It is almost the middle of the month of April. I expect there are folks that are scrambling today to get their taxes done and in the mail. I’m glad we did ours in February and got them over with. I absolutely hate doing taxes and I contend that once you reach 80 years of age, one should not have to be paying taxes anymore. Of course there isn’t a politician that would take up that cause for me. LOL. So if I live to be 100, my last act on earth will probably be to pay my taxes. 

How was your weekend? Ours was uneventful, we just did the routine stuff; yard work, house work, and church. We did get a call from our sweet granddaughter, Amanda yesterday so tat was the bright spot of the day. That girl just brightens my heart every theme she calls. I love when any of our grandkids call us, which isn’t very often, but Amanda has always been our sparkle kid, so bright and cheerful and loves life to the fullest. But don’t confuse my feeling to be saying she is our favorite grandkid cause we don’t have a favorite. 

It was already 70 degrees when I got up this morning at 0700. That’s like summer time weather. I think it is a good indication that we will be getting some rain and maybe a storm or two this week. My weather app says to expect rain around 10:00 this morning and that’s only 20 minutes away and I’m seeing no clouds, just a little overcast. We need some rain. I am anxiously awaiting for the nights to stay warmer and the danger of frost to go away. My tomato plants are ready to go outside but I don’t want to take a chance of them getting frost bite. They are really looking healthy. If they do as well once I put them in the garden as they are doing inside, I will have a great crop of tomatoes this year. 

Ms. Kate has a doctor’s appointment today on the east side of town at Gateway Hospital. I’m not sure which specialist she is seeing today. She has two different heart doctors, a urologist, a pain doctor, a kidney doctor, our dentist, and our family doctor that we see regularly and then on Wednesday, she has an appointment with our optometrist for her annual check up. No wonder all the names in her phone listing begin with Doctor. It seems like she has to have blood work done every two weeks or so. I’m very fortunate in that I basically see our family doctor once a year and the dentist and optometrist. raise the Lord, one of us is healthy and can take care of the other. We are truly blessed. 

I spent part of my morning sleep time writing a sermon in my mind. I do that frequently. The problem is that I often forget what I had put together by the time I wake up. But this one was for the upcoming Pentecost/Memorial Day sermon that I have to give and I’m retaining a good portion of it so, I better quit here and start writing that sermon down. 

Have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Happy Wednesday. I don’t know about where you live but we have a beautiful sunny chilly morning going on here at my house. I think it is about 50 degrees which isn’t too bad but the breeze is a bit stiff. 

I don’t have much for today. I think that we might run up to Newburgh to my sister-in-law’s house for a visit, (yes, to show off the new car). I also need to do some outside work today but I’m waiting for the temperature to climb a little before I get out and do that. I need to water my tomato plants in my starter pots. They are really growing. It will probably be a month before it is really safe to plant them outside. The ground is just not warm enough yet and we had a light frost warning just a couple of days ago. 

People keep asking me what my opinion is about the current fighting that the US is doing along with Israel against the country of Iran. I won’t call it a war I guess because war has not been declared nor authorized by our congress; but missiles and bombs are flying back and forth and people are dying, so war by any other name is still war.  I am not familiar enough with the particulars of this operation to render an expert opinion.  And we don’t get any straight answers from any one. The media is so skewed against President Trump and they make up what they don’t know and present it as fact. I understand that the leadership of Iran has zero respect for their own people let alone other nations. The Iranian leadership seems determined to build a nuclear war fighting capability and they really can never be allowed to have that. They will use their religious beliefs to destroy the world just like they have their own people. They have killed over 45000 of their own people that disagreed with them and rule with an iron religious bound fist. But —— is it our job to be the one who stands up to them?  I guess that is the question. And while I think it is a good thing that we have, I just wish that our President would keep his dang mouth shut. He is such a school yard braggart and bully which is why so many people have no respect for him. He could carry out this mission with a sincere of concern and humility without constantly talking about it. I will just say that I pray that it ends very soon and that we don’t get dragged into a long “Vietnam type” scenario. And I pray for the citizens of Iran who are dragged into this at no cause of their own. And ——- my suspicious and skeptical mind wonders what is the war is being used as a cover for that my be going on elsewhere. 

With that, I will jump off of here and go water my tomatoes. May God bring you peace. 

 Good morning. Happy Tuesday to you. How was your Easter Sunday and celebration?  We had a beautiful day. Unfortunately our Saturday weather spoiled some of our plans. We woke up to rain and the predictions for rain and even some strong thunderstorms on Saturday and they were tracking from Evansville right on over to Louisville KY and Julie’s house. So, We told them to stay home and not try to drive through all of that crap. Well, —- as luck would have it, most of the bad weather just kind of dissipated and really didn’t amount to much of anything beyond some rain. But we didn’t get to celebrate with Julie and Jim. We did however, invite Karen for Easter supper and she came. We had not had a visit with her since Christmas so that was really nice. 

