End of May

When I posted last Monday I mentioned that I would be going to Hunter's concert that evening.  It was held in the school's cafeteria/auditorium.  4th and 5th grade orchestra, chorus, and band.  Hunter plays percussion in the band.  I was impressed with the each group.  I have heard some pretty bad sounds from that age group, because they're so young and new to their instruments.  The chorus was really good.  Lori and I wish Hunter would be interested in being in chorus, but so far he's not. 

 

On Tuesday it was hot and sunny and I donned my annual white outfit to work my "Clorox and scrub brush magic" to our white outdoor furniture.  

We decided we no longer liked having the lattice around the back porch.  It was dirty and hard to clean.  Besides, we put it up in 2020 when I had much more time to sit on the porch and wanted privacy.  But I seldom have time to sit out there, and the arborvitae have gotten bigger, so there's enough privacy.  We SO hope to replace the tiny porch with a bigger deck sometime. 

On Wednesday morning Dick and I went over the mountain to the Amish greenhouse near Belleville.  HOW did I forget to take any pictures of it?  It is HUGE and beautiful!  

The rhododendrons were really showing off last week at Anthony and Lori's!!

On Saturday evening I went to a memorial service for Lori's sister-in-law Liz.  Now I need to back up and share the events leading up to this.

You may remember that Lori's brother Gary passed away suddenly in August 2024.  Gary and his wife Liz and their son William moved here to State College from New York City in 2010.  Here's a sweet picture I shared in September 2010.

And a few pictures of our good times with them.

July 4th, 2012.

Thanksgiving 2016.

Liz has had MS for a long time, and by the time Gary passed away in August 2024 she was already bedridden.  William, who is autistic, was just starting a certificate program at Penn State when his dad died.  

In these two years William has completed his two-year program at Penn State in addition to holding a job at a non-profit place called Taproot Kitchen and helping to take care of his mom.  There were also hired aides.  

Sunday morning, May 10 (Mother's Day) was William's graduation ceremony at Penn State.  We were in church when I received a text message from Anthony.  They were at William's grad.  Lori had just gotten a text message from Liz's aide that Liz had passed away.  They had to figure out how to tell William, and of course decided to wait until the graduation was over.  

So life has become very interesting for Anthony and Lori since then.  William is sleeping on their couch.  They always assumed that when this time comes William would live in the apartment above their garage.  However, Lori's mom lives there now.  They are thinking that they'll remodel the basement playroom into an apartment for William.  He hopes to be able to have his own apartment at some point. 

Liz's siblings, one in NYC, two in Florida, have been extremely helpful.  We got to meet them at the memorial service, which was very meaningful.  Not a dry eye when William shared so eloguently.  He is the sweetest young man!  The only picture I took there was of the picture table that Lori had set up.

Afterwards everyone went to Liz's house to hang out and eat.  It was a really enjoyable time getting to know Liz's family and friends. 

 

William has a girlfriend!  Her parents were there too that evening and it was so nice hearing them say how much they love William.  We really enjoyed getting to know them.  

And then Sunday was Anthony and Lori's 23rd anniversary!

It occurred to me that Austin's current hair reminds me of Anthony's hair back then, so I made this collage.

This week I'm getting some deeper-than-usual cleaning done. Guess why??  Company's coming!!  My sisters Doris and Mary Ellen will be here for the weekend!!    

Unfortunately when I decided to wash my plastic shower curtain liner I did a major no-no.  I thought five minutes in the dryer would be fine, but NO!!  It started to melt and we had a MESS!!!  Till all was said and done Dick practically had to tear the whole dryer apart.  

Thank God he's a mechanic!!  He got it all cleaned up and back together again.  

All's well that ends well.  I got a new plastic liner for less than $10, and the next time I think it needs to be washed I will just go buy another one, haha!!

Dick's job is going great!  Five days a week from 4 - 8 PM in the tire and battery department at Sam's Club.   He always has Sundays off, and so far they have been giving him off Thursdays for choir practice!  He had to miss Liz's memorial service Saturday evening, but he was able to join us afterward at her house.  Last evening he was told by the store manager that they appreciate his depth of experience!!  That felt good!

He was treated to this awesome sunset on his way home from work last evening.

And now I've got to get BUSY!!!

Now you have it, now you don't.....

We're having summer weather and I LOVE it!!  88 degrees right now!!  It's here for two or three days, then we'll go back to the fifties and sixties again.  And rain and rain and more rain.  All of Memorial Day weekend the way it looks.  

Dick was mowing at Anthony and Lori's this morning and got these glorious pictures of their rhododendrons!!

Last week I spent a lot of time (besides my normal cooking and picking up boys) prepping songs for our band to play at a Veterans picnic.  A great variety of songs, some patriotic, some from the 60's and 70's, some more contemporary stuff.  

