November already? Ack! So long Daylight Savings time.

I'm still in denial that it's November already. That means Christmas is bearing down upon us. Where did this year go?

As I write this, Ron is up front watching more programs. He came home from Costco last night with the first season of the original Get Smart TV show. The pilot was shot in black and white and the regular programs in color. We watched quite a few during dinner hour last evening and he thought he'd finish off the first DVD tonight... but last time I walked up front he was snoozing while a commentary of Buck Henry's was playing in the background. :-) A personal aspect to watching last night was during the credits on the first show of the regular season. They had a character (villain) in the show called "The Claw." ("Not "the Craw!" ... the Craw!" Not very politcally correct by today's standards, but funny just the same!) He was supposed to be Asian. As the credits rolled by at the end I saw the name "Leonard Strong" and knew who that was. Had to run it back and take a closer look at his face. One of his children is in our stake... Mickey Strong. He used to sing in the Bremerton Symphony Chorale and it was during that time period I found out during a chat with him that his father was a working Hollywood actor.

Leonard Strong did all kinds of supporting roles in movies and television, but because of his almond shaped eyes, he was most often cast as Asian characters. This was particularly true during WWII times when bonafide Asian actors in Hollywood were in short supply. A point of pride for Mickey was that his father had been in both movie versions of The King and I. He was the interpreter in the first version with Rex Harrison (Anna and the King of Siam... guess they have an even newer version of that one now) and he played the same role in The King and I with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. He was the only cast member from the first film to be brought in to play the same role in the second. I just looked up his info at IMDB last night and it appears the several shows he did for Get Smart over a two year period were the last in his career. He died in 1980.

Today has been kind of nice. Got an email from Laura Long, who I've not heard from in awhile and also chatted with Nancy Skinner on the cell phone for a bit. I had to tell her what a fine job her son did in getting Karen all decked out for her office dress-up yesterday (pictures to follow... from her blog). While we chatted about this, that and the other... Nancy was sharing some of her shuttle riding experiences. For the most part, we've both enjoyed meeting people on shuttles or in airports. That reminded me of our ride home on the Kitsap Airporter. We didn't think we'd be able to catch the one that was to depart 10 minutes after our arrival at Sea-Tac late Saturday night, but the plane came in a bit earlier than scheduled. At that time of the evening there is no one at the desk so you have to go outside, find the driver and get your ticket right at the shuttle. We had this fantasy that we might actually catch the 9:20 one so we really hot footed it down to the baggage level. I ran outside to make an appearance to the shuttle driver while Ron headed toward the baggage carousel. To our amazement, we made it and got home an hour earlier than expected (not expecially early even at that). :-)

The thing I remembered was this guy who got on after us and how I probably dodged a bullet in that deal. Ron was delayed outside while trying to get our tickets over the cell phone so I got on first and saved him a seat. The only place available with two seats together by that time was the full bench seat in the very back. I was the first to sit there and put my carry-on next to the window since there was a wheel-well in that spot. If a person were to sit in the very corner, it appeared they'd have to fold themselves in a knee-chest position and that gets old fast! =:o

Before Ron got on, a nice woman came back and sat on the other end of the long seat and said her husband was coming along shortly. I figured the four of us could fit. Well... she sat over the wheel-well on the other end when she heard I also had a husband coming and she assured me it would be fine (they moved at the first opportunity when the bus started to empty). She needed a place to stash a suitcase that had glassware inside and I told her I could put it on my end on the floor. So... her suitcase was wedged between seat and wheel-well and my carryon was on top of the seat behind it. There were four people sitting back there and what appeared to be a blank spot in the very back corner next to me... and this portly, fortyish fellow in a baseball cap gets on, walks toward the back of the bus and announces to me that he needs to sit there. When I told him there was a wheel well at that spot, he didn't care... he was still determined that I should move my carry-on so he could climb over us and shoehorn himself into the back corner next to me. I was never so grateful to announce there was a suitcase sitting on the floor in that spot... and about the same time, some other passengers informed him that he was standing right next to an empty seat while we were having this exchange. He was so fixated on that back corner, he didn't see the empty spot/s right under his nose, I guess.

