Flies-B-Gone

Only two flies today. ???

Perhaps they saw the *Fly Stick* on my desk that Bob got this morning, and they can take a hint.

Or maybe they are gearing up for a bigger attack tomorrow or the next day.

In any case, after wielding the fly swatter numerous times yesterday, we are calm -- though hot -- today.

By the way -- I'm proud to announce that yesterday afternoon I, the infamous swatter, managed to get FIVE with ONE BLOW!!

Little Tailor, move over.....

Seven with One Blow

Remember the story about the little tailor that killed seven flies with one blow? I wish I had him here right now. We are suffering a fly infestation, and haven't a clue as to where they are coming from or why.

It's nasty. Started last night. They were hovering around Bob's desk -- guess because the lamp was on -- and he was swatting right and left. We thought we got them all, and as I was going up to bed, I noticed them in the hall on the light.

This morning I heard "Whap! Splat! Swish!! Splot!" Bob got eleven more down in the living room. That looked like it -- until just now -- I dispatched another seven -- but it took about 25 misses to get the seven hits.

This is truly awful. Evidently there is a hideout and the eggs are hatching right and left. Oh yuk!

I'm open to any fly elimination techniques. My aim is less than perfect, and it's tough to get them when they are on our 11 foot ceilings....

Where IS that little tailor when you need him?

Country Club Casual

There was another benefit for Wellness Place the other night. It was a golf outing, followed by dinner and auction at a spectacular country club. Mind you, we (a) don't golf -- that is, I never have, and dearest Bobbert golfs about once every three or four years when he and Rob are together in Montrose, or Chris can entice him onto the links -- and (b) Country Club??

So, because he is Chairman of the Board, he thought we should attend the dinner at least. The invitation specified dress as "Country Club Casual." Oh joy. What does that mean? I polled my friends who polled their friends (none of us get out much). Someone at a meeting I attended suggested a pair of cute little capris with a nice tailored top and not too much jewelry. First of all, you have to understand that "cute" and "little" are not in my wardrobe. Finally my friend Carole and I decided that a nice pair of black slacks with sandals would do, and she would loan me a lovely peach colored silk jacket with cream colored tank top. Bob would wear a polo with khakis.

Truly the dress was cute little (mostly black) capris, with kicky little sandals, lots of (real) jewelry, and rich hair. You know rich hair when you see it. Mine looks rather ordinary. Not rich at all. And have you ever seen "kicky" sandals in a size 10 1/2? No, not recently you haven't.

But I did fit in for all that.

The food was spectacular! I would have been happy with just the hors d'ouevres -- particularly the little sushi-type rice rolls. But then they served an excellent filet with snappy green beans and swirled mashed potatoes. And a dessert to die for.

The auction? Not quite as much action on that as there was at the last outing in June, but still the Caribbean Adventure for 5 nights went for $8000, the fall baseball weekend in Boston for $6000, and a golfing extravaganza for $5000 (in Palm Desert, no less). The best though was donated by the auctioneer himself -- a "Lucy" beanie baby in a real cardboard, Versace box (donated by his wife). It was very funny -- and went for $1600!! Anything for charity.....

We sat, smiled, chatted up the folks at our table, and didn't bid.

This is certainly a different world than I'm living in!

The next benefit we have to go to is for DuPage Senior Citizens, and I think it is at the Brookfield Zoo. At least I'll know what to wear around the lions and tigers and bears, Oh My!

Potty Training, Generation II

I remember those days. I think with Jill we tried "Potty Training in Less Than a Day." I don't remember it all, but I do remember it involved many many M&Ms and a full day of nakedness and potty chairs.....

Today I received the following e-mail from Jill, mother of delightful grandbaby, Deven, not quite two:

"Thought you might enjoy the woes of the potty train"er" and the joys of the potty train"ee".

My poor strep infected child who also has a bit of diarrhea, decided today was the day he was going to use his potty. He told me just before his nap he needed to do "stinky pooties" and wanted to use the "potty". His little potty. Now remember, he doesn't like to sit on this thing, so I turned off all the bells and whistles thinking this may have been part of the eversion. He did sit - for all of one second - produced a drop of "stinky pooties" and began clapping and cheering for himself and doing a little dance in the bathroom. I washed out the bowl thinking we were done when he immediately sat down again and produced another drop of "stinky pooties". He would only sit for one second at a time and now insisted we clean out the bowl and wave "bye-bye stinky pooties" everytime. This gets old after drop #3 and I am stooped over cleaning up "stinky pooties" from both the bowl and the seat since he manages to smear stinky pooties all over it and will not sit down until the seat and bowl are completely clean of "stinky pooties". And now I have used up half a roll of Bounty paper towels and the bathroom smells awful!

