Saturday, November 27, 2010

Hanging the Greens

Today Leslie, Melissa, Keith and I are going to get the Christmas decorations out at church and get the sanctuary ready for tomorrow's Hanging of the Greens service. When we finish, the sanctuary is glorious.

Afterward, we plan to go up to Independence to eat lunch at Big Cheese. I will ask Bob A. if he would like to come help and go too.

Perhaps Keith and I can go out to see Jeromy's house after that. It depends on whether Maia is napping or not. I will check with Jeromy.

Keith intends to leave tomorrow morning fairly early. It will be an 18 hour drive and it will be exhausting. He wants to use Monday to rest up before going back to work.

Scott was going to Austria yesterday. I am glad he did not just sit around alone but got out to see some countryside. I understand it snowed on him and he went back early.

My granddaughter, Christina, Keith's eldest, is coming sometime today with her boyfriend and daughter, my great granddaughter, Mia, on her way back to Manhattan from Houston and will visit with Keith and me too if we are all home by then. Keith is taking his own vehicle so he can leave if she comes while we are decorating.

More later....

We got the church beautifully decorated and I should have taken some photos to share here. I will try to remember to get some shots tomorrow.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Friday Following Thanksgiving

It's the Friday following Thanksgiving. I will go see what the damage is on my car today. I didn't sleep well last night for thinking about it. I found that I have $1,000 deductible on my insurance and depending on what it costs for the repair, I will probably pay for it out of my savings. It was my stupidity. Half my property taxes have to be paid in December too and my new glasses will be in next week. My meager savings will be gone quickly at this rate.

Keith wants to go out to see Jeromy and Marlene's house sometime today. I will probably stay home. It's 21 degrees out there and Slinky has to stay in the kitchen. I tried to brush the mud off his feet awhile ago and I thought he was going to take my hand off. He does not like to have his feet messed with. Once Taresa cut his toenails into the quick and no one can touch his feet after that. I bawled him out and told him he was a bad dog and now he's lying over there on his bed sulking.

Keith is still sleeping in. He stayed up late last night. He sleeps like a baby though.

I saw Bob A. yesterday and he had been to see Phyllis. She is very non responsive now and when she does respond, she cries. That is so tragic! At least she hasn't vomited again. And the analysis from her stool sample may not be back until Monday or Tuesday because of the holiday.

I hope all my friends had a nice Thanksgiving. We certainly did although I went to bed utterly exhausted. I took my blood pressure this morning and it is still 145/81. It probably takes awhile for it to come down.

More later....

The repair wasn't as bad as I thought. It is $662. My insurance is $1,000 deductible so I won't even turn it in. That will keep my insurance rate from increasing.

Keith and I went to Bartlesville this morning and just looked around. There was lots of traffic and the stores were packed.

Then we dropped out to John and Leslie's. When Terry and Denise left last night, their SUV broke down at the Tyro corner. John brought it back to his garage and took them home. This morning he fixed it. It was a wheel bearing. John is one of those people who can do a little bit of everything. So things turned out better except Phyllis' situation. She has another urinary tract infection. They will start antibiotics this morning. She is unresponsive again today. When she does rouse, she cries. It's absolutely pitiful!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

More Stupid Things

I was backing my car out of the carport in the alley this morning to load it up for the Thanksgiving dinner and sure enough, I hit the pipe guard around the neighbor's gas meter. Dented in my back bumper/fender on the rider's side. I wasn't watching closely enough what I was doing.

Now I've got a mess.

Tomorrow, if the body shop is open I'll go find out what I am looking at to get it repaired. I have full coverage insurance but I think it's $1,000 deductible. I'll have to see.

Oh well, it's always something and it's my own fault.

We had a fine Thanksgiving dinner out at Leslie's. I refused to let the accident spoil Thanksgiving. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Day

It's Thanksgiving Day and first of all, I want to wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving! It will be a very different one for our family. Scott is in Germany, Keith is here with me..at least until Sunday. Bob is gone.

Leslie is holding our Thanksgiving dinner at noon at her house. I am making pies..one pecan and one pumpkin, and a Waldorf salad. Cyndi is going to send Jeff over with her part of the dinner. She has a terrible cold and they don't expect to come now. And without Bob and Scott, it will be very strange.

