New Year's Eve

It's New Years Eve (day) and I simply must clean house today even if I can only give the kitchen a lick and a promise. Tonight we will go to Dick and Sue's New Years Eve party. Tomorrow we will go out to John and Leslie's for dinner. She is having all of John's relatives and us. I am to fix a large salad.

We never did get any more snow yesterday. There was just a little new snow on the ground from the night.

We are supposed to get the results of Bob's tests today.

I will call Melissa's office if I don't hear from her by 10:00. I am very unhappy that she waited a week to give us the results of his ultra sound and chest x-ray. We were to have had those results the next day. Even then, Bob had to call her office to get them. To my way of looking at it, that's poor doctoring. She surely realizes that the patient is concerned and needs to know the results ASAP.

The kids have been very concerned over Bob's tests. They have called nearly every day. Leslie called last night again to tell us that she would be going to Bartlesville this morning to get her brakes fixed on her car. She still wants me to call her on her cell when I learn the results of the CT scan. I hope we really will get those results today.

I was awake a good deal early this morning wondering how I will pay for any treatments he may have to have. Bob is without a supplement for his Medicare. We still owe the surgeon for our part for his last skin cancer surgery. Medicare has not paid yet so I have no idea what we will owe. Then we will owe the hospital for our 20% of the CT scan too. That's almost $300.

When we tried to buy a supplement several years ago, they told him he was uninsurable. He had had those two melanoma. I think if worse comes to worse, when we run out of funds, we will sell the house and rent. We still owe $44,000 on it. And it is getting harder and harder to find the money for taxes and insurance on the house.

But I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes. I try not to worry about things I can't change and that may never happen.

Update:

Melissa, Bob's doctor called. She thinks this large lymph node is an infection. She will treat it for two weeks with an antibiotic and then if it doesn't respond to treatment, she will do a biopsy. She does not think it is cancer.

Needless to say, we are relieved.

This morning, Leslie, our daughter called. She had locked herself out of her house and her purse was inside. I have a key to her house and she wanted me to bring mine out there so she could get in. I had two keys on my car keyring but didn't know which one was her house key. I was about halfway to the church when she called me back and offered to meet me half way. It's 18 miles out there to her house. I told her I didn't know which key was their house key and which key was the church key so I would stop at the church on my way and try them in the door there. Then I thought, "Why should she have to come in the opposite direction to her destination when I wasn't doing anything special anyhow?" So I told her I would just pick up a couple of pounds of ground beef when I got there and for her to just stay put. Even though she had her car keys, her purse and driver's license were in the house in her purse.

I got there and handed her my keys. She tried both keys and neither one fit. So I went back out to my car and looked in my purse for another key. The only other one I had must have been the extra key to the Ford truck Keith has. I was getting ready to leave when I noticed my little coin purse on the dash. I looked inside and there was Cyndi and Jeff's key....and another one unlabeled. I ran to catch Leslie before she got out of the drive and showed her the other key. She took it and tried it and sure enough, it was her house key. Wow! She was delighted. So was I. Then on the way home, Bob called with his good news. I called her right away. When I got home I e-mailed the boys. They both responded with delight too. We have the neatest kids!

Everything worked out fine after all.

More Bad Weather

There is more snow forecast for this area. We actually got a little of it last night. Juanita called this morning and said she did not want to get out to go to breakfast so I just went up to get my hair done and came home. Bob did not want me to go but..what the heck! I got home just fine. The snow never showed up.

Today we have no plans. It's Wednesday and I made my peanut clusters for the New Years Eve party at my cousin's home tomorrow evening. I had decided to either do it today or tomorrow.

I need to clean house but Slinky seems to be a permanent fixture in my kitchen and I don't know how I would work around him. So I got some laundry done but no house cleaning.

A friend came over this afternoon and I helped her to get her insurance converted to a supplement. She had been paying over three hundred dollars a month for insurance when all she needed was a supplement. She is 76.

Tomorrow we should know what Bob's CT scan shows. If I don't hear from Melissa by 10:00, I will call her office and ask for the results.

CT Scan Today

Today at three is Bob's CT Scan. First he was reluctant to have it done. But after I told him Medicare would pay for 80% of the cost and we needed to find out what we were dealing with, he reluctantly agreed. Then he said he would not have any surgery. I told him to reserve judgment until we learned more about it.

I went to my sister's home today and once again heard all about her confused memory. Last week she said her husband told her I took our dad's oil painting to Wal Mart and sold it. Today she told me she had loaned books to a mutual friend and never got them back. Then 90% of what she said today, she had said the past twelve weeks. It is so sad! Such a good mind...slowly going.

I am in the midst of laundry and if it warms up and I can put Slinky out, I will clean the kitchen too. I want to get the towels washed and perhaps the white things before lunch.

After lunch, I went ahead and fixed my goulash for supper. I have no idea when we will get home from the hospital.

More after 3:00:

We will not know the results of Bob's CT scan until sometime Thursday. I hope Melissa doesn't wait a week to tell him. In fact, we had to call her office yesterday to ask for the results of last week's ultra sound and chest X-Ray. I don't think the patient should have to do that.

You can tell I don't have a lot of confidence in doctors.

Sunshiny Monday

This is a lovely day! It's cold but lovely. The snow is slowly melting. Slinky wanted to go out on the patio on the chaise lounge in the sunshine. That dog is crazy about the sunshine even if it is cold. He did not wake me up last night until 4:30 this morning. My leg did not hurt and I slept well.

I have been working on Sunday's sermon. It will be a tough one. I do not really like John's gospel and the scripture comes from there. The theme is "Praising the Giver of Gifts". The theme is fine but I just don't like the accompanying scripture.

Bob and I went up to the market and bought a few items for supper. We are going to have chipped beef on baked potato. Every once in awhile that is what he wants. We have eaten so much lately that something lighter will be good.

We are hoping for a quiet day. I got the tree down yesterday afternoon and all the decorations put away. Now I need to do some cleaning.

More later:

We went to the market and bought a few more groceries. Then finally Melissa, our doctor called with the results of Bob's tests from last Tuesday. He has no blood clots but he does have a "node" of some sort in his left chest. This "node" has caused the swelling of his left chest, arm and hand. Tomorrow at 3:00 he will have a CT Scan to find out exactly what it is and what can be done with it.

Sunday After Christmas

We will have church today. My son-in-law went out there with his tractor and cleared the parking lot. Bless his heart!

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Slinky woke me up at 10:30 to go out. Then Missy slept on my legs most of the night. The right one ached most of the night and that kept me awake.The phone rang at 3:30 and when I answered it, no one was there. About 3:30 or 4:00, Missy wanted out and woke me up. She had been into the Christmas tree again. She had left it alone as long as there were gifts around it. Slinky woke me again at 5:00 and I came in and bawled him out. He then let me sleep until 5:30...except I didn't sleep. What a night!

We will put Slinky in the garage when we leave. He will hate that. He hates the garage. It's cold in there but not as cold as outside. It's 20 degrees outside and almost 40 in the garage. He will bark and whine until we get home. That's what he did the last time we were gone for several hours. I don't know what else we can do about him. He will just have to tough it out.

We may eat out with Leslie today at Hong Kong Delight. I'm not much on Chinese food either but Bob will probably want to go with her there. I would rather go to Sirloin Stockade where they serve American food myself.

Anyhow, then tonight we have "Living the Questions" at Jack and Marilyn's home. I am really tired of this book we have been studying. I would rather watch Bob's "The Power of Myth". In winter, I would really rather just stay home. You can tell I'm getting old.

Day After Christmas

It was a truly wonderful Christmas! We all missed Keith but hoped he had a good time too with his friend.

We are supposed to go out to church this morning to take down the Christmas decorations but I cannot get our little car out of the driveway. If it warms up enough I will try to get out there and dig the snow out of the drive. I don't think I can get the drive cleared enough to get out though because it rained, froze, sleeted, and then snowed so even if I get the snow off, the drive will still be treacherous.

Slinky got me up twice last night to go out. How he hates this snow! Before last year he didn't even know snow existed. He was born and raised in Hawaii and lived his middle years in Georgia. It was only after he came to Missouri and Kansas that he saw snow. He hates it. He seems happy right now and is taking a nap.

Bob is not up yet. I made a pot of the flavored coffee that my sister and brother-in-law gave us for Christmas. This is cinnamon nut and is really good. I don't know how Bob will feel about it. We will see.

I got the white laundry out of the dryer and hung up and folded this morning and have run the dishwasher. The kitchen is clean right now. I will put away the dishes before breakfast.

More later:

I went out to the church with Bobby and Karan in their 4 wheel drive truck. Leslie was already there and had many of the decorations down. Karan and I arranged them in various plastic boxes and labeled the boxes. Leslie had cleared most of the walk in back before we arrived. Bobby finished clearing the walks and even the one in front which had been iced up tight. Then he dug Leslie's car out where she was stuck in a snowdrift. Afterward, we drove into town and ate at El Publito. I'm not much on Mexican food but I was with Karan and Bobby so there wasn't much I could do about it but go.

Leslie still needs to get three large plastic boxes. We stacked the ones we had in the junior classroom and will put them in the sheds out back after the snow melts. What a mess! It took about two hours with the four of us working on it

I got out this morning and dug out the entrance to the drive for Bobby and Karan where the city cleared the street but they piled up a foot of snow in the entrance to our drive.