There was a gray haired woman in the window seat near him and almost as soon as he sat down she was regaled with stories of his Navy career, etc. etc. He might be the nicest guy in the world that would give you the shirt off his back... I have no clue. But... you sometimes encounter folks who have a way of coming in and filling up not only their personal space but yours and never noticing any boundaries in between. His approach to personal hygiene appeared to be somewhat casual also. I'm a friendly person by nature, but was grateful. I got to sit during that ride and be one of the "eavesdropping observers" instead of engaging in conversation (Ron snoozed part of the time). You notice a lot of things when you're not talking... I should do it more often. ;-)

Here are the photos of Karen's costume. Niklas visited the local D.I. and found the raw materials to create this and had to do any sewing by hand... true to Skinner tradition. :-) The top green portion was the bodice of a dress and it appears he cut off the skirt portion to make the leggings.
The next two were taken at Karen's office. Some random guy apparently drifts through each year in that scary get-up. Not sure who he is. I wondered if he was actually that tall or on stilts? If he's that tall... he'd be about the same height as Lynda's boyfriend, Tom. Tom bending over is nearly the same height as Lynda standing up... no kidding.

Another fellow from the office had people pose in their costumes for these nice black and white shots. This all started for Karen when she wanted to dress up in something to go with Niklas' Medieval sword. He loves Lord of the Rings, so this was his solution. :-)

Thanks to Facebook and one of Lynda's Digipen friends, I saw these of her Halloween preparations. I don't know if her carving is a specific character... but it looks pretty neat.

Here are a couple of local Zombies. Amber emailed a few photos over last night. She usually brings the girls by the house but it didn't happen this year. We did actually have three cute little trick-or-treaters, however. They were the three daughters of Michele Kolbas, used to be Wiler. She lives in the neighborhood again. The camera was all poised and waiting on the dining table after Kristine tipped me off that Michele was coming ... then I forgot because I had Michael on the cell phone at the time. Drat! Anyway... they each got FOUR fun sized candy bars apiece, since I knew they would be it for us. Kind of a full circle moment to see those little girls and remember the day when their mother and her siblings might come to the door.

Here are the two little Miller Zombies... Colette looks very non-threatening. ;-)

I received an email this evening from a nice gal from Green Bay, Wisconsin who had corresponded in the past about soapmaking. One of the great parts of having the website is "meeting" people from all over and every once in awhile having them drop you a line to ask how the family's doing and/or bring you up to speed on theirs. She's a very crafty person. Their family loves to do outdoorsy things and now she's retired. I had my best laugh today when I was reading her email and got to this part...

... My husband and I have a small lot in our village, however my brother-in-law lives in a community in the southern part of the state and has been working on establishing a prairie garden. I will definitely be giving his garden a boost. He is 81 and just is a delight. He and my husband were elk hunting in Colorado, then my brother-in-law went peasant hunting in South Dakota....

When I wrote back to her I asked, "Is that LEGAL?" :-D I didn't even know they had peasants in South Dakota. I'll have to ask my cousin, who is in the process of moving there. ;-)

I wanted to show the hats she makes. Such a nice thing she is doing...

I have been very busy knitting when at all of these appointments. I have been making infant hats. I have some in the local knit shop, and with what I sell, I buy enough yarn to sell one and save 1 for a hospital destination. Our little Matthew (now 5) was at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee after he was born for 10 weeks. We know first hand how little hats, blankets etc. made by caring people and sent home from the hospital with the baby are appreciated.

Rachel mailed a CD this past week, filled with really nice photos she took at Colette's birthday party last month. Here are a few of those. I hate looking at my tired, fat and puffy face... but that's how it was/is. I think that day was not one of the better ones with burning the late night oil the previous week trying to get a scanning project done and mailed out before our trip. Little did I know we'd not be leaving after the party after all... but had to wait another 5 days for Ron's orders to come through. :-/

The kids look cute always... even little Edward who was sick that day.

This is a really nice picture of Amber... presenting Colette with her birthday cake.

Edward is such a sweet natured little guy... when we walked in I could tell he was not feeling well and seemed kind of clingy, so I scooped him up and managed to get him to sleep for a bit. I love it when you hold a little one and they just snuggle in. Some of my kids were like that. Edward's father was the least cuddly of the bunch. ;-) He didn't like you restricting his mobility for very long. I love the mood of this picture... just wish I could put a bag over my jowly head. It could be captioned, "Sick and Tired." (Edward being the sick one.) But really... I feel "comfort" when I look at it and get over myself. I'm glad she took it. :-)


Here's little Calvin and those big eyes (and a not quite as big early walking wound). He was intrigued with what his mother was doing. Following that are a few more from the party showing Robert and Calvin and the girls doing some bead necklaces.