This does tell me one thing, he clearly has anal sphincter control since he is able to control liquid stool and get up and down off the potty. Of course this does not go off without a hitch, he does manage to poop all over the bathroom floor and while I'm chasing him, he also poops a little bit on the carpeting in his room.

Now that my face is bright red from bending over for so long and my back is killing me, not to mention my patience is wearing VERY THIN! he finishes "stinky pooties" in the potty and continues to clap and cheer. How could you not be proud of him. Meanwhile, I have had to wash the whole floor with the Chlorox clean-up and wash the carpeting. The whole episode took 25-30 minutes.

Of course in order to make sure he doesn't take off his diaper during naptime - he now has to be put in a onesie AND a pair of overalls with the straps crisscrossed so he cannot take off the pants.

Who knew potty training could be so much "fun"!"

Note from Grammie: This is why childrearing is left to the young! :>D

Torrey -- Now

Torrey as a 2006 Formula One (U.S. Grand Prix) Grid Girl.

Torrey -- Then

Torrey's First Birthday

Happy Birthday, Torrey Beth!

Twenty-eight years ago as of this moment I was in the process of being induced, quite sure that if I wasn't, I would be pregnant forever. Due on the Fourth of July, and dilated to 3 cm as of the 20th of June, this seemed to be the only way out -- rather, this seemed to be HER only way out!

We were the first to use what would become the hospital's "birthing room" -- made so by the addition of about 3 posters that I taped to the walls. Torrey was supposed to actually be our first birthing center baby, but the birthing center was still 5 months away from opening, and truly I didn't think I could hang on quite THAT long!

Labor progressed rapidly -- and I'll spare the details -- suffice it to say that she was born to the 1812 Overture (which was a first for the hospital staff), and at 2:05 in the afternoon we had our precious baby girl. I do remember thinking at one point that perhaps I'd just as soon go home and do this another day -- of course since I was about 9 cm at the time, it probably wasn't a good idea.

They let Bob down at the business end of things to help with the delivery, which, as it turned out was providential....more on that when we do Tim's birthday story!

Another clear memory -- oh, how the memories of our babies' births stand out more than anything else in our lives -- was the beyond ecstatic feeling I had after I was holding her in my arms. It felt as though there was a huge balloon inside of me that was getting bigger by the moment. "I wish," I said to Bob, "that you could be me for just five minutes to feel how I'm feeling right now!" Part of it, of course, was having accomplished a completely natural delivery -- no meds, no epidural (and I lived to tell the tale -- can you believe it?) -- and the other part was having a new baby to love and to nurture.

There have been lots of birthdays for Torrey since then -- seemingly always on the hottest day in July. This year I was with her and Christopher in Indy to celebrate last week after doing a conference in Batesville, IN. Chris announced that my visit and our trip to Bonefish Grill for dinner commenced the "Week of Torrey!" He has surprises planned for every day this week.

But the best birthday was the one in 1978 when I became a mother for the second time.

And the next bit of music we played was the Hallelujah Chorus!

The Woods in Montrose

Yes, we have friends -- the Woods -- in Montrose. In fact, a couple of their kids went to Taylor! However, I'm talking about the *real* woods. As children we roamed the woods on the lookout for snakes (shudder!!) and other wildlife. Our children built forts in the woods. There are wonderful "fences" built of flat stones piled carefully on top of one another. Our cabin overlooks some woods, and back behind the cabin are more woods. My mother had the foresight to snap up little bits of land that joined the cabin so that all in all, "Torrey Acres" has about 9 1/2 acres. My cousins own a couple of acres that we always referred to as "Sunset Slope" because that's what our granddaddy called it. There is a huge flat rock on Sunset Slope (can't see any sunset because the of the trees) where our families would often go to picnic. I had my 18th birthday there, complete with birthday watermelon.




Fort building many years ago with the then younger kids who are now all adults! (From left to right, Timo, Torrey, Helen Clare, Jill and Robbie).

Montrose Tradition

One of our traditions is going to Antol's in South Montrose and having an ice cream supper. I think Antol's has been there since Rosie and I first did our BIG summer trek with children and without husbands in 1985. In those days we had 6 children and various cousins and friends along so if we went on a hike to town we had them count off to make sure we had everyone. Tim was 1 and Reuben 18 months old that first summer when we went and stayed for nearly a month.

Of course there was that one unforgettable summer day in about 1988...the morning started when I accidently washed Lyn's contact lens down the drain...we had company; a former boyfriend of mine (we dated when I was at Wheaton, though I've known him since I was 12) brought his family -- wife and three children to visit, and we took them to Buttermilk Falls (Salt Springs). Jill dropped her retainer down the falls. Torrey fell down a hill in the woods and broke her left arm but didn't want to tell anyone, and then to top it off, Ian (David's youngest), got sick and threw up all over everything. Not one of our more auspicious days.

