Monday, November 10 – Saturday, November 15, 2008
Monday, November 10
Happy Birthday to James Francis in Hobbs, NM!!!
When we did get up and moving around this morning, Barbara went right to work on a new DVD production of the final week of our volunteer activities at Toccoa. After seeing the DVD from the first week, several folks asked us to come up with a second one, since about half the team was new. We weren’t able to even start on the slide show until we got away from Toccoa, so we decided that it was going to be a priority project for this week.
Around mid-morning, while I was still dragging around the place, Barbara decided to go to the post office to collect the 7 week’s worth of mail that had collected while we were gone. It was amazing – we ended up with a huge pile of paper, but easily 90 per cent of it was trash that we didn’t even open…just put it directly into file 13, and there wasn’t a single thing that we needed to deal with.
After sorting everything out, we got back to business…Barbara working on the slide show, and me catching up on email and trying to clean up my computer files…really exciting stuff.
We did take a couple of breaks during the day to go over to Mother’s house to visit everyone for a while. I decided that I wanted to upload some of my band CD’s to the computer, so while I was at Mother’s, I dug out a bunch of recordings that were stored there and took them back to Big V to put them in an ITunes folder.
The odd jobs kept us busy all day and before we knew it, it was time to join the family over at T.J.’s house for dinner. She wanted to have a “welcome back” meal for us and knew that we would enjoy her chicken enchiladas and beans (and she was so very right). Also, it gave us a chance to play the DVD’s that we had made of all the wedding activities and during our first week at Toccoa. Barbara had redone Mike and Kelly’s wedding DVD so that it would move slower for Mother and give her a chance to really take in the photos. Afterwards, according to TJ and Mother, they felt like they had been at the wedding after all!
Tuesday, November 11
Happy Veterans Day…Thanks to all who served and sacrificed!!!
We went over to Mother’s house about 9:30 this morning. She has a large collection of CD’s and Barbara wanted to look through them to find appropriate background music for the Toccoa slide show. While she started doing that, T.J., Mother, and I got in T.J.’s car and I drove to Tyler so Mother could keep her medical appointment there,
A few weeks ago, Dr. Bankhead, Mother’s primary physician in Mineola, had her get some MRI scans to try to find out what was causing her back pain. An initial reading of the scans showed that a vertebra was slightly out of alignment and was pressing rubbing on a nerve in her spinal column; so, Dr. Bankhead set up an appointment with a neurosurgeon in Tyler to discuss some options for dealing with the problem.
The surgeon did a wonderful job of checking Mother over and then showing and explaining the MRI results and answering every question we had. What the scans showed was that Mother has both vertical and lateral curvature of the spine, more pronounced in the vertical curvature, and an area around the vertebra that had been worked on last December that has become slightly displaced and has developed a bit of a spur.
He explained that any corrective surgery would be very extensive, much more so than the “balloon surgery” that she had last year, and with corresponding extensive risks. He said that because of her advanced osteoporosis, it would be like working with a house of cards, and that one small slip could cause a collapse of the spinal column. Her choices were to have the surgery, where the risks far outweighed the possible benefits, or he could refer her to a pain management specialist who would help her deal with the symptoms rather than the problem.
After reviewing everything the doctor told us and showed us, Mother opted for the pain management program. She will soon get an appointment with a specialist and will go from there.
With all that accomplished, we left Tyler in the cold and rain and began the return drive to Mineola, stopping at Long John Silver’s in Lindale for a late lunch (it was after 1:00 when we left the doctor’s office).
I drove back to the civic center and got out, leaving T.J. to drive Mother back to her house while I went inside to give a full report of the morning’s activities and information to Barbara, who had been working on the slide show all day.
It rained off and on all afternoon, so I thought that I’d go outside and try to wash off some of the really bad places on the front of Big V. We had collected a large number of species of bugs during our seven-state journey, and needed to make room for more that we are sure to gather when we return to Artesia. Since the weatherman was predicting heavy rains to night, I figured that I could wash down the rig and get a nice rainwater rinse in the bargain.
The rains didn’t materialize as promised, but I did get the front and the driver side of Big V washed down before it got too dark to continue. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a chance to finish the job before we leave Mineola.
Wednesday, November 12
We’re not having a really exciting week, which is not a bad thing. Today was more of the same around Big V…Barbara was working on the slide show and I was uploading and cataloging recordings…jobs which were relatively simple (mine much more simple that Barbara’s) but time-consuming.
