When I was growing up, Memorial Day weekend was a time for visiting the graves of my grandparents, uncles, and great-aunts & uncles and for spending a day at the local VFW lakes for fishing and a huge picnic. I haven’t been to the VFW lakes in over 30 years, and I didn’t visit the cemetary this year, either. Instead, I . . .

1. Spent Friday visiting juntique shops in my home town with my daughter. We had a wonderful time!   FYI: “juntique shops” is my name for those really interesting shops — usually with booths for individual vendors — that carry everything from antiques to vintage items to stuff picked up for almost nothing at the end of garage sales or when cleaning out Great-Aunt Gertrude’s house after she’s moved to the local elder-care facility.

2. Listened to and occasionally watched 4 St. Louis Cardinals baseball games on television.

3. Knitted 24 more rows on a scarf that is tantalizingly-close-yet-maddeningly-far from being completed. For those of you who don’t knit, think back to your last vacation, to those last 2 hours in your 12-hour drive that seem to be taking longer than the previous 10.

4. Exercised Saturday and today; I walked far more than 10,000 steps Friday as well.

5. Attended church service Sunday morning at a nice little country church 10 or so minutes away from my house.

6. Fixed dinner for my daughter this evening and had a very nice visit with her.

7. Found out my son will be able to come home for several days!! He’ll be here Saturday evening and will have to leave again Wednesday morning. Three days — I’ll take them and cherish every moment.

8. Arranged to have our family pictures taken by a wonderful free-lance photographer who just happens to be my nephew’s wife. We haven’t had a family photo taken in about 5 years, and I’m very excited about having a new one.

9. Sorted through some more “stuff” and filled a couple of boxes to take to a local charity thrift store. The boxes are in my trunk and ready to be delivered tomorrow!

10. Started (writing) a novel.