Yesterday I got back to my dissertation.  I was able to get the hardest thing mostly done...  which is write the justification for licensing for interior designers.  Hopefully I am finishing this part today.  I think I am going to move it to the end of the state of the profession chapter.  Makes more sense to be there.

In the evening, I loaded my photos of Manitoulin Island on my computer there were 520 of them... so the pictures will be forthcoming.   Probably tonight. 

Even though I was careful to stick to my diet. Well, actually the last week I was having alcoholic drinks beyond my hour of power... hmmmm.  I put on nine pounds from mid July to the end of August.  I didn't swim... I walked at least 14 times in five weeks but not swimming really makes a difference.  Now I will get back to it and walk more frequently too.    I am upset that the pounds are creeping back on.   

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Last night after drinking two glasses of wine, I was rhapsodic about my visit to my friends in Michigan, Indiana and Canada... I was too tried to write... and this morning it doesn't quite seem so amazing.  Hmmmmm

Yesterday I tried multiple times to get to work on my dissertation... and could not do it.  So I got the laundry done, moved my flat files from my business upstairs to my bonus room and fiddled around the house.  Oh yeah, I signed up to be an ID*EC member, which took quite a while.  I listened to the weather station to find out what was happening with Hanna and Ike and went grocery shopping.  Last night, in the middle of the night,  I woke up and wrote down the reason that interior design needs to be licensed.  How not being regulated can harm the public.    Yes finally that was the last segment that was not coming together for me.  Today I write. 

My horoscope is interesting... I don't think it is exactly accurate about being disappointed in the reality of things... I wasn't...
 


I will get photos up of Manitoulin Island... when I get around to it.  Soon I promise!

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn  

I have been sorting mail and doing laundry.  I cannot believe how much mail I have....  I cannot believe how much dirty laundry I have.  Two suitcases full.  There were only five things I did not ware... pretty good packing.  I cannot access my SCAD account or my phone... hmmmmmm Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

It sounds like Hanna is heading further north than Savannah.  So I am heading home tomorrow.  I think I have a dentist appointment on Sept. 5th so need to get home for that... and I am finally tired of living out of a suitcase... or suitcases...  I will write more when I get settled at home.  I had a marvelous trip.  It was amazing to see so many friends and even family.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

I spent the most amazingly quite days in Canada.  My friends own a hunting camp on Manitoulin Island.  The 65 acres faces south and is on Lake Huron.  There is a huge flat shelf of stone ground flat by glaciers or flat because of being a sea bed.  It goes about 100 yards from the tree line. There are all these pockmarks in the limestone shelf. I thought it was from melting glaciers, but the book said it was from acid algie.  There were also all kinds of sea urchins embedded in the rock.
The area is so remote we hardly saw any people, and few planes even... very seldom would you hear any kind of motor.  Just the wush of the waves and the wind in the trees and the insects clicking, cherping... it was great.  I spent hours just sitting under the cedar trees with my camera and pad of paper writing poetry and snapping photos and listening to the sounds of nature.  We had great food went swimming every day and took walks in the woods.  Kathy and I also went shopping in town and I bought three stone necklaces and a Pottery in a cool holder. 

I have been off the internet for five days and it has taken me a while to get caught up.  I will write more.

I am heading to C'burg but don't know if I will leave for Savannah... with Hanna coming on shore Friday night... hmmmmm think I will stay in B'burg until it leaves. 

I have photos of my Canada trip...

Love and kisses, Marilyn   

With my ex-husband. 

First of all the first impression... It is sad to see how he lives.    My flower garden is filled with weeds and he wacked them down, hopefully after the flowers  bloomed.  The yard was mowed which was a good thing.  The lake was beautiful as usual.  Inside the house looks like a catalogue/magazine bomb went off...  in every room.  In addition, he never puts anything away, so the house is very cluttered.  The bathroom has six cleaning bottles in the corner by the tub, so your feet hardly fit when you sit down.  As usual his work shop is neater than the house.  It just makes me sad. 

We had a nice visit.  He did complement me and say that I was a good house keeper... and a good cook.  This year, it took him twenty minutes to say that I needed psychological help to get over what my parents did to me.  Last year it was within five minutes. 

He had spent last week with his friend George (I was with George's wife Linda on Mackinaw Island).  George told him everything I told Linda on the phone.  So he pretty much knew everything about me.  For some reason, he was angry/upset about my reconnecting with my sister.  I don't understand it.  Although he liked my being alienated from my family. 

I don't quiet know how I feel beyond sad.  He continues to live his life as if things have not changed, but they have.  I guess that is part of why I divorced him last year.  Although I loved my life in the country for a long time... after 30 years I needed a change... and he is still stuck in that old life.  He has turned into an old codger set in his ways and semi comfortable where he is.  I could no more go back to that life, than I could become thirty again.  I am glad that he is comfortable with his life.  I don't think he understands my need to leave anymore than I can understand his need to stay. 

