A Little Bit Behind!

Sunday, October 10 – Saturday, October 16, 2010

Sunday, October 10

Happy Birthday today to Barbara’s sister, Carol Crenshaw, in Roswell, New Mexico!!!

Today was a really fun day at church as our friends Gene and Carolyn Neyer joined us for the morning service. We had visited with our music minister, Danette, about having Gene play the special music some morning on one of his accordions, and today was the day!

We thought our friends were going to be with us during the breakfast and Gene would play some background music while we dined on our omelet’s and other goodies, but as we were approaching Holiday Village and Big V on the way to church, Gene called to say their plans had changed a bit and they would see us around 10:30.

We went ahead and dropped some things off at Big V and then went on to Yantis for the fellowship breakfast and Sunday school and then met with Gene and Carolyn before the service started. The church praise band was also warming up and practicing for the morning’s music selections, so Gene just joined in on a couple of the songs. Of course, we had cameras at the ready for just such an occasion.

David had another powerful sermon for us this morning and then after church Gene and Carolyn returned to Holiday Villages with us for lunch in the clubhouse (where Gene gave an impromptu accordion recital for those in the building), and we sat around and visited with each other and a few of the property owners who drifted through the room.

When lunch was over, we adjourned to Big V to just sit outside on our “patio” area and talk, and talk, and talk, all the time enjoying a beautiful fall afternoon.

After an hour or so, Gene and Carolyn went back to their home and we turned in for some light reading and a short nap before returning to Yantis for choir practice and the evening service.

We did have a "little" excitement as we stepped out of Big V to prepare to go to church. That's when we spied our latest visitor...let the photo do the talking...

As one can tell, this critter wasn't a bit concerned about being around us...guess he found us friendly since he posed so nicely in the big photo!

More pics than words to this day, but that’s okay…pictures are better!

Monday, October 11

Happy Columbus Day! (Well, according to Congress, anyway).

This was a rare day of not much of anything going on at Mother’s house. The occupational therapist and one of the nurses came by for visits today, but other than that, it was a nice quiet day on Heritage Drive.

Tuesday, October 12

Happy Birthday to Cousin Ty in Graceville, Florida!!!

After yesterday’s holiday of sorts, we swung back into action today with some light housework…also had a visit by one of the guys from Wood County Carpet in Quitman, who stopped by to measure the living room and hallway for new carpet.

The physical therapist came to the house at 1:00 to give Mother her workout and then we had Sophie come in for a couple of hours while Barbara and I drove to Lindale to do some shop-looking at Lowe’s for some possible purchases for the house.

When we were finished at Lowe’s, we went over to Sonic for the Happy Hour special (Diet Coke with extra ice for Barbara and a cherry limeade for me), and then Barbara called our friend Heidi to se what she was up to. As it turned out, Heidi and the kids were at home for a while, so we drove out to their place at Hideaway for a quick visit. Heidi had to get the girls to a drill team practice, so we stayed for just a few minutes and then returned to Mineola to go to Walmart for a few items before returning to the house for the evening.

When we got to Walmart, we saw that some group was giving away hotdogs and drinks, so we decided that would be our menu for the night. We supplemented the basic hotdogs with some sauerkraut, chili, and onions, and had a meal fit for a king!

Tonight was just another quiet night at Mother’s house.

Wednesday, October 13

Happy Birthday to our good friend Becky Roark in Lubbock, Texas!!!

This morning we had Sophie come in and stay with Mother while we went out for the Wednesday activities…Barbara dropped me off at Our Little Lot and I worked there for a few hours while she went on to church for the weekly Bible Study group.

When she returned to pick me up, she was delighted with the way I had cleared the rubble around this beautiful purple bush, tree, whatever it is!

The afternoon was relatively quiet as we just piddled around inside the house and did a little yard work outside during the evening hours.

Thursday, October 14

We went into full-blown chef mode early this morning to prepare a special brunch for Mother, TJ, and some of TJ’s friends. TJ and her friends get together for meals from time to time and we had decided a couple of weeks ago to have a brunch for them at Mother’s house.

Barbara has been combing through the magazines and recipe books for several days and came up with three different quiches that she wanted to make. Now, we know you aren’t supposed to try out recipes on folks like this, but it just seemed to be the thing to do.

While Barbara was in charge of putting the quiches together and getting them baked so they were all three ready at the same time, I helped prepare the ingredients and was also in charge of the bacon and gravy. The whole operation took a lot of teamwork and we managed to pull it off and have everything on the table only a few minutes after our announced serving time…the food looked (and tasted) delicious, the table was beautiful, and the ladies really enjoyed our efforts as they sat down and dug in.

We were kind of tired of being in the kitchen after several hours of that kind of work, so while everyone else was eating and visiting, Barbara and I took a few minutes to get some fresh air and drive downtown to take care of paying some bills and making the post office run.

When we got back to the house and the ladies finished their meal, we all pitched in to clear the table and soon we had the dishwasher running and another stack of dishes and silverware waiting to go in next. And…time for one more photo before the party came to an end.
All of that finished just as Kendra, Mother’s nurse, arrived for her weekly visit and to administer a B-12 injection.

When Mother and Kendra finished their business, we shut the house down and headed to our room for a well-deserved and much-needed nap…with NO apologies to anyone!

Tonight we learned that Jimmy Clint was back in UMC with heart problems…his blood pressure was fluctuating between very high and very low and the doctors were having trouble getting him stabilized, so we began making some contingency plans about whether one or both of us should go out to Lubbock.

Friday, October 15

Jim: After talking to Jimmy Clint this morning and then spending time in prayer and talking to each other, we decided that I would hurriedly pack and go to Lubbock for a few days to check on Jimmy and do some work on the house that he will be living in when he is out of the hospital.

A friend and business acquaintance of Jimmy’s has a vacant house that he is going to let Jimmy use, but it has been vacant for a few years and needs some serious cleaning before anyone can live in it.

Randy, another friend of Jimmy’s has volunteered to move all of Jimmy’s things from a storage unit to the house and then help move it into the house…he is to have everything at the house by the time I can get to Lubbock.

We told Leah what I was doing and she said that since she was finished with coaching volleyball, she could leave right after work and drive to Lubbock to help with the house. What a blessing!

With all that done and Barbara staying behind to take care of Mother while I’m gone, I took off in the Vibe at 10:00 am and drove, and drove, and drove (took a route that we hadn’t taken in a long time, and now I remember why’ U.S. 380 between Denton and Greenville is a very s-l-o-w and dangerous highway.

I got to Lubbock around 6:30 pm, went to see Jimmy at the hospital, and then went to the house to begin cleaning. Leah got there an hour or so later and we worked until about 12:30 am cleaning floors and carrying in things from the trailer. We were pleasantly surprised that together we were able to unload everything except a large chest of drawers; by the time we got there, the adrenaline was all gone and we were ready to turn out the lights and crash.

Barbara: As a mother of a son, who is mighty ill with no answers in sight, it was hard to say good-bye to Jim; but…I knew in my heart of hearts that right now Edith needed my help more than Jimmy did. He knows, and understands why it is important for me to be here for Edith’s daily care and that’s all that is important to my way of thinking.

