Good morning on a dreary Monday morning. I heard it sprinkling rain much of the night it seemed. Because of my surgery, I’m still sleeping in my recliner, although I don’t see a reason for it at this point. I’m supposed to keep my head above my heart, I guess to keep the blood from settling where the doctor did the surgery. My eyes are looking better. They aren’t quite as swollen as they were, nor as black as they were. I guess the other reason is that I may rub the incisions on a pillow and work a stitch lose. That could make a mess on the pillow. I just know I’m very tired on my recliner. I’m still limited on my bending over and doing things too. I think I need to re-read my instructions and make sure I’m not getting something wrong. Although, my favorite nurse read them pretty thoroughly last evening. I’m still putting ice packs on the lids and eyes to reduce swelling and we are putting the arithromiacin ointment on the sutures until Wednesday morning. That’s when I get the stitches out. I’ll be glad because they are starting to itch,which is a good indication that there is healing going on. 

I was able to conduct my church service yesterday with no problem. Of course many people had comment s and questions about my eyes and hard hard did Ms. Kate smack me and what did I do to deserve that. LOL. But I had anticipated that. But, I was able to read just fine and the service went well. And —- it was well attended. I was a bit surprised that there were so many there. Yesterday was the first day of the Gibson County Fair and generally we have a lot of people gone because the are taking animals to the fair etc. But in reality, I guess we are in a period where we don’t have a lot of kids showing their animals and 4-H projects. All of my 4-H kids grew up. I did have a few grandparents say they were headed to the fair to look at projects etc. And of course, they were headed to the fairground to get “Fair-fish” sandwiches for lunch. That seems to be a big thing and a favorite up there. I’ve had them and to me they are just a fish sandwich, but they do seem to be a people’s choice thing during the Gibson County Fair. 

I always loved going to the fair when I was a kid in 4-H. I had Tamworth hogs that I raised to show for the  fair. And I had an entomology project one year and collected bugs, and leaves for forestry, and of course garden. Boy, I remember when the county extension agent used to go around and grade your garden. They looked at how weed free it was and whether it was hoed properly, did you have the right border flowers to keep deer and bugs away. I don’t think I ever got better than a red ribbon. On my garden and maybe a few blue ribbons for my other stuff but not many. That never made my parents very happy. But, I have to say, I always earned my own ribbons, My parents never did my projects for me like I know so many do today, and did then too. What ever I got —- I earned myself. 

That’s it for today. I need to put my ice-pack on my eyes again. I hope your week is blessed and full of good things. Peace, my friends. 

 There is an old saying that talks about a cow peeing on a flat rock. It refers to a heavy stream of rain. It is 0530 and that is what we have going on right now. There’s lots of thunder, some lightening and a lot of rain. This storm, according to radar will go another hour and a half. Streets are going to be flooded this morning for those folks heading to work. Thankfully it is Saturday morning and many folks are off for the weekend. But, I lift up a prayer for those that do have to be out in this. Turn around, don’t drown. The storm woke me up so I’m having my first coffee, talking to Lisa via FB Messenger and writing this. I’ll be back in my chair to continue my night’s sleep before long. 

My face doesn’t look terrible this morning; or not as bad as I thought it might look. I still have some swelling of course and bruising but I thought it might be really black and blue and swollen. It isn’t and there is no pain involved at this point. I had to take some Tylenol yesterday especially after the nerve block wore off of my face. Took two more last night before bed time and slept well. I’m sleeping in the recliner because I’m supposed to keep my hear above my heart and I don’t want to risk rubbing my stitches on a pillow and tearing something. Our recliners are comfortable if you don’t have to be in them too many days and nights. Two years ago, as you might recall, I spent about three months in my recliner with my leg injury and surgeries. So, this is nothing. Depending on how the day goes, I may be in it again tonight. I hope not, I need a restful night’s sleep before I conduct my church service tomorrow. 

The yard needs mowing, especially the back yard. But with the rain and my surgery, that isn’t happening till next week. I got a call from the John Deere dealer and it is going to cost my around $350.00 for the servicing and repairs to my mower. If it comes back running well, it’s a great deal; a lot cheaper than a new one. We passed a house yesterday where a guy had a small JD tractor. It had all of the attachments on it; a front-end loader, a mower deck under the tractor, a back-hoe on the rear. I was jealous for a moment or so. I think that would be really fun to use. But, you don’t something like that for a 14,000 sq ft yard. I’ve seen that model on John Deere commercials and it always looks like fun. I’ll bet it cost at least $25 grand with all of those attachments. 

Well, the storm seems to have subsided. I don’t hear any more thunder and I think maybe the rain has stopped for awhile. I’m going to crawl back into my recliner, put a cold washcloth on my eyes and maybe snooze. Have a blessed morning. Peace. 

