September stuff

It has been a week of UTIs. Both Steve and I were diagnosed with ones on Monday and we drove Sally down to the vet at Open Door on Wednesday to see if she had one. Of course, she wouldn't pee but we were sent home with a round of antibiotics regardless. There were several kitties roaming around the reception area of Open Door and one little tuxedo cat got up close and personal with Sally. And, surprisingly, Sally was very tolerant of all the kitty overtures. Maybe she was raised with cats in her former life? It took a great deal of willpower for me to NOT take home a half-grown tuxedo kitten!

On Friday, I started a new piano student, we had the elders over for pizza for dinner, and we played games next door at Mona and Ed's well into the evening. The second game was a new one - a combination of trivia based upon the United States and chutes and ladders - and we kept getting the chute sending us down and some of the questions were extremely difficult and yet others were stupidly easy. We finally ended at 9:30 in a draw because we all needed to take dogs out to go potty and we are all old and needed to go to bed!

Saturday morning, Steve and I drove down to the Gateway Arch where we met Emily, Joe, Quinn and Larkin to view the Paint Louis graffiti mural wall. Every Labor Day, graffiti artists from around the world are invited to come and create on this hugely long wall along the Mississippi River. Emily has taken senior photos with that backdrop for years and I saw it when Kirsti was getting her senior pictures taken. It was quite impressive!

Afterwards, we brought Larkin back home with us for some grandparent time. She painted her own bottle gourd, she organized my two doll houses, and she helped me get the guest bedroom prepared for her other grandparents who are arriving later today. Papa Joe will be spending the upcoming week doing some work on the Ballwin house and they will be staying with us. As Larkin helped me dust, she found the wooden shoes that Steve bought in Minnesota while he was on his mission. He was stationed in Sioux City which was across the river from the little Dutch tourist town. Larkin had to try them on and she declared them to be quite comfortable.

We took Larkin home around 3:00 and, as we drove out of Holly Hills  and towards the snow cone shack where we bought a treat for each of us, we noticed the cute little hedgehogs that have been recently placed in a grassy median inside the neighborhood. We stopped to take photos....

The rest of the week was pretty  average. It is still very hot and dry so I spent one morning moving the sprinkler all around both the front and back yards. I am almost finished with cropping photos from 1979 through 1981. I have been practicing the music for our first civic orchestra concert. And, Steve and I watched Seven Years in Tibet in snatches over three days. And, of course we watched Strange New Worlds (two episodes). 

Today, Steve and I attended Emily and Joe's ward because I played my cello along side Quinn in a special music number that featured Emily and Lucy singing Be Thou My Vision. It was a beautiful arrangement and Emily and Lucy sounded so good! And, Quinn and I did a good job, too! 

 

Arkansas Adventure

 Because the St. Louis temple is closed for four months (August through November), Steve and I are taking short trips to nearby temples. Last month, it was to Kansas City and last Friday and Saturday we visited the Bentonville, Arkansas temple. We set out early Friday and drove first to visit Bennett Springs State Park. I've seen photos of the place in the Missouri Conservationist magazine, particularly on opening day of trout season, and I've always wanted to see it for myself.  The water comes up out of the ground cold enough to sustain trout so there were many folks out there fishing. 

A butterfly liked Steve's hat....

We didn't stay too long because it was close to lunch time and we had decided on going to the Golden Corral in Springfield which was an hour's drive away. But, we HAD to stop at Buccees along the way. It is quite the gas station!!!! Truly a destination...

We hit the Golden Corral at about 1:45, well past lunch time, and the parking lot was packed! We discovered that was because it was full of senior citizens taking advantage of the senior lunch special from 1:00 - 3:00. SO many old people clogging up the lines. 😂But, you can't beat the price and the variety. Plus, each food item lists allergy and calorie information, which was very helpful. 

Then, we drove the final two hours down to Bentonville, arriving around 5:00. We had to quickly check in and change for our 6:00 temple session. Thankfully, the temple was only a ten minute drive from our Hampton Inn. It is a gorgeous temple and we had a nice evening. 

