Five on Friday

1.  We had Rob's birthday dinner on Sunday.  I made our last summer barbeque with potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, barbequed burgers, brats and hot dogs, and gooey butter cake for dessert.  My boy's favorite is my gooey butter cake.  The weather was great so the kids played outside and it wasn't too wild.

2.  Work is going well, but it is not as busy as I would like.  I worked an extra evening this week because a co-worker was out of town, but the time goes really slow if there aren't students to work with.  There is one young gal I work with on Wednesday evenings who is Republican and very opinionated, and she drives me crazy.  She insists she is a Libertarian, but I know she is a Republican.

3.  Our class we are taking is going really well.  We are covering the 1960's now, and even though we lived through it it is great seeing what went on from a historical perspective.  The first book we read, Freedom Summer, was about the summer of 1963 and a large number of young people and students went to Mississippi to help the blacks register to vote.  It was amazing how the blacks were treated, even that human beings could treat another human that way.  Now we are reading to learn how the Republican party became so conservative in the sixties.

4.  I got a chair from my sister Lorie for our family room.  We gave Patrick our big couch when he moved back to St. Louis in June, so I have been looking for a chair ever since to put on the wall with the love seat.  I was looking for one in primary colors, preferable striped, to brighten up the room.  I remembered that Lorie had gotten new chairs for her family room recently and asked her what she had done with her old ones, which I always loved.  She said they were waiting in her basement for me to come get, so we went over Monday and picked one up.  I love the way it looks.

5.  We are going to Cincinnati in two weeks, on the 10th of October.  We haven't seen the babies since the fourth of July, and they will not be home until Christmas.  They change so much when they are little, so I like to see them every couple of months.  I talked to Stephanie last night and asked her what she was going to be on Halloween, and she said a sheep.  She was a sheep last year and got lots of candy, so I guess she wanted to repeat that.  The costume will fit Julia this year, so I suggested she be Little Bo Peep, and she agreed, though she has no idea what I am talking about.  I have to talk to Chellie and see if she had any other ideas, and if not I'll make her a Little Bo Peep costume.

Sunday, Sunday

It seems like I lost a week.  We had the birthday lunch last Sunday, and it went well.  I felt like I was prepared for once.  My dishes looked nice; I've bought more on E-Bay since then, some bread and butter plates and some soup bowls.  Here are a few pictures:

Work has been going really well.  Ten hours a week is perfect for me right now.  I'm working mainly with ESL students.  On Friday two different students came in and asked for me, which made me feel really good.  I love working with students and not having to worry about budgets, payrolls, meetings and crabby professors.  And every time I work I see someone who I hadn't seen since I retired, so that's lots of fun.  I don't make much money, but I'm just putting it in an account for our vacation next June.

The weather has suddenly turned cool.  I think it was 44 or 46 this morning.  We don't want to turn the furnace on yet, so I brought my space heater up and turned that on this morning.  I hope we don;t have any more 100 degree weather, but I'm not ready for winter.  Garage sales have been winding down.  If there aren't many good ones, or it is too cold like yesterday, I just go to my favorite thrift store.

Our class is going well.  I'm really enjoying it.  The teacher is lecturing on the Civil Rights Movement now.  The book we read is Freedom Summer, which was really good.  I shouldn't say "was," because I am still reading it though the class had a test on it this past Thursday.  We are auditing the class, so we don't have to take tests.  Although I lived through the sixties when all of this was going on, I don't remember that much of it.  It's unbelievable how blacks were treated in Mississippi, which is where the book takes place.

Five on Friday

1.  I finally got my plates.  But I had to drive downtown to the central UPS warehouse to get them.  They had promised to deliver them Wed. morning before twelve, but they didn't so I called at noon and the gal told me they wouldn't be delivered until 3:30 - 5:30 in the afternoon.  She told me the driver for our neighborhood had just made a delivery at Watson and Lansdowne and would be heading out Watson making deliveries and that I could try to find him.  I went ahead and left because I was meeting friends for lunch before work, driving out Watson and not seeing the UPS truck.  I hoped Wayne would be home from jury duty before they came.  He didn't get home until 6:30, so they weren't delivered, for the third time.