 July 9th. I had my eye surgery this morning and it went extremely well. Dr. Kathleen Flanagan did the surgery. It was called a “Bi-lateral” something or other. Basically she went in and removed excess drooping skin from eyelids. So, now I slightly resemble a raccoon. I have some swelling round the eyes and they are slightly black but not too bad. I have some light pain management to deal with but Tylenol took care of most of that. Sitting here writing this blog doesn’t help it I reckon. Too much close concentration. But, I’m going to keep it short. Just wanted to catch you up since I had told you I was going to have this thing done. Ms. Kate is fixing lunch right now and after that, I’m going to put ice packs back on the eyes and take a nap. We were up at 0530 to be there at 0630. Seems a bit silly since the surgery wasn’t until 0800, but it is what it is. 

We had some pretty heavy storms yesterday evening. Our power went out at 1530 but our generator kicked on immediately. It ran for three hours before the commercial power kicked back in. Buying that generator several years ago was a good choice. We don’t lose power very often but I never have to worry about it when we do. We were the only house on the block with power. Being hooked up to the glass line that comes into the house is a really good thing. I don’t have to worry running out of propane or mess with propane tanks at all. 

The potato soup is done and on the table so I’m dropping off. Have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Good morning on this July 7th morning. It’s already getting steamy out there this morning. I think that is because it must have rained some time last night or early this morning. The back sidewalk is damp still. The temperature is 75 but the “real-feel” is 85. Yep, that’s muggy. I see neighbor Dan is sitting out on his front porch. He has a beautiful deck out back but I don’t think he ever sits out there. It’s on the east side of his house and in the sun all morning. He’s not surrounded by huge trees like I am. So, he sits on the west side of the house in the shade and drinks his “instant coffee”. Yuk. I don’t know why he doesn’t brew a pot of coffee; I guess his wife tells him he can’t have more than one cup. Who knows, people be funny. 

We have laundry going already this morning. We’re also changing out the bed clothes so there will be an extra load to do. I’ve told you before that I don’t mind doing laundry at all. However, I don’t like stripping the beds etc. I don’t know why. Maybe it goes back to my childhood. I’ve been making my own bed since I was probably six years old. My bed sat against a wall and it was always hard to get the sheets on and off and the blankets were a pain too. My dad had served in WWII and he insisted on the “bounce a quarter” tightness of the blankets. 

Julie is still here but will be leaving this morning sometime I reaction. It has been a wonderful visit with her. We’ve had lots of good chatter and visiting. But, she’s heading home to get some of her work done around her house while she is still on vacation. 

I’m not sure what we are going to do today. It’s Wednesday and that is when we normally go to run the bulletins. But since we don’t know when Jules is heading home, and we are doing laundry which will consume “X” amount of time, and I really need to finish the sermon that I’m working on. I only have today and tomorrow to really finish it before my surgery. Ms. Kate has banned me from computer work Friday and Saturday because she thinks it will bother my eyes. She may be right. I don’t know. But everything I hear says the procedure is really no big deal. And I’m looking forward to having it done. But, I still need to get this sermon written. So, —— maybe I’ll finish the sermon today and then tomorrow we’ll go up to the church and run the bulletins early and then go out and have breakfast somewhere. 

I still have not heard anything from the John Deere dealer about them fixing my LT150. They are a slow crew and they are expensive. I also have to set up a day to take my Toyota in for its scheduled servicing.  I’ve hit 20,000 miles on it now. I’m really glad I bought that car. It’s comfortable, gets 58 mpg, and easy to drive. 

Okay, enough for today. No use just Corning on. Y’all have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Happy fifth of July! I hope your 4th of July was happy and safe, and full of joy and laughter and loved ones. Julie came over on Friday night and is staying until Wednesday. Today is her birthday and she always takes her birthday week off for a vacation. It’s a slow time for her at work so she can afford to tak the time. The fall rush will come soon enough. And she will be starting back to school herself. She has only four more classes to complete her Bachelors’ Degree. I’m so proud of her.To finally be completing her degree at 54 years of age is just so indicative of her perseverance. LOL, and she still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. That’s our sweetheart. 

Jim came over on Saturday and helped me get somethings done around here that I needed help to do. We widened the circle around the the new tulip poplar thatI had planted out front a few years ago. I wanted it easier to mow around and had bought some more mulch/potting soil around it. It looks a look better now. We basically just dug up the layer of sod around the tree. Dan from across the street was glad o get the sod to put in an area he needed it. Jim also got up on the sunporch roof and cleaned all of the leaves and twigs that had accumulated on there. I knew it had been collecting up there but wow —- there was a lot of stuff up there. Jim went on home Saturday evening because he was scheduled to bowl in a tournament on Sunday morning. Unfortunately for him, his partner didn’t show up and he didn’t get to bowl. 

Yesterday, I did my morning worship service. Ms. Kate and Julie stayed home. Jules wasn’t feeling that good so Ms. Kate stayed home with her. The service went very well and we had a full church which really surprised me. I thought that it might be a slim congregation what with it being a holiday where folks generally take off. But the church was full, and I can think of probably 15 or twenty people that weren’t there. Who do normally come. It was a blessing. 

