Marvelous Monday!

[OKay]

To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.
Barbara Walters


This morning I started thinking about all the things that need my time & attention today and quickly started becoming overwhelmed. I stopped and made a decision to enjoy today. I've decided to have a marvelous day! How about you?

[OKay]

Yesterday was hot. Two local thermometers said 112 and one thermometer said 110. I saw a picture of all the states and know that we are not the only ones experiencing this lovely summer weather.

You would think when the extreme heat arrives that attendance at church would drop off. However that hasn't happened. Even with the a/c blowing full out the coolest temperature that can be reached in the sitting area is in the 90's. Besides a/c blowing into the sitting area, there are couple dozen fans blowing. When the summer heat set in a few weeks ago, we started handing out ice cold water bottles to everyone. This is in addition to the normal self-serve coffee, donuts, lemonade, brownies, etc. People who work in the heat always have their cold drinks with them, but those who aren't used to it show up empty handed. Mr Social Butterfly LO has become the unofficial water boy at church, passing out water bottles up and down the aisles as he goes around chatting with everyone.

CCC = 24

[Indiana]

Good morning. I like the quote OKay.

It is marvelous today.

I'm waiting on a grocery order. I normally don't get one this early but I wanted blueberry juice and cranberry juice.

Jake is doing much better.

Harriet I have a cup just like yours and I love it. It keeps things cold for hours. Mine came with a straw and I see the site has straws so I can get a back up one.

[Emptynester]

A low of 60 this morning makes everything move a bit faster to keep warm.


Had a good time Skyping with DGD#6 last night to show her the puppies.

One more week and we start heading west again. But very slowly. We will volunteer for a few weeks at our Church camp before we stop by DD#1's house again and then head out for more RV rallies.

We will be in charge of the puppies for 4 days this week - the regular Wed and Thurs while DD and DSIL are at work all day and Fri and Sat while they are at the Relay for Life.

Next Sunday the puppies start on puppy food.

I've been inputting birth/marriage/death dates in a software program from DCousin's 40 page narrative of our family. She has a few dates wrong - But that is why we double check them.

Still have 3 branches of my parent's generation to go.

[Indiana]

I just looked at the site. I must have a similar tumbler because I looked more closely at the lids. Mine has a slide closure and when open a straw will go in it.

[Twins' Mom]

Good morning! I've already been out walking ddogs before it gets too hot. No breakfast yet as my tummy is weird, perhaps from the heat.

Dcleaning lady shows up today and will just have to clean around the mess here, altho I'm going to do some straightening in the next hour or so.

Round one:
-strip bed and reboot the laundry
-empty dishwasher
-clear kitchen counters
-clear kitchen table

[OKay]

I'm enjoying a marvelous and refreshing start to the day. I just spent time outdoors piddling in vegetable & flower garden then setting up three sprinklers - two are the drip line type and the other is a regular sprinkler on tripod. The areas of the yard around the house that is covered by underground sprinkler is green and healthy looking. Everything else is fighting to stay alive and hoping their turn with the sprinklers comes sooner than later. I'm sooooo very thankful to have a working water well!

DBro lost another pond last week. That means moving the cattle or hauling water to them. Our front pond is still holding water, but is getting stale and showing signs of green algae. Soooooo.....we have set up water tank for cattle right outside our yard fence. I'm sitting here watching a group of them (40-50?) calmly stand around the water tank waiting their turn to get close enough to drink.

[Twins' Mom]

This round:
-breakfast
-meds, me and ddogs
-upstairs, straighten the bathroom
-upstairs, straighten the bonus room
-find sheets for dkids beds (Ds is at work today so dcleaning lady can at least change those beds)

[ellyphant]

It is a great day! The corn is as high as an ellyphant's eye...!!

Dove--You mentioned Pam and Peggy's recipes the other day. I have to confess that I didn't know who they were until I found the old OH message boards around 2005. Don't know how I missed them!

Harmony--Your tree cutting sounded way more difficult than ours was here!

Lucylee--I hear you about the thank you notes. I suggested to DS that they try to do about 10 per weekend. Not going to mention it again. Most of their gifts are from DDIL's side. Didn't invite our family members who only watched DS grow up via Christmas cards. I have over 50 first cousins on my father's side...still in touch with only 3 of them.

Okay--Love the quote. DFIL (who did come to wedding, thanks to another family member staying with DMIL) kissed me on the forehead at wedding and told me that I did a great job raising DS. DH said "He didn't say that to me."

Coffee was extra good this morning, thanks to the small can of evaporated milk I had in pantry per Indiana's recommendation. Out of milk again here. Hello to everyone else not mentioned!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I'm up. Still have headache. Have decided this is jaw caused. My mouth guard is working in that it is keeping my jaw from getting too sore and allowing me to eat, but it is obviously out of whack and that's causing the endless headache. Advil just dulls it. I have to keep at this until the 18th and then I can start healing again.

There's a funeral at church and I was to sing in the choir there but will stay home. And I'll only listen and hum to the pieces when I practice today and tomorrow. I'm going to try and keep my talking to a minimum too. One of dd's singing friends says she actually uses duct tape if she finds she can't remember to not talk. On the plus side, my vocal chords are doing fine, my problems are all jaw related.

I'm going to work on taking advil on a regular basis all day today to see if I can catch to the pain. Last night I was up at 1:30 so took another plus one when I got out of bed this morning. So right now I just ache but no pain (there was pain when I woke up.)

I've drawn up the meal plan for the rest of this month and all of next. There will be things like stews and shepherd's pie in my future! As well, I created a google calendar and put the meal plan on the at so if we are out, I can look up the meal plan on dh's smart phone while at the grocery store to see if I need to pick up things. The calendars cache on his smart phone so he doesn't have to have wifi at the store in order to see it.

I've also stripped and remade the bed and tidied our room. I'm taking a break from the treadmill today but will likely walk to the store for the mail later.

Lucylee: One thing that struck me in The Help was how smart some of the 'housewives' were. Didn't like them but they were not people I would have been able to outwit easily. So it did crush that stereotype (one that is prominent in Mad Men - also set in the same time frame.) As for the racism, that was part of the times. Even in 'free' Canada, there was racism of all sorts. I was born in 1960 but have clear memories of my parents talking about Darkies or Negros (that was when they were trying to be sensitive.) So that sort of language was used into the 70s in my home. And in one letter, written in 1965, my mother from Washington, DC, how much she preferred being around the darkies who were so friendly and helpful and spoke good English compared to all the Italians in Ottawa. Apparently, she didn't think much of the Italian immigrant wave. I often wonder what she would think of her granddaughter marrying a son of an Italian immigrant.

Language aside, their attitude wasn't one of superiority. I grew up with calypso music in the house and we spent big bucks to go see Harry Belafonte. My father, and his father before him, spent a lot of time in the Caribbean Islands since that was the trade route that they sailed taking lumber down and bringing salt, spices and molasses back. So their livelihood depended on business with the islanders and they had a lot of business interactions. Knowledge was how my dad judged people, not the colour of the skin. If a person was well spoken and had good knowledge (but not necessarily 'official learning' since my Dad was self-taught) my dad had respect and if it was something he didn't know, would try to learn as much from that person and share as much as he could with that person.

I guess that's what bugged me the most about the people in The Help. The white families had this huge knowledge base to learn from but it was dismissed because it was from the blacks.