Cold Saturday

My brother-in-law called this morning to ask if I would like to go to Eggberts for breakfast. I said "sure". He came by to pick me up about 6:45 and I put Slinky in the garage. It was 18 degrees on the patio but 40 degrees in the garage. He didn't like it but he went anyhow.

I was back within an hour and he needed to go pee and then came back in the kitchen. He was very happy to be back in the kitchen. He is being pretty good now but is as bored as I am.

When my son-in-law clears off the parking lot at church, Bob A. and I will go out and clean off the sidewalks so everyone can get in the building safely tomorrow. I don't know how many we will have but we are going to hold church. Our people come from a number of places far off. We have members at Dennis, Neodesha, rural Caney and rural Independence besides here in Coffeyville. The church is in the country between Independence and Coffeyville. I will try to post a photo of it above. It was built in 1999 and paid for five years later.

More later...

Well, we got it finished! Then I came home and finished my patio. Now we are forecast for more snow Tuesday and Wednesday but not as much. We will see. My Wichita doctor's appointment has been moved again...this time to Wednesday. I'll go if I can get there.

I put Slinky out on the patio in the sunshine at noon. He loves the sunshine. He's been out there all afternoon in 30 some degree weather but in the sun he doesn't seem to care. It's 2:00 now.

More later...

Snowy Friday

It's not snowing here but we still have 17 inches on the ground. It is piled up next to my patio too high for Slinky to get through. It would cover him up. He has worn a path next to the house though and when he goes out, that's where he goes. He slept through the night last night and when I got up at five and wanted to put him out to go pee, he was not interested. After he had his dog food and oatmeal he did go out...very briefly. It's 4 degrees out there now so I don't blame him.

I had such a good time yesterday! I have such great friends and family. As I told the Livelys and the Bredesens yesterday afternoon, their friendship and inclusion has got me through this past nine months.

Today, I am thinking of trying to go to Independence to get my hair done. It looks terrible! I washed it Tuesday night because it had become so oily and stringy but since it has gotten so thin, it just lays on my head. When I was young and my hair was thick, I could just wash it and because it was naturally curly, it looked fine. Oh well...vanity, vanity, thy name is woman!

If I do go to Independence, I will go by the church and see if Billie Jo's husband has scraped it with his tractor. He has done that twice before. If he hasn't, John will take his tractor over the country roads and scrape it or we will not be able to have church on Sunday. There will be 17 inches of snow in that parking lot too.

More later...

On another subject, I received authorization this morning from our church to offer a Temple School course at our family camp (called reunions) this summer in a very different way. Another member, Madaleen and I will show the Living the Questions DVDs and then entertain discussion afterward. These are very progressive videos featuring the very latest information from scholars like John Dominic Crosson and Marcus Borg and several others and we expect the class to be small since we are in the center of the Bible belt where many folks take the Bible very literally. It should be an interesting experience.

I did go to the post office and then up to see if the church parking lot had been scraped. It had not. So John. my son in law will do it. I intend to go out and do the walks if I hear when he will be out there.

Then at one o'clock I went to Larry's funeral. It lasted an hour and a half. I needed milk and juice and had not eaten all day so I stopped by Braums and got a milkshake.

Finally Out

I finally got out last evening and picked up my blood pressure medicine. What a mess! It will take days to melt. The temperature this morning is minus 6. I really dislike winter.

Howard and Judy are going to pick Marilyn and me up for ministerial alliance at noon. At least I won't have to get out to do that.

While I was taking a bath last night, Amy finally called to cancel my 9:00 appointment this morning for an interview for SER SCSEP, the state agency that finds part time work for seniors. She called today to reschedule for next Friday.

Other then what I have listed, I will just stay home today. I will have to put Slinky in the garage and it gets harder and harder to get him to go in there yet that's the only way I can go anywhere in the winter.

More later...

Well, everything changes. Mid morning the alliance meeting was called off. There was no parking with all the snow we have and they were afraid of our people slipping on the drive. I called everyone to tell them about the cancellation.

