Freddy is thrilled that he is finally old enough to get his own account at the Y.  Here is signing up for his Fitlinx profile!

It took me a minute, but I grasped his meaning enough to stammer “uh, maybe”.  What I was really thinking was “what makes him think that without any questions, any peeking, nothing? ”  What was visible in me at first glance that he would say such a thing?    Hmm…

I really like this guy and I didn’t find him to be offensive at all.  He calls it like it is and gives wonderful advice.  It struck me off guard I guess.  Never to be one at a loss for words, I was.

She told me she had a stroke.  That’s about all she could say.  Her eyes filled with tears when I asked her when it happened.  Then I realized she couldn’t answer me.  I asked her if it was too hard to speak.   She nodded and moved off to her rehab appointment and I dressed. 

I stopped in the waiting room and told her that I would catch up with her and she would be in our prayers.  I haven’t stopped thinking about her all day.  How fragile our lives are, our very beings lie in perilous balance with God’s plan for us.  This woman, my previously unnamed “friend” had touched my life and yet if she disappeared I wouldn’t have known where to begin to look for her, if even I would.  I am sure that I would miss her and wonder forever “what became of…”

I told the kids that she isn’t that much older then me, to which Bubbles asked how come I know all of these “old” people.  Gasp.  Freddy told me not to worry, to them anyone over 30 is old.  Gasp again.  I remember when I turned 30.  I was in Paris, for what would turn out to be the last time.  It was the year that I discovered that Paris had antique shops. 

In all of my travels over the previous decade, inluding the year I lived in Paris, I had not noticed one, not one, antique shop.  That birthday trip I saw one, then another, then another, they were everywhere.  I remember thinking that they must have sprung up in the last 10 years.  Then I realized that some of them were hundreds of years old.   I guess “old” is relative and we prayed for my “friend”.

They are closer, of course right before this they were side by side.  I will keep trying!

Tom was trolling through “Zelda” and noted, aloud, that I have only shown Freddie once, and he was just a baby.  Here he is as an enormous 8 month old.  You can’t really get a sense of his size from this picture.  I tried to get Merlin to sit next to him for comparison, but he moved every time I snapped the shutter.  Bubbles took him to puppy school and now Ursula is bringing him to obediance.  She did Lily as a 7 year old (proud mama speaking) and was often the only child in a crowded ring.

Literally.   Because as I was going to my car after returning the cart to the store ,(always on the lookout for the coupon police who might be lurking in the parking lot to tell me that it was all a big mistake and I must give back my free stuff) I was so distracted that I almost failed to so the SUV coming right at me.  Fortunately, I stopped and yielded, and the story has a happy ending.

Look at this stuff and see if you can figure out how much I paid.  Let me tell you what it is worth first:

South Beach bars 3 @ $2.50 (sale price)

Progresso Soup     4  @ $2.19

Water                         1   @ $4.50

Milk                             1   @ 2.99  (sale price)

Benefiber                   2   @ $5.00 (sale price)

This adds up to $33.75.  What did I pay?  (After coupons, rebates etc.) Ummm, NOTHING!!!    Thanks Walgreens and thanks couponmom.com!!!  This was hard work and took some planning, but it was well worth the effort.

I was shopping, saw these shoes and sent Bubbles a pic.  She approved, I bought, she was happy.   No time wasted driving to and fro shoe stores for naught.