Saturday morning, after our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and drove about ten minutes to the Crystal Bridges Art Museum. It specializes in American art, it is free, and it was so lovely! We could only give ourselves an hour to visit so we just went to two galleries and the gift shop (of course) but it was a very enjoyable time.  

Then, into the car we climbed and off we went through the Ozarks of southern Missouri. We drove (and drove and drove) through through beautiful woods, through a rain storm, through small towns and, four hours later, we arrived at Big Springs. Yes, another spring. The Ozarks are full of them and this one pumps out almost 286 million gallons of water per day! It is one of the largest springs in the world. It was so "cool".

This is where it emerges out of the ground

 

Notice how the water is turquoise as it comes out of the ground...

Back in the car we went and we drove another two hours to Rolla where we met Noah who is a freshman at Missouri S & T and we took him to dinner at a local pizza place. It was so great to visit with him and to learn ALL the things he is already involved in at school. 

And, then, we drove the hour and forty minutes back to St. Louis pulling into our driveway at about 10:20. Whew! Steve and I were exhausted. Sally (who was cared for by Beckie) was glad to see us. 

The rest of the week went pretty well. The ward had a Labor Day picnic on Monday and we took Jair and Tabitha with us. Neither one of them can drive. The weather had finally cooled down a bit and it was a well attended event. 

The Afghan women's group resumed Tuesday morning (which used to be on Mondays) after a three week hiatus and civic orchestra had their first rehearsal that evening. I drove to Ballwin early so I could rehearse a musical number with Emily, Lucy and Quinn which we will be performing this coming Sunday, the 20th. Emily and Lucy will sing and Quinn in playing cello with me. Julina Hokensen is playing the piano for us. 

Steve had two doctor appointments Tuesday. One was with the pain doctor who gave him his second set of shots and declared him a good candidate for the ablation scheduled for the 23rd. His other doctor was a gastroenterologist and he now has a colonoscopy scheduled for the 30th. Lucky guy!

I spent much of my time preparing and distributing 65 tea towels for select Afghan women to embroider. The History Museum liked the first 24 we did for them and ordered 60 more!

Steve and I caught an episode of Strange New Worlds but didn't watch anything else during the week. and, we finally got some rain Wednesday into Thursday. That is our news for the week....

September heats up

September roared right in with triple digit temperatures.  But, life continued on with outdoor activities.  Yardwork is slowing down and, with the sunrise getting later and later, I don't have as much time each day to do anything. Removing bindweed and watering were my tasks this past week. And, I had to pull up my squash plants who had succumbed to the squash bugs. Sniff. Another task was to put in new window well covers. We bought new covers back in April thinking we could do the work ourselves. But, then it got to be summer and Steve's back got worse so heat and pain put the chore off until I had the idea to pay someone to do the installation for us. Ken was scheduled to come early Monday morning to take off the five hail damaged ones and put the new ones on.

  

    

Well, the removal went smoothly BUT Ken informed us that we had bought the wrong replacement sizes. Thankfully, I was able to return them and get our money back.  In addition, when he took off the domed covers on the east side of the house, he discovered that there were drains at the bottoms of all three so covers were not really needed.  He was able to clear out all the debris and now they drain well. 

 I went online and found two polycarbonate covers for the west windows and Ken returned Thursday to install them. He also rigged up a screened opening for the well with the dryer vent. A great feature is that these covers can easily be removed. I am very pleased with the results.

In spite of the heat, the St. Louis Civic Orchestra had their annual welcome back picnic Tuesday evening. Steve opted out but I went. I brought a gluten-free cake and piped happy birthday on it for our director. It was good to see everyone again.  

When I got home afterwards, there was time to watch a new episode of Strange New Worlds. It was a spooky one (I do NOT like scary things) and I had a restless sleep as a result with disturbing dreams.

Wednesday morning was Happy Hookers. I picked up Mary (Karen was not feeling well) and had to just drop her off and drive over to nearby Costco to get my glasses fixed. I was afraid I would have to get them replaced but, thankfully, they were fix-able. I got back to Happy Hookers in time to participate in the show and tell. 

Thursday we picked up the Element that we had dropped off Wednesday morning at Bates Tire and Auto.  It needed a few things done and now Leo is as good as new - well, as good as a car with over 225,000 miles can be!

Friday was a long day - hot outside and inside as I made FOURTEEN quarts of applesauce! Having a "peak savings event" with Ameren didn't help. (a program where we volunteer to have our thermostat raised for about four hours to conserve energy) I also needed to bake an apple cake but I waited to do it after 9:00 in the evening. And, it was worth it - the cake is delicious!

Because I worked so hard on Friday, I eased up on Saturday and Steve and I watched TWO movies!  Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit in the morning and Thelma in the evening.  We had seen Jack Ryan before but it was a great watch the second time. I don't remember how I heard about Thelma but it was a cute, funny, quirky movie.  The rest of the day, we stayed indoors and I did light puttering. 

Have a nice Labor Day tomorrow!

 

Finishing out August

 Our weather this past week felt more like we were finishing out September. It was so nice on Monday that I opened up windows and turned on the attic fan! Sadly, it is back to heat this coming week - blaaa.

Throughout the week, I spent quite a bit of time working on photos from 1977 through1979.  Earlier, I had scanned the pages from the photo album and this past week, I cropped each photo from each page. All this is to prepare for my Early Lambson Life book that will cover from the time Steve and I met until the time we moved to Missouri. 

I worked at the sewing machine throughout the week and used a music writing program to arrange a hymn for the choir to sing. I finally printed out my orchestra music for the upcoming season that will begin in September. On Thursday, I picked up Happy Hooker (and church) friends Karen and Mary and we went to Nancy's, a fellow Happy Hooker, where she had collected a TON of yarn from Carol, another Happy Hooker, who had recently passed. We all came home with a bunch of new yarn to keep us busy for many months.

On Tuesday, Steve went to the pain doctor for the first of three visits (scheduled two weeks apart) to help alleviate his back pain. Visits one and two are to receive temporary shots to give the doctor an idea if the third and final visit, an ablation procedure, will be effective. Visit one went successfully.  

My garden is pretty stable right now with not much growing so my big outside project was to collect the firewood of assorted sizes that was lined up against the fence and put it into tubs to store inside the garage.  And, of course, I am always pulling up bindweed. 

 

Thursday evening, with the weather still quite pleasant, Steve and I dusted off our bikes and pumped up the tires and rode to the nearby snow cone shack for a treat. I think I have found my new favorite flavor - wedding cake - which was totally gluten-free!

Friday morning, Steve helped me peel a bunch of apples and I made seven quarts of apple slices. We still have at least twice the number of apples left and I will be doing applesauce this week, I hope.

Friday evening, Steve and I hopped aboard the MetroLink and went to another Cardinal's game. I have never enjoyed such great weather at a game! And, our seats, while way up on the 4th level, were right behind home plate. In the last photo, you can see traces of smoke from the fireworks that were set off for the home run that was hit. And, yes, the Cardinals won!

Saturday morning, I took a turn at the booth that Archway Refugee Connections had at the annual Festival of Nations held in Tower Grove Park.  It is a HUGE event! And, temperatures had climbed up a bit so it was hot and super crowded. Parking is always a nightmare so I had Steve drop me off and pick me up and even that was kind of crazy. I kind of hope I never have to go ever again...

Last evening, we drove to Ballwin to bring Larkin her birthday gift (a day early). She is moving into Noah's old room and she wanted a round, green shag rug to give the impression of grass on the floor. Her true birthday is today and Emily sent a cute photo of her all dressed up for church. She is ten years old!!!

Steve and I finished the final two episodes of season three of Star Trek Discovery this past week and we are now setting it aside so we can watch the final season of Strange New Worlds that started in July. We watched the first episode and it was pretty epic.