Tuesday evening update from rehabilitation; I’m flat worn out! Having said that, I can not believe how far I have come in the last week. The Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy has been intense and intentional. But, as oppposed to other PT programs that I have been involved with, this is not the intense pain that I have had in other programs. Perhaps that is because of the difference in injuries, but I know I am not in dread of going to therapy the four times a day that I am doing.

Today is our 53rd wedding anniversary. Ms. Kate and I celebrated it by having lunch across from one another at my. Hospital beside table. How romantic was that?? But hey, over our Air Force career, we missed several anniversaries so the fact that we could celebrate it together in any form — win,, win!

That catches you up. I would write more but my rump’s a draggin’. Thanks for your prayers. Peace.

Sunday evening, I’m sitting in a recliner in my hospital rehabilitation room, watching ”Worst Cooks in America.” I’ve been in and out of my wheelchair so many times today and I’m really tired by now.

My day started out at 0700 with a respiration therapist coming in to give me a breathing treatment. Having my eyes opened to a cheery therapist holding a plastic mask to put over your face. I wasn’t scheduled to have Physical Therapy todaay but was expecting Occupational Therapy this afternoon for forty five minutes.

My breakfast came and I tuned in to my daughter Lisa’s Live Streamed church service from North Carolins.It gave me a chance to worship with my daughter from two different states miles away. Then I showered and was about done when the nurse came in and asked if I would mind doing my OT in a few minutes. Well, needless to say, I didn’t have anything else on my platter so I agreed. OT went well and Ms. Kate arrived while I was doing my workout. After that we retuned to my quarters and just did whatever it is I do. I had’t ordered lunch yet so I ordered lunch for the both of us. I must compliment the dietary staff here at Deaconess. So far almost all of the food I have had has been delicious and today was no different. I really enjoyed having lunch with MMS.kate today; we spreadout the hospital tray and sat across from one another just like it was Applebee’s or something.Anything that can give us a some little sense of a normal life is a perfect thing.

Sister-in-law Kaaren came by and spent the day with us. And the day was relaxed. Only being in my recliner in my sunroom would have been much better.

A word of perspective: I look around at the other folks here and they are all in some state of life that they do not wish to be. I don’t know what brought them here or to what they will be returning. I know that this is going to be somewhat of a long hall for my recovery. But, I also know that I have people from all over the country praying for me, I have a family that is in contact with me multple times a day. Ms. Kate has been here hours on end and is going to great lengths to prepare the house for me when I do get home. Maybe others here have visiting loved ones too but I have not seen them. Bottom line is that I am completely loved and I know that no matter what form the final results ends up being; I have the power of God and love of Jesus Christ keeping me on track. Keep the faith my friends. Peace.

“Where has he been”, I hope you are asking. Yes, it has been a few days and with good reason. On Saturday, I had asked my neighbor Dan to come over aand help me move my flat-screen TV upstairs and was going to put it in the bedrooom. Ms. Kate had ordered me a 65” TV to go down in my office/ TV area. Well, Dan came over and we started up the steps. There are 14 steps from from the basement to the first floor. Well, Dan was in front and lost his balance and started falling backwards. I od course tried to catch him and failed miserably. The result being; we both tumbled with tv backwards down the steps. I landed on the concrete with my hip & back hitting they concrete and my head hitting a bookcase. Dan and TV both landed on me. I suffered a compression fracture of the L-2 lumbar and a torn Achilles Tendon.  I spent three days in the hospital and now am in Rehab therapy for two weeks to get me able to function at home. This was my first day of rehab and it was exhausting. I have an appointment on the 28th with the orthopedic folks to decide whether to do surgery on the tendon or to do a series of “progression castings” to let the tendon heal naturally. Either way, I have to remain off of it for six weeks. So, that is where I have been and where I’ll be for awhile.

God takes care of children and fools, I always said. But, since I am in this fix, I also have to give thanks to God for the fact that neither Dan nor I were hurt any worse. Either one of us could have been killed or paralyzed for life. How were weren’t can only be attributed to the protective hand of God. Secondly, I must give all praise to God for the skilled hands and hearts of my caregivers. They have all been great.

That’s it for me today. I don’t know how regularly I’ll be writing I the next couple of week. Hang n there with me and let’s walk this walk together. I promise II won’t pull you down any stairs. LOL

Sometimes you can just look out your window and instantly imagine how cold it must feel out there. This is one of those mornings. It is currently thirty degrees with a real feel of twenty two. The ground is blanketed with a thin layer of snow. Once again we were lucky and had “the storm thaat wasn’t”. The majority of the snow and ice storm shifted south of us. Our streets and sidewalks are dry. There is enough snow on the grass to leave tracks in, but barely. I consider it a blessing and willsay “Thank you God”.

Since I just blogged fifteen hours ago I really don’t have a lot new to say. The Backyard Buffet is bustling this morning with birds. I could almost use an air traffic controller. The majority of my guests this morning are Cardinals. But I also have several sparrows and finches and a couple of varieties of woodpeckers. I filled everything yesterday except the bark butter paste feeders. I have four of those. A lot of people take that paste and smear it on the side of trees for the woodpeckers. I know if I did that the squirrels would just set there and clean it off. So I bought these pieces of log with inche and a quarter holes drilled into them and I fill those holes with the paste. It works really well. Some guy is probably living on his fortune that he made buy patenting a home made product. How come I never think of things like that? I mean, it’s a fifteen inch long log by two and a half inch thick with holes drilled in it and a screw hook in the end of it. And I was silly enough to pay probably $15.00 or $20.00 for each of them.

Tomorrow is Sunday and Pastor Art is preaching this week. However, I am going to do the children’s sermon for a change. The kids will get to meet my invisible dog for the first time. I have one of those novelty leashes that has an empty harnes attached toit. . I used this at my last parish maybe fourteen years ago. There. Was the cutest little boy sitting there and as I was talking to them, he suddenly looked at me and said “your dig just went up thre” and pointed to the back of the chancel. I cracked up. I will never forget that. It was a priceless moment. That young boy has turned into a fine young man.

That’s it fortoday. I pray your weekend will be filled with joy and love. Take the time to go to your house of worship. If you don’t have one, please stop in one and see what it is all about. In the meantime, I bid you peace.

It's 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday. My morning was busy and I'm just now getting around to moving the fingers across the keyboard. As I do, I'm watching the weather and news on the TV. It is sleeting/snowing outside right now. I've already treated the driveway with snow melt. This weather event is supposed to last until late tonight, I think. Heaven knows we don't need any more moisture of any kind on the ground at this point and yet the forecast calls for rain each of the next seven days.

Ms. Kate and I went shopping for a new television for me for my area. (I won't call it a "man-cave" because I'm really tired of that phrase.) But, it is the area where I watch television and my office is here in this space. Ms. Kate has said that she wanted me to get myself anew television becaue I had mentioned that I'd like to have one the size of hers that is in the family room. Do I need a new television ?? No I don't; but that new sixty-five in television is sure going to be sweet. We went to Best Buy to get it simply because they will deliver it, and install it and show me how to use it. I'm anxious to see some of my favorite shows on that massive screen.

I filled bird feeders this afternoon. I think I probably put out about thirty pounds of sunflower seed asd well as some of the bark butter pellets and meal worms. The blue birds really like the meal worms and I have friends that keep blue birds around all year up in Michgan by feeding mealworms. My problem with meal worms is the cost. They are really expensive and the stinking starlings just sit there and gobble them until they are all gone. But, if I'm going to run the Backyard Buffet, I guess I have to accept any and all customers. No discrimination allowed. But -- I did buy "hot-pepper" bark butter bits to keep the squirrels from eating them.

Ms. Kate and I had a relaxed Valentines Day although we spent a bunch of it shopping. She wanted to go to the Butcher Shop, then we went to Walmart and Target checking out the prices of televisions at those places.

I just went out and checked on the snow and sleet and the ground is covered. It is changing over from sleet to some snow. It is currently twenty-six degree so with the suin going down, what is wet will begin to freeze. I'm glad that I don't have anywhere to go tonight.

That's it for tonight. Have a great evening, stay warm, stay off of the roads. The reporters says that are alreay slide-offs and road rage due to slowing traffic. I don't know why people have to be such asshats!  Peace.