I took some time this morning to go to the post office and send off a batch of DVD’s from the first week at Toccoa. We had received requests for them from some of the folks who had not spent the final week with us and didn’t have a chance to pick them up.
Contrary to the weatherman’s predictions, the heavy rains did not appear, but we did have foggy and misty skies until around noon when the sun broke through and began heating things up again.
Of course, each day’s activities includes, at least one if not more visit’s to mother’s house, but it gets repetitious saying that…
Thursday, November 13
This week’s entries sound like a broken record. Today was more of the same as we worked to finish our respective projects. Barbara burned the slide show to a disc, a process that takes nearly two hours because of all the pictures and music that are involved. Then, we carefully reviewed the finished disc to see if there were any duplicated pictures (there were), missing or faulty transitions (there were), and places where the music didn’t match up with pictures or transitions (see previous parenthetical remarks).
After making notes about what we had seen (or didn’t see), it was back to the story board for Barbara to make the corrections.
Meanwhile, I stayed busy reviewing CD’s for uploading to the computer files and making revisions in the way I wanted to catalog them (why do anything right the first time and eliminate the golden opportunity to do it over again, and again, and…).
We did break out of our cocoon long enough this afternoon to go to Wal-Mart and buy some groceries. We had planned a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for the family at Mother’s house on Saturday, and the time finally came to set the plans in motion.
Friday, November 14
Hooray!!! The slide show was finally ready to commit to disc…again, it was a two-hour job to load the burner and prepare the first disc, but after that one, it was a faster process…as soon a disc popped out, we just put in another one and pushed the button to get it started. Since we had 14 discs to burn and prepare for mailing, it took a big chunk of the day. We did manage to get about half the discs in the mail today…the rest will make it to the post office tomorrow and the job will be finished.
This afternoon we began work on our Thanksgiving feast. Barbara baked a cake using the Butter Pecan recipe that she got from Nell and Bob when we visited them in Georgia while we were on the way to Virginia, and I baked the first of two loaves of bread. We voted that except for the turkey, we could fix everything for the meal here in Big V and then transfer it to Mother’s kitchen tomorrow.
We finally have pretty good internet service, but with Artesia drawing a bye for the first week of the football playoffs, there wasn’t a game to watch or listen to, so we called it a night fairly early.
Saturday, November 15
Wouldn’t you know it…we had a morning where we could afford to sleep in a little and both of us were wide awake by 4:30…go figure!
We spent our first two and a half hours checking email, reading online journals, and making sure we had everything ready to take over to Mother’s house (including starting a loaf of jalapeno bread.
About 7:30 we gathered everything up and made the drive down the street. Ernie was up and moving around; he suggested that we let McDonald’s fix our breakfast today since we had so much to do to get ready for lunch. So, we left Barbara to begin working on the turkey while we made the run across town for breakfast.
Back at the house we opened the sack to find that they had gotten the order wrong…we had extras of some things, but they didn’t include Barbara’s order. Ernie, Billee, Mother, and I went ahead and ate (it wasn’t that big a breakfast) and then Barbara and I went back to McDonald’s to get her something to eat before we went back to Big V.
Around 10:30 we voted that it was time to move into high gear with our food preparations. We were cooking for 13 (Heather, Andy, Alexander, and Abby were coming over from Richardson, and Ladd, Angela, and Madelyn would also be joining us).
We had told everyone that we would eat around 1:00, so we had plenty of time to get everything ready, especially since the turkey had been slow-roasting since just after 7:30. All we had left to do was mash the potatoes, put the dressing in the oven with the turkey, fix the green beans, and make the gravies (the latter two were my jobs). While we were working at those cores, Billee came in and set the tables for us…the large table for the “grown-ups” and a card table next to it for Alexander, Abby, Grams, and Gramps).
Everything was moving along on schedule (maybe even a little ahead) when Angela, Ladd, and Madelyn arrived. While they sat in the living room and visited with Mother and T.J., we hustled and bustled around the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the meal.
At 12:15 I called Heather and Andy to see how far away they were so I would know when to start the gravy. Heather said that they were just two blocks from their house; they had trouble getting away and would be at least 45 minutes late getting to Mineola.With that in mind, we decided to go ahead and get everything ready and then serve two meals, one with everyone who was here, and a second one when the kids got here. So, while Barbara followed the progress of the everything that was already cooking, I started to work on the gravies…one pot of giblet gravy and one of regular cream gravy. Again, all went well until I had an unfortunate misstep.
