Pat's Journal

Seventeen with a bullet

Back again, if you can believe it. Time for a bulleted update:

-- Mom's much better than one month ago. It took a long time for her to get over her weakness, but all we can figure is that her sodium level was too low. She still gets tired, but only after doing lots of housework or yard work, which is understandable.

-- I was called to be a juror by the county I live in, and reported on the assigned day. Only had to stay until noon, since all 31 cases that week were settled that day and no jurors were needed.

-- Wyoming. Forever West. (as just seen on a TV ad)

-- We've purchased airline tickets to go to Southern California in July, to visit Sharon's brother and his family, who live in Orange County. Sharon's parents will be traveling with us also. We're flying from Minneapolis to San Diego for $229 round trip. The prices to San Diego were the best of all the area airports, and besides it will give us an excuse to spend some time there. I've only been there once before, back in the 1980s. I had enough frequent flier miles to get the tickets for free, but I thought it would be better to save the miles for a longer (overseas) trip in the future.

-- I've started the process of scanning years of negatives and slides, bringing our old photos into the digital age. I purchased 200 negative holder pages and have organized the negatives in chronological order. This task will surely take a couple of years, since I have 20+ years of negatives to scan, but it is rewarding to see all the images from the past. Might as well get started now!

-- The last orchestra concert of the year will be this Sunday, and will mark the end of the orchestra under its current name, and also will be the end of my tenure as orchestra president. Next year the orchestra will continue under a new name, without funding from my employer. I'm relieved it's almost all over.

-- I'm picking up new project work at my job and staying busy through the economic slowdown. I still hear the occasional noise from China. There will be an appreciation dinner later in June for the primary people that supported the China project, but the management is not inviting the spouses of the employees. As one of my co-workers said to me, "Now they want us to spend another night away from our family!"

-- As the weather has improved, we're working on more home improvement projects. This past weekend I power washed the deck, installed new outdoor lights, while Sharon bought and plants some new flowers. Now we need some rain!

-- S's birthday is on Friday and we still need to find him a gift. He'll be 17. He gave us a list of ideas and the good thing is that none of the ideas are more expensive than the Xbox 360 he got last year.

It's getting late so I must close. Wish I had more time to write.

Labels: 'S', China, family, home, home repair, Mom, orchestra, pictures, scanning photos, Sharon, travel, warm weather, work, yard

posted by pat @ 9:21 PM