Spent some time at the house this morning with a contractor to determine what could be done with the house. Turns out we really can’t do much unless we want to bring out the back porch and add a story. Not what we wanted to hear. We always wondered why they didn’t put a bathroom in upstairs. Now we know. Lots of deciding to do now. I was OK at the house today. It didn’t bother me as much. Last night Susan brought home one of Mom’s purses to use. I thought that would be OK because I won’t use them. (Even after relentless hounding, Mom still never got me to carry a purse!) It is a summer purse. Maybe Stone Mountain, not sure. She really liked Stone Mountain purses. Today when I went home for my dinner at 4:00 (I work til 8:00 on Thursdays), the purse was sitting on the island in our kitchen. It was around 4:40… I had about 5 minutes to kill, and this would’ve been the time when I would’ve picked up the phone and called Mom. I always called her at some point on my Thursdays when I went home at 4:00. So I started getting sad thinking about that, and then I noticed the purse. Today it made me weepy. I went over and picked up it, smelled it, found one of Mom’s blonde hairs on it. There was still some stuff in one pocked. A comb, a band-aid, 3 nail files and a little package of those dental floss toothpick things to clean your teeth with. It is a tooth pick on one end and a little thing with floss on the other. Blue. Made of plastic. If you ever went out to eat with Mom, she’d pull one of these things out and start going at it. Her teeth were bad—very crooked. She was always getting food caught in them. So she’d be flossing and digging. She was never without these toothpick things. She probably wouldn’t want me telling everybody that about her teeth. I could remember Mom carrying that purse. I put the strap on my shoulder; pretending to carry it. She would’ve loved to see me do that! I could see her standing there with her little purse, her sunglasses on, her little white walking shoes, a short sleeved blouse and those little knit pants she always wore.

She carried that purse last summer at Yellowstone. I miss you, Mom.

Love,

Susie