Well, pardon my foul mouth but —- Crap on a Cracker!!! The milk has turned. Don’t you hate that when it happens? I was all set for a bowl of cereal; had gotten the box out, poured the cereal on the bowl, put my cold milk on it and was anticipating that first bite. Then yuk!!! The milk was sour and I had no back-up plan. And, I hate the taste of sour milk.  Okay, I admit, I did check the expiration date and it said it expired today but that’s not generally a hard and fast rule. And yes, I did smell it first and it did smell maybe a little “iffy”, but it went way past “iffy” in a “Jiffy”. So, I reckon it will be bagel and creamed cheese again this morning. Which when you think about it is weird because what is creamed cheese other than flavored concentrated sour milk????? What a strange morning.

I filled the backyard buffet up again withe the exception of finishing up the sunflower seed holders. I picked up another 80 pounds of seed yesterday afternoon but still need to carry that around to the shed in the backyard. But I had enough left to fill up a couple of the feeders and I got everything else fill with the exception of the safflower which as I said yesterday, I’m out of. I guess I have another stop to make while I’m out today. We changed out the hummingbird food yesterday and the “sweet-bees” are all over it and keeping the hummingbird away from one of them. I wonder what’s up with that. I had the same problem when I was changing it out yesterday. The sweet-bees were flying all around me up and almost into my mouth. That’s the first time we have had that this year. So that is strange. 

Right on time —- 0930 the phone rings with morning robocall from “Breast Cancer” . It never fails. My phone tells me the person or number that is calling so I just let it ring. Too often though it just gives me a number  and it is a local number or a Ft. Branch number and  I feel like I need to answer it because it might be a parishioner and it;s “Amy” or “Karen” from Medicare and they have been trying to get hold of me.  I just hang up. It does no good to try to block them, argue with them, or tell them not to call. It is a  national problem affecting millions of people. AARP magazine just did an article on them this month. They are trying to get you to give them personal information and then they sell that to another crook. Out of the millions of robocalls, they have prosecuted one person. 

We have another business closing up out here on the north side of town. It’s a pizza place and bar and does a great business. However, like so many other places, they can’t get anybody to work. What is going on in this country that people aren’t looking for a job? I really don’t understand it. I hate to use the phrase “When I was a kid” but kids went out and looked for jobs because it was the grownup and adult thing to do. Besides, if you wanted a social life, you better have the money to afford it. Mommy and Daddy didn’t just hand you money. But that was the days before your entire social life was at the end of your thumbs on an IPhone or Tablet. That was before kids had to be enrolled in every sport and and lessons to keep them entertained. New world, new rules, new society I guess. 

Time to go carry some birdseed around to the shed and fill a few more feeders. Then, we need to go to the grocery, finish up decorating cemetery plots, go to the churches to run bulletins and with any luck, get some yard work done today again, And ——- maybe even work in a nap today. 

Have a blessed day. If you are looking for a Beagle dog or two, my backyard neighbor has a couple that are barking their head of for most of the morning; you’re welcome to come get them as far as I’m concerned. LOL  

Peace.

 I think I feel like I just woke up from a coma or something. It is wonderful to feel good again. Last Saturday as you know I spent a good deal of time outside working in my front flower bed, the one up next to the house on the left side. (I have way to many flowerbeds.) I got it under control but by the end of the day, I could hardly move because I was so danged tired. I should preface this by saying that Ms. Kate has been “not feeling well, and extremely tired for well over a week.” Sunday morning we got up to go to church and she wasn’t feeling any better and I was feeling just totally wiped out and it took me forever to concentrate on doing anything. Just getting dressed required concentration. I took a couple of Tylenol hoping I would get to feeling better. I offered Ms. Kate the chance to skip church because she wasn’t feeling a whole lot better either, and she reluctantly took it. But, I had to leave for the church NLT 0800 and it was coming up on that. It was too late to cancel church service so I went on up and did my service. I avoided being close to anyone at all. I explained what was going on, I did the service (I felt like I did a terrible job) and as soon as the service was over, I got in the car and came home. 

