Life After the Gypsy Caravan

On Monday, we spent most of the day helping staff the Compton Cares booth at Gypsy Caravan, the annual craft & antiques market-meets garage sale event that has been a St. Louis Memorial Day tradition for 35 years. Admission fees benefit the St. Louis Symphony. Our church eventually made over $1,000 for our accessibility project--although when we and the first shift team arrived at 6:30 a.m. to find our tent blown down, much of our merchandise wet, and a steady rain falling that remained from a rousing electrical storm that had gone through two hours earlier, we were not sure we would make any money at all. The complete saga of the day is on my Compton Cares Update blog if you would like to read it and see more pictures.

Tuesday, Norm saw his eye surgeon for the 1-week follow up and he got a clear bill and release to drive the car, mow the lawn, lift more than 10 pounds and as Dr. Bias said, "resume normal activities." The rest of the day, we rested, since we hadn't rested on the sabbath or on the holiday! Naps are good.

Today, we did some household chores, I did some finances, and we spent the afternoon at the church folding, stapling, folding, addressing and stickering some 200 monthly newsletters, along with three other volunteers. (Our church does not have a secretary--budget cuts a couple of years ago.) After we got home this evening, Norm edged the lawn in anticipation of actually being able to mow it tomorrow. We have two dry days in a row! St. Louis is now more than 12 inches above average precipitation for the calendar year. Some of that mitigated the drought conditions of the past two or three years, but enough is enough. Our stone basement walls, circa 1922, are naturally porous and we are starting to get out the mops to take care of the slight seepage that occurs when the ground is saturated. Lots of overtime for the dehumidifier down there.

To our Colby, Garden City, Mineral Wells, Irving, Hutchinson, North Platte and other family readers, we are eagerly looking forward to seeing you at the family reunion which is coming up soon. Take care, stay healthy and don't forget to comment!