With all the excitement in our lives (read:  BORING!), I can't always remember what we did; guess I'll have to start carrying my little tape recorder to remind myself of things we did during each day.  What can I say?  When you get to be our ages, things are a little less hectic on some days and a lot MORE hectic on others, depending of who we're with, where we're going, or what kind of errands we have to do.  So, bear with me and take time to share the "goings on" in our lives, whether exciting or not.  OK?  OK!

First of all, I forgot to mention on my last entry that after we brought Mom back to her house, she had a little accident.  Don't get excited--she's fine!  However, Mom tends to want to do things herself and doesn't like to ask us for help.  As I did mention, she had some blood work done when we saw her doctor on Friday.  Because they couldn't get a good blood flow, they had to "stick" her three times before they could get enough blood for the testing they needed to do.  That meant, of course, that she had several little bandages covering those stick holes.  Nothing to be alarmed about there.  WRONG!

When we got to her house, Paul was there, too, so we went into the kitchen to fill him in on Mom's visit.  As we were leaving and going to give Mom our "good-bye kisses", I noticed she was holding her hand in an odd fashion (which is not that unusual because her hands are terribly crippled with arthritis); somehow, though, this time I went to see what was going on.  She was bleeding!!!  Now, after an experience we had before when an IV that was removed in the hospital began bleeding while we were at SONIC and I had to do emergency wound care, I got a little concerned.  Not to worry, though.  It wasn't much; however, it should NOT have happened.

Mom decided, while we were in the kitchen chatting with Paul, that she wanted the bandages to come off.  Rather than wait a minute or two for us to do it, she figured she could take them off herself.  No, she couldn't, probably because she couldn't see where the ends of the wrap were (if she had, she could have easily undone it).  So, she took a pair of scissors with her LEFT HAND (the sticks were on the right--and Mom is right-handed) and tried to cut the bandage off.  Oh, she did that alright, but she also cut her skin.  Thankfully, it was very bad, but it was bad enough that we had to apply pressure and then put a band aid on it.  Of course, this succeeded in doing exactly what she doesn't like to do--caused a problem.  Oh, well--we should be used to that by now, don't you think?  She's fine, though, so don't worry about Mom tonight.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a slow day for us.  We didn't get up very early, so breakfast was light.  Then, we had left-overs from Big Al's--still delicious.  In the afternoon, Bess and Nathan stopped by to bring Sid a new hat for working outside.  He has already ruined TWO that I had bought by wearing them while on the tractor.  That in itself is not a problem; however the wind blew them off his head and the tractor tore them up--TWICE!!!  Anyway, the hat is really nice, and I "warned" him about using it when using the tractor.  We'll see what happens!

As usual, we attended Mass in the afternoon.  Fr. Bob did a nice job with his homily, but he had to adapt his MO for the day.  It seems that lightning had "fried" the mike system at church, so they had to use some portable systems.  They seemed to work fine, but it kept Fr. Bob in one spot, which is not how he likes to deliver his sermon.  Hopefully, they'll have it fixed before too long.

Today, we decided to have a last-day-before-school day--meaning we wanted to do something a little special.  We went to CRACKER BARREL for breakfast, which was really closer to lunch, but we love the breakfast foods there.  I think everyone on the road was headed there as well, and we had to wait almost 30 minutes to get a table, but that was OK.  The only problem that caused was that it made us rush to the theater to see our movie (more on that in a minute).

Our service there was very good, especially considering the number of people in there today.  We both had scrambled eggs, grits, and hash brown casserole; however, Sid had bacon and I ordered ham.  Notice I said that I "ordered" ham--what I got was a tiny piece of ham, a tiny strip of bacon, and a small sausage pattie.  I gave Sid my bacon and sausage, and I ate the ham, but it was VERY SMALL!!!  I also had some kind of apple slices, which I shared with Sid.  In spite of the fact that the serving seemed much smaller than usual, we did have enough, so we ate it and headed off to the theater.

As you may have noticed throughout my entries, Sid is not a big movie fan, mostly because he doesn't like paying to see something there that he can eventually see at home; however, I also know that he likes those MUMMY movies, and one was playing at the RAVE theater near the Mall of Louisiana, so I convinced him to go.

I do not like to watch a movie unless I have some popcorn, so even though we were full from breakfast, I ordered a small bag of popcorn.  Sid just about had a stroke--it cost him $4.75, AND the bag wasn't even full.  Had I been there when he got it, I would certainly have asked them to fill the bag, but...  Anyway, we watched the movie and ate the popcorn!  I think Sid enjoyed the movie; to me, there was no real story involved, but there sure was lots of fighting, "mummies", no blood because those "people" just turned to dust, and a little romance.  So, I enjoyed it because Sid and I went together, but beyond that, they could have kept that reel in the can as far as I was concerned.

After the movie, we went to CABELA'S, a store similar to the Bass Pro Shops.  That store, like the BASS shops, is fantastic.  There were stuffed animals all over the place, arranged in habitat-like exhibits.  They also had a little museum with various stuffed animals.  It was great!  We bought a couple of "walking sticks" that can be adjusted and which I hope to use at some point to try to do some walking around here.

This long day ended with supper here at the Cottage.  Oh, we did stop for gas at SAM's, gas that was $3.60/gal.  There were lines of cars at each pump, but we decided to get some anyway since we needed to fill our tank.  We didn't have to wait long and were soon heading back here for our supper--left-over veggie soup and corn-on-the-cob (from our garden). We really enjoyed a relaxing meal, after which is each had a slice of Bess' pound cake which she brought us this afternoon.

NOTE:  When we got back from Lockport on Friday afternoon, we didn't check the garden; however, on Saturday, when Sid went out to pick some, he noticed that about 1/3 of our corn crop was lying almost flat on the ground.  Apparently, while we were in Lockport, there was a very strong wind storm here, and it put a nice dent in our crop.  Fortunately, we were able to pick up some of the corn, so we saved a good portion of it.  This is another reason I don't envy those folks to have huge gardens that they plant for their living.  Too many things can mess them up in just a matter of minutes.  Not a good thing!

"No matter how you used yesterday, you received 24 hours today."

                                                                 --Author Unknown

NOTE:  So, no matter what you did with those hours yesterday, how are you going to use the ones you got today?  We learn from our mistakes, so don't waste any of those precious hours, minutes, or seconds.  Use them wisely--you will never get those hours again!