Mobile or HOME? I think you've answered your own question Michael, if it's still not home to you in Mobile. I'm proud of you helping in colleges, high schools or with oil spills. You need Michelle and her powers of muddling mint to make your drink ;) I'm really ambivalent about this weekend. It's my last weekend to remodel the house. Done or not. I plan to celebrate. I'll clean after that and after pictures will be forthcoming. I'm writing my hardship letter to explain why the bank should consider short selling my house. It's in His hands now and at the right time. I'm excited it's done and I'm sad I'm leaving years of work. It's kind of like graduating. Next chapter! Have to go make up a menu for my celebration dinner. I can see seafood in that picture. I'm really sickened by what's going on in China and the many school children are in my prayers! Hope that gets cleared up soon. I am going to see an internist in June for my osteoarthritis. Before I go, I contacted my parents and sibs for their medical history. I found a spreadsheet that they could just check with an X for conditions. It was clear as a bell when I got it back... Xs all the way across the osteoarthritis row, HA! Mom and her parents, dad and his parents. Duh! No diabetes, but boy the heart stuff is ugly. Guess I better get on a good diet (I did quit eating red meat months ago, but need to up the fish intake) and get more veggies introduced.

G.M., I didn't know her....only knew of her in terms of her being a relatively new firefighter with one of our county's fire departments (East Side VFD or Lake Murray VFD, I don't remember which one she had recently joined) and fighting her first house fire earlier on the day she died. You know how it is here....you may not know someone but you know people who know them, etc. House fires are few and far between, and one of our newer firefighters was also fighting his first housefire that same day, even though he's belonged to our department for many months now. I wasn't even there....I was home vacuuming and mopping floors because my sister-in-law was due to arrive from Pennsylania in just a couple of hours, although I had gone to the fire station and loaded up the firetrucks with drinks for the guys to take with them, and then spoke with several other Fire Rehab people by phone to make sure they had enough drinks, ice, coolers, etc. before I returned to my housecleaning. It was a pretty bad house fire that Sunday and they even cancelled church services at a church across the road and sent those folks home because of heavy smoke in the area and the risk of smoke inhalation. It was just a bad day. You don't give up....you pick your battles and something told you this year that it wasn't worth the fight. I understand that. With me, it is the severe drought periods that make me give up because there is just a point where you have to stop pouring water on the hard clay ground because it just runs off. I think it was luck for me this year, and being stubborn and refusing to give up, too. I do believe the fall harvest ends this weekend, because temps around 36 are now forecast for us on Mon. or Tues. night, and that's assuming Sun. night doesn't go that low. I've been watching the NWS, KXII, Weather Underground and Accu-Weather and trying to make sense of the various forecasts, and I've decided we probably are going to have our first freeze between Sunday and Tuesday. I've done the whole 'stripping the plants' of the 'final harvest' 4 or 5 different times already this fall when cool temps threatened, but I'll do it again Sat. or Sun. The coldest we've been here in our low-lying microclimate so far this fall has been 35 degrees and we had patchy frost and minor damage to the pepper and tomato plants, although the plants themselves did survive. I'm ready for it to end, though, because the holidays are almost here and I need to get busy with that. Our water bill was outrageous too during the dry spells, but here in Love County the rain rolled around just often enough to give me up and keep me going. If rain hadn't returned in September, though, I would have just quit watering because we couldn't handle another high water bill. When Tim and I drive by the long-ago-abandoned gardens in our area that haven't produced anything since roughly late July at the best, we are just amazed at the difference in our garden and those because ours still produces. It just goes to show you that if you can manage to water and get through the toughest dry spells of the summer, then you have a good chance at good fall production. I do think Love County consistently had more rain than Carter County this year, and I didn't realize how dry y'all had been until we went to Ardmore one day in August and I looked around as we were driving up I35 and realized y'all were looking really, really dry. Like you, I have plants in containers looking great for this time of year, and all the sunshine (and, LOL, attention to watering them regularly) has played a role in that. I think the cold may get them next week though. The whole breakup was so traumatic. Despite the fact that the former fiancee started dating his best friend, DS tried to be mature and remain friendly with them both (he handled the whole situation better than I would have!) but that didn't work out well either. It was VERY hard for us because Kristine was like a member of our family and we stayed in touch with her via the phone for a while, but it just was too awkward. Our new DIL is a jewel, and I hope this marriage lasts. We love her and her daughter dearly and just feel so blessed to have them as members of our family. I always tell people when unexpected things happen that "I think things work out the way they were meant to work out" even if we don't understand why at the time....so that's how I feel about this whole thing. It worked out the way God meant for it to work out. You have a wonderful weekend too! Dawn

Betty, it must have been horrid for you but sounds as if you have your sense of humor back a bit. Take it easy, that table will wait, as will shopping. Sending prayers for you and your family for good health. Neither DH or I are in the high priority groups they are vaccinating first so we're just avoiding crowds as much as possible. Can't stay home all the time tho so hope our resistance is good. I've read that "Seniors, who have some immunity from H1N1 due to their exposure to a similar strain that circulated in the late 1950s, are considered at lower risk and a lower priority group" and I hope that's true. Can't remember that far back if I had the flu then. We take extra Vit D which is supposed to help immunity. I have a mild egg allergy and have become very ill from other vaccinations so am not in a hurry to get one now. DH almost never gets sick so doesn't want one either. I use essential oils and have extra tea tree and ravensara (anti-viral oils) on hand so am depending on that to a certain extent.

I just got mine on Wednesday. This is my 32 consecutive year! I don't miss it!!! But I have medical reasons, and it would put me in the hospital if I got it. "They" say that the flu really doesn't go away anymore, too many people live in air-tight homes/apts and offices that only recirculate their air.