Happy Valentines Day. Here it is Thursday already and I haven’t written in a couple of days. But then, I have’t had any readers either so there it is. Welcome to. Cloudy, forty degree, and windy morning.

My Backyard Buffet has beeen full of birds and squirrels and the feeders are almost totally empty. I need to put on my boots and fill everything up again. I went to Wild Birds a couple of days ago and spent $101.46 on restocking my larder of supplies. I knew the feeders were getting low and my can was almost empty. The backyard though is sloppy because of all of the rain that we have been getting. Today is supposed to be mostly dry but windy and that will help dry things out But — tomorrow night we are again looking at more rain and maybe sleet and snow. Then again on Saturday night, more of the same and that is followed next week by even more rain. But, we are so very lucky that we aren’t having the winter storms that are still ravaging the upper part of the nation. Some parts are measuring their snow in feet instead of inches.

Well, the news on the pastoral search at the church is not good. It would appear that the primary candidate has dropped out and the committee is back to reading profiles. That means that Pastor Art and I are going to be there longer than we thought. He and I had planed our schedules out through Easter. Now, we are having to look further down the road for both the church and for us individually. We are going ahead with making vacation plans etc. I hate that the candidate fell through because the church is on year five of a search. It has to be depressing for the committee. We are a conservative church in a denomination that is pushing their churches to be much more liberal. Most of the candidates have fallen in line with the “new thinking”. But, God will send the right shepherd for the flock. IN the meantime, Art and I will keep the flock safe and well as best we are able. That is our charge.

Ms. Kate and I have alreaady celebrated our Valentine’s Day. We went out to dinner Tuesday night in order to beat the crowds at the restaurants tonight. So, while everyone else is searching for a place to eat, we will be home on our recliners watching television.

That’s it for today. Enjoy your day aand stopand give thanks for your blessings today. Peace.

It is warmer this morning but the rain has not ceased. At least it is a gentle rain most of the time. This weather front is supposed to hang around until Tuesday afternoon. The area is under flood watch again as all of the rivers and streams will be over flowing their banks.

We didn't have church services yesterday. We woke up to freezing rain. My truck was frozen over with ice as were the bird feeders and the roads were hazardous. It was tricky to decide whether to call of church or not. While the roads were bad enough between 0600 and 0900 that they even closed the twin bridges between Indiana and Kentucky, by 0930 the temperature was above freezing and the freezing rain had changed to regular rain and streets and parking lots were melting. But better safe than sorry. I woulld have hated for one of our parishioners to have come to church and slipped on our parking lot.

Not having church made yesterday seem like a very long day. I literally had and extra four hours of time to fill and hardly knew what to do with it. Well, --- that's not entirely true, after the decision was made to not have church by 0730, I sat down in my recliner and snoozed for awhile. But, it did leave some extra time in the day to play with.

Thursday this week is Valentine's Day. I haven't yet got a clue as to what to do for Ms. Kate to celebrate. I'm a firm believer in celebrating things like Valentine's Day, anniversaries, and birthdays. It is my job and responsibility to do things that make my wife feel appreciated. I have know doubt that I sometimes take her for granted and that isn't the way to treat a relationship with anyone, let alone a spouse.

The back yard is again a sloppy mess. I'm glad that the bird feeders are still full. I'd hate to go slopping around out there. But, I'm looking forward to the springtime warm and dry days. I'm getting anxious to get out there and rake away the winter crap. I have a lot of twigs and branches down in the back yard that I need to clean up. I have at least one day that I need to dedicate to doing just that. I did go out on Saturday and start up the John Deere that sits out back. I wanted to make sure the battery had not died over the winter. I was surprised that it started right up. I sat on it for maybe five minutes and let it warm up and recharge the battery.

Tonight is the church council meeting so I'll need to come back to the church again tonight. Tomorrow morning is the local Clergy Circle. That will take up most of my morning so I may not get to write. I know I can do it in the afternoon but ---- well, we'll see what happens. Who knows, something dynamic could happen and I'd want to share it with you. Nothing dynamic has happened at one of these meeting in the last fifteen years, --- but it could happen. LOL

That's it for today. I have another hour here at the office and I brought along my next three sermons to go over this morning. As always I pray your day is blessed and you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. Peace my friends.