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Barbara
Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week
of 5 May 2008
Latest Update: Sunday, 11 May 2008 1:50 p.m.
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Monday, 5
May 2008
No post.
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Tuesday, 6 May 2008
I left for work yesterday at my regular 8 am.
At 11 am I took an early lunch to drive home and let the dogs out
grabbing some lunch on the way back. Our neighbor, Mimi gets home from
work at 3 and volunteered to let them out for the afternoon. I went on
to the gym as usual when I got off at 5. It was a very busy day at work
with a lot of projects plus the daily stuff piling up while I was gone.
My job responsibilities have expanded substantially in the last several
weeks. I am very happy as I like to stay busy.
While I ate a light dinner I watched the last disk of the three part
Austen Pride and Prejudice. I watched the other two Sunday night. I
have now wrapped up the Austen series. It turns out the Pride and
Prejudice Masterpiece ran was the 1995 version
with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Bob and I had watched that when it
first aired but I had forgotten much of the show though I had also read
all her books at one time or another. Ehle is the daughter of British
actress Rosemary Harris and author John Ehle who reside here in
Winston-Salem. I think the 1995 version is one of the best if you have
not watched it.
I took dogs off to bed after the usual 9pm walk to wait for Bob to
arrive home which he did just a little after 10. Malcolm greeted him
royally as did I. Duncan did his usual ignoring Bob for at least half
an hour. He always does that to me when I go off on trips. We sat up
talking until after 11 at which time I went back to bed to read the 20
or so pages left in my book. Bob was still on California time but came
back to bed after midnight just as I had turned off the light. I had
trouble going to sleep, tossing and turning until well after 2:30 when
I finally fell asleep. Back up at 6:50 I was struggling to make it
through the day by 3 this afternoon.
At lunch today I started the second book in the combined effort of
Phillip Craig and William Tappley, Second Sight. I read the first one
several months ago. As I mentioned before, the two of them combine for
a really good read. I can hardly tell the difference between the two
authors as they take turns by chapter telling their sides of the story
and intertwining the two plots.
It was such a lovely day I only read for half an hour before taking a short walk to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.
I am sure the dogs agree it is great to have Bob back home with our
normal routines back in place. I have clean laundry to put away yet and
a few other things to do before it gets much later.
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Wednesday, 7 May 2008
No update.
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Thursday, 8 May 2008
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Other than the usual routine and gym not much
happening to write about for yesterday. Last night I stayed up reading
until 11:30 in order to finish the Craig/Tappley mystery. I had to find
out how it was going to end. Today at lunch I started another China
Bayles by Susan Witig Albert, Rosemary Remembered. As I mentioned
before, even it you are not into gardening in general or herbs I still
recommend this series. I am not a serious gardener nor am I into herbs
but I am enjoying learning about them while at the same time having a
very pleasant reading experience.
As you might have guessed from the title, someone named Rosemary has
been murdered. China discovers the body when she drives over to
Rosemary's house to retrieve the beat up truck Rosemary had borrowed
from McQuaid. The subplot of McQuaid's and China's romance has moved
ahead from the last book. They now live together in a very large five
bedroom home outside of Pecan Springs along with McQuaid's teenage
son, a tarantula named Ivan the Hairible, a Siamese named Khat,
and a basset hound named Howard Cosell. China used her living space
attached to her herb shop to expand the shop as well as the gardens
surrounding the building. Back to the murder, China and McQuaid have no
shortage of suspects from Rosemary's estranged husband to the recent
release of a convict whom McQuid help put behind bars with a 25 year
sentence reduced to 10.
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Friday, 9 May 2008
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It has been a tough week both mentally and
physically. My new job responsibilities require a great deal of
concentration and mental acuity. I also do a lot of walking and
standing depending on what I have to do. Added to that I've had three
late nights with very little in the way of sleep. Monday night when Bob
came home, Wednesday night when I sat up late to finish my book and
last night.
We had a wild one last night with the weather. Bob and I were watching
a movie that went off around 8:15. I decided to switch over to check
the weather forecast. All the local stations were running continuous
live weather broadcasts. The severe weather started moving in west and
north of us around 7pm. By the time we tuned it there were tornado
warnings to our north. We quickly took the dogs out then Bob took
Duncan down around back. I went in up front to grab pillows, books,
pj's etc.
