Blessings

Annie brought me the neatest gift today. She has iris beds of every color you can imagine. Every year she goes to a sale at an iris farm and buys different hybrids. All I have at my house is purple, light blue, white, and a few yellow. Today she brought 4-5 from the sale: black, salmon, red, and 2 other colors I can't recall right now. Isn't that NEAT?! She comes up with original gifts. A few years ago Church Street in downtown Nashville was being redone. They were digging up all the old cobblestones and then paving the street. I love history and would have loved to have had one of the old cobblestones. As it so happened, the company she works for was doing the work on Church St. So she was able to get a few. For Christmas, she gave me a cobblestone. It has a place of honor on the hearth.

After church I was standing in the aisle talking with Missy and Betty when I heard this group of men ... all standing at the front of the church ... start singing "Happy Birthday!" Oh, no. Betty asked, "Whose birthday?" Mine. So she and Missy chimed in too and I had a whole chorale singing to me. Of course Ed had put them up to it, them being Ed, David, Kevin, Kyle, Jeff, and Bruce. My face probably matched my red sweater ... especially once the round of applause was over. Those guys!

Then Ed took me to lunch at Olive Garden. We NEVER go there, but we saw a TV commercial about it the other night. Guess it planted the idea in his head. It was sooo good. My seafood alfredo was than I could eat, but Ed managed to clean his plate ... the Italian trio.

When we got home, we had to hit the ground running. We're hosting home worship tonight. I made some homemade vanilla ice cream and the hot fudge sauce to go with it. I think the sauce may have been a little overcooked and too thick. But I have caramel sauce in the fridge. I also made brownies and a cobbler ... cobbler is still in the oven. Smells heavenly. Eddie, bless his heart, has been working getting everything out on the deck in order. Tables, chairs, blowing off leaves, icing down drinks, and all that stuff. In a little while he'll grill some burgers and low-fat turkey sausages (better than hot dogs). Add some chips and that's it folks. I think we're expecting about 15 or so. So very thankful he got the deck finished yesterday. It'll be FUN to have that many on the deck and still have plenty of room.

Back to the birthday thing. Both kids have called and wished me Happy Birthday. Jay, God love that boy, got on the phone to tell me HB, and when he gets on the phone, he doesn't want to give it up. I could hear Chris in the background asking for the phone. Finally Jay said, "Stop it. You're making me nervous!" I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at him. I asked, "Jay, is somebody making you nervous?" "Yes! Daddy is making me nervous!" "Tell Daddy to CHILL OUT!" He was so excited to be talking to Mawmaw! I told him we were at the Olive Garden. "The Olive Garden!?" he said excitedly. "That's my favorite restaurant in the whole world!" I've learned that WHATEVER restaurant Jay is in at the time is his favorite restaurant. As Linda would say, "He's a trip without the luggage!"

I also called and checked on my friends who had surgery on Friday. John's doing well. In fact, he stopped at C. Barrel on the way home from the hospital on Friday, so there's NOTHING wrong with him. David's doing well too. He's loving all the attention and food folks are bringing him. He said, "But nobody's food is as good as yours." Yeh, right. Sounds like a big sucking up noise to me.

Gotta go. Time for more birthday kisses!