For Anne R.

The clinic days - 1973-74

Born on the 4th of July

I have two siblings born on Independence Day, my brother, Les, born in 1947, and my half-sister, JoAn Schooley, born in Penn in 1953.



















I drove into Port Townsend yesterday and while I was only gone from the house for seven hours, I was Exhausted with a capital E when I got home.  Lately, it seems like any activity I decide to participate in wipes me out.  I hope it's just because my body is wounded right now.  My shoulder has been bothering me for days and I'll be glad when the surgery is behind me.

Thursday I'll be driving myself to walk on the Bainbridge Ferry so Mary can pick me up downtown and drive me over to Issaquah to consult with my surgeon. I've got my fingers crossed that I don't have to wait weeks. The place where we're going is where her doctor is so she knows exactly how to get there. Depending on what the surgery entails, I assume I'll be admitted at Overlake in Bellevue or the place in Issaquah. I have no idea what to expect.  I figure with having four tears in my ligaments, it's not going to be a walk in the park as far as physical therapy goes afterwards.  Still, I can't continue on without it.

I stopped to visit Mary and Dave Gaboury for a few minutes as they were in town to see relatives for the 4th and work on her family reunion which is coming up July 26th at the fairgrounds. (The Deleo Derby)  I delivered this doll that a friend here in PA had asked me to give Mary (she gave me one too).
Faye Radley, who is now Catherine Critchfield, was a friend of ours in grade school.

I left Mike McConaghy's house (where Mary was at the time) and drove down to pick up my sister to take her to Marrowstone Island for a cookout and picnic at Kris & Bill Rust's house  in Nordland.  I love going here.  They are both so welcoming and I could live very happily at their house.  Really comfortable.  They have a couple dogs, a cat who rules the roost, two goats, and a llama.

 This is Louie and he gets in trouble a lot for chasing the goats. He thinks he's the boss of the pasture.

                              This is Max, Les' grandson, Brend'n's dog.  A real cutie.

Kris & Bill have a fire pit in the middle of their backyard so we cooked hotdogs and sat around outside
taking turns moving our chairs to try and avoid the smoke.  The wind wasn't cooperating and I had to throw everything in the washer when I got home. Like all good picnics, we had a ton of yummy food.
Kris made this terrific looking jello/cake/strawberry masterpiece that was especially noteworthy.

     One of my favorite things in Kris' collection was this Bill Clinton toy that played music.

Other views of the day.....

                                                 Brend'n, Les, and Eric Forcier

                                             Callum Grace, my sister's great grandson

                                               Our hosts, Kris and Bill Rust

                                                                       Max and Les

The drive down was busy with traffic (of course!) and coming home was even worse.  Especially after it started to rain.  I saw lots of State Patrol out and about, several stopping speeders.  Also saw a deer that had been hit but was still sitting up along the road. It made me cry.  Spied one dead raccoon, several stupid drivers, and bypassed one parade in progress in downtown PA. Too bad the rain was spoiling things.  All I wanted to do was get home.

I realized that getting a quiet sleep wasn't about to happen and I listened to fireworks and booms for hours.  Street is littered this morning.

Tomorrow I have a quick doctor appt to discuss my latest medical tests and Tuesday I'm expecting my cousin, Bonnie and her husband and son to stop in.  They'll stay the night in their travel trailer and we'll share genealogy notes as she's into the hobby, as well.

I probably inhaled a tad too much smoke yesterday as I'm coughing a bit today and very congested.  Don't plan on doing much more than watching movies and taking it easy.

Holiday Coming

All day I've been expecting the raindrops but nothing so far.  I hope it stays that way as I've decided to venture out tomorrow and head into PT.  I'm picking up my sister and we're driving over to Marrowstone Island to have a picnic with our brother, Les (it's his birthday) and Bill and Kris Rust, Les' ex-wife and close friend.