After lunch today, I talked Edith into going with me down the street to the mailbox. It was a gorgeous day and since I would be pushing the wheelchair, all she had to do was enjoy the fresh air.

As soon as we got to the bottom of the drive, we were greeted by a young teen who was selling popcorn for the Boy Scouts. We told him we’d be glad to help him out if he’d come back after we checked the mail.

Then after getting the mail, we saw Addie was in her garage and her “customers” (most of the neighborhood was having a garage sale…we decided our plates were full enough without having to deal with that!) were gone; so Edith and I went in to browse and to visit.

We had a really, really good time! Though I vowed that next time we would walk in the street as the wheelchair and the driveways didn’t get along too well. Oh, well…live and learn.

The disposal chose today as the day to quit working so I had to call Roger over to take a look at it. While he was here, Lisa came by to bring me the recorder so I could work on the CD’s for Bible Study. This was a good thing since I needed something to keep me busy!

To finish off our list of visitors today, we had Ann the occupational therapist and the nurse both come. We could have put a revolving door in…that’s for sure. This “old house” was a beehive of activity!

Saturday, October 16
 Jim: Today was a full day of work at the house in Lubbock. Leah and I got up early and continued our cleaning from last night…first on the agenda was to pull out all the carpet pads in the living room and dining room areas…then it was more sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, etc.

Jimmy’s friend Randy and his wife and another friend showed up to help. Randy and Noel rip out and install flooring, so they were particularly helpful in taking up the tack strips that were nailed to the floor…nothing like having the right tools and someone who knows how to use them! Randy’s wife helped Leah and I clean out kitchen cabinets and work on the floor in there while Randy and Noel were finishing up in the living room and hallway.

The next door neighbor, George, and his brother Ernest came over and hauled away trash, distributing it among three dumpsters out in the alley. Leah and I nearly had a fit when George rolled up the garage door and we saw everything that was stored in there, but George explained that he and Ernest were just going to empty the garage and throw everything away unless we saw something we thought Jimmy Clint might be able to use.

By mid-afternoon Leah and I were getting tired and hungry…no breakfast OR lunch, so we took a break, got cleaned up, and went out for a meal at El Chico before going to the hospital to spend a couple of hours with Jimmy Clint.

This evening I installed new locks on the kitchen door and then Leah and I did some more cleaning and straightening around the place. The bedroom furniture was all set up for Jimmy Clint’s return and the house was clean and straight enough for him to set up housekeeping.

I called Barbara and told her that Leah and I had done about all we could do for the time being and that we would leave in the morning…Leah would go back to Liberal and I would drive back to Mineola. If necessary, Barbara and I (or one or the other of us) could drive back to Lubbock when Jimmy Clint is released from the hospital and help out for a couple of days.

Barbara: I failed to write down anything on the calendar so have NO idea what Edith and I did except I do know that the walk to the mailbox went a lot better with us walking in the street. Thankfully, Edith’s home is on a dead-end so we didn’t have traffic and the garages were all sold out from yesterday so didn’t have customers driving around the street.

“Nobody's family can hang out the sign, "Nothing the matter here." - Chinese proverb

From Lubbock and Mineola,

Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams

The Lake…394 Geronimo (911 address…not our address)…Taken from the street showing Big V hidden by the gully and the trees…

One Little Month

Sunday, September 12 – Saturday, October 9, 2010

You know sometimes life serves you lemons one day and you make lemonade; other times you forget what to do with the lemons and you just suck on them letting the bitterness soak into your system. That’s basically the way things have gone around East Texas for a while; so we decided that the better part of valor at this time is just to lump four weeks into one journal entry.

So many blessing have occurred…

*I (Barbara) was re-baptized on Sunday, September 12th, for all the right reasons this time! And…that same Sunday our friends Heidi and Curtis Hays (Heidi was the pastry chef at Toccoa and I was her right hand (ha!) when we volunteered there. Now the Hays family lives right here in East Texas! Small world!) attended church with us and their daughter Hannah played the offertory. Boy, is that girl talented!

Edith and TJ also attended the service this morning in support of Barbara as did Bob and Mary Royar from Holiday Villages. David really likes it when we are involved in something special at the church because we bring so many visitors with us.

Edith and TJ decided to not join the gang for lunch and returned to Mineola for the afternoon, but Bob and Mary, the Hays family, and us all went to the clubhouse at Holiday Villages to sample their delicious Sunday specials. After eating, we took Curt, Heidi, and the kids to Big V to show them Our Little Lot and did some reminiscing about our camping adventures at Toccoa. Later, we gave our guests the grand tour of Holiday Villages.

*Mike and Kelly found out that they will be having a baby girl sometime in February!

*We have reconnected with many students, friends, and family members through the dreaded facebook. Barbara has found many of her students from her Lubbock days even remember aspects of their time together. Kind of a cool thing!

Not only did we find former students and friends; but we found that by checking out fb, we could see photos of our family that we hadn’t seen before…such as this one of Keylin, our great-niece who lives in Cleburne!

Or…how about this one of granddaughter Randi in San Antonio sitting in a field of bluebonnets!

*Heidi and Barbara found time finally to have a girls’ lunch day.

*Jim has spent many an hour out at the lake getting the yard into the shape he wants it to be!

*Between having Sophie come spell us with Mother and At Home Health Care Services, things are moving smoothly around her house.

*Jimmy Clint served his time, and more, and was released to go to CRTC. But, before he could get there, he wound up in the hospital with major problems in three areas…heart, nerves, and internal. They have done every test they know to do so now it’s a matter of waiting for results to come back from Mayo Clinic. Until then, he cannot go to CRTC and was released to Home Health Care.

*Bible Study for Barbara started back up in September with an in-depth look at the 23rd Psalm. Wow!

*We’re getting to use our love for media by making CD’s for Barbara’s Bible Study class. Last night (10/08) were up until nearly midnight burning cd’s, using RealPlayer. I had it installed on my computer and once I figured out how to do the burning, we installed the system on Barbara’s computer and we were in business.

We needed 16 copies each of two master discs, so even with the 24/1 burn rate, it took a couple of hours. I managed to finish first, but only because I was doing disc 2, which was 29 minutes, while Barbara was burning disc 1, at nearly an hour in length.

When I finished my share of the burning, I moved to the desk in the bedroom and started up the label printing part of our production. There are surely better and faster ways of doing all this, but our “Little Media Productions” is still a mom & pop (or should we say, Grams & Gramps) operation.

*We’ve gone to the club house twice for Bingo and each time either Barbara or I have won a game, visited with friends, and gotten a Wal-Mart gift card and the thrill of yelling, “B I N G O!”

*Gene and Michelle made a flying trip down here from Kansas and brought us homemade blackberry wine which Jim has enjoyed (it really was for Edith, but since she’s been on antibiotics, she hasn’t gotten to participate yet.) and some apples from their orchard. Michelle gave Barbara instructions on how to make applesauce and she was able to make 3 pints which we’ve all “forced” ourselves to eat with relish – well, maybe with gusto, since we don’t have any relish!

