Home » Diary Home » 9 August 2004 Diary Page

Barbara Fritchman Thompson
Email Barbara

Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 9 August 2004

Latest Update: Sunday, 15 August 2004 11:33


Monday, 9 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Happy Monday to everyone. The weather remains unseasonably nice with low temperatures and humidity. 

We ate an early dinner to allow me to make the 5:30 step class. Afterwards, I needed to pick up a couple of things from the store we had run low on. I parked at the Harris Teeter which anchors one end of the shopping center where the gym is located to keep from having to crank up the car for that little distance after class. I went ahead and did the regular weekly shopping since we did not need much beyond the juice and soft drinks.

I mentioned yesterday, I started the third book in the Jane Austen mystery series, Jane and the Wandering Eye. After the owner of the a local Bath theater group is found murdered at a party Jane attempts to solve the murder. So far, this one is not as good as the first two but I will stick with it.

[Top]

Tuesday, 10 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Greetings. Our new VCR came today. The one we had was eating our tapes. While the VCR/TV combination works well in the bedroom for taping or watching TV it is not very good for watching movies. Other than watching a late running race I am not one to enjoy laying in bed for several hours watching a movie. Plus, Bob does not smoke his pipe in the bedroom. We had another VCR downstairs that used to work. When we moved it up here it would not work, moved it back downstairs, it would not work. Since we are not really avid movie watchers we only need something to watch a Masterpiece or an occasional movie we have taped. We don't rent them nor buy them except special ones like the Anne of Green Gables series I bought while on Prince Edward Island. Anyway, he had it all set up when I got home from work.

Otherwise, not much in the way of news. I went to the gym for spinning class after dinner. Bob had a rather eventful day rounding up a black snake for the lady across the street

As he mentioned, today is the one year anniversary of Lenore's passing. I also find myself thinking about her from time to time. 

[Top]

Wednesday, 11 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

I worked through lunch today so I could leave half an hour early. I drove over to our local animal shelter to take a dog that was supposedly a Border Collie. It was listed on the animal shelter web site but did not have a picture. Since I cannot foster I cannot pull the dog but I was taking a look to make sure it is a BC before we pull it. We do have a couple of foster homes in the immediate Winston-Salem area.

It turns out it was a cute, little female. Very shy. I did not get a change to see her outside the cage because the guy was very busy but she looked to be in pretty good shape coat wise. Hopefully we can get her out of there soon.

When I left the shelter, which is only about ten minutes from work, the sky was dark and the wind had picked up. I got home just before a thunderstorm arrived with some fairly heavy rain. We are forecast to be in the paths of both Bonnie and Charlie. We can really use the rain. 

No gym tonight. I have a few things I need to work on this evening. I have a real tedious project going at work. Each year the Firm sponsors major fund drives for the heart walk and the diabetes walk. My former supervisor now team member is head of the  diabetes walk since his daughter has it. I am checking donation amounts in a spread sheet again names and donation amounts in the Firm database I work on. After about 5 hours I had made it through the L's before I left for the day.

Had I been able to stay awake long enough last night I would have finished the Jane Austen mystery. Perhaps tonight I will. 

[Top]

Thursday, 12 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

No update.

 

[Top]

Friday, 13 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Ran out of time last night. Just as I was leaving work yesterday afternoon to go by and pay the animal shelter the release fee we went under a tornado warning. It was raining buckets with a lot of the streets flooded but I did not have any problems. In order for Misty, that is what I named her, to not have to spend this weekend in jail I had to post her bail yesterday so she would go out to the vet clinic today for her spay. They were very nice about letting me pay without the paper work turned in for them for CBCR. I lacked a couple of documents getting everything ready Wednesday night.

I left the animal shelter for the library for my Friends meeting. Upon arrival the staff told me four board members had called and said they were not coming because of the weather. By this time the rain had let up and the tornado warning dropped. All the severe weather was east of Winston and our side of town.

We had enough members show up for a short meeting. I had planned on meeting Bob, Paul and Mary at the Chinese restaurant across the street. Our meeting normally run until 6. Paul and Mary were picking Bob up at 6:30. 

By the time we got home from dinner, fed and played with the dogs and walked them it was 9'oclock. I got the remaining paper work together and went off to bed.

