I thought I would check in before leaving for the weekend. Yesterday was a day from hell. I am asking you again for prayers and support for my family. What I am going to tell you is almost impossible to believe. It concerns two of my nephews. One is ninth grade, the other away at college, finishing up his senior year. Last week my brother and his wife received a call from the ninth grader's school, saying that he had suffered an "episode" and recommended taking him to the doctor. To make a long story short, he had gotten extremely stressed out at school (he is always on the honors list) and just cracked. They described it as a manic episode. He is seeing several doctors and has gotten better, went back to school yesterday. When talking to my mother yesterday morning, she said she had started receiving some very bizarre emails from our other nephew, who is away at college. She didn't want to bother my brother, because of everything they had been going through with the younger son. I asked her to forward them to me, and gosh almighty, they were more than bizarre, really out of it, almost suicidal. So I told her I was going to track down my brother and/or his wife at their work and let them know. To make a long story short, this nephew has also suffered some sort of manic breakdown - they tested him and did not find drugs or alcohol in his system and will be committing him to a mental hospital for evaluation. My brother is with him, as my sister-in-law had to stay home with the other son. I was hesitant to post this on a forum, but I believe in prayer and that it can help heal, and my poor brother and his family need it in the worst way. They are just stunned and in shock. They are the last family you would think something like this would happen to. Very stable environment, very supportive of their children. Thank you for letting me share.

Maddie and Besh - thank you for the compliments! I feel like a million dollars after seeing those. Besh I am happy your sister is doing well. Keeping good thoughts coming your way. And a puppy! OMG I love puppies. Give her a big kiss for me. Lucky girl you are. I will be on and offline - my laptop died big time, DH set me up on his other laptop normally used for work...but I've also been busy finally making curtains for my spare room after sorting the junk out. The weather is playing nice again - we have running around to do along with getting me a new laptop. I balked at the idea and asked if I could just get a refurbished one. Dave wants me to have a new one because I use it for everything, we are not subscribing to TV since moving out here and use the laptop for reading news, watching TV online etc. It's our social life when we sit down and work beasts for both of us. There are some really good ones out there that are rated high for performance and COOLING under $500. My old HP sucked on cooling - my hardware in the machine just got slower and slower, things started stalling this week until it gave up completely yesterday. Boo. We're looking at a Toshiba Satellite. I had a Toshiba before and wore that sucker right out and I'm using an old Toshiba right now (DH's work laptop). It's also a much older machine too but still working well. Sometimes I wonder if the ground we have built on is cursed. Since our homebuild went wrong, lots of other things around here go wrong. Even our contractor said things that have been challenging just never happen on other sites. And get this, EXACTLY to the day we left Ottawa last year to be homeless in a trailer on site, we had a lightning strike on a tree in our field. It traveled to the house, damaged/killed our modem, wi-fi equipment, an outdoor outlet and possibly the start switch on DH's table saw (it was plugged into an extension cord from the house) which got zapped (circuit breaker went off). Because we have a $1K deductible on our insurance to keep costs down, it doesn't look like we've past that on damages to bother with it. Honestly I just don't know sometimes. There was a huge BANG and we both swear we saw an arc around our woodstove - which luckily the attached fan was still plugged in so it was grounded. Given the trees around the house and the fact we are on a hill top we are now thinking of getting a lightening rod installed. I don't want to say "what next". If we won the lottery we'd be gone tomorrow from here - not kidding. This has not turned into our dream home - it's a house on slab which we've been told will be hard to sell, the value is not as high as it could be because of the slab (supposed to be our walk out basement). Sigh. But we march on. Never dull although I would not mind some "dull" these days. So excuse me if I'm not online much over the next few days and maybe not until next week. It's Canada Day weekend too and we will be busy with family. I hope you are enjoying some fine weather, getting outside and taking care of yourself. Drink some water and try and have a walk! Cheers, Peggy

Hi Everyone! I've been MIA. My laptop died, got another one and managed to spill and entire cup of fresh coffee all over it, soaking the keyboard....talk about getting depressed. Really could not afford the laptop to begin with but hubby said it's our only real form of entertainment and he insisted. We don't have cable or satellite or antenna out here. I wanted to use an older laptop of his but apparently it's dying too. He's working on removing all data now before it shuts down for the last time. I left the laptop to dry for a couple of days....fired it up and the keyboard still did not work. Major depressive. So I hooked up a keyboard. I did not feel like talking much because the laptop was the icing on our financial cake...we're fine at the moment but still watching our pennies. It just got to us. Dave was even looking to spend a further $200 to get/replace the keyboard. I said no. I'll use the keyboard. Today I tried the laptop keyboard and it is working completely fine. It apparently needed more time to dry out. Thank you Toshiba for continuing to build better and better laptops! So I'm back. Emotionally it's been a rough week but I'm snapping out of it now. Dave just installed our first piece of kitchen yesterday - the sink unit with 3 drawers on the side. It's beautiful. 6 ft long with the second piece to be built as a mirrored image on the other side of the stove. First he's taking a break from cabinet making to make some storage shelves for his shop. It desperately needs to get stuff off the floor properly and room to sort his small stuff better. Safer working environment. It's late and I'll be off to bed in a few minutes. Tonight I watched Joan Crawford's 1945 Mildred Pierce online. WOW - what a great girly movie. I love black and white movies. She was fabulous in this movie. We're hitting a 5 day run of hot weather (by my standards) - 86F or 30C. Tomorrow morning I'll be watering my gardens and again in the evening. I don't care to lose my started tomatoes and peppers that are finally appearing. Socially this week has been very good. Finally got to spend decent time with our neighbour/friends across the road. They had us over a few times last summer/fall for proper dinners when we were living in the trailer. I was able to do something nice for Gail - I made her bedroom curtains which she loves. I was pretty pleased the way they turned out considering we went to a major charity shop and got a beautiful large silky looking table cloth in a purple/burgundy and a lavender/gray heavy curtain for the backing to add weight and keep the light out at night. We also had great girly time and got together here for a card night. Much needed. Very much needed. I'm back - I'm sure BJ will be back soon too! Still maintaining my weight, drinking water or heavily watered down ginger ale. I'm not nuts on pop, just bored with water sometimes. I only use part of a can. The rest goes back in the fridge for another day. Sweet dreams everyone - will be in touch tomorrow! LOL Peggy

Well Wodka, I weighed this morning. It appears I'm on a plateau - neiher up nor down. That's a lot beter though than an increase. I did go yeserday. Had quite a time. I don't drive all that much anymore and because of all the consruction I went a different way - one that I'm not that familiar with. When I came to one town there was a detour because of construction - a lengthy one. Anyway got around that all right. Got to the next town and made a wrong turn and didn't realize it until I saw the name on a nursing home and realized I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near it. Turned around and found my way. When I got to the nursing home, my friend had a bad cold and they strongly advised ,for my own sake, that I not go in to see her. I was sorry about that but didn't want to get sick myself and bring the flu home to others. I asked them not to tell her that I had been here. I came home a different way than I went. Still not that familiar with part of it but all worked out fine. The weather was nice and I did run a few other errands so I don't consider it was time wasted. The fact I didn't see my friend gives me an excuse to go again in a couple of weeks. Bet I don't go the same route!!! I don't intend to do too much to-day. This old girl gets exhausted easily. Anyway I had a good sleep last night and a good walk with the dog this morning. Have a good one everybody.