*Gene and Carolyn have come over several times for short visits which always brighten our days…AND Gene and Jim even got to go dip some worms in the lake one day!

*Jim started a new crop in the front yard…haven’t figured out what to do with this bounty; but did make a good photo! In fact, we decided that maybe we’d sell them to Roswell, NM, since they are the “alien/flying saucer” capital of NM. They could package them as miniature saucers!

*Our Sunday morning breakfasts at church have been fun and well attended…in fact, attendance at these functions have increased immensely since the first one offered! There are always all kinds of wonderful food and the most popular line is the one by Mike, who graciously spends his morning whipping up the omelets!

There’s always something new and different to discover there, too. In fact, Barbara learned that these awesome peach and strawberry jellies that everyone loves and that are furnished by Shirley, is, in fact, made with figs and either peach or strawberry Jell-O! Now how cool is that…and delicious, too?

Shirley says that next year when her fig trees start to produce, she’ll holler at us so that we can try our hand at this awesome treat. Who knows…maybe with all this country influence, we might become quite the cooks!

*Jim’s aunt, Glennis, from Florida was here for two weeks. The three sisters got to spend some quality time together, sharing meals, coffee, and just good old reminiscing time!

* We all attended a Sunday morning reunion at the Smith Family Cemetery between Big Sandy and Hawkins. (That’s clear as mud now, isn’t it? Now, I still haven’t figured out the Smith angle since they are Faulks and Davenports. But…since the ancestors are buried there, I guess that’s all that is important! And…as we found out during the shared meal time, everybody there was related to everybody there one way or the other…even if it was 4 or 5 generations back! Still, it was a fun time for the sisters and that’s what was important! Edith even got to ride over there with TJ and Glennis which was quite a treat for her.

*Edith’s cousin Martha Jo and her daughter and son-in-law came over from Rockwall one day for a cook-out. Jim was in charge of the meats which he cooked out on the grill while I took care of the indoor veggies. With the food the others brought, we had quite a spread!

*Ladd and Madalyn joined us (Angela was working); so with the sisters, there were 10 for lunch that day.

*With the help Edith is getting from Home Health Care, she is getting more and more independent every day. It’s a very slow process and sometimes the Parkinson’s gets in the way; but…inch by inch we’ll take what we can get!

*Edith and TJ had a hen luncheon over at TJ’s. It’s the first time in many months that she’s been able to get out like that. Though she slept the rest of the day, she declared the whole experience quite fun!

I didn’t attend; but Jim took a pic of Edith and me as we were getting ready to leave the house to take her over to TJ’s.

*After getting the cycle out of the cycle hospital, Jim spent many man-hours pampering her!

*Edith had a biopsy done on spot on her wrist that came back as squamous cell cancer; so she and Jim had to go to Quitman to see about having surgery on it. The surgery is scheduled for October 25, the same day that Jim goes back to the same dermatologist for a check-up and review of his procedures. Edith didn’t let the business of the day slow her down a bit! (Especially since in the right top pic she was headed to her chair where she and Bonita could take a much needed nap!

*Barbara and I finally got to take a long awaited motorcycle trip after we attended See You at the Pole in Yantis on September 22. We went up to Arkansas and Oklahoma and rode the Talimena Skyway. 477 miles…which Barbara says gave her not only the sense of freedom but a tired butt and swollen ankles!

When we left Mineola on Tuesday, we went straight to the lake and Big V, where we got to spend the night! It was super to be home.

The next morning, Wednesday, we took time to show off our See You at the Pole shirts which we decided would be our travel clothes for the day.

*See You at the Pole was a wonderful start to what turned out to be an even more wonderful day! Chandler, who is a senior at Yantis High, did a great job at involving the kids. Something we had never seen done before was having chalk available and letting the teens write down on the sidewalks a prayer, things they were thankful for, whatever…

*Another very touching moment about that morning was the fact that a young lady arrived with tears running down her cheeks and students rushing to meet her. Her father had died the night before; but she didn’t want to miss this morning of showing the world that she loved the Lord and was relying on His strength. What a silent message she sent this day to all who were gathered there.

Once the students and teachers scrambled to their classrooms, Jim and I spent a few minutes visiting and jawing with David and our friend, Mary. It was David’s idea for Mary to sprawl down in front of the cycle in an attempt to capture Jim running over her! T’was great fun! And…it was really nice of David to take photos of us getting ready to leave.

Obviously, our attire doesn’t qualify us a Motorcycle Mama and Papa of the year; but it really just doesn’t matter…all that mattered was that we were “on the road again!”

Actually, we didn’t make it too terribly far before we had to stop as we had to make a Wal-Mart run in Sulfur Springs to get a tire pump. Ours died the night before and Jim was NOT a happy camper. But…we found one, he aired up the tires, and who pulls up beside us…David. His wise remark was something like…Boy, you guys didn’t make it very far, now did you? Duh!

Once on the road for good, I entertained myself enjoying the different scenery (once we got off I-30) and trying to take photos of myself through Jim’s helmet. It’s amazing how difficult that is. I still don’t have it down to perfection; but hope I get many more opportunities in the future! (No, in the top left photo I am not saying, “Halt!”…that is supposed to be a wave…)

The day was absolutely perfect for a cycle ride as the puffy white clouds show!

And…of course, no trip would be complete without a stop or two for road construction. Wasn’t that bad this time since the weather was cool and the sun was covered by the clouds. On a cycle when one has to stop on the pavement for any length of time, the feet and body can become quite hot if the sun is blaring down!

We revised our travel plans as we went since we had spent so much time in Yantis and then the Wally stop; so we would stay in Oklahoma the whole way. However, the navigator…me…made a slight, or maybe not so slight mistake, and the next thing we knew we were lost on some country road!

Jim mentioned turning around; but, I took a page from Mike’s (Jim’s son’s) book and said…”No turning around! We’ll come out somewhere and what does it matter?” So…miles and miles later we wound up in Arkansas! Oh, well…we weren’t in a hurry.

And…as the top left photo shows, Jim always takes me to the fanciest places to have a picnic! Since we didn’t know the roads and what might be ahead, hunger won out and we just pulled over by a lake or stream or something we couldn’t quite see for the trees.

Eventually, we ended up on the Talimena Scenic Byway and took some very gorgeous view shots.

The Talimena ride was fun and interesting, but it wasn’t something we plan to do again. For one thing, unlike rides through the Rockies, the Blue Ridge Parkway, or the Shenandoah Valley, the views never changed much, and none of them were extraordinarily dramatic. After stopping at a couple of pullouts to admire the scenery of the valleys below us, we realized that they all looked the same,,,nice and green, but not much variety.

Still, it was more about the ride than the scenery, and with partly cloudy skies and a semi-cool breeze most of the time, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

After completing the Arkansas section of the Byway and riding a few miles through the eastern Oklahoma section, we decided we’d change our original destination, leave the Byway for a faster road, and return to Broken Bow to find a place to spend the night.