This is cute. Should have put it at the end of the blog instead of here!

The rest are the last of the leaves... just about. Within the last few days they all took a cue to come down with a vengeance... with some gusts of wind helping along. I love how the ground is covered with various circles of the different colors. Oh... and on Friday when I left the house with a big box to take to the UPS Store, the sidewalk was totally covered with those beautiful dogwood leaves. I wish I could have taken the time right then to take a picture, but there was none to spare without missing that day's pickup. By the time I got home, the light was fading and the flash kept going off. (If Robert reads this he'll want me to know I can disarm that and I know I should have... it's just hard to tell sometimes in daylight that the flash indeed went off... but the pictures make it clear later.)

You should have seen the car when I first walked out with the package. The front windshield, roof and hood were festooned with a ridiculous quantity of these leaves... like a confetti snowfall. I had to run the wipers and watched them flying off all the way from our driveway to Silverdale (4 miles).


The blueberries have almost completely turned now and look nearly as pretty as the Euonymus one sees everywhere ("Burning Bush").

This is a recap of the photo at the beginning.. only this has had the drybrush effect applied in Photoshop. I wish the flash hadn't gone off, because it really cancelled out the beauty of backlighting through the leaves. By the time the rain stops, I doubt this photo-op will still be there. If I've linked this correctly, the image when clicked will come up in desktop image size.

Guess I'd better call it quits and start turning back a few clocks. :-) Ron has come back to officially get ready for bed. A few of you have asked how he's doing and he seems to be doing very well. His PSA tests have come back in good shape and I think with a couple more months under his belt (no pun intended)... he may be free of the "protection" he's had to wear since the surgery. There is less and less need for that... but it takes time (possibly up to a year). Brother Chong said, "The larger the prostate, the longer the recovery." He was gone most of his day off yesterday helping one of his assistants in the H.P. group install a dishwasher and today he babysat for Amber while she did the paper route (that starts in the wee hours). So... he's not convalescing at this point. I just hope pretty soon he'll put us on the list. ;-)

Read more...

Autumn and such

Sigh... almost done for the night. I'm looking forward to sleeping "in" tomorrow (which means getting 7 hours of sleep, probably). ;-)

I forgot to include this little Nala photo in a previous post. This was one of the first Disney toys Diane found and repaired. She took this photo and posted it on her blog (you can find her link to the left). I don't know how many boxes it will take for her to ship these toys when it's time to go back to college, but many of them will go to other places.

The following pictures were mostly taken around our yard, except for this first one which was taken by Robert from his yard (and a couple at the end). I don't think I sent this already... it's been in a folder since the end of the summer. If it's a repeat... sorry. :-) He looked out one day to see this Great Blue Heron sitting on the roof of a neighbor's house. I don't recall how big a wing spread they have, but it's impressive. We used to get them here on occasion because of the pond next door.


Toward the end of the summer the asters really come into their own. I really liked this picture of the Aster frikartii 'Monch,' taken on a misty morning. Like everything else this season, it bloomed about 3 weeks behind schedule.


I didn't do as many peaches this year... just got four boxes and canned one of those for someone else. They always look pretty in the jars so I had to take a photo with the new camera. I wish the old kitchen looked as nice. ;-)

Oh... this is pretty dumb, I know, but I laughed when I brought out these chicken pieces while preparing dinner. Is it just me... or can you see a dinosaur on top and a manatee below? I admit, the dinosaur looks a bit decapitated... the sweeping tail portion is on the left side.


I thought this area out front looked kind of pretty after Ron helped get some tree limbs pruned. It sure opened up our view of the mountains. I still need to get in there and finish weeding that bed and replant some stuff. The trip kind of interrupted progress in the garden just when I was getting up a head of steam. The second photo shows some of the junk that had been cut back or weeded.



Ron monitoring the burn pile. We had quite a fire back there when those tree limbs were finally lit (after the burn ban was lifted). I stood by for awhile with the hose and kept dowsing the nearby tree limbs. At some stages flames were probably two and a half times as high as what you see here.


During the month of September, I made about 30 batches of soap for the holiday season. Orders are starting to come in now. With the economy the way it is, it will be interesting to see how sales are impacted.


