Happy Thanksgiving, 2024. It was 41 degrees when we got up and the temperature has now dropped to 37. The sky is overcast and grey, and the neighborhood is without water due to a water main break somewhere around us. It’s not exactly how we had hoped the day would start. 

Also, Ms. Kate is under the weather still today. She came down with a cold on Tuesday afternoon. She spent the day in yesterday and feels some better this morning. But, she will not be going with us to her sister’s house for lunch today. I don’t think she is contagious but she doesn’t want to share. 

Julie came over from New Albany last evening. Unfortunately she had a flat tire on the way. She called USAA Roadside Assistance and they found someone to come fix it for her in about an hour. So it has been an eventful couple of days. I guess tomorrow we will try to either find her a tire or hopefully just get it fixed. Probably not the kind of Black Friday shopping she was hoping for. 

Tomorrow we plan to cook our Thanksgiving turkey and all the fixin’s. It will just be the three of us so I anticipate many leftover. We’ll send some home with Julie so she can share with Jim who is home dog-sitting. That’s about it for today. Have a blessed day. Be thankful for all God has provided. Peace. 

 Monday, Nov 25th. Welcome to Thanksgiving week. I hope you had a wonderful weekend; — we did. We didn’t do much other normal home chores like laundry and some shopping. Last Friday we met with Brenda and celebrated her 70th birthday. Andy didn’t come because he is busy laying field tile on the farm. We went to church Sunday, then out to Nellie’s North for lunch. Came home and and tested out the recliners. I’m glad to say they still work quite well for napping. 

Today has been busy. Ms. Kate started her Cardiac Rehabilitation program today at Deaconess Gateway. Today was mostly get acquainted and they had her walk for six minutes. But they got her clinic schedule all set up and for the next three months we will be going to Gateway three days a week for her rehab. I guess it’s nice to have consistency in your life and this will be that. LOL

I have the yard crew here today to do fall clean up and trim-back of all of the flowerbeds etc. It may be that they will have to come back again tomorrow because it looks like it could rain. I guess we will see. It’s 2:00 pm and will be dark in another three hours, and there is no way they are going to be-able to get it all done. 

That’s it for today. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving if I don’t get back to you. Peace. 

 Good Wednesday morning to you. It is a chilly one and the breeze doesn’t do a thing to warm it up. But —- tomorrow morning will be worse, or so the weather dude says. The bottom is supposed to drop out of the temperature bucket tonight for the next couple of days. It’s about time for winter to show up I reckon. But, —- by the weekend the temperatures will come back up. The weather dude also used that dreaded “S” word but said there will be no accumulation. The sad part is that all of these flowers that are blooming are going to get a rude awakening in the next couple of days, although —- we may still not see our first “hard freeze” for another couple of weeks. 

Ms. Kari, the cleaning lady should be arriving any minute now. I’m going to have her help me move the patio plants in. Kate trimmed them up last evening and got them ready. But, we need to move some furniture around and move the recumbent bike out of the way so we can set the pots by the windows. It shouldn’t take very long but I do need her help. I moved the Pony Tail Palm tree in a couple of weeks ago. That’s the really heavy one. 

Our middle daughter, Heather, turns 54 years old today. That just doesn’t seem possible. I mean of course it is possible but we tend to live on our memories of days past and just seems to have gone from 1-54 in no time. Julie our oldest is 57 which means she is staring 60 in the face and Lisa is turning 53 in December. It is ludicrous to say “where does the time go” because no one knows where time goes. ——- But where does the time go? All I know for sure is that I have a lot fewer days ahead of me than I have behind me. 

Neighbor Dan, across the street had a knee replaced yesterday. I saw a post from him this morning on FB and he was looking good. I think maybe the pain medicine had not worn off yet. I think he is supposed to go to a therapy facility for a couple of weeks. That’s is unusual these days. My son-in-law Gary went home the same day as he had his knee replaced. 

Okay, gotta make a run for a couple of errands. Kari is here and I need to get out of the way. I pray you will have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Happy Tuesday, the 19th of November. I hope you are having a day that is as beautiful as what we are having here. It is 70 degrees and the sun is shining brightly. However, all of that is about to change within the next 24 hours. By the end of the week we are facing even the possibility of seeing a snow flake or two. And we will certainly see the coldest weather we have had so far with temps hanging around at 34 degrees at night and low 40’s during the day. Hello winter —- it is about time you showed up. 

I can’t believe that my roses and my azaleas, and zinnias and marigolds are all blooming. They will certainly get their noses trimmed this week. But — it has made for a wonderful fall and by Monday, we will see rising temperatures again. But — certainly not back into the 70’s again. 

