I’m likely to be away from the computer this weekend. I convinced my mother and DH to go to the last of the Farmer’s Markets tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Then we’ll do breakfast out, and stop at the cleaners and Office Max on the way home. I started making a list of about twenty other errands that need to be run, and it looks like the entire day could be wiped out. If it continues to rain, that might not be a bad idea, unless traffic is a mess.
Jo Ann Fabrics or Windmill City Quilts, getting Defer’s nails clipped, and then giving him a bath, stopping at Babies R Us for a shower gift, getting a bag of vermiculite, ordering bird seed for delivery…..and I’d like to get DH to Restoration Hardware before their lighting sale ends.
I have a wonderful book I just started. It’s the “Da Vinci Code.” I’m barely 130 pages into the story and really wrapped up in it. I’ll have to tell you more when I’ve finished it, but I can already recommend it.
Sunday, Mother has a meeting of Empty Nesters, and then we will go to dinner with the kids to celebrate DH’s birthday. One of the kids has organized it, and made reservations. We’ll be at a restaurant on a river, so we may get to enjoy the gathering wildlife.
My gardens still need me, and the leaves that have fallen are wet now. I can see that we will be raking one cold November. I’ll have to get someone to take a picture. I’m sure none of you believe that I do any of this stuff! *G*
Well….I hope you all have a great weekend! Happy Fall!

Man, I LOVE Amazon.com. With a click you have the world at your fingertips!
I was placing an order for DH’s birthday and remembered that I wanted to look up a Michael McDonald CD. I finally settled on “Greatest Hits of the Doobie Brothers.” It arrived yesterday and sat on the kitchen counter while I finished up other things.
I popped it into the office CD player this afternoon and I’m having trouble concentrating on business. Instead, I’m dancing in my chair…..doing the backstroke and bopping along. I know that some of my readers were only TWO when this band started, but ya gotta love the Doobie Brothers! Great energy.
Now, if everybody would just quit interrupting me, I might perfect this chair dancin……(scooting the chair across the floor and back)

I had my annual physical today. I’m not terribly fond of going to the doctor, but I make several appointments in October for annual checkups. Last Thursday I had my mammogram, and today I got a tetanus shot and a flu shot. They drew blood for a chem panel, so I’ll be hearing from the doc when the results come in. I had a Pap smear done, and peed in a cup.
I hope that you will take the time to get an annual physical. Even if you are well, it doesn’t hurt to have baseline information for future treatment, and you can prevent a lot of woe if you discover things early. It doesn’t take a lot of time, it’s not terribly expensive, and it doesn’t hurt (much).
Do something nice for a loved one….and something nice for yourself. Get a check up!

Do you suppose that everyone at some time in their life thinks about what they might like to name their children? I’ve always thought the tradition you tend to find on the East coast of using the mother’s maiden name for a son’s first name, was a cool idea. Obviously it works better with some names than others. Can you see a kid entering kindergarten with a moniker like Schwarzenegger Brown??

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Isn’t style fascinating? Each of us has a unique style about us. It’s reflected in how we dress, whether we are day or night people, grasshoppers or ants. It shows up in the type of housing we choose, whether we have kids, what type of job is satisfying, whether we can let an old love go, our sense of humor, and if we have close ties to nature.
Style is on my mind because of the diversity of blogs I read. Since the day I first tripped over Billy’s blog, he’s been a daily read. He writes an amazing stream of consciousness, but in each essay he produces, there’s likely to be a reflection that ties his past life into the one that’s coming, something wildly funny, and something heartfelt. I never know what the subject matter will be, but I always know that I will have been given a snapshot of his life, a clear unobfuscated view.

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the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can, and
The Wisdom to know the difference.
That rates up there as one of my all time favorite prayers, ahead of
God, please grant me patience, NOW!
It certainly would be nice to experience wisdom sometime in my life…..

