Superb Saturday

This has been a great day! I was up early and at the Public Market by 6:35 AM. After quickly finding a great parking spot, I found lots of good buys on fresh vegetables and fruits. I also bought 2 new pastas from Pappardelles- a whole wheat garlic long flat pasta and some asiago cheese ravioli. I'll wait until Corey is back in town before we eat them. The flowers and plants were the predominant item for sale today, but since we were bought a bunch of flowers last night, I passed those by.

I got home around 8 AM and had to wake up Jim! We put away my Market purchases, made some PB&J sandwiches and headed for the PGA Senior Championship at Oak Hill CC. We parked at MCC and took the shuttle to the course and were walking around by 9:30 AM. It was a perfect day for golf and for walking around the golf course. We walked around for about 2 hours, following some of the threesomes that had early tee times and saw famous golfers like Tom Kite. Greg Norman's tee time was 12:30 so around 11:30 we parked ourselves on a hill overlooking the practice range and green. Shortly after, Greg Norman appeared with his fiance, Chris Evert (yes, the tennis great), at his side. He kissed her goodbye and he began his practice routine, which we watched. After he teed off on the first green we followed him for 7 holes. He was playing pretty well, we saw him make 2 birdies and one bogey. As you might imagine, there was quite a large gallery following him, but we never had trouble watching him make his shots. I did not take this photo as cameras were prohibited items, but I found it on the internet.

We left Greg to watch local Greece Arcadia graduate, Jeff Sluman. After the second round of play, Jeff is tied for second place and Greg is tied for sixth. We enjoyed our time walking around on the course. It is a beautiful place and we got our exercise during our 6 hours at Oak Hill. It was fun to hear the crowd cheer on a distant hole and know that something good was happening. There were many volunteers and if this event had occurred during the summer, I may have thought about volunteering myself.

So, our PGA experience was wonderful. Greg Norman plays so infrequently these days, that this may have been my last chance to see him in person. Now Jim will tell you that his PGA highlight was using the porta-potty right next to the porta-potty that Chris Evert was using! Chris followed Greg around the course, so we had many opportunities to rub elbows with her.

We puttered around the house after driving home from MCC and got some small chores done. I finished the cute child's shrug and will deliver it this weekend. Here is a photo. It is kind of hard to tell its exact shape from the photo, but basically it fits over the shoulders and criss-crosses in the front with the straps buttoning to the back piece.

We ate dinner at our new patio set and had a pleasant evening outside.

And just because we wanted a little more walking, we walked to the mall for some greeting cards! We both wore our pedometers today and are each well over 24,000 steps for the day!

We rented the movie, Charlie Wilson's War, and are watching that now. Love the Red Box Rental at Wegmans.

Tomorrow we hope to take a nice bike ride.

Hope all is well.

Norman Makes Cut! Yippee!

I have been a Greg Norman (PGA golfer) fan for a long time and when I heard that he was planning on playing in the PGA Senior Championship tournament here, I bought us 2 tickets for tomorrow's round. Now, Greg is not playing much golf these days-injuries, surgeries, and other business interests-so I was a bit concerned that he might play in the Thursday and Friday rounds and then not make the cut for the weekend. But, the guy is doing quite nicely. After 2 rounds he is in a tie for 10th place and will easily make the cut, granting us an opportunity to see him play tomorrow! I am so excited. I'm sure there will be a huge crowd following him, but we'll follow him for a bit and then enjoy walking the rest of the Oak Hill East Course and see many other big names in the world of golf. The weather is supposed to be great so we are looking forward to an enjoyable day. I will not be able to post any photos of Greg on this blog because cameras (and cell phones!) are just some of the items on the list of things you cannot bring into Oak Hill.

Greg Norman has been in Rochester at least 2 other times and I was there for both of them. The first time was for the US Open, I believe, when Corey was just a baby. I put him in one of those front carriers and walked around for a few hours. For some strange reason, whenever I stood behind a large group of people, some of them would see I had baby Corey with me and the sea of people would part, allowing me an unobstructed view from right behind the ropes! At a later date, Greg was here playing in a fundraiser tournament with Jeff Sluman. I took Tucker and we were watching Greg putt on the practice green. Greg looked over to Tucker, who was sitting right on the edge of the green, pointed to him, and putted his ball over to Tucker. Later, we were able to get Greg to sign the ball. So, you can see that I have been a fan for a while.

I was glad to end this week at school. I don't know if the kids have spring fever or what, but they were a challenge this week. So many kids who normally play games fairly and with positive enthusiasm were cheating and being poor sports this week. My "tough love" policy came into play many times in the past 5 days.

Corey is in Massachuettes this weekend, with his buddy, Mike G. The two of them plan to do some running and kayaking for 3 days and will then drive home, with a layover at Jenny Lake for a day. I already miss having my butler around!!

