I was very close to my paternal grandparents who lived about 3 miles from our house. We saw them nearly every week. When I was little I spend overnights with my grandparents and loved it. My grandmother made my favorite foods–soft cooked eggs and toast with real butter (we had oleo had home). We bought peas and cherries and peaches from the vegetable man, a man who came around with a horse-drawn cart with vegetables on one side of the cart and fruits on the other. Grandma let me shell the peas and eat the cherries. We had the peaches over ice cream. When I was a small girl we took the bus downtown to the five and dime to get an ice cream soda (chocolate for me) and I was always very neat and never spilled my ice cream on me. When I was in high school, I spent every Wednesday evening at my grandparents house for dinner. We would have dinner and I did my homework and chatted with my grandparents and my uncle would drive me home or my father would pick me up. I dearly wanted her to be able to attend my wedding but she died 3 months before the wedding.

My grandfather would often walk through the woods to our house to visit us and then my mother would take him home. We would go for walks in the woods with my grandfather to look for wild berries and pinecones. He was a great storyteller. He loved out dog and would often pet her and say, “oh, if only you could talk.” My brother, my father, and grandfather would go fishing and hunting together. Our dog would get so excited when my uncle’s car pulled into the driveway because she knew my grandfather was coming. After he died when I was 20, she would still look for him when my uncle brought my grandmother to visit.

My paternal grandparents meant the world to me. I miss them to this day. They made me feel special. They were special to me.
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My favourite relative in my extended family is probably my Aunt Dorothy Mae. She is my mother’s second to youngest sister and her only remaining living sibling. I used to love to go to her house when we went to Virginia to visit in the summer because she had two sons, one of whom was my age and I got to go to school with him for a day. She was a good cook and has a jolly personality. She is interested in everyone of her nieces and nephews and cares a lot about all of us.

She has been through terrible trials in her life. Her eldest son, who was my age, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 42. Both he husband and younger son died of Huntingson’s disease. She cared for both of them. She has rheumatoid arthritis but it is well controlled, thank God. Her grandchildren are good to her and love her very much. She is the glue that holds together our maternal side of our family. All the cousins care very much for her because she is a good God fearing woman who loves us all. I love my Aunt Dot Mae and am so glad she is in my life.
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Lenox goes to investigate the death of the maid and it become evident that what was first believed to be a suicide is actually a murder. Complicating matters are a houseful of guests and the storage of the coinage of the mint in the house for its protection before it is released into circulation. Lenox has many suspects and also finds many lovers of this maid, as well. Eventually, another murder occurs at the house during a ball and Lenox is able to connect the two murder and put the pieces of the puzzle together to solve the various mysteries. I enjoyed this book because Lenox is a laid-back detective and takes his time in solving the mysteries, leaving no stone unturned. Twenty-one down, 79 to go.
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I have to say that I enjoy the beginning of a book the most. The beginning holds so much promise of things to come, the entire plot, the characters, the adventures. I want to delve into the book and read and never put it down. I want to find out more. This is especially true if the book is a part of a series of books where I am now picking up where the author left me off at the end of the last book and this is the next chapter, so to speak, in the book. The series of books I am currently reading is like that. I like to read the series in order to get that continuity and flow from one book to the next.

The end of the book is always a bit of a let down for me. It means I’ve finished another book and that friend is put away, although the puzzles are solved and mysteries resolved. It is an ending and it saddens me. But it also makes me glad to be able to go on to the next book in the series or the next book in my queque. But it will never make me as happy as the beginning of a the first chapter of a new book.
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First we went to one of our local television studios to be the audience for their morning show called “Great Day S.A.,” a talk show sort of like the “Today” show. It was very interesting to see the behind the scenes workings of the television set. We got to see how the “green screen” of the weatherman works (it still boggles my mind how he can use that). The hosts had our San Antonio Spurs spokesman on to talk about the Spurs and also Jeremy Lin, who is big in the NBA as everyone knows right now. They did an interview via satellite with the model and editor of Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. There was also a piece on a local school college funding day when colleges and high schools would help students fill out financial aid forms. There was a Hollywood gossip section. And they had a segment I was particularly interested in. A player from our women’s basketball team the Silver Stars who has made the final team for the Olympics, but has a foundation called “Find Me” which helps find adoptive homes for older foster children.

