A Peek at a Week...

Here are a few tidbits from last week...

Wednesday (Apr 15th) I had the most attendance at an Institute class for this semester.  It was great having all three students.  Lots of good discussion and participation.  At one point I thought we would have 5 students.  But two just flew in from Utah and were exhausted so they headed home.  One student has two others he has been inviting and they may come next week.  Love teaching whether it is one or 5.  I really love studying my scriptures and learning as I do that study.  It is a 'cup filling' kind of thing for me. 

Thursday (Apr 16th) was an at home day.  

Our HVAC bit the dust.  They man came in the morning to replace it.  He was there all day.  We left the basement door open and he was in and out all day.  His wife came and worked with him for a bit.  I asked her if I could walk my treadmill or if that would bother them.  She said it was fine so I even did my 30 minutes on the treadmill while they were here.  After he finished installing the new unit and programming the thermostat, he gave us instructions on how to use it. The old thermostat was off white in color and blended in with the wall color.  When I came upstairs and saw the new one I was a little taken aback. It is a white circle with a black circle in the middle.  A little obvious on the wall.  Behind the black center is the digital read out of whatever you are doing. It is touch screen to change and use different settings.  The man asked for our login for our wireless to program the thermostat.  I assured him he would find it amusing and our children curse us every time they bring a new device to our home and have to put in that login.  It is only 26 characters long.  When he finished, he said, "I'm so glad I didn't make any mistakes when I entered that!"  He gave us a good tutorial on how it worked and then left our home.  I headed back downstairs to finish an almost finished project.  Claude headed to the kitchen to fix dinner.  

As I sat in my basement work room, I was getting colder and colder and colder.  I finished and went upstairs and found it was also very cold.  After a few minutes of talking with Claude, I walked over and put my foot on the register.  It was blowing icy cold air.  I checked the nifty new thermostat.  It was left on 'cool' after our training and was doing its job cooling our home.  I turned the whole things off as we are having comfortable enough weather we weren't running it anyway.  Then I assured my hubby this new HVAC was powerful and would do its job very, very quickly and very well.

My afternoon Thursday was two notebooks full of journal pages I found at Papa's.  I thought I typed all their journals and was amazed to find two more notebooks.  They have been sitting in my sewing room for a while and I determined Friday afternoon was a chance to deal with making sure they were in a digital format.  I was relieved to learn that most of it was things I had already typed.  There were 25 new pages that Papa hand wrote.  All of Mom's I had already typed.  I went through each page to be sure I already had it in my compute.  There were also some pages I had written by hand.  I scanned and saved all of Papa and my hand written pages.  This is why I call this picture "Afternoon in a Bag".  It is the trash can full of pages that are all now digital.  Yeah me!!

Also Thursday I weighed myself.  I have been back walking my treadmill since the beginning of March on a daily basis (except when I fell and hurt my knee).  Claude and I have given up sugar treats in the house. That was a great disappointment to my grandmonsters when they came to visit.  I usually have a plastic canister full of little chocolate bars.  Not any more.  I have not lost any weight until last Thursday when I stepped on the scales and was two pounds lighter.  While this is not a 'rock-the-world' announcement, it is huge to me.  Claude was sitting in the living room in his 'Pa' chair reading.  I walked through the living room to the pantry and opened the freezer door.  I took 2 1-pound of packages of Jimmy Dean sausage out of the freezer and walked back into the living room and waited for Claude to look up at me.  I posed with a pound of sausage in each hand held close to each hip.  He looked at me with that "what are you doing?" look.  I told him, "I just weighed myself and I lost two pounds.  This is your visual of exactly what that two pounds looked like."  This gave the Big Guy a good grin.  I replaced the sausage and felt very satisfied with myself.  This could take forever for me but I have no deadline.  I just realized that caring for my father is physically wearing me down.  Then I realized I was the one who had to make the difference for me here.  I would love to have some of me left when this care-giving is complete to travel with my Big Guy.  At the rate I was going, that was probably not going to happen.  So, I will walk my treadmill and eat a little healthier.  I'm not counting calories or fat grams like Claude (who has lost 40 pounds).  I just don't want that burden.  But I'll weigh every now and then and see if I have lost and really enjoy the fact that my slacks fit better and I can climb the stairs without breathing heavy when I get to the top. 

Friday morning (April 17th) I went visiting teaching.  Love to go visit Linda.

Then I came home and read a chapter in my book.  I was reading Ivanhoe (a Kindle free version) and was near the end.  After that, I went into Georgetown and got Papa some bananas.  He and I watched some game shows before I had to head to my doctor's appointment.

Earlier in the week, I found a lumpy thing on my shoulder.  It felt like a silver dollar sized area under the skin on back left side near the shoulder.  Actually right under the bra strap.  The area felt like there was  sack of some kind full of fluid.  The fluid moved when you ran your fingers across it.  I checked my other shoulder and did not have one on that shoulder.  There is no visible sign on my skin that this thing is under the skin.  I didn't know what it could possibly be.  I decided to wait a few days and see if it changed.  Thursday afternoon it still wasn't any different but I really wanted to know if it was something I should be concerned about or not.  I called Dr. Culbertson and made and appointment to have him look at it and tell me what he thought.  That was the doctor's appointment.  Dr. Culbertson said it was a lipoma.  It will probably never go away on its own but it is not a cancer.  We determined I would just leave it and watch it.  If it changes in any way or begins to cause pain, I am to go back and he will find a doctor who can do a biopsy, or do an MRI or CT scan.  

When I got home, I finished my Ivanhoe book.  Then the doorbell rang.  That very rarely happens out in the country.  I answered it and it was my next door neighbor.  It seems our mail person left all of our mail in his mail box.  I thanked Dan and we chatted a bit.  Then he left and closed the door.  However, something didn't seem right.  I caught things straggling from my door wreath out of the corner of my eye as I closed the door.  Hmmm.... It is a vine wreath and there should be nothing straggling.  I opened the door and looked and was somewhat confused.  I saw this.

See that cute little bird nest.  I have never put a bird nest in that wreath and I've had it for 10 years.  It has hung a lot on this door and never have I put a bird nest in it.  I have changed the flowers as they fade or blow away.  But never thought to add a bird's nest.  Then I peeked inside the nest.

Yep, four cute little eggs in that nest.  It really shocked me.  I am not a swearing person by nature but my reactions was a very loud, "Holy Crap!!"  Dan was on the street walking back to his home and heard me and said, "What is it?"  I pointed to the nest.  He said he saw it and thought it was part of our decorations.  I assured him I had not done this.  He asked me what I was going to do.  Hmmm...birds hatching on my front door???  I told Dan I was going to take pictures.  Which I did.

Claude was walking the treadmill.  I waited for him to come upstairs.  I told him to come see something with me.  I opened the front door.  (Here is where you can tell we have been together for 45 years!)  Claude looked at it and when it registered what was in our wreath and the possible implications of its being there he said, "Holy Crap!!"  I told him that was exactly my reaction and we both laughed it and the entire situation.  We opted to close the door and leave it.  Our discussion centered on the fact that Thursday we had the AC guy putting in a new unit, Bevins came to pick up Claude's tractor, and a few other things and had us in and out of that door through the day and no one ever noticed this.  

I posted these two pictures on Facebook.  Lots of people liked it and several commented with everything from the joy of watching these little birds hatch to the concern over that mom dive bombing us if we came close.  I didn't see any parents on that nest the rest of the day.  Not good...

Friday night Claude and I went to the Annual Scott County Chamber of Commerce dinner. 

Today (Saturday, April 18th) my oldest grandmonster posted that she noticed it when they visited from the 5th through the 10th.  She just thought it was part of my decorating.  It would appear the little eggs were abandoned long ago.  Claude's reaction..."Who want's omelets?"  

This morning Claude and went to downtown Sadieville to help with weeding and clean-up day.  I spent 4 hours weeding the flower beds on Main Street.  Claude cleaned under the railroad bridge where it seeps some kind of gravel.  Then he went to the Hwy 25 & 32 intersection and cleaned up the vacant land there.  We are both beat and getting more sore as the day wears on.  It was good to get that done.  Now I can begin to work on my flower beds.  And...the yard work season begins.

We treated ourselves to lunch at Wendy's.  Nice new salad for us was the bacon BBQ chicken.  Very good.  Enjoyed it with a root beer.  Yum.

As I sat at my lap top to get this blog entry, I received a picture from my daughter.  Next week our son-in-law is running in his first marathon as part of the Kentucky Derby events.  I will have Gramma duty with the Mini's so she can go and watch her hubby and cheer him on.  The picture was a wristband they sent to Michael to wear in the race.  It has contact info for him and Andie and...tah dah!!...me.  Andie's text message asked me, "Don't you feel important now?"  I replied, "I do, I do.  I really, really do!"  Proud of Michael for doing this.  Happy Andie can be with him.  And really happy I get to be Gramma on duty again.  

That is a bit of what happened in the last week.  Today is our son's birthday.  The big 40.  I must now leave and see if we can sing happy birthday to this boy, er, young man.