Once home, I changed into my comfy clothes  and crawled into my recliner. I slept almost all day and again through the night. Yesterday, I got up, was feeling somewhat better but I was still not “connected to the world” mentally. For one thing, I had lost a day and spent the day thinking it was Tuesday. I was even concerned and anxious because I felt like I was already running behind for the week in getting my “stuff” done. In fact, it wasn’t until last evening when I said something to Kate about us running the bulletins tomorrow and she said, “You do realize this is only Monday don’t you?” No, I did not.  

We usually go to bed somewhere between midnight and 0100. Last night I announced that I was headed to bed at 2330, kissed Ms. Kate goodnight and went to bed. I have no idea when she came to bed. I have no idea when she go up this morning. But, I woke up at 0930 this morning for the very first time all night. No middle of the night trip to the bathroom, no toss and turns, just dead sleep. This morning I feel great except for being hungry. I’m ready to throw on my clothes and get some outside work done and face the world. I give God praise for that. You know, —- I get sick so very seldom so this was just totally weird. It was like following yourself around the house and being two steps behind at all times. 

One of the first things I need to do today is refill the Backyard Buffet. It is empty and has been for a few days. Well, not totally empty but the guests are certainly having to work harder to get a meal. It’s so bad that I’m not sure what I have and don’t have for food. I know for sure that I need to go to Pet Food Supply and get a couple of bags of sunflower seed. I’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill the feeders today. I think I’m out of safflower seed and the cardinals love that so I need to check on my entire supply. I’ve been a bad host and my guests deserve better. 

So that is it for today. I’m alive and I feel alive. I hope you feel alive today too. If you do, takes in a couple of deep breaths and give God thanks for them. It’s a beautiful day. Peace. 

 Good morning on a very chilly Friday morning. It’s 46 degrees this morning. Although I was outside a few minutes ago and it didn’t feel all that bad. At least where the sun was shining. I thought I might do some yard work this morning but the grass and everything is really wet. I mowed my yard yesterday afternoon but I was going to get to work in the flowerbeds this morning. I’ve known that my front flowerbeds were out of control with work to be don, but, —- I had no idea had bad they really were. Yesterday I got out my new string trimmer and was going to trim along in front of those beds. I guess I just had not looked at them as I mowed time and again. They are so over grown that it is going to take me at least a week, maybe two to get them cut back and cleaned up. I need to get some good lawn and leaf bags to put the refuse in. Sam’s Club used to carry them but I don’t see them advertised now. However Ms. Kate is going on line this morning and see if they have them and if they do, we’ll do a phone in order. If they don’t have them, I know that Lowes does have them advertised. I have plastic bags but that doesn’t help the landfills at all. At any rate, I’m going to let the due dry for a bit. 

At 1030 this morning I’m going to be on my computer watching the 56th annual Buffalo Roundup in Custer State Park. That is such an exciting event and the one time that we got to see it in person was so very exciting to me. The fact that they are going to televise it this morning is super. 

I went to the church yesterday and ran a the bulletin for this coming Sunday It went fairly well. The copier didn’t give me any trouble. Sometime it sounds like it is on its last leg. I’ve told the council that it needs to be cleaned and tuned. It’s not an expensive machine but it has sure held up well. A couple of the parishioners bought it for the church back in the 2004/2005 time frame. Generally if you get a copier to last five yers, you are doing good. This thing has been in use now for at least 15 years. But, I doubt they can afford a new one so we’ll do what farmers always do, fix it until it can’t be fixed. Besides, I know where to knock on this one when it gives me trouble. LOL

That’s about it for this morning. It is almost time to watch the cowboys and cowgirls round up Bison. I really hope the feed is good and the production goes well. 

It’s the weekend. I hope your week has gone well. Whether it has or not, stop what you are doing and give God thanks for the good days and ask for strength during the bad. Peace. 

 A rainy Tuesday morning has turned into a rainy Wednesday morning and will continue for most of the day. But tomorrow starts a period of great weather, or so they predict. The Autumn Equinox arrived at 1430 yesterday afternoon and brought all of the indications of fall with it. The wind is whooping out there right now and it is 59 degrees. It’s a great time to be in the house I think. 

What’s on your plate today? Normally I would head up to the churches today and run the bulletins but I think I will wait until tomorrow when the weather will be nicer. So for today, I will go downstairs and write. I did some yesterday but not nearly enough. I’m still working on my October 3rd message; actually I’ve barely started beyond finding the correct scriptures and topic. OI have the worship service prepared but that is generally the easy part. 