Now for the bad news. Phyllis is sick...evidently very sick. She vomited twice yesterday and had a dark stool which the unit sent to the lab for analysis. She has two ulcers and they may be bleeding again. She takes pain medication and it aggravates the ulcers. She has such high glucose that now she takes insulin too. She has been non-responsive for two weeks...mostly napping in her chair and even when she's responsive on those rare moments, she's so confused. What a tragedy! Bob A. is planning to come to Thanksgiving dinner but it will be grim for him. Denise and Terry and Dee plan to come too but it will not be too festive for them either. From day to day, we never know what to expect about Phyllis' condition. Everything could change if Phyllis gets worse.

It's kind of grim I know but we are going to try to think about and count our many blessings.

One of those blessing is Keith...for many reasons...but the latest one is the fact that for my birthday on the 2nd, he brought me a new desktop computer and printer. He will take the Dell desktop home with him and see if he can get it running again. He bought the printer because Windows 7 doesn't recognize the old HP printer. The new one was on sale at Wal Mart for $29.95. That's even less then I paid for the old printer six years ago. I gave $38.00 for it and it has served me for all these years well.

Keith is just one of my blessings. My other kids and my friends are the others. Leslie had us out for some great chili last evening and we had a good visit. Keith was very tired though so we came home early and he went right to bed. I stayed up and tried to decipher Windows 7. It's still a mystery to me. It's so very different.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Hair Day Again

Keith got here about 10:00 last night. That guy drove straight through 18 hours. He was not even particularly tired. He always was a night owl. It was sure good to see him again.

I have a 7:30 hair appointment this morning and he is going with me. It's time to get him up. While he takes his shower and shaves, I'll finish my thoughts.

He brought me a new desktop computer. He is a sweetheart. He evidently did not want to deal with trying to fix mine. It has crashed dozens of times in the past three months. I will boot it up and try to e-mail important documents to the laptop or save all of it on a thumb drive. This computer has Windows 7 on it. It's a Compac. I am through with Dell. The one I have is three years old and it crashes constantly. The laptop is also Dell but so far it is holding up. I will send the desktop back with Keith. Perhaps in his spare time he can fix it.

I dread the re-installing all my programs. I have the modem, the scanner, my camera software, and the router to be reinstalled as well as setting up my e-mail again.

Leslie just went through that and said it took her a week to get it all going again.

Oh well, at least I will have a desktop computer again. That will be unique after all these months of running Windows version of fixing it with diskcheck. It hasn't worked.

Later, because my printer would not be compatible with Windows 7, he also bought be a new printer. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting everything configured.

Then at 5:00 we went out to Leslie and John's for chili. It was really good. Keith, by this time, was very tired. We came back home and he went to bed at 8:00...totally wiped out. The trip, all in one day, nearly did him in. It was 18 hours...straight through.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Doctor's Appointment Today

This should be an interesting day. I have this doctors appointment at 9:00 and I'll see what's going on with my blood pressure. I didn't sleep real well last night. I lay there and listened to my heart beat for a long time about 2:00 AM.

Keith was to have left Phoenix about 4:00 AM this morning. I hope he watches for dear. This is breeding season and they are out in force. He should be here about 5:00 or 6:00 this evening..depending on how many stops he makes. I set the chili out to thaw. We will have chili tonight if he hasn't stopped to eat.

Other then the doctor's appointment, I want to get out this morning and see Phyllis. I never made it yesterday.

More later...

I saw the doctor this morning and my blood pressure was 145/84....a lot less. She did put me on 10 MG of Lisinopril. We'll see how that goes. I am to take my blood pressure once a week. Bob A. has a blood pressure cuff I can use.

If it goes down below my normal, I may not continue the meds. Have you ever read the side effects on those things??

Monday, November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving Week

It's Monday and I am going out to Leslie's this morning to clean her house. It will be clean for Thanksgiving on Thursday. I don't know when to expect Keith. First he was going to leave after work tonight..then Tuesday. So I guess I'll just go about my business as usual and he can call me when he gets here. It won't be today anyhow.

Tomorrow at 9:00 will be my doctor's appointment. Maybe she can tell me what's going on with my blood pressure. Until that appointment, I have been taking aspirin. Perhaps it will thin my blood and keep me from having an even worse health problem.

