No Clouds, No Wind Wanted!

It was a quieter day today, the wind was only breezy, but it was COLD! We can handle cold weather for the Mennonite Country Auction (http://www.mennonitecountryauction.mennonite.net/) but wind makes for a really miserable day. All of the booths AND the auction are held outdoors, so everyone is praying for good weather on Saturday. This is what we DON'T want:


I've been in a real battle with this hair of mine -- it is so fine that if I put conditioner on it, it makes a limp dishrag look peppy. Without conditioner, it tends to get lots of split ends...

I very seldom pick up magazines, but the other day when we were in town, I picked up a whole batch of them: Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, etc. They are worth, at the most, a half hour's worth of reading apiece -- and are of course, targeted to a much younger audience (Enjoy your 40s!; Still Sexy at 50!, etc.)


But this time, I learned something that seems to actually work. One of the articles on hair and make-up suggested that if conditioner was too much for your hair, but you still needed it, to put it on wet hair first, then wash your hair! By golly, I tried it this morning and I am impressed!
Guess I'm still not too old to learn a trick or two...
,

I Think It's Fall...

It's been cold the last couple of nights. It got down to 36 the night before last and tonight it is already 34 degrees at 10 PM. Forry's been going out and shutting off the water so that we don't have a frozen water line (then I have to remember to turn on the pump so that we get water from Auntie Violet's tank instead of from the hose). We've had the electric heater out and on -- it's on a thermostat so only kicks in as the temperature drops and it's been definitely been turning on!

We had such lovely weather last week. I wish it had held until after the Mennonite Country Auction (http://www.mennonitecountryauction.mennonite.net/) this Saturday. It's quiet now, but we had a nasty wind most of the day. It's always a concern the week before the sale. We've only had major rain twice, but nice weather sure increases the crowd -- and the amount of money raised!

It's always sort of ironic to see the fields of winter wheat greening up as it's getting colder and colder:

But the the green thistles start turning color and you know Fall is here!

Laundry, laundry, laundry!

Since we were using water from a tank while the well drillers were here, I didn't do any laundry. Now I've been playing catch-up. After washing pretty steadily for the past two days, I think I am finally caught up! And when I travel, I go through a lot more clothes (at home, I might wear the same shirt for a couple of days).

Forry had a couple of projects he wanted to do. We've got a piece of wood trim in the bedroom that needs to be re-glued. He ended up having to buy some new clamps as he'd given his to g-son Varick and son-in-law Todd. But when he went to work on it today, he discovered that his Gorilla Glue had set up in the container. So now, he needs to get some new glue. It seems that's the way his projects go...

Penny Power!

The five gallon jug in the front of the church is only about a third full. But Cleon figured out that if all of the nickles, dimes, quarters and bills that were in the jar were pennies, the kids would have five jugs full! Over 1300 dollars so far!

This morning's collection was the last this year as the Relief Sale is next Saturday, so Diane went around after Sunday School talking to everyone whose name hadn't been drawn to "match" various percentages of Sunday's collected pennies. She gave us each an opportunity to "draw" a percentage so that we wouldn't "feel left out" of the fun. (I drew 1/4, so I'll have to pony up a quarter of whatever was collected this morning.) By the time everyone puts in their match, the kids may have collected a couple of thousand dollars!

After Sunday School, Curt fed everyone that stayed to work hamburgers, then they went to work putting the big tent up. The tent is huge -- circus tent size! All of the quilts and the auction items will be displayed in it before the auction starts and the "Great Gatherings" booth (items that are antiques or not suitable for the auction, but too nice for the et cetera shop) sets up inside as well.

The fellows rent out the tent -- or portions of it -- during the year for weddings, family reunions, parties, etc. so they have got putting it up down to a science. It only takes them a couple of hours. We didn't stay to watch today as I wanted to go back to Auntie Violet for a nap... (But only because Forry says I'm cranky!)

Yeah, I know. 4 AM CDT is 2 AM PDT!

