Nov 8th - Happy Birthday Doug

Today is our oldest son's birthday. He is 46 today.

We are still in St. Louis. They are talking about the possibility of Kathy being released tomorrow, but I hope they wait until Sunday. Actually I thought it wouldn't be until Monday. She is doing well. I'm not sure how many laps she made around the floor today. I was with her for 3 of them and I wasn't here when the physical therapist had her walking and stepping up and down on a step this morning.

Yesterday was the first they allowed her to have even water/tea by mouth. This evening she is to "feast" on cream of chicken soup and sherbet. If all goes well she will get some solid food tomorrow.

Later this evening her IV's come out and she will take pain meds orally. (She hasn't been taking a lot of them. She controls the morphine and I don't think she has hit it for some time. They have given her some type of Acetaminophen/Ibuprofen through the IV, she likes it. It must be some type of time delay stuff because they dump the entire little bottle of it into the IV stream in just a few minutes and then she doesn't get the next bottle for at least 6 hours.

Kelsey & Lydia came for a visit Wednesday afternoon and stayed overnight. We waited until the cafeteria in this unit closed so we had to walk the half mile over to the main cafeteria. The walk consists of going through many enclosed walkways between buildings. Lydia thought they were just great.

One of the buildings that we went through has glass walls that slope outward. We were on the 2nd or 3rd floor level when we passed through it. Lydia is looking down at a lighted courtyard with people walking through it.

The device hanging off the end of the bed is a small pump that inflates and deflates "wraps" on Kathy's lower legs. They had it off during the day and Lydia was fascinated by the hoses. She just knew they had to connect somewhere and was going to work with them until she got them plugged into something. Kelsey is helping her attach the hoses to the wraps.

Thanks for your prayers, and thank you Lord for answering them.

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 3rd - Been Awhile

All is well here in Missouri, we have not dropped of the face of the earth.

The weather remains beautiful. We received 2.4" of much needed rain over a couple of days last week. It came down slow and there was no run-off. Our pond is 3' from being full. I doubt that another 2-3" (far more than is being forecast) would come close to filling it up.

The leaves are turning and they are absolutely beautiful. I had not expected to see nearly as much red as we have. Last year was much dryer than this year and I don't remember there being much color. This morning in our Sunday School all the old geezers were commenting that this was one of the most colorful falls that any could remember. (Maybe because we are old geezers we just can't remember <grin>. There might be three other people in the class who are younger than Kathy and I.)

I received my hearing aids last week. Kathy tells me I can hear better, but so far I'm not sure I can hear $3,700 better ($2,500 for the hearing aid in my "good" ear and $1,200 for the microphone/sending unit in my deaf ear.) Actually the hearing aid that I am wearing is the $3,300 model. My new $2,500 unit did not work right out of the box, so they loaned me their demo unit to use until mine came back. I will wear it for 2 weeks and then go in and get the one I ordered and try it for 2 weeks. At the end of that time I can give them back and it will only cost $200 for a re-stocking charge. I could also decide to upgrade to the more expensive unit if I can tell a difference. Wind noise cancellation is supposed to be one of the advantages of the more expensive unit. So far I haven't noticed any wind noise. Either it works well, or I just am not bothered by the noise. They are unbelievably comfortable. I can't tell I am wearing them unless I touch them. That is kind of scary because I'm not sure I would know if I somehow lost one.

The Pastor has been sick for the past 2 weeks. He is expected to be back next Sunday. We missed getting to hear the man who leads our Sunday School class preach last Sunday. We left early because Kathy wasn't feeling well. Today one of the other guys in our class had the message. He did a really good job.

Tomorrow we will stay overnight in St Louis. Kathy is supposed to be at Barnes hospital at 6 AM for her hernia surgery. They have told us that the surgery will take a long time and that we should expect her to be in the hospital for a week. I've reserved a room at a hotel near the hospital and plan on staying there until she comes home.

I've been whittling away at a big old dead oak tree that I cut down last week. The trunk would make a 22' long, 21" diameter log. After that it branches into 2 - 18" diameter branches. I've gotten the small branches mostly cleaned up (still have to drag a few over to a burn pile) and have the 18" limbs cut up. I've split everything I've cut so far, by hand. It splits pretty good. Tom got me straightened out with the wiring on my log splitter and I've had it started but it still isn't running right. I've ordered a new, badly needed, air filter. It is supposed to arrive this week. After I get it on I will see if I can get the engine running more smooth.