Later in September, the leaves started to turn (birch the first shown below) and the hardy cyclamen went into their blooming season. I found several clumps happily growing in the pasture. :-) While I was stomping around there to look for filberts and take some photos, the neighbor's two dogs came over to investigate my activities. They think the lower field belongs to them... they've annexed this whole place. ;-) They are actually friendly dogs, despite their imposing demeanor.



In back, a confused fairy's fishing rod (Dierama) decided to send up a bloom stalk. Below is the barn, being engulfed in gold. The tree to the left is a maple we planted years ago and back and to the right is a HUGE poplar type. Probably a mistake... but it sure turned a gorgeous color this year. When we bought the place there was an old cherry tree growing in that spot but it was dying because of being chewed by livestock.



A couple of shots taken in the back yard after we returned from Utah. I was so happy we didn't miss the whole thing. Fall is one of my favorite times of year. Too bad I've spent this week pretty much chained to the computer. I hope it gets nice again on Saturday.



A witch hazel leaf didn't quite make it to the ground with the others. (This was a couple of feet over my head)...



Some of the volunteer cyclamen growing in the front yard.


The same area that was shown earlier... only the rosemary bushes are now gone. I hope to put one or two new ones in this general area next season.



Above, Sweet Gum leaves on a tree growing in the lower field. Below is a planter on the deck with a lobelia that doesn't know when to slow down.


This looks kind of neat (looking toward driveway from a spot near the entry). I just wish those trunks didn't belong to a rhododendron that really needs to be cut back. It's not seeming too eager about breaking new growth from the base. Hope to see some activity in that department this next spring.

Thanks to the glory that is Facebook... I stumbled upon these photos of Lynda, who is practically incognito these days. :-) Glad to see she's able to take a break from school and have some fun this fall. That reminds me... if you take a hop over to Diane's blog, you'll see an interesting pumpkin she worked on for a contest at Disney World.



Aaahh.... a wonderful place to stop... a fiery Japanese Maple. :-)

Read more...

And now for the Utah part of the story...

I've spent way more hours than I'd like to admit trying to change the layout and tweak this silly blog. There are still alignment issues on the left hand side that came along with the template. I need to move on to other things for now. Several gals from this very state (Utah) have paid for a large soap order and I've yet to pull and prepare a single bar! Does "obsessive" cover it pretty well? Anyway... let's get to the rest of the photos from the Utah leg of our trip. I still have some garden pictures in a folder and things I thought about writing beyond that, but we'll see how long the time holds out.

The picture above was taken on the Salt Lake City shuttle that runs between Rexburg and the SLC International Airport. Sharen dropped me off in the morning of the 20th and it took the next 5 plus hours to arrive in Provo. We lost a bit of time at the vehicle change in Salt Lake City. Another service takes people from there to places south.

A nice young gal got on at Blackfoot and since I was testing out the on-board bathroom facility =:o at the time, she sat next to my empty seat, thinking it was the one place where no one was sitting. As it turned out, she was a nice traveling companion and we had quite a few common interests. After chatting with her on and off for a couple of hours I finally realized who she reminded me of and asked if anyone had told her she looked like Hilary Swank? She said she gets that all of the time. :-) She (Emily was her name) and her fiance were about to get married and he had a menagerie of farm animals and Arabian horses on the place. There seemed to be an animal theme going on overall since the shuttle driver raised goats and had a running conversation going with a gal sitting behind him. It sounded like he used them for pack animals and probably for breeding and showing.

Emily's mother had tried her hand at soapmaking some years ago and she was quite interested in that. I got her address before we parted ways and told her I wanted to send her a few bars to try out when I got home. She also wanted to order some as wedding thank you gifts for a few family members. Well... yesterday I got the email from her informing me that some unforeseen circumstance had led to the wedding being canceled. That's unfortunate. :-/ She seemed excited about it. I still want to mail her some soap so I hope she'll reply with her current address... I only had the one at Rigby where they were to live after the wedding. One has to assume that whatever comes down, it will ultimately be for her greater good. She was a really nice girl (a little older than Karen).

Since I was arriving in the late afternoon, Alex was supposed to meet me at the Marriott Center but Kristine pulled one of her fast ones and showed up instead. :-) Her boss told her to take off a little early when he heard she had family coming. The following are some photos taken at the house where they are living/house sitting. It sits on the last street on the edge of town.. halfway up a mountainside and bordering the Uinta National Forest (Mile High Drive). When you looked across the street from the driveway, all you saw was that mountainside... it had a real feeling of history to it. It almost feels wrong to have houses up that far... like it should be retained in its natural rugged beauty.

