Sliders, Sophia, Sales & Solitaire

I never really got hooked with playing solitaire -- until recently. For some reason I find it a way to buffer some of the activities of the everyday events with an "escape". There are a variety of other ways but this seems to work for now. Growing up, cards were not something we had in the house. I know from reading some stories about my ancestors and other relatives that cards and card playing was an important role in their lives.

My choice is to play solitaire on my iPad when I need a break. Apparently the electronic version of solitaire is the most played game of all video type games. It is addictive and effective in it's own way. I can remember watching others play solitaire "in the old days" and hearing the shuffling and reshuffling of the actual cards . I tried the old way every once in a while but it did not hold the fascination. I suspect that the electronic version will be a diversion for me for a little bit at least. 

A New Found Cousin

This last week I had several emails from cousins but I also received an email from a cousin that I had not known before. She wrote to me because she had seen the obituary of her Great Grandmother on my website. She wondered how that came to be and how HILES were related to the Gillett Family.  That Great Grandmother turns out to be the sister of my Great Grandmother -- Emily Adeline Gillett. Adeline as she was known by,  married John Hiles, my Great Grandfather. So Sophia J Gillett brought us cousins together -- Mary Allen -- and the rest of us cousins. I hope to share a lot more about Mary and her branch in the future.

Readers of this blog and others know that "sliders" play a big role in our weekly life here. And this week is no exception. This week because of the minor construction and other things going on in our house we have been forced to use a different kind of slider to make our lives more enjoyable -- furniture sliders. We have moved and rearranged some of our heaviest pieces of furniture -- we could never have done it without the aid of these sliders:

These, some similar in appearance to our Saturday Night Sliders, really work and make it possible for two seniors like us to move some really heavy things around the house. It is amazing to me that they were not always around for our use -- kind of like wheels on suitcases . . . our work though is progressing and should come to a satisfactory conclusion soon.

In the meantime, Auggie is ailing from a foot-pad infection making it hard for him to walk on certain type surfaces like blacktop or other rough things. This makes for a slow, really slow walk each morning. We have had him to the vet and gotten medication that is applied to his feet and pills to fight the infection. One problem is that the minute we (Gail) applies the medicine Auggie licks it off . . . we are going to try to see the vet again today Saturday. I spotted the following on the web which may have to be a consideration:

I am sure that if necessary they come in a variety of colors . . .

BOOKS

The world of books is in a state of change. I read that this year there were more books published electronically than physically. I am guilty of buying and reading books on my iPad and iPod. In addition to ebooks the pricing factor is creating turmoil as well as evidenced by the sad news this week:

I used to enjoy shopping at Borders because of the huge selection of books and the fact that they usually had comfortable furniture to sit in and browse through a book or two. In the coming months I am sure that there will be other book sellers that have the above type sales ad.

And so it goes this week, some of this and some of that -- we look forward to enjoying our sliders -- the gut bomb type, tonight.  See you in a few.