Fun Day!

Today was one of those days that had a lot of laughs in it -most of 'em coming from my grandson, Kurtis!

His vocabulary is becoming something to behold -always a surprise what he'll come out with next.

This morning, after my normal computer time to check e-mail, look at Facebook and read posts, check my reader and read more posts , then read the newspaper online -CDT, from State College and after all that, wash dishes left from last night.

Once I got through all that, I decided the kitchen was an absolute royal mess so started to go through papers laying all over the place and pitch them in the trash. Moved on to trying to neaten up the divider counter and the island top -a job that took me the bulk of the afternoon but I did make some headway with it.

Most of the morning, Mandy and Kurtis were away -off to Clearfield with Ken looking for stain for the deck, a new screen for the front storm door and who knows what else.

Then, this afternoon -after I got a lot of stuff neatened up, a little organized, etc., I decided to bake a pan of Strawberry Cheesecake bars from a recipe I had found on the Taste of Home recipe site. Got that completed and in the fridge to chill and it was time to think about supper.

While waiting for Mandy to finish up a few things, I was playing on the computer a bit -first break time I'd had for well over 5 hours of being on my feet, working away in the kitchen, and Sam began to bark incessantly. I was doing my normal thing of yelling at him to "Shut the hell up" and then heard a voice at the front door saying that the dog wants out. Say what? Turns out Sam was barking because my neighbor from up the street had stopped by to return two of my plastic food storage containers that I'd put some leftover lasagne in one and some ginger cheesecake in the other and dropped them off Sunday evening for Shirley and her husband Bo.

Not one to return something empty, seems Shirley had filled the one container with some great home-baked Snickerdoodle cookies too! Mmmmm, love those cookies, I do!

Kurtis was upstairs when Shirley came in but when he came downstairs and she spoke to him, I asked him if he knew who this was and he said that he did so then I asked him, "What's her name?" He really surprised me -also made me really happy too -as he replied "Is Shirley." Yep, it is Buddy Boy! So nice to see him recognizing people and remembering then too who they are. Just some more progress going on here ya know!

However, after having been in the kitchen all day already, not having anything thawed to cook either, I made Mandy and offer she couldn't refuse.

So, away we went for supper at the "Pumpkin House" -also known as the West Branch Diner. That's a bit misleading actually as the true name of the place is the West Branch Diner but most everyone around here refers to it simply as the "Pumpkin."

We got there, got coffee and some root beer for Kurtis to try -his first time having anything other than milk at a restaurant and placed our order when Mandy commented to me about someone who had just come in the place.

"Mom! Aunt Carm just came in!"

My response was "Really! You're joking." And she assured me she wasn't joking and about that time, there was our old friend, my former next-door-neighbor, Carm!

I haven't seen her in several months and to prove how long it's been since I last saw her, she informed me she retired from the work force last October! WOW! Had it really been that long since that last time I'd talked to her? Guess it had.

So we invited her to join us and proceeded then to try to do a little catch-up in what's been happening in both our lives.

She was teasing me about my new hair style and then realized that it wasn't one I'd actually chosen but had kind of been forced into it when the chemo caused all my hair to fall out -back in October. And what little bit had been left behind, I had had the neighbor (Karen) come over and shave that tidbit leftover off!

But since late March now, the hair is slowly growing back in -thank you very much!

As usual, with Carm -who actually is not my kids' aunt but we refer to her and all her sisters and her brothers as this or that aunt or uncle,(makes life easier to identify then who we are talking about that way) we fell into a great easy conversation.

Carm's family -having been my next-door-neighbors from about 1951 until the early 70s when her parents sold the house next door to me to one of their daughters and her husband, so we still had a member of the Little family living beside us then for almost another 20 years! That, plus Carm's niece, who parents had purchased the family home, went on to marry my ex-husband's brother, so my kids then got in the habit of referring to Carm's Mom and Dad as Grammy and Pap because they heard their cousins calling them that. Again, just something that made life and identifications easier.

Although Carm is four years my junior, we've always been good, close friends. And she is quite a character too in her own right -very much fun to be around. She now lives over by Dubois but was down in our area to go up to the high school to observe the kids there on Prom night. One of her granddaughters was attending the prom as were at least two of her great-nieces as well. (And, Mandy and I later discovered that one of her great-nieces was the date of our cousin, Pj, too! Now, there's yet another small world kind of event, isn't it?) And after seeing pics on Facebook later of Pj and Carm's niece, I have to say they both have darned good taste!

Carm proceeded to tell us that on her way down the mountain, she'd stopped in Clearfield for some fuel for her car and apparently the kid working as an attendant at the station was admiring her. She is still one very good-looking lady, ya know! Anyway, their conversation got to the point where, after he had pretty much been trying to pick her up, she turned and asked him how old he is and the kid told her he's 25. At hearing that, and this is pretty much a typical response you'll likely get from her, she told him "Sweetheart, I have undies and the bottom of my drawer and shoes still in the floor of my closet that are older than you are!"

I sure would have loved to have seen the look on that kid's face though!

Kurtis was really wound up tonight at the restaurant too -jabbering about everything and anything! And being really cute too when Aunt Carm went to leave as he repeated to her all the last comments Mandy and I made to her. You know the usual -Good to see you again; take care, hope to see you again soon, etc. Yeah, he had his very own litany then of advice to her as she was leaving!

I have to say that today was a good day on so many fronts but especially that our decision to go to the Pumpkin House for supper really paid off in spades!

Just so nice to see Aunt Carm once again and to be able to share fun stories and get a little bit up-to-date with each others lives, ya know!

Now, it's about time that I get my self off to bed so I can get myself up early in the morning and hopefully, be ready on time to get to church, also on time! This may be something of a record setting thing if I do manage to do that as it has been ages since I managed to get to church two weeks in a row!

Wish me luck and say a prayer for me that I can do that!

And, as usual, I'll be saying prayers too for each and every one of you, my readers, too! (Yes, I do that!)

Nite-nite and Peace!