The picnic was actually indoors at the church.  

Our band "filled up" before we started playing.

We provided background music.  We had a lot of fun.  Never mind Dick's kerchief on his head, haha!

Sunday afternoon I took time from my music prep to sit on the porch, basking in the sun, and then walk around the house.  Bit by bit things are daring to bloom.  Not the roses yet.  They are not looking good at all.

Last week Sammy's concert was Tuesday (he plays percussion) and Bianca's concert was Thursday (she plays clarinet and sings in chorus.)  We were not able to go to either one due to Dick's new work schedule.  We were thankful for pictures and a few videos.  Look at these kids!!

This evening I will go to Hunter's 4th grade concert.  He plays percussion.  I'm really looking forward to that!

A good mid-May week

 Hunter came to our house for a sleepover on Wednesday after I picked him up from school.  First time since January!!  This boy is an absolute walking Google (we used to say "walking encyclopedia.")  I just can't believe how much information he has stored in his brain.  Being with him is always an education.  I don't think he ever forgets anything he hears or reads.  

After eating dinner we pulled out the Scrabble board.  We were having fun with that when we suddenly realized it was far past time for him to get his shower in preparation for going to bed.  So since he was ahead at that point, I declared him the winner!  He was not sad about that!

Of course bedtime means a story.  But not me reading to him - it's always him reading to me. 

I took him to school in the morning.  Later I took this picture of Dick - ready to leave for his first shift at Sam's Club Auto and Tire Department.  He had had two days of training on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

It's a good job for him, right in his field of expertise.  Except he has to do a lot of things on an iPad that he hasn't done before, and that is a real learning curve for him.  But he'll get it.  This is a part time job, 20 hours a week.  What we like the least is that his shifts are 4 pm to 8 pm.  That really cuts into things like choir practice, really any evening activity.  He definitely will always have Sundays off, but not necessarily Saturdays.  So not sure how we'll ever do weekends away.  We'll try to go with the flow.  It is a good job and a good company to work for.  I'm really glad we took trips to Indianapolis, Portland, and Florida already this year.  Not sure when he'll be able to get off for trips like that again.  

On Friday Sophie graduated from University of Miami!  She posted this beautiful picture of herself earlier in the day.  

Lisa sent me this picture when they were at Sophie's apartment getting ready for the grad. 

Actually, she has four online classes to take this summer in order to actually get her diploma, but there is no walking graduation at the end of summer, so she was eligible to walk in this graduation. There was a live stream of the graduation.  I was streaming it on my phone when I got to Hunter's school to pick him up.  They had just started calling names, so I excitedly told Hunter that we need to listen for Sophie's name.  WELL.  That was a long time coming!  I took him home and we kept watching and watching and watching until FINALLY they called Sophie Haag.  I was able to get this screen shot.  

I was amused when I looked at it later and thought it kind of looked like me sitting back there, hahaha!

Sunday was Mother's Day.  What a joyous service we had at church!  The children presented a program "Letters Mom Never Asked For."  We had all the kids on the stage taking turns reading their letters.  They did so well and there were lots of laughs and feel-good moments.  

Another fun thing was the hats, BIG hats!!  A few months ago the women's group had an evening of decorating hats.  The hats and the decorations were provided, and each woman could decide how to decorate hers.  I was not there because we were in Portland.  So I just wore my fascinator that I have had since 2018 when my sisters and I watched the royal wedding in our pajamas and fascinators.

 I gotta show you this picture from 2018, haha!  Up at the crack of dawn to watch the royal wedding!

Sunday was a very low key day at home as I worked on the music for next Sunday and heard from our children throughout the day.  

We had temps in the low thirties this morning, but now I think we're finally heading into really warm days.  There are even a couple of days showing 80's in our ten-day forecast.  BRING IT ON!!!  

We did some work in our rose bed Saturday evening, pulling some dead ones out and planting a few new ones.  I really hope we can stay ahead of disease and bugs this year.  By the time I had figured out what works best last fall, the season was over, and now I have to remember what I had figured out, haha!

Here are a few pictures of azaleas and rhododendron at Anthony and Lori's place.  

Take a look at this!  Austin brought this home from art class last week - a self portrait done in chalk.  He had taken a selfie with his phone and then did this chalk drawing.  His art teacher said that it is probably among the top ten chalk drawings the school has ever had!  We had NO idea he had this hidden talent.  I don't think he did either.  What else is hidden in there??

SO many adorable pictures from Destiny!!  I could look at them all day!! 

Ketsi likes to watch Baby Einstein vidoes on their TV up on the wall!  

They went out to eat with Ozzy's family on Mother's Day.  

Yesterday in my Facebook memories was this adorable video from three years ago.  Those were some hard, but very good times.

Now I have a lot of music prep to do today.  On Saturday we're having a Veterans picnic and our band will be providing background music.