Stuff From Sunday and Lately

I have had a wonderful Mother's Day! We went to church this morning, my secret sister in my Sunday School class gave me some zinnas that are just on the verge of blooming, and as soon as I get more potting soil Otter and I will get them planted. Bill gave me the previously mentioned Fenton blue elephant, and Otter made me a heart shaped plaque with her Sculpey clay that says # 1 Mom in light blue sculpey that also glows in the dark. It's going to work with me tomorrow, I have a small table in my office with all my goodies from her over the years.

Don and Darlene came over this afternoon, we grilled (and ate way too much) and had a really nice visit. This is the first time we've seen them in a few weeks, I think that they enjoyed it as much as we did. Except for the fact that we all ate too much, but we don't do that too often. (As soon as they left, I got out of my blue jeans which were suddenly a LOT tighter than before the meal!).

It's been a bad Spring for Oklahoma. We didn't turn the tv on yesterday, except for a brief weather check early afternoon. At that time there was nothing, it was just extremely windy so we checked. We had rain in the forecast but we never really got any. We had no idea until we turned on the tv at 10:00 for the news, but there was a really bad outbreak yesterday. Near McAlester, which is about 1 1/2 hours (or thereabouts) south of us was hit pretty bad. Lots of property damage. But the really bad spot was a small town called Picher, which is in the far NE corner of the state. Picher is pretty much gone. There were quite a few deaths, both on this side of the Kansas border and into Kansas. It's really bad up there. Picher is a small town that has been on the EPA's list for years, it has a major pollution problem caused by zinc mining and the government has been slowly buying people out because it is literally dangerous to live there. I'm not sure what will happen now, I don't know if the government will still be financially reponsible or if the homeowner's insurance companies will be responsible. Either way, I don't see anyway that anybody will rebuild there.

Unless you have seen tornado damage first hand, the pictures don't do it justice. We have seen it before, Oklahoma City in 1999, and there are not words enough to describe the level of devastation that those things cause. I hope we never, ever have to go through that and I'd like to not ever, ever have even as close a call as we had Wednesday evening.

One week and one day left of school for Otter! She's pretty excited about that. Wonder why? :)

I am being a bully wife. I made an appointment for Bill with the dermatologist for this coming Wednesday. He's probably going to get carved on again, and he's not happy about it. But like I told him, I DON'T CARE if he's not happy! He really needs to get the spot on his face seen to, I'm sure it's another skin cancer. And while he's there, I'm going to have the doctor look at the place on his leg. I think we're getting his eyes checked tomorrow after work, at least that is the plan for now. The eye doctor isn't a big problem, I'll just go as moral support. But the dermatolotist is a different story - I have to make the appointment, then I have to meet him there and I have to go into the exam room with him, then I have to tell the doctor where/what the problem(s) is/are. Otherwise, he won't deal with it at all. And he's had enough of them to deal with over the years, the last couple have been the intermediate kind but he is always a candidate for the really bad kind. So he can get mad at me all he wants, but he will get them taken care of. And this probably won't be the last time, with his history. So I probably have more mad Bill sessions in the future! I used to know how many times he'd had them removed, but I've lost count. There are too many to count now, this is mostly the legacy of all the years he painted parking lots for a living.