Almost as soon as we got back on a real highway we ran into a little thunderstorm, but before we could decide whether to stop and put on raingear, the rain stopped. We rode a little farther and then decided we need a comfort break…found a little country store with all the amenities we needed except that their drink machines were all out of order, so we did what we stopped to do, got a couple of almost cool drinks out of the ice chest, and then headed down the road toward Broken Bow.

It wasn’t very long before I noticed that the gas needle, which had shown more than enough fuel to get us to Broken Bow, suddenly dropped like a rock. I didn’t mention it since Barbara tends to get nervous about such things, but at some point she looked at the gauges and saw that the needle had bottomed out and we weren’t seeing any signs of gas stations ahead.

Fortunately, we made it to a small community about 8 miles north of Broken Bow and found a quick stop place where we could have a little break and take on a tank of gas before finishing our ride for the day…just another blessing along the way!

After a quiet night in Broken Bow, we took our time getting around before saddling up and heading back to Wood County and Holiday Villages to spend another night in Big V.

While at Our Little Lot. Barbara got to see Linda’s paintings before they are taken to a museum in Winnsboro to be displayed. Linda, as one can see, is quite talented!

I, in the meantime, worked the land which brings me much joy and comfort. Barbara likes to mow the front, back, and side portions of our lot; but after that she’s ready to hunker down, read a book, and watch the birds from our patio. (You’ll notice that we look quite rough in many of these photos during our time away from our daily duties; but enjoying our life, our time together, and the freedom to plan our days was much more important than whether we looked like fashion plates! No Ken and Barbie are we!

The lot is gradually taking shape again after a grueling, hot summer. There was no way we could afford to pour the water to it that was necessary to keep it looking the way we’d like, but cooler weather has helped make it easier to maintain it. Like any home, Big V and the lot just need attention, and we’re just not able to give it as much of that attention as we’d like. But, we enjoy the heck out of it when we are there…there’s certainly no chance that we will be taking it for granted!

As was mentioned earlier among our blessings, our friends Gene and Michelle were back from Kansas for a few (very few) days. We haven’t had an opportunity to visit them in what seems to be forever, so to night we took a step toward correcting that by riding with them to Sulphur Springs and enjoying a great meal and lots of conversation at Chili’s. It’s been so long since any of us have been out in civilization that we weren’t sure we’d know how to behave, but we managed to pull it off okay.

After our “big city” outing, we returned to Holiday Villages where Gene and Michelle dropped us off at Big V. As soon as they drove away Barbara remembered something she was supposed to get from them, so she drove over to their lot while I went inside and got Big V ready for the night…it looked like a perfect night for sleeping with the windows open while the fresh air wafted gently through the room…another wonderful blessing!

On the last day of our “mini-vacation,” we got up early to enjoy the sunrise while I sipped a cup of hot coffee and Barbara started her day with a Diet Coke while we sat beside Big V.

When it was light enough and some of the fog had lifted, we went for a long walk around our “neighborhood,” During the walk we got a chance to try out one of our latest gifts from the property owners association, a set of binoculars that is also a digital camera. They are good only at distances of 40 feet or more, but they worked really well for what we were doing this morning. The park is very beautiful and quiet that time of the day!

*Another real blessing is that (it appears) summer has finally given up its power over the area and we are enjoying beautiful fall weather. I hate to mention it, but I’ve even had thoughts some evenings of sitting in the bleachers somewhere and cheering the home team during a football; but, I take a Tylenol and a couple of Tums, and the feeling goes away.

Still, the cool evenings and the crisp mornings are a welcome relief from those continuous days of 100+ temperatures and humidity readings that almost matched the temperatures. We know that in a couple of months we’ll wish we had some of those days back, but we are gladly accepting what we have now.

*Another blessing (and we even have a photo of it) was that the weekend Jimmy Clint was released was Jaycie’s 13th birthday party, and he was able to attend and get this photo of them together for the first time in over five months. Needless to say, both of them were thrilled!

We’ve written about the lemonade we’ve made over the last month; but what about those lemons we chose to eat raw? Well, we just spit out the seeds and turned everything over to the Lord who is better equipped than we to handle the disappointments, hurts, and feelings of inadequacy.

“Life is full of ups and downs. The trick is to enjoy the ups and have courage during the downs.” – Unknown

From Mother’s house in Mineola,

Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams

Happy Birthday shout-outs for this edition of the journal/blog go to:

Wednesday, September 22 – Mary Royar at Holiday Villages

Wednesday, September 29 – Francisco Camacho in Puerto Rico

Friday, October 1 – Jaycie Colwell in Lubbock (now a teenager!)

Sunday, October 3 – Cousin Cindy Wright in Tallahassee, Florida

Saturday, October 9 – Jan Jividen (Kelly’s mom) in Gilbert, Arizona

A Little Bit of Mineola Life

Sunday, September 5 – Saturday, September 11, 2010

Sunday, September 5

As we prepared to leave for church this morning, we were counting on all the usual routine…get us up and going and then get Mother up and going…have Sophie come in for a couple of hours until TJ arrived to take her to church, etc.

We had already made arrangements for Sophie to come in from 3:00 until 7:00 this afternoon so Mother would have someone here while I went to choir practice and we went to church tonight.

Everything was going according to plan…Mother was up and around and Sophie was with her as we left for Yantis to start the morning with the fellowship breakfast, followed by Sunday school and church.

It was during the church service that we found out that there would be no choir practice or service tonight because of tomorrow’s holiday. Since it was too late to back out on Sophie, we went back to Our Little Lot at Holiday Villages, took a short nap, had lunch from the clubhouse, and then tackled four hours of chores around the place.

The first job was to drag everything out from under Big V and then set up the rolling pallet that I had fashioned from an old box spring from Mother’s bed. Just as I had hoped, nearly everything that had been sitting on the concrete slab (and getting wet every time it rained) fit nicely in the two sections of the pallet.

By the time I was finished with that chore, everything that we store under Big V was up off the concrete and neatly organized (until the next time we need something).

Next, we turned our attention to mowing and trimming the entire lot. We haven’t had much rain the last few weeks, but there was enough that our grass was growing into the “must mow” range. Barbara mowed our “front” and “back” yards (the areas on either side of Big V) while I did the trimming and then mowed part of the gully where we have the bird feeders.

With that done, I moved to the lot behind us and mowed a big section of it to help keep the critters away from Big V. It is still chigger season and we do have an occasional snake come around, so we try to keep the grass down all around us.

Finally, I moved the mower out to the front of the lot and mowed on either side of the driveway, giving our lot a nice “cared for” look.

With the work done, we got all the tools put away, took showers, straightened up the inside of Big V, and headed back toward Mineola. We stopped to visit Bob and Mary, but they had left for the evening, so we drove to Quitman to pick up mail for our friends Gene and Michelle who will be returning to Holiday Villages sometime this week, and then took a scenic back road trip from Quitman to Mineola.

We arrived back at the house at 7:00, just in time to check with Sophie on how the day went, visit with Mother before she went to bed, and turn our attention to a little TV watching and journal writing…what a really nice day it turned out to be!