John came about 2:00 and brought my Christmas gift..that lovely trellis that he built for me. We put it in the carport until spring.

Later this evening, he went out to church with his tractor and blade and cleared the parking lot. Good for John! Now we can have church tomorrow!

Christmas Day

I am up early, as usual. It snowed all night in a real blizzard. There's eight or ten inches of snow this morning. Slinky got me up at 2:00 to go out but when he saw all that snow, he did not want to go out...but he needed to do it. So I conjolled him and pleaded with him until he finally did. Then this morning after he had his breakfast and REALLY needed to go outside, he really didn't want to go out there but he knew he had to...so he finally did.

I will bake my pies in a little bit. I'll probably get breakfast out of the way first. Cyndi called last night. They are going to pick us up with their four wheel drive truck. Scott has four wheel drive too on his jeep so he and Bob will go out in it. I hope we can get out there safely. I don't know where we will put the pies and the gifts. Cyndi and Jeff have food to take too. I hope we will be able to see the road. I hope they have been out scraping the roads.

I will have to put Slinky in the garage with the car. He will not like that. He hates the garage but I can't leave him in the house.

Update:

The pies are out of the oven now and the cranberry salad is finished. Bob put it together. Scott went out and shoveled the snow off the walk and started shoveling the drive until he ran into the ice. He sprinkled some ice melt on the drive. I don't know whether it will work or not. The city has their workers out clearing the streets.

I called Glen over at the Springfield radio station when I had a moment. We chatted awhile about Christmas. I listened to the station on the internet. He was on the air Thanksgiving too but I never got around to calling in.

Further Update:

We had a great Christmas dinner and gift exchange. The food was fantastic. I received some really nice gifts. One was an arbor/trellis that John made for me. He knew I had always wanted one. He will bring it by after work tomorrow and we will store it in the car port until Spring when we can set it in cement. Scott gave me a lovely memory book that I can record my life in. I will enjoy filling that in. Jeromy and Marlene gave me some wonderful tea.

We gave Leslie and John half the pies and still didn't know what we were going to do with half a cherry pie and half a pumpkin pie. Bob settled that for us though. As he was getting out of Jeff's truck after we arrived home, he dropped the pie.

When we got to the garage, Slinky was frantic. He wanted in the house and once in he really needed to go poo but didn't know where on all that snow out back. After three tries to find a suitable place outside, he finally just went for the snow. He must have been miserable.

For any of you who get a moment to check the blogs, I wish you a very Merry Christmas...and a Happy New Year too!

Christmas Eve

Well, I heard from our granddaughter, Christina, this morning. She will not be able to make it for Christmas. She's sick. Poor girl...she will be all alone at Christmas. I did not encourage her to come on though because I don't want anyone else to get sick. That leaves us 10 for Christmas...Bob and me, John and Leslie, Jeromy and Marlene, Jeff and Cyndi and Scott and Becky.

I will make my salad tomorrow morning after I get the pies in the oven. Our dinner is at 1:00.

I am pretty shot down today. Slinky got me up three times in the night and Missy slept on my legs so they were numb. At 5:15, Slinky barked. He wanted his cinnamon toast. I guess I should have come in and told him to hush but I was ready to get up by then. I had my best night's sleep between 4:15 and 5:00 and before 11:30.

I will make potato soup for supper this evening. We will have cheese and crackers with it.

Keith plans to spend Christmas with a friend. At least he won't be alone. He is certainly in a mess. If he can just hang in there until April, he will be out from under the lease and can get his own place.

I did go to Independence yesterday morning and picked Juanita up. She doesn't see well enough to drive when it's rainy. She was heartsick. She had lost her large diamond ring. She and her family have searched the house over and they could not find it. Surely it will turn up. She is sure she lost it at home sometime after Monday. She had it on in the beauty shop on Monday. I gave her the coffeecake I made. I also gave her some of my peanut clusters. I took some to my beautician, Carol, too.

One more day until Christmas. Then Saturday we will take down the Christmas decorations at church. Later that day, I will put mine away.

Rainy Wednesday!

I usually go to Independence on Wednesday to get my hair done but I don't know if I'll go today or not. It's raining outside and I have Juanita's coffeecake here for her Christmas gift. Darn it! I wanted to bake it last night so it would be fresh for her Christmas. Now she will probably call and cancel breakfast. Maybe the rain will stop and I can get it to her.

I don't have a lot going today. I will have to get some coffee as we are about out. We also need eggs. The coffeecake took two. I will need some for my pumpkin pie Friday morning. I will also make a cherry pie. We are about burned out on pumpkin pie but Bob can eat pumpkin pie.

By the way, Bob weighed at the doctor's office Monday and he has gained nine pounds. He sorely needed it. He had been down to 147 and now he weighs 156. He looks much better. That thyroid pill made all the difference in the world.

The doctor is supposed to have read his tests today and will call. We'll see. We are curious as to what is causing the swelling of his arm and hand.

I'm concerned about Christmas. I don't know if Christina will be able to make it. She lives at Fort Riley and their weather is worse then ours. I am also concerned about Scott and Becky. I contacted Scott to tell him he might want to come earlier then Friday and he said they couldn't because Becky had to work today. It is supposed to snow tomorrow. He may have four wheel drive but four wheel drive is worthless on ice. I hope it doesn't ice up.

Soldier's Pregnancy Forbidden

Major General Cucolo III has given an order against soldiers in a combat area getting pregnant. Now if a woman gets pregnant both the man and the woman will be sent home. Hurray, General!

This is a war, folks! If a woman decides she wants to be a soldier and get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan just like a man, she has to act like a soldier and not like a woman. This is just one more reason why I think woman have no business in a war zone.

It's stupid to think a woman would think she has a right to get pregnant when she has chosen to join the service and be sent to war. That's a no brainer!

The policy by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III was instituted on Nov. 4, but it has triggered outrage among women's groups since it became publicly known in recent days.

"We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," the senators wrote to Cucolo today. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately recind this policy."

The letter was signed by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

It was the latest salvo to hit Cucolo over the controvesial policy. Earlier the National Organization for Women called the policy "ridiculous."

These congresswomen are what is ridiculous. It's just plain stupid!

Hospital For Tests Today

Bob will go to the hospital this afternoon at 2:00 for an ultra sound test and a chest x-ray to try to discover the cause of his swollen left arm and hand. There is a slight chance that it could be a blood clot. Melissa (our doctor) doesn't think it is but needs to rule it out. Otherwise the lymph glands could be leaking fluid under the skin. He did strain his arm doing some simple exercises several weeks ago and that started all the problem.

We cleaned this morning. Slinky had stayed out all night (his choice) because it wasn't lower then 40 degrees. He loves being outside. The only time he wants to come in is for his meals. I like his bowl to stay inside where I can keep it clean.

I still have my bathroom to clean today. I even emptied and washed the kitty's litter box. It had been awhile. It is nice and fresh now.

I went to stay with Phyllis awhile this morning. My brother-in-law had his ham in the oven. They are having their Christmas dinner today when their grandchildren can be with them. Then they will have their daughter, Denise, and husband and their younger daughter back Christmas to help them with the leftovers.

Phyllis is so confused. She still insists on telling me she cut her forehead trying to cut pictures out awhile back. She had a small pre-cancerous growth there and the doctor froze it a couple of weeks ago.

Then she tried to tell me today that sometime back I had borrowed our dad's oil painting from her and taken it out to Wal Mart and somehow lost it. I told her that was not so and that it was just her imagination but she would not accept that. Poor Phyllis...she is really getting worse. She comes up with all kinds of wild tales.

I gave dad's picture to her in 2000 when we moved to Independence, Kansas for three years. I don't know what she did with it.

Update!

He had his chest X-ray this afternoon and his ultra sound test too. They won't know anything until tomorrow when the doctor has a chance to read the tests.

The Health Insurance Reform Bill

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/jane_hamshers_10_reaons_to_kil.html#more

Hard Questions answered:

1) Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not.

"You," huh? For the 85 percent of the country already covered by health-care insurance, it doesn't force "you" to do anything at all. People on Medicare are not going to be paying money to private insurance. People with employer-based care will not see their situation change.

For the nearly 50 million Americans caught in the ranks of the uninsured, here's the deal: The bill expands Medicaid, a public program, to cover about 20 million of, uh, "you." Private insurance gets nothing. If you make more than 133 percent of the poverty line, but less than 400 percent, there's a huge system of new subsidies to help you afford private coverage. There are also new regulations on insurers forcing them to spend between 80 percent and 85 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, barring them from rejecting you or charging you higher premiums due to preexisting conditions, ensuring they can't place any annual caps on insurance benefits, and more.

But here's the catch: So long as insurance won't cost more than 8 percent of your monthly income, you have to buy into the system. You can't wait until you get sick or get hurt and and then buy insurance, shifting the costs onto everyone else. The cost of having a universal, or near-universal, system is that people have to participate. The promise is that, for the first time, participation will be possible.

2) If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.

Again, who's "you?" If you don't have employer-based coverage, Medicare, Medicaid, or anything else, and premiums won't cost more than 8 percent of your monthly income, and you refuse to purchase insurance, at that point, you will be assessed a penalty of up to 2 percent of your annual income. In return for that, you get guaranteed treatment at hospitals and an insurance system that allows you to purchase full coverage the moment you decide you actually need it. In the current system, if you don't buy insurance, and then find you need it, you'll likely never be able to buy insurance again. There's a very good case to be made, in fact, that paying the 2 percent penalty is the best deal in the bill.

3) Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.

How many is "many?" For a look at how various families will fare with reform and without reform, see this table, and this article. But if you don't want to click the links, this graph, which shows the financial risk that medical costs post to families with different incomes with and without reform, tells the story:

The vast, overwhelming majority of families will be better off under this bill. They will have insurance that they can use, and if they need it, subsidies to help them afford it. Compared with the status quo, in which about 50 million people have no insurance and tens of millions more have insurance they can't afford to use, this is a massive improvement. As Jonathan Cohn writes, "This is a hugely progressive program to bolster economic security, the likes of which we haven't enacted in this country for a long, long time."

4) Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.

The Senate bill is better than the House bill on this score, but it's still a problem. That said, the restriction here is not on the right to choose, but on whether primary insurance covers abortion. In the House bill, the exchanges can't offer primary insurance that covers abortion. In the Senate bill, individual states can choose to bar abortion from their exchanges, but it is not the default.

5) Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.

"You" probably don't have these plans. Your plan almost certainly doesn't cost more than $23,000 a year. And if it does, the only part that gets taxed is the part in excess of $23,000 a year. The average family health-care plan costs about $13,500 -- almost a full $10,000 less than the plans this policy taxes. If we don't manage to slow the growth in health-care costs, this policy will, over time, hit plans that are less generous. But economists consider the excise tax, which functions as a tax on insurers who let premiums grow too quickly, one of the most effective cost-control mechanisms in the bill.

There's an equity aspect here, too: The problem with the excise tax is that it doesn't go far enough. All plans would be fully taxable. This policy begins to chip at the edges of one of the most regressive elements of our system: Health benefits, which are mostly given to better-off workers, are protected from taxes, while income isn't. A worker at Wal-Mart with no health benefits sees his entire paycheck taxed. A worker at Goldman Sachs with a $40,000 health-care plan is getting $40,000 of his paycheck tax-free. It's wildly regressive.

6) Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins.

It's not even clear what Hamsher is referring to here (the accompanying link is broken). The main tax in the bill is the excise tax, which starts in 2013, not "now." And the bill isn't funded primarily by taxes. It's funded primarily by changes to Medicare. It would be useful if Hamsher explained what tax changes people are going to notice in, say, 2011. My understanding is that the answer to that is, essentially, "none at all." The word "many" is obscuring a lot more than it's illuminating here, making it seem as if the majority of the bill's funding mechanisms trigger immediately. They unequivocally do not.

7) Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.

The status quo is that insurers can charge people as much as they want, and they can refuse some people altogether. Hamsher doesn't present it this way, but the bill is a huge improvement on this front.

8 ) Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.

This is correct. The bill gives pharmaceutical companies a 12-year exclusivity period, and then changes get 12 years atop that. It's one of the worst elements of the bill, and should be changed.

9) No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.

This isn't really part of the bill, so much as it's a failure to pass a change that people have been trying to pass for a decade now. People should keep trying. But saying you'll torpedo trillions in subsidies and protections for the poor if you don't also get drug re-importation is a bit like saying you'll refuse to pay the sale price for this TV if Best Buy doesn't also let you use a coupon.

10) The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, your family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

It's not even clear what this is supposed to mean. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill reduces the average cost of premiums by a little bit for most people, and a ton for the people the bill directly affects. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the bill cuts spending in the long term. According to everybody, it decreases the deficit. The bill has at least five major cost controls that won't exist in its absence, and many smaller efforts to cut spending beneath that. And the bill does all this while covering more than 30 million people, ending the ability of insurers to discriminate based on preexisting conditions, creating a new and more competitive insurance market, taking the first steps away from fee-for-service medicine, and much more.

And that's the problem with Hamsher's list more broadly. The points about the bill's provisions are, in most cases, misleading. But much more deleterious is that Hamsher's list implies that the bill is failing relative to a world in which we don't kill the bill. But in that world, there's still no drug re-importation. Still 50 million uninsured. Still rampant cost growth. In the world where we pass the bill, everything gets somewhat better, if not good enough. In the world in which we kill it, everything just continues to get worse, and politicians are scared away from the issue for decades.

Bobs Swollen Arm and Hand

Bob's left arm and hand are swelling up and we have been trying to get into the doctor's office for a week. First she was gone for a family emergency and they canceled his appointment and then because she was ill they canceled another. She was at church yesterday and didn't appear to be ill. (Doctors must need some time off too.) Anyhow, he has an appointment this afternoon so maybe we will find out why his left arm and hand is retaining fluid.

We had a great time at the cookie exchange last night. About eight or nine couples came and stayed. We were about the third couple to leave and there were plenty of others who stayed after we left. I ate five cookies and that was too much sweets and didn't set too well on my queasy stomach. I took some tums before bedtime.

I watched TV after we came home. PBS had a special on Yellowstone in winter. Bob read. We had rented a video for Saturday night and he couldn't understand a word that was said. I enjoyed it. It was "Angels and Devils" with Tom Hanks. Anyhow, we will return it this morning. It is due back before 10:00 PM today.

I will do some cleaning this morning after breakfast. Slinky has been in most of the week and the kitchen needs a good scrubbing and I also need to dust again.

Slinky was pretty good last night. He woke me up twice to go out and Missy wanted out at 4:30 this morning. Animals!

I have two pieces of leftover coffeecake from breakfast at church and a whole cookie jar full of a variety of cookies. Then I also have the peanut clusters I made this past week. I am going to weigh a ton if I don't stay out of them.

Children's Christmas Service

The children's Christmas service was a big success. It was great fun! I got up early, as usual and baked my coffeecake for the light breakfast. It always goes over well. I will bake another small one for Juanita for Christmas when we go to breakfast on Wednesday. Then my baking is done until Thursday when I bake the two pies for Christmas dinner on Friday.

Tomorrow I will clean, Tuesday, go to my sister's house as usual and then perhaps take Leslie to lunch. Wednesday, I will get my hair done and eat breakfast with Juanita.

Thursday, I will fix our salad and bake my pies. Friday we will go out to Leslie and John's for Christmas. Other then that, it should be a quiet week. We may get some snow on Wednesday.

For now, we go out to Leslie's for her cookie exchange. That will be interesting.

A Cold Day

It's been cold today and Slinky has been in all day. I bake cookies for Leslie's cookie exchange tomorrow and then afterward I took Slinky for a walk. He needed a walk...cold or not...and Bob would not take him.

I just made peanut butter crisscrosses....nothing fancy for the cookie exchange tomorrow. I also have the light breakfast in the morning. I will bake a coffeecake, take chocolate milk and juice. It's only supposed to be a light breakfast.

We went over to the Country Time Music Theater after lunch and looked around. I want a booth in there but not a very big one because I don't want the expense of paying so much for a booth. The owner asked me if I would be interested in working there a few hours each week. I told her about twelve hours would be what I would be looking for. She took my name and telephone number. Maybe a part time job will come out of this. That would be nice.

Tired Friday

This has been a tiring day in many ways. I was up three times in the night letting Slinky out to go do his thing. Then after 3:30 I could not go back to sleep. Finally at 4:30, I just got up.

We went to Independence and bought our last three gifts. I had those gift wrapped. Then we went out to Four County to take our daughter to lunch. Cyndi came over today to bring us some spaghetti and some crab salad. That was sweet of her. She says she simply cannot cook for two. We had the spaghetti for dinner tonight. It was very good. I fixed some garlic bread to go with it and we finished up our coleslaw too. I ground up the rib meat from a couple of days ago and I will make sandwich spread out of it.

I am very tired tonight and I hope to be able to sleep tonight.

Gorgeous Thursday

The weather people tell us this will be the last of the lovely weather until well after Christmas. Today was lovely. Cyndi had to go to Wichita today to check with her orthopedic specialist about her foot. I went in to hear what the doctor had to say to Cyndi. She thought she would have to have surgery on it. It swells every night. and hurts her then too..

Instead, the doctor told her it was healed and all the infection was cleared up. Cyndi wanted to know why it still hurts at night and swells up. The doctor showed us both MRIs and showed us that the one from October still showed some infection and possibly just fluid. But the one from December 1st showed no sign of infection or fluid. She does have a small nick in her Achilles heel tendon which the doctor thinks will heal in time. There is no explanation for the swelling or the pain. The doctor told her to go back to wearing her support stockings and to start wearing shoes that are enclosed around the heel. Her New Balance shoes will be ideal. The heel needs support. They made her a small heel support to put in her shoes.

I think Cyndi was a little disappointed that she didn't have a problem and intends to stop taking her antibiotics now. The doctor said she could contact the doctor who prescribed them and make sure that was all right if she had any questions about it.

The doctor measured her ankle and foot circumference and said both feet were the same measurements.

I was glad I went in with her to hear what the doctor said. We got home about 5:30.

Beautiful Wednesday

It's a beautiful sunny day! that always makes me feel a lot better. I had my hair done and cut today too and it really needed it. I couldn't do a thing with it. It looks a lot better! I also paid my property taxes...or at least half of them. I didn't have enough money in my savings to pay them all. By the time I pay the house insurance next month the account will be empty. Being poor is no fun. But I couldn't afford to rent for what I pay in house payment and taxes and insurance.

I had breakfast with Juanita this morning. I took her some chocolate cake but she brought me our Christmas gifts. A dozen decorated Christmas cookies, some what appears to be banana nut bread. Also it appears to be a box of sugar free candy. It's wrapped but that's what it looks like.

All she wanted was some of my coffeecake...like I take to church when I have the breakfast...like I do this Sunday. So I will make her coffeecake next Tuesday and take it to her on Wednesday before Christmas.

We will go to the market this afternoon and get some contact cleaner, some toothpaste and some bread. I guess we will have some of the ham from Sunday for dinner this evening. I have some leftover friend potatoes and cranberry salad as well as some coleslaw we need to eat up.

I tried to watch "From Jesus to Christ" on PBS last night but just couldn't stay awake past 9:00 and it went until 10:00. The animals didn't get me up last night. Slinky woke me at 4:15 wanting to go do his thing outside but it was 18 degrees so he came in as soon as possible. Then we all went back to bed. I got up at 5:00. My appointment was at 7:15 in Independence.

Busy Tuesday

This may be a busy day. I will go to my sister's to stay as usual. Then I told my daughter that I would check on some cd rates at various banks for her. A member of our church left the church $5,000 in his will and that money came last week. We want to put it in a cd if we can find one that pays anything at all. I have my tiny nest egg in an IRA at 3.1%. I will check with my bank first since that's where we have the church's checking account. But then I will try several others too.

Last night, after our company left, I went over to Phyllis F.'s home and tried to install that AVG 9.0 from the cd they had sent her. Her drive would not recognize it so I contacted the company for a refund for her and started downloading Avast! for virus protection. She has a dial up so it took over four hours. Then she called me back because she wasn't sure that it completed the download and she wasn't sure how to install it. I went back over for another hour and a half and we got it done and registered. Then it ran over her drive and found 54 spyware, worms and trojan horses. It deleted all of them and we rebooted her computer. It seems to be running just fine now and she has protection. I have used Avast! for some time and it seems to be a good free program.

Update!

Late yesterday afternoon the doorbell rang and the florist delivered a huge poinsettia from Phyllis F. Wasn't that sweet of her? It had a note on it about how much she appreciated my help..

Laid Back Monday

After several days of being very busy, I have one day to be rather laid back. I will fix chili for some friends for lunch in a little while but I had dessert left from last night's Living the Questions group so I will not need to bake again.

Tony and Gay are old friends from my youth...at least Gay is. I have known her since we were 14 and 17. Over the years, we have found one another several times. She was my best friend (and still is) for years and years.

We used to be the same size and wore one another's clothing when we lived close by one another. She went to camp with me years ago and brought several children she was babysitting at the time too besides her own three. We had a great time.

So they will be here for chili at lunchtime.

Another friend just called and wants me to run over there and help her with her computer after they leave this afternoon. I hope I know enough to help her. She is trying to install an AVG paid virus protection from a CD and it is taking forever. She wants me to come check it out for her. I will go after 2:30. I think Gay and Tony need to be back to Chanute by 3:30 to be there when the children get out of school. They work as volunteers at an after school children's program there.

Very Busy Sunday

This will be an even busier Sunday then I thought. I don't have to fix the Holiday dinner at church but I am speaking. I had a queasy stomach all day yesterday from the beans we ate the night before. Sometimes beans just don't agree with me.

Then I volunteered to have the Living the Questions group so we could watch "Peter and Paul" on PBS tonight and have a surprise birthday card party for Judy. Richard and Mona live in the country and cannot get PBS. Mona was going to bake the cake but she was so stressed out that I volunteered to do that too. When I awoke this morning and logged online, she had taken me up on my offer and will not be coming with the child.

There's a possibility that Jack may come if the child will not be here. The last time we met at Bobby's and Karan's home, the child was sick with an earache but they brought him anyhow. He whined all evening. Jack has just been released from the hospital with pneumonia and has a serious lung disease and does not need to get sick...especially under those circumstances.

I didn't get much cleaning done yesterday either since we ended up going to Bartlesville so I could finish our Christmas shopping. Then last evening, I wrapped everything and worked on the Christmas cards. I got them pretty much finished.

So, now this afternoon, after we get back home from the dinner, I will need to run by the market to get the cake mix and get the cake in the oven. While that is baking I will do some cleaning in the bathrooms and pick up the house and run the duster. We don't need to vacuum. We did that a couple of days ago.

I hope it's nice enough that Slinky can be outside. I would rather he was not in the kitchen this evening.

So it should be a huge day.

Update:

So far so good. The dinner was very good although we lacked six having our dinner paid for. Some who said they would be there didn't make it after all. The congregation will pick up the bill for them.

The cake is now out of the oven and I am waiting for it to cool so I can ice it. It's three thirty and I am ahead of schedule. I have run the duster and still have to clean the bathrooms. The house is neat right now.

Busy Saturday

This will be a busy day. I must do some cleaning today since we are going to have the "Living the Questions" group here tomorrow evening. We suggested that the group watch the PBS special on "Peter and Paul" instead of continuing the book "Seeing Grey in a Black and White World" at least for this one week. Frankly, I am bored with the book anyhow and would like to put it away. Jack and Marilyn were to have had the group but Marilyn is afraid for Jack to be around a crowd since he just got over pneumonia and is still taking infusions of antibiotics twice a day. Jack has a serious lung disease.

Richard B. planned to take the evening class but he does not receive PBS out in the country where he lives. So I volunteered to take it. Marilyn and Jack still may not come since Richard and Mona may bring their child, Roni, and the last time we met he had an earache and they brought him and came anyhow. I, for one, did not appreciate that they brought an ill child into a gathering of elderly folks. Some people just don't think.

I will still need to get some ice cream and a card. We are going to surprise Judy with a card party when we meet at 7:00. The program doesn't begin until 8:00. Mona is supposed to bring a cake.

Keith's title to his car came in the mail yesterday and Larry came and picked it up. I am glad to have that out of the way. It took over a week for it to arrive.

I got some decent sleep last night. Slinky only woke me once around 11:30 and Missy didn't wake me at all.

Terrible Night's Sleep

Last night was a nightmare. The animals woke me up a half dozen times. Missy was the worst offender. She wanted me to feed her in the middle of the night. But I am not going to get that started. She scratched on the bed skirt of my bed three or four times and then Slinky started whimpering and needed to get out. I put Missy outside after the second offense but it was way too cold for any animal, even an annoying one, to be outside so I let her back in. I was out of bed so many times that I finally got up and went into the den to sleep on the trundle so I wouldn't disturb Bob's sleep. What a mess.

Today we plan to go back to Independence to take Leslie to lunch. Then this afternoon, I may take a nap.

We recently learned that Keith cannot come back at Christmas time. Not only does he not have the money for an airline ticket that costs $471 but his co-worker wants to go home for Christmas and one of them has to stay and cover the help desk. It's his turn since he came home at Thanksgiving.

That's disappointing but understandable.

Still the title to Keith's car has not arrived. It's been over a week since he sent it off. If it is lost in the mail, he may have to get a "lost title" replacement. The man who bought the car needs it. He has called twice to see if it has come yet. Keith took his number yesterday and called him about it.

Thursday Boredom

I am bored already and it is only 6:15 in the morning. I do not like winter!

Yesterday, we did not go to the IMA meeting in Independence. It was just too cold to make another trip up there. It was 18 degrees but the wind factor made it 2 degrees below zero. Neither Bob nor I need that kind of cold. So we stayed home after we came home from my hair appointment. I think I will get my hair appointment changed to a later time on the second Wednesday of the month, if possible. That way, we can just stay in Independence for the IMA meeting. As it was, we went to their Wal Mart store and bought groceries before we came home. Brrrr, it was really cold! We had left Slinky in the garage, which he hates, and he was really glad to get out of that cold garage. It was a lot warmer then outside though.

I read most of the afternoon and later on put some cornbread in the oven for our beans. I had soaked beans the evening before and cooked them in my slow cooker while we were in Independence yesterday morning. They were really good last night.

I think I will bake a pie today for dessert tonight. Bob's glucose has been doing well and he looks like he may have put a little weight back on. He sure needs to. I would be happy to give him ten pounds if there was only some way to transfer it between us. I will fix pork cutlets, mashed potatoes and gravy and have cottage cheese for dinner tonight, perhaps with a veggie.

Another Cold Blustery Day

It's another cold blustery day here in Kansas. So far as I know it did not snow last night but it's very cold out. I believe it's 17 degrees. I will go to Independence this morning to get my hair done but I don't know whether I will go back up at noon for IMA or not. Bob no longer has his truck so I would have to come home to get him and it's very cold to get him out in the weather. We may just have to skip it this time and hope for a warmer day next month.

Juanita may call and cancel breakfast too. She does not need to get out in this weather either. She is 88 and about as fragile as Bob. She usually calls about 7:00 if she cancels.

If we stay home, I will do some cleaning and then also go to the market. If we go, we will also go to the market up in Independence. We will have to put Slinky in the garage. It is way too cold for him outside. The hot water tank is in a corner of the garage and it is fairly warm in there where it is located. We put his nice clean rugs in there on a piece of carpet and he can stay fairly comfortable while we are gone. Bob can't get him to go out there but he went out there Tuesday while we went to Bartlesville to Bob's doctor appointment but it was I who had to get him to go out there. He didn't like it but he minded me.

The animals had me up three times last night. About midnight Slinky had to go out and so I got up and let him out. Then about 3:00 he needed to go again. (old dogs are not much different whether they're human or other animals.) Missy got me up at 4:00 so I put her outside. I am trying to teach her that if she wakes me up, she will go out in the cold. Then Slinky decided he wanted breakfast at 4:00 AM. I got back up and came into the kitchen and bawled him out. I didn't hear another peep out of him until 5:00...my usual rising time. Animals! I never wanted any. Leslie gave me Missy as a very small kitten...then I got attached to her. Then Scott got Slinky in the divorce and when he moved to Missouri, we got Slinky. He has no fenced yard and animals are not allowed in his apartment. So guess who got his high maintenance dog? That's right! Me. I say "me" because the only thing Bob does for him is take him for a walk and he has to be harassed into doing that.

Men!

Very Busy Nasty Tuesday

Today I went to sit a couple of hours with my sister and then later in the morning attended the Montgomery County Health Clinic Board Meeting at our hospital. It was misting but not freezing. I was glad of that. I need to go to Independence tomorrow but won't go if it's freezing or snowing.

At our meeting, we took care of our business first and elected our officers (I was elected secretary) and heard our reports.

They wanted to meet there in Coffeyville so they could have Leadership Coffeyville meet with us. Leadership Coffeyville had a request for us. They want the clinic to be open more then one evening a week in Coffeyville. We would love to do that and it is in our future plans but not right now. Right now we are operating in Coffeyville every Tuesday evening from 4 - 7 with volunteer doctors and nurses. We see 13 - 16 patients in that time. We do not presently have the resources to be open any more than that. In Independence we have hired a nurse practitioner and are open four days a week. It took us three years to work the grant financing for that.

They suggested we hire a nurse practitioner for Coffeyville and we agreed that would be great but it costs $75,000 a year to hire one and that would require another separate grant and let's face it, money is very tight right now everywhere.

Eventually, when the health care crisis is over in Washington, we will submit a request to become a FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Clinic) and we will have the resources but then, because we will be required to accept anyone who walks through the door and not just the uninsured, we will be in competition with the doctors and hospital and the hospital will not be willing to give us the space.

So, it's not that simple.

Doctor's Visit

We got around early and I talked Slinky into the garage so we could go to Bartlesville to see Dr. Eslicker, the dermatologist again. Bob has a rash of new "stuff" on his face and head and did not want to wait until the last of January to see about it. It turned out to be a lot of pre-cancerous "stuff". Dr. Eslicker just froze it all.

Bob then wanted to go over on the west side of Bartlesville to have lunch at Murphy's Steak House. Wouldn't you know..it was closed...for good.

So we went to Caney and ate at the Caney Kitchen. They had a special on Bar B Q beef sandwiches so that's what we ordered. They were pretty good... though certainly not $14. worth. Oh well, it's only money and I can't take it with me.

We let Slinky back in when we got home and gave him our leftover Bar B Q sandwiches and french fries. I imagine he didn't need those either but he sure cleaned them up.

We will eat our leftover roast beef from Friday evening this evening. Tomorrow I have lunch at the hospital here with our board meeting. Tomorrow evening we will eat Bob's leftover spaghetti and meat balls from yesterday. Wednesday we will eat at Mercy Hospital for IMA. We will fix beans and cornbread for Thursday. So I won't do a lot of cooking this week. Thank goodness! I feel like all I've done lately is cook although we've eaten a lot of meals out lately too.

A Huge Day!

We got up early this morning and saw Scott off. Then we went to church where Bob presided today. It was a good service. After church we went to Independence to eat at Brothers Italian Restaurant. After that, we drove up to Chanute to hear Sue sing in a community choir. It was a nice one and a half hour program. We had intended to go to John and Sue's for refreshments afterward but it was misting and we were afraid it would freeze after dark and besides Slinky was out on the patio in the cold.

We were going to put him in the garage but Bob could not get him to go out there. Even though the hot water tank is out there and it isn't really that cold, he hates that garage. He growled and barked at Bob when Bob tried to get him to go in there so we had no other option but to let him out on the patio. We knew we would be gone all day.

Anyhow, we got home by 5:30. I took a hot shower and put my P.J.'s on. I was very tired. Then I sat in the living room and did my congregational letters and printed off the ones I couldn't e-mail with the printer in the den.

I'll try to stay awake until 8:30 or nine. I can tell, my week is catching up with me.

This week, I will do nothing much tomorrow. Tuesday I will sit with my sister early morning and then go to Independence at 11;00 for my medical clinic board meeting. We may meet Leslie for lunch that day too if John doesn't meet her first. Wednesday, I will get my hair done and then we have the IMA meeting at Mercy Hospital in Independence at noon.

We have nothing going Monday, Thursday or Friday. Isn't that neat?

Fun Day

Today should be a fun day. I got up early, as usual, and baked a pumpkin pie. This morning at 10:00 Bob and Scott and I will meet Leslie for a tour of the Independence Museum where they have a Holiday decorating craft show going. It's always excellent. I attend every year. Afterward, we will all go eat lunch out. Then Leslie and I will go to Alberta's Mary Kay party from 2:00 until 4:00 while the guys stay at Leslie's and watch TV. Then tonight we will take Scott out to eat at Tavern on the Plaza. Bob and I have not been there for quite awhile. We used to go every Saturday night but the last couple of times we've been there, someone's small children made a runkus and spoiled our evening out so we have not been back. Hopefully, that won't happen tonight

We will eat pumpkin pie this evening after dinner.

Scott will probably leave Sunday morning before we leave for church.

Friday Surprise

We had a surprise this morning. Scott called and he is coming today instead of tomorrow. In fact, he's on his way. That means he will be here tomorrow too and probably leave Sunday morning.

Slinky got sick after eating something he found on the patio this morning when I let him out to do his duty. Then , as we all know dogs do, after vomiting it up he returned to it again. I couldn't chase him away. Well, he's outside again now. He is determined to be outside when it gets above 40 degrees. He loves the sunshine. I am happy he wants to do that because soon enough he will spend his winter in the kitchen as he is spending his nights there now.

I did some cleaning this morning and then Bob and I went to the market and bought some more groceries. We stopped at Wilson's so Bob could get some more hearing aid batteries.

Now we are simply waiting for Scott. If he gets here in the next ten minutes, we will meet Leslie for lunch in Independence.

I have a roast I will put on for dinner tonight. That's an easy meal. I may bake a pumpkin pie this afternoon too. I have the makings for one and we will need dessert.

We ened up going to Bartlesville for something different to do. Scott bought some jeans and some seats there. We got a heck of a deal on the jeans. After all the discounts they gave us, $40 Levi jeans cost him $24.

Then we came home and ate our dinner and later had popcorn. It was a nice quiet evening.

Nice Party Last Night!

When we went to John and Leslie's last night, they had planned a party. I thought we would just go for ice cream and cake but Cyndi and Jeff were there and Jeromy (our grandson) and Marlene, his wife, were also there. I took the chocolate peanut clusters I made and Leslie not only had ice cream and brownies but also a fondue of chocolate that we dipped strawberries into. Everyone brought birthday cards and Jeromy brought me a fancy chocolate bar. Leslie gave me a Christmas "Welcome" sign to hang on the house. That was a nice surprise.

Today we will go to Ministerial Alliance at Windsor Place. They have changed the location from the Conference Room on 1st street to the Assisted Living facility on 8th street. They did this at the last minute so I have had to rush around and notify everyone and hope they get their message.

That's all we have on the agenda for today. It might be a nice quiet day after that.

Tomorrow we have nothing planned. I don't know whether Scott plans to come this weekend or not. Originally he did but after his disappointment with Becky, he may not. I will have to ask him if we should expect him. He is disappointed in her because she is so busy. The woman has to make a living. He doesn't seem to realize that. She does barrel racing and streaming of live video of rodeos. Consequently, she does not have time to spend every moment talking to or texting him. He needs o get a life...poor guy. He is not comfortable being alone at all.

Regular Wednesday

This is really a regular Wednesday even though it's my 74th birthday. As usual, Bob didn't get me a card. Oh well, we are going out to Leslie's for ice cream and cake tonight. I guess when you're 74 it's no big deal.

I got my hair done this morning in Independence and met Juanita for breakfast. She gave me my card and gift certificate last Wednesday just in case I didn't make it for today's appointment. (if it had snowed, I wouldn't have made it). Then she bought my breakfast this morning.

I went by Nannie La Rose's (women's clothing store) after the breakfast and checked out my options for a gift. They always have something I can use. Sometimes it's just socks or earrings but they carry the kind of clothing I like. This time it was a cute vest which I can use with several different colors of pants. I am very happy with it. That's my birthday gift to myself.

We watched the president's speech last night and basically, I agree with his strategy. We will send 30,000 more troops but at least he has an exit strategy. Bush would have had us there forever. The war thus far has cost us $937 billion dollars and I'm quite sure that terrible cost, not to mention the lives lost, has not helped our economy at all. Just think, when Bush took office, the country had a surplus. Now our great grandchildren will be paying off this terrible debt. And what have we accomplished? Nothing really. We have destroyed the country in Iraq and Afghanistan and killed a lot of civilians. No one can win a guerrilla war and we should have learned that in Vietnam.

