Good morning on this foggy Thursday morning. I love a foggy morning as long as I don’t have to do a bunch of driving in it. It like the world still has its blanket pulled up under its chin. There is always a peace than comes with a foggy morning that just puts you in a whispered conversation with God. It’s extremely comforting. 

Well —- yesterday was a thing but comforting until about 8:00 pm. We decided that we had everything we needed to get our taxes done for the year. I hate doing our taxes because I find it so very frustrating. It stems from the fact that I am terrible at anything to do with numbers. But, I logged in to Turbo Tax and according to them it should only take me one hour and fifty seven minutes to complete the process. Let me say, that Turbo Tax is a good product, we’ve used it for several years. But also, regardless of their advertisements that “”you can do your tax’s for free’ —- by the time I had all of the “add-ons” and guarantees, I finished at $350.00. However, it is what it is. 

So, I started on my tax adventure determined to not let it get to me, just fill in the forms, drink my coffee and get on my merry way. Well, that two hours went by and one thing after another and soon I was in to hour four. It all circled around one simple entry. We own some property in southern Illinois that we rent out for farming. It’s a simple process. The farmer gives me a check for a certain amount to rent the ground and at the end he sends me a 1099 MISC. However, the forms kept insisting that I need a schedule C which I knew I didn’t need and did not have one. Eventually I asked Ms. Kate to come work on it because I thought I must be missing something, but she couldn’t get it to work either. All the rest of the taxes were complete but we couldn’t file until this was fixed. 

We stopped long enough to go to Sam’s Club and pick up our called in order and then came back and I started again. This time I pulled up the “Tax Expert” on the Turbo Tax site.  She called me back and we launched into the problem. I literally spent two hours on the phone and computer with her. She was tied into my forms and was trying everything she could and agreed that I didn’t not need the schedule C. To make a loooonnnnnng story short, she finally fixed it and I have no idea what she did. But the taxes are filed and Federal is already accepted. Today I’ll mail off the Illinois taxes because as a non-resident, they won’t let me e-file. Ms. Kate and I went to bed before 10:30 last night, mentally and physically exhausted, but the 2025taxes are done. 

That’s my sad tale and now I’m going to refill my coffee cup and set my self down in my recliner. I hope you have a blessed day. Peace. 

 It’s Monday night a little before 2200 hrs. Today has been a holiday, President’s Day. I’m not really sure why we continue to celebrate the birthday of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Yes, they were prominent in our Nation’s history but a lot of other people were too. I know I certainly didn’t dwell on their accomplishments today nor do I think I could find a quick fifty people that did either. Federal workers got a day off work but I don’t know of anyone else that did. Certainly anybody in the customer service business didn’t. I mean we have to have places to go on our day off and we need gas stations to fuel to get there and restaurants to eat at when we do get there. And then there are all of the “President’s Day” sales that are held so shop people have to work extra hard. Nah!!!! Stupid to call it a holiday. 

Kate and I didn’t do much of anything today. She did make an anniversary card for Julie and Jim for me to put in the mail that wouldn’t get picked up because it’s a holiday. LOL And I did some sermon writing for the three Sundays that I have to fill in at a church in March. I got one of them done and have a start on the next one. The fact that it is the Lenten season gives me a theme to base my messages on. The scripture lessons for the second of the two Sundays are vastly different. The first on is the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The second scripture is the story of the vision by the prophet being shown the Valley of the Dry Bones. They are vastly different messages as far as I can see. I am using the Lazarus scripture because it will lend well to the next Sunday which will be Palm Sunday. 

Okay, gotta quit. Have a blessed night. 

 Happy Thursday. I don’t understand how a week goes so fast when I literally don’t really do anything. Well, —- except go here and go there taking care of appointments etc. But here it is Thursday already so I guess we will just dal with it. 

It has been an easy morning but now I’m waiting for the Walgreens lunch hour to be over so I can go pick up Ms. Kate’s prescription. (See, that where my days go, doing stuff like that, which aren’t really anything but take up time.) Then I need to run by Walmart grocery and pick up a couple of things. 