We had a nice weekend. We went to Ft. Branch on Sunday and worshipped with the St. Lucas folks. Next time, we need to attend St. Paul’s. But that means going an hour and a half earlier! I must say that their new pastor for the parish is a good preacher. I don’t know how he is as a pastor; (yes, there is a difference between being a preacher and a pastor) but the folks seem to like him a lot. He seems like a nice guy and I hope he learns to love the parish like we did. 

Ms. Kate is still doing very well. She is getting around so much better and feeling stronger. We’re hoping that she won’t have to wear that life vest much longer. I’m not sure who will be the determiner of that or what she has to do to find out. I suspect it will at least require another echocardiogram to determine the output of her heart. But, the doctor’s appointments are getting farther in between. What would we do if we weren’t going to the doctor all of the time?? 

Our cleaning lady comes tomorrow and I’m going to ask her to help me bring the remainder of our patio plants for the winter. This week I cleaned up of of the John Deere mowers and have them in the garage for the winter. Now I need to wait for Jim to come over and put the snow blade on one of them. 

That’s it for today. Have a blessed week. Peace. 

 Can you believe it is already the middle of November. Before we know it, Thanksgiving will be here. 

Ms. Kate and I have been busy since I last wrote a blog entry. I told you that all of the girls were coming for a visit over Veteran’s Day. Well, prep for that took days. Kate was determined to get the Christmas card making finished before they came so we could put all of her stuff away. She tends to spread all over the house with her hobby when she is engaged. Unfortunately, the “put away place” is her office which is about a third of the size she needs. But —- somehow we managed to get it in there. Of course there is no prom to walk or move around —- but it’s in there. 

Friday, Lisa and Steph and Julie arrived — Lisa from North Carolina and Stephanie from Oklahoma and Julie from over in New Albany. Saturday Heather and John arrived from California and Jim drove over from New Albany with the dog. Julie, Jim and the dog stayed until Saturday afternoon and then drove back home. She has a test for her class coming up this week sand had to study. Saturday evening we went to Log Inn for supper and Sunday morning we all went to church. I was preaching on Sunday. 

After church we went up to Newburgh and had lunch at Turoni’s Pizza and then to Karen’s house for a visit. Monday, Lisa and Steph boarded their planes and returned home. Monday morning  Heather and John drove to Louisville for their flight home. Now the house is once again “old people quiet”. I miss them already. 

Heather’s hubby John was looking for something to do to help us while he was here and I had told him in advance I had a couple of “tech” issues I wanted him to take a look at. I have my basement area set up for surround sound with some really good Bose speakers but have never been able to get them to work with my television because I know zero about doing that kind of thing. Well, he took a look at my “receiver” and Heather said —- “You’re getting a new sound receiver for Christmas” and Steph said “and you’re getting a new DVD player from me.” I guess both were so old they were just worn out. So, off they went and bought new stuff. John spent most of Sunday afternoon hooking everything up and making sure it all was compatible. Last evening I spent the evening down in music surround sound heaven. LOL

The great news from us today though is that Kate had a office visit with the heart group yesterday and it was the best visit she has had in months. She has not gone back in to AFib, her strength is slowly coming back and she will start Cardiac Therapy on Monday. She is feeling really good for a change. So, I thank any and all of you you who have been lifting her up in prayer. Of course, I firmly believe the visit from the girls has a lot to do with that. 

So, —- my friends, you are caught up to date on us. I pray you will have a wonderful week full of God’s grace and peace. 

 I can’t believe it has been a week since my last post. Where does all of my time go. Well, actually I know where my time goes; we started out the week with only one appointment and ended up with something every day of the week except for Thursday and that was Halloween. 

Monday Ms. Kate had an appointment with her hematologist, Tuesday she had another cardioversion to get her heart back in rhythm, Wednesday she had to get an iron infusion, and Friday she had a hair appointment. Individually these things don’t take a lot of time but we tie up two to four hours out of the day every time. This coming week doesn’t have a lot of free days in it either. But advise —— don’t retire because you work your tail off. LOL. 

Next Friday the first two of the daughters come in and then a week from today the other two come in. We’ll have all four here for the Veteran’s Day weekend. We are thrilled and busy. We got a lot of stuff to put away. Kate has been working on getting her Christmas cards all made and finally finished up the last of them this week “in her spare time”. She made close to 100 again this year. I now have them on my desk and I need to sign them, address and stamp them all by Thanksgiving. But —- she has her stuff everywhere so we need to get it all put up so the family has someplace to sit while they are visiting. We’ll be busy today and tomorrow doing that because we have Stanley Steamer coming on Monday to clean our carpets. I’m mainly looking for them to “clean the path” that the walk in this house. I don’t know about you but we have rooms that we very seldom walk in, but the family room, and our bedroom, and the hallway between the two take a beating over the years. Just the normal walking, and the occasional animal accident  when the kids come over with their pups builds up despite routine vacuuming and spot cleaning. So, it is time to call in the professionals. 

Time for me to get busy. Have a glorious weekend and welcome to November!!!

Peace.