Yesterday we “did a thing”. We traded in our Toyota Prius for a 2024 Cadillac CT5 It only has 1700 miles on it. I know it wasn’t the smartest ting to give up 52 miles per gallon in exchange for probably half of that, especially when the price of gas is getting so high. But the other side of the coin is that we bought the Toyota when I was doing a lot of travel back and forth for work. It was never a “comfortable car” especially for taking trip and it didn’t have a lot of the features we were used to with our last Cadillac. So, we just said “let’s go for it.. We got a great deal with the trade in and this new car is so very comfortable. We are hoping to do some trip this year and in the future and I think it will justify itself. And if not —- well, it won’t be the first dumb thing I ever did in my life. 

Now, I need to run to Walgreens and pick up a prescription for Kate and then go get my hair cut. I hope you have a most blessed day.  Peace.

 A blessed Good Friday to you. I hope you have plenty of worship time scheduled  for this Holy Weekend. 

It’s a fairly comfortable day today so far. It’s in the mid seventies and cloudy. The humidity level is low so that helps. We are supposed to get some rain this evening through most of tomorrow; nothing strong and we can use it. But Easter Sunday is supposed to be a sunny day with high in the mid to upper 60’s. That will be just right for all of the little egg hunters ruining around in their yards. I recall one Easter in Missouri when I put the eggs out around midnight and woke up to four inches of snow having covered them. It didn’t stop the kids though. LOL.

Julie and Jim are supposed to be coming over tomorrow I think. Have not heard the final plans. It’s possible only she will come and Jim will stay home with the dogs again. I assume we are going to have ham for our Easter lunch. The past few years we have been having Brats on the grill for Easter. We started doing that the last couple of years that my mother was alive and have just continued the tradition. I don’t recall why that got started but my mother was certainly taken aback that we would serve that for Easter. Oh well. 

I made a comment on Facebook today about how God has certainly prepared our area for Resurrection Sunday. The dogwoods are blooming. The redbuds are blooming. The peonies and the azaleas are blooming as well as the tulips and still some daffodils are blooming. It’s going to be a beautiful; Easter Day. I feel sorry for folks up north on the country. They had tornadoes last night and a lot of people lost homes. I pray God will give them strength to work their way through all of that. 

That’s it from today. I pray you have a blessed Easter Day. Peace

 Good morning and welcome to a new month. Here it is, April 1st. The first quarter of 2026 is officially in the books and a part of history. So far today has been very pleasant with sunshine and it was 67 when I got up at 0700 this morning. But we are supposed to be getting rain at some point today and then temperatures will be dropping back down to normal for Easter Sunday. 

I had a good Sunday. I preached at Christ Church again and it was Palm Sunday. I’m very glad to say tat they have invited me back for the last three weeks in May, - the 17th, 24th, and 31st. They said they really like my messages and they discuss them at lunch after church is over. I appreciate that. But, now I need to start thinking about the next three sermons I need to prepare. The 24th of May is Pentecost Sunday which is a fairly easy theme around which to build a message. However, the 25th of May is Memorial Day and I really want to do  Memorial Day Message. So, I think I will delay the Pentecost message for a week because it actually starts a 26 week season of Pentecost for the church year. 

Yesterday I went out and worked in my two raised garden beds. I had a bunch of weeds coming up (yes, already) so I spent some time cleaning that up and I also cut my asparagus. I had a good mess of it out there. It will be good for dinner this evening. Today I need to take the John Deeres out for some exercise and do my first morning of the year. Of course, once you start that, then it has to become a routine until late fall. That’s all good with me. The mowing is relaxing but the weed eater does wear me out. So I have to take it slow. I guess I will go over and mow Dan’s yard too since he and Minh are gone probably for another three or four weeks. Who knows, once she gets with her family you never know when she will be ready to come home. I’ve told you before that she is Vietnamese and non of her family lives anywhere close to here. So, when they go to her sister’s and brother’s home, it is full cultural submersion and she likes to stay as long as she can. She is also now the “senior member of the family” which according to her culture puts her in a status to be honored. So they basically wait on her hand and foot. And who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that? 

Okay, got to get in the jeans and on the mower. You have a blessed day. This is Christian Holy Week and I urge you to spend some time in prayer. 

Peace my friends. 

 Good morning and happy new week. 80 degrees yesterday and 45 today. Yep, it’s spring alright. But hey, parts of the upper Midwest and northeast are getting up to 12 inches of snow today. Yes sir, I will take 45 degrees and sunshine, thank you very much. 