I got a call yesterday afternoon requesting a visit from a family, so I hopped in the truck and went to see them. I spent two and a half hours with them. I’ll be putting them on my weekly visit list for a while. The man is terminal. I really hate to see that. They are great people and staunch supporters of the church. In fact their historical family are some of the founding patron of the church. But, God will walk with the family through this tragedy and in the end, we all must pass through the veil between earthly life and eternity.

I got an email from the South Dakota Tourism folks yesterday telling me that this year’s Buffalo Roundup is going to be telecast virtually. Ms. Kate and I went to this a couple of years ago and it is on my bucket list to go again because it was so exciting. I’m so glad to see that it will be available on my screen this year. I suspect that a lot of it is going to be covered by drone footage so it will be like actually being on the drive. Although, when we went to watch it in person, They ran right in front of us. They will be rounding up 1500-2000 bison. The thunder of the hooves is enough to make he ground rumble and give you goosebumps. 

Time to pop my bagel in the toaster. I love having my bagel and Creme cheese for breakfast, unless of course I’m going to go full on with the everything breakfast. 

Try to stay warm and dry today. Peace my friends. 

 Good morning on a rainy Tuesday morning. I was outside a few minutes ago and it wasn’t raining but has started to sprinkle now and is supposed to rain for about 45 minutes to some degree. But the temperature was wonderful. We’re supposed to have rain again tomorrow and then the cold front is through and fall weather begins with morning temperature in the upper 40’s. The seasons just roll on don’t they?

I’m in the kitchen this morning while the appliance installers take out my old dishwasher and install the new one. They are having a heck of a time getting the old one out because the floor has been raised a bit when we had the new floor tile installed several years ago. But that’s why you hire stuff put in and don’t try to do it yourself. First of all, I wouldn’t know what to do and secondly, I’d probably make 83 trips to the hardware store for stuff. But, they are definitely earning their pay for this job. 

After they do get this one changed out they are supposed to do some measuring for for another couple of appliances that we are going to replace. We have a set of couple oven that were put in place when the house was built back in 1977. Neither one of the oven registers a true temperature nor has the “self cleaning” mechanism worked since we bought the house. We found a good Kitchen Aid replacement model but we need to make sure they will fit in the space we have. The same thing goes for the refrigerator. 

I guess since it is raining today I will spend most of my day downstairs in my office. I have enough writing to do to keep me busy all week and then some. We have new mission projects coming up at the churches and we have new members joining in about three weeks. I also have a wedding coming up fairly soon that I have to write the homily for. So, there is plenty of work to do on a rainy day as soon as these folks get out of my kitchen. 

My Backyard Buffet guests are all hiding this morning and sheltering out of the rain. I don’t blame them. What started as a sprinkle a few minutes ago has turned into a downpour. Neighbor Dan was sitting out on his front porch this morning but I see the angle of the rain has run him in the house. He sits out there every morning and talks on the phone constantly. He tells me it is his brothers calling him but I think he is as chatty as they are for sure. I couldn’t talk to anyone on the phone that long. Although, I spend time like that on Facebook Messenger talking to either him, or Art or my girls. I guess I’m a chatter box too just via a different method. LOL

I see the rain has backed off to a drizzle again. That’s good because they are bringing in the new appliance. I done here for today. I hope your day is great. Peace. 

 A blessed Monday morning to you and a blessed beginning of a brand new week. I pray your weekend was a fabulous one. Mine certainly was.  Saturday morning we went to the church to distribute the bicycles that we had assembled the week before. It was very rewarding watching the kids come get their brand new bicycles with their foster parents. There was one little girl in particular, maybe three years old, cutest little face that was just so proud of her new bike. She got on it as soon as I handed it to her and just kept telling me “This is my bicycle”. I think she would have ridden it home if she could. But that little smile made all of the work we did absolutely with every bit of effort. 

Yesterday was the actual celebration of our 100th anniversary for St. Lucas. It was an absolute success. I think we had a little over 150 people there. The service went very well, Brenda’s music was beautiful, the food was excellent, and the people stayed and stayed and talked and visited with folks that had not been back to the church for several years. The Isaiah 117 folks were extremely happy with our donation of over $15,000.00 toward their program. It was a great day, — working for the Lord! I try to envision what the parish will look like in another 100 years and I can’t even begin to put my head around it. 

