August 4, 2004: Grand Am/Blueberry Picking

The car I traded in was a Honda CRV which is considered a smaller sized SUV. It was a good car, but I felt that paying payments like that, the insurance, and gas, were taking too much of my income. So, I got a 2001 Silver Pontiac Grand Am. I showed my grandpa today and he really liked it. He said the price is good too. I will feel better not shelling out so much money on car stuff. I want to have a home someday and don't want my money all tied up in car payments and insurance.

Today, I took the neighbor kids blueberry picking. They seemed to enjoy it. My grandpa took us along. Boy, I have never seen my grandpa act like he did today. He was yelling at me because I mixed my berries in his bucket. Apparently, he was wanting to time himself and see how many he could pick in an hour. Then, he slapped me on the hand and got mad when we went to pay, as he said my bucket wasn't heaping over like he likes it. Then, he didn't want to pay the owner the amount she said he had. I had never seen him act like that before. Then, he got mad when he put his berries in his box. He said I had too much junk in my box. I have gone berry picking with him for many years and he always said I picked the best berries. I usually pick the big ones and I don't ever have twigs and green berries in my bucket, but he usually has a bunch of that stuff in his bucket. So, I found that strange that he would yell at me about that. I think he has alzheimers. He seemed to forget all about it around 10 minutes later.

Then, the kids and I got ice cream and came home. Then, I helped clean the house and then took the neighbor boys down to the lake to play on the playground equipment, then we took Maggie to the doggie beach. At first when the waves came up on the shore, she jumped away. Eventually, Maggie did go in the water and she seemed to enjoy that. She went to bed right away tonight. i guess we wore her out.

Tomorrow, mom and are driving to South Bend, Indiana to visit her friend Judi. We are going to eat brunch at the Studabacher mansion. We went there last year too, and the food was wonderful.