Dinner at Butler CC

Yesterday I took Dee's car for the 3,500 mile oil change. Everything is fine with her car. We took Bonz for an extra long walk, about two miles since the weather was so nice. We walked down to the pool and found that the hours are 11 AM to 8 PM. It was about noon when we went and saw that there weren't many people there yet. That's good to know as it gets very busy later in the day.

In the evening we went to the Rotary Installation Dinner at the Butler Country Club. It was a nice event in a beautiful setting. We sat with Roger and Ann whom Dee got to know at the Rotary Social a couple of weeks ago. Next to me was man from Egypt who is a Vetinarian and just opened his own place on Route #228 not far from our house. We had a good conversation. As it turns out he is an Orthodox Christian and had attended seminary in Egypt. He's interested in taking continuing Ed courses from time to time at a good middle of the road seminary or graduate school. I mentioned Pgh Seminary to him and that it would fit the bill. The other people at our table were nice to visit with and to get toknow a little bit better. I see them at the Rotary Luncheons but don't get to talk with them much when they are at other tables. I think there were about 50 people at the dinner.

He told me about his practice. We'd noted that he's having an open house on Saturday and that Dee may go since I'll be away at the Music Camp for Barbershop Choruses. I leave today at about 12:30 PM. I'm looking forward to going and learning what this "Chord Ringing" is all about and how to do it right. Should be a lot of fun. I'll be back on Sunday afternoon.

A Beautiful Day

Kerri sent us a picture of her with Dee's mom. She and Patrick visited with her on the weekend of Dee's Birthday party. This is before she moved to St. Johns Specialty Care in Mars.

Yesterday Dee went to Contours and stopped in to see her mom briefly, and I took the dog for a very long walk - down to the clubhouse and pool and back. Along the way he got to play with Lucy, a gal he's become friendly with, who lives around the court. In fact it was Lucy's owner who recommended the Off-Leash Dog Park in North Park. It was a perfect day for a walk. - high 70s. Then I listened to my Barbershoppers CD and practiced some of the songs.

When Dee returned, we had lunch. During the afternoon we went looking for a doggy bed. It seems since we got Bonz back, he's been sleeping on the floor each night which is great! So we found a reasonably priced one at Costco. He used it all night last night for the first time. It has that egg crate foam inside and a zippered cover that can be taken off and washed. Nice.

We spent the afternoon on the deck reading and eventually Dee worked on the puzzle some more. We finally have the frame done. The frame was more difficult than most because it has bulges in it and not all straight pieces. I read on the deck until it got too dark to read. I'm just about finished with my book "How To Talk To Anywone: 92 Little Tricks For big Success in Relationships." It's a very easy read, you can do a couple of pages a day since each "tip" is only 2-3 pages long. It's really good stuff and I'd recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in situations of being around people you don't know or with people you'd like to enter into conversation with. It has everything from "How to engage in useful small talk," to "Making A Positive Impression while Talking on the Phone," to "Working a Room and Remembering Something about the Each Person You Meet There." I think it's good stuff and certainly gives ideas I'd never been aware of before.

A day of preparations

Yesterday was going to be another hot one, so I got Bonz out early for his walk. Dee went to Contours and I got some things done around the house. We decided to have lunch at Costco (we like their sausage and peppers and onions sandwiches.) Then I took the "sale coupon" to Best Buy and bought a home theater system for our tv. I'd been watching a particular system and found that Best Buy had it again and that it was on sale. Dee's nephew Don, said he'd be able to install it on to the wires already installed in our walls.

When we got home, I did some organizing of my office things and decided on a sermon topic for June 22nd at Monroeville Baptist Church - "Reluctant Servants". It'll be about Ananias when he went to help blind Saul of Tarsus. It'll be good to look for illustrations and to think on that theme for the next two weeks and to develop it into a message for the congregation. We also worked on the puzzle we started a couple of days ago on the Fabulous Fifties. As it turns out the puzzle is 36 inches tall and 21 inches wide. And since our table isn't wide enough to build the puzzle the natural way we have to turn the puzzle on it's side to build it. That'll be interesting. We're considering other options (and tables) so we can look at the puzzle normally to figure out where pieces go.

In the evening I went to Bogmeister practice at the Lutheran Senior Center and got to visit with Dee's mom for a while before practice. That was nice. She entered into conversation, told me about her day and that she was tired. I noticed she gets around on the wheel chair very well. moving her legs to propel it. It's a light weight one and she makes it fly. She mentioned that Donnie and Veronica were over on Sunday and they went somewhere together and saw beautiful flowers. Dee said her mom is able to stand to attend to her personal care herself. She seems to be doing better there each day.