Monday, September 6

Happy Labor Day!!!

This was the closest thing to a holiday that we’ve had in a long time. We took our time getting up and around…had a nice breakfast with Mother, did minimal work around the house, barbecued some chicken for a late lunch, and then just took it easy for the rest of the day…no mail and no trips to town…how simple a day is that?

Out of deference to Labor Day, I did labor for a short time this evening as I trimmed and mowed the back yard (but it’s a small yard, and didn’t really count as work).

Tuesday, September 7

Barbara has been doing nearly all the cooking lately, so this morning I said she could stay out of the kitchen and I would take care of things. While her menus tend more toward the exotic, the breakfast I cooked this morning was very basic-pancakes, bacon, and eggs, but it hit the spot and no one walked away hungry or dissatisfied.

We had some little on again-off again showers during the day, but they didn’t do much more than raise the humidity. Barbara decided that she would mow the front yard this morning, just in case it really rained during the day.

Ladd called this morning and invited us to dinner at their place. Angela was cooking a brisket, beans, and potato salad. Not wanting to be unsociable, we said we’d be happy to come over; Barbara even jumped up and baked a cake for the occasion.

When we got ready to leave Mother’s house, I noticed that the starter on the car was lugging down, an almost certain sign that the battery was on its last legs. When lunch was over and we got Mother back to the house, Barbara and I took the car to Walmart to get a new battery and do some shopping. I told Ladd that I didn’t know if we could afford to come back to their house for free dinners. The last time we visited them I had to get two new tires and today I had to buy a battery.

This afternoon I decided to tackle a chore that I’ve been putting off for too long, cutting the vines and ivy out of the fence that separates Mother’s and Addie’s yards. It wasn’t a particularly hard job, but it was tedious as I unwrapped long strands of vines…don’t know what they are, but none of us wanted them around, and then pulled them out of the chain link fence.

Tonight was the first meeting of the new church year for Barbara’s Bridge group at Yantis First Baptist Church. For our newer readers, they don’t play bridge…it’s a group of women from the church who meet together to study scriptural ways to “bridge” the gap among the different ages.

We arranged for Sophie to come stay with Mother for a couple of hours and drove out to Our Little Lot so I could work while Barbara went to church. We ran into a light rain along the way, but it wasn’t doing anything when we got to Holiday Villages, so I got out and prepared to do some yard work. Barbara headed off to church, but she must not have even gotten to the gate when the thunder rumbled and the skies opened up.

With a torrential downpour going on all around me, it was obvious that I wouldn’t be doing any outside work, so I began tinkering around inside. Before long, Barbara returned, saying that no one showed up at her meeting, so she returned to get me. (Oops! The next day Lisa reminded Barbara that everyone, including her, agreed several weeks ago to change the time back to 7:00)

We decided that we’d take the extra time we had to go visit Bob and Mary. Bob is still recovering from his back surgery and we haven’t been able to spend much time with him.

After talking with Bob and Mary for a few minutes, we returned to Mineola and Mother’s house to spend the evening working on the blog and journal.

Wednesday, September 8

With the threat of raining hovering over us, we began the day’s activities as usual…wake up and check email, get Mother up, have breakfast, etc.

We arranged for Sophie to come spend a couple of hours with Mother while we went to Yantis for Barbara’s Bible study group.

Before Barbara went to Bible study, she met with David in the sanctuary and recorded her video testimony that will be shown to the congregation Sunday morning before her baptism. Barbara shared in an earlier journal/blog installment about her experience a few weeks ago, and now the date is set for Sunday morning, September 12.

David and Barbara got the video shot with minimal takes and soon she was headed off to her group and I left to go work around Big V. I spent the next hour or so clearing out the place where John and I had cut down some tree branches on July 4th. There were still quite a few logs around that I hauled off to the burn pile (I wanted to burn, but everything was wet from yesterday’s downpours, so that job will just have to wait).

After raking and hauling off trash, it was time to go back to Yantis, check out the finished video that David made this morning (and it was very good, by the way), get Barbara and then drive back to Mineola.

When we got to the house and stepped inside, the first thing we saw was both puppies standing in the doorway with strange looks on their faces. We knew right away that something in the house wasn’t right, so I went back to Mother’s bedroom and found her lying in the floor. Since Maria, the lady who comes to clean Mother’s room, had been gone only 5 minutes, we knew that Mother had been down only a short while. Mother was just fine, so I called Barbara to help me pick her up and then I started to work “curing” the cause of her latest falls, a power cord from her lift recliner that got tangled in the wheel of her new walker. It took some doing, but the cord is now attached on the opposite side of the chair and cannot get tangled in the walker unless Mother picks the chair up and turns it around, and that is way beyond likely!

Since Mother was on her way to the living room to wait for the visiting nurse when she fell, we got her started back in that direction, but diverted to the dining room to have the lunch that Barbara prepared while I was working on the chair.

We were nearly finished when Kendra, the visiting nurse from At Home Healthcare arrived for her weekly visit. Kendra is a very pleasant young lady and we enjoy her visits as much for conversations we share as for what she does for Mother.

When Kendra left and we had the kitchen cleaned, it was time to take our naps, but mine was interrupted several times by phone calls from David, the mechanic in Tyler who is working on the motorcycle. The first call was good news, as he told me that the key he lost (and the only key to the motorcycle) was now found and he was in the final stages of his work.

After a couple more calls, I gave up the nap as a lost cause and decided to get dressed and go to the backyard to clean out a couple of flower beds. Before I could get my boots on, I heard a terrible racket outside and saw that we were having a torrential downpour…so much for pulling weeds - at least for then!

We spent the rest of the afternoon working at our computers and catching up on phone calls. Later, I went out back and pulled grasses and weeds out of one section of the flower bed, but it was very muddy work and I could tell that there was no way it would all get done today…looks like I’ll be hauling in some more dirt to fill in some low places that have nearly 4 inches of water standing next to the foundation.

The evening was fairly quiet…a little TV and a little work on the journal/blog. Mother was in bed and asleep by 9:00 and we followed at 10:00.

Thursday, September 9

Today was just another day around Mother’s house, with no excitement to speak of.

While Barbara stayed home and cooked lunch, TJ and I drove Mother to Quitman for a dermatology appointment. Mother has all kinds of marks on her arms from dog nips and scratches, but there were also a couple of cysts and some other spots that had us concerned. We were able to get in to see Mr. Gautier, the physician’s assistant who handled my dermatology work in Tyler. Mr. Gautier immediately discounted a couple of the spots that we asked about, but took a deeper look at a cyst on Mother’s arm and decided to scrape it off for a biopsy. He thought it looked like a squamous cell cancer, but we’ll know for sure in a week or so.

When Mr. Gautier was through and had cleared us to check out, we headed back to Mineola and Mother’s house where we found a wonderful meal waiting for us. We spent the next half hour eating and talking and making plans for next week’s visit by Aunt Glennis, who will be coming up from Marianna, Florida, for a couple of weeks.