This morning I dropped it off at the shelter on the way to work. This afternoon I left work at 4:15, picked up Misty from the vet, and delivered her out to Jodi for fostering. I will have pictures to post tomorrow. On the way home I took a back road route, stopped at Domino's and ordered a pizza then drove just down the street to get gas while it cooked.

It was almost seven by the time I got home. We ate and fed the dogs for a quick walk since it looked like it was going to pour rain any minute. They keep shifting the track of hurricane Charley east and west of us but either was it looks like we may get a drenching tomorrow.

I started a new mystery author the other night, Sarah Andrews. I brought the first book in her Em Hanson series, Tensleep for Bob to read. Em is a free lance contractor who does soil sample tests on various drill jobs in Wyoming. In the first book she is working on an oil rig taking mud samples for the drilling. When the oil rig company geologist dies in a single car accident, Em gets suspicious. Soon after, another member of the oil rig team is found supposedly trampled to death by some wild horses. Em suspicions of foul play become real when she sees the body and determines the young boy did not die at the scene of where the body was found. 

For a first novel, Andrews did a wonderful job. I have reserved the others in the series.

[Top]

Saturday, 14 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Very tired indeed. I woke up around 9:30 this morning. Bob and the dogs had disappeared with the bedroom door shut. Guess I needed some sleep! It has been raining all morning as Charley gradually makes it way up the NC coast. The full brunt of the storm will arrive east of us sometime this afternoon. We will get mainly rain and wind. Between the storm the other afternoon created by Bonnie and Charley we are getting some much needed rainfall. Everything is supposed to clear out by late tonight.

Other than cleaning house and working on a few things on the computer it will be a lazy day for me. Bob started the laundry but since he has chapters to work on I will pitch in and help out with that as well. 

 misty.jpg (107315 bytes)

This is Misty. She was still rather groggy from her surgery and extremely frightened. I had to carry her to the truck when I picked her up from the vet. Once I got out to Jodi's she did not want to get out. I opened both back doors and sat down beside her, talking to Jodi and petting her. After about fifteen minutes she let me lift her up out of the truck. 

We guess her to be somewhere around a year old. Her coat, skin and foot pads were in pretty good condition. I cannot remember if she was picked up as a stray or brought in but either way she has not been on her own too long. Her foster mom will take good care of her. Once she gets to feeling better she will try her out with ball playing, agility, etc.

jodie-farm-2.jpg (131425 bytes) This is a picture of Malcolm playing ball out at Jodi's last year where Misty is being fostered. The kennel's are in the background. 

[Top]

Sunday, 15 August 2004

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]

Still raining. I called dad yesterday afternoon to discuss playing golf this morning. Although Charley very quickly left the state yesterday and remained east of us we have still had a lot of rain over the past several days. We did not get the drenching predicted from Charley although the coast got hit slightly. I e-mailed my friend in Jacksonville, FL to see if they came out of the storm okay but have not heard back.

Anyway, we made the decision it would be too wet to play so we cancelled. Good thing we did. I slept in until 8:15. When I went out with the dogs and to get the paper it had rained as recent as earlier this morning sometime. I had planned to make an early run to Lowe's Home Centers and Wal-Mart. When I left the house around 9am it was raining steadily and continued to do so the entire hour or so I was out.

I picked up soil, grass seed, and other assorted items to patch the areas in the front and back that suffered from the drought. I also plan to get my seed and fertilizer out early this year. Last year I waited until too late in the fall. It turned too cool for it to come up good for winter set in. I had planned on mowing this afternoon but unless the sun comes out and dries things up a bit I will not be doing that.  The forecast for the afternoon is scattered thunderstorms and more rain. 

Last night I finished up Tensleep. At the very end of the book the main character Em gets promoted to state geologist for Wyoming. Having successfully solved the murders of the state geologist and oil rig caretaker, the company decided they would hire her full time. I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series. Over my years and years of reading I have learned from reading fiction about a great number of topics. In this series I am learning some very fascinating things about how large oil rig drilling operations work. While that may sound boring to you, I always enjoy learning new things. I really never knew how the process of drilling the rock and extracting the oil worked. When we were on our trip to the Canadian Rockies a couple of years ago, I saw small pumping stations in fields and people's backyards once we got to the Midwest. 

Guess it is time to fix some lunch. 

[Top]

 

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Barbara Fritchman Thompson. All Rights Reserved.