MaryAnn.  Grand Haven looks pretty calm today but only one person walking on the beach.  Must be cold out.

Jeanne, after 60 degrees yesterday, it surprised me to find 27 degrees at 8 am when we went to church.  Both Dot and I wore winter coats.  I think it is 55 or 56 degrees now, but if there is wind blowing, that can be rather cool.  I'll check it when I post this.

The air temperature at Grand Haven is 47 degrees, but no wind.  Probably no incentive to roam the beach with nothing going on.

Mary Ann

Hmmmm...at 3:16 my time, it is like a sheet of glass on the water with quite a few people walking towards the lighthouses and several shorebirds on the water and just above it.. There is also a bit of fog.

Hi everyone.  We wake to an overcast day with the prospect of rain increasing through out the day. We expect to get to bout 75 degrees here today.

The activities surrounding the Master's Golf Tourney got underway yesterday although the actual tournament doesn't start until Thursday.  This is a week not to venture over to Augusta to eat out as the restaurants are packed from what I understand.  Many businesses depend on this week to get them into a profitable position for the year.

I haven't decided whether I will go to my Monday noon meeting or not as still feeling tired this morning.  Yesterday I ended up not going to church as my heart was acting up and I felt it wasn't safe to be driving.  So I ended up spending most of the day laying down and also went to bed early last night but still didn't want to get up this morning. I did go out at noontime and got us something to eat.  I fear I am reaching a point where I am going to have to cut out a few things from my schedule, although don't have a lot of things to cut out and hate to think about giving any of them up.  Guess I will just make the decisions day by day.

JeanneP, one thing that is certain is that there will be change.  When we think back to the way life was in our earlier years it is interesting to see how things have changed.  Glad you had a beautiful day there in Illinois and that you were able to go all over town. 

Patricia, it sounds like you had a nice long rest on Saturday night/Monday morning.  Good reply to the guy who was sarcastic to you about your new smartphone.  When we don't know something then we don't know it.  The service animal sounds like he is a big help to the man in the wheelchair.  Nice of you to help with the food boxes and you certainly had good reason to be tired after all of that work. It makes sense to me for the doctors to move their practices close to the hospitals.  I don't understand the purpose of the State in not allowing the use of primary or secondary doctors. 

Mary Ann, it sounds like winter still have a few residuals left for your area.  However, nice that it warms up during the day.

Larry, the state feels it isn't for the patient's welfare but a way to make more money off patients by insurance companies. People here were given the option and voted overwhelmingly against it. Doctors and insurance don't mix well as I believe MarsGal stated.

I am sorry you haven't felt well enough and may need to give up some of your regular activities. Hopefully it is only temporary.

Larry, I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling very well. Like Patricia, I hope it is temporary .

We took our daughter out to dinner last night for her birthday, and had a most unusual meal.  We went to a new trendy restaurant here in town (actually within walking distance), and I sure do have mixed feeling about it.  It's called Bywater, and is a Creole/Cajun type place, that features New Orleans style food, and has a well known chef in charge of the kitchen.

They say that restaurants serve too much food now-a-days, but this was just the opposite! At high end places, apparently they serve as little as possible! LOL  Sandy and I ordered the Jambalaya, which was served in a shallow soup bowl, with about a cup of soup at the bottom of the bowl.  No bread or rolls. That was it, for $18 dollars a bowl!  AJ had oysters, and he was served  . . . oysters!   We felt like we had accidently ordered from an appetizer menu? LOL!  AJ and Sandy had a glass of wine, and it was served in a very tall, huge wine glasses with about an inch of red wine at the bottom. (which maybe was a standard amount, but looked ridiculous in the big tall glass.)

Needless to say, I was underwhelmed, and we won't be returning any time soon.  However, Sandy thought it was great . . . she loves that type of small expensive trendy restaurant.  It was her birthday dinner and she liked it, so that's all that mattered!

in time past i use to like to get all dressed up and go to a more Classy Type restaurant. Specially if on a vacation. So true though. It is amazing how little food is served to you. Looking so fancy though.  It always seemed that we had to stop someplace else within a hour or so in order to eat again.
Now I find myself trying to just eat small portions like that at home.

Can't figure out if I want to go out today.  Was storming earlier but the sun came out for awhile. Gone now. Not really to cold. Still need a jacket. 
I saw something in the Aldi Add the other day.  Think will just run over and pick up that if they still have them. Just across the street.  Can go in Sweats to Aldi's

I saw this on another site and just loved the whole idea! It is England's smallest castle in a gatehouse! Pond, vegetable garden, lovely lawns, and a mews! Of course, now I would need servants, but what a lovely dream!


http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-tiniest-castle-in-the-uk-is-for-sale-244209?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AT%20Daily%204317%20-%20Fresh%20Decorating%20Ideas%20Creative%20Places%20to%20Use%20Wallpaper&utm_content=AT%20Daily%204317%20-%20Fresh%20Decorating%20Ideas%20Creative%20Places%20to%20Use%20Wallpaper+CID_5b1fffadfd43c2bf2a7c3e64ed085edb&utm_source=email_newsletter

Marilyne, your story about your daughter's birthday dinner brought to mind my son's 21st birthday dinner.  It's tradition in our family for the birthday person to choose the restaurant for their dinner.  He had been to a well known Japanese restaurant called Benihana with coworkers in Seattle and liked the food.  There was a new Japanese restaurant in our little town so we all decided to go there.

The menu was in Japanese, the staff was Japanese.  We were well over our heads so they chose our meal.  It came in a chest with five drawers.  Each drawer had several different bites of raw fish etc. which we found out later was sushi.  We are not adventurous!  We couldn't eat it so we left and ended up at a hamburger joint!  That was 35+ years ago and we have never had Japanese food or any kind of sushi again.

We have a lot of Thai, Vietnamese and other Asian type restaurants now, but I stick to Chinese  now.

Mary   size=14pt][/size]

Tom and I met a friend and her son for lunch at one of our favorite places - The Corner Bar.  It is in Rockford, about 6 miles north of us.  You get plenty to eat and it is not fancy, but it is good.  The specialty is Chili Dogs and I had a couple, or I ordered a couple, but ate only one.  I had half of my lunch from yesterday and ate most of that before Tom said he was meeting Mary.  I told him I wasn't going to eat much, but I did want to see Mary.  For $7.50 I got two chili dogs, fries and coleslaw.  I brought home one chili dog, the fries and coleslaw.  Unless Tom eats the fries (and he doesn't need them), the fries may not be eaten.  I had told the server I didn't want them but when she brought them, she said they'd only be thrown away and I said if I didn't eat them and left them on my plate, they still would get thrown away.  So I got them.  Tom said we'd take them home.  I almost never get fries with anything.

It was good to see Tom's friend and I'm glad I went.  The Corner Bar is a place you can take youngsters; it may be a bar but it is a family restaurant too. 

It has been a dreary day and started raining while we were eating.  Our temperature when we left home was 54 degrees but is now down to 46 degrees.  I don't expect snow, however.

I was going over my income tax when Tom invited me to go with him, so I still have to do that.  I will get a small refund from federal, but I must pay the state.  I pay the state because I don't have state tax taken from my pension but I am going to change that so I would have to pay only a small amount, or at least smaller than I'll pay this year. 

Now, I think I'm ready for a nap!

Mary Ann

The Big April Fool one for this year that the kids found. If someone walks away from their computers. Just hit their Ctrl+Alt+down arrow.  Will put screen upside down.
to put it back Ctrl+Alt+up and back in business.   I never knew that one.  Fooled me

Mary Ann - Your lunch sounds much more reasonable than our dinner!  I rarely eat fries anymore either.  I like them, but they don't do my cholesterol any good. 

MaryTX - I love your story about the Japanese restaurant! The food arriving in a chest of drawers is certainly unique, and must have really surprised you!  I'd love to see that.  However, I wouldn't eat raw fish, in any form either.  I finally tried sushi, not too long ago, but I only ate the veggie ones that contained avocado, and also tried one with chicken.  Not bad, but I'm not anxious to have more!  I do like Vietnamese food - especially the Pho soup.

Jeanne - I looked up the restaurant reviews on line for Bywater, and see that it got mostly raves and 5 stars.  Upon reading the reviews, I can see that people ordered a lot more than we did.  Meaning . . . we should have ordered other things on the menu, to go with that miniscule bowl of jambalaya.   Most people ordered three or four things apiece.
I guess that goes to show how unsophisticated we are! ha ha     

Mary TX, you didn't mention cost in your previous post, but if you were to order more, you would have had a larger bill.  It looks as if things on the menu were ala carte.

The only Japanese restaurant I have been to was probably nearly 30 years ago in Farmington Hills MI when my nephew and his wife took me.  This was one where several people sat around the cook who was very flamboyant with whisking his knives back and forth while cooking our dinner.  As I recall, the  food was good.  It was a classy place.

Tom and I went to a Chinese restaurant last week which wasn't so classy, but the food was good and it was hot (in temperature), and the soup was a little hot in taste.  I had sweet and sour chicken.  It is a place where I might not choose to go to but if someone else wanted to go, I would be glad to go too. 

Mary Ann

I'm surprised that no one had any comments about England's smallest castle? It's for sale for "only" $627,000 and includes a garden, a pond, and two buildings. 

Patricia, the castle is cute but a little out of my price range.  If someone gave it to me, I might consider taking it, but I don't want to move from here.  It kind of looked like a doll house.

Mary Ann

It's a little out of my price range as well and on England's historical register so it would probably be expensive to run. However, I could see myself kicked back by one of the ponds with a cool drink and my flip flops...

A castle would be nice and the price is nice.  Just not in the mood for a castle right now.

Joan, Ha Ha Ha!

I looked at the site again and I think the stairway would do me in.

Mary Ann

The second building is a converted mews and has a regular stairway and large bedroom with an office on the ground floor. I think I'd save the "castle" for houseguests. What sold me was the grounds...but then I'm hardly likely to buy it so.....

Hi everyone.  After a rough day around this area yesterday with heavy rains and several tornados in our county and in Augusta, across the river, this is a exquisite day.  It is clear and sunny and we expect to get to 85 degrees this afternoon.  However, the forecast for tomorrow is more of what we had yesterday and then it is to cool down and clear off and should be perfect for the Master's Tournament, which starts on Thursday. 

I just completed fixing Pat's scrambled egg and strawberries breakfast and then grated two pounds of cheese, which isn't hard using the grating appliance we have.  The hardest part is cutting the cheese into strips.  I plan on trying to get to Aldi's today as the refrigerator is getting low on several items.  That will be the limit of my endurance for today.  Fortunately I know where things are located at Aldi's and the store is small.

My next door neighbor is moving out today.  The moving van is there.  This is the neighbor that has two Bentley vehicles, one of them new and he brought one, if not both of them here on the moving van.  They have been nice neighbors and I hate to see them move as pretty sure I won't have anyone else living next to me with even one Bentley.   

Patricia, I can understand the actions of the State and I have felt sometimes that we have unnecessary visits to the primary doctor.  I don't have that many activities normally so it will be hard to give any of them up permanently but I am having more and more of these down days.  Today is the third one in a row although I have set my mind to getting a couple of things, like I mentioned above, done today and two of the tasks have been completed and I am trying to recover as I sit here and write. For some reason a price of over $600,000 for the small castle just doesn't seem to fit with "small".  It certainly wouldn't be inexpensive to keep up either.

Marilyne, that was some dining experience you had with the small portions and large prices.  I guess you are suppose to savor the flavor rather than get a decent size meal.  Glad that Sandy was satisfied with the experience.  I wonder how much of that satisfaction was because she didn't have to pay the bill. 

JeanneP, you are right that we all would be better off with smaller portions to eat at a given time, especially as we grow older.  When we ate at the Cracker Barrel restaurant last week I ordered from the luncheon menu and it was half the serving of meat loaf as the regular meal and was just the right amount along with the two generous sides.  I didn't know about the screen turning upside down either.

MaryTX, we have had some good meals at Japanese restaurants and a couple where the chef cooked on a grill in front of us and was quite entertaining (I see Mary Ann has described the experience also).  A few days ago a friend said she and her husband had eaten at a Japanese restaurant not far from us and had a very good meal although a bit on the pricey side.

Mary Ann, I try to stay away from fries expect for McDonald's or Steak and Shake's, which are small and crispy.  I don't like a fry that is thick potato. 

Joan, like you having a castle has never been on my desired list of things to have in this lifetime. 

Larry, I just don't like fries with my orders.  Not because I don't like fries, because I do, but I know I should not eat them.  I don't know what happened in the kitchen because I specified "no fries" and they came anyway.  The server said if they hadn't included them, they would just have to throw them away.  What difference does it make as to who throws them away.  And why did they fix them in the first place.  I know most people do eat them with burgers etc, but if the order says "no fries" why fry them?  I ended up bringing them home and I'm going to check with Tom to see if he wants them, and he doesn't need them, and I'll pitch them.  At times, I might eat a few fries, maybe half a dozen, but not the amount they put on one's plate. 

it looks clear here, but radar shows rain.  I hope for the Masters that you do not have rain.  I like to watch golf for the players and the play, so the Masters doesn't mean that much to me, but it certainly does mean something to the players.  Once a year the ladies play at a course about a mile north of us. 