The afternoon was slow and quiet until our physical therapist, Keith, arrived from At-Home Healthcare. Keith went over all the case notes that he had been given and then started putting Mother through her paces. One of the tools he used was an upper and lower body cycling machine. Mother used it today to simulate riding a bicycle, but Keith said it could also be placed on a tabletop and be used for arm exercises. When we asked where we could find a machine like that, Keith said he had seen them for around $25 at the Wal-Mart in Lindale.

After putting Mother through several other chair exercises to strengthen her hips, knees, and ankles, Keith gathered up his “toys” and left to go home for the day…turns out he lives just a few blocks from us, so he will catch Mother at the end of his travels each day as he heads home.

Tonight we just sat around and watched TV and worked on the journal/blog. As far behind as we are on this little project, there was plenty to get caught up on.

Friday, September 10

The peace and quiet of the past several days was broken this morning when I loaded the dogs in the car and took them to the vet for their annual checkups and shots. Spike, who is always so calm and easy-going, was his usual self…he loves nothing more than getting in the car and going for a ride. Bonita, on the other hand, hates the car and broadcasts to all within her frequency range that she is a very unhappy princess.

When Bonita starts crying and whining, it is impossible to keep the windows closed because the sound bounces off all the windows. But, when we open the windows even a little bit for some relief, all the drivers who pull up beside us stare as if wondering what we could possibly be doing to that poor animal to cause her to screech like that…it is truly a lose/lose situation for whoever draws the short straw and makes the trip to the veterinarian! (Barbara volunteered to stay home with Mother! No big surprise!)

Our appointment for this morning was at 10:30, so I timed our trip to get there by 10:25, get checked in, and get the procedures over with. Unfortunately, Dr. Bradshaw was tied up with someone else’s animals, so I sat there with a crying Bonita in my lap for about thirty minutes before she finally calmed down. Spike, meanwhile, was wandering around the office (on his leash, of course) and sniffing the pant legs of everyone who came in.

Sometime after 11:00 Bonita finally calmed down enough that she just sat in my lap and watched Spike, and at 11:30 they came for the dogs. The rest of the visit was just fine…no more whining and crying…not even a yelp when the dogs got their shots.

When they were finished, I put both dogs in the car and then went inside to pay out, hoping against hope that it would be a quiet ride back to the house. I evidently wasted all my hopes, because as soon as I started the car, Bonita cranked up again, whining and crying all the way home. Boy, am I ever glad that this is only a once-a-year event!

Barbara: While Jim was bonding with the puppies, I got to bond with a couple much more fun! Gene and Carolyn came by to visit and to tell me that Carolyn is flying out Saturday to go play grandma; so they won’t get to come to church Sunday to witness my baptism like they planned. I certainly understood the call to duty but got a chuckle with their way to celebrate my decision. They, in a gift sack with a gal in a bathtub (immersion, get it?), put a diet coke (my drink of choice at any celebration) inside a can coozy.

Anyway, we were having so much fun talking that the time just slipped away from me until I realized that I had to fix lunch, take a shower, and be ready to go to Tyler in less than an hour and a half! But…at least they got to witness Jim bringing home his passengers; in fact, they almost got run over by Bonita who was hurrying to tell Edith how mistreated she had been! So, while I corralled the dogs, Jim got to spend a few minutes chewing the fat with Gene and Carolyn.

Jim: As soon as I got home with the puppies and visited with our company, I helped Barbara get lunch ready while she got a shower and got dressed. Mother came into the dining room and we had lunch and then Sophie came over to sit with Mother for a couple of hours while Barbara and I drove to Tyler to get the Voyager out of the motorcycle hospital.

We stopped at Wal-Mart in Lindale and bought the cycling machine for Mother and also found a new harness for Bonita. Bonita had destroyed her harness a couple of months ago and we haven’t been able to find a replacement until today.

When we finally got to the repair shop, after tangling with Tyler’s Friday afternoon traffic on a loop that is continuously under construction, Barbara took a couple of photos of the cycle and David and me before rushing back to Mineola to relieve Sophie. Silly us, we thought we could do all that in just two hours, but we didn’t count on traffic jams caused by the multiple highway maintenance crews.

When David and I finished talking, I climbed on the cycle for the first time in several weeks, fired it up, and began the ride back to Mineola.

Luckily, it was an uneventful trip, although I did get a little nervous when a motorcycle policeman pulled up behind me at a red light in Lindale. My inspection sticker expired at the end of August and today was the end of the 10-day grace period for getting a new sticker. I think the officer must have been in a hurry to get somewhere else, as he took off in another direction.

There is a really nice cycle shop between Lindale and Mineola, so I pulled in there to see if they still did inspections. Lucky me, they did and I was the only customer in sight, so in 10 minutes I rode away with a completely legal cycle, not caring how many patrol cars or cycles I might see.

When I got back to the house at 4:00, Keith was there finishing up another rehab session with Mother. He was pleased to see that we had bought the cycle exerciser and said that Mother should be able to get quite a bit of use out of it while she watches TV.

I went out to the back yard around 5:00 to continue cleaning out the flower beds. I worked carefully around the Zinnias that Mother and Barbara had planted during the spring, but when Barbara came out and saw what I had done, she said to go ahead and pull out the Zinnias too, since they had quit flowering and didn’t look any better than the weeds and grasses. After a couple of hours of pulling, cutting, and trimming, I decided that I’d had enough of that fun and went inside to clean up.

Barbara: While Jim did his outdoor playing, in between times of helping Edith, I got busy trying to design a business card for Gene that I had said I’d do months and months ago. They realize that I’m just at the playing stages so anything I show here isn’t official; but…with a better photo, I think these could look sharp. Also, I am very aware that the phone numbers should be lined up, but as I said...this is just a practice because the photo is too cluttered!! Besides, Carolyn’s out of town and they don’t have a program to open the design so I just decided I’d put it in the journal where I know they will see it. Clever, huh?

Jim: Tonight we didn’t do much of anything…just got caught up on some mail and I worked the text for this week’s blog entry. I caught a little bit of the Artesia/Albuquerque Manzano football game, but with the time difference between here and Albuquerque, I just didn’t feel like staying up, so we shut down the computers, went to bed to read for a bit, and then shut everything down for the night.

Saturday, September 11

Lest we forget, today marks the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, and the crash of a plane that was commandeered for another attack, but which came down instead in a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives in the attacks.

After a big breakfast, it was time to get some serious yard work done. With the flower beds in the back yard finally cleaned out, I decided to go to Wal-Mart and get some topsoil to level the beds. As I wrote earlier, a strong rain will leave us with as much as four inches of water standing next to the foundation and I wanted to eliminate that problem if at all possible.

While Barbara worked inside the house, I turned the existing soil and then added eight bags of topsoil to the mix, leveled the beds and raked them smooth, and then trimmed and mowed the back yard. Since more rain was predicted for the day, I went ahead and mowed and trimmed the front yard before deciding that I had done as much as I could for the day.

Since we had such a large and late breakfast, Barbara fixed a late lunch and we sat down to eat around 3:30. After that we rested for a while before going out to Holiday Villages for the monthly Bingo Night. We haven’t had much luck at bingo the last few times we’ve gone, but Barbara won one of the ten games tonight and brought home a $10 Wal-Mart shopping card…yay, Barbara!!!

We got back to the house at 8:00, got Mother ready for bed, and spent the rest of the night trying to finish off the last two weeks of journal/blog entries.

A week or so ago Leah sent us a youtube link and said she thought we’d find it interesting. When I had a moment, I hit the link and found myself watching a portion of the Liberal High School Band 1997 Spring Concert…the year that Whitney was a senior and Leah was a freshman and I was the director.

One of “That” Liberal Band’s traditions was to play Claude T. Smith’s Emperata Overture each year during graduation ceremonies; it was the last piece that the full band would play before the seniors got up and went outside to join their classmates to enter the gymnasium to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, played by the underclassmen.

Some years I programmed Emperata as part of the spring concert, just so we’d be sure to have some extra practice on in. I believe that in 2007 Emperata was the opening selection of the concert and was undoubtedly one of the best performances of the piece during my 11-year tenure as director of bands. That isn’t to say that there weren’t a couple of moments I wouldn’t like to have “do-overs” on, but I did think it was an outstanding performance by a great band.
Hearing the piece brought back a lot of memories and I thank whoever kept that footage and posted it on youtube. For those who might be interested in seeing and hearing the band, turn up your volume, sit back, and watch and listen when you hit this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tq6OyG5zPM

“When things get tough, always remember…faith doesn’t get you around trouble, it gets you through it!” - Unknown

From Mother’s house in Mineola,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams

A Little More Life

Sunday, August 29 – Saturday, September 4, 2010

Sunday, August 29

With miles and miles ahead of us today we got up early, finished packing the car, and then got ready for Sophie to arrive to look after Mother for a couple of days while we drove to Lubbock to get Jimmy Clint’s things out of storage in preparation for his transfer to the Lubbock County Courts Rehabilitation and Treatment Center.

Sophie arrived at 7:15 and we gave her some last minute instructions before we got in the Vibe and started the 450 mile drive to Lubbock.

We knew Mother was in good hands with Sophie and that TJ would be by at 10:15 to take Mother to church and then bring her back to the house for lunch.

We arrived at the storage facility in Lubbock around 3:15 and immediately set to work going through all the things we had put in there at the end of April. The rehab center provided a very specific list of what and how much of it Jimmy Clint would be allowed to take to the center with him, so we spent a lot of time picking out the clothes we thought he would like. We picked up a few extras of some articles of clothing, hoping that when Kyle delivered everything to the center, Jimmy would be able to go through them and get exactly what he wanted.

Around 5:00 we went to the Holiday Inn Express near the Civic Center and checked in, called Cathey to make arrangements to see Jaycie for a bit tonight, and then waited a while before going across the street to Walmart to pick up a few things that Jimmy didn’t have in the storage shed.

Cathey and Jaycie caught up with us in Walmart and after visiting for a few minutes, Cathey left Jaycie with us to continue our work. Jaycie was a great help in selecting just the right soaps, shaving cream, and other toiletries for her daddy. She also knew what kinds of tee-shirts and underwear he liked, so she was able to select those for him, also.

When we got back to the hotel, Jaycie went through the things that we had picked out for Jimmy from the storage shed and made some decisions about what she knew he liked and didn’t like.

Then, we went up to the room and visited while we helped Jaycie with her math homework. She is just starting the seventh grade and is already loaded down with assignments.

Of course, we also took a little time for silliness and photos!

Around 8:00 we went back to the storage shed to look for a couple of pairs of shorts that Jaycie wanted us to get for Jimmy. Luckily, we found them and then got back across town to have Jaycie back home with Cathey in time to get ready for bed.

We then drove to the Lubbock County Jail and waited until 9:30, Jimmy’s scheduled visiting time. We only got to see him for 30 minutes, but managed to have a very good visit (under the circumstances) and got to read him a letter that Jaycie wrote while we were at the storage shed and driving her back to the house. Jimmy was also very pleased to learn that Jaycie had picked out or approved all the things that were selected for him to take to the rehab center when he is finally transferred.
We were worn out from the trip, the work, and the visit, so we left the jail at 10:00, returned to the hotel, checked email, and then turned in for the night.

Monday, August 30

We got up early this morning, checked out of the hotel, and then met Kyle for a late breakfast at Denny’s and transferred the suitcases and sacks of Jimmy’s belongings to his car so he can deliver them to the rehab center when Jimmy transfers out there. We can’t say enough about how important Kyle has been to us through this time…he has been extremely helpful to us and a true friend to Jimmy!

With breakfast out of the way and the car gassed up, we started the long trek back toward east Texas, but without the sense of urgency that we had yesterday. For one thing, we had already planned a trip for these two days…just not to Lubbock. But, when we knew that Jimmy was going to be transferred, it only made sense to employ Sophie for these two days and get this business taken care of.

Finally, about 5:00 we told ourselves that we were off the clock and no longer would discuss anything serious and anything family related. It was time to relax and pretend that we were off on a real vacation. Therefore, we took our time driving and stopped off north of Gainesville to pay homage to the Chickasaw Indians there before continuing to Durant to spend the night with members of the Choctaw Nation.

Tuesday, August 31

Enjoying our break from the usual routine, we took our time getting around this morning after a good night’s rest at the local Microtel. It's always amazing how we can meet such interesting folks in the breakfast bar at the motels. This morning was no exception when we wound up sharing a table with an elderly (yes, we realize we're getting up there in age ourselves...but this was an elderly, elderly) woman from Allen, TX. She shared much of her interesting life with us in basically a short amount of time! Fun and mindless!

We left Durant at noon and were back in Mineola by 2:30 to unload the car, start the laundry, run a few errands, and get settled in at Mother’s house…not a very exciting day, but some days are like that.

Wednesday, September 1

Can you believe it…September already…where has the year gone?!!!

It was busy around here as we had visitors throughout the day. The morning was pretty much the usual routine…breakfast and some routine cleanup chores. Roger Green, TJ’s handyman, called to say that he would be by sometime this afternoon to help remove the old kitchen range and begin the cutouts on the cabinet. That worked out well for us, giving us the use of the range, such as it was, for breakfast and lunch.

At-Home Healthcare sent out two people to see Mother. Kendra, an LVN, came by to introduce herself and get Mother’s medical history and vital signs, and Stan, a contract physical therapist, came in for an hour or so to do an evaluation. Both folks were friendly, very personable, and very professional, strengthening our belief that we had made the right decision to go with their company.

This afternoon I went ahead and removed the range from the kitchen. I had planned to just help Roger with it, but the longer he took to get here, the more important I thought it was that he be able to start to work on the cabinetry as soon as possible. Besides, I had helped Ernie pull the range out once upon a time, so I felt certain I could do it without causing any damage (to me or the kitchen).