2. I had a busy day yesterday.  I had a doctor's appointment at nine, then had to go to the lab for some tests, then I went downtown to get the dishes, then to Sam's and then home.  Then, fortunately, Wayne had been dismissed from jury duty around ten so we went to class together and then out to lunch.  I worked today from 9 to 3;  now I can rest.

3.  Patrick, who moved back to St. Louis from New York in June, went to New York yesterday.  He had some friends passing through St Louis while driving to NYC, so he caught a ride with them and will fly Jet Blue home on Monday.  He has a friend who is a pilot so he can fly free on standby.  He's got a couple of gigs lined up there, but I really think he was missing his friends.

4.  I've been having good luck selling stuff on E-Bay.  I only list five or six things a week, so I'm not having to ship so many things at once, which involves waiting for the buyer to pay and packaging the stuff and going to the post office.  I have one person from last week who didn't pay until last night, and four of my auctions ended today and three of the four paid.  Now I have to wait for the last one or make multiple trips to the post office.  That's what happened when I sold stuff on E-Bay five or six years ago, when I finally quit doing it.  I do have more time now that I'm retired, so I'm giving it another try. 

5.  I'm having the fancy aunt lunch here Sunday.  I found a recipe on-line for a chicken casserole that is similar to party potatoes, but you use cut up chicken instead of potatoes.  I tried it a couple of weeks ago and it was really good.  We'll have to clean on Saturday, but the only time we really clean everything is when we are entertaining.  Luckily, Wayne helps a lot. 

Wordless Wednesday

Frustration

I'm so frustrated, and though I don't want to complain all the time on this blog, I need to vent.  I've been waiting for some plates to be delivered that I bought on E-Bay a couple of weeks ago, and they still haven't come.  I bought some of these dishes from a garage sale a couple of years ago, before we even started our addition, because I thought they would go really well in our new kitchen.  I have seven plates, four bowls, four bread and butter plates, a salt and pepper shaker and tea pot.  

I've never used them, but I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would sell some stuff on E-Bay and use the money to complete this set of dishes.  They are by Villeroy and Boch and are called French Garden.  They are white with yellow and floral and fruit designs.  There are three different plates, and I had seven from the garage sale.  So, I started looking for more on E-Bay and lost out on a couple of listings, but finally last week I found someone who was selling five at a reasonable price.  So I had enough in my account to buy them, and thought they would come last Friday.  Well, when I got home from work on Friday there was a note on the door from UPS that they had tried to deliver a package but no one was home.  Wayne was here the entire day, but he doesn't always wear his hearing aids and doesn't hear real well.  The note they left said the package would be delivered Monday before 10:30, and they would need a signature upon delivery.  I was here all day yesterday, Monday, but since it was Labor Day I figured the dishes would probably not come until today.  So, I waited and waited, thinking they would be delivered by 10:30.  Wayne had jury duty, and I had to leave for class at noon.  I was so sure they would be on my porch when I got home, but I could see, from the street, another note on the door.  They could not deliver without a signature, in person, even though I signed the back of the first slip.   The note said they would try to deliver one more time, tomorrow, and if we weren't here they would return the package to the seller.  Grrr!

So I went on their website to try to find out what time tomorrow, because Wayne will have jury duty again and I'm leaving for work at 12:30.  I couldn't get any information from their website, so I called their toll-free number.  The man was so nice, I quickly got over my frustration.  He said he couldn't guarantee a morning delivery, but he would make a note not to return to sender if we were not here.  Then about half an hour later someone from the local UPS center here in St. Louis called and was very nice.  He said he would put a note on the package that it was urgent and needed to be delivered before noon.  I imagine if anyone is still reading this she is thinking, yeah, real third-world problems.  But I really would like to have the dishes for the fancy aunt lunch I am having here on Sunday.  Here are some pictures of them: