Never, ever let your email go without deleting listserv messages each day! I have spent days/hours trying to find the messages I need to answer in the avalanche of weeks worth of listserv messages I didn't get to during the move and while finishing up the end of the semester paperwork. I even found a couple of weeks' old message from a student I had years ago at Sam Houston - what a delight! :-) It is treasures like Jamie's message that keep me sane as I work my way though the mess.

I am taking a break from that for a bit since I found the message from Mary with this pic of her and the boys. It is so cute! I am getting very anxious to see little Kegan next month. Scott and Mary are in the middle of remodeling their bathroom so decided a trip up there this month was probably more stress then they need right now.

I also took a break and went grocery shopping a bit ago. What fun! We have a large Meijer near us and I had wandered through parts of the store but not the grocery section. I was in awe over the variety of foods, especially organic and health foods. Living in the islands for almost 3 years has me appreciating fresh produce and full shelves. And, the frozen foods were in packages you could actually read - not covered in a thick layer or freezer ice proving how many times it had thawed and refrozen.

And, yesterday we went window shopping at couple of furniture stores and I found a Tuesday Mornings! I found an angel yard ornament that Steve rolled his eyes over, but I love it. That store has a little of everything in it. One never knows what will show up on their shelves. Too bad I have no idea how to get back there. I am so directionally challenged it isn't funny. Perhaps, for the pocketbook, it is a good thing I don't know how to get back there. :-) All the shopping opportunites are incredible!

I spent last evening browsing through my Mother's Day present from Steve - a large coffee table size book, The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History by Gregory Paul Williams. It is filled with wonderful b/w photographs of movie stars and the buildings, including the libraries that were burned and demolished as Hollywood grew. I started reading it after I got through all the pictures and it goes all the way back to when a group of Native Americans lived in the area and the Spanish Catholic priests came. This is a book I am going to savor. I only found one picture of Cary Grant in the whole book, but I still love it. The woman we were out to dinner with the other night said her cats were named after Hugh Grant and Tom Cruise. I just smiled and said I wasn't much into the male actors of today. If I were to choose a Grant, it would be Cary. :-) However, I am a Richard Gere fan because he does romances I like, including Autumn in New York, which is on right now and I am somewhat watching out of the corner of my eye. I have never been a Wynona Ryder fan, but in the last two days I have encountered two of her movies. I watched a good portion of Girl, Interrupted last night, which stars Ryder and Jolie, neither of whom are favorites of mine, but the movie certainly held my attention. It is based on the memoir of the same name that addresses the author's 17 months in a psychiatric ward. The book received excellent reviews and after seeing the last portion of the movie I want to read it. I remember reading Joanne Greenburg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which is still in print and read by teens today, when I was a teen and was totally drawn to the book. I was fascinated by the idea of being that close to madness and being able to rejoin the "regular" world again. Mental illness fascinates teens as the mood swings of puberty can certainly feel like a form of madness!

Back to dealing with email.