While making my bed this morning, Kendrick decided he wanted to burrow under the top of my quilt.  I let him be there while I got dressed and found he was still there when I went back in my room.  He is still there.

It is raining at Grand Haven and there are whitecaps.  Their stats say there is no wind, but there must be to have those whitecaps.

Mary Ann

I have a question for anyone... Instructions for my hearing aids specify not to let them get wet.  This means, of course, that for every shower and shampoo I need to remove them completely, which means I can hear absolutely nothing over the sound of the running water.  Does anyone know of a way to keep the shampoo away from them?

Oh, do I ever remember the old silver Bentleys tooling around Harrisburg 60 years ago now. We also had a number of Jag XKEs and, my favorite, the old "Bathtub" Porche 910. I was really bummed when they discontinued the 910 and went with the 911. And, of course, Mercedes Bentz. Now-a-days, I do not see any Bentleys or Porche around, and the Mercedes and Jaguars are not so very distinguishable as the old ones were. For a while, the Lincoln Town Car was popular. Oh, and they were a real smooth ride. Another very popular car around here, once upon a time, was the little MGB. My English teacher in high school was a road race nut, and one of my school mates died (gory detail - he was decapitated) in an accident driving one. The go anywhere vehicle back in the sixties was the Volkswagen "Beetle". Thanks for firing up my nostalgic memories, Larry.

This year I think the "Lincoln Town Car" is my favourite. Beautiful.  I need to change cars but looking at small ones. I just don't put any miles on Now.  How I loved the VW Beetles.  Had 5 of them. Last one was in the 70s. Always they were made in Germany. All mine came from there.  Then they stopped selling here. In the 90s came back but made in Mexico.  I was in the Factory there in about1990.  The new ones now are sold in town here and looking quite good. Much Highter though $28000.  Got my eye out for one about 2015.  Will be my last car I think.
Most friends growing up in UK had the MG. To hard to get parts here. Takes to long. Don't see to many.

My Brother in UK was a Race Driver and did TV comercials for the Jaguar XKE and they gave him one every year.  had to have your name down about 4 years to get one of those.  He also was on the International Moter Cycle
and got killed when he was 28.  I can still bring him up on the Internet

JeanneLee...I wear hearing aids..."but from what I read,  not to be  worn in the shower"..One of my aids dropped into a cup of hot tea once (not in the shower) and it was costly to have  fixed...So..my suggestion to you would be : take the phone of the hook, lock your doors, remove the aids from your ears,  and enjoy your shampoo while showering..

MarsGal - I wish you could visit me, and take a ride in our 1960 Porsche 356.  It was a great little sports car, but  is now is showing it's age. (aren't we all!) My husband restored it about 30 years ago, but old age has taken it's toll on the paint job, leather, and the canvas top. 

We also have a rickety old VW Bug . . . I can't remember the year?  Hubby drives it every day for local errands and appointments, so it's in good working order.  Unfortunately, I can't drive it anymore, because shifting all those gears is too painful for my arm and shoulder.  We bought a VW right before we got married in 1956, and we have never been without one in all of the 60 years we've been married. We don't still have  the original one, but have always had one Bug, and sometimes a VW camper, station wagon, bus, etc.  Needless to say, we love Volkswagens!

The car of choice now, here in Silicon Valley, (Land of the Young Millionaires), is the Tesla.  My daughter dated a guy for awhile who had a Tesla, and she was suitably impressed.

Jeanne Lee, I know nothing "yet", about hearing aids, but I would suggest you take them off when showering. I would also suggest you invest in a Life Line. Life Line can be worn in the shower. Where I live they are furnished, and must be worn at all times. I have fallen in the shower, and in minutes I had help.

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately it doesn't help.  I have been removing the hearing aids, ever since I first got a pair almost 10 years ago.  Part of the problem is that my hearing has deteriorated to the point that I really cannot hear without them. 

I do have a Life Line with automatic fall detection which i have always worn 24/7, including in the shower, but it sometimes sets off an alarm saying "Fall Detected" when there is no fall.  Simple enough to cancel that alarm - IF I hear it.  But if I don't, I have the ambulance at my front door.

Also, since I live alone I get random calls from neighbors and family checking on me and if a call goes unanswered everyone is concerned.

Looks like my only solution is to have someone come sit in my house while I'm in the shower.  One more loss of independence.   

I don't know anything about hearing aids---but can't you wear a shower cap.  Wouldn't that protect the ears but still allow for hearing?