After we had all the stuff downstairs Bob started inflating our Coleman
air mattress we purchased to put on top of the fold out sleeper couch
bed. The little 4 cell battery operated pump gave out long before the
bed became completely inflated. With it not completely inflated and
sitting on top of the other mattress it was like sleeping on a water
bed. We finally decided to move the bed to floor and put the couch bed
back in place.
As we were doing all this the tornado watches became warnings just east
and coming towards us. While having tornado activity in this area is
very common for the month of May, we usually do not experience the
large area of coverage or the severity. We usually get F0 and F1 at
best. On the news tonight they reported we had two F2's and one F3. The
weather finally hit here around 10am. Luckily for us we only had 3
inches of rain and a lot of lightening. Several areas west and east of
us had devastating hits. Bob finally turned off the TV around 12:30. I
dozed off for an hour then woke up and came upstairs to bed so as not
to oversleep this morning. I left Bob down with Duncan and Malcolm came
up with me. We had another storm roll through about the time I went up
and another one around 3am.
The Firm has a lot of employees who live in the communities hit by the
severe weather. Everyone was walking around bleary eyed after having
spent all or part of the night huddled in bathrooms, closets,
basements, etc.
I called Bob late this afternoon and asked him to order a pizza around
5pm while I was at the grocery store. By the time it got here I would
be home. Sure enough it arrived just as we got the groceries unloaded.
After eating I went out to mow the lawn. It was very hight and should
have actually been mowed last night but those storms that came through
late had been forecast to get here in the afternoon. I figured the
night would be a wash out. Other than one large limb I had no leaves or
sticks blown down. I did have some washing in a couple of places but
nothing too bad.
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Saturday, 10 May 2008
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Malcolm woke me around 7:20 to ask to go out.
Bob was camped out on the den floor. I got up to the let the dogs go
out to pee then went back to bed. We both got up around 9. I was
totally exhausted from this past week.
I left the house about an hour later to head out to the garden shop. I
picked out a very nice hanging basket for my mom for Mother's Day as
well as a couple of flats of bedding plants. I drove over to my folks
house to deliver the plant to keep them from having to haul it home
tomorrow from Frances' house. It was 11:30 when I arrived and they were
just starting to fix some lunch. Instead, we piled in the car to drive
over to The Orchard for lunch.
This afternoon Bob climbed up on the roof to blow the pile of remaining
maple seeds along the groove between the flat part of the roof and the
porch covering and along the gutter top edges. Hard to believe 3 inches
of rain did not wash them down. Of course once they were blown off the
roof I had more cleanup on the ground. I raked them up as best I could,
they are a pain to get out of the grass. Then I planted the bedding
plants.
I used the high powered hose nozzle the gutter installers gave us to
wash the rounded edges of the gutter covers and the siding underneath
the eaves. The edges get sticky from the sap and crap from the leaves.
They suggested doing it once in the spring and once in the fall. While
Bob had the ladder out I had him climb up and peak in the robin nest.
He saw one baby poke its head up for something to eat. I am not sure if
there is more than one or not. When I sprayed down the gutter edges I
was careful not get too close. I can do that end again later in the
year.
After I did the front I did the back ones as well. I now have the yard
in pretty much maintenance mode with the weekly mowing and occasional
edging. The flowers will need watered between rains but all the other
stuff has been done for the spring.
HA. I noticed last week when I was searching for a past post on my page
that I do not have a link to e-mail me on my daily page. There is link
on my diary home page but I am not even sure that one works. This
weekend I plan to do some repair and changes to some of my pages. I
will see if Bob will put a link to e-mail me on my daily page. I would
love to hear from you if you have a comment or would like to talk with
me about one of the books I am reading, etc.
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Sunday, 11 May 2008
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Happy Mother's Day to my mom. How very fortunate I am at my age to have both my parents.
I woke up at 8 when Bob got up to take the dogs out then went back to
sleep. I finally got up at 9:30. Hopefully I am now caught up on all my
rest and sleep. After giving Bob a haircut I completed the weekly house
cleaning chores.
This afternoon I am working on updating my Links page and my Diary Home
Page. Bob also added an e-mail link to my daily page. Al of these
changes will show up tomorrow. As I am sitting here working we have an
pretty good thunderstorm rolling through. It is pouring buckets of
rain. Today's high is to only be in the 60's and lows tonight in the
low 50's.
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Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003,
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
by
Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.