Tue Jul 01 2003 16:22: Today we cleaned moss out the fishpond and I am a Granny! There is a plethora of baby goldfish (comets.) It's exciting to see Nature taking over. I would have been worried about them getting sucked up into the filter, but they seem to be doing ok. There are also a whole lot of little teeny black fishies. If they are not goldfish fry, then I don't know where they came from. Spontaneous generation?

Wed Jul 02 2003 17:37: I'm reading Roughing It. I don't remember Twain being all that hysterical, but the only stuff I've read of his before (besides the jumping frog) is an amalgamation of Tom and Huck and Letters from the Earth. I'm getting a lot of good snickers out of Roughing It.

Sun Jul 06 2003 11:03: I'm reading Les Miserables. It took a hundred pages to even get the silverware stolen. Oh brother. Heaven save us all from French philosophy.

Wed Jul 09 2003 09:46: Just now I came within milliseconds of running my cell phone through the washer. It was in the pocket of my jeans.

Twenty-four years ago today I became the mother of a baby boy, who is still the joy of my life.

Fri Jul 11 2003 12:54: Today is the eleventh of July. Today, July 11, 2003, Christmas merchandise appeared on the weekly Cost Plus World Market ad page. I think this has to be some kind of a record.

Tue Jul 15 2003 15:37: I'm STILL reading Les Miserables.

Have spent the last few days on intensive scrapbooking and have mine and Leonard's caught up for the last two years, except for titles and such.

Wed Jul 16 2003 19:30: Drats and Rats! The tube fell out. Now I'm going to have to have surgery to get another one put in. On the other side. Bleah. The good news I guess is I can take a shower every day for the next week without worrying about the tube. I FINALLY finished Les Miserables.

Fri Jul 18 2003 17:28: When I was a teen, I once complained to my grandmother that it would take HOURS to hem, by hand, whatever project it was at the time. She said, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it takes weeks! You do it, and spend the time, and when it is finished it will be done right." Thinking of Grandma while hemming the wedding gown.

Another quotation, from the redoubtable Aunt Jeuney: "If you don't have time to do it properly now, when are you going to have time to do it over."

Sat Jul 19 2003 17:05: Done done done. Wedding dress done. I'll take it to the cleaners on Monday.

Rachel and I went to Pioneer Day. We took Mark and Chris and Robert. All of us got really full of yummy food and we took lots of pictures of us stuffing ourselves for a scrapbook page.

Sun Jul 20 2003 15:42: The philosophical question du jour is, if the prophets today asked us to sell everything and gather to Zion, would we go as did the pioneers of 1847?

The answer is "No, of course not." The prophets today have asked us NOT to gather to Zion, but to stay and build up Zion in the places where we are. Yet people are falling all over each other to move to Utah despite the explicit message they should stay in California or Texas or where ever.

Mon Jul 21 2003 13:33: I took the wedding dress to the cleaners (pray for it!), the pictures to Target, and the puff quilt to the laundromat. It's only about 109 outside and I'm done in.

Wed Jul 23 2003 17:40: The cleaners called me today and told me they need a deposit before they will clean the wedding gown. What? Like I'm not going to come back and get it?

Wed Jul 23 2003 17:49: At Michaels I bought bolts of pastel colored tulle to decorate the white arch. Two of the colors were more expensive because they have shimmers. When the girl rang it up, I pointed out to her that she needed to charge me more for those two. She got an attitude, so I gave up. Ohhhhh weelll, if they are not going to worry about it, I'm not going to shoot myself over it.

Wed Jul 23 2003 21:03: Yay hooray, the wedding sewing is done, done, done! I finished tonight (despite having awful blisters on my fingertips from a glue gun accident while making floral barrettes.) Rachel hates her bridesmaid dress, ha ha. Bridesmaid dresses are SUPPOSED to be ugly. All I have left to do now is the picking up stuff--flats of flowers from the nursery, corsages from the florist, tux from Men's Wearhouse, gown from the cleaners. All the decoration stuff is bought or delegated, except for the nursery flats. I'm having my surgery to put the tube back in tomorrow, so I can relax and try to recover by the wedding next Thursday. Then I have to haul everything I own (practically) over to the house where the reception will be. I can't believe I sewed the whole thing.

Mon Jul 28 2003 11:02: I'm reading a book of short stories that I have been carting around with me for the last 30 years. I've never even cracked the cover before. Some of them are really really good. I'm reading them all in order, except I skipped "The Rocking Horse Winner." I very much despise that story; it's such a downer.

I am in quite a bit of pain, but the Tylenol III the surgeon prescribed makes me throw up, which makes the pain worse. Don't make me laugh.

Mon Jul 28 2003 21:06: Overheard at the vet's:

"I want to get her spaded..... or neutered, whichever one the doctor thinks is best."

Tue Jul 29 2003 15:38: Rachel and Karen Nations and I went to Seabiscuit. The theatre was so crowded we had to sit way down in front, where we got trampled by horses every race. I missed the part where they meet Seabiscuit because I had to go throw up.