October 11 - 24

     I cannot believe that it has been 2 weeks since my last post.  Time passes so fast that I need to take time out to enjoy it more.  After spending one week in Chantilly, Virginia and this past week at home, I am wondering where the time went.  We really enjoyed our visit with grandkids at Katy and Scott's house.  They were laying laminated hardwood flooring during the first part of the week and then adding the trim after the flooring was down.  I still have pain when getting on my knees, so all I could do to help was give advice and operate a saw.  By the time we left, I am sure that Scott had enough advice from me to last at least until they come visit after Christmas.  Katy is a perfectionist and quickly pointed out any flaw she saw.  Of course that meant redoing several things.  I think she was doing the right thing since she wanted a professional job from amateurs.  Also we celebrated Cooper and Kinsley's birthday while we were there.  Cooper turned 3 and Kinsley will be 6 next month.  We celebrate both their birthdays together so we can do it in one visit.  It is just a little far for us to make monthly trips to Virginia.  

     We returned home on Sunday.  Amy's mom, GoGo, was taken to live at Amy's brother's house.  She had fallen twice on Saturday and had to get a neighbor to help her off the floor.  She has always been on the "go", hence her nickname GoGo, but now age has caught up to her and she has lost her mobility.  For now she will live in Birmingham instead of her home in Talladega.  Amy made two trips to see her one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.  I went with her on Thursday, and we will visit again on Sunday.  

     Also on Tuesday I went to a breakfast meeting at the Cracker Barrell in Oxford.  For the past couple of months a group of us (4) get together to talk about old times.  We were friends in high school, church, and college.  The group includes Bobby Slay, Jimmy Harris, Hal Phillips and myself.  We all have ties to Auburn.  Bobby and I roomed together our Freshman year.  We have a lot of good memories from those years.  Jimmy's parents and my parents were very close friends and used to take vacations together.  Next month we will meet for lunch at the Ark, a fish restaurant between Lincoln and Riverside.   

     Jason and I are planning a camping trip together.  Since my knees are not ready for long hikes we will be car camping at Vogel State Park in north Georgia.  We will pitch our tents about 1500 feet from the parking lot.  We will do some short hikes, without packs, so I can test out the knees.  I am looking forward to that experience.  I hope the weather cooperates with us to make it more enjoyable.

Our trip is planned for November 7, 8 and 9.  I get excited just thinking about it.  More to come later.

October 5 - 10

The past few days seem to be flying by.  The highlight of Monday was my bi-annual appointment with my kidney doctor.  Every six months I go for a check up as a precaution due to my diabetes.  Each time the doctor says everything is stable, come back in 6 months.  I have decided to increase my walking.  On Tuesday I walked 4 miles.  On Wednesday, 6.5 miles.  I decided to take it easy on Thursday and only walked a little over 2 miles (4 laps at the park).  I thought I might try the knees with a slow jog so I jogged for one-half a lap.  I need to say that my slow jog is about walking speed for a normal person.  I did have some swelling after that and sitting in church for 5 hours Thursday night really caused the legs to tighten up.  This morning the effects were not that bad, but after the 12 hour ride to visit the grandkids, getting out of the car was quite painful.  The pain is not in the knees, but tendonitus.  The pain will gradually go away with exercise I hope.

Sept 25 - Oct. 4

     I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in a while but I will try to catch up this past week.  For the past three days we have our door guarded by this creature. Just thought I would post this picture.

He seems content to just move around the door and I suppose he is eating bugs that move toward the light shinning through the windows at night.
     I have continued walking 3 - 4 miles at least every other day.  On Monday I went back to the doctor.   He said that the pain that I have is tendonitus and prescribed an anti-inflamatory medicine and said that I needed to lose some weight.  Thinking I was going to begin my diet on Tuesday, Amy and I stopped for Krispy Kreme donuts,  Then coming back through Pell City, we decided to get a Blizzard at the new DQ.  On Tuesday I walked 3 miles and decided to spend the afternoon cutting grass.  On Wednesday, after walking 4 miles I spent the afternoon using the weedeater.  Slightly overdid it and had a lot of pain.
     On Thursday mom and I rode to Woodstock, Ga to visit with my brother and his wife.  He will begin radiation and chemo on another inoperable tumor next week.  The goal will be to shrink this tumor.  This has been the source of his back pain for about a year, but was just discovered in a scan a couple of weeks ago.  How it was missed I don't know.  It is about the size of a golf ball.  We had a really good visit and enjoyed sitting on their porch watching the birds feeding all afternoon.
     Expected to rest up on Friday, but that did not happen.  Amy went in to check on her mother who apparently had a slight stroke.  She e  nded up spending most of the day taking her to the doctor.  Then my mom called because she was having a dizzy spell and could not drive home from the hairdresser.  Both are better today.  Now to watch some football.

