It's been busy. . .

Today began dreary, but it's sunny out now and Paul's getting the lawn/leaves cleaned up.

 There's still lots of leaves on the front trees, especially the ones that are always late.  He said that when we left last year, the tree still had some leaves  on it.  Doesn't seem like that now.  I think we're leaving later than last year despite all the pre-planning.  Things happen! My Toyota Corolla needs to be inspected before we leave.  We both have things on the calendar that were added recently before we could leave.  Life just gets in the way of plans. 

We went to church today for the last time before we go.  Next weekend we'll be at the wedding and traveling home and the following weekend we'll be traveling to Florida.

I'm getting  close to people at this church  and it does my heart good to be recognized, hugged and talked to.  Our minister is getting to be a friend too.  She's only been there two years, but  she's doing a good job.  I would say she and her husband are in their late fifties.   When we get to Florida, we have a "home church" there also.  The minister is really good there too.  We don't know many people, but there are familiar faces.  We enjoy both services - early contemporary, or later traditional.   We like the choirs  up here and down there.

We almost had a tragedy on our hands Friday night.  We got a phone call from Sharon saying that Lee was being taken to the hospital by ambulance with a neck injury sustained during the Friday night football game.  Fortunately, he wasn't badly hurt, but it was a difficult time for everyone before they checked him out and we could breath a sigh of relief.  That's the reason I don't like high school football.  It's not worth it. It's so scary when things could go wrong. 

 "That's my opinion, what's yours?"  Remember when I mentioned that a couple of posts ago and couldn't remember the man's name who said it?  Someone answered me and said the man who said that was Dr. Steven Coleman, and he taught at Elmira College.  Not Corning Community.  I don't think he was there when I got my masters degree. I hope not.  I'm not a fan of his. 

 It's nice when someone answers me, because then I don't feel like I'm writing to the wall.   Feed back is good!

Saturday night, last night, we went out to dinner at the Seneca Lodge in Watkins Glen with our next door neighbors.  (They were the ones who took care of our plants when Sharon became incapacitated from her leg surgery.  She couldn't do it. ) The Seneca Lodge is very close to Watkins Glen State Park.  It's built like a huge rustic log cabin and there's cabins and a motel attached, so it's used a lot by tourists.   Paul was really surprised at the crowd there.  They don't allow reservations, so you put your name in when you get there. They said there'd be about a half-hour wait to be seated and it was.

 While we waited, we sat at a long table with four other people. They wanted to know where we were from, or were we from the area?   They were quite chatty - seems Paul knew a lot about the area they're from in Pennsylvania.  It always amazes me the amount of tourists we have come here for the color/wine - especially at this season.  It's nice to live in a unique area that other people come to visit and admire.  But it makes me realize that we should be doing more touristy things ourselves and take advantage of all that's around us.  Next year.

We didn't get served for a while too.  Every table was full.  Servers were working hard, rushing here and there.  We had a good food and a good time  though. 

Hey - good news!  Remember a while back when I talked about Kindle book prices and how they'd gone sky-high almost over night?  You could almost never get a Best Seller less than $9.99.  I gave my word to myself not to buy anything more than $9.99 (which I alas broke sometimes).

  It seems the Justice Department has accused the book companies of price-fixing e-books, and three of the big companies have backed down.  Simon and Schuster being one.  Amazon sent me an e-mail saying that I and lots of others in the country would be getting money back for e-books we'd bought from 2010-2012.  The money would be in our accounts this February.   How neat is that???And it also means the price of e-books should be coming down.

   I'll give you an example of how ridiculous it was/is. 

I wanted to read Ken Follett's new book "The Fall of Giants" a year ago, but it was $16.99.   It went to paperback  and they recently  reduced the e-book price to $9.99.  So I got it. It is so good.  Recently the second book in the trilogy came out so I went to Sam's Club to check on prices.  It was $21.99 for the hard copy.  When I came home, I checked the Kindle price. It was $19.99.  That made me. so. mad.  I'm hoping its one of the ones that come down in price.  I hate finishing a book that is great and not be able to read the next one in the series that you know will be just as good.

 Having a Kindle is very tempting because you really can get a book in less than a minute without leaving home.  But I'm not paying $19.99 for "air."  Nor will a lot of other people.  You wait and see. 

So - what's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?