Shopping Outing

Hello,

I went shopping in a small town. We have been told the store there has everything. I can tell you that it certainly had a wide variety of items. I did buy a punch bowl ladle. My friend did not buy anything.

In the local diner at lunch we talked about how much we liked shopping and found out that neither of us are “real” shoppers, but now we have been to the place that is highly recommended. If asked we can honestly respond, “I’ve been there.”

It is a nice sunny almost warm day today. Leroy took the one functioning car to the car wash and it was closed so he came home, got out a bucket, and was able to get off the worst of the dirt or mud depending on your criteria. Any way this old car now looks better than it did.

I went to the chiropractor yesterday. I had been having quite a lot of pain in my neck. I think much pain was caused by stress, meaning I tighten my muscles pulling my neck out of line. I feel a little better now, but I still can feel those muscles gripping. I did yoga this morning, but I will ask Leroy to message my neck and shoulders.

I think I have been a little concerned about getting everything ready for this trip. But I did not admit that even to myself. After all I have traveled a bit and it should not bother me, right? Somehow I can conger up all sorts of possibilities. A great imagination is not always a soother. One of the older women in the congregation whose son takes the bus is worried about us getting on the bus. Once her son was to get on where we are and there were no seats for him. That would not be good, but the people who are taking us to the stop can take us to Des Moines. The bus pauses there for 20 minutes so we can no doubt get on there but I hope we do not have to do that.

I did get the paper stopped so one more thing to cross off my list. I suppose I should clean the house some, but I am not excited about doing that. I will wash clothes on Monday so most clothes will be clean. Monday I will give my neighbor the keys and show her where all of the plants are and the watering can so she can take care of my babies. All of my Christmas cactus will be blooming, as will two of the amaryllis. Here are some begonias that I have been keeping alive.

Paula

Cold

Hello,

I thought it was to be warmer today. It appeared that way when I saw that it was 20 degrees as I started my walk to the quilting group. “This wind is not good,” I thought as I headed north, “but surely it will be better when I get on a different street.”

Well nothing helped I was quite cold by the time I got to church. I had thrown away my favorite mittens because they now had a hole in the liners for both hands. I did not get out their very warm replacement because I surely did not need it today. To help my hands I put one hand in my pocket and the other was holding something so I just kept it out and then exchanged after a time. When I got to church my legs, hands and face were cold. It reminded me of some of the coldest days in Slovakia when the temperature did not seem that low, but the cold was just penetrating. Ten minutes can certainly be a long walk on such a day. It was a little better when I walked home, but not much as I had hoped.

I am so happy I found a scarf that goes nicely with one of my coats. It had been lost for a week. It was put on a hanger that is not its usual home and covered up by another scarf. Now who would have done such a thing? Being lost increased its value to me; while it was lost this scarf became my favorite.

Today I washed another scarf and my coat so I am ready for a trip to Minnesota. We will not take boots. That is a bit scary for me since my toes have been hurting a little (I think it is frostbite), but I do not want to deal with boots on the bus or the plane. Pray that all transportation works so I am not standing around in the cold. Yesterday and today I walked without boots. As long as I am moving, my toes feel fine so I think all of this should work. Surely in February the weather will be warm in Minnesota, but then perhaps not. I think the first year Leroy was in seminary we experienced 11days below zero in February. Global warming will help here.

Paula

Grumble! Grumble!

Hello,

I get email notice of the credit card bill. It just shows the total amount and not what all the credits were. I was rather amazed at the amount, as I had been expecting a much smaller bill.

When Leroy came home he said, “Let’s try again to get into that account so we can check on this.”

I can tell you that hackers we are not the world does not need to fear us. It kept telling me that the information that I had put in was incorrect. Leroy offered this opinion, “I think I got in there the last time when we were at Miriam’s and she helped me, but I did not write down any of the info.”

We finally had an on-line chat with a help person. I did get my ID for use and then she assigned a new password. But it still would not accept it because we are on a different computer and I had to put in the city where I was born, but it kept telling me that was not it. Finally I thought maybe I should put in Leroy’s city and that was correct. This account is in my name, we share it, but when it asked for the city I assumed that it would surely have on file my birth city. I suppose because Leroy was setting the online access up he put in his city! It also does not help that we have lived in many places and I have more than one email account. At least as the helpful person said, “it is to keep our account secure” and it is secure from us. J Financially secure, but frazzled.

Guess what! When we got into the account we saw that those were indeed bigger charges that I had forgotten about such as a gift to world hunger, and shots for Kenya.

That help lady did give me a number to call to tell the credit card people that we were going to Kenya. After sorting through a long menu I was able to relay the information to a live person. The same was true of the bank and our debit card.

Leroy and I are both emotionally tired. Besides I walked to a store this afternoon and found I did not have my wallet. I had to growl my way back home as that added slightly over a mile to my walk. Surely there are health benefits even during a grumpy walk, but I suspect it is greater if the spirit is calm.

Paula

Dill Pickles

Hello,

Tatyana gives me things from time to time to “pay” for her tutoring sessions. The other day she gave me some dill pickles. These were the best dill pickles that I have ever had. She could not tell me the recipe for it but said, “Next summer you come and I show you.”

“Yes,” I replied as I thought, “I will probably not be here then.” But who knows since I did not think I would be here for a second Christmas.

I friend and I went for a walk today. It was quite nice to be out in the cool brisk air and have snow gently fall on us. We walked for a couple of miles with a stop at the library and the post office. I do like living in a place that I can easily reach some of the places that have services I need.

