Fall in Oklahoma
Fall as in season, not as in stumble. ;-)

I'm convinced this has got to be the best fall ever (so far) we have had. Hasn't it been incredible? This whole last week hovered in the mid seventies. Cool breezes, some rain, lower than average temperatures. . .And life on our back screened-in porch can't be beat (beaten, I know). We've moved our old leather recliners out there and it's our favorite place to relax and read or watch TV. We look at each other and ask, could it get any better? Life is good!

Out Our Way-
Not much new stuff happening around here. We're busy and having fun.

Paul came home Thursday from having the best meeting he's had in a long time. He says it really does rate among his top three ever. He's been idle for awhile from traveling, so it was encouraging for his first meeting back on the road to be such a good one.

My computer went out. We've had a lot of power surges lately, and even though I have a surge protector on everything, it was right after that my computer would not come on.Yikes! Off to the Computer Hospital. My Mac is an old one I bought from work at an auction, so I thought I was going to have to break down and buy a new one. But, it was repairable, and I'm back on. Scary stuff. I didn't realize how much I count on having my computer--all the blogs and e-mails. I was lost.

I snuck into Paul's room to his desktop and used his, but soon realized that's kind of like invading someone's personal space. He was gracious about it, but I could tell, so I backed up from doing that. I began to bring my work laptop home and finally took the time to figure out how to hook up my laptop to the Internet (it's not a wireless laptop) here at the house. Serendipities are wonderful! But, it was difficult to get into my personal account from my work laptop. Anyway, all is well and I have my desktop back and I hope I've learned my lesson about not backing up important stuff. Not sure. We'll see. LOL Bottom-line: I'm back!

The reason I think Oklahoma is having such a wonderful fall is that I flew to Austin Friday morning and back home Friday night. We've had such cool days here, I wore some new clothes including a long-sleeved t-shirt with a light fun jacket. Burned up! Austin was over 100 degrees and humid, and Dallas was in the mid 90s. Arrived back in the city and it was in the low 70's and not very humid. Wonderful! Love Oklahoma!

Friday was a party day for seven of my ten-member team. Two couldn't go with us, but eight of us flew to Austin for one day. We spent the morning at the office building and then drove to a country club for a publisher's retreat with all the Saxon math team from Harcourt Achieve, about a hundred people. It was fun and very generous of the company to fly us all down.

Having led tour groups overseas, I knew the responsibility of taking a team out of town. I had them all fill out emergency sheets and carried those with me. I had to make sure we all had boarding passes and the rental car and all of that. I don't have an admin person at the office, so I had to do all of this myself. Quite time consuming, but worth it. We had a great time and laughed a lot. I have a great team and we're quite varied in personalities and age, but we get along very well. They enjoyed it and we were all very worn out by the time we arrived in OKC. I was especially so. (Do you ever write something and when you reread it, you see that you used a certain word way over the appropriate limit? What's with the "all"? Hmmm. . .) That's all! LOL

I've been flying so much I get a lot of rewards. I earn free trips. Paul is off this next week (off as in work, not as in other ways ;-) so he's using one of my free tickets and accompanying me to Austin. That's nice. I have to stay down two full days this time instead of just one. We're apart a lot lately and we miss each other's company. We've kind of gotten used to having each other around. We get a little lonely, so this will be fun. I will have my evenings free this time, unlike many of my other trips. We've already got our favorite places to eat and visit when we're in Austin. (Hope it's a little cooler.)

We're looking forward to our trip to New Hampshire, the White Mountain area, for our fall foliage trip. We're going the second week in October.

Next month is a big (really big) birthday for me and it seems appropriate that we heard this week we may be great grandparents in a few months. Zowie Zooks! How can that be? When do you finally feel as old as you really are? I'm still amazed I'm Grams, even though I've been that for 25 years. Now I'm going to be a Great Grams (that could be debatable ;-). Kelly noted that now we will have two Grandma Cherrys, but one will really be Grandma Cherri. That makes me feel even older. My child will be a grandmother. (Just having fun. I'm really excited. Our family's growing!)

This morning we've been asked to speak in a Sunday School class about marriage and how we have done certain things, etc. Do you think they're ready for us? I wonder. We'll see. I guess our record of being together, 47.5 years, says something.

That's all. Just catching up.
MB

A Day to Remember

We probably all remember where we were five years ago today. The term, 9-11, has come to mean more than the emergency call-in number. I had a friend at Saxon who got caught in the air flying from CA to VA. They landed in Salt Lake City and it took her one week to work her way home via rental car, a friend driving her, and finally on the train. She was thinking all the way, and didn't stand around wondering what happened. She ran for the rental car agency as soon as she landed and was one of the few who got a car.

I'll think of her this evening as I fly to Austin. I may be wrong, but I'll bet there aren't many people flying today. I was in Austin last Wednesday through Friday and am going for my weekly Tuesday trip this evening.

Not much happening at our household other than being quite busy. We had our deck refinished again and had our patio paint touched up and then a glossy finish put on. Looks great, but that took two days of moving stuff, having someone at the house, and then moving it all back. Not our favorite way to spend time. Paul does all the work, so I'm speaking for him. I just come in from work and admire all that's been done.

We're slowly getting the third driveway and concrete slab prework done. Had to have our lot surveyed, and that's about all that's been done so far. Sometime this fall we'll have the concrete poured.

We enjoyed last Saturday out at the football stadium. We went quite early and enjoyed walking around and soaking in all the smells and sounds and sights. Such fun. We both love it. We walked around to the east side of the stadium and viewed Steve Owens statue in Heisman Park. Then went on around to the south side to the All-American Plaza and enjoyed seeing Fred T. Cherry's name three times in the early thirties' plaques, twice for OU football and once for track. (FTC is my Dad for anyone reading who doesn't know that.)

We had arranged to meet a pastor and his foster son for lunch, but before we met them, we couldn't resist splitting a JR's barbeque sandwich at about 10:30 a.m. Then at lunch we had to have one of the fabulous O-Club burgers, the ones with a hamburger patty AND a split frankfurter on it. Really, really good.

We checked out The Oklahoman for Kelly to see how the crew was doing without her. They did okay. We reported that back to Kelly. We ate with our friends under the big tent by the big screen. Since he was a pastor, he and Paul enjoyed talking about blogging and also exchanging funny stories. A woman had come up and sat down at our table to get out of the sun and to eat her lunch. She joined right in and as it turned out, Paul probably was at OBU with her. Too funny, and such a small world.

We also enjoyed watching the game. We left at half time and Paul headed to Houston. He preached both services yesterday in Angleton. He's driving back today and will get home in time to drive me to the airport.

Work is still quite fun and keeps me hopping. I now have nine women besides me in the office and one other working off-site. Managing is a full-time job, but I like it a lot. Our company is having a celebration later this month at a country club in Austin and our whole crew is flying down together for one day. They're all excited about doing this and getting to meet everyone they work with almost daily via fax, phone, and e-mail. Putting faces with names is always a fun and sometimes surprising experience.

Better sign off. Hope 9-11 is a good day for you. A time to remember, a time to reflect, and a time to report to you. LOL I've been married to an alliterator far too long.
MB