Marlene's Birthday

Our Birthday club went out to celebrate Marlene's birthday. In our club the one with the birthday picks the place to go and the day. She does the driving. On my birthday celebration I pick a near by place because it gets dark early and there is still snow. Marlene's is in the summer more daylight hours. She picked the Holiday in Phelps WI. It is a newly constructed supper club. It overlooks the lake. They have cloth tablecloths and napkins. They had live music. The food was excellent.

We had a extra bonus. Some years ago we had a young women who was very talented musically. She had a breakdown and she went into a place for care. She would not have any communication with us. As we drove to the restaurant we brought up her name and were wondering how she was and where she was. The waitress had just seated us and we looked over to the table next to us and the young lady was seated at the next table with her sister. We had to take a double take, were we seeing things. It was her. We went over to the table, and she was happy to see us, and we talked and hugged while we ordered and waited for our food. She was staying during the summer at their cottage and in the winter at the family home in Ohio. It was so nice to see her and see that she was doing well.
On to the casino. They had a concert that was to be held in a large tent. As we entered a storm broke out with thunder and lightening, so they moved the seating time so the casino now was packed . The birthday girl won and every one but me won a little. I lost the 20 I set aside to play with. I can still be a part of the losers party. Here I was trying to win enough for our down payment on the house. There was a person from Crystal Falls that won 5 million before so maybe but I don't think she was playing the pennie machine. You have to play big to win big. That's not for me.
The day was a good one except for the rain. I forgot to mention that the power went out in the casino for a short time. Ihad gone to the restroom but there were people on the ATM machine and those at the slot machines that had trouble.

Day Off

I took the whole day off. I was not planning to do this but a friend who use to live here came to visit. She has family here who she spent the morning with and then the group of us that use to be together went out to eat. In the morning I went to TOPS . We had good conversation and a good meal. This was true of both groups. I am also going out again on Friday with the group to celebrate a birthday. I don't think this is a good way to lose weight but it is good for sanity. One of the group who is going through a divorce and is selling her house and moving is part of the group. I think we both needed a break.

I was going to put up the tables tonight, but I need John's help and he felt it was too late to go out. Will need an early morning get up and move. Although the idea of name your price is a good one we will go with the quarter for this one. The next one a name your price might be good, it has some items that I would like more than a quarter. I could give a bottom price.
Hope I will be sane tomorrow night.

Working on Leaving this House

Most of my time has been trying to clean the house for those interested in buying it. We have collected so much stuff and because of Dr John's illness we just brought in the boxes and put them down and we still hadn't put things away so in the basement you can just squeeze through a small pathway. The pathway is now a little wider. We [Lori and Pete] took two loads to the dump and two loads home to store for us. The garage is full of things for the rummage sale. We are thinking for our first sale to price every thing on the tables at .25. We don't have time to worry about pricing.

I am sorry I haven't blogged and I probably won't until I feel the house is in order .

Dollhouses I received

Jill commented that she had a metal dollhouse which she loved to play with. My parents gave me this dollhouse also. I let it go when we moved here five years ago. I still have the furniture Its is a little old fashion for my granddaughter. She had to ask what some of the pieces were.

I also got another dollhouse when I was nine or ten, which meant a lot to me. Our neighborhood gang[not like the ones in the city just kids that hung together] consisted of four boys and three girls. The boys got in a fight two against two. Can't remember what it was about but I took sides. One of the boys walked by my house and I was on the porch and I engaged in some not so nice language back and forth then I took the bow I had[ I was not allowed the arrows they had metal tips] and raced down and hit him. He fought back and pushed me down on the ground Jumping on my legs which were crossed and I heard a crack and I felt the pain. He ran away. I broke my leg, and my parents took me to the hospital and my leg was set and I returned home to the living room couch.
There was pain but you should have heard the screaming and crying I did when the boys mother came to say how sorry she was that I was hurt by her son.

The father and his sister made from a wooden crate a dollhouse for me. It was decorated and had a number of rooms. They also gave me some home made furniture and dolls. That made me want to make my own dollhouse.

This story probably gives you another view of Betty.

Dollhouses

When my granddaughter came last week we started to work on building a dollhouse. This was not probably a good choice on my part. I had to try and get my house ready for others to look at, and we put up a card table to work on in the middle of my dinning room. I love dollhouses and my granddaughter does also so I wanted to share that with her and I had the dollhouse kits in the basement. We did not get it finished because we ran into a wiring problem for some reason the tape did not work. We got the first and second floors in and got tile in the bathroom and carpet in the bedroom. Today I brought the undone house to the basement covering it ,reboxing materials not used yet. We will beable to finish it next time we get together. I have made three dollhouses and collected dollhouse furniture. Bree likes to use the dollhouses and as she plays makes up stories which she puts on her blog.

The desire for a dollhouse began when I was very young. I was three or four when I began a conversation with a boy across the street. For many days we would talk across the street not being alowed to cross the street. He lured me with a promise of a dollhouse his father had at work. I crossed that street and many more in search of his fathers work place. I got scared the further we wondered from my home but he threaten to beat me with his belt, so I shut up. We were at one time in the bus terminal where they told us to leave. They may have called the police. The police picked us up and drove us to our homes. We were by the ore docks when they found us. The docks were about six blocks away .I have a great guardian angel.

I have a problem that I will have to bring up to Dr John. I would go to his blog from my sons but the links are missing at my sons. I tried Lori's that didn't work.

Another Place to Go

I would like to encourage you to visit Upper Peninsula Michigan and Beyond found to my left it is a small square under Mimi. She doesn't blog often but does have a lot when she does. She has other sites also which I found like Outside My Window Life in God's Country by Sue . Go to Sue's recent post also.

I am blank for writing so I want to share other places that have something to read.

A Hermit Life

TC said that in his next move he might like to become a hermit. This is not a quote. I once when I was in college said that I would like to become a hernit and that was not acceptable to the instructor. He might have felt that was not a goal to have as you pay big bucks to go to school.

I like solitude. I like sitting by a river or a lake listening to the movement of the water. I like hearing the songs of the birds. I like walking down a woodland path.

I do not like noisy traffic,or crowds of people. I do not like calls from someone trying to sell me something I do not need. I do not feel comfortable with large parties, unless I am the host.

I have learned however that I would not like being a hermit either. When Dr John was ill I liked the support I got from others at the Beacon House or from my friends. I like bible studies. I like meeting at TOPS[take off pounds sensibly]. I like the friends I have made blogging. So a hermit's life is not for me.

We have been trying to get our home ready for people to see it. I put new lights in the front porch I know that doesn't sound like a big task and it is not but I also have to find the lamps a round it. At Christmas we took them down and put in an adapter to be able to light the Christmas decorations. I have one set done but can't find the other. I am going to have to go up in the attic, which is hot now but that is where the Christmas decorations are stored. It would have been smart to have restored them when we took down the Christmas decorations. We also began clearing the front door area of things we piled there. Boxes of trains not used in the train layout. We also put together an end table that was boxed sitting in the hallway sense it arrived. We are not speedy people.

My daughters arm is improving she can wiggle her fingers but can not bend them yet. The swelling has gone down. She decided not to go to Madison sense the meds seem to be working . They did increase the doseage.

My sister is in California for treatment and will be there for two months. Please continue to pray for her.

The 4th Weekend

We went down to Green Bay on Sunday after attending a 50th wedding anniversary. We squeezed our gradndaughter into the car. She had a large suitcase and we had all the breathing equipment and two small weekend suitcases.

Monday we went house hunting and unlike the first trip we found the duplexes to our liking. Still have to do a lot of down sizeing. My daughter wants to look into building making to what we want. That is scary to us because it depends on the builder to do a good job and keep the cost to what we agreeded to. With a house already built you can see it as it is not a dream, even if it doesn't have all you want.

We had a good fireworks show and the only bad thing was my youngest son got hit in the face. That wasn't an only it did hurt but he said it was his fault because he got careless on the tapeing. I found and they gave it to me a completely safe firework a plastic globe of moving colors.