Oh boy, am I glad we had an early appointment at the COVID clinic to get our second vaccine today. I looked out my window first thing this morning and saw that there was a glaze of ice on everything. There was no body traveling up the street and no track of cars that had. That was at 0730. Around 0800 I called the clinic and the lady I talked to said they were still open today and doing shots. I asked her how the streets were and she said she had not had any trouble getting to work. So, I told Ms. Kate, we might as well give it a go. Our appointment was for 1010 so we goto our selves ready and about 0900 we decided to head out. Our drive was ice covered but I threw out a bunch of ice melt around 0830 and it had done a little magic and we had no trouble getting down. We weren’t sure how or if we would be able to get back up. But, we took it slow through the subdivision and when we got on the main road it was wet but did not appear to be too slick. 

Once we got on the main highway it was much better and for once, people were driving like they had some sense. We got to to clinic and were done with our vaccines by 0930, had to wait our required 15 minutes and then headed home again. The trip went fine and we got back home and were able to get on up the drive and safely back in the garage and house with no problem. I give thanks to God for our safe trip each direction. 

We ate a little breakfast, had a little coffee, and then took a nap. Now —- I look out the window and the garage and it is literally raining ice pellets and sleet. The street is covered with it. And I am happy I don’t have any reason to go outside or drive to anywhere. Tomorrow is garbage can collection day but I think that I will not take my can down. I don’t want to even think about falling out there on the ice and I only have a couple of of bags of trash in the can. It can wait a week. 

Wow! I just saw a UPS truck go zipping up the hill so that’s a scary thought. 

Okay, have a great day. Stay warm, stay inside, any in touch with The Lord. Peace. 

 Good morning, this may be just a quick note depending on the speed of getting my 15,000 mile service done on my Prius. I’m at the dealer and just turned the car over to them It shouldn’t take too long. But I don’t know what all they will do. 

So today is another cold, cold day. Depending on where you are in the Tri-State you either got nothing, or rain, or freezing rain followed by snow. There is about four inches or so I’m being told on Facebook up in the Ft. Branch area where my churches are. We got a good dusting up to maybe an inch here at our house. The roads were fine as I drove here.  The Prius was covered this morning but it was all dry snow and blew off easily. Down below the KY line it was all rain. Welcome to the mid-west winters. I still haven’t seen a John Deere worthy snowfall yet tis year or last year. However, the forecast calls for ice tonight, anywhere from aa tenth on an inch to a quarter of an inch and then snow on top of that. I really hope that does not materialize because we are supposed to go get our second COVID shot tomorrow and I’d hate to see that delayed or have to drive on icy road s to get there. Yeh, I want my winters to convenient for me. LOL

When I leave here today I need to go to the grocery store. Ms. Kate gave me a list of stuff so I reckon I’ll go to the Neighborhood Walmart. I that’s where I do most of my grocery shopping. I don’t know when I got to be the chief grocery shopper in our house but that does seem to be the case now. I don’t think Ms. Kate has shopped for groceries since she got COVID back in November. BUT, frankly, I don’t mind it at all. I’ve pretty well figured out everything is and I take my time. It isn’t as big as a normal Walmart and mainly only has groceries with a few other things like a small pharmacy, but that’s about all. It also seems to be patronized by people my age, many of which live in the high-rise apartment complex behind the market. I imagine those folks were thrilled when it was built. 

Okay, time to go. Have a blessed day and stay warm and stay safe. I’m sending you God’s peace. 

 

 Twenty four degrees with a breeze! That will make you pucker up, won’t it? But the sun is shining again so there is that. Most of the snow has melted off of my vehicles although I won’t be driving them until tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to take the Prius to the dealership for my 15,000 mile servicing. Thank goodness it is still free. Then Wednesday Ms. Kate and I go to get our second COVID Immunization Vaccine injection. 

Welcome to Monday and a brand new week of challenges and opportunities to do something good for someone. Start your week off with a prayer of gratitude for being alive. I’ll be glad to have that over and done with. The best news I have heard is that effective the 15th of February, (a week from today) Indiana intends to reduce the social distancing to three feet instead of six. The infection rate is dropping somewhat as people are getting their vaccines. As I told Ms. Kate, the next thing you know, we’ll be able to actually touch one another. Can you remember what it is like to shake hands with acquaintances or give one another hugs? That is what has been so different and unusual at church. Both of my churches are “touchy-freely” churches. We like to shake hands and we like to hug. My St. Lucas Council President asked if we could open up all of the seats now and I told him to wait until after the 15th. We have played by all of the rules to date so let’s not make a mistake at this point. 