Beautiful Tuesday

It's a beautiful Tuesday today. I went to my sister's home to sit with her while my brother-in-law went to breakfast with his friends. We had a good visit although she continues to repeat nearly everything she tells me each week. I believe her disease is getting worse.

Afterward, I went to the bank to make a deposit. I called in on "Open Line 69" yesterday morning and was the very first caller. I advertised Keith's car and had no immediate response but later on that morning a man from Independence called and wanted to see the car. He came down and took it for a drive and gave me a deposit for it. Later that day, he called again and wanted to know if he could have it if he finished paying for it. I said, "Of course". So he and his wife came down and paid for it and now we are waiting for the title to come from Keith. I deposited our part of the money this morning and bought a money order for Keith. That is a done deal as soon as we get his title.

Later that morning Bob and I went to vote on the sales tax issue and then went to the market to get some ground beef. He wants meat loaf for dinner tonight.

He has gone to take slinky for a walk right now.

I just read on CNN that the president is planning to be out of Afghanistan in three years. Three years!! By then we will very likely be bankrupt. The war has cost us $937 billion dollars to date. Everyone in America could have had free health care for that money.

The Nuts Abound

... pastor, Rev. Steven L. Anderson, at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Rev. Anderson, also 28, explained not only “Why I Hate Barack Obama,” but also why he and God both want the president dead. “When I go to bed tonight,” Broughton’s pastor declared, “Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.” He even goes so far as to claim that:
God appointed [Obama] to destroy this country for the wickedness of the United States of America. God appointed him because that’s what our country has turned into. That’s who we deserve as a president.

And yet, even though we may deserve Obama, Anderson urges his congregation to pray for the president’s death, issuing imprecatory prayers and repeatedly asking God to kill the president. Most dramatically, and in an interesting shift to the passive voice, he said Obama “ought to be aborted” because the president is pro-choice, and therefore a “murderer.” Despite all this Anderson has insisted to reporters that he was not calling for vigilante violence. ....

Anderson believes in the death penalty for homosexuality, and the death penalty for abortion (which is of course understood to be murder). And these points are highlighted in the sermon he gave the night before Obama’s speech in Phoenix:

… you’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things—you’re gonna tell me I’m supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he’s in Phoenix, Arizona? Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religiousright/1801/%E2%80%9C%5Bi%5D_pray_for_barack_obama_to_die_and_go_to_hell%E2%80%9D:_the_story_the_media_missed_

Anderson’s anger is hair-raising as he shouts: “I am not going to stand by… and let faggots run the church! It’s bad enough that we’ve got a bunch of faggots running the government!”

It might be tempting to dismiss Anderson as the meaningless leader of a small congregation whose post-controversy service drew, by his own account, only forty-nine. But he says such extraordinary things all the time—as his effective and demagogic appearances at teabagger rallies and other venues of the far right have shown—and it doesn’t take large numbers of people, acting singly or in cell groups, to commit horrific acts of violence in God’s name.

Virulent ideas, and a will and a capacity to carry them out, are all that matter. We have seen many such cases in recent years in which at some point, actions meet the demands of the words of leaders with particular ideas about what God may require.

Busy Sunday

As usual, Sunday was busy. We went to church and then afterward to Sirloin Stockade with John and Leslie to have my free birthday buffet. My birthday isn't until Wednesday but Bob wanted to eat with John and Leslie so we did. The food was good..it usually is better during the Sunday buffets because the church crowd is there, I guess.

We came home and I got my letters ready to go out. I had only two to write this week since we had a pretty good crowd in attendance for the Hanging of the Greens. The church looked lovely and the service was nice. There was lots of scripture and song. Unfortunately, our best voices were absent so the singing was a little thin.

We went to Living the Questions at Bobby and Karan's last night. When we got home at 9:00 I went straight to bed exhausted, as usual. They are holding these too close together in y opinion. Twice a month is plenty in my opinion but they are planning them nearly every Sunday evening. We may have to get to the place where we only attend part of them.

I had e-mail from Keith yesterday. He sent the photos he took on Thanksgiving Day. The one above is of our family. I also heard from Scott. He stayed at Becky's until late Sunday. She will be going to Los Vegas this next weekend and he plans to come home.

I will call Windsor Place Catering today and see if they can cater our holiday dinner at church. We may be too late to get it scheduled. That would be such a great relief..not to have to do all that cooking again.

We will also go to Bartlesville today to let Dr. Holland look at Bob's incision and do post op. They said the biopsy showed three sides clear of any cancer but the fourth side was questionable. I hope they don't have to cut it open again. It is healed now.

This afternoon, I will make Chunky Turkey Vegetable Soup for supper. Then I will freeze any leftover turkey. Ah, it was a good holiday. It was good good to have all our kids together again. The only bad thing about it was the loss of Keith's car. We will attempt to sell it on Open Line. If someone knows how to put a motor in it, they can have a very nice 2002 Dodge Intrepid car for $500.

Relaxing Saturday

We called first thing this morning to see when Keith got to Phoenix. He got home at 1:00 with nothing uneventful happening along the way. We have not done a lot today. I got my Christmas tree and decorations up this afternoon.

Leslie said Scott and Becky left at 11:00 yesterday. I spent yesterday afternoon stripping beds and doing laundry. Also noticed the dryer vent was leaking air so I wrapped some duct tape around it after cleaning it all out. Bob fixed the kitchen faucet which needed tightening up.

The animals settled down after the small child and her mother left yesterday morning. Mia made them very nervous. Missy hid all day.

Yesterday afternoon we went over to the Avery's to see our nieces, nephew and great nephew. I had not seen Diana in several years. I had never met her male friend. He seems very nice. Jeff, her son, is as zany as always. Dennis, our nephew was also there. We had a nice visit.

Our brother-in-law has been told by his cancer doctor that after he has his next colonoscopy, he will recommend treatment for his non Hodgkin Lymphoma. Although it has not grown or spread they have "watched" it long enough. He will either take radiation or chemotherapy. They will tell him which at that appointment in February. they have "watched" it over a year now. That worries me. I have never heard of cancer going away by being "watched".

I went over our budget this morning. We really blew it over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Today we are not doing much of anything. That feels good.

Friday After Thanksgiving

All turned out well. Our dinner was magnificent and the company was all good too. Leslie's home looked wonderful and was large enough that Mia had lots to do. She ate a good dinner and took a long nap. There were nine of us. Keith and Scott, Scott's girlfriend, Becky, Leslie and John, Bob and me and Christina and Mia. Leslie's turkey was wonderful. She had dressing and green bean casserole with homemade rolls. I took Bob's Waldorf salad and my two pies (which turned out to be very good regardless of the crusts), and my special mashed potatoes. We had a wonderful time. After dinner Keith took a lot of photos. I will post some here after while when he wakes up and transfers them to my computer.

Mia was good and her mother had the opportunity to enjoy herself. Bob and I came home about 7:30 but the others stayed later. I didn't even hear them come in. I went to bed at 8:30 exhausted.

They will all leave today. Keith will take the long trek back to Phoenix with Bob's pickup. Christina and Mia will go to Wichita to visit a friend and then back to Junction City tomorrow. We will be alone again. Bob needs to tighten the fittings on our kitchen faucet and I need to strip beds and do laundry.

But it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had our entire immediate family together for the first time in years...even the one granddaughter and great granddaughter. Our granddaughter will be back for Christmas and Keith plans to fly in too. Of course, Scott plans to come for Christmas too. His 49th birthday is Sunday. Mine is Wednesday but I'll be 74. It doesn't seem possible but it is. I was born December 2, 1935. That's 74.

The couple on the left are Scott and his girlfriend, Becky. That's me in the middle and our daughter, Leslie, on the right.

Thanksgiving Day

Well, it's Thanksgiving Day at last. First of all Happy Thanksgiving to all who read here.

We had an unusual evening. Maybe that's an understatement. Last evening we went to the Mexican restaurant here and met our grandson, Jeromy, and his wife for dinner. They won't be with us for Thanksgiving. They will go to her folks in Topeka. I'm not wild about Mexican food anyhow but the rest of the family could eat it seven days a week. When we got home, our granddaughter and her daughter, Mia, were here from Manhattan, Kansas. I thought Mia was going to take the house apart. Mia is three. She wiggled and jumped constantly and "talked" at the top of her voice. Most of what she says is not understandable. I tried sitting her down and explaining the difference between "indoor voices" and "outdoor voices" and "indoor activity" and "outdoor activity". I don't think it will stick but if no one tries, I know it won't. She's a sweet child but tremendously hard to be around. Bob, with his hearing aids, was miserable. I, with my obsessive need for order, was too. Our son, Keith, had never met this granddaughter of his. He was happy to at last meet one of his grandchildren. I will try to bite the bullet and bear the chaos.

Finally our son took his daughter and granddaughter for a ride in the car in hopes of making her sleepy. Finally at 9:00, our granddaughter, who was exhausted herself, went to bed and the child went to bed too. We all followed suit. What an evening!

Then last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up with stomach cramps and diarrhea. Today we go to Leslie's for Thanksgiving dinner. I hope to be completely well and able to do my potatoes by then. I think the problem was the Mexican food.

I baked my pies yesterday afternoon and the crusts did not turn out well. They got too dark and brittle looking. I hope the rest of my part of the meal is better. Bob will do his Waldorf salad this morning before we leave. I hope Mia doesn't take Leslie's house apart today.