Tuesday, (I think) I took my truck to my friend’s auto repair shop to get a new battery. I couldn’t believe how much batteries cost these days. My battery I replaced was bought in 2019 and was a “75 month” battery so it lasted its allotted time of 6.25 years. I don’t remember what I paid for that battery but the new one cost me $235.00 including labor for installation. I knew it would be high because as you might recall I replaced batteries in both John Deere’s this past fall and they were over $60.00 each. I have no idea what the “big cost element” is in making a battery but obviously something is. That’s why when my Prius hybrid gets another 20,000 miles on it I’m going to trade it in before I have to replace that hybrid battery in it. I’m told that comes with a 2000 dollar cost. But, my plan is to give my truck to my grandson Jon and this way he will have a great battery in it. I’m just waiting for him to get settled in to a lineman’s job somewhere. 

We took Ms. Kate for an appointment with one of her cardiac doctors and they verified she is in AFIB. She has an appointment now for another cardioversion on the 20th of February to shock her heart back into rhythm. I think this will be her sixth time for this procedure. Bless her heart. (Literally)

Our snow is 99.5% gone now. The piles from shoveling are diminishing each day. Even the ones in the parking lots are melting pretty well. Our current weather is a little cold but normal for us for a February, and when the snow melted, the daffodils were waiting to be seen. That’s makes me very happy. It tells me that a there really will be a spring again this year. A couple of weeks we weren’t really so sure. LOL

With that, it is time to head down the road to Walgreens. Then I need to get back here and do some writing. I pray God grants you a wonderful day and rest of your week. Peace. 

 Well good morning. It’s great to stop and write a note or two. First of all, let me tell you it is a beautiful day. We have had so much cold weather and snow and crap that a day of sunshine from start to finish with the temperature supposed to maybe get to 60 —- that’s some good stuff right there. 

How was your weekend ?  Did you watch the Super Bowl? We watched half of it. we neither one really cared who won although we have rooted for the Patriots for a few years just because we lived up in that area for five years; and I wouldn’t support anything out of the state of Washington state just because of their radical politics. The same goes even more so for Oregon. I always thought that I would like to live up there but, they are so radically left skewed in their politics, I couldn’t do it.  But anyway, then we had heard so much about the proposed halftime show and knew we didn’t want to watch that. I’ve seen some snippets since then and am so very glad I didn’t wast my time; I think it would have made me angry. So, at half time the Patriots were losing and not playing well enough to win, we turned it over to the TPUSA alternative halftime show. It was a decent show. After the halftime show was over we switched over to watch a movie. 

Yesterday Ms. Kate had two doctor’s appointments. First she went to her pain management doctor. He prescribed another medication that is supposed to help relax the nerves that are causing her back pain.  Then in the afternoon, she had to go to her cardiologist because she was fairly sure she is in AFIB. Her doctor is new to us and I think probably fairly new to the profession because she’s quite young. But she seemed to be thorough. She confirmed that Kate is in fact in AFIB. So that means scheduling another cardio version. Hopefully sooner rather than later. It seems as though we just go from one doctor to another but actually she had her last cardio version a little over a year ago so hopefully this will do the trick again for awhile. I really feel for her and hate that she has so many health issues and she gets so frustrated with it all. 

We are just 16 days from celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary. I am very excited about it because I feel it is a real life accomplishment. We received a two free nights offer from our local hotel/casino and we are going to take them up on it as a celebration. We also want to go to Cavanaugh’s for dinner which is a very upscale restaurant  at the casino. I think it will be a great couple of nights. It seems silly to stay at a hotel in your hometown but we made it 60 years by being silly. 

Okay, enough for today. Have a blessed week. Peace. 

 Thursday evening; where did the rest of the week go?? Well, it went with a bunch of “stuff” that we had to do. We’ve had some appointments to take care of. One of the things we had was to meet with our lawyer to do some estate planning. We have a will but the girls had said that we might want to consider putting our estate in a trust. So we met with a lawyer and were impressed with her and have decided to go with the trust. Of course we’ll not see the results because we will have passed on so I hope it all works well for them. 

Today I had a haircut appointment. My hair and beard had really gotten rough looking. I don’t think I have had it done since before Christmas. I feel so much better having it cut and the beard trimmed. I told my stylist (yes I go to a stylist. She is the lady that cuts Ms. Kate’s hair.)  that it even bothered me to sleep in the beard. I don’t know how people sleep with long beards. 

After my haircut we had to take Kate to get her blood work done. She has doctor’s appointments next week that require blood work prior to the appointment. One of her appointments is for her pain management and I think her doctor is going to be pleased with her progress. Her other appointment is for her heart. She has been in AFIB now for a couple of months and she finally got in touch with the right doctor. He changed one of her medicines and it appears that her heart rate has slowed back down to normal. But she needs to be seen and we were lucky that she was able to get an appointment this quickly. 

Other exciting events include me has a dental appointment to repair two teeth. It is amazing how exciting our lives are. I think most of our “friends” names begin with Doctor. 

Tomorrow Kate has her hair appointment. Then we will come home and probably do the laundry. (more exciting fun.) While we’re doing that Kate will probably work on Valentine cards and I will work on one of the sermons for the up coming Lenten season. 

That’s it. We’re hoping for some warmer weather but it won’t be here on Friday.  Forecasters say though that next week will be so much better. 

Have a great weekend if I don’t get back tomorrow. Peace. 

 Monday, February 2nd. I can’t believe I’m writing that date already. One whole month of 2026 is already gone. 

The temperature outside has risen to a balmy 32 degrees. I think it’s pretty bad when I celebrate getting up to freezing. But, this is the first day in eleven that we have gotten up that high. Heck, it might even go above freezing today. Wouldn’t that be something. 

I was supposed to preach at two churches yesterday, my former parish. Well, I did the 900 service at St. Paul’s but couldn’t do the 10:30 at St. Lucas because their parking lot still was clear enough to use. But a few of the St. Lucas folks did come up to St. Paul’s. It was really great to see everyone again. They are all good people and I feel like I’ve gone home for a visit when I go back for a service. Ms. Kate was going to go with me but I asked to not go because I was afraid that the parking lot might be too slippery for her to walk on and I didn’t want her to fall. In the past she has had two falls on that sidewalk and driveway and rally hurt herself during one of those falls. So, she agreed with me and stayed home. 

Today we have an appointment with a lawyer. We want to talk about whether we should put our money and estate in a trust for our kids to prophecy them from tax burdens later or just continue with our will. The girls all think we should put it in a trust but I really don’t know anything about a trust. But it is good to ask the questions because we aren’t getting any younger. I’ve known a lot of people that haven’t lived as long as I have. 

My kids and grandkids in North Carolina just got a heavy dose of winter. So they are dealing with between 4 and 10 inches of snow, depending where they live in that state. Guaranteed that they will have some messed up roads for a while. NC doesn’t have the snow clearing equipment like northern states have. I told my daughter that the closest thing they have to a snow plow is the sun. She and Gary are supposed to leave on a cruise to the Bahamas on Wednesday. I understand that the Bahamas are having  very cool weather too and there is no way I’d want to be on a ship during this kind of weather. A friend on mine is on a cruise and sent a Facebook post that said they were having 12 foot swells and it was difficult to walk on deck. No thank you very much!!!!!

That’s it for today. I pray you have a great week. Stay in touch with God on a daily basis. Peace. 

 I almost forgot to stop and write today. It’s been another day where we did things out of order. Ms. Kate normally has her hair appointment on Friday at 10:00 am. But she had it today because her hair dresser has a funeral tomorrow.  So, the snow storm has messed up all normal event s for the week and now today we had Friday’s events which will screw me up tomorrow. LOL

We didn’t do anything else today. I thought about maybe trying to go to breakfast but decided against. The roads are pretty good and where we went the roads had been cleared of snow. I hope it just keeps on getting better because I have to go up to Ft. Branch on Sunday. I’m preaching at both of my former churches on Sunday. I really looking forward to that and I don’t want the weather to come along and cause it to be cancelled. It will be wonderful to see the folks again, assuming they can get out of their driveways etc. It is supposed to be super cold this weekend so maybe it won’t actually snow again. This has been the winter that was predicted. I think next week is Groundhog Day. If that garment sees his shadow, it ‘s time to go hunting. 

That’s enough for today. Have a great night. Peace.