We had a pleasant shopping trip today. Surprisingly, considering this is the busy time of the week where everyone hits the shopping mecca. We went to the departments where I wanted to go and to the departments that Bill had on his list to go. We perused the baby section, as I am wont to do lately, hoping to find some baby things on sale to stock up for the baby-to-be in October. I finally found some cloth diapers, to be used as burping cloths. I tried to talk Amy into using cloth diapers for the baby's bottom but she apologized and said she was going to use disposable ones. She didn't want the smell of dirty diapers around. I can't blame her. I went through that for 10 some years while I was having all my kids. Still I hate to think of adding to the tons of disposable diapers piling up in all the garbage dumps all over the U.S.

Let's see I scored the diapers and some little bootie socks. The kind that are hard for the kid to kick off when he/she gets his little feet a'flailing as he/she finds out they can move their legs about. Bill insists that he's going to call the kid Scooby. Where that came from I'm not sure. Amy and Todd's last name is Fox so we've been looking up all the baby names that mean fox, or bear since we're stolid bear lovers around here. Amy found Quillan which is unique but we're not so sure we'd like to stick him with it. As a middle name we all like it better. I found out that fox in Spanish is zorro. That is so cool. When I was 10-years-old, Disney had that little series on about Zorro. I absolutely loved that show. But naming your baby Zorro would be like naming it Elvis or Jesus. Not a good idea.

So, I was telling Bill that and about how you might as well name your kid Elvis or Jesus if you'd stick him with a name like Zorro and the first thing he thought of was, "Or like naming him Scooby." So, Scooby has stuck. Scooby Quillan. Or Scooby Q. Much to Amy's dismay. But Bill is persistent, this just might stick. I mean Scooby as a nickname, not his real name. Bill says, boy or girl, he can still call it Scooby.

But what an Ahhhh...... day it has been. Bill had a project going to make the cat Litter Robot machine deeper so he wouldn't have to empty it but once a week. The Litter Robot is a wonderful contraption, well worth the money spent. Look under testimonials and you'll see one from my Billy. So, he was out in the yard sawing and building. And I was out luxuriating in the lawn chair, looking up into the big maple tree and seeing the red buds popping out, and enjoying looking at all the birds flitting around and hearing the finch's and the grackles and the mourning doves trying to woo a mate. It was a great day for hanging clothes on the line to dry, too. The cats, of course, were out in the enclosure most of the day lounging about on the shelves.

We also discovered that a squirrel has chewed a 2-inch diameter hole in the bottom of the swimming pool. Bill stored it on the gazebo for the winter because it's too danged heavy to carry anywhere. I can't blame him. When he showed me he was storing it on the gazebo, a little alarm went off but I didn't persist about it going inside. The garage is too small to put it in there and trying to lug it all the way downstairs was too much to contemplate so I let it rest. Who would have thought a squirrel would want to sample some plastic? Hopefully, it's patchable. It better be!!!

Funny thing was, Bill offered to go out and build a fire after it got dark and, for once, I didn't take him up on it. Not sure why I wasn't in the mood for fire watching tonight but I wasn't. Maybe I was kinda tuckered out from being out in the fresh air all day as it was. There will be many more nights of fire building to come. Especially with 2/3 of the Muckheads living here. We love a good bonfire. Did I ever tell you about the time that I let Amy's friends chop the garage down bit by bit, night after night, so we could burn it in the back yard in some pretty wild bonfires? No, I guess I didn't. Well, maybe I will some day. That story is still going around Columbus in Amy's circle of friends.