But — I have reminded the parish that was yesterday and God has opportunities for us to serve every day so we are already working on new mission projects from each church. St. Lucas is going to be doing “The 12 Sunday’s of Christmas” Beginning October 3rd we will assign an item to be brought to the church to take to a local food bank. Christmas and Thanksgiving are both coming up and the need will be plenty as it always is. I don’t know what St. Paul’s will do yet. But you can bet they will have a project going to help the community. 

That’s it for the beginning of my week. We’re looking at rain for the first three days of the week so outdoor stuff goes on hold and I can put my fingers to the keyboard of my computer and maybe even put my finger to the keyboard of the piano. Have a blessed week my friends. Peace. 

 Happy Friday morning. Are you having a TGIF or a “meh, it’s Friday” type of day. I think I’m going to have the latter. There is nothing in particular on my plate today, although I certainly have plenty to do. I never run out of flower beds to work on or stuff that I need to write. But either of those takes motivation and I’m not motivated beyond my recliner this morning as I sit and watch the birds and listen to the birdsong on this comfortable 66 degree morning. 

This is the big weekend! This is the 100th anniversary weekend that we have been working toward at my St. Lucas church. This evening I’ll go up and help set up tents, then tomorrow morning I’ll go help distribute the bicycles that we built last weekend. One of the two days we will print the bulletins for Sunday. I think I may run 100 just to keep the theme going. It would be great to have 100 people show up for this event. It appears that God is going to bless us with wonderful weather for this event. All I really have to do is play host and serve a liturgist for our guest speaker/pastor. I’ve asked the Reverend Dr. Stephanie Weiner to come speak the message during the worship service. Stephanie is “good people”. She’s one of the clergy in our Association that I really trust and can talk to. She’s non-pretentious which is hard to find these days. 

We did “on-line” grocery shopping yesterday through Meijer’s. Kate did all of the “shopping” and setting everything up. Then we just drove up, they put the groceries in the car and away we went. It is so very simple to do that. Speaking of which, I should maybe pop a bagel in the toaster and then put some Creme-cheese on it for my breakfast. We also went to Wild Birds Unlimited yesterday. I bought a new feeder a couple of weeks agar and just could not get it to work. So I took it back to the store and told them that I couldn’t get it to work and could they show me what I was doing wrong. It turned out that I was simply using the wrong kind of bird food in it. The lady showed me what to use and it worked just fine. Fortunately I have a large bag of that food so it was easy-peasy. I brought it home and hung it back up and it is almost empty this morning. I knew it looked like it would be a favorite. By the end of next week I bet I’ll have to place another on-line order through them. At least they do free delivery when you order over $75.00 worth and I always easily do over that much. I also need to get to Pet Supply today and buy some black-oil sunflower seed. I could get it at WBU but it is a lot more expensive. 

My son-in-law Jim, bowled his first perfect 300 game last night. They caught the final roll on camera and posted it. He’s always been a good bowler but that 300 has eluded him forever until last night. I asked hime this morning if his feet had touched earth yet this morning. He said “no”. If he never does another one, he’s done it once. I’ve never come close to that and have seldom ever bowled over 200. So congratulations to him. He’s gonna have a great day today. 

That’s it for me this morning. This is a weekend. Enjoy it, celebrate it, relax in it but don’t forget to give time to God and give thanks and praise for your week of blessings. 

Peace. 

 Good Thursday morning to you. It has been a funky foggy morning. When I first came out this morning I looked at the fog and I couldn’t really determine if it was fog or dust in the air or both. As dry as it is dust is a very real possibility. I went out and mowed my backyard yesterday and I have a very poor grade of grass back there because of all of the shade. I raised a dust cloud that traveled the neighborhood for at least two yards. It was terrible. The leaves are already starting to fall more and more each day and I’m sure it is because the weather is so dry. Our Accuweather indicates we aare going to get a shower here around noon today and I really hope that is true. 

We’ve been in the flowerbeds again for the past couple of days. I’m stiff and sore from bending over, It is tome to get the peonies cut off and the iris. I spent a good part of two days just pulling up those danged black-eyed-Susans. The trash guy took away seven bags of residue this \morning. He’ll get at least that again next week, maybe more. 

On July 31st, I ordered a Worx String Trimmer from Amazon and I’m still waiting on it. I keep getting notices that they are having a shipping problem and that I won’t be charged until they ship it. I’m given the option to approve the delay or cancel the order. So far I have approved the order because it is a really great string trimmer. It’s battery driven, comes with two battery packs and charger, and is very light weight. Karen has one and loves hers. Well, yesterday I went on line and saw that Lowes said they had it in stock. So, I drove out to Lowes and of course they didn’t have any at the store. But, I found a clerk and he said they would order it and have it shipped to my house for free. I told him my Amazon tale and he said he had just ordered one for himself and had gotten it right away. So, I ordered it and paid for it and am hoping he was being truthful and I get it by next week. If I get it right away, I will try to cancel the one from Amazon that allegedly isn’t coming until mid October now. If for some reason I can’t cancel it, I guess I will have two, Anything is better than the worn-out thing that I am currently using. The battery on that hardly takes a charge anymore. I have a gas powered one but I can not get it to start. I pulled and pulled on it yesterday and finally gave up. It don’t even try to start. 

I have birds to feed and birdbaths to clean so I guess I better go out side and do some stuff. I’m debating whether to go run my Sunday bulletins today or wait until Saturday. I also need to go to the grocery store and pick up some stuff if Ms. Kate has a list for me yet. 

Busy day time. Have a blessed rest of your week. Peace. 

 A good early morning to you on this 14th day of September. I didn’t realize it had been so many days since I sat down and wrote. In my defense we have been bust doing “stuff” and by the time I get to my recliner or in the mood to jot something down, I either forget to or I’m worn out. 

II have to tell you though about our Saturday morning. Saturday was “Build a Bike” day at our St. Lucas church. I’ve told you that we had committed to buying, building, and giving away 100 bicycles to the Isaiah 117 Project which works to help Foster Care children. Generally when you have a project day, “some people, generally not a lot” show up and \you work until the job is done. Ms. Kate and I got there a half hour late and the parking lot was full of cars and people were working on bikes out on the grass and the place was a buzz of activity. We had over fifty people show up to help with this project. All told, we put together 89 bicycles. The Isaiah 117 folks actually had run out of bicycles and had to make a run to Walmart to pick up all they had. They will assemble the other eleven of our as soon as they get them. Ms. Kate and I were given the job of airing up tires on all of them. She took the valve-stem caps off, I aired them up, and she put the caps back on. Then we had a couple of the young girls push them over to the garage. We had scheduled the project to go from 0900 until we finished. We were done and eating pizza by 1100 hrs. What a blessed day that was. This coming Saturday we are scheduled to give away the bikes to the kids that have requested them. That too will be a joyous time. There is just nothing better than “Working for the Lord.” I am so honored to be able to pastor these two churches.

I’ve been tackling my flower beds finally. It has been hot sweaty work but at least two of them are starting to get under control. I’ve spent several hours pulling black-eyed Susa down and trimming iris back and chopping out saplings. There is so much more to do. I could literally take a week and do nothing but flower beds and I might get finished. It’s this way every spring and fall. And I have a yard surrounded by huge tulip poplar and maple trees just waiting for the leaves to fall off. I maybe should have stayed retired so I could get my work done. LOL

Today, before I get back in the flowerbeds I need to go get my hair cut and pick up a few things at the store. It’s going to get to about 95 today so I may wait until evening when the shade is long to go back out there and work. I’ve writing to do during the heat of the day. 

I hope this week brings you nothing but good things.Peace. 

 Well, God did it again! Another day of beautiful sunshine and a little cooler temperatures. Fall is quietly walking up the path and will be descending upon us very shortly. Then it will be time for long sleeves and sweatshirts. All of the pumpkin spice people will be delighted. I don’t know how pumpkin spice became all the rage but it sure haas. I’m not a big fan of pumpkin in the first place. I’ll eat a piece of pumpkin pie but there are a lot of other pies out there that I would eat first. As for pumpkin spice —- I don’t think I have ever had it because I’m not big on spices either. To each his own as folks say. You be you and I’ll be me. 

It’s Wednesday and that of course means that it is bulletin running day. That will use up an hour of time and then we’ll go to Wayne’s Appliance to see if we can arrange for a new dish washer. I told you that ours bit the bullet a few weeks ago but we never got around to buying a new one. We use paper plates around here most of the time and therefore doing dishes by hand has not been a big deal. But it’s time to go get a new one. Hopefully Wayne’s will have one. I like doing business with them because they are locally owned and we have always gotten good service with them. However, the last time we went to look at an appliance from them, the guy was rude. He didn’t even get up from his desk\. I know their supply was really low at the time  because of COVID and shipment problems, but that doesn’t excuse rudeness. We’ll see how it goes today. We’ll be wanting a Kitchen Aid to replace our Kitchen Aid. Ms. Kate and I are proponents of that brand. 

I filled the Buffet up again yesterday and I have a lot of visitors this morning. Unfortunately a bunch of them are the starlings who are running rough-shod over the rest until the Bluejay comes in and pecks them away. But prior to the starlings, I had probably a dozen cardinals out there. The hummingbirds are still here although I suspect that after this filling, I won’t be filling them up anymore. The little dudes will be moving on to warmer climate soon. 

This coming Saturday Ms. kate and I will be heading up to the church to help assemble bicycles for our mission project. Then, next Saturday, the 18th we will meet again to give out the bikes to some needy kids. I think both days are going to be fun days. I’m really hoping that the 18th and 19th are going to be beautiful days. The 19th we intend to set up a couple of tents for folks to picnic lunch under for our celebration. So, you might ask for a beautiful day along with me. So far, the long range predictions show a good day but that’s not all that reliable Anything beyond three days is pretty much an educated guess. 

Time for me to get cleaned up and start my day. I hope your day will be filled with goodness. Peace. 

 Good morning on this beautiful Tuesday morning. It is a 68 degree, blue sky morning and the Backyard Buffet guests are wondering where the food is because I didn’t fill anything yesterday. I’m probably in trouble with them. 

I had a good day yesterday. I went to do nursing home visitation. I went to see a lady and her husband and took along the lady’s brother. At 90, She is the oldest member of the parish. Her husband is only a year younger and her brother is a year younger than that. It was great listening to them as they did their “remember when’s”. It is really fortunate that she and her husband can be in the same facility and they have rooms right across from each other and spend every day together. 

I’m not sure what we are putting on the “to-do” list today. There are so many thing that need doing and it seems we always run out of steam before we run out of work. But I guess that is normal for most people. Fall weather is coming and it is time to start cleaning out flower beds that I have neglected all year.. I can honestly say that my flower beds look the worst this year than they have ever looked. It is just beginning to be too much for me to handle and I don’t know where to cut back. But I can’t imagine us having a yard without it being full of flowers. Ms. Kate says that we need to split our lilies again because they are too dense. I guess we will give them to Julie or maybe someone else that wants to plant flowers. \Although it is hard to find people that want to do that sometimes. Flower beds take a lot of work. 

I went out to Creeks Melon patch yesterday and bought a huge watermelon. That thing must weigh at least  15 pounds. But, I’m going to cut into it in a few minutes and hope it is a good one. I generally do a good job of picking out a watermelon but sometime I get skunked. The first one I bought this year was so weird. I opened it up and it was all withered inside and the water just poured out of it. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. But that was from Walmart or some place like that/ Going to the melon stands generally provides for a better choice. There were no cantaloupes out there yesterday nor did I see any out in the fields. I guess their season is over. Watermelon season is about done too. Now it is pumpkin season and apple season. I haven’t checked but I bet the peaches are all gone too and I only had one cobbler this year. But there is still hope for pies because apples are starting to come along. 

Well, that’s enough for today because that watermelon is calling my name. Have a blessed day. Remember , “This is a day that The Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.”  Peace. 

 As the little rhyme says: “Home again, home again, jigity jig; I’ve been to the market to buy a fat pig”. Well, I think that is how it goes. But —- no, we didn’t buy a fat pig but we did buy some award winning baby-Swiss-cheeese and some marvelous chocolate at the Coblentz Chocolate  Factory. 

We left Millersburg, OH yesterday morning at 0800 and headed home. There was a think layer of fog and I was fearing a dreadful drive through that. But, within about forty-five minutes were drove out from under the clouds layer and it was sunshine all the way home. It was only about 500 miles and was interstate most of the way. We had to go through Columbus Ohio which wasn’t too bad and then of course we had to go through Cincinatti, Ohio. I hope I never have to have a need to drive through that city again. Traffic was horrible, construction was horrible, drivers are all in a hurry and rude. But we made it safely. When we got to the Louisville, KY area, we swung by Julies work place and dropped of some cheese and crackers and other goodies that we had picked up for her along the way. Then when we got to Evansville, we dropped by Karen’s house and did the same for her. Finally in the door here about 1630. We unloaded the car and collapsed in our recliners for a bit, — Then we got up and Ms. Kate started some laundry and I went down and got to work laying out work for today. Vacation’s over, reality is alive and well. 

Today I have to go to the churches and run the bulletins. While we are up that way I think we will run out to the little town of Johnson and pick up a watermelon and maybe a cantaloupe. Then I need to go tp Wild Birds Unlimited because they are having a store-wide sale. I also got to get the string trimmer out and do some trimming and mow the lawn. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow so I need to do it today. Maybe I’ll check the weather report first. LOL And —- of course, the bird feeders are all empty and so is the bird=baths. 

It was a nice vacation and we really enjoyed it. And as tired as I was last night, I was already looking for future vacation spots. Last year we took a week and spent some time down at Emerald Isle, NC and really loved that. It would be nice to do that again. Of course what made it so great was that Lisa’s entire family was able to do that with us and I don’t know their schedules but suspect they would not be able to make it.  Our next scheduled vacation is at Disney world in January compliments of Steph and Chris. I’m excited about that. But, unfortunately, Ms. Kate and I have come to the realization that we are just not able to do much when we go on vacations. Getting old is a pain in the butt. 

That’s it for today. It’s great to be home. It’s Friday and the weekend is upon us. I hope your’s is filled with joy and love and a visit with the Lord God. Peace. 

 Sept 1st. It has been a week since I last did a blog and it has been a pretty great week. You know of course that I am on vacation, (although it seems that some folks don’t seem to care because I keep getting calls from home). 

We started off by making a trip to Sault St. Marie, MI. We made the trip a two day drive because we don’t like to stress ourselves. There was enough road construction to do that for us. But, we got to our hotel and the reunion right on time. As I had told you, the group was gong to be really small this year, only ten of us when in the past we have four times as many. It was a great visit though and being a smaller group gave us more time to talk and Ms. Kate says she really enjoyed being able to get to know the wives better with one on one conversations. Cathy Skelding our host for this reunion did a great job of lining up things to do and things to see. Kate and I didn’t go to Mackinac Island with them because we had been there, done that, and it would have been a lot of walking that we just can’t do anymore. I’m glad we opted out thought because it rained buckets on them and they got soaked and cold and the sea was very rough. But they seemed to enjoy it. I guess that’s because they are all in their “lower 70’s” not like me and her in our “upper 70’s’”. LOL The next day we went to see a lighthouse and the shipwreck museum and then to see a certain waterfall area. Again, Ms. Kate opened out but I went. I did the hike to the falls and it did tire me out. But it was a great day. We found a great place to  eat dinner each day so that was also nice. On Sunday morning we had our “business meeting” and concluded that with a short prayer and worship service with Holy Communion. We have decided that our next reunion will be in October of next year, in Pennsylvania at the home of one of the members. They described their home to us and it sounds fabulous. 

Monday we headed out to Millersburg, Ohio and will be here until tomorrow morning at which time we will head back home to Indiana. We have been through this area before and in fact, we are staying at the same hotel we stayed in the last time we came through here. What we enjoy most is driving around the area seeing the Amish in the homes and in their buggies etc. We went out yesterday and drove around and found a great cheese place and a nice place for dinner. Today it is raining and looks like it will until after noon. So, I guess we will hang around the hotel, have our “free breakfast” of biscuits and gravy and waffles. Maybe this afternoon we will have better weather. The country road are narrow and slick when it is raining. Yesterday as we were coming back to the hotel it come a really heavy rain and was hard to even see through. I don’t want to get into that again. 

So tomorrow it is back to reality as we go home. Tomorrow evening I have to finish up the bulletin for Sunday and Friday will go up and run them. 

I pray you will have a blessed day. Peace.