Saturday and Another Weekend

I slept well last night. It was cold in the apartment and that usually helps me sleep better.  I got up about 5:30 and made myself a cup of coffee to get me started on my day. Bob came by about 7:15 and we went to Sirloin Stockade for breakfast.  We had a big breakfast and then he brought me home. I am doing a load of laundry now.

Later on we may go over to Sedan and have a Bar B Q sandwich at the restaurant my Bob and I used to take Leslie to for lunch when she worked over there at Sedan Floral.  I haven't been back there in years. We thought it would be something different to do.

When I got home from breakfast, I found Missy in my chair.  She has stayed out of my chair for several weeks and I thought she had learned she shouldn't get up it it. It is velvet and she gets cat hair all over it and I have to use a roller to clean it out.  So much for that thought! Anyhow, I dumped her out and cleaned the chair. If I keep newspapers and magazines in it she stays out of it.

More later....

After breakfast Bob brought me home and I read for awhile then decided to do some raking. The leaves were piled up a foot high and were covering the patio. I began there and got 5 bags filled before I played out. I came back in the house after dragging them to the street  and folded and put away my laundry. I sat out in the sunshine with Missy for awhile but finally just came back in.  She's lying here behind me on the daybed.   If I can, I will take some photos to show you what I have done so far. Last year I raked 14 bags up. The city made me wait until Friday to pick them up. They won't take them with the regular trash pickup on Tuesday.

This is the pile I raked up that was left after I bagged up five bags.

This the part I haven't even begun yet. It is back toward my air conditioning unit.

There's the bags I got completed back of the raked part.

And then there's the entire front yard. It will be a huge job if the weather holds.

These are the finished bags up close.  It's a big job and I did it last year and year before last but I wasn't almost 80 years old then.I will keep after it as long as the weather holds.

The wind has come up now. Soon I won't even be able to tell I did anything.

More later....

Bob and I drove over to Sedan and had lunch at Buck's Bar B Q. It was good and just the right amount. Afterward, he dropped me off at home and went on to his home to take his afternoon nap. He may be back later. I want to watch the Democratic debate at 8:00 this evening.

I managed to watch the Democrat debates this evening and went to bed at 10:00.

Friday Again

It's Friday again and the weeks whiz by anymore.  It's just a little under two weeks until Thanksgiving.  Soon after that, will be my birthday. First is granddaughter, Christina, who will be 37, soon after that, my son, Scott, who will be 55 and then three days after that...my 80th birthday. That doesn't seem possible.

I slept well again last night. I went to bed at my usual time, 9:00 PM. I got up shortly after 5:00 AM this morning. I have Missy fed and myself as well. I had a bowl of oatmeal, a banana and a glass of orange juice. And, of course, a cup of coffee.

We will have hamburger pie for lunch today with a salad and then pudding and cookies for dessert. The hamburger pie has green beans in it. So that is our veggie.

We've had a lot of wild fires in the past couple of days. They've been all around us in northeast Oklahoma near Bartlesville and Dewey, Nowata, Delaware and Lenapah and even as close as South Coffeyville. There have also been some just north of Independence, Kansas at Sycamore.  There have been none closer though. We've had some fierce winds driving them.

More later....

Well, lunch was very good and we sat out on the carport for an hour after we ate enjoying the lovely sunshine while we have it. There are leaves everywhere but still a lot more to fall.

Bob went home to read and take a nap and I am going to read too. I may take off and go back to Bartlesville.  I still would like to replace those black slacks I seem to have lost.

Tonight Bob will come back over to watch Brooks and Shields on PBS.  We enjoy their commentary.

More still later.

After Bob left I took my bath and sat in the recliner with Missy until bedtime.  I went to bed before 9:00 tonight. 

Thursday and Breakfast

Today Marilyn, Karan, Bobby, Gretchen and I will have breakfast at Eggberts at 9:00.  I forgot and had a bowl of oatmeal and a banana instead. I will have a very light breakfast at Eggberts. :)

I may go to Bartlesville  after lunch. I want to go to Christopher and Banks and see if there are any bargains. I have not been able to find my good black slacks. The last time I wore them was in Springfield. I know I re-packed everything before we left but I have not been able to find those black slacks. So I may buy another pair. I really should just wear my old ones. I need to bake cookies this afternoon. I am out and Bob and I both have a couple every day.

It is cold this morning.  It was in the 30's when I got up. I turned up the furnace after I got up.  I slept well last night. I awoke once about 12:30 but finally got back to sleep until 5:30, when Missy came in and wanted me to get up.

More later....

