When you're feeling down and you're not sure why...

... or it's little things getting you blue, you need to do something fun, even for a little bit. Or at least that's how I'm justifying grabbing up the dogs and going for ice cream (stopping for Frozen Paws for them).  ;)

Although I have been yelling at myself to start dieting again...  hmm....

Stopping to smell the wet roses.

It's raining and a little cool. When I was work on a day like this, we'd say how nice it'd be to be relaxing at home, curled up in bed or wrapped in a comforter, and watching an old movie, something in B&W.

When I got up early this morning and saw the rain, I remembered that. So I got the dogs around me, curled up, and watcxhing James Gardner in a Brett Maverick picture. I love James Gardner and Joel Grey is in this! He looks 19! What a great bonus.

My step-father is in the hospital. We didn't even know for 2 weeks.

Finally, his one son-in-law convinced the family to call us. After all, as he said, they would be upset if it was my mom and we didn't call them. Ralph had said he would call Cathi, but then didn't and no one thought to check.

He had to have open heart surgery and is on a ventilator. Then be put in an induced coma as they waited to give him a pace maker. That went in this past Thursday. The weird thing is: even with the pace maker, he's in defib. Isn't that what the pace maker corrects?

Two of my sisters and I went to see him on Friday; I braced myself for the worst he could look, so what he actually looked like was better. He wasn't in the coma anymore, but of course is pretty out of it. He recognized us and wanted to talk, but couldn't with the ventilator. So we told him to stay quiet while we talked. Gerry brought an angel my mom had bought her for bad times, and she put it on the table near him so "Mom can watch over you".

We stayed about an hour, until other people came to visit. We didn't want to overtax Ralph and let him know we'd visit again soon. He kept struggling to say something, even trying to reach out with his hand. I told him that I knew he was trying to say he loved us, and he didn't have to worry. We knew he did and we loved him too. Gerry and Cathi were so scared seeing him, that I worried he picked up on it. So I rubbed his frown lines away, told him he didn't need to think bad thoughts because he was going to come out of this strong again.

His son told us today that he's doing better. More awake and better color.

The Murder Mystery was a big success!

I am so happy with how it all went! We had a fantastic audience, exactly what you need for that kind of show; in fact, we sold out a couple of days before the show!!

And they loved it! The cast really delivered. I got comments like these:

I’ve told everyone I know about it, how good it was, how funny it was, how fantastic you all were and the great whodunit part!

YOU WERE AWESOME! LOVED IT

DO IT AGAIN! --Kim K.

My cheeks hurt from laughing and grinning the whole time!  - John A.

It was so funny and everyone was so good!  But I can't believe how you made all the details in there and how they tied together!  - Karen

Thank you, everyone, who made this a success and so much fun!  Here are photos from the show, taken by my friend John A.  Mouse over the photo to see the name of the cast member(s) or the scene.

Postcard from friends

I got a surprise postcard in the mail on Saturday. It then got confusing because it said:

"Dear Lisa or Erin"

My friend Lisa doesn't even live in this state let alone in the house, so why address it to us? But it was from my friends Cathy, Deb, and Laura. They were running in the Disneyland marathon and Laura thought of sending the postcards from all of them. They each wrote something and it really gave me a great smile. Especially this first line:

"Laura is making us sign these postcards"

I told them, that really made me feel special. LOL!