Another Tuesday

I'm going to try to post another picture of the flowers I arranged from two of my birthday arrangements, one I posted last week that were sent me from my Dallas neices and the other was a dozen long stemmed red roses. I had to take all the flowers out from both vases because the roses died. I started all over because the stems had to be recut on the bottoms so that the water would absorb into the flowers again. It really works to change the water each day too. I used a lot of greenery from the roses and put them all in the smaller vase. Okay, so now I will have to admit a little known secret. I used to do flower arranging professionally. When we lived here in the desert, our best friends owned the Palm Springs Florist. So every holiday daughter Nancy and I would work in the shop, Nancy answering phones and waiting on customers and I arranging flowers. I loved it, but my family never knew what it was to have me home for ANY of the holidays. Even when we moved back to the Los Angles area, I traveled back here for all of the holidays, barely getting home in time for the day, Christmas Day, Thansgiving Day, Easter etc. That went on for many years. In fact, I can't remember when I actually stopped doing it!!! It was some time after my first husband (the father of my children) and I divorced. In fact, strangely, today would have been our 67th anniversary had we stayed married! He left me the evening of Nancy's wedding reception. He brought his girl friend to it and a couple of hours into the evening, he went upstairs and gathered all his clothes and stuff and left........that was the beginning of her marriage and the end of ours. Actually, he did me the greatest thing ever, because I would never have left him on my own, and many good things happened after, like meeting Dick and having a whole different kind of life.

I must say, today I finally decided I was getting a little better and to celebrate that, I had Dick take me birthday shopping. We left the house around 11:00am and we didn't get home until almost 5:00p.m. We did have a nice long lunch in between though or I don't think Dick would ever have made it. He had to push me in my wheel chair most of the time, but I did go into one store walking. If I had known I would have had to walk so long, I would have skipped it, but who knew I wouldn't be able to get one of those electric gizmos to ride at Target. It was the first time I experienced having them all taken. Two were being charged and the others were all gone. I did get a lot of walking in and had to hang on to Dick so it wasn't that great for him. He was exhausted too by the time we got home. I was fairly successful thoough. I got a very pretty blouse to wear with my white skirt that Sue sent me for no reason other than the fact that she knew I had been looking for one for a long time. I also got a polo shirt, a new bra and some candy. We also did a little grocery shopping and went to a drug store. I got my clothes at Kohl's and I have to tell you, I honestly hate that store!!! It has way too much merchandise, there are so many clothes that are either sleeveless, straps only or barely there clothes. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if you were just browsing, but if you are looking for something specific, it's totally awful. Dick absolutely hates to go there too. I was looking for things I saw in their Sunday advertising. There were about five other things I rejected when I saw them, mostly because they didn't fit right. I got so tired of trying on clothes. I just didn't have enough energy to try another store. I used to have it so made when Jayne worked at Mervyn's. I would do my major shopping once a year and I would just sit in the try on room and Jayne would bring me all the things to try on. She has such a great sense of style and she really is a whizz at coordinating. I will have to go back to doing that again this summer because she will be the store manager of a brand new Marshall's opening just about ten minutes from where she lives. She has been commuting about an hour each morning to the very first Marshall's store in Utah, where she has been training to manage the new store in Murray. I can't remember the name of the town, but it is the next one after Bountiful, north of Salt Lake. They start working to stock the store in Murray today and it will have their grand opening on May 19th. She will be so happy to have her own store again. She does love working in retail, but oh, the hours she has had to work.

My goodness, I thought this would be a very short post, but look what has happened. Time for me to stop. Until next Tuesday, thanks to all of you for all the cards and messages sent my way, not only for my birthday, but for me to get well. Love..................Darlene