I keep trying to lie to my body when I travel. I religiously change my watch to the local time and sternly forbid myself to translate eastern or central time to REAL time -- Pacific time!

I cannot even conceive of going to a breakfast meeting that starts at 4:30 AM real time. The only way I can do it, is to convince myself that it really is 6:30 AM. And while that's bad enough (especially for a NON-morning person), it's just a bit more palatable than trying to eat breakfast in the middle of the night.

This morning was one when my body was just not believing my lies. It kept telling me that getting up at 2 AM real time to take the shuttle to the airport at 2:30 was not even remotely a possibility...

I had planned to get to bed early last night.

Our last meeting ended at 4 PM and I was going to go to my room, order room service and just crash. My roommate's flight to New York was leaving at 5:30, so I knew I'd have our room to myself. Well, there was only one other person on the Executive Board that wasn't able to fly out last night and she said she disliked eating alone so I said, sure, I'd go to the hotel restaurant with her. (I really think she wanted to get a taxi and go somewhere else, but I ignored the hints...).

Kansas City prides itself on being the BBQ capital of the world (though there are many other claimants for that title!) so we had wonderful pulled pork sandwiches while we discussed what it was like to raise autistic kids then and now. (Our son is in his late forties and her daughter is a teenager.) Needless to say, we didn't have a very quick dinner.

When I finally got back up to my room, I was shocked to see my roommate's suitcase sitting in the entryway! Addy had missed her flight to NY! There was a trainee at the airline check-in desk all alone who didn't know how to take care of the woman in line ahead of her who was changed from another airline that had cancelled its flight. By the time a supervisor showed up (angry that the trainee had been left alone..), the last NY flight of the evening had left... At least the supervisor was able to issue Addy a boarding ticket for the 8 AM flight this morning -- and she knew that she still had a bed in our room.

But, as we hadn't really had a chance to talk much during the meetings...

It ended up being a pretty short night!

Another Long Day

It was after 11 when I got to bed last night and 6 AM seemed to come awfully early. We met this afternoon with all of the agency boards. Late in the afternoon we had presentations from four youngish pastors. You think at that hour of the day, fatigue would have set in, but they energized the whole group.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the well driller seemed to hit a pretty good flow of water at around 480 feet. Tomorrow they'll put the pump done and see what we've actually got.

I got a Facebook message from Germany tonight from a Mario Hardt wondering if I recognized the name of Ernest Hardt (who was Forry's Dad.) Mario had the names of Ernie's Dad and brothers, so we think he's most likely a 2nd cousin... Forry has had no knowledge of his family beyond his grandfather, so he's pretty excited about the contact!

A Long Afternoon and Evening...

I got to sleep in this morning (nice after yesterday!) as I didn't have any meetings until 1 PM. My dear room mate had an 8:30 one, but I didn't even get up to see her off!

Our first in-person Mennonite Church USA Executive Board meeting of the new biennium started this afternoon (we actually have already had one conference call meeting). It was good to see everyone, especially as I had originally figured I wouldn't be here due to my back surgery. But since that's been postponed until October, here I am!

After our meeting until 6 PM this afternoon, we adjourned to committee meetings this evening. My Board Development Committee met at a very good Mexican restaurant, Abuelos, not too far from the hotel. I ended up taking the Minutes for the meeting, typed them on the hotel computer, then discovered you couldn't save documents on their computer in order to email them. They also had no facility to use a USB port with a Memory Stick! So I ended up RE-TYPING the dang things into the body of an email and sending them to the Chair so that he could report at the Executive Board meeting tomorrow!

The good thing -- I am using the hotel's computer to do my blog instead of doing it on my iPhone! It's neat to be able to use the iPhone, but it sure takes a lot longer with that little keyboard!

A Day In the Air
I spent most of the day today flying. We were at the Moses Lake airport a little before 5 AM (bless Forry for his patience and willingness to get me to the airport so early in the morning.).
From ML to SeaTac to get a flight to Denver and then finally to Kansas City. I got here at the hotel a bit after 4 PM.
I don't have meetings until 1PM tomorrow so can actually sleep in! Except my room mate Addy has an 8 AM meeting, so she'll be up and stirring.

