Please, summer, be finished

By the end of August, we are all SO ready for the heat to be over.  Especially August 2021 where Saint Louis was actually hotter than Phoenix!  (considering heat index).  It was a miserable week to be sure.  Currently, Steve and I are in Greenwood visiting Julina and we left Friday morning at 5:00 to make our drive more comfortable (remember, we have no AC in the Element).  That strategy worked beautifully and we were actually able to drive 3/4 of the way with windows up and just outside air coming in through the vent.  That was nice because not only is driving on an interstate with windows down quite windy, it is also VERY noisy.

  

So, here we are at Julina's place.  We had no main objectives in coming - just wanted to see the newly remodeled kitchen and laundry room (which is lovely) and to keep Julina and Alex company for a few days.  Steve and I have taken on the roll that my mom and dad used to have when they came to visit us - we do projects while we visit.  I sewed some flannel coverings for Alex's nasal cannula and tubing to make them more comfortable against his skin.  I mended clothes.  Both Steve and I cleaned areas and items that the regular cleaning folks do not do.  We also had lunch with Shiloh on Saturday.  Today, Steve will stay home with Alex and watch church virtually while Julina and I will go to our meetings in person.  (look closely at the second photo and you will see Linus and Sally in the dog yard.  They actually barked at me as I was taking pictures.  Makes me wonder how well Linus can see these days)

Our week started with me taking a drive down to House Springs to pick up more dog food and heartworm medicine.  On Tuesday, Sally got to visit the groomers (Linus will be next month).  I spent a very warm morning helping Micah and Kyle with their yard as they prepare to put it on the market.  Back when we were getting the Parker house ready to sell, I dug up peonies and shared them with Kyle and Micah.  So, my primary objective on Tuesday was to dig up the plants and put them into our new back yard.  Eventually, when Kyle and Micah get a new home, I will split them and share back. 

Here are two photos of Sally's new look

 

Tuesday evening was St. Louis Civic Orchestra auditions at a church in Creve Coeur.  I had to be there to move the fourteen auditionees in and out and I also had to audition myself.  The audition music was tough but I just kept telling myself  "what are they going to do?  Not let me in and then they would have to find a new administrator"  So, even though I practiced, I didn't worry too much about the outcome.  The auditions were held in a deliciously air conditioned multi-purpose room.  I, on the other hand, had to sit in a very warm foyer for two hours.  Ugh.  

Wednesday we braved the heat and bought groceries in two shifts, breaking up the chore by having lunch with Beckie.  We braved the heat a third time in the evening by driving to the stake center for our temple recommend interviews.  

Thursday morning, we took the car down the street to Bates St. Auto for an oil change.  Melanie had to drive a friend to the Saint Louis train station quite early that morning so she spend the rest of the day with us.  She had never been to IKEA so she and I went there later in the morning.  I needed a plant pot and she ended up buying a couple of plants for her house.  That afternoon, while Melanie rested downstairs, Steve and I packed for Indiana and we three had an early dinner of grilled chicken before attending the 6:00 temple session.  

Aside from Jeopardy re-runs, Steve and I didn't watch anything together this week.  I, on the other hand, watched three movies:  "Far From The Madding Crowd" (2015 version), "Yours, Mine, and Ours" (2005 version), and "Quartet".  The first was Wednesday evening while Steve was at youth activities and the other two have been while here in Greenwood while doing sewing or when I couldn't sleep.

And you know the rest of the story....

Summer winding down

Monday, we had a brief visit from these folks....Neal and Claire Lambson.  We met them while we were on our mission in Phoenix.  They were serving in the Tucson mission and because Steve and he were both vehicle coordinators, it is how we learned about them and found out Steve's long lost connection to the Arizona Lambsons.  Neal and Claire were on their way Monday to Charleston, West Virginia to start their fourth mission!  We had hoped they would stay for dinner and the night but as they were driving to St. Louis Monday morning, they got a call from their mission president requesting that they arrive by Tuesday evening so they could be present at Zone Conferences Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  So, Neal cancelled their hotel reservation for Lexington on Tuesday night and they had to leave only a few hours after arriving to get further down the road that night.  They didn't even get to stay for a meal.  But, we did have a nice visit while they were here.  

Tuesday was the final Grandparent Day Camp for the summer of 2021.  The morning activity was to create animals from construction paper, pipe cleaners, and toilet paper or paper towel tubes.  Sorry I didn't get a photo.  Noah and I also finished the puzzle he started last week.  Quinn played with Legos.  Larkin and Lucy played with the tub of assorted horses.  We watched "Groundhog Day" for the afternoon movie.  Larkin tired of it fairly quickly so she and Steve watched a Peanuts movie in the next room.

