Alex’s orientation at Culver’s was supposed to be this week, but they called to reschedule. I advised Alex to make calls back to them to make sure it gets scheduled, which I think worked out well for him. They’ve just been busy. Anyway, the orientation should now be this weekend….Alex had his final drivers’ ed driving course on Saturday; the one that had to be made up because of his fender-bender a few weeks ago. He drove for an hour with the instructor, then the parent ride-along followed, so he had a good 90 minutes of driving time. The teacher said he’s been doing very well and gave him good marks in everything, so now he just needs to finish up the 50 hours of driving time (he’s got something like 15 now, which seems impossibly little for as much as we’ve done with him) by next June when he can get his license…..I did not go to Alex’s ride-along because I went to FW to visit Mom. Today, she looked at me as I came in but didn’t really seem to register much. We sat on the couch and watched a movie, but she was not really present much at all. She spoke only a little the whole time I was there, mostly in gibberish, which is new to me. She also didn’t seem to understand when I told her I had to leave; she just sat there like she had been the whole time. She didn’t recognize anyone in pictures I showed her, not even her mother. She is still healthy and being taken care of and kept clean, and the clothes I bought for her last time fit her fine, but visiting her is getting to be so depressing..…Natalie started up with piano lessons again this week. She’s been wanting to get back to it but Susie was full up, and we had to wait until she had another opening. Which she now does…..Beth’s been gearing up for the soup season again, even though she’s not sure she’s really up to it. She’s been working hard on making the soups, but the hardest thing has been getting started. She has a show next weekend, I hope it goes well…..I finally got the pool put away early this week. While I was waiting for it to dry out it rained overnight, and by morning there was a lot of dirt (mud) in the pool as well. So I hosed it off a bit and drained all the muddy water with the shop-vac, which worked really well, then got all 3 kids to help me haul it into the garage and get it laid out on top of the camper. That’s going to have to do until I rent another storage unit for the winter, I guess, because I do want the truck in the garage this winter…..