Today, I wish my dear friend Connie a Happy Birthday and my parents were married on this day in 1946. Also, my youngest brother Russell turned 60 on the 4th.
It has been a busy week with something going on every day. My friends Carol and Richard came for a visit on Tuesday and I made chicken pot pie for dinner. It’s always nice to see them and catch up on what’s happening with them and their family. The big news was Richard’s retirement on his 55th birthday in September. He worked for the engineers union for 30 years and has a very sweet financial setup for the rest of his life.
On Wednesday morning I helped with the food shelf for an hour and then left to meet Carol and Richard at their hotel and we went to TGI Friday’s to have lunch with their friend Jim. He’s a fun guy and it was a nice time. After that, we walked the mall - 3.5 miles worth of walking. I stopped for a pizza on the way home and we had pizza and watched “Peanut Butter Falcon” - I know, I’ve seen it several times now but still enjoy it every time. That is a funny thing for me, as I usually have no interest in seeing a movie that I have seen before, the same goes for books.
I cleaned for Ben and Jill on Thursday and didn’t start until 10 am this time, as Jill was having a video job interview earlier in the morning. Thanks to Deb walking Joey, I got to rest when I got back home and was in bed by 8:30.
Yesterday was nonstop, starting with a dog walk and then doing laundry when I got back home. I wanted to have that out of the way before Tom called at 10. We had a nice long chat, as usual.
I had learned from Carol that she left her phone charger at the hotel, so I drove over there and got it, had the box all ready and waiting, and stopped at the post office and got it mailed. The small, locally owned Bloomington Pharmacy nearby is staffed with several friendly little old ladies, and it has a postal service that is so convenient for me.
I helped Judy and two other gals to assemble 150 cards for hospice when I got back home. She does such a great job and her cards are cute as can be. They are lucky to have her - she does this for every season of the year.
When I got back home, I took a short nap before getting ready to go see Charlotte sing with the Minnetonka Honors Choir at the Mall of America rotunda, a small group of honor students from her school district. Lois and Dennis picked me up at 4:00 and when we got to the mall, we realized that the reserved viewing areas were blocked off but we found a spot on 3rd floor looking over the stage and waited there for the program to begin at 5:30. When Ben and Jill arrived, we learned that they had reserved spaces for us but it was too crowded there, so they joined us. The program was the Clouds Choir, a fund raiser for cancer, based on the song ‘Clouds’ by Zach Sobiech who died from osteosarcoma. It was a very emotional event for the family as that is the cancer that started Casey’s journey through treatment for five different cancers before he died at the age of 29.
We had dinner and a margarita at a Mexican restaurant in the mall after the show.
Today was the day to give the girls one of their Christmas gifts from me, an afternoon session at Genevieve’s art studio. They each made a mug and I didn’t put a handle on mine, so it will be a plant pot. She taught them several ways to design and decorate their pots and they really got into it, all coming up with very original ideas. We took a break in the middle of the session and had brownies and hot chocolate,then proceeded to paint them. Genevieve will fire them and get them back to us before Christmas. I had planned on about two hours but we were there for 3.5 hours as they really made an effort to do a nice job. I can’t wait to see the outcome.