As I mentioned last week, Emily and Joe are redoing their living room - Emily painted primer on Tuesday while we had the kids.  On Wednesday, I drove over to help her with window and door trim while she painted the color coat on the walls.  I didn't paint inside the door jam as that would have required the door to be open to the heat and bugs.  That part will have to wait for cooler temperatures.

Aside from the armoire which has yet to be sold, this is how the room now looks with their new sectional seating and the area rug.  It is so much brighter than the 80's décor previously there.  

Thursday was just a day to stay home and do assorted chores:  me cleaning, Steve mowing.  We fed the missionaries dinner and then both Steve and I went to the church for the evening.  Steve had temple recommend interviews - and we both needed to have our temple recommends renewed.  So, I came along and practiced the cello in a classroom while I waited for my interview turn.  Even though I am the St. Louis Civic Orchestra administrator (a.k.a. personnel manager), I have actually never played with this group since I joined during the Covid lockdown.  Thus, I have to go through the audition process this coming Tuesday.  I can't imagine that I won't pass  - this is just a formality - but the music excerpts are HARD.  They are cello orchestral excerpts that are used in professional orchestra auditions.  Hence, I have been practicing....

Friday was Carondelet String quartet rehearsal in the morning and the temple in the afternoon.  Saturday morning, I planted some iris rhizomes I had ordered and Steve and I picked up some free mulch and compost at the Carondelet park mulch site.  That afternoon, I did trimming at pottery.  Elise stopped in for a brief visit after she had been to the temple and we had the Morgan family over for cookies and milk that evening.  

We finished "Kung Fu Panda" on Monday, watched "Up" on Tuesday, and "Gifted" in two sittings Friday and Saturday.  

My sunflowers were slow to blossom but now they are in their full glory.  They are kinda short compared to most of the sunflowers I see growing around town and I am not sure why.  Oh well, they are still pretty.

Like I stated at the top of this blog, summer is winding down - thank goodness.  I am tired of the heat and we have an excessive heat warning for much of this coming week!  Hang in there, little ancient air conditioner!  Tomatoes and zucchini are going full tilt.  It is "constant vigilance" with the zucchini plants to pick the vegetable before it gets too large.  Inevitably,  I miss one or two so I am bringing a chocolate zucchini bundt cake to our dinner invite this evening from two monster fruits that evaded my eye.  School starts for the Southerlands next week so that will change up the music lesson schedule and, since Larkin's preschool class is only Monday through Thursday, she might still come over for Grandma preschool every other Friday.  Beckie has been dealing with a tooth abscess all week, poor girl.  Happily, she finally got on antibiotics on Wednesday but has been fighting pain, swelling, nausea, and fever.  Steve and I brought her some blue jello and a jar of applesauce Friday evening.  I am so glad we live nearby so we could do that for her.  And to live close enough to help Emily paint.  And, happy 1st anniversary this weekend to us moving into this house.....

Dog days

Windows are open this beautiful Sunday morning as temperatures are in the sixties.  Of course, this won't last because it is still August but it is sure nice for now.  Earlier in the week, we were having a miserable heat wave and Steve and I stayed indoors as much as we could.  Our ancient air conditioner did just fine and I am so grateful.  Hold on, little air conditioner until I start getting social security in January!  I had two HVAC companies come this past week to give us bids on a new unit and now we need to compare and contrast the three total bids and decide which one to go with.  I have to say that I don't think we will choose the original bid which is the company who came last winter to work on the mal-functioning heater and who came out in July when the whole air conditioning / home warranty business began.  I kinda like the last HVAC fellow we saw Friday morning.  But, the numbers will be the deciding factor....

Grandparent Day Camp resumed on Tuesday after a three-week hiatus.  The morning project was working with clay - the kind you can bake to make it hard and permanent.  In order to get the full spectrum of colors, I had to buy three different brands and Sculpy is certainly the best to work with.  Femo was second.  Katopoly was the worst - stiff and hard to get maleable.  But, as you can see, we managed to make lots of fun things.  I asked the kids to create miniature food for the doll houses which they did plus they were able to make some things just for them.  Larkin lost interest pretty quickly so she played with toys with Grandpa.  

Larkin had a tea party during her quiet time.  Lucy ended up taking a long, luxurious nap for hers.  A puzzle was set up and Noah got all the border pieces placed

Practicing has slacked off so we had no piano/cello/violin lessons in the afternoon.  We all watched Monsters Inc. instead.  That movie never gets old!