After that, we went to our Texas public radio stations, which broadcast news and classical music. I enjouyed this part of the trip most of all. We learned how to digitally edit voice recording: delete and move around voice in a piece. We got to hear a reporter record her introduction to her piece for an interview she did with our Congressman. Then she would add his portion of the interview back at her desk and the piece would air at the noon news slot. We learned about how the daily playlist for the classical music station is generated (there’s an algorithm for it with some free space left for personal tastes). We talked a little about their fund raising drives and their websites that have branched into film as well. And they have an iphone app for Texas Public Radio!

We ate lunch downtown at an old German restaurant since the newspaper is located downtown. Then we visited the newspaper. That was my least favorite part of the trip. Maybe it was because it was so much walking, or maybe it was because I have working for two publishers that published products. We saw the news room where the reporters and designers and editors work. Then we went into the production area where much of the work is done by computer and paper rolls are moved by robots. The paper runs are checked around every 3,000th paper for alignment and accuracy of printing. and adjustments are made, in needed. We also saw the room where the inserts of ads (which are not printed there) are inserted in the Sunday papers.

All in all, it was a very interesting day and I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
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I also finished Alexandria: a Marcus Didius Falso Maystery by Lindsey Davis. This finds our hero and his family traveling again, but this time for pleasure for Helena Justina has a desire to see the Pyramids before she gives birth for the third time. The family (minus Nux but with Aulus whom they picked up in Athens) is staying with Uncle Fluvius and his companion Cassius in Alexandria, home to the world’s largest library. Uncle Fluvius gives a dinner party to welcome the family and invites the Head Librarian, who is found dead in his locked (from the outside) office the next day. So Falco is drawn into solving the mystery of Theon’s death and the politics of the Museion. Several more death’s occur and Falco uncovers a scheme to sell precious library scrolls. Needless to say, Falco solves the mysterious death, foils the scheme, eventually visits the Pyramids, and acquires a new member of his household in the process. Nineteen down, 81 to go.
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After months of drought, we have had three days of long soaking rain. Some thunderstorms and flooding since we have no drainage system (since we rarely get rain) but the weatherman said this may take us out of the extreme drought and put us into severe drought. That doesn’t sound great but it really is, since this is the worst drought ever. So we can put up with a little rain. Now if people could just remember how to drive in the rain.
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Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The New Oxford Dictionary defines zakat as “the obligatory payment made annually under Islamic law on certain kinds of property and used for charitable and religious purposes.”

Basically, zakat is the charitable payment that every Muslim must pay each year to help support the poor in the community. It is based on income and on property owned and investments. It is required for every adult Muslim to give in other times of the year: at Eid festival times they give food to feed the poor in the community. And most Muslims also give in support of their local masjid and perhaps their school associated with their mosque. But the zakat is totally separate and is required as a pillar of the faith. It is as important as believing in one God and believing in Muhammad as His prophet. We are told throughout the Qur’an to give in charity and this is the mechanism we use to do so. In this way we help take care of our own less fortunate brothers and sisters.

We believe that this directive came to us from God, and so we take it very seriously. There is a formula for calculating the zakat because it is based not only on income. It is based on all your resources, but care is taken that you yourself are not left needy. It is a fair amount based on your resources and is paid each year. Some people budget for it throughout the year so the whole sum does not come upon them at once. That is a smart way to do it, I think, because it makes you aware of the charity all year long. Usually the zakat is paid through the local masjid so the money is used in the local community to help the poor in the local area, although some people do pay their zakat to international organizations.

In summary, zakat is a very important part of the beliefs of islam and I hope people understand the concept better after reading about it.
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