Family Time

This has been a different holiday weekend, sort of. July 6 is the birthday of my mother-in-law, Esther Moler Cheney Barnes. So we are normally close to home on this weekend, spending time with her. It's no. 89 this year, so next year will be a big one.

This year our weekend included work. Friday Lynda and I worked in the yard. I'm still working on clearing away from the tree trimming, while Lynda is planting flowers and vegetables in pots. She has some nice flower arrangements, as well as two pepper and four tomato plans, all in pots. Next year, possibly, I'll have prepared some ground down in the back yard for a real garden, but this year it's just pots.

I drug a bunch of leafy branches far down into the woods. Cleared off the outer-most row of brush piles. then I hauled some from the upper part of the backyard to the street and loaded the pickup to take to the stump dump. I rested a while, then trimmed some of our front bushes, which were way overdue for trimming. They look good, though I only got about half of them trimmed. Next Saturday, perhaps, I'll get to the rest. Lynda also planted some hosta in the planter under the overhanging windows.

Saturday we did more of the same, though not as much and not as long. All in all, the front yard is looking good, and the backyard doesn't look quite so much like a disaster zone. Two more weekends of similar production, with a few hours of evening work, and the two yards will be in pretty good shape.

We also watched our neighbor's little dog this weekend, which has been enjoyable. He's easy to take care of. In fact, he seems to like being alone in the day time, so we just left him in his house most of the day and kept him here at night.

Lynda's two step sisters and their families came to town, one from Kansas City and one from OKC, for the birthday celebration. They all came over for supper last night. Ten of us gathered around our dining room table for taco salad and fruit salad for dessert. We had expected only eight, but two who weren't coming did. One family of four stayed with us last night. That gave me less time to prepare for Life Group lesson today, but that worked out okay, as we had to cut off the lesson a little early so we could head to the restaurant for the last part of the birthday celebration.

I'm full of Bob Evan's Sunshine Skillet breakfast. Would love to take a nap, but I know that as soon as I lay on the couch the to-do list will pop up in my mind and I'll be too restless to sleep. So, onward now to finish dropped plot lines in Headshots. Then maybe I'll take some time to format In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People for a paperback edition. Then, maybe, I'll work a little on my budgeting spreadsheet. Or maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow night.

So many things to do, most good choices. I guess I just like to keep busy.