be key holders when necessary.
This past week end we traveled north to Brown Deer, WI (Milwaukee) with the new truck.  The ride wasn't to bad, it seems to be getting better the more miles he puts on it or I'm getting used to it.  All in all he has managed to tone down the smell of new leather, which was one of my main problems.
We stopped at the outlet mall in Pleasant Prairie on the way up but didn't really find anything plus the place was packed with shoppers getting that 30 % discount.
Friday afternoon travel thru the south side of Milwaukee was a bit slow due to the construction.  Yes, IL is finished with it's construction on the Tri State, now Wisconsin has taken over.  The traffic did keep moving so it wasn't to bad with the aid of the GPS and it's knowledge of new traffic patterns resulting from the construction, we made if pretty quickly.
Friday evening we met up with Mike and Kim and their sons and Keith and Linnea at a German Supper Club, for lack of a better word.  It's a huge bar and restaurant on a even bigger tract of land filled with parked cars.  We in this instance is Ron, his brother, John, John's wife, Pat, and Me.  The menu was all you can eat fish and chicken fry.  Huge pieces of cod lightly breaded and cooked till just done with small pieces of chicken fried to perfection and a choice of potato but no choice in salad, cold slaw, good cold slaw tho, the creamy kind.  I ate my two pieces of fish and two pieces of chicken and was so full I couldn't eat any more.  RATS.
Saturday was a cook out at Mike and Kim's house.  Brats and hamburgers were made on the grill with four different types of salad and baked beans.  I did something I've never done before.  I ate two hamburgers they were so good.  After the men all got done ogling Ron's truck we took off for the ball park to watch the Brewers beat the Cubs by way of a bar some where between there and there.  For the price of an adult beverage, which you could take with, you got a ride on a shuttle bus to Miller Park and dropped off right in front of the field.  That also entitled us to a ride back the same way so none of us had to deal with the traffic.  Despite the Cub loss, we still had a good time.  The picture above is John, Pat, Me, Ron, Mike and Kim.  Keith and Linnea met friends and sat on the other side of the field.
We did make the mistake of staying a little longer than we should have Sunday afternoon but John and Ron had gone looking at guns and Pat and I had gone shoe shopping so the trip southbound on the Tri State was a little crowded considering the baseball game had ended just before we left.
We made it home safe a sound with a stop for supper on the way.  That's another story for another time.   

Lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer.

Life in the midwest is just that....middle ground.  It's been hot and humid so most of our life has revolved around either staying inside where it's cool, if the electricity isn't out, or going to the air conditioned car to the air conditioned store.  Been talking to a dozen of my best friends from Cactus Country on Facebook.  That's been a nice way to keep up with the goings on.  Because quite a few of the people there are an older generation than us, we've been losing some every year either to death or illness forcing them to move.  This year we've lost one due to bad health and two have departed.  I wasn't familiar with one of the deceased but everyone in the park knew Fred Imus, aka that radio guy Don Imus's brother.  He was our claim to fame, so to speak.  He had an old truck and older dog named "Dear John" and I didn't know where he went everyday when he drove by on his way out of the park but I did know he bought bales of hay for the free range cows that lived around the outside of the park.  I'm sure that hay was much better eating than the cacti they lived on normally.
Today was our youngest grandchild's 13th birthday.  She's off with her parents and brother on vacation but we did text her happy birthday.
Today was also a good rain day, now Ron will have to mow the lawn.  It did cool things off a bit and I was  able to set outside for awhile and read, one of my favorite things to do.

Rain, Rain........... stay awhile

It rained last night (the ground was wet when I got up) and it rained this morning and it rained this afternoon.  Now I know some people don't like that but my yard and my garden do.  The part I don't like, loss of electric power, hasn't occurred today.  We're trying to remedy that with a natural gas generator but our guy hasn't gotten back to us.  I'm really sorry to have that happen because our Cast In Stone Rule is not to give a second chance on the first try.  Learned that lesson the hard way but that's another story.  One I may never retell because of the painful memories.
We did go to Sam's Club this afternoon.  Ron opened is last bag of potato chips at lunch.  It appeared to have rained while we were gone.  The humidity is getting higher and higher and no it's not entirely my hot flashes.
Not much going on here.  Doing this and that to get ready for the New England/Canada cruise this fall.  Think we pretty much have it under control.  Ship reserved and paid for,  airline tickets purchased, hotel room booked and transportation to and from the airport in IL reserved.  Now it's wait and get all the stuff done so we're ready to go.

"Interesting" weekend.