I am heading to Ann Arbor this afternoon.  We are driving all night to get to Manitoulin Island... I am not looking forward to that.  I have never slept well in a moving car.  I hope on the way home we will drive on Labor Day during the day, because I want to leave for Virginia the day after Labor Day and not have to catch up on sleep.  It is an eleven hour drive to B'burg and I want to do it in two drives not one... Arrive in the afternoon to see Elizabeth and K and then take off the next morning for Savannah.  Time will tell.

Elizabeth I have been organizing my pictures and found the photos of K and the cows... So we can print them out. 

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn  

I just found out I am listed on the MSN Canada Spaces... Being born in Canada myself, (Parry Sound, Ontario) it is nice... I feel as if I am back home... sort of.... in a wireless internet type of way.  Sometime in my deep dark past I actually represented Canada in swimming.... in the Olympics our freestyle relay won a bronze medal in Mexico City. 

Actually, next week I am heading back to Canada to Manitoulin Island.  I am really looking forward to seeing the rocks, pine trees and blue waters.  Oh how I love them.  It has been five years since I have been back...  Since I miss nature in Savannah... I am really looking forward to hugging some trees. 

I had a great time at Kathy's and my Aunt Buffie and Uncle Matt's.  We had dinner with Mary Lea with her husband and daughter.  Her daughter is interested in interior design at Lansing Community College.  So I talked to her about what she needed to do.  Of course, I know half of the people teaching at LCC and other programs in the state.  I just arrived at Sharon's.  It is great to see her. 

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Tomorrow I am seeing one of my old students who adopted three brothers a couple of years ago.  I have not met them and am really looking forward to seeing them.  Then I am going to my Aunt and Uncles for dinner and a bed.  In the morning I was going to go to Sharon B's.  I have had really good visits and wonderful experiences visiting my friends, but am kind of tired... hmmmmm  Hope your day is grand.   Love and kisses, Marilyn

Well it is 7:30 and MA and I are getting ready to leave for Grand Rapids.  We are having lunch with Michelle and Deg and then I am spending the night at Michelle and Dale's.  Now I am skipping from hither and yon visiting friends having lunch with others... for the next two weeks. 

I worked on my dissertation for a while yesterday, but my brain turned off.  So I will set it aside for a couple of days.  Hope your day is fine.  Love and kisses, Marilyn   

In the morning I work on my dissertation in the afternoon we do something else. 

A couple of days ago... there was this barrage of stuff floating across the lake.  It looked like a garbage truck had dropped white plastic bags in the lake... MA and I watched as they floated over to us.  It took about an hour to make their way across the lake.  We were getting ready to go down and fish the things out... when I walked down to the dock... it turns out they were clouds of bubbles.... Don't ask me???.... but they unclustered at the seawall and we didn't have to clean up someone else's mess...Hmmmmm  actually it probably cleaned up our sea wall  instead.

MA said that at their lake meeting they said something about the bubbles and that they were not harmful... So we went back to enjoying ourselves. 

Last night we stayed up late working on a very addictive puzzle.  Soon we will form PWA... Puzzle Workers Anonymous.  I wonder where we can check ourselves in .... don't they use puzzles in normal rehab? Hmmmmm
 
Love and kisses, Marilyn

Hmmmmmm Earlier when I was here in Indiana, I finished the revisions to the three case studies chapters...  today I finished the revisions to the Washington DC conclusion.  Yes!!!... in the meantime while my brain was tired I corrected three or four conclusions that Cindy had modified when  I was in Michigan...

I still have to finish the conclusion for Virginia and Ohio.... and then the final conclusion... hmmmm This list is getting much much smaller.  I think I can finish the two conclusions for VA and OH and the corrections to the conclusions before I leave here.

Then Cindy wants me to go back to the Justification for Licensure section and make that work... then I think I will be done.  I probably will not be able to work much in Michigan since I will be flitting from house to house... like a social butterfly... but maybe I can get a couple of hours in here and there...

So I am still chugging along... chugging not slogging... things are looking up.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Hmmmm today I slept in until 10:00 AM I must have been tired from my Chicago trip, even though I slept well at Tao's, I think the two nights before tired me out.  Anyway.  I worked a little and then went to the hospital with MA so she could get a mammogram.  They had wireless so I could actually check my email and other stuff like my phone messages... I have Vonage so the messages come to my computer as well as my phone.  Hmmmm

Then we went to lunch... we were very bad girls, but we had cinnamon swirl french toast with apples.  It was three pieces of french toast smooooothered with about three cups of cinnamon apples.  It was like eating french toast with half an apple pie on top.  It was very yummy and I of course cleaned my plate.  Waldo and I went for a walk tonight to try to get rid of some of it.  Waldo is MA's dog...

On the way home we shopped for dinner tomorrow night.  I am making them fajitas and home made guccomoli hmmm can't spell that green stuff made with avocados...  When I got home I started back on my dissertation.  I think I finished the revisions of Ohio.  Now I am on to conclusions.

Hope your day was grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Had a great visit with Tao and Eric... they have an apartment that is so close to many great amenities in Chicago... two blocks from the shore line and beach, park...  one block from the train and grocery store and restaurants.  Tao and I had a great time at the Field Museum and then a really good dinner at an Italian Restaurant that was amazing.  I slept really well... and we were able to get caught up on each others lives.  I got back here and sat on the deck with MA telling her about my experiences... it was a great way to slough off some of the pent up emotion.  I slept in until 10:00 this morning what a lazy bones..

Love and kisses, Marilyn

My niece and I have been in Chicago since Thursday night.  She arrived at 1:00 in the morning and we talked up until 4:30 AM. Slept in until 10:00 and then walked around Chicago going over the family stuff.  She knew almost nothing about her father (my brother) and she did not know how much my parents not only manipulated her, but all of us.  It was a really emotional night and day...

Last night we had steaks at the Morton House.  It was really yummy.  We had a chocolate soufflé for dessert.  It was good. 

Of course, last night was hard for me to sleep.  I look forward to seeing Tao.      

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Well yesterday I spent the whole day working on my dissertation... Well almost... I spent at least and hour probably two sharing my work with MA.  She is the woman who hired me to be an interior designer when I was 25.  She encouraged me to take the interior design examination and become a professional member of ASID.  So a lot of this paper comes from the ground work she laid in the 1970s.  Hmmmm I think I need to add her to my acknowledgments... she would be thrilled.  We had lunch on the deck looking at the lake and talking about interior design and universities. 

So I worked until about 5:30 and then we went over to Lillie's for dinner.  We had a really nice salad and watched the tv show about dogs... Best Dog in America or something like that.  It was cute to see the dogs do their thing...

Today I am back at her kitchen table with my cup of coffee... over looking the lake... getting ready to write the conclusion to my Washington DC section.  Hmmmm Slowly but surely.  This evening I am off to Chicago to meet my niece.  Tao I will call you when she leaves on Saturday.  Love and kisses, Marilyn    

Well here I am at MA's house in northern Indiana.  The first night we had a big big thunder storm and tornado warnings.... hmmmmmm The days have been beautiful in the mid 80s.  I am sitting at her kitchen table looking over Lake Wawasee and the sun is glinting off of the waters outlining fisherman peacefully sitting in their boats.....

Yesterday we went to the Botanical Gardens in Fort Wayne and then went to rose gardens...

I am bumming the wireless internet from MA's neighbor.  It is another one of those holding the computer high in the air to worship the wireless god for access.  But at least I have internet.  I have been working on my dissertation a for a couple of hours each in the morning.   Today I am going to work pretty much all day.  See if I can get my corrections mostly done.  Hmmmm Cindy and I revised my conclusions on each section a little so I need to correct those too... AHaaaa on vacation and still I work.  Oh well. 

I will load photos of the Botanical Gardens when I don't have to worship the access god.  Love and kisses, Marilyn     

It is truly amazing how close one can become to blogging friends... Fabiolia and Carole have always been such amazing cheerleaders and support for me when I was down... Not that I get down very often... but you are both always there and I thank you for it.  We will meet sometime soon.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

The first night I was here Cindy told me that there are pine trees at the end of the house that threw pine cones on the roof.  They went thunk thunk... they really spooked out her mother before they figured out what the noise was.... I went oh, okay.... She also said the oaks do the same thing later in the summer, but they sound like a machine gun. 

This morning and  for that matter... yesterday morning at 7:30 sharp the noise started... nothing before and a couple a half an hour later... but it sounded as if someone was lobbing snow balls or something big at the house... Bang... BANG... bang bang bang... It shot me out of bed like a cannon... both mornings....

After much discussion and consideration over coffee, we decided that the sun hitting the trees caused the tree or cones to expand and drop off or fly off the trees and hit the house... 

Cindy and I worked on my dissertation today... We pretty much talked through the last piece of the puzzel to get this thing finalized...

We also walked on MSU's campus in the botanical gardens... it was a beautiful day and the gardens were lovely... they have put more signs out about what plant is what and where it comes from... than when I was a student ... hopefully you can tell from my photos,  My batteries ran out or there would have been more photos...

We walked across campus to the rose garden which has been moved... Cindy drove me to the new location... it was really a lovely day.  We came home debated my dissertation some more and then.... She made me watch Find*ng Nem*... she could not believe that I had not seen it.  It was such as cute movie.  I really enjoyed it and of course liked the moral of the story.  Nothing is certain and don't give up and working together we can accomplish many hard things... and friendships are so important.  Hmmm sound familiar?  Heard that a few times here over the years.  Love you all....

Hope your day was grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn