It's Monday. The weatherman promises rain showers today, but he's been promising that for three days and the worst we've seen is a light overnight sprinkle that left the ground wet and the lawns wanting a bit more. I played golf on Saturday and when we finished, the sky turned dark and the temperature plummeted to the high fifties, but no rain came. Today the sky is a slate of granite with dark clouds and a forbidding presence...but, alas, there is a hint of blue sky on the horizon and the rain may miss us yet again. There were some isolated showers and some hail on Saturday, but Roseville missed the fun. It is supposed to be showery today and tomorrow and I hope to see some real rain out of this storm yet.

I played in a two-man best-ball qualifier tournament on Saturday with one of our better golfers, in fact he was club champion two years ago. Boyd and I shot 32-32=64 and finished fourth in the tournament. I shot 44-39=83 and I'm beginning to get a little concerned about my slow starts. I need to develop the same rythym and focus on the starting holes as I do on the back nine. The top two teams go on to the regionals locally. Mark Konrad and his partner shot a 61 to qualify. Mark is our webmaster at the Roseville Golf Club and hosted the Masters tournament last week. Mark and Darla turn 40 on the same week in May and we will join them for a trip to Monterey. Mark has a twin brother, Mike, who will also join us. Several friends and family are going to Monterey with Mark. 12 of us will play golf at Poppy Hills in Carmel and we will have a big birthday dinner on Thursday night, May 13th. Darla's birthday is May 16th, Sunday.

Darla and I spent yesterday updating our house with new vertical blinds in the family room and master bedroom and new blinds in the master bedroom. We now have matching white faux wood blinds in the master bedroom on all three windows. Darla will be working on new curtains for the windows over the next week or so. I guess they aren't really curtains, they're window accents or toppers or something like that. Darla's theme for the room is blue and white, which will shock anyone who knows Darla. J/K.

We will also have a new washer and dryer delivered today. Darla has been working with the same garage sale appliances since we got married. The washer and dryer that she had was even worse than mine, so we dumped hers way back when. I think I paid $75 for the pair back in 1990 when I got divorced and they have seen better days. The washer had been rocking so badly due to the spindle being out of balance that the top panel had come loose and Daniel had duct taped the panel back down. With two six-footers in the house who are both athletes, we put the washer and dryer through their paces. Darla will be thrilled to have some nice new appliances to do the job from now on.

I have not heard from our soldier since she called last week. I'm really looking forward to her getting back to the states and back to a ho-hum existence at Fort Gordon. I'm sure Jenn has mixed feelings as she loved the work, but the stress and pressure of Baghdad was a dark cloud over that experience. I hope to hear from her in the next week.

Darla is off to a women's retreat at church next weekend. Pray for me and the boys as we struggle along without Mom. I'm sure we'll thrive and the fast food restaurants will do a booming business this weekend. I have a golf game at Rio La Paz golf course on Saturday and will leave the boys to their own devices that day. Hopefully the house is in one piece when I get home.

I got some pictures from Darryl of a golf cart that he purchased in Dallas and hauled back to Austin. He is reconditioning the unit and doing body repairs, new brakes, tires, wheels, etc. I think Dad's work with his two project cars got Darryl in the mood to work on something. He'll trick out the golf cart and have the nicest set of wheels on the course. Somehow, that body work gene passed me by.

Well, that is another installment of the blog. I hope you are all hale and hearty. Be nice to each other. Ciao.