several days of work

Tuesday brought some much needed wide spread rain. I was off to work while Evelyn worked on preparing for her LWML meeting Thursday. She is hostess and makes the food. She picked me up at 12 and we came directly home for lunch. After I showered, we took a nap and then went to Waynesville to get some paint for the house, return some red yeast rice, exchange a can of putrid tomato paste and go to VBS. I was able to exchange the rice for some other supplements I need. I was only able to exchange one of the bottles we had because the man tried to convince me that I need the stuff. Our doctor knows of two of his patients who became very ill after taking it. VBS went well even we were pelted by the welcomed rain. We played a game of moving water from one bucket to another using a sponge. The kids enjoyed it and got wetter than they would have in the rain. When we returned home we found that Shirley had delivered my beer and popcorn she had brought from home. We plan to play golf tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting. No one would mind if we were rained out. Today even though late, I received a funny Father’s Day card from daughter #1. She always seems to find something outrageous on these occasions. I wish I were that creative.

Wednesday was another slow day at work. I had my work done by 10:15. Oh, there was a bit of excitement. I always drain the grease from the deep fryer first thing in the morning and run it through a filter to strain the scrap tortilla chips, potato chunks, etc from the grease. The manager, unbeknownst to me, had turned the burner back on and the grease was hot enough for frying. When I drained the grease, smoke began to roll. Fortunately we caught it before it caught fire. The pan the grease drains into was hot, and I had a difficult time in dumping it back into the fryer. The manager apologized later in the morning for not telling me. I also went to Lowes to get the hose we need to reach the areas I need to spray each day. Unfortunately I got a 5/8” hose instead of the 1” we have. I will try it tomorrow to see how it works. Shirley came to get me at 12 to go play golf. Evelyn was at the Christian Women’s Club and then had to buy supplies for tomorrow’s Bible study. We played 9 holes together, and I played the back 9 by myself, Shirley riding along. I played much better on the back 9 which is much more difficult. The course was trimmed better than the first time I played a couple of weeks ago but it is still hard to find the way around the back 9. We came home and I showered, preparing for the VBS. I was exhausted. Even in riding a cart (it is $20 for 18 holes and a cart) the terrain makes it tiring to walk up and down hills to get to the ball and the greens. I was of little help at the VBS and came straight home. I wrote this and went to bed to watch some of the Cubs game before I fell asleep.
Thursday was the day Evelyn hosted the LWML meeting. She had prepared an egg casserole and sour cream coffee cake and just had to cook them in the morning before taking them to church at 10. I worked the usual way and was finished by 10:30. I mess around finding small jobs to do until 11:30 when the rush begins. Today, however, two girls had saved me two pieces of pizza from the birthday celebration yesterday. Those two are very good to me, and I appreciate them very much. I had to stay past 12 today because Evelyn couldn’t come until after cleaning up at the church. It was after 12:30 when she came, and we left immediately. We came home and I ate some of the casserole for lunch and had a piece of the coffee cake for dessert. We rested after I showered and then went to the hotel. What problems. The internet didn’t work on floor two, someone was using my chair on floor four and there was no place to sit on floor five. I just sat on the floor. I had trouble downloading the websites until I made a correction in the connection I had. I was then able to ask the John Purdue Club for parking passes for the games we want to attend and check to see that our credit card bills had been paid. I had additional trouble getting my credit union site to accept my password and tried so many times that I was blocked out. I may have to call the CU to get this straightened out. We went to the 4th night of VBS which featured the theme of the Resurrection. I still helped with the games and Evelyn with the crafts. The game was the best one so far. We came straight home and watched “At Sea”, a comedy about men who go on cruises to dance with single women. We liked it because we had just seen two “lounge lizards” on our recent cruise and enjoyed the memories.

Friday was the final workday for me for a while. Things are going well in most areas. Evelyn walked and then went to fill the car with gas for the weekend trip. She then went to weight watchers and weighed in. She went to Wal-Mart to buy some towels for our bench on the deck. She picked me up on time and, we came home for a lunch of left over steak. We took our afternoon nap and watched part of the Cubs/White Sox ball game. We talked to a landscaper before going to VBS for the finale. The landscaper cannot do anything until at least July , so we will probably use the one who was to give us the diagram of the finished yard. Evelyn paid $50 to the designer and has not received anything for her money. She has only received ideas from the designer. The VBS seemed to be a success and we thank God for that. I will try to publish some pictures.

We left Saturday morning and had a pleasant, slow drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stopped at the highest point east of the Mississippi River: Mount Mitchell. It was quite cool there but beautiful, not as clear as one would have liked but beautiful. We drove on to a picnic area near a creek and ate some of the sandwiches Evelyn had made because we had things that would probably spoil before we returned. Evelyn tired of the Parkway so we left it and drove to Boone where we fueled up. The road was nice and relatively flat (have you been to NC?) until Mountain Home. From there on it was quite like the road to Hot Springs--twisty, up and down, full of switch backs. A sign cautioned against traveling in anything more than 35’ long. I wonder if our 32’ coach could have made some of the turns. We caught I-81 at Bristol, VA and headed toward Salem. We stopped at a rest area and found a coupon in a travel booklet offering the room where we had reservations for considerably less than we had paid. We arrived at the HOJO and took forever to check in because I was trying to get the difference credited back to my account. Hotels.com guarantees that theirs is the lowest rate. We tried to check into our room but the key wouldn’t work. I had to leave Evelyn standing on a balcony while I went to get the key re-programmed. The desk clerk was very busy and had to give us a different room. This took 6 minutes. I was quite upset. We went up another flight of stairs and put our things into the room which was quite nice. We left there and went to Appleby’s for dinner. Evelyn ate from the Weight Watchers menu because she learned yesterday that she has still made weight. We came back and I tried to use the wifi promised at this motel but doesn’t exist. I went to bed after typing this.