Actually it wouldn't have been that unusual if the power had stayed on but, alas, it did not..  We started the weekend Friday evening when Ron's brother, John, and his wife, Pat, came down from Brown Deer, WI for the weekend.  Headed to the Knights of Columbus fish fry.  Yes the one on Cass Street, the only one as far as I'm concerned.  All enjoyed plenty of good hot food and Ron and I enjoyed seeing an old friend, Stan Lantka, that we used to work with.  After some catching up and some hugs he took his carry out and left and we enjoyed our sit down.
As usual, we never know when to shut up and go to bed.  It seems we never run out of things to talk about.  Saturday morning and it rains, we need the rain but we also had promised Pat at trip to Oak Brook Center and she'd already been rained out once.  It did stop and we took off.  I love that mall.  I have such good memories from the 60s when my friend, Caryl, and I would go "shopping" and then stop for a salad.  It was one of the very first malls in the area and it was, and still is, an out door mall.  The landscaping inside is always beautiful and this year they had giant "frogs" painted in different motifs.  We did a lot of walking and shopping.  I have reason to believe Pat really liked the experience by the number of shopping bags John was caring.  She realized why I wanted the guys to stay close.  We used and abused them with shopping bags.  It was a little warm for me and I had a few problems but a bottle of water and a sit down helped and we managed to hit all the stores we had planned on.  There is never enough time to hit them all.
Since it was going to be John's birthday on Sunday he got to pick the type of food he wanted for supper.  Pat choose Italian.  We don't eat out a lot when we're in IL so we headed to Pappa Joes in New Lenox where we had enjoyed a meal the Saturday before with friends Larry and Judy.  We were late enough to get there after the entertainment started and chose to set in that part so we could enjoy it.  Unfortunately, Ron and my lasagna was NOT up to the high standards the chicken parmigiana had been the week before.  Pat insisted her pizza was fine and she ate it all and John said is lasagna was fine too.  We had a nice leisurely meal and enjoyed the band and their excellent renditions of 50s, 60s, 70s, and some Country music.
Well, if we'd all gone to bed when we swore we were going to we probably wouldn't have known about the power outage but, we were still up so we all went out on the front porch and talked and waited for the power to come back on.  Didn't take but a couple hours so it wasn't to bad.
Sunday was a sleep in day with more rain to add to the weekend.  We didn't loose our power.  Our neighbor, Marge, came over after church to say hi and got caught in a down pour so we had a nice chat.  We ended up going out for breakfast in the afternoon.  We we got back to the house we settled some more issues with our upcoming cruise and divided up some more items to get us closer to being ready to enjoy our cruise. There can't be much more to do and it's only 54 days away.

Shop Hoppin I-80

Thursday and Friday were very special days.  Started out Thursday with email newsletter form Robert's Sewing Center.  One of the items was the Shop Hoppin I-80 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  It consisted of picking up a "passport" at one of the nine quilting stores and visiting the other eight during those four days.  Ron and I decided to give it a try.  Didn't have anything planned so why not?  Started out Thursday afternoon at Roberts Sewing Center in Crest Hill.  Then back to Lockport and Thimbles and on to Frankfort.  We decided the chauffeur deserved to have a passport too so we got them both stamped at the three stores.  We didn't purchase anything at those stores but learned a bevy of information regarding the rest of the journey and conveyed some to people for the ones we'd been too.  If you haven't been on I-80 thru Joliet, DON'T.  Construction is making it a giant parking lot.
Friday morning we slept in but still managed to hit the road about 9 am with a cup of coffee, donuts, lunch and plenty of water and snacks.
First stop was Morris because of a tip we got the day before.  Got our stamps and a kit to make a Christmas runner.  Next actually get on I-80, activate the GPS and head west to Molene.  The trip went fine till we got within a block of the quilt store.  Road construction with the lane closed for a few minutes at a time.  We did get to Quilt's by Oz and got our passports signed plus a yard of pretty Civil War material.  The lady there told us how to get to the next stop, East Molene, by not getting back on the road under construction.  Which we used and it worked.  Ron fell in love with a quilt that they were raffling off to celebrate something in the Quad cities so he bought chances on it and I got our passport stamped.
Back on the road, Kewanee is the next destination but with a stop at an empty baseball diamond with a shaded picnic bench for lunch.  Hard rolls with ham and swiss for you Milwaukee relatives.  Kewanee was one of my personal favorites.  They had pieces made and set up thrughtout the store with kits next to them so you could purchase the kit or just get the pattern.  Got our passports stamped and bought material for Christmas tree napkins, pattern was free.  OK, my favorite thing about Kewanee was when we walked in the door.  Someone greeted us with "the bathroom is straight back, bottle water, chocolate and coffee is to your right".
Next with Princeton.  It was a small shop on the main street and we didn't find anything so we got our passports stamped and our free pattern and left, minus Ron's passport.
Last but definitely not least was Peru.  When we couldn't find the quilt shop and stopped to get the phone number off the passport we discovered Ron's was missing.  Eight shops and you had to visit all nine to be eligible for the grand prize. Not happy.  I called Princeton and they advised me I had left Ron's passport there but they had already called Peru and told them to tell us they had it and would validate it for Peru and send it in from there.  Ron called D Quilt and got directions which meant go back where we had been and read the sign to go in back to the quilt shop.  As we discovered, the people on this hop were friendly and helpful.  By then we'd seen the same groups of people for 3 or 4 times so we were old friends.
I left my completed passport in Peru and bought 6 yards of material on sale.  Heading home with one more stop, I-80 exit 90, Ottawa, Cracker Barrel for dinner.  We talked about our adventure and both agreed it was a lot of fun and would do it again with another group of shops.  Except for people complaining about the giant parking lot thru Joliet, everyone seemed to be having a good time, too.  Shops were eager to help you around I-80 for the three out here but we explained we were from the area and knew how to by pass I-80.  Maybe next time we can get other people to join us.