Yesterday I mowed the lawn for what I hope is the last time this season. I may need to run over the lawn again just to chop up all the leaves. We have a LOT of leaves.


Lydia loves to come out and help me, no matter what I am doing. Below is a photo of her trying out a cupcake Kelsey made.

I hope you all had a great week. I/we would appreciate your prayers for Kathy, and her Doctors, over the next week. May God bless you and yours.

Oct 20th - Sunday

Not a lot happening here today. Kathy is still trying to get over her cough. She didn't even go to church today. Now I think maybe I'm getting it. No coughing, just a stuffed up head.

The weather is still beautiful. I've been cutting a little wood, nothing major. I still haven't fired up my log splitter. I've been splitting some wood by hand, need the exercise.

I replaced the fuel line and the fuel filter on the splitter. I also removed the battery and have it in the shed charging. I still need to buy some oil so that I can change the oil.

Dean takes his car to a VW place in Columbia tomorrow morning. Hopefully they can find the problem and get it fixed. It has been fun having him around for a few days (maybe not that fun for him since I'm sure he would like to get home)

We had pizza for supper tonight. After supper an angel apparently slipped into the bathroom and experimented.

It probably was a good thing that the TP was near the end of the roll. I think when it hit the end of the roll the end she was pulling on broke off, so she went on to other things that were more interesting. In the photo she had just been telling me she wanted in the refrigerator. I had said no so she was on her way somewhere else.

She is such a joy to have around.

I hope you all had a good day. May God bless you and yours.

Oct 15th - Got Some Rain Last Night

It rained on and off during most of the night. We got a little over four tenths of an inch. It came slow enough so that none of it ran off. We still need a lot more.

Kathy has been singing with a "senior" choir at one of the large Baptist churches in Jefferson City. They mostly go to nursing homes. Yesterday they came to our church in Centertown. There are a LOT of them. The also have a quite a few members who play a variety of instruments. I was able to watch part of their performance and they are good. I had to leave early for a Doctor's appointment to follow up on getting some type of hearing aids.

My Doctor's appointment was part of my decision making to determine if I want to get either a Bi-Cross system or possibly a BAHA system. With the Bi-Cross system you wear a transmitter in your bad ear and a receiver/hearing aid in your good ear. The transmitter picks up sound on your bad side and transmits it, via Bluetooth, to the receiver/hearing aid in your good ear. It is supposed to dramatically improve your ability to hear in crowded places like restaurants.

The BAHA system is a "bone anchored hearing aid". They screw a stud into your skull, behind your bad ear. You clip a small receiver on the stud and it converts sound to a vibration that your skull transmits to your good ear. It is a remarkable system! The Doctor had me wear one of the receivers while I was in her office. She used an elastic band to hold it against the side of my head. Almost our entire appointment was conducted while I kept my good ear plugged so that I could only "hear" the "sound" transmitted through my skull. I could hear her with no problems. With this system I would still wear a conventional hearing aid in my "good" ear, since it isn't all that great.

Insurance won't cover any of the cost of hearing aids but will supposedly cover most of the cost ($10,000) of having the stud installed. (Isn't the cost ridiculous. As I understand it they only use a local anesthetic and don't even admit you to a hospital. The little stud looks like a stud/snap on a western shirt.) I'm still investigating.

Lydia came up this morning, after Andy left for work, so that Kelsey could get some extra sleep. We had a good morning and then took a nice nap. We went in and both of us laid down on our bed until she went to sleep. A little angel.

While she was taking a nap I split some wood by hand, I needed the exercise. In the afternoon my helper came out. We took a bucket full of wood from out back and stacked it by the wood boiler. Then we drove the tractor up to the road and got the trash can, newspaper and mail. After that we did some swinging and then had a nice afternoon nap, well one of us did.

The weather was cool today. I don't think it got much above 60. It is supposed to get down into the 40's tonight.

I hope all of you had as good a day as I did. May God bless you and yours.

Oct 14th - Back Home Again

We left Friday morning and headed east. Over 1,300 miles in 3 days and we arrived back home yesterday evening. Lydia went along with us. She is a really good traveler.

We stayed overnight with Doug & Anthony on Friday and Saturday. Saturday we drove to Ohio, had lunch with family members at Ed & Cindy's and then attended Mallory's (Nancy's granddaughter) wedding and reception.

Doing some exploring at Aunt Cindy's. Now where did that pesky cat get to?

Found it with Aunt Cindy's help.

