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. 

 Happy Saturday. I hope you are having a blessed  weekend. It’s 60 degrees outside right now and there is a stiff breeze blowing which mans it is cool regardless of high bight the sun is shining. 

Yesterday, Ms. kate and I got our 2024 edition of the COVID-19 shots. This morning we both have sore arms form the vaccinations. We had our flu shots a couple of weeks ago, our COVID shots yesterday and in another couple of weeks I guess we will go have our RSV shots. Aren’t these all just kind of the same thing??? It seems to me they all treat the same thing. But, I guess we have to keep a money inflow to the pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Jackson seemed to think we should have all three though, so we’ll be good little pin cushions and take our medicines. 

I don’t know if I told you, but Kate and I did get to the polls and cast our ballots for the 2024 election. It took three trips. The first two times we just kind of drove by and looked at the line that more than a block long and decided not to wait. This week we saw that the line was “doable”, and took Ms. Kate’s rollater  so she would not have to stand too long. It took us an hour and a half to go through the line and cast our ballots. But, you know what??? It is totally worth the time to exercise a citizen’s right to have a say about who runs this country. Will our candidate win —— we won’t know for another two weeks. The pollsters and talking heads of the media say it is a truly close race. But, I hope that everyone at least prayed about their choice before casting their ballots. Of course, we only pray for what we want to happen so that means people on both sides prayed for success. What we need to be praying for is for what happens after the election is over. We need to be praying for an end to the rhetoric and hate, and divisiveness that is tearing our nation and our society apart. I pray for the winner to be in a constant relationship with God. I pray that we can get back to a point where it no longer dangerous or offensive to express an opinion about things. 

That is about all I have for this beautiful Saturday. It is now almost noon and I think I will go outside and do a little work in my flowerbeds and maybe even get on the JD and mulch up the few leaves that are in my yard. I hope you have a blessed weekend. Take time to give thanks to the Lord God for getting you through another week. Peace.  

 It’s Wednesday and I’m back again. This week has been my week to sit in doctor’s offices. Monday I had a dental appointment to have a new crown put on my tooth. I had gone a couple of weeks ago and the dentist had prepped the tooth and put a temporary crown on while the new one was being made. It finally came in and now I have a brand new tooth. Unfortunately it is still tender. Nothing that I can handle but I do have to take a Tylenol once in awhile. 

Yesterday I had to go for an electrocardiograph test. I haven’t had once since 2022 and I forgot that they aren’t very comfortable to have. I was surprised that I didn’t have a bruised chest this morning. They push so hard trying to get the pictures that they need. My doctor had ordered one because I told him that when I stand up, I have to stand there for a few seconds for the blood to get to the bottom of my feet. So, he sent me to get the test just to insure that my biggest problem was being 80 years old. I got my results on “My Chart” last evening but of course I have no idea whether it was good or bad but from what I saw there was only one result that was slightly out of “normal”, and no one said “You’re dead”, so I reckon it is all okay. I will see Dr. Jackson again in six months and I guess he will tell me about it. Bottom line is that I feel fine, just slower moving around. 

Ms. Kate and I made a deal Monday; I would do the laundry and she would make another apple pie. It worked out very well. I still have a half a pie left but I suspect it won’t see a Thursday. LOL

Kate put in an order from SAM’s club for pick up. She ordered our Halloween candy and a few other things, it will all be ready by 3:00 pm. While we are out we will try again to go do our early voting. We have tried the last two days and the lines have been a block long. Monday was the first time they opened multiple places and the turnout has been wonderful. 

That’s about it for today. Our cleaning lady is here and I need to vacate the kitchen table so she can get her work done. Have a most blessed day. Peace. 

 Happy Tuesday afternoon. It is 54 degrees outside and is raining just enough to make it feel even colder. I don’t know where this little shower came from but we will welcome it. 

Today we did another doctor visit for Kate at the cardiac clinic and and yes ——- she is back in AFib. So, that means she will have to have another Cardioversion. Bless her heart. She gets a couple of days of feeling “not bad” and then something else pops up or pops up again. We try to keep the chins up because we now there are folks that are so much worse of than us. But — admittedly we do get a little tired. I can’t imagine trying to go through all that Kate has gone through these past two years without a strong faith and an almighty God to call upon. I don’t know how people do that.  I know I’m not that strong and neither is Kate. 

Kate is trying to get her Christmas cards made for this year. It keeps her busy. She is trying to get them all done in the next week and a half. All of our girls and a son-in-law are coming for the Veterans Day and we have all of her stuff all over the family room and dining room. So time is limited. She normally starts on this in the summer but her summer has been spent doing doctor and hospital stuff. 

That’s it for today. I pray you will have a blessed week. May God bring you peace.