Another Trip to Spokane

At least this trip was more successful. My box of #8 Manila Tags was in at Kershaws (and they were open today).

We spent a good share of the afternoon at Les Schwabs getting the rear brakes replaced on the Toad. (The back left rotor was dragging...) Having work done on the vehicles is always a bit traumatic for Forry as he is used to doing this kind of work himself. So there's always lots of muttering about what it costs and how much cheaper it was when he did it. But since he no longer has a shop and since it's a bit harder for him to get down and do physical work, he generally admits he's glad to get it done.

By the time the Toad was finished it was after five, so we picked up Son Sean and went to dinner at Applebees on the South Hill. I should of gotten a picture of Sean -- he had his hair clipped down to the scalp the other day! It's grown out a bit -- there's a little stubble -- and it's quite a change from the shaggy look he's had all summer.

It was after nine when we got back to Auntie Violet and I still have to pack! I have a 5:48 AM flight from Moses Lake (then SeaTac to Denver to Kansas City) tomorrow. I will be in KC through Friday for an All-Boards meeting and will fly home Saturday morning.

Mennonite Country Auction is Coming!

Our Washington Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale, the Mennonite Country Aunction is coming! It's always on the first Saturday in October, so this year it's October 3rd with the booth sales starting at 10 AM and the auction starting at NOON. The official website for this year's sale is www.mennonitecountryauction.mennonite.net.


The weeks leading up the the Sale are always fun when the items for the auction start to show up. This morning the back pews were draped with quilts. There was a very different one that came from a lady in New York called a garden quilt. The patches were all different kinds of fruits and vegetables -- including blocks of red potatoes. Walt has again made a gorgeous pair of turned wooden table lamps. I saw an antique oak cupboard sitting in the vestibule as well, along with a pair of Amish dolls.

Dennis and Kay ordered several cases of maple syrup (both flasks and cans) from Canada that will be a new item for sale in the booths this year. The fellows are going to fix a pancake breakfast Saturday morning so that people can sample the syrup.

One of the attractions for all of the relief sales across the country is Penny Power where glass five gallon jugs of coins collected by children are displayed and filled. This morning's penny collection portion of the service got just a wee bit long as Diane had decided to teach the children how the auction portion of the sale works. The kids all got Auction Cards with Bidder Numbers on them from me (and some coins to bid with...) so that they could actually bid on the items Diane had brought. A couple of the littlest ones (four year olds) really got into the spirit of bidding -- their parents are going to have to keep a close eye on them when the auction starts!

One of the older boys was high bidder on a box of 72 crayons, but he saw the disappointment of the younger boy who had been bidding against him. He turned and whispered in his Dad's ear, then quietly put the box of crayons in the younger lad's lap...

I am FRUSTRATED!

I am VERY frustrated! We postponed going to Spokane yesterday as we wanted to be here if the well-drillers made a break through. So went up today and discovered when I went to pick up the auction tags I had ordered at Kershaws, that they are CLOSED on Saturdays! (And it doesn't say so on the doors!) Which means we'll probably have to go back up on Monday as I am leaving for Kansas City on Tuesday and will be gone the rest of the week.

Cathi asked me how deep wells in this area are. We don't really know about domestic wells as most of the wells in the area are irrigation wells that go down several hundred feet (and any new ones have to be below sea level -- and cased all the way down). The nearest domestic well is a couple of miles away and up on a hill -- they're a little below 800 feet. There are none down in our coulee anymore. The big irrigation wells in the area dried up all the springs in the coulee thirty plus years ago.

Well, at least both WSU and UW on their games today! And the Mariners beat the Yankees last night in extra innings (Yea, Ichiro!). Maybe tonight's game will continue the streak.

A Rather Boring Day

We were planning to drive to Spokane this morning to pick up the auction cards and a couple of prescriptions, but decided that we should stay at the ranch to see how the well driller did today. We were hoping he would have a good day today and actually hit water, but it didn't happen.

They're drilling through some rather hard dark basalt-type rock, but they did get down to 440 feet today. They stayed late this afternoon (they usually are long gone by four PM), but didn't get a breakthrough. I guess we'll have to wait until Monday now.

I finally finished the bracelet I was making with Bill's hand blown beads (three strands), but now have decided it is WAY TOO HEAVY! I was playing around with a couple of left over beads and made some neat earrings that I really like, but I think I will take the bracelet apart again. I'm thinking I have enough beads to do a single strand necklace as well as a single strand bracelet. Hmm.

360 Feet and Drilling...

The well drillers are now about 80 feet deeper than the well was before. It went VERY slow this morning as they had hit some really hard rock, but it seems to have gone better this afternoon.

Forry made a quick trip into Moses Lake to get the oil changed on the toad while I stayed home and played with beads. I had bought a set of hair clips from a Navajo lady last spring that I really liked, so decided to try and make some more. I had to have Forry drill holes in the package of clips that I bought. I'd thought about making some for the Mennonite Country Auction Craft Booth, but have quickly realized that I would need a whole lot more crimp beads and a bigger variety of beads in my stash! Just picking up a few things here and there does not give you enough of anything to make more than one or two!

The Well Drillers

I wasn't even out of bed this morning when I heard the sound of heavy machinery. After I got my teeth brushed -- and some clothes on -- I went over to see what was going on.

The well drillers were attempting to get their rig backed up and centered over the well head and were having quite a time. The ground between the farm buildings and the creek bed is very soft and they kept getting stuck as they attempted to back in. Luckily they have huge jacks on the rig itself and could hoist it up so that the truck could get straightened around and try again. It took them over an hour, but they finally got everything centered over the well.

The wellhead:

The drilling rig raised up and ready to go:

The drilling company:

The drill master:

I know that they did drill through the cement that they had poured on Monday afternoon, but I'm not sure how deep they got today...

I Don't Understand Why It's Not Really Monday...!

Because it feels like a Monday and I feel just like I do the day after the weekend. I checked and the consensus on Facebook is (2 votes) that you can have a blue Monday on a Tuesday...

When we got home yesterday afternoon, we went to check to see if there had been any progress on the well. The pump was pulled and it and the pipe and the screen were all laying (lying?) on the ground beside the wellhead. There was evidence of cement having been mixed nearby. This morning the well driller called and said that it had been late Monday afternoon when the cement truck that was scheduled for noon finally arrived. (They poured cement down the well to "fill" the sand pocket they had stopped at the last time they deepened it.) He said he was afraid the cement hadn't had enough time to cure overnight and it would be still too "green" to drill through today. So maybe tomorrow we'll find out if there will be enough water "down there!"

These are a couple of the pictures we took on Friday as we drove west over the North Cascades Highway:

This route across the northern part of the state is closed in the winter time as there is too much snow to keep it open. As you can see in the first picture, there is still snow in those there mountains! The second picture is of a tourist who is trying to dig out some souvenir snow from a very dirty snowbank along the highway...

Over Stevens Pass...

After spending the weekend in Mount Vernon with daughter Mary Mae and her family, we headed back to Eastern Washington late this morning. After seeing the g-kids off to school and MM and Scott off to work, we went to the Public Health Department in Mount Vernon and got our flu shots. Our local Group Health clinic in Spokane is not going to be giving them until late October. We thought it would be best if we got them earlier so that I had time to build up immunity before my back surgery in mid-October. Group Health is so prevalent in Skagit County that the Health Department bills them directly -- nice!

Since we had driven over on Friday over the North Cascades Highway, we decided to return over Stevens Pass as we hadn't come that way for many years. It was not nearly as nice a drive as it had been on Friday. It was quite overcast and chilly this morning (I actually was wearing my jacket), but by the time we got to central Washington the sun was shining and it was HOT! (83 degrees in Wenatchee). We stopped at the big fruit stand on this side of Leavenworth and got some of the season's first Honey Crisp apples. These are my favorite apples. They don't keep well, so you just get to enjoy them for a month or so in the fall. They are somewhat tart and crunchy, absolutely delicious!