Mother’s electric range is set in the middle of a long kitchen counter. I was working on both sides of the oven, fixing the green beans on one side, and the gravy on the other. With the green bean boiling merrily away, I was focused on getting the gravy to just the right consistency. I had just finished adding juice from the turkey pan to the giblet gravy when, without my knowing it, Barbara opened the oven door to get the dressing out. Without looking, I took a step backward, bumped against the door, spun out of control, and fell across the door and into the corner where the cabinets met. As if hat wasn’t bad enough, as I was falling, my left hand hit the pot of simmering green beans, knocking the pan off and pouring all the liquid down my left arm before the pot hit the floor with a resounding CLANG, alerting everyone in the house (and maybe the neighborhood) that we had a problem.
At first I was upset for having fallen and spilled the beans (quite literally), since that recipe was my major contribution to the dinner. Then, I looked at my arm and saw that I had done some pretty serious damage to it. So, while Barbara, Billee, and Ernie started cleaning up the mess around the oven and on the floor (it’s amazing how those beans multiplied while they were in flight), I made my way to the kitchen sink and started running cold water on my arm. T.J. found some Aloe lotion in the bathroom cabinet and we smeared it all over my arm when I finally had it rinsed off good.
To make a short story long (this all happened in a matter of just a couple of minutes), the others got the floor cleaned up enough that everyone could come in and fill their plates from the buffet line and I headed to the bathroom/laundry room to take off my apron and the new shirt I was wearing for the first time today.
Luckily, I didn’t suffer very serious burns from the liquid…my arm stayed red for a couple of hours and is still spotted around the wrist (probably because that’s the part that hit the pan), but I came out of the ordeal much better that the oven door, which didn’t come off of it’s hinges, but did severely bend them. It looks as if we’ll need a house call from the oven door doctor, since we general practitioners were unable to fix it and Mother wouldn’t let us shoot it to put it out of its misery.
Other than that, the dinner went quite well and we enjoyed our favorite family pastime of feeding our faces and talking, a multi-tasking skill at which we are masters.
Ladd, Angela, and Madelyn had to leave for some other obligations, so they once again missed out on meeting Heather, Andy, and the kids…maybe next time.
When the kids did arrive, we told them our story and then set the table so they could eat (and I could take my second helpings). Heather explained that the reason they were late was because they had their own excitement this morning. They had decided to do their grocery shopping this morning so they wouldn’t have to deal with it on Sunday, something that we, as former teachers, understood very well. While they were putting away their groceries at the house, one of them dropped a jar of molasses on the kitchen floor and it shattered. She said the molasses just globbed up in one place, but little slivers of glass went flying everywhere, so they had to take quite a bit of time to find them and get everything cleaned up, thus, their late departure from Richardson and later-than-planned arrival in Mineola. Everything worked out though, and when they had finished eating, we retired to the living room to visit and get caught up with each other.
It was a beautiful afternoon outside, so it wasn’t long before Alexander and Abby wanted to go out and play. While Alexander and I played catch with each other, Barbara and Abby did some exploring around the yard. We stayed outside until it go too cool to be much fun (I must be in better shape than I thought, because Alexander didn’t wear me down like he did on the last visit), and then we went back inside.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was a classic family Thanksgiving…conversations that branched off in every direction, little kids playing, singing, and dancing, and, of course, lots of picture-taking. Alexander and Abby love to visit Granny’s house (although Abby still isn’t too sure about Spike and Bonita) and like to play a while in the living room and then go “exploring.”
To write about all the conversations and activities, even if we remembered all the details, would take more time and space than we have here. Suffice it to say that for three hours the house resounded with the happy sounds of a family get-together, little children playing, talking, singing, and laughing, and bigger kids (ages 35 and up) doing much the same (oh, and did we mention the picture-taking?).
But, all good things must come to an end and around 5:30 the kids loaded up the car and headed back to Richardson. It wasn’t long until we all decided to clean up the mess, straighten the house a little, and call it a day. Barbara and I had been up since 4:30 this morning and all the excitement had worn us out. So, we said our goodbyes to Mother, Ernie, and Billee and drove back to Big V, our stomachs full from great meals, and our hearts full from a wonderful visit with family members, proving once again that Thanksgiving, like Christmas, is far more than just a day on the calendar…it’s a happening that can take place any day of the year that family and friends can get together for the pure enjoyment of being together.