We didn’t do anything at all yesterday except laze around here at home. We finally called Olive Garden and did a curbside pick up, brought it home and had supper. We watched the local city fireworks on television and that was a really good show. I was glad that they showed it on television because while it was a good performance, I would not have wanted to put up with the traffic of crowds. There is always several hundred thousand people that show up for it. 

Today is going to be another hot one and humid. I’m going to do some vegetables and smoked sausage on my our-door griddle today for either lunch or for supper. It depends on what the ladies want me to do. I guess I will also try to do some writing for my July 18th sermon and put that service together. Other than that we will just laze around and celebrate Julie’s birthday in peace and quiet. 

So here we are in the second week of July already and time marches on. I hope your July has started well and continues that way. Peace my friends. 

 What a beautiful morning we are having. It is 1030 and the temperature is just now 70 degrees. The sun is shining, the humidity is tolerable, and I think the high today is to be 81. And —- the rain has come and gone. We got about three inches which is just right. 

I had to start my day out at my surgeon’s office for a meeting with the nurse to go over my procedure for a week from today. It will be a simple thing. Dr. Flanagan will simply remove some of the drooping, excess skin from each eye. I’ll have to sleep in my recliner for a few nights to keep my head up. I tend to toss and turn in my bed every night, rolling from one side to the other. In the recliner, I won’t do that and therefore I won’t be rubbing my eyes on my pillow. 

After I left the doctor’s office I went to Parlour Doughnuts and picked up a few for the weekend. Jules loves them and so do we. I particularly like the coconut Creme but this morning I had a strawberry shortcake one. It was wonderful. I think I have tried most of their doughnuts and have only found a couple that I would not buy again. I had never heard of this place until Julie introduced it to us. It isn’t a place we get to very often because it is on the other side of town and when we do get to that area, we generally aren’t thinking about doughnuts. That’s probably a good thing. It’s bad enough that I live half way between two Dairy Queen’s It is literally a three minute drive down to the Dairy Queen and is so easy to pop down there for an evening Blizzard. 

I’m going to go out and do some hoeing in my garden this morning if it isn’t too wet. I also want to mow the front yard. And I need to run the weed eater around the flowerbeds. This is the 4th of July weekend and people will be having company and driving through the neighborhood. I want my yard to look good. Yesterday we drove through the cemetery to make sure the flowers on the graves also looked good. Probably nobody would notice or care, but we would know. 

The A/C guy is here now to do the annual spring checkup and maintenance on the unit and to replace the filter on the furnace. ur units work very well and we want to keep them working well so we have them come out in the spring to check the A/C and in the fall to check the furnace. The filter is a heppa  filter and gets changed out every spring. Speaking of —- looks like he has finished and is about ready to hand me the paperwork. So, I’m going to sign off for today. Have a blessed day. Peace. 

30

 Good morning and a happy rainy Thursday to you. We have had a blessed rain. Not too heavy and mostly gentle. The flowers and the gardens and the crops are all getting exactly what they need to be successful. This is a rain that will soak in and do a lot of good. So of course, I’m giving God all praise for this blessing. 

Yesterday we had a good day around here. We went up to the church yesterday morning and ran the bulletins for this coming Sunday. That doesn’t take too long although I made a dumb error while running them. I put the paper in, put the item to be copied on the glass, and set the copier for 50 copies. When they were done, I pulled out the copies and they were all wrong. I couldn’t figure out why. So, I threw those in the recycle can, put some more paper in and this time ran only one copy, —- and it was still wrong. This I was beginning to frustrate me, so I tried again and it was still wrong. Then it dawned on me that I had the original turned the wrong way on the copier. Duuuuh!!! I’ve only been using that machine for 16 years, but sometimes it happens that way. Getting old isn’t always graceful. But it still beats the alternative. 

After we finished at the church we went to Rz’s Cafe and Catering for Lunch. We used to go there every single Sunday after services but have gotten out of the habit. Lunch was good as usual, I had the fried chicken plate special. And it was good to see the owner once again and the waitress that always took care of us. 

On the way home we took the “back roads” way home. It is a beautiful drive through the country side and we love seeing the crops that are growing and the freshly cut wheat fields. I stopped and took a few pictures along the way. 

We came home, the rain had started so I sat in the sunporch and listened to the rain and may or may not have dozed off for a nap. LOL. Then I went downstairs and got to work on my sermon for the 11th. Around supper time, I called and ordered Chinese for supper and went and picked that up. Ms. Kate and I spent the rest of the evening watching television together which is vary rare except at 1830 every evening when we watch Steve Harvey and Family Feud. We also watch TV together on Thursday evening and watch Mountain Men or Swamp People, depending on which TV season it is. 

Wow!!!! It is really pouring down rain now! It reminded me of the tropical rains we had when we were stationed in the Philippines. But those were always “warm rains”. I suspect this is a bit cooler. And — guess what, —- it is putting me to sleep so i better get out of this recliner and get busy. 

Have a blessed day. Peace.