We made a sidetrip to Costco before coming to the house, so while I was goofing off snapping photos, Kristine was packing in the groceries. She led me in to see the cat they "inherited" with the house and the next photo is him greeting her. He belongs to a grown daughter of the folks who own the house but at this point he thinks he belongs to Kristine and Alex.

She made some dinner for us that first night and I cooked a couple of days later when Terry Ray came by for a visit after work. The photo just above is of the mantel in the living room. Wherever Kristine moves, she has that picture of Tabitha in a place of honor somewhere. She lived next door to us when the kids were little and was tragically killed a few years ago. That photo was taken on our couch when she and her then fiance came by to announce they were engaged. They had an infant son when she died. Michael has since remarried a really nice gal and they have had more children.

This next one is a closeup of part of the sunset from their deck. They have a breathtaking view of the Provo valley and Utah Lake. I loved this little cloud.

The next photo is the mountainside as seen from their driveway. If I were looking at this as a kid, I'd be trying to climb up to that rocky outcropping just beyond the first group of colorful bushes. That cave-like look under the rock shelf is very inviting. Kristine said there was a geo-cache somewhere in the vicinity but it was a chore to climb up.

The photo above was taken from their deck. The homes in this neighborhood are huge. I'm not sure why anyone needs quite that much space, but it seemed to be the order of the day. I suppose you'd stick out like a sore thumb if you built a normal size house here. ;-)

After she gets home from work, Kristine loves to cozy up on the couch (below) with her laptop. She started a blog (in the list to the left) recently and has been trying to keep that updated and entertaining at the same time. Hers is a lot more fun to read than mine! The next photo was later when she and Alex were discussing finances after a family home evening lesson on the subject. She'd gotten Quicken on her computer and was loading all of the info in that she could reconstruct. I love that program and it's really a nice thing when the discussions start. Better to have cold hard facts than just anxieties based upon partial knowledge and observation.

The third picture in this sequence was taken when Terry came by to visit and have dinner. It's always great to catch up with her (she lives in Heber). There is a glorious sunset happening outside and you can see that through the window.

Ron and I took a little walk in the neighborhood on Friday afternoon and I snapped a few more pictures of the native plants, etc. It appears Euphorbia myrsinites grows there (Donkeytail spurge). I love that little plant but never bought one for myself. We used to get them in the perennials section at the nursery. Even in the hottest weather, their blue green succulent foliage makes you feel cooler. I had a picture of one but I'm not putting it in here. It's enough that I torture some people with just talking about plants! The fall color had not finished yet and I wish I'd have had the camera when we took a quick trip to town to see where Kristine worked. There are tons of deciduous trees in the yards and along the streets and they were so pretty. There's nothing like autumn in an area that gets crisp weather at night.

This huge house has been for sale for a long time. Any takers? The photo after is of Ron looking at a couple of kids hiking up on the mountainside. He's standing right near their driveway (to the left) and that copper colored car is Diane's. We drove it down and left it for her. She'll fly in to SLC airport in January and drive up to Rexburg from Kristine's. I sure hope the weather will be good for her that week... and that a big rock doesn't come rolling down on top of her car. ;-) [ I think they moved it after this was taken.]

One of the fun parts of the visit was meeting some of their friends. She often talks of certain people and now I have faces and personalities to attach to those names. This fellow below (Denys) is from the Ukraine (speaks excellent English). His wife (Valerie) had gone there for a two month stint... either school or work and met him during that time. Amazingly... long distance relationships sometimes work out really well. :-) He seems like a real Renaissance type and very charismatic. They were a lot of fun. Another couple they see are named "Jack and Jill." They were over for Family night on Monday.