There is beginning to be lots of evidence of Fall's imminent arrival. The fruit stands are full of peaches and pears and the first of the apples are beginning to appear. This wild rose plant we saw on one of our walks with the g-kids had the the fattest reddest hips:

All of the beauty bushes in the Mount Vernon and Burlington area are beginning to turn from green to red and we saw leaves on the ground under some of the trees.

We had a quiet day today -- MM and I attended the Episcopal Church services this morning. It's been a long time since I've been at a high church service!
MM and I and Claire went shopping for baby gifts for my new great niece to be, Then the fellows met us at the Olive Garden for dinner.
Yesterday Scott bought a DVD of The American President at a garage sale for a buck. We watched it this evening with many chuckles.

Pleasantly tired tonight. We spent most of the afternoon searching for 'treasure boxes.'
Similar to geocaching, except using clues to hunt for boxes hidden around Skagit County for kids.
In the process we ended up at Taylor Shellfish Farms out of Bow. One of the boxes was hidden there which gave us good reason to buy fresh Dungeness crab and clams for supper. Stopped at the bakery in Bow for a late lunch - great sandwichs, quich, huckleberry pie and ginger pear tart! Umm, good. Went to to the other bakery (which has mainly breads) and got baguettes to go with the crab, then one more stop to buy fresh farm cheese and Greek yogurt.
By the time we cleaned the crabs and Scott BBQed the clams, it got pretty late, but a good day was had by all. (And the g-kids found four treasure boxes...)

We made lots of stops for pictures along the way. Finally got to Mount Vernon about 6:45 just in time for pizza and a movie about Hidalgo (horse movie) with the grandkids.
We tried and tried to put MM's address into the GPS unit but it would NOT accept that Mount Vernon was a city/town in Washington State. It even tried to tell me all of the states that did have such a town -- even one in Australia!
So I gave up and just left it on map view. Later when I was looking at a regular map I noticed that it was abbreviated as Mt Vernon. I tried that spelling -- the GPS liked it and all was well...
I'm not sure who's dumb -- me or the machine? Or should I blame the wise souls that programmed it?

Driving the North Cascade Highway over to Mount Vernon to spend the weekend with Mary Mae & family. Have stopped at the Grubstake & Co. for lunch in Winthrop.

Those Strong Menno Women...

The Menno church has had a long tradition of strong women -- not necessarily "stand up in front of the group and run things" women, but the kind of never-out-of-fashion women who saw what needed to be done and did it, took care of each other, raised children that learned to know the Lord and how to do service. The ladies at Menno were the kind of women I wanted my daughters to grow up to be. And it make my heart sing when I hear the ladies talk about Mary Mae and Dawn as some of the "Young Strong Menno Women!"

It was bittersweet to gather for lunch in Moses Lake today to say a formal farewell to Clara who, with her husband Walt, is moving to Kansas next month (they will be close to their son Roger and his family there). Clara has been one of those people you can always count on to have things organized and ready to go. She has been the project director for the Menno Women in Mission for over 23 years -- I wonder how many quilts they've pieced, tied and hand quilted during those years? Before she retired, Clara had worked as the librarian in the Lind School District. I was quite surprised to hear her say today that she had been retired for over twenty years!

When we are "home" at Menno, we always sit on the far left side of the church, on the other end of the pew that Walt and Clara sit in. It's going to feel very strange to walk into the church and not have them there.

Early, Early Sunset

It's earlier and earlier every night! It was a glorious sunset this evening -- the sky was red all the way around. But, it was dark out by 8 PM!

I am not, and never have been a morning person. But I do like long light summer evenings like the ones we have in June and July. As it gets dark earlier, it also gets colder. I am not thrilled about being this far north this late in the year. We really should be thinking about moving south, but we've got a long wait. It will at least be late November by the time we will be able to leave the Spokane area.

I guess I'll have to just start getting used to short days and long nights...

