All in an April Day

We've enjoyed some productive, enjoyable days around our house this week.  With Bill walking again, he's been able to dabble in some projects, attend a meeting and check out trout streams in our general area. 

Phenomenal weather has kept us on our toes, making sure we don't blink and miss some of the magnificence of spring as buds open into leaves or beautiful flowers. 

Plus, it's been a great week to work with a paint brush. I've brightened up a couple of sections of board fence, have sprayed fresh coats of green, yellow, orange, red and brown on my stand-up planters. The front-yard planters are almost complete with new coats of "utility red." 

More lettuce and a few bean seeds have gone into the garden planters. 

And, over the past two days, we've tuned into Emma's world, while she has tuned in to ours.  

While her host parents, along with another teacher and some students were enjoying Disneyland yesterday as a lead-up to the JEA National Convention, Emma said she experienced a pretty ordinary day at school, followed by tennis practice at Travers Field.

She was still practicing when Bill and I went to pick her up, so I had a chance to catch a few shots of her in action.  I heard several acknowledgements of "Good shot, Emma" during the few minutes we were there. 

When she was finished, we headed toward Hope to treat our guest to some Ice House pizza.

On the way, she received an email, informing her that since she has earned one of the top spots in the whole junior class for her academics, she'll be receiving a certificate at a special program Monday night. 

Congratulations, Emma.  We, as temporary grandparents, are proud of you.

We enjoyed our pizza and talked about prom experiences.  Then, it was ice cream time, and now is where I have to insert that the LEMON MERINGUE ice cream at Ice House is heavenly and so refreshing. 

I would drive out there just to get another sample; it's that good. And, of course, the pizza is always good. 

Ice House is located on the old highway, which means there's not much through traffic, so there's no hurry to get to the car.  Lingering in the roadway is pretty darned safe, so we had some fun with photos. 

"Blissful" would be an apt word for describing our lives during this past week EXCEPT for one frustration.  

Read below. 

Emma's ready for school with lunch in hand. 

Emma on the tennis court at practice. 

That's Emma's host parents, the Young Loves Willie and Debbie, and that's Kevin Hutchins behind them, and I'm thinking those are two high school yearbook students behind Kevin.

Can you guess what ride they're "enjoying"?

Had to add this painting of a great horse named Rambo. 

Found it yesterday for another project.

My mother painted it. 

And now, the ongoing frustration which has caused me to ask Bill how much he pays each month for our land line. 

Can you hear me now?

QUIT HAVING US CALL OURSELVES .

WE CALLED OURSELVES THREE TIMES ONE DAY THIS WEEK, and neither of us was anywhere near a phone. 

We have no plans to buy anything from ourselves or to tell ourselves we’ve been committing fraud or having computer problems or needing medical equipment.

WHILE I’M AT IT, QUIT HAVING PEOPLE WHO WE KNOW HAVE DIED CALL US!

THAT’S DEFINITELY NEW FRONTIERS IN MORBID.

I think Bill and I have almost reached the line in the sand for our daily spam calls, which this week have been averaging 8-10 a day. 

We can deal with Microsoft telling us our computer needs some help. 

We can also deal with the fact that our ad with Google needs some attention. 

We'd like to tell the lady who calls about the aids for walking which we can get through Medicare that Bill doesn't need such things any more, but she won't talk back.  

She says the same thing every time, and we know that we've lost out on a really good deal which required IMMEDIATE attention at least two months ago. 

We don't want to sell our place, just yet, so the real estate company that called telling us to go to their website and give them contact information is wasting its time. 

We still have no idea, however, why William E. Love from #%^#$%% number keeps calling William E. Love at #%^$%%. 

Nobody is ever there, but we are there when the phone rings and when we see William E. Love is calling us from our number to our number, we just kinda scratch our heads and maybe utter a few cuss words. 

A year or so ago when one of my classmates who had passed away a couple of weeks before called me, I was afraid to pick up the phone, lest he start talking from wherever he went after he died.  

He was a good man, and apparently, his telephone number went with him to Heaven. 

I just let the phone ring, even though I am a bit curious about all the Heaven Hype we've heard all our lives. 

Bottom line is that Bill's answer to my question of how much we pay for our land line tells me that maybe we don't need to be paying $70 a month to receive hundreds of calls from nobody, from sales people, from Donald Trump, from dead people and from ourselves.  

I'm guessing the percentage of real calls now reaching our land line would be lucky to reach 4 percent. 

Just sayin' and just thinkin' it's time to get rid of the landline so we can add even more bliss to our lives.

Happy Friday.