But this is the 2006 trip to Antol's:


Liz Anne and Lowen



The 2006 chorus line with Rebecca in front.

By the way, Antol's has just about the biggest and best selection of soft ice cream you could want. Not only do they have different flavors and toppings, they also have regular ice cream, sundaes and shakes. This year they had "crunchy" soft ice cream in a cone which was like a Dairy Queen Blizzard, but with the candies cut much more finely. I had a Heath Bar crunch which was my mother's favorite candy.

For several years they actually had Teaberry flavored soft ice cream which tasted just like the old Clark's Teaberry gum.

After Antol's we take the long way home which takes us up on the Ridge Road -- from there you can look over the countryside and see both the Montrose courthouse and the Presbyterian church peeking up over the trees in the distance.

Since the Ridge Road is up on a hill, it has become (yet another tradition) to get a "running" start, put the car in neutral, and then see how far you can coast before coming to a complete stop. Rick won this year.... I think he made it just about 2 miles.

Tradition and Montrose like -- oh, peas and carrots? (Just in case you are needing a Forrest Gump fix....)

Fourth of July Runners

Here are the runners...looking a bit drowned, but happy. Rosie, David, Helen Clare, Liz Anne and her boyfriend Lowen.

Siblings

Jan, Rosie, Rick, (wife Susan), and Lyn. We discovered we are really anal about being in pictures -- have to go in order of age. Every picture of the four of us is in exactly the same order. I think I'm always on the left....

Hmmm... I wonder if there is something to that???

Jill's Special Spot

Jill used to come here to do her devotions. This is just behind our Great-Grandfather's & Great-Grandmother's grave. GGF Torrey founded the Montrose Bible Conference in 1908 -- our cabin is just up the hill from the conference.

The Cabin

This is the new cabin, built after the old one burned down -- see picture two posts ago. That's niece Rebecca waving from the porch...

Little Fishies/Montrose Pictures

So what do little fishies have to do with pictures of Montrose?

It seems that when I downloaded my pictures from my digital camera, they all looked, well, rather funny colored. Everyone in the pictures looks a tad -- um -- as though they all need to go for a liver transplant. Upon checking my camera more closely, I noticed a little fish in the upper left hand corner of the settings....which, when I read my book again, translated into "underwater."

Like I'm going to take my camera underwater?!

I don't know how it happened.... Maybe when I switched the defunct memory card for the new one, I pressed a button that I didn't know I pressed and voila....underwater setting.

So, what you see is what you get.

Sigh.

And apparently Blogger isn't interested in adding pictures at the moment. I'll try in another post....

By the way...

Did I mention that I'm having a wonderful time here? It's been glorious. I just wish mine own family was here to enjoy it with me.

Oh -- and we are all rooting for Germany to win the World Cup

Happy Fourth from Montrose

1. I'm in Montrose. This is the "medium old" cabin in earlier days...



2. It's the Fourth of July.

3. It's been raining off and on all day -- just what we needed after the Floods of '06 here in the Endless Mountains...

4. Rosie, Helen Clare, Liz Anne, The Boyfriend (Lowen), and David all ran in the 5 K which incorporates three major (and I mean MAJOR) hills. In the rain. Rosie & Helen Clare both placed in their age groups. I could have run it too, but I didn't want to get my hair wet. Of course, the race started at 8:00 am, it is now 5:00 pm, and I would still be about 1.6 km out....but I digress.

5. We watched the parade in the rain -- the theme was "Let Freedom Ring" and it was dedicated to the 6 men of Company C from Hallstead (Susquehanna County) who were killed in the Iraqui war. The most poignant part of the parade was the flag covered casket that came by pulled in a cart by two beautiful horses.

6. We perused the 50+ craft tents that had been set up on the Green (um, actually it should have been called the Brown) in the rain.

7. We are reading lots of books, eating lots of carbs, drinking lots of the most delicious spring water and too much coffee. Rick and Susan left yesterday and Lowen had to go back today so we are down to 10 in the cabin.

8. It's wonderful being back here. Nothing seems to have changed except our young adults have become young adults and they are nothing short of amazing. We have many many friends -- so fun to see them in church and visit with them at the parade and during the race.

9. We've been coming to Montrose since 1960 -- 46 years. How can that be?

10. I'm hoping that next year Torrey will have the opportunity to introduce Christopher to the Magic that is Montrose....

11. And on a side note: I've been blogging for a year now -- started on July 3, 2005. I'm up to nearly 6000 visits....I wonder what this next year will bring? This past year has been wonderful...