Sunday, February 27
Birthday Greetings go out today to our good friend and adopted nephew, Jerry Terpening, in Artesia, New Mexico!!!
It was a usual Sunday for us today…got up early to prepare for church. Sophie came by to watch after Mother for the morning. We went to breakfast at church and then had Sunday school and the morning service before returning to Mineola to spend the afternoon with Mother.
This evening we went back to Yantis for choir practice and church service and then returned to the house to take care of all the nightly chores.
Monday, February 28
There wasn’t much excitement around the house this morning…just the usual chores and activities. Around 11:30 we took Mother to Tyler for her initial appointment with Dr. Plotkin, a neurologist who had been highly recommended by Dr. Bankhead for his aggressive treatment of Parkinsonism.
Our first stop was at Trinity Mother Frances Hospital to get Mother’s Cat scan reports, and then we proceeded down the street to the Neurological Institute at East Texas Medical Center.
We were very impressed with Dr. Plotkin and his staff and were pleased to find at the end of the examination that Dr. Plotkin was willing to take Mother on as one of his patients. We will be facing some changes in the meds routine, but we think this will give Mother a much better chance of staving off some of the effects of Parkinsonism.
By the time we returned to Mineola we were all wrung out, emotionally and physically, so we settled down to a light meal and then took it easy until time to head for bed.
Tuesday, March 1
This was prayer meeting morning, so I headed off to Yantis early while Barbara stayed at the house to take care of Mother’s morning needs.
When I returned, we set about taking care of the usual business of life; correspondence, banking, bill paying, grocery shopping, etc. Later in the day the nurse from At-Home Health Care came by for her weekly visit with Mother. Barbara and the nurse went over the new meds regime and got everything squared away. The new regime is very different and will take both of us some time to get it down pat.
Wednesday, March 2
This was just another “normal” day of our life in Mineola. Barbara got early enough to make some snacks to take to her Bible study group at Yantis First Baptist Church. While she was gone, I stayed at home to keep up with Mother and took time to do some minor housecleaning and straightening and a load or two of laundry.
This afternoon we made one of our regular runs to Walmart for a few things we needed around the house and stopped by Medicine Chest to pick up the latest order of meds for Mother.
Thursday, March 3
Happy Birthday today to Barbara Francis Yehl (daughter of Susie Terpening Francis) in Victoria, Texas!!!
Today we just piddled around the house taking care of the usual daily chores…nothing particularly exciting or even interesting.
Tonight our friends Gene and Michelle came over and we went out for Chinese food. When we returned to the house we got in three rounds of “Catch Phrase.” It just wasn’t a good night at all for Gene and me as we got waxed in all three games (although the last one was fairly close for a while).
Today was an “adventure day” for the three of us. Barbara and I needed to go to Mt. Pleasant to buy some supplies we needed for burning discs for the Bible study group, so we got Mother up and dressed and the three of us took a morning-long ride.
We left the house and drove to the post office to check the daily offering from the USPS and then drove down the street to Sonic for breakfast to go. As we ate our breakfast in the car, we drove out to Holiday Villages of Lake Fork to check on some things at Big V and stop at the sales office to pick up this quarter’s gift from the property owners association, an electronic reader…not quite as fancy as a Kindle, but still a very handy tool that we hope to incorporate into our daily life and future travels.
After introducing Mother to some of the friendly sales staff, we left the park and drove to Mt. Pleasant, about 45 miles away, to do our shopping. While I went to Staples to find the items we needed for our church work, Barbara and Mother went to Dollar Tree to see if there was anything we couldn’t live without.
When we had made our purchases and got back together, we hopped back into the car and headed down the road to Pittsburg. Now, Pittsburg isn’t much of a destination town, but it holds fond memories from my childhood. Pittsburg was home to Mother’s Aunt Nanie and Uncle Nunky. When we would travel to East Texas many years ago, a stop at Nanie’s house was always a must. The summer after my sophomore year in high school, Ernie and I spent several weeks with Aunt Nanie. Their home was pretty classy at the time, but it was always a home, rather than a showplace house, and we always enjoyed visits there.
On the way to Pittsburg we had to call TJ to get the name of the street that Nanie’s house was on, and once she told me, I even remembered the address. Nanie and Nunky have been gone for many years now, and the fine neighborhood they lived in on Lafayette Street has deteriorated a bit, but I immediately recognized the house where we had enjoyed family gatherings in times of happiness and sorrow.
Barbara took a couple of pictures of the house and then we drove down the street to find a place to turn around. When we got to the end of the street, we noticed a tamale factory and decided we’d give it a try. All three of us love fresh tamales and are always on the lookout for a place to by good ones.
Barbara and I went inside, visited a bit with the owner (who gave us some sample bites of the delicious treats) and ordered a couple dozen tamales to take home with us. Since the tamales were steaming hot and smelled wonderful, we decided we’d give them some taste tests along the way. Sure enough, the tamales passed the test for the three of us and we decided that we would have even more of them when we returned to the house.
From Pittsburg we drove down the road to Gilmer (sorry, Barbara Clingan, but we were in a hurry to get back to Mineola and didn’t have time to stop and call) and then turned off to return to Mineola by way of Quitman. We missed what should have been an obvious turnoff that would have taken us directly to Mineola from Gilmer, but since there didn’t seem to be an easy way to get back to that road, we decided to save it for a motorcycle trip on a “date day.”
Our trip lasted a little over four hours…a long trip for Mother, but we all enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the visit to places we hadn’t seen in such a long time. We returned to the house with renewed memories (for Mother and me), new places to see for Barbara, and hearty appetites for fresh tamales for all of us. Luckily, it didn’t take long to heat up the tamales, and soon the three of us were gathered around the dining room table enjoying the bounty of the day.
