Suitcases Are Upstairs

We're making progress.  We got our pills & supplements all organized in pillminders and zip bags this morning (can you say OLD?) and I've got the first load of laundry in.  I need to call Lucie to see when it's convenient for me to drop off the "sewing for dollars" bins (wonder if she pays on delivery... I forgot to ask), then I'm watching to see when the grass will be dry enough to mow while I try to decide what clothes to take.  Mowing HAS to get done today.  I've already asked DS to mow it the second week we're gone, I'd feel awful if I needed him to do it this week too. (the sun just broke out of the clouds... score!)  Although I am lending him Beverly... nah, that'd be mean.  He's got a much bigger yard to mow at his house and he's very busy.  Man oh man, did we get rain yesterday.  Just over 2" according to Pete Petoniak (he's the chief Channel 11 weather guy; I know you don't know him but I love saying his last name--Petoniak) and of course it rained the hardest when I had customers that I felt honor-bound to help carry tanks out to their vehicles.  Meh, I won't melt.  I mean, I'm sweet (at times... every once in a while... okay, rarely) but I'm not that sweet.  And I'm ripping an audio version of To Kill A Mockingbird into iTunes right now too (look at me multitasking) so I can put it in my iPod.  I don't know how much listening time I'll have but I want to have enough books on there so I don't run out.  The only annoying thing about syncing CD-based books onto the iPod is that doing so wipes off the ones I've downloaded from Overdrive (the Library's audiobook service) so then I have to make sure that I've still got checked out days left so that I can get the books I haven't listened to back.  (I just had a brainstorm--as long as the books in the laptop I can wait until I have listened to the loaded books before I upload it... I'm a genius, just ask me) It's a pain, and time consuming, but I'm willing because I lovelovelove listening to stories while I go about my work/sewing/knitting.  I never thought I'd be such a fan of non-paper books.  Guess I'm not a Luddite after all.  (Hmm, anything else?  Oh, yeah...)  Yesterday morning when it wasn't raining too hard I saw a hummingbird perched on top of the crook that holds the hummingbird juice taking a shower.  I watched as she let the rain hit her, then she'd fluff and shake, and wait for the next drops.  I got a picture!  Actually I got 2 but I'm only sharing one.  Cool, huh?  Today's Photo a Day theme is "ring."  This is Durwood's wedding ring.  He takes it off when he's cooking with raw meat or has to wash his hands a bazillion times and forgets to put it back on, so I have to pick it up and carry it to him, then I ask him if he'll marry me (again) and put it on his finger when he says yes.  He always does, and without hesitation too.  (man, I've got him fooled, don't I?)  

August 10--Egypt, Amenhotep III and his Mother, Mutemwia.  Every mother wants her son to do well.  Mattie was no exception.  She had sacrificed for him, listened at doors for him, done things she never in her wildest dreams imagined she would so that he could get ahead.  He realized it and appreciated her efforts.  She could tell.  At times he even seemed to listen to what she had to say.  Not that a woman could appear to have much power, no, not if she wanted to have things go her way.  She had learned to couch her orders in the form of suggestions.  Most of her sentences began with the words "you might want to."  She must have succeeded because he'd asked her to be standing behind him in one of his tomb paintings.  What an honor.

You are not going to believe it but I have room in that notebook for one more night's prompt writing and then I have to start a new one.  It just worked out that I get to start our great Western Adventure with a spanking clean notebooks.  Who says there's no such thing as fate?  Gotta get a move on.  Lots to do, lots to do.  Hasta la vista, babies.
--Barbara