Hope everyone has recovered from their 4th of July celebrations.  Since we didn't anything spectacular, we are definitely recovered.

We received a call from Bec yesterday, and she DID end up going to Steve's camp to visit with him and with Jan/Troy.  I think they had a good time; I KNOW they had boiled crabs last night.  Shame on them for telling us that--we did NOT have boiled crabs any time in the near recent past (nor far-down-the-road past either).  Maybe we can have some when we go down for the wedding.  (Hint, hint)

Speaking of the wedding, Jess and Lance are finalizing all their preparations for their special day.  Isn't is strange that no matter how simple the plans start out, they always seem to end up more complicated? They want this to be very simple, with more "complicated" plans for later in the year when, hopefully, Josh and Joey will be able to come home for a visit.  At that time, more folks will be invited and they'll do a house-warming as well.

Speaking of house warming (love the way these paragraphs all seem to have a perfect segue from the preceding words), Lance is selling and buying houses on the same day--talk about stress!  WOW!  That means they will have their new house before the wedding, but I'm not sure exactly when they'll get into that house.  Have to wait for the wedding, you know!  Anyway, love the fact that all of that will be behind them when they start their lives together--again!

Oh, oh--no segue here, so I'll just start another paragraph any kind of way I want.  OK?  OK!

Sid has all the plates on all sides of our carport in place.  Tomorrow, he hopes to mark the positions of the ceiling joists and possibly even get some of them nailed into place.  Those joists are 24 feet long and HEAVY!!!  Our carport is 20x24 (which, by the way, was the size of the original Cottage), so he's been toting some pretty heavy lumber for the past couple of weeks, including all the posts, which were 4"x6"x10'--not anything I could handle, that's for sure.  Slowly, but surely, we (read:  Sid) are getting this thing built.  I'm just there for moral support andto bring water or lemonade or whatever to keep him hydrated--no small feat in this weather, believe me.

Today is Saturday, which means we attended the 5pm vigil Mass.  Fr. Bob, our pastor, is away on vacation, so we had a missionary priest from Nigeria celebrating the Eucharist with us.  I really enjoyed his simplicity and his message.  There were no changes in the Mass from this man; he seems to be very conservative in his approach to the celebration of Mass, and that is what we like.  Thoroughly enjoyed being there with him today.

After Mass, per Randi's suggestion, we had supper at DQ.  I had the small burger with a salad; Randi had a bacon/cheeseburger; Sid had the taco salad.  Now all this food would have been enough, but we decided to share a banana split.  I hadn't had anything like that since I started at WW, so it was really tasty.  And, I did check the point values, and sharing it with Sid made is definitely within my total points for today.  Besides, one must give in to cravings occasionally, or the weight loss program becomes a true diet--and I hate diets!

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous, even though it was extremely warm.  I noticed it particularly when I'd go out to bring Sid his liquids, but I also noticed it when I went onto our back to peel and chop onions.  Yes, you read that correctly--I was peeling and chopping onions today.  A friend of Sid's dropped off some garlic and onions the other day, and today was my day to attack them.

We like to saute large slices of onions and use them on our burgers or in other foods, so I did that with a bunch of the onions; we also use the diced onions in regular cooking, so I did some of those.  I ended up with three gallon-sized bags of diced onions and two gallon-sized bags of the slices.  The other day, I prepared one gallon bag of garlic ready to be chopped up/diced by us and perhaps by our kids as well.  So, that's how I spent my afternoon--peeling and chopping and slicing--what fun that was!

Oh, BIG NEWS!  We found THREE cucumbers in our garden, our first ones for the season.  Can't wait for tomorrow to prepare a delicious salad using our VERY OWN CUCUMBERS!  Really can't wait until the tomatoes start coming in--we have lots of small ones, but none yet ready to be picked.  Won't be long, though-----

That's it for tonight!  Hope you had a great day and that tomorrow finds you in good health and enjoying all things good!

HEARTFELT BLESSING:  "Create the highest, grandest vision for your life because you become what you believe."          --Oprah Winfrey

NOTE:  One of my friends did a needlepoint for me when I retired as DRE in our parish; she used my favorite saying at the time:  "Without work, there is no need to dream; without dreams, there is no need to work."  Visualizing your grandest vision is an excellent way to motivate yourself to work for it.  Life is a gift; what we get out of life comes from what we put into it--and that requires WORK.  So, GO FOR IT!