On my to do list I have stop mail, (check) and return library books, (check). I have yet to stop the paper, but that I will do over the phone or on-line. The last time I did it on-line the papers were by the house when we came home. I am not sure how that happened, but oh well.

I think my toes must have frost bite again. I have pain in my big toes. It helps when I keep them warm. The trouble is if they are too warm my third and fourth toes on my left foot tingle and burn. Life gets trickier as you acquire more ailments! Now that Leroy he is just a happy go lucky guy. He has been quite healthy recently and I have taken on the roll of the ailing, but some of my “diseases” are things that will stay with me, such as those tingling toes and osteoperosis. At least he gets colds/flu he recovers from and this year he has rarely had anything.

Paula

Plans Made

Hello,

First of all let me say that yes we have insurance and it will pay for most of this. I guess I just thought that might give you an idea of the damage. At bible study this morning Leroy got the names of reliable body shops in town. We find the suggestion of the deputy was low it is now over $4,000. Seems as if we should have a new car when we are done. This is expensive plastic!

This morning Leroy confessed, “I do not want to call the insurance company.”

“I’ll bet you do not want to admit to having an accident and ruining your great clean record.” I went on, “I’ll bet you would be ok if it were me. And you would even tell me that it does not matter.”

“That is right,” he said, “I expect more of myself.”

We went ahead and bought bus tickets to MN. We thought that might be a bit more reliable than our car. It is nice that we can take luggage on the bus and not yet be charged additionally for that. We will figure out how we will get from the bus station to Brian’s house. Then we have to make a trip to the airport the next day. Brian could just take lots of time off? Or we will try very hard to use public transportation. I know that we can at least get closer to their home with that. Then we have to make all of these connections when we return. Fun and challenging, right?

One of the guys at bible study volunteered to take Leroy and I to MN. Generous since this is a 5.5-hour trip with good weather! Instead we have asked him to take us the thirty minutes to meet the bus. He will be out of town when we come back so will make other plans for that.

I remembered to ask someone to water my plants and we will ask our neighbor to shovel our walks should it snow while we are gone. Considering how winters go we are counting on having some snow.

One of the women in church gave me a Traveler’s Journal that she found in a bookstore. I am pleased with that. I had been looking for something to keep notes in, but nothing seemed just right. I am feeling more and more ready for this trip.

Paula

Slippery Roads

Hello,

“Wow, it snowed last night,” Leroy said as he looked out the window, “I will try to shovel a little before we go to church so we do not drive over it.”

When I came out I commented, “This is more than an inch or two.” Leroy and I do not pay much attention to the weather forecasts so we are frequently surprised. Life is so exciting!
As is his habit, when Leroy came home from church he called, “Hello,” but then he added, “You had better come look at something.”

When he started back out the door I wondered, “Did you have an accident?”

“Yes,” he said, “on my way to the second church I hit a slippery patch, slid around and then hit a bridge abutment on the opposite side of the road. Lucky for me no one was coming.” The highway had not been plowed and this was at the bottom of a long hill followed by a curve. Leroy was going slowly enough that the airbags did not deploy and he was not even jarred so much.

As many of you may know the bumpers are mostly plastic so the Saturn does look quite broken up. Leroy was able to proceed because he was able to lift up and secure the bumper with a bungee cord in the emergency kit that I had once gotten for his Christmas gift. Almost as good as duck tape!

We are grateful that Leroy is fine and the car is not too badly damaged, but the sheriff’s deputy figured that it would probably cost about $2,500. Oh well such a small cost compared to loss of life or bodily injury.

Now we are trying to figure out how we will go to MN for our flight out of the country. We have three options if the car can not be repaired in time: we could take the bus if someone here would drive us the 30 minutes to the bus stop, we could drive the 1990 Toyota praying that it will be trouble free, or we could rent a car. With the Toyota it seems likely that it would be fine since it “runs good” as they say in the car ads, but would Brian and Jen want such an old dirty car sitting in their driveway for two weeks? We will see what happens. We are now glad that we still have two cars around since this does give us good local transportation.

Paula

Packing

Hello,

“After breakfast I am going to get out a suitcase and start to pack,” Leroy announced.

“I want to do that too,” I told him. I said this partly because I want some input. Even though I have not moved anything I have been thinking about what to put where.

Sarah and Stephen have asked us to bring a suitcase that they can fill for the home trip. We will then store the things at our house or mail them to someone else. I wanted to be sure that I could get all of my things in a carry on bag if they needed the entire large suitcase. Leroy and I both have managed to do that unless we think of more things to take, otherwise we are in good shape. Leroy is only taking one pair of shoes and one pair of sandals. I am taking two pair of sandals wearing a pair of tennis shoes and wondering if that is enough. We are planning on wearing winter clothes on the plane since we will need them before and after the trip. At least the bulky stuff will be on our bodies and we do not have to find room for them.

Now we are considering taking only one carry on bag and packing the other in the larger suitcase since we do not have so much stuff to put in the large case and I hate to have things flying around in there. We are taking a number of books for Sarah and that could damage them.

This morning Leroy remarked, “I think we should turn up the heat here so your amaryllis will bloom before we leave. That is an idea because we keep it fairly cool in the house.

We were pleased to find some insect repellent with very high percentage of DEET and in a small container. It is hard to find these out of season things in a small town, but it is done now.

Paula