Stretching legs and doing a little mountain climbing after having lunch on our way back home.

I managed to pull a really stupid stunt early last week. I was going to cut some more wood but when I started my chain saw it only ran a few seconds and then quit. I thought I flooded it and after pulling the spark plug and drying it out I still couldn't start the saw, even though the plug did have spark. Finally after a couple of more days of occasionally trying to start it I took it over to the local hardware start (where I bought my magnum weed eater). The called me about an hour later and told me that the saw doesn't run well with chain oil in the gas tank and gas in the chain oiler. How embarrassing! I really like the guys at the hardware store, and there prices are very reasonable. I had them sharpen two chains when the saw was there and they installed new spark plug. Total cost was $44.

The weather here has been great, but dry. It is now harvest time and I suspect farmers would rather not have any rain for the next month, but we sure could use some. It isn't nearly as dry as it was last year, so that is a blessing.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. May God bless you and yours.

PS. I hope the government stays "shut down" until We the People get a federal budget passed by both Houses Congress and signed by the President. The President and Congress have MISERABLY FAILED  to provide us with a budget for years. Probably they afraid that we might have a better understanding of how badly we are being screwed by the massive increases in federal spending. Sequestration did NOT cut overall federal spending, it only cut the growth of overall federal spending. If per capita spending was the same as it was when Clinton was spending we would have a budget surplus this year.

Oct 8th - Another Beautiful Day

Today was another awesome fall day.

Lydia and I had a hard day <grin>. First thing in the morning we went varoom varoom (drove the car up to the road, got the newspaper and hooked the empty trash can on the car to bring it back to the house. (It is pretty cool the way the trash can hooks to a hitch ball so that it can be towed up to the road and back.)

After that I did a great job of flooding the chain saw and couldn't get it started, even after pulling the plug, drying it off and reinstalling it. Hopefully it will start in the morning.

We got the tractor (more of Lydia's varoom varoom) and hooked up the log splitter so that I could tow it out back. I've had in in front of the shed to do some work on it. I'm waiting for some Permatex material that is supposed to be good for making an exhaust flange gasket. I still need to pick up some gas line hose and replace a section of it.

I'm sure we did some other things in the morning, just can't remember what.
Below we are coming back to the house after our hard mornings work.

After lunch we vacuumed the motor home. I got on the roof and swept off the slides before pulling them in. I also water in the house batteries. Kathy and Lydia drove the motor home (Lydia was strapped into the passenger seat) and I directed, so that we could back it away from the shed. We put it out back and dumped the tanks (almost all gray water) through a 100' hose I have running out into the woods. We also ran the generator to "exercise" it.

I needed the motor home moved so that I can cut down a dead tree next to the shed. The tree might fall where the motor home was parked, or it might fall partially on the shed. (It is not all that large a tree) I have a big rope (safe working load 1,200#) tied in the tree, up about 12' off the ground. I'm going to put a come-along on it and attach the other end to another tree, in hopes of getting it to fall where I want it to.

Kathy had a dental appointment in California in the morning. She learned that she has an infected tooth. Mid-afternoon she went to Jefferson City to get a prescription filled for an antibiotic. While she went to Jeff Lydia and I had snacks out on the deck. It took a little persuading but she sat on my lap until she went to sleep for an afternoon nap.

Tonights low is supposed to be 47 and then it warms up a little. The good news is that for the next 10 days there is only one day with a high forecast in the 80's, while there are four with forecast highs in the 60's. I like the cooler weather.

I hope you all had as good a day as I did. I am so blessed! May God bless you and yours.

Oct 7th - Cool

It got down into the high 40's last night and is supposed to do the same tonight. The weather yesterday and today was absolutely beautiful.

The church voted unanimously to have our interim Pastor become our full time Pastor, a move Kathy & I are happy about. He and his wife will be a great asset.

I split a little wood by hand this morning. I am getting a little better at it. I sure had lost most of whatever skills I had.

After lunch Lydia and I took a lawn mower ride around the property. We got to watch a turtle high tail it away from the noise of the mower. Turtles can move surprisingly fast when they want to. After that we fed the fish. It was early but today she was going to stay at David and Elaines.

Kathy had choir practice, in Jefferson City, this morning. In the afternoon she had a physical therapy session.

This afternoon I sprayer for bugs and took a long nap. I was good at taking a nap, but I will continue practicing.

Lydia loves watching Wheel of Fortune.

I hope you all had a wonderful day. May God bless you and yours.