Or any of a thousand other names we use for marijuana, will do.
I was reading my copy of “The Herb Quarterly” (Winter, 2003) and came across an article on the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Marijuana used for medical purposes has been met with resistance around the world. The Netherlands is probably the best known exception. However, some patients in Canada are now receiving small amounts of government grown marijuana.
What caught my eye was that the California State Supreme Court has ruled that patients with a doctor’s note may use marijuana. However, federal law dictates that third parties may not supply people with the herb. Soooooo…..than means that Californians must grow their own marijuana.
I wonder if there are controls in place concering the potency of the plant? One of the stumbling blocks in Canada had to do with the potency of the crop that was being offered for medicial use. Can’t you see people fine-tuning their farming techniques to develop the most potent strain of Cannabis ever created??
Every house in California will have it’s own little herb garden. Marijuana plants will become a part of the landscaping! The Marijuana plant will become the State Plant!
Where else but in California???

We were walking this evening. Dear Husband asked if I would like to go, and I said….”Maybe after dinner.” Well, the light fades fast these days, and even though we had an unusually early dinner tonight, the sun had dipped below the houses to the west as I changed my shoes. I try never to say no to an invitation to walk. We both need the exercise and I want to encourage this effort.
We got onto the path, and the first thing I noticed was that the black walnut trees were bare of leaves, but there were still clusters of nuts here and there. DH told me that I had to watch out for them. They hurt when they land on you. I had a vision of the scene from the “Wizard of Oz,” where the trees are throwing their apples at the walkers. I could just see that black walnut tree sizing up the distances and waiting to bomb me.
Whew…….I made it past without an incident. Then we came to a patch where the nuts lay thick on the ground. You had to walk looking down or risk doing one of those Dick Van Dyke prat falls.
Our walk was uneventful despite the dangers along the way. It seems that it’s a metaphor for my life. I’ve walked down the path, through the dangers, and made the trip safely so far. I hope the future will be as pleasant and safe as the past has been, and that there will be time for many more walks.

For some reason I chose this weekend to begin organizing both personal and company data. It might well have to do with the fact that the CPA’s assistant will be here tomorrow, and I’ll need to be able to find things. It could just be the “nesting” impulse that comes over me in the Fall. It could be that things have needed to be tidied up since the hard drive had to be reprogramed, or it could be that I have let months of filing slide because I HATE FILING!
Whatever the reason, I’ve sure gotten a LOT done this weekend. What worries me is that in the process, I blew off a gorgeous day when I could have been outside working on putting the gardens to bed. Saturday, I cleaned out half of the sidewalk gardens. I need to cover that area with compost and mulch. My biggest problem has been that the plants are still blooming, and I refuse to kill off living plants. I dug out the dahlias and readied them for storage, but the rest will have to wait until we get a killer frost.
I washed clothes, and emptied out the dishwasher, and washed dishes. I cleaned the kitchen counter and made the bed. I’ve organized some of the stuff that’s come in from the Arr!! I have receipts organized for the first ten months of 2003, so tax season should be a lot easier. I might even get things cleaned out so that we have more space!
What is there about this kind of work that makes you feel self-righteous?? This is almost as bad as having to listen to a person who has given up cigarettes!

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.
Minced garlic, Cran-raspberry juice, lots of Romaine, green olive tapenade,
and herb-coated goat’s cheese
2. Name five things in your freezer.
Blue plastic ice packs, pot roast, shrimp, Squirrel ice cream (vanilla fudge swirl), seven pounds of butter.
3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.
Canola oil, Lamp oil, dishwasher detergent, sponges, silver polish
4. Name five things around your computer.
An antique coffee grinder, two pictures of polar bears, three candles, a
picture of DH standing next to a stuffed Alaskan moose, a glass dish of
potpourri.
5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.
I don’t have a medicine cabinet. Most of our medicine cabinet “stuff” is kept
in drawers under the counter: Floss holder, Allegra, razor,
Aspirin, Q-tips.