Friday greetings

[Barb]

Good morning friends, sorry I missed yesterday here. But I just went through and read your posts.  Seems all is well.  It is blazing hot and humid here this week, but since there has been some rain, at least my garden stopped dying.  Liz, my Glads still look great, just love the color of them.  Willie, I wish I could meet you Kobe, he is such a good dog I know.  Ron, I have never been a game player but you make those games sound so fun, I would definitely join in.  I wish the 4 of us could have a get-together sometime somewhere.

Visiting my mom yesterday put me in a down mood.  It is so sad to see a person who used to be so lively, healthy and vibrant just go downhill so quickly mentally.  And her eyesight is very poor too.  But I know it is life and it happens.....just so sad when it is someone who means so much to me.  The only good thing is that she is in a very good nursing home and they are taking very good care of her.

I hired a pet sitter to come daily for 10 days after my surgery to help me with my cats. I won't be able to bend over at all for awhile, so will need her help with the litter box daily.  And a few other things.  I sure will be glad when the surgery and healing is all over.  The anticipation is tough.  Ron I know you know what I mean.

I have a chair yoga class today and tomorrow is a garden lecture by a favorite speaker downtown at a museum.  So I will enjoy both these.  You all have a good weekend,
Barb

[wsantia1]

Good afternoon Barb and everyone. Another hot and humid day here. We will only get up to 86 degrees here but with the humidity at 77% it feels a hell of a lot hotter. Starting tonight we are supposed to get rain all night and most of tomorrow.

I've done most of my fish chores over the past couple of days so today I will focus on the turtle and shrimp. Like most of you I am starting to get tired of the shrimp. I have a couple of struggling shrimp populations and I will probably take them to the next club meeting to auction them off. I will probably take some Gold Rams too.

Barb that is a great idea to get a pet sitter to help you out post surgery. I'm sure that you will have to do therapy as well and that will add to your things to do list and you will need all of the help that you can get. I'm sure that once this surgery is over you will be much better off.

That's it for me at this moment. Wishing you all a great rest of the day.

[LizStreithorst]

G'morning Barb and Willie.  Barb all my Glads have all quit for the year.  They sure do put on a show while they're in bloom, though.  The daffodils are first, then the Iris, and then the Glads and Daylilies.  Now that both of the yellow flowers in my garden are gone and I just have tall phlox and Cleome out front.  I love the calming butter yellow color of the glad's as well.

It must be very hard for you to see your mother in that state of mental decline.  Does she still recognize you?  Thank God you found a good place that takes care of her.  I'm sure you know that they take better care of the people who are visited frequently.

Willie, I'm going to take the shrimp I have left to the LPS myself once I get around to catching them and moving them to a holding tank.  It's strange about shrimp.  The first ones I got were reds and they were so prolific that I was feeding them to the Discus and Rainbows as well as.  Now they're not only not breeding, I killed a tank full of blue's.  They died after I did a big water change.  Twee says that they have been having trouble with shrimp, too.  Strange...

It was nice to wake up this morning and walk from a clean bedroom into a reasonably clean house.  Of course I still have a sink full of dirty dishes :-  They'll probably have to wait until tomorrow.  I'm sure I'll use up all my spare energy working on the Hillstream loach tank.  Everybody uses smooth rocks in their Hillstream loach tanks.  They collect algae and biofilm and provide nooks and crannies for the loaches to explore and a place for the little babies to hide.  We don't have rocks down here so I'm using pieces of your pottery, and 4" terracotta pots cut in half and their drip trays to do the same thing.  The 6 will go into a 60 gallon with course but smooth gravel, a big piece of drift wood that's smooth on one side and had crevices on the other, and an Amazon Sword in a pot.  I'm going to have to drive into Hattiesburg and get another couple of bags of gravel today.

I'm sure that after those 2 little things I'll be worn out from the standing and walking involved.  Now that's pretty pitiful but that's the way it is. 

It's hot as the devil here same as the rest of you.  Nothing much we can do about that either except go out early early or late in the evening and spend the rest of the time indoors.  Oh well...I'll check in later to see what's up with Ron and let you know if anything exciting happens here.

BTW, my Discus fry are still grazing on their parent's sides 

[LizStreithorst]

Well, I'm back from the pet store.  I got a powerhead that I could put a sponge prefilter on and the perfect smooth pebbles that I was hoping to find.  I'm glad she just hired a strong young man who knew the store better than I did and was happy to lift and carry the heavy bag of pebbles.  Twee and I shouldn't life and carry heavy stuff tuff but will if we have to.  She's only 40 but is full of osteoarthritis and I would have had a fight over who would take it to my car.  I can prevail over Twee when push comes to shove.  I cannot prevail over Ken, her husband  We had a disagreement over something silly once.  It was probably about who gets the money.  I always want him to put it in my "savings account" with me.  Ken will not let me leave the store without at least some of it.  I'm in the hole to them now but they always encouraging me when I want to breed something new that they have a market for.

I planned on my way home how I could easily get the bag of gravel in the house.  I used both my scooter and my platform dolly.  I'm how to do the things I have to do the easiest way now that I've become disabled.  I don't know what is easier to endure dying from, an illness in the body or an illness in the mind.

My pain meds have afternoon pain meds are helping me finally.  I'm gonna give Charlotte a late lunch, make myself a quick late lunch and lay flat on my back for an hour before I have to do WC and feed Charlotte dinner.

[Ron Sower]

Last one here today...and it's still Friday here...!

Barb, I'm sure you'd have a good time playing games with us...moving into senior living communities like we've been living in for almost 10 years now has been great for us...wouldn't change it for anything now...Do you feel the same way, Willie?...

Barb, my Dad died of colon cancer and my Mom died from Alzheimer's...both such debilitating conditions..I understand the some of feelings you're dealing with now...and sorry that you are having to deal with them...But as I and others have said before, Bill and your Mom have been very fortunate to have you in their lives...

Hey, Willie!...send some of your rain out here!...you too Barb and Liz!...

We only had about 13 orders going out today...summer doldrums...I just told our high school kid that Lucy and I would get it all done...didn't take but a couple hours or so...

Had a real shock tonight when I sat done to read my emails...the manager at the restaurant where meet wrote telling me that they didn't have us on their calendar for Sunday!!!...I know he and I discussed it because this meeting is our ice cream social...I wrote him tonight so I'll call tomorrow...sure hope they can take us...oh  well, I llfigure something out...

Goodnight all...