Some bad news: Aunt Eleanor died this past weekend. She was 91. The wake is tonight, and the funeral tomorrow. I ordered flowers from John...

Aunt Emeline called from her new cell phone to tell Patty and this is how the conversation went:

Aunt Em: Patty! Annie and I are going to Pal's! (An aside: a nice restaurant here in NE NJ)
Patty: That's great, Aunt Em! How are things?
Aunt Em: Good, good. We're going to Pal's now, for lunch.
Patty: Great, Aunt Em! How's Aunt Annie?
Aunt Em: She's the same. You know how she is. I'm calling from my new cell phone!
Patty: You got a cell phone? That's great, Aunt Em! When did you get it?
Aunt Em: We're here at Pal's, I have to go. Oh, before I forget, Uncle Mozzie called Aunt Eleanor.
Patty: What? (An aside: Uncle Mozzie has been dead for easily 12 or 14 years.)
Aunt Em: Aunt Eleanor, she died down the shore this morning, at Tony & Joan's. We're at Pal's. I'll call you later with the details. Eleanor (An aside: Little Eleanor - Aunt Eleanor's granddaughter) called Aunt Sara and she's calling us all to tell us (about Aunt Eleanor's death). I'll talk to you later, Patty.

That's really how a conversation with Aunt Em goes - I love her with all my heart, but you're definitely pulling out a few hairs by the end of a conversation with her. And by the way, she's in her late 80s now, too, so this whole conversation is at your loudest voice! And now we have to factor in a cell phone!!!

House update:


We are sided. Completely. And it looks SOOO nice! See? (Sorry about the two cars in the lower right-hand corner - that doesn't look so nice!)





And I will add a few more pictures here so you can see some detail not quite obvious in the whole-house picture...


We added a little decorative fan to the largest peak so it wouldn't look so blah...











This is our front door light.









And here are some handcrafted-by-Jack motion detector lights. He actually bought them at Costco, then took them apart and put them back together so that we could have light on three sides of the house, rather than just one. He split the light fixture, rewired it, and mounted them so that there are two individual lights on the front of the house, one at either end, and one on each of the sides of the house, facing the ramp and the boat/propane tanks.

The weekend was rather quiet. Got a little sun on Sunday. Made a ham when we got home last night (cooking 'til midnight!) but that's good eatin' for the rest of the week! (Just have to figure out what recipes on what days)

Okay, J got his first parking ticket. And he's mad at the meter maid! Let's ignore the fact that he was parked for more than two hours in a restricted spot (parking for 2 hours, max) AND that he was parked there under the sign that said "2 hour parking." I could slap him silly! And he got it within the first week of having his license! I suppose it was to be expected - you can't tell him anything, even though we try ("Don't drive to school, J, there's no parking and you'll get a ticket!")...

That's about it for today... I think I'll give myself a few days off from blogging, since it's quite apparent I have little to say... I don't want to bore you all to tears so I'll wait to see if anything really cool happens in the next day or so...