A Clean House -- Well, a Cleaner One, Anyway!

We put in some major effort today, cleaning up after all of the dust storms. I think I'd blocked out memories of what it was like to live on the ranch in all of the sand and dust! To this day, I don't care for knick-knacks, got too sick of dusting them and then looking over a few hours later and seeing that they were dusty again.

Forry vacuumed while I cleaned mirrors and dusted, then mopped the tile floors. I went ahead and washed the bathroom throw rugs while I was at it. I'd better take advantage of having water before the well driller finally gets busy. We'll be using water from the tanks that Jeff had filled, but will need to be conserving (back to boon-docking?).

Jeff has had trouble with the domestic well the last month or so. He's not been able to keep ahead enough to keep the yard watered. The water table in this Odessa Aquifer keeps dropping. We drilled the well deeper a few years ago until they ran into sand. Now they will have to pour concrete into the well to fill in the sand area, then drill through it in order to make it deeper. The well driller moved all of his equipment in last Friday, but said he wouldn't get started until after Labor Day. This morning he said they had an emergency, so didn't make it today. Maybe tomorrow?

And Now the Sagebrush Blooms...

The rabbitbrush is still blooming and I'm still sneezing. Now the sagebrush has started... It's a lot harder to see as it's not a brilliant yellow like the rabbitbrush. When you look at the sagebrush, it suddenly just looks a bit fluffier on the top. You have to get pretty close to it to see the blossoms:

It was a pretty quiet Labor Day for us. We did take a short walk, but mostly did a bit of washing, a bit of cleaning up and quite a bit of reading. Earlier this afternoon Jeff came over with more fresh corn, cucumbers and tomatoes from his garden -- and the ubiquitous zucchinis! Forry barbecued a rib steak for dinner that the two of us shared along with the fresh corn and cucumbers.

Rainy and Cool

It rained off and on during the night, but not an awful lot. Forry's rain guage says we got a whole .128 of an inch. Today we had one more shower, but it didn't last very long. It would be nice to get a nice 1/2 inch or so of rain. But we always have to remind ourselves that this is a desert with 7-9 inches a year of average rainfall.

It was cool enough today that I put on my velour pants and top and even have my slippers on -- quite a change from shorts and sandals.

I've spent most of the day with my nose in my Kindle. I've been reading a new (to me anyway) series by Karen Marie Moning, set in Ireland.

Dust Storm

It's Labor Day weekend which means it is also the East Adams County Fair and Rodeo in Ritzville. There is an unwritten law that you cannot have a fair in Ritzville without a dust storm to go along with it. And sure enough, long about 3:30 this afternoon, the wind started coming up and the dust blew! The wind gusts were strong enough to shake Auntie Violet a bit! About five o'clock it started to quiet down and now (at 7:45) it has started to rain.

We weren't too ambitious this morning. I think we have one day with lots of activity and busyness, then the next one is a lazy day. We did go into Moses Lake after lunch and got some dishwasher soap for Forry's new toy. We spent some time at Home Depot trying to find a new connector for the dishwasher hose without any luck. When we got back to the ranch, Forry got out his grinder and made the one we had fit. The dishwasher is at this very moment running its first load of dirty dishes...

Lots of Errands Day

We had a 10:30 appointment at Stamper & Rubens with Randy to get our new wills signed, so made an early trip to Spokane today. Spent about an hour at his office, then went over to Kershaws to order a box of manila tags (Size 8) to use for auction buyer numbers at the upcoming Mennonite Country Auction. They'll be in next week.

Then drove out to R & R RV in Liberty Lake to pick up Forry's new dishwasher and get a diode for the new brake system he is putting into the Toad. Hadn't realized that they were going to be closed tomorrow for the Labor Day weekend, so it's a good thing we went in today to pick it up. Made a stop at the AT&T store near the Valley Mall to purchase a car charger for my iPhone.

