Gramma's 90th

The party for Gramma N went very well. She had a good time the whole day, I'm sure. The day began with a major upset that turned out OK ... We were at the church early, setting up flowers and the cakes and such in the fellowship hall, where the party was scheduled to begin after church and after the regular "coffee hour". (The room was was already decorated with skeletons and black cats and carved pumpkins for Halloween, alongside the portraits of Christ ....) Then, while we were still blowing up balloons various people began coming in and sitting down at our round tables, holding their Bibles and hymn books. Turned out the boiler that provides heat for the main sanctuary wasn't working on that cold morning ... so they set up church in the room with us. One of the more festive services that had ever been held in that old church, I'm sure.!

Sunrise

This is one of the wonderful benefits of living here ... we can see this without getting out of bed! John did get up, though, to take the picture.

We're on our way

We will be driving to NY, starting out this afternoon and getting to Lisa Neilans Blair's house Friday afternoon. We have the van partially loaded already, but since the main things in there now are potted mums (to use as centerpieces for Gramma's party), getting everything else in will be a challenge. But I'm sure John can handle it! We are taking the laptop, but our online time may be limited. Well, let the record show that I've tried three times to post a wonderful sunrise photo taken by John a few days ago. I keep getting error messages. You'll see it eventually, I promise!

Friend's wedding photo

This was taken from inside the yacht club. That's why there are funky reflections on the glass behind the . (She rarely ever smiles ... but she loved this shot with the moon.)

Busy, busy

We are still here, alive and kicking, even tho I haven't written lately.

I participated in a three-day tennis event in Knoxville (State level for Super Seniors - over 60 years of age.) Our team didn't win, but we did have a good time. I played in two of the four matches.

It's actually quite amusing to see the players as they approach the courts. Too many knee and ankle braces to count, and many of us - me included - look too darned frail to even walk up the stairs to the registration desk, let alone actually run around on the courts. However, it is inspiring to see these "old farts" playing hard!

I took photos for a friend at her recent wedding. It has been time consuming, but fun, to go thru the literally hundreds of pix, cropping and deleting and lightening and generally "fixing up" quite a few of them. Then, of course, the laptop (our "good" computer) refused to acknowledge the CD in the drive that I wanted to copy them onto so I could give them to her. It actually did something negative to several of the discs, making them forever unusable.

So, I copied them onto our external drive and hooked it up to my older desktop. It groans and moans and freezes up, but I finally got it to copy the pix onto a CD for her.

During all this - both the tennis and the 'puter work - I've been having various problems with my eyes / contacts / glasses. A bit of blurry vision, but not during any of the really important moments, just off and on. Much better now, by the way.

John and I also cleared out the closet beneath the stairs and painted sealer on the subflooring, then put down "peel and stick" 12 inch square vinyl tiles. Looks a hundred times better, and will be much smoother surface and thus easier to clean.

Photos will follow, when I can see again without squinting!

Loudon TN

This house is being constructed on a lot in an older neighborhood. Apparently they razed the house that originally stood on this site. This is another "women build" home. I think they used "man"power only to carry the packs of shingles (very heavy) up to the roof. We have very little access to the type of machinery that would've enabled us to do that by ourselves, too.

Habitat for Humanity

Here I am "muling" shingle scraps up the ladder. (We had just thrown the scraps down off the roof when we thought we were through with them!) I'm wearing the tool belt John got me for Christmas ... he indulges my whims with good cheer.