When Roger finally arrived, the range was sitting in the garage. While he went to work on the cabinets, I drove to the hardware store to locate a new outlet (the old one was hardwired) and get any other accessories necessary to get the new range functioning tomorrow. I also went to Sears to get a range cord and check the clearance in the back of the range to know exactly where to set the new outlet…an awful lot of stuff to be thinking about!

It took Roger a couple of hours to do all the cutouts to the right size for the new range and after he’d cleaned up his mess and left, I started wiring the new outlet, a job that took much longer than I anticipated because the wires were very heavy gauge and didn’t cooperate at all in the small space that I had to work in. Finally though, the job was done and the outlet was mounted on the wall, just waiting for tomorrow morning and the delivery of the new range.

Barbara occupied her time during the day by taking care of our first of the month business, handling the routine household chores, and cleaning up some of the messes that Roger and I made as well as taking care of Mother.

Barbara: After we went to bed around 10, my cell rang which is a clue that I’m probably not going to like what I hear as family members know not to call after 9. Sure enough, Leah Renee’ was calling to tell me that Arnold Robbins, a very dear friend and former fellow teacher in Lubbock, died today of cancer. She had just found out on Facebook and knew that I would want to know.

Arnold was the kind of science teacher that could make the most disinterested students love the subject. One walk into his room was like walking into an experiment waiting to happen…rocks, animals, (I found his snake in my classroom one day and believe me I wasn’t a happy camper until Arnold took him back to his classroom.) and who knows what else could be found in his domain! But…Arnold’s real joy was in his after school program with rockets. He and the kids would spend hours just preparing, shooting them off, and discussing what happened right…what went wrong.

Together we coached Odyssey of the Mind for years and built teams that were definitely competitive in the big state of Texas.

But, the greatest thing about Arnold was becoming friends outside of school with Rosie and him. When he first started at Wheelock, he and Rosie were just a young, footloose, and fancy-free couple; but during the years my family got to watch his family grow with the birth of each of their three daughters. I even got to teach Alisha, their oldest, in the sixth grade before I left Lubbock!

When Henry was dying of cancer, Rosie and Arnold were there. And, after his death, they continued to walk with me.

Though the years since I left Lubbock and the miles have separated us, I still consider Arnold and Rosie some of my dearest friends and my heart is heavy with the loss.

Thursday, September 2

Jim: It was a big morning today as we awaited the arrival of the new kitchen range. We went over the floor and the place where Roger cut the cabinet out to make sure everything was going to be clean and okay once the delivery was made.

The Sears truck showed up in the driveway promptly at 10:00, and within a half hour the new range was installed and working…not only that, the door worked…easy to open and easy to close and lock…hallelujah!!!

Other than the excitement of getting the new range, it was a fairly calm day with just the regular chores and errands…get the mail, order refills on some of Mother’s meds, call Dr. Bankhead to request a referral for a neurologist to give us a second opinion on Mother’s conditions as it relates to Parkinsonism, go to the bank, pay bills, and make a Walmart run so it could be an official day.

All in all, it was just another day in Mineola.

Friday, September 3

This morning was taken up with getting Mother ready for another trip to Tyler; this time for a follow-up visit with her neurologist, Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew changed a couple of medications last month and wanted to see how things were going. Mother got a very good report this morning…some days are better for her than others, but her general mental acuity has shown marked improvement in the last month and for that, we are very grateful.

We returned to Mineola to find a great meal that Barbara had worked on while we were gone. TJ passed on it to go home and do some other work, but the three of us enjoyed it very much and then took time off for our afternoon rest.

I made the executive decision this afternoon to find a way to take the rolling pallet that I had made out to our lot if at all possible. I checked with Ladd about borrowing his pickup, but didn’t get any answers at the house or their cell phones. Barbara suggested that I call Bob Royar, but that would mean a couple of trips out to the lake, so I nixed the idea at first, but then gave Bob a call just to see what the possibility might be.

When I explained to Bob what I needed to do, he immediately said to come on out to the lake and get his pickup, He and Mary were getting ready to drive the golf cart down to the clubhouse for the Friday night burger special and wouldn’t be using the truck.

I told Barbara what Bob said and then we mapped out a plan for me to drive the Vibe to Bob and Mary’s house, bring the pickup back to Mineola and tie the pallet on it, both of us ride back to the lake where I would drop Barbara off at the clubhouse and let her order a couple of burgers for us while I unloaded the pallet at Big V, then we would eat our burgers and visit with folks for a few minutes before taking the truck back to Bob’s house, trading it for the Vibe, and returning to Mother’s house. So we did. Dr. McCray, my first graduate school professor at USF, would have marked that sentence paragraph with all kinds of red ink, but maybe my short story professor at ENMU would have been more generous. Anyway, that’s our story and we’re sticking with it!

When we got back to the house, I sat down to listen to the web broadcast of the Artesia Bulldogs and Hobbs Eagles football game from Hobbs. It was another high scoring affair with Hobbs winning in the last two seconds when Artesia attempted a 2-point conversion for the win, but didn’t make it and came out on the low end of a 48 – 47 score.

While I was busy listening to the football game, Barbara was editing pictures for last week’s journal/blog and catching up on some correspondence.

Saturday, September 4

Today was just a basic housecleaning day, although we did have our exciting moments this morning. I was working in the kitchen when Barbara called me out to the garage to show me that a hummingbird had gotten into the garage and couldn’t find his way out. We had both the main door and the outside door open, but the little feller was so disoriented that all he could do was skitter around the ceiling.

I got a broom and tried to shoo him toward the garage door, but that didn’t work at all and I was afraid I might hurt him. John came over from across the street and tried to scoop the bird with a leaf rake. That worked a couple of times, but we just couldn’t get him close enough to the main door to see his way free.

John had to go back to work at his place, so I grabbed my leaf rake and finally managed to scoop the bird low enough and close enough to the garage door that he “saw the light” and shot out of the garage like a bullet. It made for an interesting way to start the day and between Barbara and me, we got some pretty good close-up shots of the little guy in semi-captivity.

I took Mother to the style shop at 10:30 to get a permanent. Her regular stylist is out of town for a week, so we arranged for Leslie, the girl who cuts our hair, to do the perm. It took until noon to finish, but the result was outstanding. Mother really looked great when I went back to pick her up!

On a sad note, today was Arnold Robbins’ funeral in Lubbock. Our thoughts and prayers are with Rosie and the girls tonight.

Tonight we had Sophie come in to stay with Mother for a couple of hours while we drove out to Holiday Villages for a concert in the clubhouse. Josh Setser’s sister, Amy, was performing an encore concert for the property owners and guests. The first concert was a tremendous success and tonight’s presentation brought just as much satisfaction to those in attendance.

Since it was Labor Day week-end, the Villages had lots of activities going on, not only for the adults but for the kiddos, too. Josh says that they plan to have things similar to the water slide available on all major holidays. We know Abby and Alexander enjoyed the bouncy house while they were with us this summer; so sure other parents/grandparents appreciate the efforts Josh and his crew take to make holidays special around HV.

“The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson." - Tom Bodett, American author and humorist

From Mineola,

Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams