Dear Reader:

Yesterday reality hit hard….Luke and Chelsey are moving. Not far, mind you, maybe five minutes away…but we all know that there is a big difference in seeing your neighbor every day and/or visiting with them occasionally. Luke says he will always be at my beck and call-literally a phone call or text away… especially when the recessed lights go out in my happy room and he has to bring a stepladder to replace them. 🙂

Chelsey will keep checking on “Little Big Red” too since it appears to be undergoing a depression in the form of some kind of insect attack…Chelsey is coming back over to check on our plant…she loves the big red geranium since she was the one who cloned it successfully. Right now we have some medicine on it…hoping it will help get rid of the parasites.

Luke and Chelsey physically moved out a few weeks ago….leaving their furniture at the house while it was being shown and sleeping on air mattresses. So unselfishly I am extremely happy for them that they got to sleep in their own bed last night.

They are closing on their Rainbow Road home this Thursday so it was time to remove everything with the contract sealed and the paperwork in. I took lunch over for them while they worked. I know intellectually that they will be in and out like they have been the past few weeks…in fact  they have still been bringing amazing suppers…but emotionally the house seems so empty without them.

I knew we needed to add a little humor to the situation…near the end of the long tiring afternoon…re-enforcements showed up to move the last of the heavy stuff. When I saw this card…I knew it was meant for them…to put a smile on their tired faces.

A retired school teacher, don’t know her, is moving in and I am sure we will be good neighbors …it is just hard to let go of a special relationship, the one that Vickie and I had with “the kids” as we called them affectionately. They kept us young!

Yesterday I got a catalog from Leaning Tree showing the wide diversity of cards they have. I do believe they have some of the funniest ones I have ever seen…so I went through picking out some I wanted to order. To finish today…let me share a couple of smiles with you through these sample cards.

This one brought back memories of me with my foot stuck up the air (last fall) and my heating pad on in “Old Faithful” my recliner…actually it was and continues to be… a pretty hot date! 🙂

This one just made me laugh out loud…so typical and so funny!

I think this card should be the poster card for this special benchmark year of the Ya’s!

It says: Your special bedtime birthday story:

“A long long long time ago but not too very far away…you were born…and now you’re old…The End.”

So until tomorrow…“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
…is to press play.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

I fell in love with this sympathy card….it says it all.

Happy Birthday to my Berkeley friend and social studies co-hort for years! Carol Poole! We always did fun birthday lessons showing how on the day we were born….other lucky people were able to share it with us…like a Franklin or a Jefferson or a Helen Keller…everyone born makes history in their own way!

Mandy and John had a back-to school gathering for the children before the reality of another school year hits this week! In spite of the crazy weather…the kids played dress-up, danced, and even managed to get in a swim when the sun tried to get out in Mt. P later in the afternoon…all in all a very successful send-off for the kids!

Some random snapshots….

On the way home a little after seven and the half-rainy, half-cloudy, peeks of sun day….the most beautiful display of God’s handiwork emerged below as I crossed the Don Holt bridge and slowed down for a large tractor truck taking up two lanes to get settled in his lane….a God Wink Show!