Then Judy and Howard called and invited me to lunch with them and the Livelys. They would pick me up. I gave Slinky his choice: the garage or outside on the patio in 20 degree weather. He chose the patio in the sunshine. I thought I would only be gone an hour or so. Then Livelys invited us to go to their house for dessert and to play dominoes. Of course, I agreed to go.

We played until 3:30 and when I got home Slinky was delighted to get back into the house. He ate his dinner and then went straight to bed on his nice warm bed. Poor dog. Maybe he will think twice about the garage next time. It was 40 degrees in there.

I had a great time.

Furthermore all three of my kids called today. I am very blessed.

I got a card in the mail from an old friend who sent me $200 for an un-birthday gift. I will send off a thank you note to him and his wife. These folks send me money every once in a while. I tried sending it back once with a note of appreciation, only to get it back again. They are just wonderfully generous.

Perhaps when I find a part time job, all this money will stop coming. My kids each give me $100 a month, which they really can use themselves. But that pays my house payment and since I only eat one meal a day, I can stretch my budget to get by. But I could still use a part time job so I can support myself without help.

I will put this new money in my small savings.

Snowed In

Slinky got me up at 3:00 to let him out. When he saw all that snow was still there, he didn't want to go out. He went back to bed. Fifteen minutes later he wanted out again. But he wouldn't go out in all that snow. At 3:30 he started whining again. Again I got up to let him out. He wouldn't go. The next time he started whining and barking, was 4:45. I finally just got up and fed him and made my oatmeal and gave him the best part of that. This time he HAD to go out...so he did. I don't know what all he did but at least when I let him back in he was content. Animals!

I can't get out of my drive and I'm out of my blood pressure medicine. I guess missing a couple of days won't kill me. Later, after the sun comes up, I will get bundled up and go out to clean off my patio and walk and drive. I don't see how we can have ministerial alliance tomorrow unless the city scrapes the streets...and especially my street.

Yesterday was boring. I read and did my computer all day. There was nothing but the weather to watch on TV. Last evening I watched PBS and they had a show on the police shows of the 60's and 70's. That's when they had decent TV. No reality shows or stupid shows. The only thing I can find to watch on TV is rerun movies and PBS. Thank goodness for the computer and my books.

It's 9 degrees right now and is not supposed to get any warmer then 10 degrees all day with a windchill of -7.

Today I need to do some laundry. That 75 watt bulb on top of the hot water tank near the copper tubing that goes to my frig water supply kept the pipe from freezing last night. Thank goodness! It's amazing what a 75 watt bulb can do.

I will change my sheets today and wash my towels and may clean house. But first I must dig out as soon as the sun comes up.

More later....

I went out to dig off the patio and worked about twenty minutes. I began to get cold so decided to come back in. The back storm door lock had slipped down and locked me out. I crawled under the two by four on the west side of the patio and attempted to get through the gate. Bob's latch had frozen in place and I had to take off my gloves to work it out. By the time I got the gate unlocked and tried to push it open, my fingers were frozen. I had to push the gate over through a couple of feet of drifted snow. Then I had to try to latch the gate again. Then I waded through that snow and got to the garage door. The front door is always locked. I hit the remote to open the door and it lifted and then I hit it again to close the door after I got in. It didn't want to come down so I held the button until it did. When I finally got into the house my fingers were aching. I guess I'll wait quite awhile to try to finish the job.

I didn't have a heart attack though. :)

Note Slinky lying on his rug in the dining room in the sunshine. Spoiled rotten dog!!

The Blizzard

Well, the blizzard that was forecast has arrived. It is a complete whiteout out there. We are to get 8 to 12 inches of snow....maybe more.

I called in my prescription for my blood pressure medicine yesterday and they told me they were very busy and it might be quite awhile until they got to it so I said I would pick it up later in the afternoon. That's right! I forgot! I took my last pill this morning. I'm quite sure I can't get out of my drive so I will have to do without the medicine until I can. This is supposed to be a storm of historic proportions.

Slinky and Missy and I will be in the house all day today and for as long as this blizzard lasts. They say it will go until late tonight. Maybe tomorrow I can dig myself out.

I have food. Keith and Joyce brought me homemade vegetable soup last evening..enough for two meals...maybe three. I have some canned soup and even hamburgers in the freezer so I won't starve. I have coffee and oatmeal and cereal in the pantry. I even have yogurt in the frig and that's what I eat for supper each evening. I just hope the furnace keeps going and the water doesn't freeze. I have a 75 watt light bulb next to the water line on top of the tank. I hope that will keep the water from freezing.

I have books to read and the internet (as long as the lines stay up). Of course, if the electricity goes off, I won't have heat since the furnace starts with an electric igniter.

More later...

I put my boots on and waded out to the mailbox to get my mail. There was no sign of tracks for the mailman's cart and sure enough, no mail at all. Not even junk mail. I guess I will not get a newspaper either. The snow was up over the top of my boots. Luckily, I had a large paper sack in the coat closet and so I put it on the carpet and when I came back in I peeled those boots off on the sack.

Last Decent Day

This is to be the last decent day for awhile. Tonight it is supposed to rain freezing rain then turn to snow and we may get 10 - 12 inches over Tuesday. However the weather people have missed the forecast so many times, I really don't know what to expect. Later this morning I am going to put Slinky in the garage and go out to clean at Leslie's. Then I will run by the market and pick up the very few things I will need to hole up here until Thursday. I hope to be able to get out then. If we do get all this bad weather, I will cancel my Wichita trip Wednesday. But I will wait until tomorrow and see what tomorrow will bring.

The only thing I have on the calendar this week besides the doctor's appointment in Wichita on Wednesday and the ministerial alliance meeting on Thursday, is the Red Dress luncheon at the hospital on Friday. The visiting doctor is a heart doctor and Cyndi has a heart problem of some kind. I told her that I would go with her and I will if I can get out of my drive by then. It is to be bitterly cold, zero or below, all this week. Slinky will spend a lot of time in the house or the garage until the weather warms up again.

Slinky slept through the entire night last night and did not whine to get out until 5:00 AM. I did too. I had a good night's sleep. I got up at 5:00 and let him out, fed him his dog food and oatmeal, fed the cat, Missy, ate my own little dab of oatmeal, then got my laptop and am sitting here in the kitchen with him.

Perhaps more later...

Sunday Church

Today I will go to church, as usual. It is 32 degrees outside right now and it's only supposed to get up to 40 today. That's a far cry from the 70 degrees of yesterday. How I dislike winter.

I brought Slinky in at midnight. It was getting too cold for him out there on the patio. He slept until 4:45 but I had forgotten to bring in his water dish too so at 4:45 he began to cry. Then he thought it was time to get up. After I brought in his water dish, he was ready for his breakfast so I just gave up and got up 15 minutes early.

I got my cinnamon rolls out of the frig and set them out on the counter top to rise. They will need a couple of hours. I will take these to church this morning after I get them iced.

Later today we will probably eat out after church and then in the afternoon I will do my letters. This evening at 6:00, the Living the Questions group will have dinner at Jack and Marilyn's house. They are fixing soup and chili. I am taking cheese and summer sausage. I may get some olives too for the plate.

The forecast is for freezing rain on Monday and snow on Tuesday. I will probably have to change my appointment with the Wichita eye doctor again. I am not driving to Wichita on ice and snow.

More later...

We did eat out at Railroad Inn in Independence. Phyllis F. and Bob A. and I rode in one car.

I had a good time at Jack and Marilyn's but I had to put Slinky in the garage since it was too cold to put him outside. He hates the garage. When I got home and let him out of the garage he had to go outside for awhile to do his duty. Then he had a hard time settling down after he came back in. He is asleep now. It is 9:30.