The good, the bad (not so bad) ...

When daughter was visiting she did a lot of cooking as usual. She just goes in the the refrigerator or pantry and make something from whatever is on hand. She was in the mood for chocolate chip cookies. When I opened the oven door, I let out a screech. Interesting looking cookies, wouldn't you say? She only put half the amount of flour in, thus the flat results. Actually they did taste ok. We were not about to let them go to waste.

Dinner was a wonderful salad with fresh cherry tomatoes, avocado, greens and toasted bread. For protein, she put a poached egg on top. Yum!

On another day she and I harvested the basil from my garden. You may recall that last year I just sent two large garbage bags full of the plants back to MD with her. This year we made the pesto here and froze it.

Aren't we beautiful in our purple with green basil?

We used all the help we could get!

AAUW and Virginia Woolf

I have officially become a member of AAUW which is American Association of University Women.

At the Thursday night meeting we had a speaker who is passionate about the British author, Virgina Woolf. She spoke and showed pictures of a tour she took in Great Britain, showing locations where Virginia lived or wrote about. I have not read the works of Virginia, but found a website, Project Gutenberg, which has books on line. I have just read one essay so far. In this one about a spot on the wall, she went off on all kinds of thoughts that were unrelated, but that the spot cause her to think about. The speaker said she has to read many of them five or more times to really understand and get everything that Woolf writes. (I'll make a note of this and see if I find time in Winter to read some of her works.)

I wonder how popular her writings are in Great Britain? Have any readers read her works? Seen any movies of her stories?

I'll talk more about the mission of AAUW as I learn about the organization.

Breakfast on the front porch

My sister stayed for a week and Renee Michelle stayed 10 days (yea) after the big doings. Breakfast was on the front porch. I was showing off my purchases from Bath and Body Works.

Now I am back to having breakfast alone.

Wrapup on pig roast

Gerry is attending a three day seminar on "Project Management". Last night he gave me a brief overview and said we should apply the principles to the pig roast. The main points that I got for this application was to 1) do a review of how it went, 2) break things down into individual activities and assign a person to be responsible for that activity, 3)He and I would oversee but not be responsible for the activity. Examples of the various activities are directing parking, setting up games, keeping tables supplied with drinks and utensils, and cutting up the pig (four people are needed, not the two we overworked this year).

As part of the review of how it went, I am making an excel spreadsheet with all of the people we invited and their responses.

Back to the actual day, here are pictures of the activity at 6:30 AM.

Our little helper from Chicago came out to help but found better things to do.

For my friends in the UK, look at this blog at the September 15 posting for great pictures. Sorry,I don't know how to make a proper link.

http://motherocker.blogspot.com/

Dining with daughter

Last night daughter and I went to a restaurant and had a great dinner together. Besides the criterion that it have fine food, we chose one that maybe our husbands would not enjoy so much. It was perfect for us. I was introduces to the concept of "wine flight". I had beer samplers like that before, but now with wine. There were four small glass, from a bubbly to Merlot.

Count down to the event

Wow, it has been a CRAZY weekend. After delivering my grandchildren to their other grandparents on Saturday, G and I went to a wedding of a friend's son. The wedding was in church and the reception at the home of the bride. They had set up a very large tent in their back yard. The bride's parents own a flower shop so the flowers were quite spectacular. On the way home we passed our neighbors who had a bonfire going. They have always told us to stop in any time there are out at the fire, so we did. Dave, the neighbor, is quite a story teller. We learn a lot about all our neighbors from him. Maybe sometime I'll post some of the stories.

I have been working on my "TO DO" list for the Pig Roast/Pot luck that is next Saturday. I will not bore you with the items on the list but may be referring to them this week. My dear husband went around the neighborhood and invited a LOT of people. Apparently they like this kind of thing as we have about 140 people coming. It makes me break out in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. But everyone is bringing a dish to share and we are roasting the pig, so there will be lots of food. Two people who have blogs will be attending, so it will be interesting to see their report.

Happy Birthday to me

Today is my 65th birthday. I am spending it with my precious grandchildren. I have three actual birthday cards: From Gill and Frank in the UK, a 11x17 one Kyla made for me. It was a two day project as she felt she needed to keep adding to it, and one from my dau and son-in-law. They sent money to put toward some yard art or statuatury. Husband was very afraid I would get a gargoyle. Maybe I can find one with a smiley face. The other wishes were by email. Thanks everyone.

Tonight G and another friend, Greta are coming over. We will order some takeout. It seems like a better idea than taking the two kids out with us. I've suggested to Kyla that we also get a Dairy Queen cake. We will sneak the leftovers into her parent's freezer.