Always Expect The Unexpected…

You know, just when things settle down, and you think it’ll be smooth sailing ahead, something happens and those storm clouds of life start brewing again.  It’s a never ending cycle.

Last Tuesday I met with an ophthalmologist to be evaluated for cataract surgery on my left eye. The sight in that eye has been declining for several months, and when I went for my annual eye exam, in November, the optometrist told me she thought I might be a candidate for cataract surgery. The first available appointment with the ophthalmologist was on January 10, so I patiently waited for that day to arrive.

On January 10, I had several tests performed, then sat in a room to wait while my eyes dilated.  The doctor finally came in, asked me a few questions, then sat down on a stool in front of me to examine my eyes.  He looked me, straight in the eyes and asked, “How long have you had that sty on your left eye?”  I was surprised, and answered, “I didn’t realize I have a sty on my left eye.”  I told him I’d had a sty [on my left eye] a few months back,  but had treated it, and it went away.  At least I thought it had.

The doctor proceeded to tell me the cataract is not the problem with the vision in my left eye, because the size of the cataracts is the same in both eyes (and I can see out of my right eye).  However, he didn’t tell me what my problem is!  Instead, he prescribed some drops for my affected eye, and asked me to come to his office in two weeks to have a retinal scan done, to see what’s going on.  So I’m using the drops and trying to patiently wait…again.

After I left the doctor’s office, I touched my eyelid, and discovered, for the first time, the lump in the middle of my eye lid.  I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before, but, then, I never touch my eyelids except with a washcloth or a make up sponge.  But then, the optometrist apparently over-looked it, too, so I don’t feel so bad.

I’ve been using the eye drops for almost a week, but, so far, I can’t tell any difference in the size of the bump on my eyelid.  If anything, my eyesight seems to have gotten worse in my left eye.  I hope to find out what the problem is, in about another week, and I’m praying something can be done to restore the vision to my left eye. I haven’t driven in several weeks, nor do I spend a lot of time trying to read. The saying’s true, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…

In other “unexpected” news, on Thursday morning, I bent down to get a bowl of chicken feed out of the sack, just like I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, when, suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back.  I knew, immediately, I’d hurt my back again.  Sigh.  I try to be mindful of what I do, but sometimes things just happen–usually when I least expect it.  I hope my back will settle down on its own, like last time, but, for now, my old friend “sciatica” is back.

Today also happens to be the day Ed and I meet with the doctor to discuss the “results” from the test he had performed two weeks ago.  We’re hoping for the best, but bracing ourselves for the worst.  Life is never dull, especially at this stage of it.

So there you have it.  Our lives, at the present time, in a nutshell.  Of course, I’m reminded, things could always be worse.  As we arrived at church, yesterday morning, I witnessed an older lady painfully struggling to make her way up the steps.  It turns out, she, too, has a ‘bad back’ and is suffering from sciatica, but in a much worse form than mine.  I silently thanked God for the gentle reminder, and praised Him that things are as well [with us] as they are.

Happy Monday,

The Monday After…

Yes, it’s the beginning of another new week, and the Monday after?  Well, actually it’s the Monday after a lot of things.

It’s the Monday after mine and Ed’s brief trip to Florida.  We had a great time visiting with family and friends, but, apparently, the trip almost “did both of us in”, afterward.  Both of us spent most of last week resting on the couch and in the recliner!

Actually, Ed had been sick for a couple of weeks, when we left.  He’d been battling head/chest congestion, and had finally given in and gone to the doctor a few days before our trip.  It’s been exactly three weeks, since Ed caught his “cold”, and he’s still not rid of the mess!

In fact, Ed gave me quite a scare, on Thursday night, when he coughed, turned bright red, and grabbed his head. (His previous heart attack began with a cough)  I asked if he was okay, and he said his neck/head hurt.  He got up, took his shower, and promptly went to bed.  A short while later, I heard him in the bathroom violently throwing up.  I thought, for sure, we were on our way to the emergency room again!  He said he was okay, but we both spent a long, restless night, wondering what was going to happen next.  He never threw up again, but he was pale and weak for two days afterward.  Neither of us has a clue what happened.

Then I came down with a case of sinus congestion, and started taking Sudafed right before our trip, which apparently caused my blood pressure to drop, on the way home from our trip.  I started feeling bad on the way home, but didn’t figure out the problem for a couple of days.  I just knew I felt weak, “faint”, and had shortness of breath.  After taking my blood pressure, and discovering that it was low, I put the pieces of the puzzle together and stopped taking the Sudafed.  My blood pressure slowly began to rise.  Add to that, excessive joint and back stiffness, from riding so much in such a short period of time, and I was down [on the couch] for the count!

