8/2 Yes, Joe, it IS all about me

Today turned out better than I could have even hoped. Jan picked me up for Mass and afterward we went to Gem City for dinner. There were sixteen family members there and I couldn't stop smiling. Thanks, Jan, for buying my dinner. And also for the fresh vegetables from your garden.

And thanks to Kris and Jan for making my cake. OMIGOD it was so tasty. I would have loved to have more but John ate it all.

Kris and Brian gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers in such a cute vase. Hard to describe, but they were ceramic frog boots. If you want to see the vase, stop by anytime.

Cindy and Joe gave me a frog votive candle holder and a cute vegetarian cookbook.

Jordan, my godson, gave me a new swimming suit. How did you ever guess my size, Jordan? :)

And Blake and Ty made me beautiful birthday cards---Blake drew a picture of Gus on his.

Everything was just perfect. My children called me, and Rob/Beata sent a package that hasn't arrived yet, so I still have someting to look forward to.

After dinner nearly everyone came over to my house to visit for a while. We drank beer and played with the puppies. Then we watched Wipeout and I Survived a Japanese Game Show--two of my new favorite silly shows.

Matt and Joe put my new license plates on, which I really appreciate.

Sorry if there were gifts I forgot to mention. I'll have to look through things in the morning to make sure.

Thanks to everyone for making my 61st birthday memorable. Hope some of you can join us at Jan's tomorrow for swimming. Love you all.

3/19 I'm done

The day started out sad but ended up great. I went to my empty house and put the trash at the curb. Then I went to work, talked to my boss via phone, and turned in my computer equipment and phone. Sad.

Following that I went to a board meeting where the Interfaith Disaster Task Force gave me a gorgeous pottery bowl, made from Mississippi mud. It is fantastic, and I will always cherish it. I promised not to use it for popcorn. :) It came from the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum and was made by a local artist.

Then I went back to my house to put the trash can back near the house and saw that the painters had been really busy already. It's like it's not even my house anymore.

I joined the casemanagers and some other staff at High Cotton for lunch. It was a really nice celebration, and they gave me a lovely piece that has two pictures of the staff on it, and an Irish blessing. I will cherish this as well.

So now I'm back at Caroline's doing laundry and starting to pack up for my trip tomorrow. I'm looking forward to picking up my dogs since I haven't seen them since Saturday.

Oh, I almost forgot. Last night was crazy fun. Our card-playing group met for the last time (with me in it). After we played for a few hours they brought out this HUGE wrapped box. When I opened it, I noticed there were many smaller presents inside. Genia explained the significance of each gift--most of which were hilarious. The one that made me cry is a gorgeous calendar with pictures of Biloxi's Gulf Coast. They also gave me Biloxi t-shirts--one has three drunk frogs on it and it says "Toadally Wasted." Funny. I also got a round pillow that says World Poker Tour on it. Made me laugh, but I'll use it. I got a beautiful glass frog wind chime. And a CD with some memorable pictures on it. Genia also knitted a lovely scarf for me so I can ward off the northern cold. One of my favotie gifts is a placemat with three Care Bears on it. Each one bears a name--Caroline, Genia, and Lorena--and it says Best Friends. I'm going to frame it and hang it up.

What a great group of friends I have. I'm such a lucky bug.

12/16 Christmas presents

Just returned from Caroline's. It was fun, and I made out like a bandit.

Genia me a beautiful blue silk scarf. Can't wait to wear it--it's gorgeous.

Cyndi gave me the cutest stone coasters--they have Texas Hold'Em and cards on them. Love them.

Caroline put together a bag of goodies--what a nice surprise. Bones for my dogs, candy, a Christmas kitchen towel, two decks of cards, a huge cookie, some chilli sauce, a magnetic shopping list, Santa earrings, and a "casino collection" which included six hors d'ouerves picks and a holder for them.

What a fun evening!

12/15 No more anonymous

No more anonymous comments for me! I turned on the new Blogger feature where anyone with an "Open ID" blog ID (from Blogger, AOL, Wordpress, etc.) can leave a comment. And anyone with a Google or Yahoo ID can leave one too. So if you have a blog identity anywhere, or you have a gmail address you can leave a comment.

Please don't let this stop you from leaving a comment. It's quite easy to register. This is one way I can stop spam comments without having folks go through the confirmation process of trying to figure out what the heck those letters and numbers are.

I've been wrapping presents to take to NC and to Quincy. And also a few to take to a gift exchange at Caroline's tomorrow night.

Soon I need to get the dogs out for their walks, but right now they're both sleeping, so maybe it would be a good idea for me to lie down too!

12/9 Presents

I shopped for more presents today. Chose two angels from the Salvation Army in Bay St. Louis, and bought presents for two girls. One is very young and wanted a Bratz doll, so I got her that and a beautiful, fluffy pink robe to surprise her. The other girl is a bit older and wanted a DVD of High School Musical. They won't be in the stores until Tuesday, so I got her a gift card for it, and also bought her a beautiful pair of pink pajamas.

This felt better than all the other shopping I've done. There's so much need all over the world, but we really see it up close where we live. (A collective "we," not just me.) It's everywhere, isn't it? We can't fix it all. But the little bit we can do is at least something....

I loved Mass today. We sang some beautiful songs, and afterward we drew names for our Christmas party. I won't be here for it, but wanted to participate anyway. After that I went to the rectory to meet Brother Gene's Labrador Retriever, Pepper. Pepper is 10 years old and is so calm and well-behaved. Some day.... :)

Planted some pansies while my dogs were being walked. Hope they "take." They've been sitting outside waiting to be planted since Jan was here. Today was actually hot--not warm, hot. So it was a good day to be out.