Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 19 March 2001

Latest Update: Monday, 28 April 2003 07:02
 

Monday, 19 March 2001

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Yesterday

Rather typical Sunday around the Thompson house. After getting the house clean and tidy, showers, and lunch I watched the race while Bob took a nap. During commercials I exchanged laundry loads for Bob. took the dogs outs, etc, etc. I put a frozen lasagna in the oven to bake while I folded laundry, put clean sheets on the bed, and other assorted tasks. 

After dinner I soaked and re-bandaged Lenore's toe and then read until time to take the dogs for their last walk. At 10:00 we watched the Practice and then off to bed.

Today

Gym this morning, work this afternoon. I need to mow and do some things in the yard. It is supposed to rain Tuesday and Wednesday, so I need to mow today. I am hoping to be able to put out my weed and feed on the lawn Thursday or Friday after we get this rain. Right now, It is a sunny morning with temperatures in the low 30's. Not as warm this afternoon, mid 50's, unlike yesterday when it got into the 60's.

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Tuesday, 20 March 2001

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Yesterday

I spent about three hours working outside yesterday. I edged, mowed, swept the drive, etc, etc. I spent the afternoon doing stuff in my office, washed a load of cloths for Lenore, and played with the dogs until time to start dinner. Last night I finished Scarlet Feather, not one of her better efforts.

Today

I have several errands I need to run this morning. Tonight I am having dinner with Nancy and Betsy from the library. For the first day of spring we have a rather nasty weather forecast for today. High's near 40 degrees, 25 mph winds today and possibly stronger tonight, rain starting out as rain mixed with snow. 

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Wednesday, 21 March 2001

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Yesterday - miserable weather!

Very nasty day. I was out in the morning for about two hours running errands. During that time we had sleet, snow, rain, and wind. Totally yucky, so I gave up and came home to fix some lunch and work. But, the best was yet to come. I left around 4:45 to stop by the bank before they closed and then went on to the library to look for books for Bob and Lenore and me while waiting on Betsy to get off from work.

When we left the library at 5:30 to drive across town to the restaurant for dinner it was blowing rain sideways in sheets. We met another library employee and friend, Nancy at Cities. I again had the pasta, this time chicken alfredo. Then we shared two desserts, a cheesecake with strawberry toping and a chocolate cake with "mouse" icing. Yes, "mouse", the chocolate mousse was shaped into a mouse with little almonds for ears and held together with a dark chocolate shell. Very cute. When we left the restaurant the wind was howling even more and the rain was being driven sideways. People trying to use umbrellas did not have a fighting chance. We saw a few trees down and street lights out on the way back home but I managed to arrive safely back to port around 9 o'clock.

I played with dogs while letting Lenore's toe soak and then re-bandaged it again. We took the dogs out for their last time and then watch NYPD Blue. 

Today 

Off to the gym and the grocery store this morning. We still have wind and rain today but this system is supposed to be out of here by tonight. The mountains got anywhere from 6" to 2 feet of snow in some areas last night. Bob needs to take pictures for Chapter 2 this afternoon. Then we are off to dinner and the astronomy club meeting which starts at 7:30.

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Thursday, 22 March 2001

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Good day everyone. Sorry for the short post but I have a busy day. With all the rain for two days and the nice wet conditions this morning I am getting my weed and feed on the lawn this morning. Once I do my yard, I am heading over to do my dad's yard for him. This fertilizer has to be put down before the grass dries.

Longer post tomorrow.

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Friday, 23 March 2001

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Sorry about the short post yesterday. Normally when I am not going to have enough time to do my morning post I do it the night before. Unfortunately, we were out late Wednesday night for astronomy club. Oh well.

I did manage to get my lawn fertilized and then headed over to my dads. It is very important to get the weed and feed down before the grass dries out. It took me about 45 minutes to do my yard and about an hour and a half to do dad's. And, by now the wind was howling again making the grass dry out quicker. I really had to hustle to get it down. Dad had a doctor's appointment and was not due back until after 10:00. I finished with his yard around 9:30. I took a break to rest while waiting on him to get home. Pushing a spreader around two yards for over two hours is great exercise but a little tiring.

When dad got back from the doctor we put out his grass seed. I did the front, which is a steep hill and he does the flat back. It is still hard for him to use non motorized equipment on the hills since he had his back operation. After we finished we loaded up the remaining fertilizer and seed and his spreader and dropped them off at my sisters house so she can do her yard this weekend. Then we went to lunch and back home to drop off dad. I also stopped in for a few minutes to visit with our neighbor who is still recovering from her surgery. She will begin her chemo in a couple of weeks.

From dads I stopped by my friend Nancy's to see the three Border Collie puppies she is fostering for rescue. She is going to keep one and will adopt the other two out. They are real cute. Mostly black rather than the classic look like my Duncan and Malcolm. I also bought a t-shirt for the rescue group fund raiser.