Meanwhile, during our “down and out session”, it began to rain here.  It rained over six inches in twenty-four hours!  Our house was literally surrounded by water when we woke up on Thursday morning.  We had to wear rain boots to even go outside!  The road leading up to our house was underwater.  It was crazy!  Finally, after lunch, on Thursday, Ed was able to get outside long enough to “ditch” some of the water away from the road and our yard.  Then we got another inch of rain on Saturday!

rain, rain go a way…

Whenever we get excessive rain, in a short period of time, our well water gets “muddy”.  So, for now, we can’t drink the water or wash clothes.  Well, I suppose we could drink it or wash clothes in it, but who would want to, when the water in the faucet is brown???  I can barely stand the thoughts of taking a shower in the murky stuff, but there’s no choice.  Sigh.

In addition to the excessive water outside, some of us had “excessive water problems” inside!  The roof on our daughter’s house sprang a leak…in her daughter’s bedroom!  What a mess!  This isn’t the first leak they’ve had–and they just had their house re-roofed back in 2009! They’re trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

Unfortunately, Ed and I ‘sprang [another] a leak’, too, just inside the living room door.  It wasn’t our first leak either.  We battle leaks on a regular basis, thanks to Ed’s inexperience at putting on a tin roof, several years ago…  For now, we have a mixing bowl [in our attic] underneath the  leak, until Ed can take care of our latest problem. I hope it doesn’t involve a trip on top of the house, again.

We ended the week with a family Super Bowl pajama party at our daughter’s house, last night.  She’d planned to have everybody over, then ended up not feeling well, on Sunday.  She spent most of her day on the couch, while her husband made the soup for the party.  At the last-minute, she texted everybody to wear their pajamas because… well, she just didn’t feel like getting dressed, and didn’t want to feel out of place.  Almost everybody wore their p.j.’s, and it was fun!  This could be the start of a new tradition!

We watched most of the Superbowl game, but may have gotten distracted a time or two, catching up with each other’s week.  Our youngest son had a near encounter with a tornado, on his way home from work.  He saw the tornado, on Ft. Stewart, but, only from a distance, thank goodness.  The storm hit the nearby army base around 5 p.m.  Fortunately, nobody was injured in the tornado, but there was a lot of damage to trees, cars, and homes.  Around 40/50 people were actually displaced from their homes.

tornado hit nearby Ft. Stewart, GA, this week

Meanwhile our son-in-law experienced”the day from hell” during his Saturday shopping trip, in preparation for the Superbowl party. (Think lots of spilled/dropped things, along with accidentally pushing the car’s “panic” button twice)  Both of those stories trumped anything we saw during the game…well, with the exception of a couple of funny Doritos commercials and one very funny Hyundai commercial, shown below.

Our daughter swears her husband will be like the daddy in this commercial.  She’s probably right.

Today, the sun is shinning, Ed and I are feeling better, and it’s shaping up to be a better week–we hope.  As for our plans, I think we’ll take our forms to the tax man.  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Happy Monday!

Miscellaneous Monday…

Hopefully, this week will be a little less eventful than last week.  I began last week by having to be at the doctor’s office at the crack of dawn, to have blood drawn.  That’s never a great way to begin a new week, and the rest of the week seemed to go downhill from there…

On Monday night, our youngest grandson, Evan, came down with the stomach virus.  Ed and I were supposed to go over, on Tuesday evening, and take Evan and his daddy some supper, because Jennifer was working late.  Needless to say, we changed our plans.

Next, we found out that our daughter-in-law, (and neighbor) Christina, had come down with the virus, as well.  A couple of days later, Evan’s daddy and Christina’s husband came down with the virus, too.  With all of the virus germs spreading around, we decided to postpone Ed’s birthday party for a while.

On Thursday, I had an appointment with a dermatologist, whom I’d been referred to by my primary care physician, concerning a scaly patch on the bridge of my nose.  My doctor told me the dermatologist would probably freeze my nose or give me some kind of cream for it.  My appointment was at 9:30 in the morning, and we live over forty-five minutes away.  What was I thinking to have accepted such an early appointment?  For sure, it wasn’t about having to get up at the crack of dawn again!

The dermatologist took one look at the scaly patch on the bridge of my nose, and told me it was pre-cancerous, and would need to be frozen. She also noticed a tiny growth in the crevice of my nose, about the size of a pimple, and asked me how long it had been there.  I told her I didn’t know.  She told me she would need to do a biopsy of that, as well as a small spot just below the base of my neck that I’d shown her. This visit was turning into a bit more of an ordeal than I had planned.

Can I tell you how bad it feels to get a shot in the crevice of your nose?!  Can I also tell you how badly it feels to have someone freeze your nose with spray?  The shot at the base of my neck hurt, too, but was a piece of cake compared to the face!  When I left the office, my nose felt like it was on fire, literally!  (Ed explained that freezing is a burning process, it just uses cold instead of heat.)  The day after the process, my face looked like I’d been punched in the nose!  Four days later, it still looks that way.  My eyes are swollen, and my  nose keeps oozing this gross, clear stuff out from under the huge scab that’s forming…  Now I know why the doctor asked if I had any important plans immediately coming up before she froze my nose!  Now, I have to wait for the results of those biopsies.  I’d appreciate prayers that my biopsy reports come back good.

Ed’s 66th birthday quietly came and went…on Friday the 13th!  The only bad luck we had was having to postpone his party with family because of the stomach virus.  I cancelled the order for a large birthday cake, and opted to make him a small German Chocolate cake, instead.  I bought some six-inch cake pans to make a cake that was just big enough to make about eight slices, because German Chocolate cake isn’t listed on a “heart healthy” diet, but– a man should celebrate his birthday with his favorite cake!

If all goes well, our family will be celebrating Ed’s birthday, together, a week later than we originally planned.  It’ll be a good excuse to eat cake again 🙂

Ed’s been a little more tired than usual, lately. I’m hoping it’s just his body getting used to all of his new medications.  Those blood pressure pills really seem to zap his energy because he feels fine until he takes those.  Some mornings he takes a mid-morning nap, and that’s fine with me. Lord knows, I’ve had plenty of those kind of days, too.  I hope his tiredness will eventually pass, and his energy will return.

Our weather was cold on Friday and Saturday nights, and I liked it!  In fact, we actually had our first frost on Saturday night.  The cold weather is supposed to be short-lived, however, with temperatures back up near 80 by mid-week.  It was nice while it lasted.  Unfortunately, the mosquitoes will be back out in force, again.

These days I’m keeping a food journal of what Ed and I eat for each meal.  This helps me keep track of what we’re eating, and helps me decide what to cook (or what not to cook).  Ed’s only allowed 3 eggs per week on his diet.  I guess it’s a good thing the daylight hours are short, and our hens have begun molting, so egg production is down!  Our 9 hens have laid almost 1700 eggs since January of this year!  “Our girls” have earned a well-deserved rest!  (FYI: We didn’t eat all of those eggs, we shared with friends and family.)

It’s shaping up to be a busy week around the house.  I’m going to get a head start on my Thanksgiving cooking, and put it in the freezer.  So many delicious dishes, and none of them are really “heart healthy”–but Ed has the hospital dietitian’s permission to enjoy Thanksgiving–in moderation 🙂  Which reminds me, since I’ve joined Ed on his diet (which is really supposed to be my diet, too) I’ve begun to lose the weight I gained while I was laid up with a bad back all summer. Hooray for that!  Ed’s weight, however, has stayed the same.  Hooray for that, too, since he’s already thin.

Have a great Monday!

 

A Little Of This-N-That On Monday…

Life goes on, as usual, here in our ‘neck of the woods’.  Life, last week, was relatively uneventful, except for that out-of-control truck taking out all of our mailboxes, on Monday.

On Tuesday, Ed, our daughter, and our granddaughter went to a local farm and picked some peaches, while  I stayed home.  (I love putting peaches in the freezer, then making peach cobbler with them during the winter.)  It had been several years since we’ve picked any peaches, and the price has gone up.  This little basket of peaches cost $22.00, so those peach cobblers better be delicious!

After the mailbox incident, on Monday, Ed made a couple more calls about getting our boxes moved.  The post master continues to give us “the run around”, but hasn’t told us “No”, yet.  We’ll see if anything else comes of  it before we give up.  There have been two wrecks within two years, near where our mailboxes are.

You know, a funny thing happened when some of us went to replace our mailboxes.  Our son and his wife were ‘on the ball’, and replaced their mailbox the day after the accident. The rest of us drug our feet a bit.

Ed and I went to Lowe’s to buy ours, on Wednesday, without saying anything to anyone.  When we got to Lowe’s, we discovered they no longer sell the kind of mailbox we previously had.  This made the simple chore of choosing a new box just a bit more difficult.

The following day, our daughter went to Lowe’s to buy their mailbox, without knowing that Ed and I had already bought ours.  When she arrived home, she discovered she’d bought the exact same mailbox and post that we’d bought the day before!  Even the little sign to hold the address numbers was the same!  What were the chances of that, considering the mailboxes we both chose were “Venetian Bronze” in color?!

As of Saturday, all three of us have our new mailboxes back in place.  Now, if we can just get the mailman to deliver our missing mail.  After three days of no mail, all we got was two envelopes, on Friday–and no weekly newspaper!

Ed and I decided to mix a little pleasure with business on the day we bought our new mailbox.  We drove to the Lowe’s in Brunswick, then made a side trip to St. Simon’s Island for lunch and a couple of hours of relaxation.

While Ed and I ate our lunch, on St. Simon’s Island, we watched a young lad climb one of the massive oak trees we were dining under.  He carried a couple of backpacks and some rope with him as he climbed higher and higher.  We watched, with interest, as he unpacked a hammock, tied it up in the branches of the tree, then hopped into the hammock and began relaxing!  Ed took a picture.

