May 7-May 13

Happy Mother's Day!  I had big plans for Mother's Day. Allison was busy getting through her projects as she neared the end of her semester. She worked ahead to clear her schedule so we could plan on visiting her at Salisbury. She purchased tickets to the Salisbury Orchestra performance of Video Game theme music Saturday night. We were all looking forward to visiting with her at school. Unfortunately, I was not feeling very well on Saturday morning. I did stop into Scott's Engineering Expo at school in the morning.. All the kids in the engineering program presented their year long projects. Scott presented his handicap planter. We stopped into Home Depot during the week to pick up some more plants. He had planted veggies which he started from seed, but they did not fair well inside the school for several months. So we picked up some fresh pepper plants and flowers, tomato plants to spruce it up. Early in the morning, one of his classmates helped Scott load the planter on the back of his pick up truck and drive it to the hosting school. All of the projects were voted on and only one was picked as overall winner in design and technical difficulty. Scott's project was not chosen in the top 10, but non of the projects from his school were chosen as winners. It was still a lot of fun to see all the different projects the kids came up with. Afterwards, Scott's classmate helped deliver it back home. When I got home, I took a nap before heading out to Salisbury. We took Allison out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse(lots of leftovers for her!) and then enjoyed the evening concert on campus. Although Tom and Scott would have preferred to watch the video games while they played the music.

On Sunday I still was not feeling well, but I did not want to spend Mother's Day at the urgent care clinic.  I noticed that I was getting some white stuff on the back of my sore throat and had a bit of a fever. But I muddled through and put together a Mother's Day dinner at our house for my Mom. I dropped her off at the hairdresser while I picked up the groceries. I also put together a photo postcard online with her new address(that I still have to mail out). After dinner, Tom drove my mom home so we could hook up her phone system. I have never been so frustrated with hooking up a phone! Now that Mom B is in a new apartment, the phone bills are separate from rent. Everything was included in her last building.  So when I called to have Verizon installed, they sent me a phone box, just like the cable. I called to hook it up and they asked if I would like to keep Mom's old phone number. I figured that would be easier and was waiting 2 weeks for it to be activated. When nothing happened, I called the service number and they told me they could not transfer the old number without a copy of the previous phone bill. However, I did not have a phone bill from Mom's last facility since the phone was included in the overall charges. So we set up a new number. I had to visit the Verizon store during the week to get it all straightened out. So I just wanted Tom to make sure it was running. Which it now is doing!  I also dropped off some flowers and new shirts for mom for mother's day.

Meanwhile, Tom was so excited about his toaster oven birthday present, he decided to get me an even bigger, digital toaster oven for Mother's Day and put his birthday toaster oven away for Allison. I also got a bracelet from Allison and Solo tshirt from Tom. Now I am set for the upcoming film!  And Scott was busy cutting the grass.

Spring finally rolled in and everything was in bloom. Our cherry and magnolia trees were beautiful, but the blooms did not last too long. Neither did the daffodils. But we enjoyed them while we had them, and the warm weather. Mom really enjoys riding through our neighborhood to see all the blooming trees, flowers and shrubs. Next came the tulips, azaleas and rhodedendrons. And the blue birds moved into my bird house and are busy raising a new family. The bird house and feeder also attracted a few wrens. Since the blue birds chased them away from the bird house, they had to settle on nesting in a flower pot and a small pine tree nearby. Usually the wrens nest in a Tiki bar on our deck, but it was starting to fall apart so Tom hauled it off to the dump. So they had to resettle elsewhere. A very busy nature center in our back yard! And time for allergies and ear infections in dogs. I had Cookie back to the vet for another ear infection. She needed more ear drops and this time we tried antibiotics. Anything to keep her from shaking her head all the time!

Tom has also been eyeing a new Weber grill. I kept telling him to bite the bullet and buy an upgraded version because our current grill was falling apart. He did not believe me until he tried to move it off the deck to make room for his new grill. The bottom fell out, but someone still took it when he dropped it off by the curb. So he upgraded his Weber grill for the new grilling season and both Scott and Tom have become pros trying it out. Or at least feel like pros on the new grill!