Busy Wednesday

I went to Independence this morning and had my hair done and met Juanita for breakfast. Then I went to Wal Mart and bought some last minute groceries. When I got home I baked my pies. I am disappointed in the crusts. They came out much too brown.

Tomorrow I will go our to Leslie's to do my potatoes. I am using a new recipe to make the potatoes a little nicer and tastier. I hope they come out better then the pies. Bob still has to make his Waldorf salad.

Our grand daughter, Christina and her daughter, Mia are coming this afternoon. They should be here after dinner time.

Quiet Tuesday

I went to sit with my sister this morning as usual. My brother-in-law had a doctor's appointment in Bartlesville about his non Hodgkins Lymphoma. It appears it hasn't grown or spread. The doctor wants to see him again in May. My sister continues to get worse. She repeats everything she's told me every Tuesday. Their daughter from Wisconsin will be here for Thanksgiving with her friend and the other daughter and her husband and daughter will get together with them for Thanksgiving.

Keith made my router secure so I could share documents between my two computers on the network. I figured out to to make them accessible myself. It sure is nice to have an IT in the family. Then he went out to John and Leslie's and helped them pour and work cement for their patio and sidewalk to the house. He is such a good hearted guy.

I fixed dinner at 5:00 and then afterward went out to church to help get all the decorations out for Sunday's Hanging of the Greens. Karan and Leslie and I worked from 6:00 until 9:00 and the church looks lovely! I will take some photos later to post here.

Carletta came out later and helped decorate the tree. She had taken her granddaughter, Mary Beth, to the emergency room after Mary Beth had been kicked in the head by her horse. She had a concussion but no bleeding into the brain. What a mess! They let her go home from the hospital but instructed her mother, who is a doctor, to wake her up every three hours last night. She didn't remember school at all yesterday. I hope she is going to be alright.

When I got home the guys were watching TV. I emptied the dishwasher and got my bath and went to bed. I was exhausted.

Busy Monday

We started out this morning cleaning house. Bob vacuumed for me. I also ran five loads of laundry through the washer and dryer.

Then I went back to the market and bought a few things we had run out of. While there, Keith came in and he and his dad bought a can of air for me with which to clean my computers. They were filthy. Keith says dirt and dust in computers is a major reason why they fail and they need to be blown out every three months or so.

The guys had some sandwiches for lunch and I went to the First Baptist Church where the worship service was held last evening and picked up the offering to deposit.

I glanced at my deposit slip just before starting out of the bank's drive and noticed that the clerk had deposited only $385.95 and the deposit was for $425.95. I called her attention to the error and she fixed it but I was really glad I looked at the deposit slip.

Bob and I went to the hospital and got our H1N1 shots. We will be chaplains and needed some protection. The hospital provided that.

Then I came home and worked on my checkbook and later started dinner. What Keith wanted was hot dogs and the remaining chili over it. I had some chips and pudding for dessert. They seemed happy with the dinner.

Tonight Bob is watching the news on TV and Keith is back in his room watching a movie on his laptop. He gets them over the internet on his new laptop computer. His week is going fast. He will be leaving on Friday...taking Bob's pickup truck with him.

Busy Sunday as Usual

This has been the usual busy Sunday. perhaps even busier then usual. I got up at 5:00 as usual. Then I fed the dog and the cat, made a pot of chili for lunch and set bowls out for cereal and juice for our Sunday breakfast. Billie Jo had the light breakfast at church but Bob would die if he had to wait until 9:30...so we eat a bowl of cereal before we leave.

Following Church School, we had our congregational election and sure enough, I was re-elected pastor again. Following the elections, we had a hymn and prayer service. It was a good service..very spiritual. Leslie was in charge.

I came home and did my letters and got them out in the mail. Then I spent some time posting on the church's web board.

Tonight we will attend the community wide Thanksgiving Service at the First Baptist Church. It begins at 7:00. Keith went out to visit with his sister so he will not be with us. He will come in later.

After the service (which was not my kind of service) we went with friends to get an ice cream cone. Then we came home and visited with Keith until 10:30.

Saturday Busyness

The Senate has voted 60 to 39 to debate and then take a vote on the health care bill. That should be interesting. I recall how upset everyone was over the Medicare bill and it has turned out for the best. Perhaps whatever happens with the health care bill will be for the best too.

Oddly enough, when the Republicans were in charge of the congress, they wanted an up and down vote...no chance for a filibusterer. Now that the Democrats are in charge, they want the opportunity to filibusterer. I guess it just depends on your point of view as to what is the right way to go about it.

Today we got up, had a light breakfast and went to the Arts and Crafts fair downtown. It was a real disappointment..mostly jewelry.

After that we visited a few Flea Markets around town. We went by the cell phone place and Leslie turned in her claim. Somehow yesterday she lost her cell phone. Luckily she had her insurance.

We just killed some time until Leslie's beauty shop appointment. Then we came home and had lunch. After that, the guys took a nap. I read the news and had the dog in the kitchen for a snack. Then I fixed dinner. We had potato cakes, roast beef and gravy, salad and veggies. Just used up our leftovers.

This evening the guys are watching TV and I am doing this and posting on my church's web board. It's been a pretty dull day but every once in awhile we need a few dull days.

Tomorrow we will go to church and have our light breakfast and Church School class and in the 11:00 hour we will have our election of officers. After that is the hymn and prayer service. I will fix chili for lunch.

We will have a quiet afternoon and then go to the Community Wide Thanksgiving service that evening.

Finally Friday

We went up to Independence this noon and met Leslie for lunch. We had a nice visit. Then the men came home and took a nap. I did a load of laundry and read my e-mail and posted on the church's website. For dinner, I will fix that leftover roast with the leftover veggies from last night and the salad from last night.

Tonight we may watch an old movie.

We watched "The Shoes of the Fisherman". Does anyone remember that old movie?

Then we went to Brahms and got an ice cream cone.

Finally Keith is Here

Keith finally got in at 9:30 this morning. He drove 50 miles per hour all the way. It took forever. But he is here and we have had a great first day visit. This afternoon I went to the market and the guys both took a nap. I bought about $75 worth of groceries. They both slept like babies.

When I got home we put away the groceries and then I rested awhile. About 4:00 John, our son-in-law, came by to load the water filtering system Keith had brought to give to them into his pickup truck and out of Keith's car. Then they took Keith's car up to Gary's Automotive and had the computer run on it to confirm the diagnosis of the garage in New Mexico. Sure enough,the motor is dying.

About the same time, I started dinner. We had pork cutlets, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, veggies and chocolate pudding for dessert. Keith was almost too tired to enjoy it. We went out to John and Leslie's after that so he could help John unload that water filtering system and put it into their garage until they can figure out how and where to install it.

Leslie gave him the grand tour of the new house. He was properly impressed.

Then we came home and Keith took a shower and went to bed about 8:00. Bob and I are watching "This Old House". Then we will go to bed.

It's supposed to be warmer tonight and Slinky wanted to stay outside and sleep on the chaise. I brought him in the kitchen but he wanted back out. We'll see how that goes tonight. It won't be warm enough for him to do that very much longer.

A New Problem

Keith called last night. He was thirty miles east of Albuquerque, NM when his car starting making a loud clanking noise when he gave it gas. I suggested he not try to get through West Texas while that was happening but to go back and get a motel and take the car to a mechanic in the morning. He hated to spend the money but he also hated to get stranded in that God forsaken area of West Texas. So, he went back a few miles and found a Comfort Inn and got a room.

The first thing this morning, he took the car to a mechanic that was recommended by the woman at the motel. On the way to the mechanic, the noise was gone and nothing showed up on their computer. But after the mechanic drove it awhile, the noise came back. They are in the process of taking the head off to check out whether it's a loose tappet, a valve or a valve spring. They assure him they will have it for him today. And if he notifies the motel by 2:00, they will not charge him another half day. Plus the mechanic will let him put the charges on a Visa card.

He may be in late tonight or early morning. It will be over a ten hour drive..whenever he leaves Moriarty.

Keith has a very complicated life.
UPDATE:

They finally got a hold of Keith about 2:00 this afternoon. They had taken the head off the motor and discovered that it was just a piece of trash in there. They called numerous dealerships in the area and all they could find out was that the Dodge Intrepid has a motor that will only make it 100,000 miles and Keith's car has 92,000 miles on it. The car itself is spotless but the motor is a piece of junk.

They put it all back together and he has taken off for Coffeyville driving 50 miles per hour all the way. That will take him another 13 1/2 hours to get here at that rate.

One good thing: the mechanic only charged $303 for all that work and he will go tow Keith in from anywhere to Coffeyville if the car breaks down on the way. He said that would cost him but a lot less than a rental car and he would still have the car to sell to someone who would want to put a motor in it. Keith can't afford to do that. It would cost from $3,500 to $5,000 to do that. If we have to salvage it, it will only bring $500. The mechanic says it is really slick. If Keith didn't have bad luck..he wouldn't have any luck at all.

We are going to give him his dad's Ford Ranger pickup.

P.S. It's 9:30 and Keith is 350 miles away. Still driving 50 miles per hour.

Nasty Rainy Day

Today is another rainy day and Bob has gone to Tulsa for his Red Cross class. He will go tomorrow too. I went to my sister's this morning after fixing Bob's breakfast and spent an hour or so.