I did meet the girls and Bobby for breakfast. Luckily we are having a light lunch of potato soup. I won't be too hungry after two breakfasts. I was glad to get to see Gretchen before she leaves on Saturday for Alabama.  

Here are a couple of photos of the group.

Left to right is Gretchen, Marilyn, Karan, Bobby with his hat on and me. The waitress took the photo.

This one shows Bobby with his hat off. Karan had him take it off. We had a nice breakfast and I was glad Bobby could come too.

I will set some ground beef down for the hamburger pie I will fix tomorrow. Then Saturday after our Sirloin Stockade breakfast, we will have our potato soup again for lunch.  We always eat out after church on Sundays.

More later....

Bob and I had our potato soup at lunchtime today with pistachio pudding for dessert. That was all I wanted. After he left I baked the peanut butter cookies. Then Missy and I went out on the carport for quite awhile. Jeannie came out of her apartment and joined us and we had a good visit of a couple of hours.

It's 3:30 now and in a couple of hours Bob will be back.  He comes over to watch the news on TV. He will probably have a cookie or two.

Wednesday and Great China

Today Bob and I will eat lunch at Great China. That's his idea and I'm fine with it. I cooked yesterday although it was just hamburger and french fries. Tomorrow we may just have potato soup. I will also be going to breakfast with the girls at 9:00...and Bobby. Karan won't leave him alone and I don't blame her under the circumstances.  She is calling in Hospice for him today. Gretchen is back and will join us there. Joyce left yesterday for California.

This afternoon at 2:00 I will go try to help Marilyn with her computer. Jack used it all the time but Jack is gone now.  She appears to have forgotten what she might have known about it earlier. Anyhow, I will give it my best effort.

Bob is coming over now for me to write a check for him. He has Lion's Club tomorrow morning.  He wants to pay his dues.

More later....

I have swept leaves off the carport twice already this morning and I can just imagine how much more there will be after a hard freeze. I have filled three grocery bags so far.

Bob went home and now I need to go get gas in my car. I am down to less than a quarter tank after meeting Leslie last evening.

So...once more...later..

We had a great lunch at Great China and then I went over to Marilyn's to try to help her with her computer.  I hope I helped. She has a different provider than mine and the set up looks different. However, once I explored it, I found it fairly familiar.

Now I am home and listening to the music on my TV. There is no mail today and probably no paper so I am just fooling with the computer. It is 4:00 now.

More even later....

  

Tuesday and Hair Day

I will go to Independence this morning for my hair appointment but I will take Sunflower Road rather then taking the gravel road detour.

Our congregation and the Living the Questions group are so concerned about both Karan and Bobby. The months ahead will be exhausting for Karan as well as Bobby. We will continue to pray for them. We know God will be right there with them through this journey. I took the Parmesan Chicken over to them last evening. I knew she would not feel up to cooking after such an exhausting day with such terrible news.

I slept fairly well last night.  I awoke at 2:00 and had some trouble getting back to sleep. Finally I resorted to counting my breaths and finally got to sleep.

Joyce leaves today for California to visit her son. Later she will go to South America to visit one of her foreign exchange students.  Her son is paying for her trip.  She will spend Christmas with that family.

Marilyn and I may go ahead and have our breakfast Thursday morning even though Joyce will be gone and Karan will probably not be able to join us.  We'll play it by ear.

Yesterday I got a letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. They are my Medicare supplement, They will be raising my premium the first of the year by $34.11. It usually just increases $11 every year.  I called to find out why that increased so much and they said it was a couple of factors. First...people in "my group" are using Medicare a lot more and second, Medicare is not paying as much of the doctor's bill so they are not making as much profit  being a Medicare supplement. Now, I generally go to the doctor twice a year just to get my thyroid tablets refilled. I seldom am sick and I don't go to the doctor just for something to do. After all, I have a life. So..I am penalized because people in "my group" are not as well as I am.  If I take the Part "G" option, it would only go up a few dollars but I would have to pay the deductible each year. This year the deductible was $144 but they won't know what it will be in 2016. Congress hasn't yet funded 2016.  When I find how much that deductible is, I may change to Part "G".  It's always something.  Getting old is not for sissys.

More later....

Leslie texted me this afternoon and asked me if I would like to go to Bartlesville with her. Of course, I would! So I met her at 3:30 at Tyro and we went to Bartlesville. She had her tires rotated and an oil change and we used their loaner to go to the mall and she had some exchanges to make.  She had forgotten her purse so I got to buy dinner.  We had a good time but I drove home from Tyro well after dark. Bob was still here doing laundry when I got home. he left and I took my bath and the regular routine followed. I went to bed at 10:00 after watching Frontline on PBS.

