Happy Anniversary to my mommy and daddy!

I'm waiting for M to get home from Ken's and I'm not entirely sure what to do in the meantime, so I naturally thought I'd post. We're heading to Lexington this afternoon.. we're going to Jenny and Andy's house and then off to dinner with them or something like that. Jenny is a Swedish graduate student at UK.. she's been living here for a few years now and recently got married, so it seems she might be in it for the long haul herself. As I said to her, I have such a partiality for Swedish-American couples, for some reason. :) We met her at the midsummer picnic that the Scandinavian Heritage Association held back in June.. it was the first visit for both us and her, and the three of us were at least twenty years younger than most anyone else there. I think they were quite pleased to see young people there all of a sudden. In any case, we've talked on the phone a couple of times and sent a few emails since then, but now we're going to meet up with her and her new husband, which sounds like fun. You know we don't go out much. *grin*

I suspect M will be more than a little excitable when he gets home, as when he gets here, he should have a fully complete mandolin. He asked Ken (who builds Silver Angel mandolins and happens to live twenty minutes or so from here) if he would do the last bits for him.. something about grooves in a nut and adjusting the bridge to the shape of the mando. He's been gone a couple of hours now, though, so I suspect they've started talking. M was hopping up and down earlier, thinking about the completion of his mandolin. I must say that I'm intensely impressed with him and quite proud of his accomplishment on this mandolin. It looks even better in real life than in the pictures, and he's worked so hard and has done such a good job.. particularly if you consider that he's taught himself completely and didn't even have a terribly strong background in woodwork. I think he certainly does now, though. :)

Dad called to see if we would go pick up his truck from the repair shop earlier (this place actually happened to be on the way to Ken's.) M had just headed out of the driveway, so he came back and we met at the store to get the keys (and so I'd be able to get home after I brought the truck back.) We were there for five minutes or so, and I could tell that my parents had done a LOT of cleaning in the store to get rid of whatever the problem was, including mopping and all that. I couldn't feel the smell of what caused me such distress yesterday.. but two minutes after I left, I could feel my throat tightening and a sort of metallic taste in my mouth. I didn't notice a strange taste yesterday, but I was reading stuff online last night and that was mentioned. I don't know if I'm suggestible or if I just didn't notice it or if it didn't happen at all yesterday. Anyway, I had to go in for another five minutes or so when I got back to give the key and the bill and all that, and I ended up coughing and my eyes were "looking funny" and my throat was doing its thing, so I really don't know what I'm going to do about the whole store thing. Obviously I can't be there, but I never expected to stop working in produce because of it. Eh. As good of a reason as any, I guess. *laugh* It seems to be related to the Amish stuff they brought back, but for all I know, I've suddenly developed an allergy to.. pears, or whatever. Hmm.. I guess I could test that by running down to the other produce market and browsing for a while. I might do that tomorrow. Right now, my throat still feels like it has a lump in it.. not that it feels hard to breathe, it just aches. I had that all day yesterday. Sleeping for twelve hours seemed to help, though. :)

I'm quite sure you're all going to get tired of hearing about this allergy thing. It was really scary, though, and it's obviously still a bit of a problem for me. I figure you'll get over it. And M--shush, don't say it. *whop* Funny how you don't even have to hear it to know what the spouse is going to say to any given thing, isn't it?

I made my parents an anniversary card last night and dropped it off earlier.. they seemed quite pleased. Oh, hold on, I'll show you. It was pretty simple, but I thought it turned out pretty well. Created in Photoshop completely from scratch, no template. The film strip I borrowed and edited, but I don't remember from where.