Bogmeister practice went well. We worked on a new song that we all were given on CD to learn with sheet music in hand. Last night we sang it for the first time together and were to do it without our noses in the music. We struggled, but it came along and by the end of the evening we were getting the feel of it together. It's the first practice I went to where I felt I was prepared. Since I started I've been playing "catch up" learning words, and notes to many songs the rest of them already know. We closed the evening at Uncle Bob's with cookies and milk, and singing a few songs for the local patrons.

12 of the guys are planning to go to "Harmony Music Camp" on Thursday at Kenyon College in Ohio. It's called "Apple Core Camp" because we're part of the Johnny Appleseed Disctict. I'm excited to be going. I've never been able to do anything like this. I hope to learn a lot that will benefit me and the group for a long time to come. There will be a couple of hundred men there learning the ins and outs of Barbershop Harmony singing. I leave on Thursday and return Sunday about noonish. Dee doesn't have any plans for that time I'm away, yet.

At Last a Church We Like

Sunday we went to two churches. The first one is where I preached. It was good to preach again after a 5 month break. I thought it went well, and the folks seemed to appreciate my message. We were glad to be there. Afterward, we stopped at an independent living home called Seneca Place and visited with Ginie Gage and Martha Oden. They were members of our Wilkinsburg Church whom we hadn't seen for ages. Ginie was the wife of my predecessor at Wilkinsburg. They were bout to have lunch in the dinning room, so we just stayed a few minutes, showed them some pictures of Kerri's wedding and then left.

On the way to the Pittsburgh Symphony at Heinz Hall, we stopped at another church. We really liked it. We liked the feel of the place, and it had everything we wanted. The "service" was great! Here's a picture of it. And you can visit their website to learn more about the church, it's history and how it was rehabed to it's present condition. The have a unique use of the old church pews you can read about at the end of the "history" section. We had been by the place several times and always wanted to stop in. The food was great and reasonable. We plan to return often with friends, for sure. Nice place. The church website is http://www.churchbrew.com/

Then we drove downtown to the Symphony. Our neighbors had given us the tickets and a parking pass. The Symphony had two Mozart selections (one a piano concerto) that was superb by Garrik Ohlsson. He did an encore. We didn't stay for the second half by Shastacovitch. We walked around town a bit and planned to go to the arts festival. But decided we were over dressed for a 94 degree day in town. (I had a sport coat and long pants, and Dee had shoes that were't good for lots of walking.)

We headed home, stayed inside and read the paper. Later we walked Bonz and watched a movid called "War Games" on TV. Dee wasn't into the movid and so she began working on the puzzle the Thomases gave us. It's a very colorful puzzle called the "Fabulous Fifties" and has a lot of the items from the fifties on it. The puzzle is shaped like a juke box. All in all it was a great day. I'm glad I decided to preach again. My next time on on the 22nd of June at Monroeville First Baptist Church.

Over 90 Again

Yesterday the temps soared to 91 so we kkept activity to a minimum. We took Bonz for his walk around the court and again he was great - no tugging on the leash, just a leasurely walk. What a great change since he went to doggy camp. He also no longer jumps when we come home. When John the neighbor came by yesterday, Bonz just sat and waited for us to finish talking. John gave us tickets for the symphony for today, so we plan to go after church today. (I'm preaching at Penn Hills Baptist. The first time I'll preach since retiring on January 1.)

We had a late breakfast at our favorite breakfast spot - Early Watch, in Cranberry. and then stopped at the church "Spring Fling". They had baked goods, flea market stuff, lunch foods and a car wash. We had Dee's car washed and looked at the flea market things. We searched out the Mars Farmers Market, but it was nearly finished when we arrived shortly before noon. It's there every Saturday from 9 to Noon. So we'll have to try again sometime. As it started to get hot we headed home.

Later in the afternoon we went to Barnes and Nobel to look over the books and have a frappachino. I read about Robert E. Lee's faith development in a book that had many of his own letters and comments about the contents of those letters. Then I checked at Best Buy for a home theater system. They had been out of the one I wanted, but now they have it again, but the price is about $45 more than when I saw it on sale on line a couple of weeks ago. (I'll monitor the online price for a while again.)

In the evening Dee went out to dinner with the ladies from Contours, and I stayed home and worked on my sermon for today.