“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” – Edward Sandford Martin
From Mineola with love,
Jim & Barbara
The rest of the afternoon and evening was a classic family Thanksgiving…conversations that branched off in every direction, little kids playing, singing, and dancing, and, of course, lots of picture-taking. Alexander and Abby love to visit Granny’s house (although Abby still isn’t too sure about Spike and Bonita) and like to play a while in the living room and then go “exploring.”
To write about all the conversations and activities, even if we remembered all the details, would take more time and space than we have here. Suffice it to say that for three hours the house resounded with the happy sounds of a family get-together, little children playing, talking, singing, and laughing, and bigger kids (ages 35 and up) doing much the same (oh, and did we mention the picture-taking?).
But, all good things must come to an end and around 5:30 the kids loaded up the car and headed back to Richardson. It wasn’t long until we all decided to clean up the mess, straighten the house a little, and call it a day. Barbara and I had been up since 4:30 this morning and all the excitement had worn us out. So, we said our goodbyes to Mother, Ernie, and Billee and drove back to Big V, our stomachs full from great meals, and our hearts full from a wonderful visit with family members, proving once again that Thanksgiving, like Christmas, is far more than just a day on the calendar…it’s a happening that can take place any day of the year that family and friends can get together for the pure enjoyment of being together.“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” – Edward Sandford Martin
From Mineola with love,
Jim & Barbara
Nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, 95 miles north of Atlanta, Georgia, and 65 miles south of Greenville, South Carolina, is Toccoa Falls. It is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College, a four-year, fully accredited Christian college.
Monday, November 3
Our main job for the week was to do some painting around the place. There are two steel-framed covered walkways leading from the King Hotel lobby to the chapel. I don’t know how long it had been since they were last painted, but they were both showing signs of aging, with badly rusted places and faded, peeling paint.
Barbara: My assignment this week was to help the new dessert chef Heidi in any way she needed me. This was a real treat…pun intended…since Heidi allowed me to really help and was very patient with my endeavors. Not only did I learn several new dessert recipes, but I also learned how to cut a pineapple properly, use the industrial mixer, and arrange desserts in an eye-pleasing manner (which has never been all that important to me…my philosophy was always…here it is…now eat it!)
Tuesday, November 4: Election Day
Jim: Again, it was a quiet, short evening as we retired to Big V after dinner and the evening devotional.
Barbara: Actually this day was a bittersweet one since we knew it was time to move on, but we had such a good, tiring, and enlightening experience that part of us hated to leave. The friends we have made and the memories they have given us are so very special. Once again, we found that the quantity of time means relatively nothing compared to the quality of time one has with people.
Jim: We cleaned up our mess and then Barbara and I drove back up to the campground to begin the task of getting Big V ready to travel. It took about an hour to get everything put together; then, while Barbara drove the Vibe down the hill, I followed in Big V. Once in the parking lot, it didn’t take much time to hook up the trailer, load the car, and move off to the side of the lot to find a parking place for the night. Fortunately for us, we were able to park in a designated RV space that even had a 50-Amp hookup so we wouldn’t have to run the generator.
Friday, November 7
When we had hugged and shook hands all around, Barbara and I headed on out to Big V to begin our journey for the day, one which would be Point A to Point B (we just didn’t know where Point B would be, but we sure hoped it would be well past Atlanta).
Jim & Barbara
With the picture taking completed, we went back inside to work on the journal and relax for a couple of hours, exchanging conversations with others who were parked near us.
Since the seniors wanted 3 meals a day (imagine that!) …Jere, Gwen, and I became quite proficient at dining room attendant skills (which include setting out food, utensils, desserts, etc. as well as the coffee, tea, or me bit!)
This morning I got a new job in the sequence. Because grits (a major element of a Georgia breakfast) and the strawberry pancake syrup are so sticky, they don’t come completely off the dishes even after spraying and going through the high-pressure dish washer, so I got the job of standing over a hot sink and hand washing every dish that had either grits or syrup on it; that’s in addition to scrubbing nearly every pot, pan, and metal tray that came out of the kitchen. Believe me when I say that I literally had my hands full for a couple of hours as I took plates and bowls from the line to the sink, scrubbed them with steel wool, stacked them on my counter, and then carried them back to the conveyer belt to go through the normal process; all this while doing a delicate dance with Bob, who was removing clean dishes from the dish washer and stacking them on a rack behind us, and Nancy or whoever else was coming into the room to pick up the dishes from the rack and taking them back out to the serving line.