I made a coleslaw with shrimp. I know that sounds weird but shrimp is shrimp so hopefully it'll be alright.  Also made a batch of choc. chip cookies and a loaf of banana bread.  I have my reservations about driving tomorrow but if I take it easy, I should be okay.  I've noticed my shoulders are definitely getting harder to deal with and I have to be real careful what I do with my right arm.

Mary Gaboury is supposed to be in town too so I'll stop by her nephew's house to say hello. Don't think I'll stay for the fireworks,though; prefer getting home before dark.

I had sent out an email to local folks to see if anyone had a recliner to sell cheap or donate as my sister needed something to put her feet up.  Edema was getting pretty bad.  Well, thank you Kris and Dave Logue!  They bought one at Melanie Lockhart's yard sale and took it over today.  She's thrilled. Gave the guys a couple of her handmade bags.

                                                 Doug Lockhart, Dave Logue, Janie

I noticed traffic this morning was kind of tense.  Pre-holiday hype I suppose.  I had a guy in a pickup tailgating me and when the light changed, he continued to tailgate.  As I prepared to turn into Walgreen's, he cut through a gas station parking lot trying to get there first.  Stupid man!  Somebody else was right behind me and he ended up sitting there waiting for us. And you can believe, I slowed down.  Then when we got to the parking lot, he tried again to get a parking place closer to the door.  I couldn't believe how rude he was but I guess the streets are full of idiots like that.

I noticed the Safeway parking lot was also full of people driving entirely too fast.  One little blue VW just zoomed through and I was lucky I didn't hit her as I was backing out of my space.  I've often noticed traffic is different on Fridays. I guess holidays are the same thing.

Mary sent me some Jake pictures today. Two with rice cakes and one with peas.  He's so cute.

I've been working on my family names list and came up with grand children, g. grandchildren, and great great grandchildren of my grandpa, Lew Gene.  He had 17 grandchildren (my generation) and 46 great grandchildren, and 78 g.g. grandchildren.  A few names appear more than once but I thought it was interesting that three girls were named Jennifer Lynn. (one being my daughter)

Guess I'll retire to the recliner for a while.  Maybe I'll get some good picnic pictures tomorrow.

July already

I've kept myself busy all morning. Nothing all that productive but I'm having an enjoyable time and that's all that matters.  I slept in the recliner all night although I gave it a two-hour try in my bed from 10 to 12.  I wake up rested and that's all I ask.

I had a muffin and cup of coffee for breakfast and then went outside to fill up the bird baths with clean water.  Seems to be the only birds taking advantage of this are the crows but when I see them actually climbing in to take a bath, I figure I've done a good deed.  Have decided (for the time being anyhow) to not refill the bird feeders.  Seed was getting too expensive to feed the already fat pigeons.  For a while there I was having gold finch, robins,wrens, and quail.  They all disappeared once the pigeons claimed the backyard as their territory.  I still have hummingbird nectar in the front but I've noticed those bird haven't been around for about a week or more.  Not sure why. Perhaps they've found feeders that aren't being stalked by neighbor cats.

Tomorrow I head down to the hospital to get an ankle/leg brachial test.  Or something like that.  Apparently I'll be exercising in between readings.  Next Monday I see a physician's assistant to discuss my recent blood work.  Still waiting to hear from the surgeon's office in Bellevue about scheduling an appt to get my shoulder worked on.  Medical visits seems to be the center of my social life this year.  I hope next year is different.

I decided to bake a cake this morning.  That's probably why my mood is elevated. Ha!  I've got the tv on and plan to watch (or at least listen) to the soccer match getting so much press.  I went shopping online earlier today.  Been wanting a jean jacket.

I started to fill out an ancestor chart on wikipedia genealogy but discovered my various files of information were "all over the place" and it slowed me down to a crawl trying to find what I wanted. Plan to make a list of all relatives with pictures and dates that I can refer to with the little side things I'm working on.

One thing led to another and I ended up getting out all my photo albums so I can start scanning in the
various old photos of family members here and there. Here's a video to make you laugh.