Preached yesterday at Christ Church UCC for my second Sunday. I guess it went well, I was asked if I would consider being their interim pastor until they can fine one. I declined but I did tell them I will be happy to do “supply” work for them any time. They have a list of pastors that they can call upon and I’m happy to get in their rotation. They have a good bunch of elders that seem to take care of the congregation very well. The problem, (and I don’t know their history) is that there are only about 25 people showing up for services and they are mostly over 70. Unless they have a large endowment they are working from, they can’t offer much incentive to a permanent pastor. But they are really nice folks and I hated to say “no” to them. 

My tomato seeds are sprouting now. I have maybe a dozen little sprouts poking through the dirt in their pots. It will be at least three weeks before they are going to be ready to transplant but it is exciting. That gives me plenty of time to borrow Karen’s tiller and work up my garden. I also walked around the yard and my peonies are all up and looking well. I have not needed to mow yet. My neighbor mowed yesterday. I need to spread some fertilizer on my garden and heard. And I have some Epson Salt that I need to put out on the flower beds. Springtime requires a lot of yard and garden work and I’m just not up to it as much as I should be. I’m still suffering from the “winter lazies” I guess. I seem to have a lot of those “later” situations. 

We have a fairly easy week. 

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Well, I see i forgot to hit send on Monday’s post so I will just add to it.  

Kate and I “did a thing” on Tuesday.  We packed an over night bag and headed off to New Albany, Indiana and booked a night at the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel.  We planned to either stay one or two nights since we actually had a week without a bunch of other things on our schedule. The Horseshoe is a Caesar’s property and Kate had enough casino points for us to get a “free” room or two. So off we went. In the meantime, we contacted Julie to see if they wanted to have dinner with us somewhere since New Albany is where she lives. She suggested the Cattleman’s Roadhouse because they have eaten there before and liked it. We got to the casino and decided to play for a bit, then go eat dinner with the kids and then go back and check in to our room. So that’s what we did. 

Once we got back to the hotel and our room we decided we were done for the night and probably for the trip. We had lost our allotted amount of fun money and didn’t feel the need to go back yesterday morning and maybe lose some more. 

Yesterday morning we slept in and then got on the road for home. It’s only an hour and a half drive from us to there so we decided that we would either stop along the way  and grab breakfast or wait until we got home. Well, waiting until we got home won out as the decision. The trip was going fine until we came up on traffic totally stopped in both lanes about four miles from our turn off. There was an accident up the road, and we sat there for two and a half hours waiting for traffic to start flowing again. It wasn’t a bad wait because the weather was perfect outside. So, we just played on our phones and took micro-naps. Finally got home and relaxed. 

Next, we had to go get Kate’s prescription so we stopped for brunch, took the car to get gas and a wash job, then picked up hr prescription. That was enough excitement for the day. 

Today, I need to do a little bit of work outside and then go down stairs to my office and go over my sermon for this coming Sunday. We are supposed to hit a record high. Of almost 90 today. First sweat of the year!!!! Do I need to celebrate that I wonder???  And from looking at the laundry basket, I think it is calling me. 

That’s it for today. Have a blessed day. Peace!     Now, hit “send”. 

 What an absolutely beautiful day. I think this may be the nicest day of 2026 so far. Of course we had a doctor’s appointment to go to, —- so any ‘day trips’ were out of the questions. 

First thing this morning Ms. Kate had an appointment with one her doctors that monitors her kidney function. Neither Kate nor I know why we go to this particular doctor. First of all her demeanor is cold and uncaring and rude. Today’s total visit conversation was:, “Hello, I read your test results and your creatine level is high. You’re still in Stage four, kidney failure. Have you considered dialysis if it gets worse?” Kate said she would have to think about it. The doctor said “ok, continue monthly blood tests, and I’ll see you in four months.”   That my friends was it, and the doctor left. The doctor is a nephrologist. Like I said, we don’t know why we are seeing her.  Because this is the extent of her visit each time. 

I have a call in to my doctor’s nurse practitioner. For the last month I have had a steadily harder time breathing because I constantly have throat and chest congestion that I have to cough up. It’s very annoying. I don’t have any other symptoms. The shortness of breath though makes me limited in what I can or cannot do. Going for any long walks or walking up and down stairs or hills wears me out. So, I’m waiting to hear from them and get in for a look-see as to what the probable is. What I know is that Mucenex is not the solution.  I’ve been using that. Kate had some Claritin and I took one of those this morning. It helped some. But, I need the professional solution I reckon. 

After Kate’s appointment we went to Ruler foods to pick up some hamburger buns, grapes and bananas. I’ll be grilling hammers for supper this evening. From there Kate said she wanted to goo to Duomo’s Japanese restaurant for lunch. It is a Hibachi restaurant that we like, but she said she wasn’t interested in having hibachi, just some Asian food. What we learned is that their “lunch menu” is very limited unless you want hibachi. But we had something, couldn’t tell you what. LOL. It was “satisfactory” at best. 

That’s about it for today, the first day of Spring. Have a blessed weekend. May God bring peace to your soul.