I couldn’t even relax and enjoy my lunch because I was afraid the boy was going to fall the entire time!  He didn’t. After an hour or so, the boy climbed out, took the hammock down, packed everything back up and rode away on his bicycle!

The rest of our week wasn’t nearly as exciting as watching the boy in the tree, but I’m sort of glad.  We shopped a bit, canned peaches, mowed our grass, and got caught up with our family.  Normal and unexciting is good.

This week won’t be ‘normal’, at least not for me.  Tomorrow is my ‘long awaited’ appointment with the neurologist.  My stomach is in knots today.  I’m both relieved and terrified that the day is finally about to arrive.  I have no idea what to expect, other than opening up our checkbook…  That much I know for sure!  I’d sure appreciate any and all prayers concerning that doctor visit and the healing of my back.

My back is aching, my hair needs washing, and the floor needs vacuuming.  I guess that means it’s time to get out of this chair and get busy.  Let the day begin…

Happy Monday!

 

 

 

Miscellaneous Monday…

I’m posting this early because company is coming to town this (Sunday) evening.  My brother and his wife are coming in from Florida for a little visit, and I’m sure we’ll be too busy catching up with each other tomorrow for me to blog.  It will be our first visit with everyone retired!  In the past, poor Ed always had to go to work.  My brother and sister-in-law have been retired for over seven years, as have I.

I’m happy to be able to report that “the third time was the charm”, regarding my sore tooth!  On Friday, the dentist popped the temporary crown off and reworked it twice before I could bite down without feeling pain!  I was a little apprehensive when he said he was going to try working on the tooth without the use of anesthesia, but, thankfully, it didn’t hurt.   I left the dentist’s office feeling like a  new person:)

Our weekend weather was absolutely gorgeous!  It was sunny and the highs reached near 70 degrees both days.  Ed and I took full advantage of Saturday afternoon’s beautiful weather, by working in the yard.  Ed trimmed our crepe myrtle bushes (trees?), while I picked up and burned some limbs that had fallen in the yard during our last storm.

Before we spent the afternoon in the yard, Ed and I did a little Saturday morning shopping.  In addition to our weekly grocery shopping, we hit a sale at Tractor Supply, and came home with the PT Cruiser fully loaded!  It always amazes me how much stuff we can pack inside of that little car!  We had a 50 lb. bag of chicken feed, a 10 lb. bag of layer pellets, a medium bag of dried worms (for the hens), two 16 lb. bags of dry cat food, 40 cans of cat food, a large bag of wood chips (for the chicken run), plus our groceries!  Needless to say, our ‘people food’ took up much less space than our ‘pet food’  and accessories did.

Several people left helpful hints, in Friday’s comments, regarding how to get off HRT painlessly.  Thanks to all, for the helpful advice, I’ll definitely give those suggestions a try!  I am really looking forward to the day when I’ll have one less prescription to fill, and one less capsule to swallow!

On Friday, Ed successfully got his Social Security paper work filled out, regarding the date when our insurance benefits [from the hospital] will end.  The office staff still seemed unsure of exactly when our insurance benefits are going to end, so Ed told them to terminate our benefits on March 31, and he got that in writing.  Now we’re free to see about getting follow-up insurance coverage that will begin on April 1!  I feel like we’re finally moving forward.

I’m looking forward to week #4 of retirement, this week!  It’s time to plant some garden seeds in cups, and I’m looking forward to having something growing again.  I’m planning to start some lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and pepper seedlings in paper cups, then transplant them into the garden in April.  It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I guess we’ll see if Ed’s most recent patching job on the roof worked, too!

That’s about all I have to write about today.  Enjoy your Monday!  I’ll be around to visit as soon as I can!

This-N-That On Monday…

Another weekend has quickly come and gone.  It was a cloudy, dreary one, but at least it wasn’t hot!  Believe it or not, we haven’t seen the sun, in our neck of the woods, in almost a week, but it hasn’t bothered me since the temperatures have been mild.

Baby, the cat, survived her spaying surgery, and was back at home late Friday afternoon.  Baby didn’t look so good when I picked her up, but she was fine by Saturday afternoon.  She spent Friday night in the laundry room, again, but went back outside the following day.  I’m so glad the surgery is behind us, and so thankful for the ‘glue’ they use, these days, instead of stitches!

Ed got a little work done on the chicken coop, but not much.  It took us a while to decide how we were going to build it, and, by the time we figured all of that out, we had to quit.

You see, Ed and I were scheduled to keep our two oldest grandsons, on Saturday, while their parents attended a wedding.  Of course, there wasn’t much ‘keeping’ to it.  Chase took a nap, while Caden and our granddaughter, Madison, who lives next-door, watched ‘Super Mario World’ videos on YouTube! Eventually, Chase woke up, they all played with each other, ate supper with us, then went home.