I sure missed not being able to do my job yesterday and conduct my services. But, my coughing and runny nose was just miserable. I’m doing so much better today, the Mucenex is doing what it is supposed to do and is drying up all of the crud. I also had some Sudafed here and took a couple of those. I used to rely on Sudafed or Actifed when I would get a cold. But, the Actifed made me drowsy so I quit using that. Then the government made it so that you had to get it from the pharmacist because druggies were using it to make illegal drugs. I haven’t bought any for a couple of years so I don’t know if it still that way or not. But, I still have plenty. And hopefully I won’t get another cold any time soon. 

Did you watch the Super Bowl? I actually did. It was the first sporting event I have watched in maybe three years. But, I wanted to watch it to see of Quarterback Tom Brady would win his seventh Super Bowl ring and he did it with style. The young QB that he was up against is a good guy too but he got shut down hard yesterday. He will be a QB to watch in the future. I think he actually won last year’s Super Bowl. 

That’s it for today. Stay safe, stay warm, and stay in touch with God. Peace. 

 Well, well, well! The ground is covered with white stuff this morning. I think we may have gotten as much as an inch, but the temperature is 12 degrees so it is going to stick around for awhile. I suspect that the roads may be a bit slick but since we aren’t getting out today, tat doesn’t bother me either. 

Yes, I know it is Sunday but I have this stupid head cold and could not go to work today. I have no doubt that with my coughing and my runny nose that I would have been gross in the pulpit. I mean who wants to look at the pastor as this COVID mask fills up from a runny nose. So, late last evening, I contacted the church councils and let them know that I could not do the services today. 

I’m glad to say that today I am feeling better. I took some evening version of Mucenex and slept like a log. This morning I took the day-time version and I’m not coughing near as much and the nose has dried up considerably. I really need to get over this thing before Wednesday because we go for our second COVID vaccination on Wednesday and if I have any symptoms, they will put me off. 

The sun is shining brightly but as the weatherman said last evening, it will be “Useless sunshine” because the temperature is so cold that the snow is not going to let. We are supposed to have aortic temperatures all week. I guess winter finally arrived. It can go away now. I’ve seen the snow, I’ve made comment that it is in fact beautiful, and now it can warm up now the snow can go away. 

I don’t have much else to say today. I just stopped by to wish you all a very happy day. The Super owl is on Television this evening. I’m not a sports fan so I may or may not watch it. I don’t have a dog in the fight but I would like to see Tom Brady win another Super Bowl ring. The QB for the other team is reportedly a rally super nice guy too, so may the best team win. 

Have a blessed day. {each. 

 It’s a bit nippy out there this morning at 28 degrees. But, the sun is shining brightly so that will certainly help the “feels like” temperature. We had a pretty stiff wind last night. I could hear the chimes ringing until after I went to bed. I’m sitting at my kitchen table because it is cooler than I want to be out in the sunporch. I have a seed cylinder feeder just outside of the window that hangs over an azealia bush. It has two cardinals feeding from it at the moment and there is a wren and a finch waiting for their turn. It makes for a “blessing view” this morning already. Life is good. 

I have a stupid head cold. I started coming down with it yesterday. It’s not COVID. It’s not the flu. It’s just a runny nose, sore throat head cold. I don’t know when was the last time I had one of those. But, I have my box of tissues handy and I’ve taken my Mucenex to try to stem the flow. I need to be over this thing before Sunday. I once heard someone say that if you go to the doctor for a cold, it takes a week to get over it. However, if you don’t go to the doctor —- it only takes seven days. That’s kind of a silly thing to say but there is a lot of truth to it.                     

I’m back to reading and working on the work book for the “Screwtape Letters” book by C.S. Lewis. We are hoping to do a Bible study using that book during Lent. We had planned to do that last year and then COVID hit the universe and we had to shut down. I have read the book a couple of times but I never did the workbook/study guide. It is a great book and so very relevant to our society of today. We’ll ask the congregations on Sunday if there is any interest. People may still be too timid about getting together to do aa Bible Study, but we have plenty of room to spread out and do it either using the sanctuary like they do for Sunday school or by going to the other church and using the recreation room. It doesn’t take a lot of people to do a Bible study. Frankly, —- you could do one with two people but I think we could get some good discussion going with this book. 

I need to go to the grocery store today. We have several items that we need. I told Ms. Kate last night that I knew we were getting desperate when I used the last package of Ramen noodles. LOL. But, we do need some things like bread and other stuff so I’ll go in a couple of hours when it warms up a few more degrees. Right no I’m doing an experiment for breakfast, I’m trying to fix some of those crescent rolls like they have at Rafferty’s with the honey on them. 

It’s going to be a good start to what promises to be a cold and possibly rainy or snowy weekend. So, if you need to go out, —- do it today. Until next post —- God bless you. Peace. 