Monday Monday

What was it the Carpenter's sang?  Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down  Long night followed by a wake up surprise. My morning alarm clock gave me my 8 am kiss but it was still dark out.  Darker than it had been at 1:45 am and 4:15 am when I had gotten up.  He started pulling curtains open but it was still dark.  Time to get up and take a look.  With that the sky opened up and a down pour ensued.  That show over with, I proceeded into the family room to see how that side of the house looked and lo and behold the ice maker wasn't on.....That's because we didn't have any electricity.  Oh well, been there, done that and about to get a generator cause the newness wore off a long time ago.  But for today, grin and bear it.  Coffee was already made and juice poured so that was a plus.  We had six very old and stale donut holes which became breakfast on the front porch.  The paper was a bit awkward from a stiff breeze and high humidity but we both got it read and the Trib puzzles done for the day.  ComEd has a program where it's all done with automation so reporting the outage was pretty easy but then wait till they called back with an estimate on time to restore.  Of course the encouraging remarks from friends telling us that they heard it was going to take days to get service restored.
Off to lunch since we weren't touching any of the refrigerators or the deep freeze.  Want to keep everything cold or frozen as long as possible in case those news reports were accurate.  Curtains were drawn to keep out the sun and candles were placed around the house in anticipation of an all nighter without electric.  According to Ron, a trip to the grocery store would keep us occupied.  So, off to Food 4 Less in Crest Hill for four items, two of which we couldn't get because they needed to be refrigerated but that's OK, Food 4 Less was closed because they didn't have electricity either.  Traffic lights were out for some of the adventure to the store so we came home a different way.  Saw trees down across side streets with saw horses blocking the road and no one working on them.  Let me tell you, that gave us a reason to believe it would be days before we got power back.  The house was holding the cool air pretty good so we sat outside for awhile so we would appreciate the cooler weather when we went in.
Neighbor across the street came home and started her generator, what a noise, and then came over and asked if we would like to borrow it for an hour or so to plug in our big frig and deep freeze.  We kindly refused since we felt they were doing just fine so far.  With that Ron stuck his hand inside the front door to turn on the porch lights so we'd know if we did get power and the lights came on.  8 hours with no power wasn't our idea of spending a rainy Monday but we survived.  Our hearts did skip a beat when they flickered and went out for a few minutes when we were eating those meatloaf sandwiches we'd been planning on for lunch for supper but it's back on now and we're happy campers.
When my parents bought this place in 1962 they lost their electricity at the first drop of rain and it continued that pattern for quite a few years but then it stopped.  Guess it's started up again.  Oh yes, the kicker is it's usually just our street, the people in back of us on the next street usually have power and the same with the people in back of the people across the street have power when we don't.

Happy Independence/God Bless America

Somewhat accurate picture of the front of our home this morning.  Got some sun in the way but we do like red, white and blue.  That's me setting on my famous swing.  The one I talk about setting on and reading every chance I get.
Today should be a day of just the two of us relaxing and enjoying the weather.  I fixed a crock pot of sloppy joes yesterday so they're plugged in and cooking.  Smelling good already.  Since Tara and the kids are back from WVa Bob will be off doing things with them and Betsy and Alan will be staying home since Alan has a bad infection on his leg and combined with the diabetes will be off his feet for a few days.  Eric stopped in yesterday afternoon for awhile.  It's always nice when he stops by.
I've been after Ron to buy a gun, I know he wants a new one but he keeps saying he doesn't know what he wants.  Well, Eric spilled the beans yesterday.  Not that I'm going to go buy him one for my birthday but it gives me an idea.  I've been know to buy power tools and sheds for my birthday.  Aren't I a nice wife?