Speaking of grandsons, this weekend,  I saw a video post, on Facebook, of our grandson, Evan, taking!  He said, “Da da. Da.  Bye bye Brad.”–just as plain as day, and I almost fell off the couch when I heard it! Evan’s not even eleven months old, yet!  Both of Evan’s parents like to talk,  so I guess he is destined to be a ‘talker’, too.   It’s times like these when I’m most thankful for social media, and the fact that Jennifer keeps her iPhone handy 🙂

Much of our town spent this weekend mourning the loss of three of its citizens.  Two members of one family died, in separate incidents, on Thursday, while a third, unrelated person, passed away Sunday morning. The first lady passed away from a fatal blood clot, following recent shoulder surgery, while an elderly, gentleman relative passed away from causes unknown.  A young high school teacher died of complications from Schleroderma (an autoimmune disease), yesterday morning. I didn’t personally know any of the deceased, but know some of their family members.

In other news, Ed had to add another cardboard box onto the ‘chick condo’, this weekend!  These chicks are growing like wildfire!  They’ve quadrupled in size, with no end in sight!  We now have three large boxes hooked together, and could actually use a fourth, but we’re out of space.

The chicks are three weeks old, today, which means it’s time to lower the temperature in their ‘chick condo’ by five degrees (to 80 degrees).  I had to switch to a smaller wattage of bulb, but only had yellow bulbs in 60 watts, instead of the usual red ones I’ve been using.  What all of this means is, last night was another sleepless night!  Since the yellow bulbs are brighter than red ones, the chicks thought they were supposed to stay awake all night!  There’s nothing quite like listening to chicks pecking and scratching all night…  I wonder if they are feeling as tired as I am!

I’m happy to say, the pears are almost gone!  We’ve picked up literally thousands of pears over the past month or so, and I’m ready to be done with them!  We gave away pears to anyone who would take them, but we threw away more than we could give away.  I made pear cobbler and pear tarts, and I put pears in the freezer.  I’m tired of pears!  It was the same way with grapes, this year.  We couldn’t pick or use them all.  I’ve fed grapes to ‘the girls’ (my hens) until they’re sick of them!

Before I go, I just have to say…  Just when I think this world can’t get any crazier, it does!  On Saturday, I looked on Yahoo and noticed the #1 trending topic was…are you ready for this?…Vagina Cookies!  Of course, being the curious sort, I had to click on the topic to see what the story was.  According to the story, some mother, thought it was a good idea to make and decorate cookies resembling  vaginas, then sent them to school for her child’s second grade class to have for a Friday snack!  Oh my word!  Of course, the teacher told the mother she couldn’t serve this inappropriate snack, then the mother got mad, ranted and raved, and even demanded that her child be removed from this teacher’s classroom!  In the end, the story said, out of desperation, the teacher scraped the decorative frosting off of the cookies and served them anyway…  If this story is true, I’m at a loss for words, except to say, What is this world coming to?

That’s it for me, this cloudy Monday!  I need to get up and get moving.  It’s already time to redecorate the ‘year round tree’ for Halloween, and get ready to celebrate my daughter’s birthday on Wednesday!  Where oh where did the month of September go???

 

 

It’s Monday Again…

It’s been a few days since I last blogged.  I always have good intentions, but life keeps getting in the way.  I’m not complaining, mind you, just sayin’…  I’ll do my best to get caught up, this week, and visit all of my blog friends!

On Friday morning I tagged along, on a shopping trip, with my daughter and granddaughter.  It had been a while since we’d been off together and it was nice.  (I really enjoyed getting out of the house for a while, too!)  With the exception of Ed, there’s nobody I’d rather spend a day with than my two girls.

Ed and I kicked off the weekend by having a cookout at our house, on Friday night.  We used to grill a lot, to kick off the weekends, but, these days, not so much.  Anyway, it was nice to have [almost] everyone join us for bar-b-que chicken.  It was a good way to end the week, even though we missed having Brad and his family with us.

You may recall, I mentioned the Jesup fire, on my blog, a couple of weeks ago.  One of the historical buildings, destroyed by fire, housed a thrift shop which raised money to help battered women. Another store owner (not affected by the fire) offered use of their vacant building to house the thrift shop, so our newspaper mentioned the shop was in need of donations to get the thrift store stocked.  On Friday night, we all decided to send some donations with daughter-in-law, Christina, who happened to be going to Jesup the next day.  I spent most of Saturday morning, sorting through ‘stuff’, and between our three families, I think Christina’s car was pretty full when she left for Jesup!

On Saturday, Ed spent most of the afternoon painting the floor of the new front porch.  It was very hot and miserable outside, but Ed stuck with it and finished shortly before suppertime.  I’m afraid I wasn’t much help with the painting, since the oppressive heat kept me indoors until late afternoon.  (I’m sure I’ll get the chance to paint some, since we still have two more porches in need of a fresh coat of paint!)

Ed and I traveled to Jesup, on Sunday, where we ate a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Sybil’s. Sybil’s has a fantastic Sunday buffet, so we both came home feeling stuffed!   From our house, Jesup is about halfway to St. Simon’s Island, so it felt strange to stop in Jesup and not travel on to the beach. We’ll be going back to the island within a few more days, so I consoled myself with that thought!

Brad, Jennifer, and Evan stopped by our house for a visit, late Sunday afternoon.  They were heading back to their house after a birthday celebration with Jennifer’s family.  I couldn’t believe how much Evan had grown and changed since their last visit!  The boy’s growing like a weed!

On Sunday night, after church, the rest of the family came over to visit with Brad and Jennifer, too.  It had been a few weeks since everyone had been together, so there was a lot of talking going on!  The four cousins seemed to enjoy each other’s company, as well, and they played around the house.  I loved how Evan joined up with his older cousins to play!  It was the first time I’ve seen this happen.

Everyone had such a good time, before we knew it, it was almost bedtime!  Everyone reluctantly said their goodbyes, and went home.  Since it was so late, Brad and family decided to spend the night, and drive home early this morning.  I don’t know what time they left, but they were gone when Ed got up for work at 6 o’clock. They slipped out so quietly, we didn’t even hear them leave.

One last bit of news before I go.  You may recall I mentioned how we have an ‘over-load’ of pears, this year.  It seems this over-load is proving to be a bit too much for the trees.  On Saturday, another large branch broke out of the top of one of the trees.  I estimate there were over 100 pears on that branch, alone!

Notice how close to Ed’s car that broken branch landed.  I don’t think Ed will be parking close to the pear tree anymore!

I once blogged how Ed used to battle those pesky squirrels over pears every summer.  (He’d sit outside with a BB gun and chase them away)  We haven’t had our usual ‘squirrel problems’ since cutting down all of the surrounding trees, last year.  I couldn’t help but comment to Ed how the squirrels may have been doing him a ‘favor’ all of those years, by making the load of pears lighter on the branches.  You just never know!

Happy Monday, y’all!

Things Could Have Been Worse…

The weekend began with the closing program of our oldest grandson, Caden.  Friday marked the end of his year in pre-K.  (Where did the time go???)  The closing program was cute, and had a ‘nautical’ theme, which is near and dear to my heart 🙂  Caden knew all of the songs and poems, and recited his memory verse without a hitch.  We are very proud of him, and all that he’s learned, especially the fact that he’s now reading!

We had no plans for Saturday, which felt nice for a change.  Of course, having no plans didn’t mean that Ed didn’t stay busy!  He hauled dirt (with the scoop of his tractor) to build up and fill in bare spots in our yard.  Our lawn is still a work in progress, following last summer’s tree cutting, but we’re slowly getting there!  After finishing with the dirt, Ed mowed grass for a while.

Meanwhile, I weeded in the garden for a while and delivered small buckets of dirt around the yard, using my garden wagon.  After that, I spent the rest of the day sitting in the lawn swing, under the magnolia tree, watching the hummingbirds dine!

I had ordered myself a new hammock, and it arrived on Friday afternoon.  Ed put it together on Saturday, after mowing grass, so I was able to spend a short amount of time in the hammock, too.  I think the hammock will be an excellent place to enjoy a good book during the milder parts of the summer days!

me and Bobs, the cat, trying out the new hammock

On Sunday morning, Ed asked me if I’d like to go back to St. Simon’s Island.  Would I?!  I told him that he knew me too well!  I’d been thinking how much I’d love to go back, but wasn’t about to ask him to take me since we were just there on Wednesday.  Ed’s invitation was too good to pass up, so I quickly got ready while Ed put the chairs and cooler in the back of the car!  We were on the road within 45 minutes, and we ate breakfast on the way.

The weather was ‘picture perfect’ and we spent four glorious hours in our favorite spot on St. Simon’s Island.  Many others were there enjoying the island with us, too.  A birthday party was going on in the picnic area, and fishing on the pier was brisk. We sat and watched a parade of sailboats gliding across the water…

Sunday was a perfectly glorious day…until the ride home.

On the way home, we stopped by Lowes to pick up a few bedding plants.  As we were leaving Lowes, Ed came (literally) within an inch of rear-ending the car ahead of us.  He’d seen the car start to pull off, assumed it was gone, then started to accelerate while he was still looking at the on-coming traffic.  I started making funny noises, and he hit the brakes–just in the nick of time!  We both soothed our frazzled nerves and proceeded home.  Alas, our travel troubles were not over though!

About eleven miles from home, a vehicle pulled out in front of us, then immediately slowed down to turn off.  Things like this make Ed mad, so he punched the gas to go around the vehicle.  Within a minute or so after passing the car, I heard our car alarm ding.  I asked Ed, “What’s that?”, and he replied, “I don’t know.”  About that same time, I noticed our car beginning to slow down, and Ed looking for a place to pull over.  Apparently, the car engine had suddenly shut off!  Ed pulled over to the side of the road, but the car refused to restart, even after repeated attempts.  There we were, eleven miles from home, and stranded by the side of the road!  There was nothing left to do except call one of our children for help.

It took two calls before we were able to find some help.  Ed asked our oldest son, who was home getting ready for evening services at church, to “Please come and get us.  Drive my truck and bring a chain!”  (In the meantime, Ed discovered there was no place on the car to attach a chain.)  As we sat beside the road for 45 minutes, only one car even stopped to offer assistance–a lady traveling alone!  We thanked her for her offer of help, and marveled at her courage and kindness, as she drove away.

Our son arrived, we transferred everything from the car into the truck (including the plants!), and left my poor car sitting beside the road.  (I was more distraught about leaving my car unattended than I was about breaking down.)  We dropped our son off at church, to join his family, and made our way  home shortly after six.  I continued to worry about my car, sitting there beside the road.

Fortunately, we called our insurance company, once we arrived home, and they were able to arrange tow service for my car. (We had no idea our insurance company would do this, until our son mentioned it.) It was shortly before dark when the tow truck arrived, an hour and a half later. (Ed had to go all the way back to the car, to meet the driver with the car key.)  We had the car towed 23 miles, and dropped off at a car repair place we normally use.  Ed followed the driver to the repair place (which was closed, of course), so he could get the car keys back until morning.

So, our exciting and eventful beach day finally ended at 9:30 Sunday night.  Ed and I went to bed, slightly sun burned, very tired, and wondering what in the heck happened to the car!  However, we, also, went to bed grateful that we made it safely home, and were able to get my car off of the side of the road. (because people are so mean, these days)  Things could always have been worse!  I hope we’ll still be able to say this when we get the repair bill for the car!

Have a great Monday!

Miscellaneous Monday…

I missed participating in Friday Fragments, so I feel the need to do a Miscellaneous post today.  In case you are wondering why I missed participating in Friday Fragments–I went to the circus!

I didn’t go to the circus alone, though.  I accompanied my daughter and granddaughter.  Daughter-in-law, Christina, had gotten circus tickets for everyone through grandson, Caden’s, pre-school.  Since son-in-law, Clint, couldn’t go, due to his new job, I used his ticket. Everyone sat together, in one row, so it was kind of nice to be able to watch the grandchildren, while they watched the circus.

The time spent at the circus was the only bit of ‘family time’  we spent over the entire weekend, which is quite unusual.

The circus was good, but I must admit, the circus isn’t nearly as big as it used to be, years ago.  I suppose the economy has taken a toll on the circus, too!  First of all, the circus has gone from three rings down to one!  There are no longer any tigers either, only elephants, camels, ponies, and dogs.  There didn’t seem to be as many performers as in the past, but the show was still good.

After twelve weeks of maternity leave, daughter-in-law, Jennifer, returned to work last Wednesday. Hubby, Brad, stayed home from work for two days to keep baby Evan, until his daycare slot became available.  I called to check on everyone, and discovered their first day turned out to be a crazy one!  In addition to being heartsick over having to leave Evan, poor Jennifer got ‘punched’ in the face by a patient!  She’s okay, but what a way to start the first day!  Meanwhile, Evan kept Brad busy, all day, trying to figure out how to keep him satisfied.  Everyone survived Jennifer’s first day back at work, and, I’m told,  the second day went much smoother for all.

Our weather, on Saturday, was cold and very windy!  I was so very thankful that we no longer have those tall pines surrounding our home.  There are still some pines, in the area of our chicken coop, and they were really swaying in the wind!  Needless to say, I didn’t spend much time around the chicken coop, on Saturday!

According to our weatherman, we have a chance of snow, on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning!  It will be interesting to see what happens with all that! Snow or not, there’s some cold, nasty weather heading our way.  If we don’t get snow, we’ll most likely get sleet and ice, or perhaps a mix of all three.  Here in the south, we don’t deal with any of those things very well, so it’s likely to be a mess.

We spent the weekend doing some mundane chores, including working at my late mother-in-law’s house again.  It’s slow-going, but Ed and I are beginning to make some progress.  At times, we both feel a bit over-whelmed, but we keep going.  Someday, there will be a light at the end of this tunnel, in the meantime,  we’ll continue to sort out sixty-seven years worth of  memories and possessions.

Speaking of family, today is my sister-in-law, Kay’s,  birthday.  Kay and my brother have been married for over 50 years, so I guess you could safely say Kay and I have known each other for a long, long time!  In fact, at one point in time, she used to be my baby sitter, since she’s nine years my senior.  How neat is that?!  Anyway, I hope Kay has a great birthday, ’cause she deserves it!

Today’s Birthday Girl

I don’t know if anyone remembers my post Weekend Manhunt, but in October of 2012,  a local prisoner escaped from custody–and it took  law enforcement over a week to catch him!  He stole several vehicles, and broke into some homes in and around our area.  There was a massive manhunt  for him in our community[complete with helicopters flying overhead], which lasted several days.  The escapee eventually made it down to Florida, where he was apprehended.  Well, this same guy is back, and has managed to escape [from jail] again, along with a friend!  The men, somehow cut a hole in the ceiling of the jail,  hung sheets out of a window and escaped during Thursday night!  As far as I know, the two are still on the loose.

I think that pretty much covers what’s been happening around here.  The ‘Monday Quiz’ questions aren’t up yet, so I’m going to go ahead wrap this post up and publish it.  Have a great Monday, everyone!

Miscellaneous Monday…

Another weekend has quickly come and gone, like they always do…and of course, there’s never quite enough time.  Enough said about that, but here’s how I spent my ‘not long enough’ weekend…

My weekend got off to a rough start, when I went to the grocery store on Friday.  It rained on me, my groceries were ridiculously expensive, and to top it all of, I dropped my car keys in the parking lot, as I was leaving.  This might not have presented a problem, except for my Origami Owl key chain–a gift from my grandsons.  The little compartment of the key chain [which holds the four birthstones of my grandchildren] popped open when it hit the pavement, and little birthstones flew everywhere!  With cars parked on each side of me, and my eyesight, there was no finding the missing stones.  I’m left with only one stone 😦  Fortunately, our daughter-in-law came to my rescue, later, and helped me re-order new stones 🙂

Friday night, Ed and I kicked off the beginning of our weekend by spending time with some of the family.  We ate spaghetti and subs, with two of our grown children and their families, then watched some of the movie, The Life of Pi on television.  (The grandchildren were captivated by the sight of the zoo animals in the life boat!)  It had been quite a while since we’d spent time with our son, Brett’s, family, due to the illness that’s been attacking their household.

On Saturday morning, I’m happy to report, the ‘carpet man’ showed up, and did a great job!  It only took him about 45 minutes to move the furniture, stretch and cut  off the carpet, then move the furniture back into place.  The carpet man had this woman helping him move furniture, who could put most men to shame!  We have two couches in our living room with two recliners in each one–and they weigh a ton!  I can’t lift the couches at all, and Ed struggles just to get one end lifted up.  This woman picked up her end of those couches as if they weighed nothing–and she moved three heavy bookcases, too!  We were impressed.

During the recent cold snap, the fan to our electric fireplace stopped working. Isn’t that always the way it goes?  While we had the furniture moved, on Saturday morning, Ed pulled the fireplace insert out of the console so he could get the model number to order a new fan motor.  Ed sprayed the fan with WD-40 and suddenly it started working again!  I love when things like that happen 🙂  We wrote down the model number, anyway, just in case!

It took both of us most of Saturday afternoon to put everything back on the living room shelves, after the carpet man left!  The good news is, everything got dusted and organized in the process, but I sure hope we don’t have to move everything again any time soon!  I didn’t even tackle putting all of the curios back in their cabinets, yet.  I’ll do that today.

On Saturday afternoon, I discovered that chivalry isn’t dead.  It’s alive and well at my house.  I went outside to feed and water the chickens, and while I was in the chicken coop, suddenly we began having a downpour.  It wasn’t  just raining, it was flooding!  I had no choice but to stand there, stranded under the shelter of the coop, along with the chickens.  After several minutes, I looked up to see Ed splashing his way through the yard, dressed in a poncho, and bringing a second poncho for me.  My hero rescued his damsel in distress:)

The rest of the weekend was spent doing a little shopping (for exciting things like freeze-dried meal worms and scaly mite spray for ‘the girls’), and burying our “grandcat”–at least I think it was our grandcat.  It was really kinda’ hard to tell, since the carcass was rather battered up when it found its way to the yard…   “Spencer”, our grandson’s tom cat,  had begun living in the woods, quite a while ago, but would stop by to eat with our cats, occasionally, so we considered him one of ours.

I’ll miss Spencer’s visits, and I can’t help but wonder if the coyotes I keep hearing in the woods (even during the daytime), brought Spencer to his untimely death.

On that unsettling note, I think I’ll change the subject, and join “The Monday Quiz”…

1. It’s International Skeptics day – what are you skeptical about?

I’m skeptical about pretty much everything, and now,  I have my own holiday 🙂   LOL

2. Wednesday is National Hat Day – what is your favorite hat? Do you wear hats often?

I don’t like hats of any kind, and rarely wear one because they give me a headache.  If the weather gets extremely cold, I’ll wear a knit hat, but it doesn’t happen often.

3. What one movie or two would you say should be on everyone’s must see list?

I’m going to say “The Wizard of Oz” , simply because it’s a classic that I watched as a child, then watched again( several times) with my own children.

4. If they were going to make a reality show about your life what would it be called?

Married, With Grown Children–and Grandchildren, too!

My question:

How do you spend the cold, dreary days of January?