Monday and House Cleaning Day

I have stripped my bed and am also washing my towels. This is house cleaning day. As soon as I finish this I will start the floors in the bathroom and kitchen. It will take me a couple of hours to finish.

It is cold this morning. I have the furnace on. It's going to be a cold week. I wonder how Branson will be for Thanksgiving.  Bob and I have decided to go to Branson for Thanksgiving. Diana gave him a gift certificate for Branson for his birthday so he decided to use that.  Leslie is on call that weekend and so I had originally decided to have her and John and Bob and his daughter, Denise, and Dee come here for Thanksgiving but now we have decided to go to Branson instead. My apartment is just too small to accommodate Jeromy and his family too. So Leslie thought that was a good idea. They will just eat out for Thanksgiving.  I hope the weather will hold out that weekend.

Bobby and Karan have an appointment with the neurologist at 8:30 this morning to decide what the next step is for Bobby.  Then tomorrow they will meet with Dr. Gillis, their family doctor. I hope all that turns out with a hopeful outcome.

More later...

Well, the apartment is cleaned, mopped and dusted. It's only a little past 9:30 and I have the bed remade and the dryer clothing put away. I have got a lot finished today and it's still early.  About 10:45, I will start the Chicken Parmesan.  We are having that and a baked potato and veggies for lunch. I think Bob's salad is still good from Friday so I will put it out too. I have fruit and cookies for dessert.  Tomorrow, I will need to bake cookies again. We go through a lot of cookies. :)

I moved the hose reel around to the carport and unhooked it from the faucet.  Missy went out for a little and while I watered the flowers on the carport, she sneaked off. I found her on the east side of the apartment looking around. The carport is pretty cluttered now with my little storage cabinet, the flowers I usually have out in front of the apartment, two small chairs and now, the hose reel. As soon as we get a hard freeze, I will empty the flowers from their containers. Then I will move the empty containers back to the north side...the front.

Here's the mess I've made.

That bag hanging on the blower is my carport trash bag. I sweep the leaves up and put them in that and then I don't have to sweep the very same leaves over and over again. Right under it is my leftover bag of red mulch. After awhile I will re-mulch the flower bed with the lavender. 

I don't know what I will do after lunch.

Well lunch was ruined. Karan called with the worst possible bad news for Bobby. Bobby has a huge terribly aggressive GBM tumor. (Glioblastoma Multiforme brain tumor). The doctor still wants him to go to Tulsa to have the brain biopsy just to confirm his diagnoses but he is 99.5% sure of his conclusion.

He gives Bobby about three months to live.

Karan is devastated of course..as are all of us. What terrible news.

I was over today about 4:00 and took them some Chicken Parmesan.  And I also got a hug from Bobby.  Right now they are just overwhelmed. They have an appointment in Tulsa tomorrow afternoon to talk to a doctor about whether it would even be advisable to have the biopsy under the circumstances.  For one thing, if they have a needle biopsy and it leaks blood into the brain,  it would do more damage. If they open the skull they will encounter healthy brain tissue before they would reach the tumor and once again it would do more damage.

Sunday and Christmas Child Shoe Boxes

Today we dismissed regular church and had a video showing the latest deliveries of the shoe boxes to Equador. I took some photos of our group and their 57 boxes all ready to go.

This is Johnna and her granddaughter, Brinlee. Brinlee is 5 years old and such a sweet child.

This is the tables all loaded down with toys and items to include in the boxes.

We ate brunch at 10:00 and then afterward had a short worship service. Then we went into the all purpose room and filled the boxes. Johnna will take them to Independence sometime next week to leave them at the First Baptist Church there to be picked up.

Here at group of us were eating brunch. Bob's back is to the camera but you can see Johnna and Brinlee.

This is Bobby getting some food after he and Karan arrived. The rest of the group had already arrived and they came an hour later after Bobby had attended his own church first. He is a Methodist.

This is the table before we got it completely loaded. We ended up with 57. Then we took the first group photo.

Tonight we are going to Marilyn's home for our Living the Questions group meeting.  If I remember, I will take some more photos of that group.

More later....

Sure enough! I forgot to take photos at Living the Questions. We had a really good time there at Marilyn's house. She is such a gracious hostess. We had a good visit too.  She sent pie home with anyone who would take some. It was really good but I did not take any. Bob did and Bobby did too. Ramie, Mona and Richard's 15 year old, did too. He is such a nice boy. He has grown to 5' 10" tall. When we first met them and they began attending our classes, he was 5. We had met for several years before they joined the group.

I got home about 9:00 and took my bath and got ready for bed.  I am really tired this evening.