Did you know that the # 1 question on the food line is…”Where is the sweetener?” Our guests were looking for little packages and instead overlooked the sugar and saccharine containers right beside the coffee urns.
Tonight’s meal was complicated by the fact that we had a large men’s choir (150, with some family members) who ate first so they could get ready for a concert. By the end of the shift, we had fed over 500 people.
We were telling Nancy about the wear and tear on my hands since I was doing the fulltime pot scrubbing, and she came up with a pair of good kitchen gloves…talk about an improvement. I fill the basin with the hottest water I can stand and add a special detergent solution created just for heavy duty scrubbing. I got to thinking that if that stuff can dissolve burned-on eggs and potatoes in just a couple of minutes, it can’t be doing my hands much good, so I was grateful for the new gloves.
Friday, October 31
With the smaller group of guests, some of whom left soon after breakfast, we managed to complete all of our kitchen and dining room duties in record time, (only because Barbara and Lynn joined us in the dishwashing room and helped clear the trays) and were much relieved to hear Nancy tell us that we were through for the week after finishing the lunch run.
We were fortunate that we got to Helen before the large crowds started arriving and had time to walk around and see the sights without bumping into everyone. Bob and I bought a couple of cups of coffee and sat outside by the town fountain while Barbara and Nell began their trek through 250 of the town’s 200 shops. But, we soon joined them and did both some shop-looking and some buying when a couple of items screamed out, “Buy me…buy me!”
Brasstown Bald is part of the U.S. National Forest System, which maintains the wilderness area and the observation deck on the visitor information center at the summit of the mountain. The center has one of the most comprehensive groups of exhibits that we have ever seen, including interpretive and interactive exhibits of the area’s geology, ecology, climate, weather, history and culture, all housed in an 8,000 square-foot hall.
Barbara: Just as a side note…I found the Gorge the most awesome place for photos…I have not doctored these photos at all…these are the actual foliage colors I was able to capture. Once again, we say…God does great work with His paintbrush!!
When everyone had left, Barbara and I returned to Big V to watch the second half of the Texas and Texas Tech game from Lubbock. I cheer for Tech in all of their games but one, but tonight my cheers for the Longhorns just didn’t hold up as Tech won a nail-biter, scoring their final touchdown with one second left on the clock. Oh well, you can’t win them all, and I guess this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate my good sportsmanship in a losing cause.
Next, is a photo of Barbara’s great nieces (sister Nancy’s grand-daughter.jpg)
Nanny (very proud to be so smart and know something a 2nd grader knows): I sure do – that is the Indian sign for “sun.”
“Instead of counting your days, make your days count.” – Church Signs
.jpg)
After looking at the parking spaces, we followed Bob back down the hill to the laundry facility where we greeted Nell, his wife, and Mildred Rogers, another acquaintance from our Lady Lake experience..jpg)
On the way out of the parking lot we saw a Sonic, the first we’d seen since leaving Mineola, so we stopped and bought a couple of hamburgers to take back to Big V for our supper..jpg)
The fulltime staff of the dining hall generally takes care of moving the food trays out to the line, but we soon found that lines of distinction of duties began to blur when the masses entered the room for meals; in short, whether one was staff or a volunteer, getting the job done was the important consideration..jpg)
Since the others were well into the morning routine before we started, our duties were somewhat limited, mine probably more than Barbara’s, since she seemed to be staying busier than me. When I wasn’t carrying stacks of plates and bowls to the serving line or sorting silverware, I kept an eye on what was happening in the dishwashing room, since it was highly probable that I would be spending some time in there before this experience was over..jpg)
I went out to the dining room and was visiting with Bill and Ray while waiting for Barbara’s group to finish their work. Ray brought out a large stack of pictures from his 30+ years of serving on the Ivory Coast in Africa and showed us the churches he had helped build and many of the people he had worked with.+(2).jpg)
With that little job done, we headed out the door a little after 10:00 to go back to Big V and rest for a while (actually, I fell deep asleep…guess I was still tired from yesterday), until time to go back at 11:30..jpg)
Around 7:00, Bill knocked on the door and invited us to join the camping group at Herbert and Mildred Roger’s site for a bonfire and conversation. After dragging our folding chairs out of one of the bins, we walked up to the next site and found Herbert, Mildred, Bill, Jean, and Ken already enjoying a beautiful campfire. We just sat around talking, sharing stories about what we’ve been up to since the last time we worked together in Lady Lake, and listening to Herbert’s jokes.
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=link}