Good Afternoon from sunny California! Rob and I had to go out to buy a new battery for the Explorer. He wouldn't believe me the other day when I told him we needed a new one. He said we just needed new connector ends for the cables. He charged the battery for a day, added water to the cells, took it out this morning for a spin. All good except when he parked it and tried to start it again. I hate always being right ;)

Yesterday it drizzled, rained, drizzled all day. Kind of unusual for this early in the year. The sun is shining again today as I write this. Oh! How I love the California coast. I tried the mountains for about 3 months earlier this year as AOL journalers will remember. It was cold and miserable for two months, almost tolerable for the next month and I left before it got hotter than hades. My daughters and family suffered up to 117 degree heat for most of the summer. Now it is cooling down again and has been raining for three days up there. UGH! I am so happy to be home.

During the the drizzle and rain yesterday, we let mom and puppies come in. They love the outside, but they are all so small that cold weather and rain could make them sick. Of course the puppies were too ignorant to get out of the rain, even when their mama barked at them to get in the dog house. Precious (mama) won't go out in the rain, drizzle or what have you until she absolutely has to go potty. The old lady (14) refuses to come inside at all, but is wise enough to stay in the dog house. I enjoyed playing with Precious and her pups. Precious always comes in for prayer. If we start without her, she cries. She sits very quietly next to me and seems to understand that this is a special time for us. We call her our "praying pup".

A couple of people have asked me about my son John Scalzi, who was our journal "guru" for some time on AOL. His latest book "Zoe's Tale" came out around the first of August. He and his wife and daughter are doing just fine. You can find him at: http://www.whatever.scalzi.com/ His adventures are there, however he may be setting up a second blog for personal entries. If so, you can find it at Whatever.

I hope to be blogging more regularly than I was at AOL. I get lazy sometimes, but since so many of us are going to be here now, I hope to suit up and show up, as it were, to this new journal. I hope that any of you that find me here will post a comment so I may find out your new home as well.

Blessings, Penny