A few hours after Ron's arrival on Friday, Alex's dad flew in for a weekend visit. He'd already zig-zagged across the continent before finally getting to leave the airport! He was working last week and I believe came from Texas, but had to fly all the way up to Bellingham (layover?) before going back down to Salt Lake City. I don't remember why that happened, but it was tiring and time consuming. Alex and his dad spent the next day with his uncle and family on the lake while Kristine hung out with us at the house and took us to the airport. Ron got quite a few little things fixed while he was there. I teased him that he should move away and come home to visit once in awhile. He's a regular maintenance machine when he goes to his sister's or one of the kids' houses. :-) I think it's more fun to do those things at someone else's place... you don't have to own it. My contribution was tidying up around the place in the usual way (dishes, etc.), baking rolls for Thanksgiving and doing some laundry. We also got a bug one night and moved her big TV and entertainment stuff into the living room. I went to the trouble of taking the auxiliary hard drive with some video projects on it but never had enough concentrated time to dive into those.

All in all, it was a great week, despite some unusual experiences and a bit of sleep deprivation. I had the distinct feeling I was sharing my room for the first few days with someone unseen. I won't go into detail here since most people reading this would just think I had a loose screw, but I know some of you have had those experiences or go a step further and see who it is. I'm grateful I don't get the visuals! Nothing dangerous... just unsettling for this light sleeper. I think they kind of tagged along with the heirloom bedroom furniture. ;-) What was weird was that when I went into the room on Thursday evening and felt like it was clear, the overhead light was noticeably brighter than it had been the first half of the week.

Now we have a sense of place for the kids when they talk about what is going on in their lives and have met some of their friends, etc. I think that is the most enjoyable thing about visiting people... just going with the flow of their normal lives. It's quite different being in that sub-culture. I'm glad I don't live where most everyone around me is LDS. There are a lot of nice people there, but also a tendency for many to be extremely cloistered and somewhat on guard (some of the locals... not necessarily ones who are there for college etc.). With the neighborhood pretty much being all of the people you see at church, you don't really get much space or privacy. I don't know what it is... but it's noticeable to those who have moved in from areas where they were in the minority. Up here you are tickled to spend time with people who share your religious beliefs because it's kind of a rare experience. Down there you are probably hungry for some privacy and space. Candor can be hard to find. I'm sure when you get out of town and into the farming areas, this drops away.

Alex and his dad were having a conversation about "clean floors" on Saturday morning. His dad said the whole "clean floor" thing was fallacy and they talked about the intermingling of molecules that occurs when you walk across a floor in your socks or feet. I think there was some physics coming into play there. ;-) I told them a germ-o-phobe would freak out if they were listening to that dialogue, but it also made me think of how our culture is getting ridiculous in its anxiety over bacteria. Of course, there are some killer strains of bacteria out there we need to fear and avoid, but if we sanitize our environment of all garden variety bacterii (is that how you spell that?)... we are going to dismantle our immune systems. Our bodies were designed to react to the environment and build up immunities based on exposure. It's the same theory we use for vaccinating against serious diseases. The key is to get a little and not enough to overwhelm our systems. I think the same holds true when it comes to our mental-social-emotional strength. Being exposed to people with different opinions, belief systems and cultures causes us to challenge our way of thinking. If we learn to love people who are different from us, we broaden ourselves on so many levels. Cutting ourselves off because of fear is not a solution. Alex's father commented that when people try to cocoon themselves from outside influences, they can often get a rigid mindset or attitude that you can't teach them anything. They already have all the answers. They don't want to interface with those of a different mindset for fear they'll "rub off" on them. I'm speaking of "them" but I'm sure I have those moments myself. It's all a matter of degree.

Well... enough of my soap box! It's just been bugging me for awhile.

Oh... one other random but delightful event happened at the Salt Lake Airport, shortly before we boarded our flight home. I took that last trip to the ladie's room and while debating whether it was worth waiting (the line trailed all the way out into the terminal)... out emerged a woman obviously on her way to catch a plane. My menopausal brain has a data retrieval delay of several minutes, so all I could do at that moment was touch her arm and blurt out, "I know you!" It was Kate (Pearson) used to be Neilson from our ward in Silverdale. She's not lived in Washington for awhile and is now in California. It was the oddest thing bumping into her because I'd just mentioned her to someone a few days before (probably the only time in the last decade I might have had occasion to talk of her family... she's been gone for years). In talking to Judy's boyfriend about the perils of trying to combine families. His last marriage fell victim to that. Kate and her then husband were really nice people but the whole blended family trials just tore them apart. I always felt bad about that. It seemed they would have been a great couple under different circumstances. So, in the two minutes we probably had chatting at the entrance of the restroom, that's one of the first things to come out of my mouth. It was just weird. I sure liked her. It was a gift to bump into her like that.

Better close this for now. :-)

Read more...