Thanks, y'all.

Thanks to all of you friends and family who've called to check on us. We got calls from across the US and really appreciate your concern. The 3 of us (and Max and Patch) and our extended family fared very well during Gustav.

But we sure didn't have a very fun Labor Day weekend! Bryan & I had big plans to travel to Houma, Louisiana to spend the weekend with our good friends Hank & Sue. We were going to Morgan City (30 miles away, the town we lived in our first 7 years as Mr. & Mrs. and the town where our Amy was born) to the annual Shrimp & Petroleum Festival and most assuredly were going to have a meal (#9 with soft tacos, please) at Tampico's, our most favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole wide world.

But...we stayed home...and are still boarded up in case Hannah, Ike or Josephine decide to come this way. (We haven't heard from Hank & Sue, but we are trying to get ahold of them.)

I must say, though, I think Gustav took the path to Louisiana because I had no Underwood deviled ham. I did have green grapes, but no deviled ham. Those are two of my must-have food items when a storm is approaching. I'm not sure why or when the deviled ham deal started, but I can tell you exactly where and when the grape saga began.

It was in September of 1965 in a Navy Base (aka the Seabee Base in Gulfport) warehouse where my family (gee, I was only 9 years old) set up in a cot camp with what seemed like hundreds of others to weather Hurricane Betsy. Why? I really can't say. Daddy wasn't military; he was civil service, but somebody or something must have mandated that he be there and he, being the family guy that he was, had us with him...hurricane or high water. It was noisy, I do remember that. And it seemed Mother had an endless supply of green grapes!

My supply of grapes ended today. I even went to work today.

A note of thanks to my #1 (that means he's the oldest; I don't have a favorite) nephew's bride for the blogging header tips. I was born in the Space Age and the computer world is still a bit foreign. I can type as fast as I want in Word and maneuver in the scheduler at work, but setting up a blog? It seems way complicated for me. Thanks, Heather!