 Thursday February 4th. It’s raining and the rain is supposed to get harder before the day is over, but be gone by tonight. It’s also 39 degrees outside and that means it is a cold rain. I think I’ll just stay inside and let the world pass me by today. 

Yesterday we of course went to the churches and we ran the bulletins for Sunday and set the pulpit up. It doesn’t take very long these days. The last time I was pastor at this parish running thee bulletins was a major deal. Tat was because I was making work for myself by running off the hymns for the older crowd, making a lot of large print bulletins, and I was even writing a monthly newsletter and printing that out. When I retired from the parish in November of 2016 I don’t think the pastor that replaced me did any of those things, but I know he hated running the bulletins. Since I returned to the parish a year ago, we have had the COVID outbreak and because of that we have had to alter so much of what we do. For a while, we were shut down and only dong virtual services. Then we started back to doing both in-person and virtual services but no singing. However, we don’t have a large attendance in person so I don’t have to run a lot of bulletins. What we have changed though is that because we now have two large screens at my St. Lucas church, I’m doing slides to go with my sermons which I had not done before and because we have the screens, people follow the liturgy on the screens and use very few of the bulletins that I do make. And the order of the service has changed somewhat too. We no longer pass the offering plate because of COVID restrictions. We just set the offering plates at the entrance to the sanctuary and people drop their offering into that. When we do communion, we no longer pass the elements but rather we use the pre-packaged sets and people pick them up as they come in for worship. It meets the requirement but I personally think it loses a lot of the ritual. Ash Wednesday is coming up on the 17th, and I am hoping to do the Imposition of Ashes. There are a lot of pastors that would not do that but I’ve had my COVID Vaccine and allegedly can not acquire or spread the virus. And of course, people have the choice to either come forward and let me touch them or not. 

I woke up extremely early today. Got up to make  bathroom visit and then my mind flooded with all kinds of stuff including the fact that we still need to put together our taxes and get all of that pout of the way. So I got up, went down to my office and collected the stuff I need into the appropriate piles. I still don’t have everything I need because the military won’t be releasing our 1099R until the 10th of February and my two churches need to figure out what form I’m really supposed to get. They each sent me  different form. One church sent  W-2 and the other sent me a 1099NEC. So, I’ve texted the treasurer of each church and asked them to straighten it all out. 

That’s about all I have for you today. Try to stay warm and dry and safe. Have aa blessed day and maybe help someone else have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Yep, it has been awhile hasn’t it? But I’ve been on vacation and well —- I’ve taken full advantage of being on vacation. 

We spent our last three days in Biloxi at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino. Our room was magnificent and the peace and quiet was wonderful. I got a little over half of my novel finished tat I am reading. There is no telling when I’ll actually take the time to finish it. I can do that, put a book down for months and maybe even years and pick it up and go right back to where I was before without review. It took me I think at least five years to read Stephen King’s “The Stand”. His novel that I am reading now has been sitting beside my sunporch recliner for at least a year. This one is called “If it bleeds” and is a compilation of short stories. I recommend it if you are a SK fan. 

It was so very good to get home yesterday afternoon and “be home” again. I guess I am getting old because frankly, being at home is just the best place to be. I know where all my stuff is, I don’t have to deal with crowds or wear my mask. We have gotten to the point that “touring places or doing activities” is no longer comfortable or fun. So, we end up doing vacations like this one where we rent a hotel room and sit in it. I can do that at home for free. And, my coffee pot is always waiting for me. 

One of the first things I need to do today is get a haircut. I needed to get it cut before we went on vacation but decided to wait. Ms. Kate wants to go to Target later today and my barbershop is in the same parking lot. So, we’ll just make it in one trip. I also need to fill bird feeders today as most everything is empty. And it is supposed to be just a tad warmer today. Today is “Groundhog Day” and I guess the little dude saw his shadow and therefore six more weeks of winter has been declared. What a stupid “holiday”. Of course there will be six more weeks of winter. March 21st is six weeks away and that is the first day of spring. Duhhh!

I’m watching a little wren out there on a feeder and it is just enjoying itself as it pecks away at that seed cylinder. In fact there are two of them, one on each side of the cylinder. This particular feeder hangs protected in an azealia bush and only the wrens and a couple of cardinals seem to know it is there. I’m in my kitchen and the bush and feeder are maybe ten feet from me. They are  joy to watch. I do love my wrens. They have such a wonderful song and are always happy to share it. And their movements are so animated and quick. 

Time to put a my jacket on and go to Target and go get my haircut. It is goos to be home and back with you. Have a very blessed week. Stay warm, stay safe, and stay healthy. Sending God’s blessing and peace to you.