This time of year brings about an overabundance of things in the yard - sometimes it seems that when I walk around to see what's in the sheds, I find more things happening on the ground than I'd imagined.

This is a clump of one variety of mushroom that grows like crazy around some of the hardwoods in our yard. We seem to have these pop up not when it immediately stops raining, but some days afterwards - they seem to like the moisture that seeps into the ground, rather than the direct pouring of rain on them -- they tend to clump rather like a little plant, and I'm sure there is some fabulous botanical name for them. Me, I jus' call 'em mushrooms -- they get rather large, and this one got pushed over by noah - I'm not sure if he accidently stepped on this clump, or if one of the wild critters that visit every night, happened to do this. But these are a most interesting little plant -- if they are indeed called a plant. Something else, I think, but at the moment it totally escapes my memory.

I do have a ride to the Dr. office in the morning!! -- Yay!! -- so that's one headache avoided. I talked with the couple who are on the list in our community to give rides to people up to Va., and they were very happy to help me out. We talked after church yesterday, and even tho there may be a bit of fanagaling involved the wife is still going to make sure I get to the clinic where I need to have my tests, (or whatever their called) taken care of. SHWOO..whatta relief! - She's very optimistic for me, so that made me calm down a little bit - I told her that my family history doesn't exactly give me the most optimisim, but she said she's gone thru the same thing - Don't worry - an' that's that!! Ok then! Another friend of mine said it's probably the Dr making sure that he has a "baseline" to go on for future reference - in case something does come up in the future. That sound much better than what the assistant said to me. Sometimes people have the wording all wrong when they tell you something - making it sound so much worse than it actually is. That's what this whole thing seems to be to me.

At least that's what I'm chosing to go with for now.

And then -- Our middle son, the musician, called us last week - Thursday it was - to tell us, that on Nov. 1st., he was flying out to relocate to California.

Say WHAT??!!

What is that, like 4 days ahead of time - to say he's moving far, far away??!!

Ever feel like a sledge hammer hit's you between the eyes?

Yup - so, we then didnt hear from him till 'bout 5 p.m. Sat nite - "Can you guys come up an' see me before I take outta here in the morning?!" So, I'd just finished fixin' dinner, an we ate reeeaal fast, hopped in the car, an' drove up to the city. We made one slight mis-calculation, in that where he lives (lived) in in an old, old section of the city, with gazillions of one way streets..AND IT WAS HALLOWEEN..

So, not only did we get lost, turning on the wrong street, trying to get onto the RIGHT one-way-street, we also had to dodge little hoblins, a ton of little Pink Princesses, and some flat out scary lookin' adults walking along with the kids. Not something my eyes wanted to see at 7 p.m. --Our oldest called tom's cell phone, 'cause naturally we werent at the apt,when we said we were going to be..

"Where are you?!!"

"uhh...we're lost.."

"Well, where are you?!!!"

"Didn't you hear me, we're LOST!!!"

Not quite like, "Who's on first, what's on second", but for 5 minutes I felt like I was absolutely going to lose my mind..

Well, we did get to the right apartment, visited with our son, lottsa his friends, and hopped around lottsa boxes, stacks of unpacked things, and far too many odds and ends that still has my brain scrambled. I was very proud of myself, and didn't cry. I think maybe tomorrow it's gonna hit me, an' I'll cry like a baby...but his job allowed him to relocate, so that's good. His 2 other room-mates went too, and they all have the same jobs, so it's all worked out for that end of things. My son said he's gonna play like a good tourist, and take a gazillion pictures in the first couple weeks he's there..soaking in the fact that it IS Southern California, and yes, there will be no snow where he's living. And he'll even take a picture of one of the beaches where I used to go all the time when I was a teenager.

Wow.

Jealous???

Uhmm..sort of -- Even Tom was feeling a little left out of things. And he even said, "Well, I gotta realize I can't be 19 anymore.."

"YA THINK??!!"

So that's the news from here - another batch of grey hairs for ME -- An' so much more goin' on right now that I can't stand it -- Gotta free pumpkin, an' Noahs jammerin about fixin' it up..Lawwdy, I better go make sure things aren't goin' to Hell in a Handbasket...


LAdy of THe TuLIps...