Jim and I went to the Garden Factory tonight and bought some flowers for the yard. I've included a photo of the plants we got, along with the hanging basket we bought to hang by the side door. I'll get the plants in the pots and ground on Sunday. We also had to get another sprinkler so we could water large sections of our newly seeded lawn.

Here is a photo of my bleeding heart plant that miraculously re-bloomed this year. I do not have a green thumb, but would like to have one so I am thrilled when my meager efforts at gardening encourage me to keep trying. I planted several perennials in my patio peach tree garden last summer and much to my delight, they are re-appearing! I may have to invest in some more perennials. Anyone have any suggestions for part sun/shade loving plants? Leave me a comment. Our new patio set is a bit visable in the background of this photo . We hope to get some use out of that this weekend!I rode my bike to school today and will try to do that more often, when the weather cooperates.

And last, but not least, Happy Birthday to my dear friend, Sally! I hope you are having a wonderful bike ride and are finding ways to mark this special day. We'll do cake when you get home!

Hope all is well.

Mid-Week Update

Cold, and depressing-that describes our weather of late. The town hydro-seeded their work area in our yard and we are supposed to keep it moist. Well, the weather forecast has called for rain everyday this week and so far we have gotten zero! I would ask Corey to put the sprinkler out while he is home during the day, but when it is supposed rain, I don't ask. If it doesn't rain overnight, as it is forecasted, I will put it on his "Things to do" list.

Having Corey home has been wonderful, for a variety of reasons. One reason it that it is like having a butler! I leave a list of errands and chores when I go to school in the morning and I come home, and they are all done. If he doesn't have to go to work, he cooks dinner, which is the biggest treat for me. Tonight he cooked up some black bean pasta that I bought at the Public Market a couple of weekends ago and it was yummy. He also makes a great salad!

So here is some TV talk. I watched the finals of Dancing with the Stars on Monday, and it was clear that Kristy Y. should be with winner and sure enough, she won the Mirrored Ball trophy. I did not see the results show for Dancing because I was watching the finals of American Idol. And let me say, I can hardly wait to buy David A.'s first album. That boy can sing! It will be interesting to see who wins the American Idol title, because both guys are really talented. I will knit and watch AI tonight and enjoy the re-cap of the season.

Speaking of knitting, I bought a pattern for a child's shrug when Sally and I were in Maryland. I was looking for a fairly quick and easy project so I cast on for that. I had some appropriate yarn in my stash and am now about 3/4 of the way done with it. I will post a photo when I complete it. I think I will give it to a friend to give to one of her granddaughters. It is a cute pattern, but I think the next time I make it I will choose a solid colored yarn. 

Jim and Corey are going to the midnight showing of the Indiana Jones movie! I'll wait for it to come out on DVD.

Hope all is well.  

Sunday News

This weekend seems to have flown by and now I'm thinking about school this week.

Saturday I got up early and went for a quick 15 mile bike ride. I had a good ride and was moving right along. I rode early because I wanted to go to the Terry Bicycle Tent sale in Macedon. Macedon is near Victor, where I was going for my spinning guild meeting later in the morning. Years ago I went to the Terry Bikes tent sale and got a biking skort for a good price. I just bought another biking skort from Terry, but paid full price. I thought since I was going out to Victor it would not involve much more driving to get to Macedon. I did find some good buys at the tent sale- a new skort and 2 sleeveless biking tops-all for less than I paid for the one new skort I bought last month!

I got to the spinning guild meeting by 11 AM and settled myself in for a few hours of spinning and fiber talk. My spinning teacher announced my big win at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and returned my skein, ribbons and the award money! I got one bobbin of the orange roving spun for Corey's scarf, so it was a productive time at the meeting. I saw a woman who rows with me at the meeting so that was pretty cool! When I went to the parking lot after the spinning guild meeting, there was another yellow beetle parked right next to mine. Here is the photo-How cute is that!

This morning we were up way too early for a Sunday morning, but we all were volunteering at the Lilac 5 and 10 K races. It was a busy morning there as there were over 600 people in the 5K race and over 1000 in the 10K race. I worked the registration table and took in lots of money and registered lots of people. Jim and Corey worked at the table for people who pre-registered, until Corey went to run the 5K race with 2 of his high school friends. It was a casual run for him, but fun, nonetheless. Before we left the house in the morning, Jim put my bike into the car so I could ride home from the race if the weather cooperated. At 9:30 AM, I changed my clothes in the back of the car, jumped on my bike and headed for the Canal trail. I rode east to Pittsford and then turned around and rode home. It started to rain, lightly, but never got serious about raining, so I continued on. After 21 miles I pulled into our driveway, and again, felt really good about my ride.

I spent the afternoon grocery shopping and knitting. Tonight I got 3 weeks worth of ironing done and am now watching/listening to The Office on TV. This is about the only TV show that Corey watches, and we are enjoying it.

Tomorrow we are meeting with our Long Term Care Insurance counsultant and will sign on the dotted line. I will be glad to have that in place.

Hope all is well.