Then I came on back home because I didn't know whether Bob had left Slinky barricaded in the kitchen or not. As it turned out, he had put him out on the patio. It's forty degrees out there so I guess he's all right. He barked awhile ago wanting in but I ignored him. I am cleaning house today...getting ready for Keith to come sometime tomorrow...probably evening.

I'm getting my hair done in the morning and then picking up Juanita (if she's up to it) and we will go to Joplin to Christmas shop. Then we'll eat at Olive Garden and then come on home. She wears out easily at 88. Hopefully, I will be home before Keith gets here. I will leave a door open..just in case.

I will put a roast on for Bob's dinner tonight. Leslie gave me a small one...just the right size. We will have carrots and sweet potato with the roast....and gravy, of course. With applesauce that should be plenty. Neither Bob nor I eat much anymore.

I went the market and bought a few groceries. I am trying to hold off on the big stuff until I need to buy my groceries for Thanksgiving. I will fix sweet potatoes then too. Also, I will fix green bean casserole and some pies. Leslie will take care of the bird and the bread and of course, she is hosting us. There should be only eight of us this year.

Keith just called. His company got the Afghanistan contract but the problem was that they had had a cap put on salaries. They could only pay $145,000 per year instead of the $200,000 he was pitched. After paying 28% tax on that, he would have just made a little over $104,000. So he turned them down. He can make that here in America without taking his life in his hands. I am happy he decided against that. I was afraid he would be killed or maimed over there anyhow.

He is on his way here now for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Another Quiet Rainy Monday.

I decided against going to Creative Conversations today. The quiet day I had Saturday seemed awfully good for today too. Every once in awhile, I need to slow down and smell the roses (in this case it's Slinky who is in the kitchen with me). I didn't even clean house today. I had just cleaned on Wednesday last week and I will probably clean after I get home from my sister's in the morning.

All I have done is play on the computer all morning posting on my church's web board and writing this blog. I did go mail off the three more books I sold on Amazon this weekend. That makes ten altogether. I can use the cash when they deposit it in my account. I just paid the $400 for the house insurance and next month there will be the taxes on the house. I will have to pay at least half of them. The second half are due in May. Between December and May, I will have to save enough money to pay the second half. The car insurance is due in May too so I will probably hit my IRA for that. I have looked and looked for a part time job but so far nothing has shown up.

It has rained all day. It's barely misting now but that may change later on in the day. This evening we will watch Antiques Roadshow and American Experience on TV.

Keith called last night and he will be starting his trip here from Arizona on Tuesday noon. He may be here by Wednesday sometime. We are looking forward to seeing him again so much.

Rainy Sunday

What a day! Last night, after I had taken my bath and had my PJs on, Bob reminded me that I had the breakfast at church this morning. I had forgotten. I put some jeans on and went up to the market and looked for my regular coffee cake mix. They didn't have it. I bought another couple of mixes, one for coffeecake cupcakes and another for a loaf size coffeecake. This morning I discovered that I had very little oil. The loaf mix needed a third cup of oil and the cupcakes needed a fourth cup of oil. Then I looked for the correct pans. The only loaf pan I had was a silicone one that I had never used. The other was a couple of cupcake pans.

I put together the loaf pan coffeecake first and added pecans and raisins. After that finished baking I raised the heat to 400 degrees and put in the cupcakes. They both came out fine...thank goodness.

I had bought juice and chocolate milk to go with them. Bob fixed coffee and we were fixed. I had a bunch of stuff to take with me.

This was Sue's Christmas Child shoebox project service. She talked about the shoebox ministry and also showed a video of the children who received the shoeboxes full of toys. It was a nice service.

After church Bob and I took Leslie to eat out at Hong Kong Delight. We brought half our food home. They serve so much.

I have worked for several months to try to get my computer network working properly again after reinstalling Windows XP last spring. I could never get the printer to work from my laptop after that. I fooled around this afternoon and finally figured it out. Keith called while I was working on it and low and behold he was able to help me get it finished so the laptop would even turn on the printer. Now I can work from the living room with Bob nearby if I want to do that.

Keith will be leaving Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon and will get here Wednesday afternoon or evening. It's a seventeen hour drive. He will stay about a week. It will be great to see him again. It's been awhile since Sara's wedding in Houston a few years ago.

Juanita and I are going to Joplin on Wednesday morning if it doesn't rain. I will be back home by 2:30 or 3:00 so hopefully will be here when Keith gets in. Bob will be in Tulsa taking his Red Cross class Tuesday and Wednesday.

Quiet Saturday

So far this has been a quiet Saturday. We went to three garage sales where Bob bought some paperback books. I don't know what is on the agenda except eating out tonight.

Scott called this morning rather distressed. The woman he is so enamored of has shown to have feet of clay (in his eyes). I told him there are no perfect women. He also has feet of clay but he didn't think of that, I guess. In fact, the more perfect people are, the less comfortable I am with them. I always remember the "perfect mother" type that was one of my friends when we lived in Bartlesville and the kids were small. I felt inadequate around her. Then I realized she also was not perfect and I loved her all the more.

We are all flawed people and the sooner we realize that, the happier we will all be.

We haven't done diddley squat today. I went through several "antique malls" in town looking for a couple of dishes I am missing. I didn't find them though.

Then I baked some cookies and Bob had a couple of them (he probably shouldn't have). Slinky had a small bite of mine and one of Bob's before we both remembered that he should not have chocolate chip cookies. Dogs are poisoned by chocolate. I have some ginger snaps I can give him if he simply must have a bite of cookie too.

I have tried to put him out several times today but he gets lonely out there by himself and wants us to come out too. It's a little too brisk for that so..he's in the kitchen utility room where he can see me...taking a nap. Spoiled rotten. What have I done???

Surgery Day

This is the day we go to Bartlesville for Bob's surgery on his neck where he has that squamous cell carcinoma. We are wondering what kind of charges we are facing after Medicare pays their part. Bob has no supplemental insurance. But never the less, he must have the surgery so there's no sense stewing about it.

His local doctor also wants him to have his A1C test this morning too so we will be going back uptown for that before we leave for Bartlesville. If he is up to it, we will probably eat lunch in Bartlesville since his appointment is at 11:00.

We have had a terribly busy week and next week looks a lot better at this point. Bob has his two Red Cross classes Tuesday and Wednesday. He is going to skip the PINCH involvement with Creative Conversations on Monday.

On Thursday, our son, Keith, starts his trip back from Phoenix for the Thanksgiving holiday. He will take two days to drive it. It's a long ways from Phoenix to Coffeyville. That next week, I have kept free of involvement so we can have a good visit with him. If I can find a photo of Keith, I will post it here.

Bob and I attended the in service yesterday and I signed up to be one of the hospital chaplains. That will be a week every ten weeks. I guess I can manage that.

Doctor's Visit

Bob will go to the doctor this morning at 10:00 to check on his diabetes. He is very discouraged with his numbers. They fluctuate wildly. He watches his carbs religiously yet earlier this week, his glucose was 147 after being down to 116 and under for several weeks. We count carbs on every item we buy. He has lost a total of 24 pounds from just simply almost eliminating bread and potatoes and pasta from his diet. He is going to talk to Melissa about changing his meds.

Later at 11:30, we will go to an in service at the hospital mainly for those who serve as chaplains. Bob has given that up. He just isn't up to it anymore. He does well to take Slinky for his walk each day and even that is a lot shorter then it used to be.

We attended IMA yesterday. I am afraid the new president is not able to control the meeting. We had lunch at 11:30 and then the meeting began. It rambled on for quite awhile without much organization. Finally at 1:00, we needed to leave. We had an appointment at 1:30 and Bob still needed to stop by the cleaners to get some alterations ordered. John, the vice president was using the business meeting to talk about his congregation and Mike didn't seem to be able to get the meeting back on track.

They had forgotten our annual community wide Thanksgiving service so were trying to put the service together before the meeting.

It may be a difficult year.

On another subject, I have been asked to take the nomination for secretary of the Montgomery County Health Clinic board. I thought about it overnight and decided to accept. I will need to notify John this morning. I attend all their meetings anyhow as a board member. Taking the minutes shouldn't be a problem.

Scott Left

Scott left early this morning. We had a good visit while he was here. Last night we watched Frontline...a program about the health care crisis in America and it was on PBS. I recommend it if you have not seen it.

After he left, we cleaned house and did laundry.

Then we went to Independence to the IMA meeting we thought we would miss. Afterward I got my hair done anyhow.

Tonight we will go to Leslie's for Movie Night at 7:00. It should be fun. I guess we will have our leftover chicken for supper.

It is a lovely day. Bob just took Slinky for a nice walk and Slinky was happy about that.

I need to re-make Scott's bed. I stripped it this morning. I also did a white load of clothes and put them away.

Busy, busy, busy!

Scott's Here

Well, Scott came in about 7:00 last night and we had the chili ready for him. Today I go to Independence to my clinic board meeting and he and Bob will go with me and do some looking around town while I'm in my meeting. Then after the meeting we will eat at Big Cheese and then come back home. Bob's doctor changed his appointment from today to Thursday morning.

I changed my hair appointment and canceled my breakfast for tomorrow. My appointment is at 8:30 Friday now. Scott will be gone by then.

Scott has a girl friend he is nutty about (again). That's all he talks about. He will leave sometime tomorrow, perhaps after noon. They have a date this weekend. He doesn't want a spare moment until then.

Tonight we will stay at home and watch TV. Frontline is on PBS.