From there to Costco to fill the Toad with gas ($2.79/gal.) and stock up again on fruits and vegetables. And of course, Forry got his Polish dog with sauerkraut for lunch so he was happy. Made a quick stop at Home Depot so Forry could get some small brushes, then stopped at the recycle place to get rid of all of our plastic and glass bottles, newspapers, aluminum cans and cardboard. From there we headed back to Ritzville and got to the post office in time to pick up the box of snail mail that Mary Mae had sent on Monday. Forry even stopped at Ritzville's Radio Shack to get a multiple plug-in for the car so that I can charge my iPhone and still keep the GPS unit on.

We debated a bit when we got home where on the counter to put the new dishwasher. I thought it should sit on the left end of the counter, but Forry wanted it sort of in the middle. It will cover about half of the garbage chute, but we usually keep the cover on it halfway anyway. This way there will still be a bit of room on the left for the coffee grinder and the French press coffee pot.

It's a Vesta, which seemed to have the best reviews (though there weren't very many) when we checked on the Internet. It's supposed to do four place settings and it looks like we should be able to get by with just one load a day. We're going to have to make a quick trip into town in the morning. As we suspected, the kitchen sink faucet is not going to work with the quick release on the dishwasher hose. And would you believe, there was NO sample dishwasher soap included and I didn't think to pick any up today...

Isn't Today Monday?

One of the things we've noticed since we retired is how hard it is to keep track of what day of the week it is -- let alone the day of the month! Today has seemed like a Monday all day. I'm sure it's because we took a "mini-weekend vacation" right in the middle of the week.

We got home this morning a little after midnight. It was a very eerie, beautiful drive home from Bellevue under a full moon. As we got to this side of the mountains, there were a few scattered clouds that the moon seemed to be flirting with, slipping in and out and lighting them from the backside.

I had a very productive day today. Not only did I get three loads of laundry done, but I got all of my Quicken accounts up to date! I had been caught up a couple of months ago and for some reason I was sure that I had entered all of the July data the first of August. I must have gotten distracted, because when I went to enter the August stuff, I discovered that only about eight days of July were done... But, anyway, I am now caught up! (This is one of the few resolutions I've made that I've really tried to follow through on. I hate trying to remember what it was I spent $87 on seven months ago and trying to figure whether it was deductible or not.)

The Mariner game was great-- pretty much a pitchers duel until Seattle finally got a couple of runs and ended up beating Los Angeles 3-0.
After the game we met Bill and Leslie at Daniel's Broiler in Bellevue for dessert. Leslie and I shared a peach tart and some chocolate covered strawberries, while the guys indulged in molten chocolate cake while we watched the sunset. Afterward we took the private Microsoft elevator up to the 20th floor of Bellevue Place to see the view.
Now we are driving home to Auntie Violet across the mountains under a gorgeous full moon!

What a wonderful couple of days we've had!
We were up fairly early, showered and checked out of the hotel, then headed for Pike Street Market. We hadn't been there long before Linda & Darryll arrived. We went to Lowells and up to the 2nd floor to have breakfast overlooking Puget Sound, but the fog had rolled in and we couln't see a thing!
We ate and talked and looked at their pictures from Paraguay & the sun came out by the time we were finished.
After we left the market we drove over to the park at Shilshole and spent a couple of hours at the beach until it was time to go to the Mariners game.

It's been a lovely day! Last Sunday after church, Gene gave us their Mariners tickets (plus the parking pass!) for Wednesday afternoon's game! He wanted to get their seeding done and didn't think he could take the day off.
We drove over Snoqualmie Pass this afternoon and arrived at our hotel in Seattle by 4 pm and had time for a short nap before dinner.
My friends I had worked with for many years at the Washington Health Foundation have been really wanting to get together for almost three years, but it just has never worked. Tonight it did! We met for dinner at 5:30 and talked non-stop for almost 2 1/2 hours! It was great to see Lorna and Theo and Katharine. (Jeff couldn't come, but we chatted a bit on the phone...)
On our way to dinner, Linda & Darryll called out of the blue, found out we were on their side of the state and are now going to meet us at Pike Street Market for breakfast tomorrow!