It was a pretty average week - just trying to keep from going out in the heat.  We had some pretty good thunderstorms throughout the week - every afternoon except for Wednesday - so morning yard work was rather limited.  Emily and Larkin came by Friday morning to pick up some painting supplies.  They are completely re-doing the living room, including the ceiling, so I sent paint goggles, plastic sheeting, and primer home with them.  I also sent home zinnies, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes.

I love how comfortable Larkin is around the dogs now....

My zinnias are so abundant that I am decorating the house with them.  Here is my bathroom window sill with my collection of antique bottles.

I went to pottery on Saturday and picked up my recently glazed pieces.  The bowl is my new cereal bowl.  The vase on the left is now full of zinnias.  I threw some new things and wrestled with a three-pound lump of red clay that was a beast.  I eventually made a plant pot with it.  I loved my original pottery teacher in Columbia but I am learning so much more with Iyan, one of the instructors at this new studio, the South Broadway Art Project.   I also love watching pottery videos and I look forward to the new season of the Great Pottery Throwdown.  

 

Steve and I finished season 2 of Manifest.  We'd have to subscribe to Hulu to watch season 3 so I think we will just take a break and wait for it to show up on Netflix.  These continuing dramas get kind of exhausting.  We are trying out a new wake-up/go to bed routine to give Steve more sleep time.  (in the last ten years or so, he has not been a good sleeper) so we don't have quite the large chunk of time in the evenings to watch movies.  Hour-long episodes of Manifest or Throwdown fit perfectly into our evenings but now that is over so we may just have to watch movies in segments.

Church is keeping us busy - Steve with being in the bishopric and me with my ward missionary calling.  We attended a baptism again on Saturday.  Sam (Samantha) is 31 years old and lives literally around the corner from us.  She has a service dog and doesn't drive so we have been her ride to church ever since she started investigating.  Since our ward boundaries include a somewhat poor part of Saint Louis, the the missionaries often teach people who do not have cars so I am a shuttle service most Sundays.  It is never a problem except when the missionaries text Saturday night or Sunday morning with someone new who wants a ride and I already have my seats full.  That has been the story this weekend.  Maybe I need to buy a van for our next car?   And buy baby car seats???  It also takes me into some sort-of scary parts of town.  One Sunday was like that and I was advised by a grandma to drive away as quickly as possible because she was not sure what the four men standing in the street were going to do.  Yikes!  Oh, the joys of living in the city.  But, Steve and I just love our new life here.  And, this coming weekend marks our one year anniversary for being here.  

Camping and Cardinals

The week started out with unseasonably low humidity and cooler temperatures and it was SO nice!  We took advantage of it and re-arranged our garage to work in an additional shelf unit for my garden tools/ supplies and to make our bicycles more accessible.  It works much better now.  I am so grateful for a garage.  It wasn't something on our "had to have" list when buying a house but it sure is a nice addition.

The lovely weather continued through Thursday and it made our camping trip with Emily and grandkids to Johnson's Shut-Ins very pleasant.  It wasn't so cool that it made swimming not fun - it just made it great when we were not swimming.  We rented a camper cabin again because we brought along the dogs and, since they are not allowed down at the shut-ins, we were able to keep them in their kennel at the cabin.  That was nice.  It was also restrictive because we couldn't check in until 3:00 pm and we had to be out by 11:00 am the next morning like a typical hotel stay and it meant we didn't have as much swim time.  That was sad and it ended up that Steve and I only went once late Wednesday afternoon.  It was also very stressful for poor Sally.  She was not happy most of the time.  Linus, on the other hand, was Mr. Mellow.  Going forward, we will not bring the dogs to our Johnson's Shut-Ins trips and we probably won't rent a camper cabin again.  With our twin air mattresses, Steve and I will be just fine in a tent.  In addition, Steve and I probably went down the actual shut-ins for our last time this trip.  We are just too unsteady on our feet to feel secure with all that rock climbing.  We are lucky we didn't fall and break anything this time!  But, that is OK...going forward, we will still love the water of the upper pool.  It was so fun to watch the Southerland kids explore and enjoy the shut-ins.  And, they did a great job with the camping.  We put Noah and Quinn on a full-size blow-up air mattress in the back of our Element for the night and they would have done great had the mattress not lost all its air.  We haven't used it in years so we were not aware of a leak.  Sorry, boys.  Lucy was on a twin blow-up mattress in the cabin, Emily and Larkin took the futon and Steve and I were on the queen size bed.  Dinner was super easy - hot dogs, veggie sticks, grapes and s'mores.  Breakfast should have been easy as well only Steve couldn't get a fire going enough to cook decently.  We bought firewood the night before and thought we had enough for the morning but clearly we didn't.  It wasn't until Emily went to the camp store to buy cereal for the kids and picked up an additional bundle of wood that we finally got breakfast going.  Thankfully, I had brought a pie iron so I made pancakes in that.  We managed to cook bacon on the wimpy fire but didn't get eggs done until we had more wood so it turned out to be a very drawn out breakfast and, by the time we finished, it was time for Steve and I to pack up and check out of the cabin.  Happily, Emily and the kids were able to fit in another swim after we left for home.  Overall, we had a great time and we learned a few things what NOT to do going forward.  It is also SO nice to be only two hours away instead of four like the old days.

