Apple Picking

Iwent apple picking Sunday with J, R and K at Butternut Farm. It was a beautiful day and the kids were so excited. They love to go to Butternut and pick whatever is in season. They pick raspberries, blueberries and strawberries in season but apple picking is most fun because they get to also pick out their Halloween pumpkins in the pumpkin patches and, when it's time to pay, they sometimes get a piece of rock candy--oh boy! The apple trees were loaded with beautiful fruit and the picking was ridiculously easy. The place was packed with people but it's a big enough place that no one really bumped into anyone else while picking, so no fights over territory. K kept insisting on filling up my bag instead of her mother's. J makes apple butter and apple jelly so she has to pick a whole lot more than I need. I will make some apple pies, crisps and just eat plain apples so I really wanted to stop at about half full. I ended up with 3/4 full bag since she was so insistent that each apple she hand-selected was for grandma. R has gotten so tall he was able to pick pretty high up on the trees and that made K want to reach higher too. So I picked her up a couple times so she could reach the "taller" apples. They are very good kids and I enjoyed apple picking with them and my daughter, who is a great mom---she makes everything fun for them and I'm very proud of how involved she is with their daily activities. She is doing a great job raising them.

My Best Boy

He's growing up. I can't stop it and it's a natural thing so I shouldn't want to stop it, but it's hard to think that there will come a time when he's not so thrilled to see his grandma come to visit; he won't want to sit in the same chair as me and show me everything new that he's done or has happened since the last time I saw him. He won't be running to me with open arms and a big welcome kiss. He may not care any more what I think of his actions. He may groan when he sees me coming up the driveway. It will break my heart---he's going to be 8 years old tomorrow. WHERE did the time go?

Mystery Umbrella Lady

Yesterday when I left work, it was a deluge---not just raining; I mean really, the skies opened up and were flooding the roads. I stupidly had both umbrellas in the car, forgetting to bring one back to the office for just such a time....dolt! I waited by the employees' door for a couple of minutes, trying to figure a strategy for getting the least soaked on the way to my car....kind of impossible, just an optimistic thought I guess. A thin little wisp of a woman came out the door with an umbrella and she too contemplated the rain coming down. I looked over at her and said, "Of course you know where MY umbrella is right now." She asked, "Is it in your car?" I replied that it was indeed sitting in my car deep in the middle of the parking lot. She very generously offered to share her umbrella with me and I declined, but she insisted. She said, "There's no way we can avoid getting soaked from the waist down with this type of downpour, but at least we can keep our hair dry." How could I say no? She was so nice! So we both ducked our heads under the umbrella and went wooshing out into the parking lot, up to our ankles in the pools of water already collected in the lot and made our way over to my car. Her car was in a completely different area than mine so she really went out of her way to help me. I thanked her profusely for being such a good Samaritan. I don't know who she is, but I know that she's got a good soul. Isn't it great that there are truly nice people still out there?

9/11

The 4th anniversary of 9/11, I remember where I was when I learned of this awful event. I was having my oil changed on my car and was sitting in the waiting room of the dealership when the news flash came on. I saw the second plane crash into the Tower live and couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was too horrible to even comprehend. Everything stopped. Everyone in the dealership was crowded around the TV too shocked to do anything. These things don't happen in America. How innocent and naive we were. I have seen the same scene and many of the aftermath over and over again and still get that sick gut feeling and sense of loss. I was fortunate not to lose anyone close to me but the loss still affects me in a global sense. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Life

If I had to live my life over again, I'd probably make the same mistakes, just in a different order. Hey! Maybe I'd even make a few more. :)

Comment Spam

Looks like we've all become victims of Comment Spam. If you go to the Dashboard screen, you'll see a link that says Turn on Word Verification. I think you actually do this from Settings. From Settings you select Comments . If you check Yes on Word Verification, you will get the funky looking letters that have to be copied before anyone can comment on your blog, which makes spammers less apt to dirty up your blog with their stupid spam. Your friends shouldn't mind having to type in a few letters to comment. I hope BLOGGER comes up with a way to delete those spam comments once you have been hit. I hate Spam, the kind you are supposed to eat (if you're hard up enough to do that) and the kind that fills up our email accounts and now these blogs!!!! Hope this helps!