Wednesday I will get my hair done since Thursday is Thanksgiving. If Keith is here he can go with me....or he may sleep in. I guess it depends on when he will come.

This will be a strange Thanksgiving after 56 years. It will be the first one without Bob. Christmas will also be strange.

Last night Karan and Bobby called and asked me to go to that church service with them. That was sweet. They are good friends. After the service they asked me out to Brahms for an ice cream cone. That also was sweet. I have the offering and this afternoon I will make the deposit and write the check for Genesis.

It is still balmy out. Slinky slept outside last night. It's supposed to turn very cold for Thanksgiving..in fact, on Wednesday.

Scott surprised me with a call this morning from Germany. He is lonely and I miss him terribly too. It will be doubly strange with him gone this Thanksgiving. It's been months since I've heard from Jerod and Ashley. I did talk to Christina, Keith's eldest, last week. She is going to Houston for Thanksgiving but will drop by to see me on her way back home. That's really sweet of her.

I'd better get going out to Leslie's. It's almost 7:30.

More later...

It took me 4 hours to do Leslie's house this time. Afterward I went to have lunch with her. She had a later...1:00 lunch hour this time . After lunch I went to Wal Mart to have my blood pressure taken. It was 200/105. I called in to the doctor's office to see if she wanted to see me before tomorrow morning after that. She evidently did not have a lot of confidence in the Wal Mart blood pressure machine. She asked me if I had any headache, bleeding nose, or dizziness. When I answered "no" she said just come in in the morning unless I have some symptoms. That's strange. It was my understanding that you seldom have any symptoms with high blood pressure.

Oh well. Surely I won't have a stroke before morning. :)

Lord only knows how long it's been that high.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Sunday Morning

Well, it's Sunday morning and I'm doing my usual. I got up about five. I put Slinky out. He wanted out. Today is very balmy...kind of like San Antonio when we lived there in 1954.

I have been carefully transferring files from the desktop computer to the laptop computer for storage this morning. The desktop stayed up long enough for me to print off some files for the morning too.

At church this morning, we will elect officers. We elect our officers from the congregation and our pastor from among the Elders. I have been pastor for quite a few years here. I may be re-elected. Leslie is CFO and probably will not be elected pastor too. Sue and John really want to be freer this year to visit their kids and grandkids. And Karan has never wanted the job. So I may get it again by default.
I made cinnamon rolls this morning. I let them rise too long and they are huge. But hopefully they will be o.k. anyhow. (They were well received even though they were huge)

We may be too full of cinnamon rolls to eat lunch out after church. We will see. Bob A. is coming by to pick me up for church. We decided it was ridiculous to take two cars when both of us are going alone to the same place every Sunday.

He is going to talk to his and Phyllis' doctor again tomorrow morning. He wants to cancel the CT scan if at all possible. He called yesterday morning and the doctor told him Phyllis had fallen and seemed very confused. He had not seen her in three months. When Bob went out to Windsor to see how bad the fall had been, he was told she had not fallen. In fact, they didn't seem to know what he was talking about. He saw Phyllis and she was more lucid then usual and was just fine. Evidently the doctor "had the wrong chart" according to the nurse in charge there. Not!! If he were my doctor, I would change doctors over that. It appears he just wanted to run another terribly expensive test for his own curiosity. But Bob does not want to change doctors now. This doctor knows Phyllis's case and has been her doctor ever since they moved back to town in the early 90's. He has a lot more patience then I have. I don't like the idea of being told something that is easily enough checked out just to find out it isn't so.

I got my weekly newsletters done this afternoon and out on the mailbox for the mailman to pick up tomorrow.

Leslie and Bob A. and I did go eat at El Publetos after all. We probably won't eat again today. I am going the the worship service presented by our Ministerial Alliance tonight at 6:00. I want to hear Fr. Jerry's homily. He lost his wife last winter and will have a strong testimony of that experience. I am the treasurer and I will pick up the money for the offering for Genesis and make a deposit tomorrow.

If the CT scan is canceled, I will go on out and clean Leslie's house tomorrow. I have my own doctor's appointment on Tuesday at 9:00 AM.