We were camping Wednesday and Thursday.  Monday was garage organizing and finances.  Tuesday was shopping and getting ready to camp.  Friday was a bit more shopping (to take advantage of sales on corn on the cob and strawberries) and the temple.  That evening, we watched the 1964 film "Lilies of the Field" after Elizabeth Crippen mentioned the movie a week ago and I decided I needed to see it again.  Happily, the library had a copy.  A great film and it was fun to see Arizona again as it was filmed in Tucson.  Elise joined us late Friday evening after she had gone swimming with the Southerlands in Ballwin.  She is spending the weekend with us and yesterday, we three went to a Cardinals game.  Typical Missouri August weather was back but we always get the cheap tickets with seats waaaay up high so we enjoyed a nice breeze.  And, even though we were so high, we got seats right behind home plate which was fun.  The Cardinals were playing the Royals and, since Whitey Herzog was affiliated with both teams in his career, they offered a bobble head in his honor to the first 30K fans.  It was a good game and we won!  

Elise will head back to Columbia this evening after Beckie joins us for dinner and after "cookies" which we are reinstating.   It seems like an easy way to get to know people in the ward.  Naomi LaFond and her husband and baby girl are coming tonight.  How fun to have old Columbia acquaintances in new places.  

It has been a great week with typical summer activities.  And, how fast this summer is going!  We are looking forward to two last Grandparent Day Camps in the next two weeks and another drive to visit Julina in Indiana after that and then summer will be over!  I sat in on a St. Louis Civic Orchestra board meeting Tuesday night as we are trying to figure out our 21-22 season with the Delta variant looming large over our heads.  We are going forward cautiously and it is so frustrating to still be dealing with this coronavirus.  Just get your shots, people!  Until next week, then..... 

 

Finishing up July

We went to Casey, Illinois on Monday with Emily and the four grandkids.  We were met by Julina.  Casey is known as the "little town that made it big"  meaning that twelve of the world's largest things can be found in Casey:  Largest rocking chair, ruler, pencil, etc.  The photo below is on the largest teeter-totter. 

This is the largest wind chime.  We ate lunch right next door at a delightful place called the Whittling Whimsey.  Prices were very reasonable and they offered gluten-free bread for any sandwich.  After lunch, we endured the heat and walked around the couple of blocks (it is really a small town) to see the other world's largest attractions, finding shade wherever we could.  

an impromptu photo shoot in front of the bright red building....

And a few other photos from around town....

 It was a two and a half hour drive one way for us and a two hour drive for Julina and it was great to spend a little bit of time with her.  Steve and I rode with Emily in their van and the air conditioning was lovely as was the lengthy chat with Emily.  Poor Steve sat in the back in a middle seat and got to watch Loony Tunes along the way....

OK, then, enough of Casey.....The rest of the week, until Friday, was just record breaking HOT!  Happily, our little twenty-five year old air conditioner continued to function.  A blessing for sure.  The temperatures broke Thursday night and it has been lovely ever since.  Elizabeth Crippen came into town Friday to attend the temple with us that afternoon and she stayed overnight.  I talked her in to visiting the art museum at Forest Park Saturday morning.  I think I have been inside once in the time I have lived in Missouri (since 1981).  It is a lovely museum and we enjoyed walking around the American art section for about an hour.  

My zinnias are in bloom and, if you look closely at the long shot, you can admire the gorgeous sunflowers in my neighbor's yard.

Steve and I attended a baptism Saturday afternoon and there were so many sets of missionaries, as well as the mission president and his wife (!) that it felt like a zone conference back on our mission, even down to the LDS pop musical number that was performed (ha ha)

Not much else to write about.  Steve and I continue to catch episodes of season 2 of Manifest.  I watched a Netflix movie on my own Wednesday night while Steve was at church meetings - Hampstead.  It was lovely.  Steve finished watching Searching for Bobby Fisher yesterday....he has been watching it off and on throughout the week.