 





  

Sept. 19 - 24

     Came home from the beach on Friday the 19th.  On the way home we stopped to visit my cousin Barbara Anne Bowling and her husband Bob.  We both grew up in the south Alabama town of Monroeville.  We were in the same grade in school. Our backyard bordered with another set of cousin's and after they lost their house in a fire, she moved across the street from them.  We spent a lot of time playing together.  After moving several times, we ran into each other at Auburn.  I had only seen them a couple of times, at family funerals, or weddings since then.  We had a good visit which was quite enjoyable.  
     Arriving home we found that the puppy was still hanging around the house.  Asked several neighbors if they had lost a dog.  Puppy turned out to be about a year old and had had a litter of pups before.  Although the puppy was cute we did not want a dog because of the traveling we do.  After checking with the local vets to see if they may have recognized the dog, I finally took the dog to the Animal Shelter.on Tuesday. Maybe someone will adopt the dog.
     Went to the doctor on Monday.  I have arthritis and tendonitus in the left knee.  The pain is not related to the surgery but more a pulled hamstring caused from the swelling.  I had not taken the ibuprofen the way I should have.  I thought it was for swelling and pain so I was only taking it in the morning.  I found out that it only is good for 6 hours, so I had not been taking it the way I should.  I now have another medicine for inflammation that I take once a day.  Hopefully it will give some relief in a couple of days. After exercise I get real stiff.and thus a little more pain.  I have no pain while walking, 3 miles on Tuesday and 4 miles on Wednesday, (24th).  Also today I need to use my weedeater outside around the house.  I also need to redo the wiring for the phones in my house.  I have a lot of static that is in the lines but no static if I bypass the house wiring.  I will work on that project tomorrow, after all no since doing it today if it is not mandatory.  More to come later.
     Oh, spare time has been spent on the first 2000 piece puzzle that I have ever worked.  Amy did a lot of it too. 

Sept 13 - 18

Beach trip. View from our room on floor 13.   When we arrived it was cloudy and rainy.  Lots of waves.  Of course we forgot to bring everything we might need for a week on the beach, so we made the trip to the local Walmart for supplies.

On Tuesday we decided to walk on the beach.  This pier is 1.5 miles from our room.  So that meant our walk was 3 miles on the sand.  

Of course I had to take a picture of me. 

That afternoon we decided to go find a Best Buy so I could buy a part I needed to connect my computer to the internet.  That was an adventure in itself.  It was only 11 miles away, but the road we needed to take was closed due to an accident.  Trying to reroute on streets that do not run parallel to each other proved to be a nightmare.  When we finally got to Best Buy, the power was out for the whole shopping center.  We decided to wait for the power to come back on and the store to open up again.  After about an hour wait I was able to get the part I needed.  On the return trip the road was still closed and we had to reroute again.  The only good thing is that we stopped to eat at Angelo's Steak Pit, since we passed right by it.  The food was real good.  

On Wednesday we walked a little farther in the other direction.  After going for 2 miles we decided to turn around and head back.  Total trip 4 miles.  As you can see from the picture Amy walks a whole lot faster than I do.  She was constantly waiting on me.

Today I could barely walk at all.  My calves are hurting so bad that I can't even think about my knees.  We did walk a little down the beach and then turned around and went to sit by the pool.   Of course I had to try out the water.  Now we are resting in the condo.  We have also eaten at Runaway Island and Pineapple Willie's.  We are planning to eat about 4:00 at Sharky's so we can be back to watch Auburn play football.

Sept. 9-12

Raking rocks in the hot sun...

We have now cleared down to the scarecrow in the picture.  The rocks have to be removed so I can cut the grass with the lawn mower without tearing it up.  Some of the rocks are boulder size.  We rake the rocks into the front end loader on the tractor.  Then dump them on the other side of the driveway. Amy usually drives the tractor and I rake the rocks.  This project should be completed in a couple of days.

We now have a new visitor at our house.  As we were working out raking up the rocks in the yard this little puppy wanted to see what we were doing.  We tried to ignore her but that was not successful.  She is a cute puppy.  I have no idea how old she is, but she may have had a litter of puppies before.  She looks like just a puppy herself.  I have posted on facebook trying to find her owner, but so far no one has claimed her.  I do not have any close neighbors so I do not know where she may have come from.  She apparently is someones pet and may have been a house dog, but has not tried to come in the house yet.  

The last puppy that came to our house ended up staying for several years before she disappeared one day.  We never knew what happend to her, but she was gone one day when I came home from work.  Below is a picture of Lulu, our last dog.  She hated to be bathed, so we would put her in the truck bed to give her a bath.  It would take 2 people to give her a bath.  Here Jason is helping with her bath.  She turned out to be a great dog, and we miss her.  We still wonder if some thing got her in the woods or what might have happened to her.  Maybe she stayed for those years and then decided to move on.  Who knows.  There is a resemblance in the colors of the two dogs.  Could it be that both mutts had something in common?

   

Sept. 2 - 8

Where did the last week go?  Most of the day last Tuesday was spent with mom, taking her to the doctor then out to eat lunch.  The rest of the week is a blur.  One day was grass cutting.  Another was raking up rocks that are on top of the ground as a result from laying the water pipe.  On Friday, we had our air ducts cleaned.  I am not sure how often they need to be cleaned, but this was the first time in 38 years that it has been done.  Spare time was spent working another puzzle.  This one was much easier than the last one I worked.

Oh, by the way, we have been watching Mr. Turkey in the garden spot all week.  I suppose that he is cleaning up the seeds that were scattered when I cut down the rest of the beans and peas. I am not sure that we have been watching the same bird each day.  The beard on this one seems to be dragging the ground, otherwise they all seem to look alike.

My knees are much better than they have been and today I walked about 3.5 miles.  I am still having a pain on the back side of my left knee that makes sitting down and standing up painful.  It could be due to some swelling.  I have an appointment to see the doctor again in about 2 weeks. Not really sure what his remedy may be, but maybe he has a solution.  I am still unable to get down on my knees, and I really need to do some work that requires me to be on the floor.  I need to re-insulate a vent pipe under the house, and I also need to check on the telephone wiring under the house.  I have static in my telephone lines and need to check on what is causing it.  Amy just reminded me that I have more rocks to rake up so I need to get back to work.  More to come later.