Home finally around 2:30. After greeting the dogs I hit the shower. Bob and the dogs settled down for a a nap while I caught up on diary pages and e-mail. We had waffles, sausage, and scrambled eggs for dinner. Well, Bob and Lenore had the eggs and sausage, I ate waffles. After dinner Bob and I hauled the telescope out to do a little sky watching. There was really not much to see. Orion has moved too far over in the sky and is behind a big maple tree. Saturn and Venus are still visible, so we took a quick look at them. Some high clouds started floating in, making it rather difficult to see too much and I was pretty tired anyway. We hauled it back in and settled down to read until time to take the dogs out and head for bed.

Today - another busy day.

Lovely day today. I need to brush the dogs this morning.  And, I need to do a load of cloths for Lenore. Duncan goes to the vet at 11:00 for his annual check up and shots. I need to work on some column stuff this afternoon until my sister gets here at 3:30. She is looking for another job and I am helping her update her resume. Then it will be a quick dinner and Bob and I are off to Pilot Mountain for an observation night with the astronomy club.

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Saturday, 24 March 2001

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Bob and I arrived at the observation sight the astronomy club uses around 6:30. This place is literally behind someone's house on the edge of a huge field. We sat in the car and read until nightfall  waiting to see if anyone else was going to show up, but they didn't.  I am sure the others went up to the other sight off the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is much further from home. At any rate, this place has some light pollution along the horizon but not too bad for viewing the stars and planets as compared to what we can see at our house and it only takes thirty minutes to get there.

As darkness settled, we pulled the scope out of the back of the truck and started looking at planets and the few things we knew how to find. Just as  I was looking through the scope at the Orion Nebula a shooting star passed through my line of sight. Totally awesome, let me tell you. We looked at Sirius, which is a really bright star with a blue white color. Finally about 8:30 or so another person from the club showed up, which I am very glad she did.

She is very knowledgeable and began pointing out constellations and stars, and clusters, that we would never have seen on our own. She showed me a really cool star cluster called Beehive that can be seen with binoculars but is really fascinating when viewed through the scope. As we were standing there talking and watching the sky, we saw a satellite, several more shooting stars, and some a really awesome double star. The viewing was really good and I learned so many stars and constellations that I will not remember them all right now. The moon was not up, so we did not get to look at it this time. Bob has really poor night vision and cannot see many of the star constellations with his naked eye. We had the star map and once Priscilla started pointing out constellations and clusters we used the map to find some of the ones she was interested in looking at. 

We finally closed up shop around 10:00 and headed back home. By the time we gave the dogs a chance to play and go out and got Lenore ready for bed it was well past 11:00. But well worth the late evening.

Today

First of all, Duncan got a very good report from the vet yesterday. He is pretty certain he will not get hip displaysia saying his joints were really good with a lot of fluid motion. His heart, eyes, and ears where all very sound. He weighs 64 pounds which is right for his solid build and size. I do need to work on getting his teeth a little cleaner. All the dogs hate to have their teeth brushed so I am lazy about fighting them to do it on a regular basis. I shall have to be more diligent about that with all of them. 

I have to finish the final draft of the web column today and mail it off to the editor. And,  I also need to finish Frances's resume that we started yesterday afternoon. We worked on roughing out what she wanted to include and then she had to leave to get to her second job at a country club not too far from our house. She is stopping by today on her way to work again to pick up the final copy so she can start answering job ads on Monday.

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Sunday, 25 March 2001

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I spent most of the morning working on the final version of the web review column. After lunch I started working on Frances's resume. After I finished our roughed out draft I started playing around with a better layout. I converted all the information into the other format and finished around 4:00. Bill called in the afternoon and said he was coming over, which means dinner plans changed. Frances came by at 5:00 to look at the finished products and really liked the second version better. 

As she was leaving Bill was coming in the door. I headed out to pick up a couple of items from the drug store and stopped at Bojangles for take out chicken. Not as good as Kentucky Fried, but it was okay. After dinner I watched Once and Again taped from Wednesday night and then read my book. Bill always does his laundry while he visits with his mom and us. At 10:00 I went off to bed to read and Bob followed shortly thereafter. Bill finished up his laundry, locked up as he left and headed back to Raleigh around 11:15. 

I could not get to sleep after Bill left and the dogs finally settled down, so I went out on the couch. I think I finally got to sleep around 1:00 and was snoozing away when Malcolm came out of the bedroom around 4:30 making gagging noises. I got him to the foyer where he promptly threw up several times. I sent them back to bed, cleaned up barf, and went back to the couch to try to get some sleep. The dogs woke me up at 7:30. So much for sleeping in.

If you are betting person, take 10 to 1 odds that I will not make it past the first twenty laps of the race in Bristol today before I fall asleep. I have a stack of magazines I have not had time to read all week and intend to catch up on those while I watch the race. I doubt it! Homemade pizza for dinner.

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