It's Raining, It's Pouring, The Old Man Is Snoring

I was standing in my kitchen this morning at about 9am and I turned towards the front window just as a creature with a long stripped tail went walking by.  I couldn't believe my eyes...it was a huge raccoon.  In broad daylight, no less.  By the time I grabbed my camera and got outside it had gone into my neighbors carport.  I know they keep cat food out on the porch for their outdoor cat and I'm sure that was the attraction. 

Meanwhile I took some pictures of my beautiful "lump" of flowers.  They are just so pretty right now,  They border my neighbors driveway and he keeps telling everyone that they are his flowers.  He has rocks instead of grass in his front yard so you know he isn't going to be planting flowers.  They have their place for sale and my flowers showed up in the pictures that the realtor took for the Multiple Listing Service. I hate the thought of them moving, they are the best neighbors in the whole wide world.  Getting new neighbors can sometimes be a scary thing.

Anyway, I kept waiting for the raccoons to reappear and I was just about to give up and go back in the house when not one, but two appeared, coming out of the other neighbors carport.  They were moving along so fast, I had to run down my driveway to get a picture of them.  They headed for the school yard just outside the back gate of this mobile home park but then took a detour and climbed over a fence belonging to another house and disappeared in among their trees.   I've seen them at night around here and early one winter morning I opened my front door to go to work and there were two of them on my front porch, trapping me in my house for about 10 minutes until they sauntered off.  But to see them running down the road at 9 o'clock in the morning seems strange. 

We are finally getting some rain here in the Pacific Northwest today.  Unfortunately, unless it rains hard for about 3 days it won't do much good. Everything is very dry. I've set all  my hanging baskets out on the patio to get watered by Mother Nature.

My friend Joni, finally posted an entry this morning.  We were talking on the phone last night and she said she was going to.  It's been a long time, so why not stop by her journal and say hi. She's counting down the days until she retires...it won't be long now Joni, until you are free...free from going to work! 

Yesterday, Bob and I went to the travel agency and finalized our plans for the August 17th cruise to Alaska.  Last year, he didn't want to go until he took me to Seattle and saw that big ship sitting there at the dock.  Then with a very sad face he said "gee I wish I was going."  Well, he better not back out this year.  (He was asking the gal about trip cancellation insurance.)   I'm starting to get excited about it now that all the details are in place.  I'm also looking forward to finally meeting Lanny and his family, another AOL journaler who lives close by.  They are going on the same cruise on Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas.  I asked the travel agent if there were still cabins available and in checking she found there were.  So if you think you might like to take this cruise, call your travel agent right away.  It's not too late to get a cabin on this ship.  August is a perfect month to go to Alaska, as it hasn't started getting cold and stormy there yet. 

Well, I'm going to close and get busy.  I've already been to Curves this morning and I feel energized, so I better get busy before that feeling goes away. 

Until next time.........Linda