Planned Spontaneity

I am having a totally selfish day.  I planned this day to be totally spontaneous.  I have done, and will continue to do NOTHING planned ahead.  It feels wonderful!  (My brother and I have had a whole Facebook argument about whether I can say "planned spontaneity".  Maybe you can't plan it, but I plan to do in each moment today, exactly whatever I feel like at that moment.  That sounds like planning to be spontaneous to me!)

I stayed in my jammies late this morning.  (Ok, it was 9:30 a.m., but that's late for me!)  I got on the couch and put my feet up, tuned the TV to the Hallmark channel which is playing an all-day marathon of "The Waltons" and sipped my way through a half pot of coffee while catching up on a friend's blog.  I hadn't read her blog since mid-March!!!!

At 9:30 I slipped into my clothes and flip-flops, ate a bagel with peanut butter, brushed my teeth and headed out the door for Walmart.  On the way I stopped at the Zachary Farmers' Market and found a local artist there who was advertising some summer art workshops.  I am considering signing myself and Ashlyn up!  Samantha loves art, too, but is involved in a girls' softball league this summer.  I thought this might be fun for Ashlyn!

On to Walmart where I wandered around with no plan.  I picked up some things that I thought would be good on skewers on the grill tomorrow.  Jake and Christie will probably come over to eat after church.  Heather and George will be going to Clinton.  I also bought a bouquet of fresh flowers so the girls will have flowers for the Flower Cross at church tomorrow....I don't have anything in the yard nice enough to take at the moment.

Now I am back on the couch with my laptop!  I picked up some ingredients and MAY make a banana pudding for our dessert tomorrow....but maybe not.  I will wait and see what strikes my fancy later today! 

Ron has spent time over the past 2 days in our above-ground pool.  He has vacuumed and skimmed and it is looking really good.  I took a sample to the pool place yesterday and got the directions for getting it balanced.  The kids are out of school all next week so am sure they will want to swim....our temps are in the high 80's now.  I may even have to get in and float around a bit myself later today!  I am sure Ron will come home ready to jump in!  He is over helping Jake rebuild a wall on a storage building in his yard.

I called Mom on my way home from Walmart.  She was here for 2 1/2 weeks.  She was supposed to go home on Tuesday, the 19th but they cancelled flights into Chicago due to weather.  They rescheduled her for Wednesday, arriving in northern Michigan at 8:30 p.m. but my sister called to say that they were expecting a foot of snow that evening and was concerned that the "blizzard-like" weather would cause another delay, stranding Mom somewhere between here and there.  When we called the airlines and requested a delay, they were very cooperative but when we called Thursday a.m. to confirm her departure, they did not have her booked at all!  After a lengthy conversation, we WERE able to get things resolved and they booked her for Friday.  She flew from here to Dallas and then to Chicago before the final leg into T.C.  On Friday, all started out as planned and she left on time.  But around 8:30 p.m. my sister called to say that Mom WAS delayed in Chicago and may not be "home" before midnight.  When I spoke to her at lunchtime today, she said it was about 12:30 a.m. before she finally made it to Traverse City.....but all is well.  My sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and his fiance' , and great nephew were all there for a pizza lunch.  They said my brother's wife and two daughters were also in the area and planning to stop in for a visit.    I know Mom will love all of that.

It was really fun to have her here.  We were ending the second week of a fishing vacation in Natchez that we do every spring, when she arrived.  I was home the day she arrived because I came back to bowl.  We drove back up to Natchez the next day and spent a couple of fun and relaxing days there.  I had my birthday while we were there and we spent a leisurely day exploring Natchez, ate supper at Pearl Street Pasta and then watched the live production performance of "Southern Exposure"....a "spoof" about Natchez' Spring Pilgrimage, the people and the houses!  Out of all that, I think the nicest thing we did was our stroll on the walkway along the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.  We were trying to catch a picture of us with the sun going down behind us.  My cellphone doesn't take the best photos!

Earlier on that day we were in the campground at the picnic table.  I can't remember what we were doing....probably just enjoying the serenity of the campground near the lake....but I laid back on the picnic table bench and was looking up, when I noticed that the sun had a rainbow in a ring around it.  I tried to get a picture but the clouds were quickly rolling across, so this is what I got.  Remember that this shot is looking straight up at the sky.

You may have seen something like this before, but in 61 years I do not remember that I ever had.  I was pretty impressed and it was like a special birthday wish from Heaven!

Ron and I take a trip to Natchez every spring for a couple of weeks.  Ron likes to fish in the lake there.  This year I fished with him some.  Here are some photos of the lake and our fish.  (I didn't catch the flip-flop....I threw it into the photo so you could see the size of the fish!)

Ron, Mom and I got home from Natchez on Friday, and on Saturday we celebrated Emmaleigh's 5th birthday at a "jumping place".  I made her a "Belle" cake, according to her specific instructions!  It was a great party!  By the way, have you ever noticed that when little girls are having fun they scream/squeal as they run!!!!  Funny!

Mom and I drove over to Pensacola the following week and spent a day visiting with my precious Aunt Ada.  She seemed to enjoy our visit.  She is only a year older than my mom, but her health is a little more fragile.  She used to travel to Michigan in the summers as I have but that is not as easy for her any more.  I just really wanted her and Mom to have some time together while Mom was here.  They were friends as early teenagers....before Dad came into the picture!  She is special to Mom, and she and her entire family have been VERY special to me ever since I moved to the south as a young bride!  I am so happy to have spent some time with her. 

We came home from Florida just in time to help Heather have a bang-up garage sale here under our RV cover!  It was amazing because the stuff went FAST and we were ready to close up before noon!  She sold almost everything!  Mom and I spent time arranging the stuff and putting prices on them on Friday....and I made signs and put them out early EARLY on Saturday.  At one point there were so many people parked on the street in front of our house that the POLICE came by and called over their speaker for people to come get their cars off the street!!! LOL

I was glad to have Mom here for a couple of weeks and only wish it could have been longer.  We have a good time together.  She is always a good sport.  For instance, last Sunday was Ron's and my 40th wedding anniverary.  In trying to decide what to do, we remembered that there was an LSU baseball game.  Ron was able to get an extra ticket because they lost the first two games of the weekend.  Sometimes that turns off the fans!  So.....Mom came along to Alec Box Stadium and we watched LSU play and win their game!  It was a beautiful day and we ate at Walk On's before (a restaurant across from the baseball stadium). 

Heather texted or emailed me the other day and reminded me that I hadn't posted pictures from our Disney trip yet.  I'm sorry!  I still intend to do that, but right now....I'm hungry and it is time to go scrounge something up for lunch!

See ya later!