Saturday, March 5
Today was totally unmemorable…just worked around the house and yard, took care of some business, and spent a couple of hours burning CD’s for the ladies Bible class…some days are just days.
Sunday, March 6
We hired Sophie to come in for the whole day since Mother and TJ weren’t going to their church. We went on to Yantis for the usual Sunday morning activities…breakfast, Sunday school, and the morning preaching service.
When church was over, Barbara and I drove back to Holiday Villages and spent the afternoon just doing the things we like to do…reading and yard work. I torched the trash pile and burned off all the limbs and leaves that our neighbors and we have been piling on for the last couple of months and Barbara and I raked the leaves out of our “front” yard.
After cleaning up and then shutting Big V down again, we drove back to Yantis where Barbara dropped me off for choir practice while she drove to Sulphur Springs to do some shopping at Walmart. Barbara returned in time for the evening service and then we drove back to Mineola for a typical Sunday evening.
Monday, March 7
Happy 5th birthday to granddaughter Abby Dondis in Richardson, Texas!!!
Today was just a typical day of business around the house…bills to pay, paperwork to catch up on, and telephone calls to either make , cancel, or postpone medical appointments for Mother.
When we weren’t working on the business of running the house, we were trying to catch up with journal/blog entries. One would think that if there wasn’t much going on, we wouldn’t have any problems staying current, but one would be very wrong about that. The writing isn’t necessarily the difficult part…it’s finding a block of uninterrupted time to write that is.
Tonight I joined some of our neighbors at City Hall for a zoning board meeting. We all received a notice of a requested zoning change for the “North 40,” the large undeveloped area bordering Mother’s house on the north. As it turns out, it wasn’t a really big deal and won’t affect the property immediately north of us for some time, but there is the possibility that with a zoning change as requested, there will be a new and modern assisted living facility close to us in a couple of years. Some of the neighbors joked that that wouldn’t be such a bad thing because it would happen about the time they needed to sell out and move there.
Tuesday, March 8
I went to Yantis for prayer meeting this morning and then returned for a busy day around the house. When we weren’t taking care of daily chores, we plugged away at the journal/blog. I wrote text and Barbara combed through our photo files and built the collages. I did manage to get away for a few minutes to go to the local Dodge dealership and order a new license tag holder for the Caliber…since we bought it in New Mexico, a state that has tags only on the back of vehicles, the new car didn’t come equipped with a holder.
During the day we all managed to find our way to Naturally Nails to let Leslie do something with our hair. All three of us had gone a few days past the time we should have done something about it.
But, Leslie was able to get the three of us looking reputable again and ready to get out in the public. Barbara and I didn’t pictures of our new looks, but when we got Mother back home and in place, we got a shot of her looking “real purty.”
Wednesday, March 9
Today turned out to be pretty busy. After the three of us got up and around (after a fashion), I took the puppies to the vet to get their nails clipped (couldn’t stand the sound of Spike tap-tap-tapping on the wooden floors) and have their spring baths.
Since the business with the vet was going to take until around 3:00 this afternoon, we got Sophie to come stay with Mother and Barbara and I left for the morning. We went to the lake where she dropped me off at Big V to do yard work and she went on to Yantis for the ladies weekly Bible study.
When we returned to the house in Mineola, we had lunch with Mother, took short naps, and then worked some more on journals and blogs.
This evening I drove back to Yantis for the first meeting of the youth pastor search committee. The church has decided that we need a fulltime youth minister and when I was asked to serve on the committee, I immediately said I would be happy to do that. It has been a real blessing to watch the growth of the youth group over the past year under the direction of volunteer leaders, and while they will continue to serve as volunteers, it is quickly becoming time to hire a permanent minister to handle that part of the ministry to the Yantis community.
Thursday, March 10
Today we just worked around the house. Mother’s Parkinsonism was kicking in with a vengeance and she needed almost fulltime attention.
Our friends Gene and Michelle came over to visit a bit. They were in town taking care of some business and decided to drop by to see us while they were around.
Friday, March 11
Birthday greetings go out today to Cousin Darren Wright in Marianna, Florida!!!
We had another rough day with Mother. When she is going through a period of downturn (our “medical” term), she can hardly walk and has trouble with coherency. We know she will return to normal and level off for a bit, but days like this are rough on everyone.
We were hoping to have our friends Gene and Carolyn over this afternoon, but they were in Dallas for an accordionists’ convention. We’re looking forward to their return and sharing time with them.
TJ and Arianna stopped by this morning to see how Mother was doing and to show off Arianna’s new hairdo. We invited them to come back this afternoon for a matinee showing of Shrek. Arianna didn’t know who Shrek was, so we showed her the picture of the cassette box and said we thought she’d really like it. She seemed inclined to want to see it, but TJ said it all depended on how things were going at her house this afternoon.
Mother did feel up to a movie this afternoon, so after eating lunch and getting the kitchen squared away.we put “Shrek” in the VCR and had some enjoyable family time watching the movie and laughing at the puns in the script. We waited a bit for TJ and Arianna, but they didn’t show for the show today.
Tonight we spent time putting the final touches on an earlier journal/blog entry so we could get it posted and not be so far behind.
Saturday, March 12
Mother was doing a little better today, so we were able to take some time for much-needed house and yard work. Spring is hitting us head-on and the yard needs more attention. We’d both rather be outside working, but have to take time to keep up with the inside of the house also.
This afternoon we went to Walmart to load up on some ”necessaries” for the week ahead and then we spent the evening putting the finishing touches on this week’s Bible study CDs so we can give them to Lisa at church tomorrow morning.
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." – Robert Frost
Living our life in Mineola,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams
