It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Claude...

Today we completed Christmas 2010...

For Christmas I gave Claude a one hour flying lesson in a Cessna airplane. He called and scheduled his lesson for this morning at 10am.

We were up and out the door by 8am. The lesson was at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky. After a quick drive-thru breakfast purchase a McDonalds, we were headed down the Interstate.  As we got further along, I realized I left my camera at home. This would not be a Kodak moment...it would be a Blackberry cell phone camera moment.

We arrived at Bowman Field and couldn't find where to get in the hanger. The address was right but the doors were locked. Hmmm...  Claude gave me the phone number and I called. James told us to go through the gate marked "No Authorized Entrance" and walk around the hanger. Okay...

Claude and I thought there would be some time for class study or orientation or something. We also thought there would be waivers or insurance things to sign. Nada!!!  They had him give them his phone number and eMail.

I pulled out my crocheting thinking there would be a few minutes before Claude was outside. Wrong. I heard Claude call my name across the room as he and James left the building. I quickly put my crocheting back in my craft bag and headed for what I thought was the door. Wrong...again. It was the glass wall I was supposed to walk around to get to the door. In my rush to catch up with Claude and James, you guessed, I walked right into the glass wall. Geez already!!! I could only laugh at how silly I must have looked. But I gathered my composure and walked around the wall, out the door and hurriedly caught up with Claude and James.

The fun thing was watching my not-so-petite hubby get into the plane. Once in he was quite comfortable but there is an art form to getting a big guy in and out of these little things.

It kind of reminded me of when I wanted this tiny sporty red car in Maryland. It was time to replace mine car and I was to get any car I wanted this time. Kids were gone and I could get something just for me. I found the perfect Honda CV something or other. It had a removable roof you could store in the trunk. The roof was hardtop and we didn't have a garage so it would be perfect for meeting my need to have something with an open top and very sporty. Claude took me to the dealer, I sat in it and fell in love. Then I turned to Claude and in a very hopeful and cheerful voice said, "You try it." After a bit of a workout, Claude was inside that little car. I said, "Would you really be comfortable driving this thing?" Claude, putting his best face forward and in a voice something like the little guy in Fantasy Island said, "Sure, it is fine." I knew right then it wasn't fine but he would go along if that was what I really wanted. We didn't buy that car. I became and 'Old Buick Lady' instead. But I digress from today's real story...

If you could only have seen Claude's face, it was some kinda wonderful. That grin went from ear to ear, even under his beard and mustache.

James spent some time walking around the plane checking things out, even on the top of the plane mind you. He appeared to be quite thorough. Claude sat in the pilot seat and grinned.

I expected this to take some time. Wrong. Just a few words, put the head phones on, tweek some switches inside, propeller twirls and they were taxiing away from the hanger.

James had Claude stop in an outer parking area to test the engine some. Then they went to the runway and they were off.

Claude's plane in right over the tail of the parked plane.

There was a covered patio area with table and chairs. I plopped myself down there and pulled out my crocheting again. A man pulled into the parking area in his own plane. He stopped and we talked for a bit. He asked if I was going to fly. I told him Claude was taking his lesson. He assured me we had just created a monster. We had a lovely conversation about his flying and purchase of his plane.

While Claude was still in the air another family came out to the patio. There was a mom, a daughter, a teenage son, a son about 4 or 5 years old, the gramma and the grampa. The teenage son was the one taking the lesson. Mom called the grandparents and asked if they wanted to come and watch. When they got to Bowman Field, they were told someone could fly with the son on his lesson. Grampa drew the lucky straw. I'm telling you, that Grampa was more excited than the teenage son.

Somewhere during all of this interchange with people, I missed the fact that Claude did one touch-and-go landing. I had the number on the side of his plane in my head but there was another plane that same color.

With all this company for me to visit with, it didn't seem long before Claude landed.

This is James the Trainer and Claude is on the right after their flying lesson.

Claude was very happy with his Christmas gift. We'll have to get him up again some time.

We headed to Chuy's for some lunch and he shared all the things he experienced and learned. It was great fun the enjoy his joy. There was even talk of taking the land that Doug Smith has not developed in Eagle Bend and turning it into a landing strip for the Sadieville Airport.

It was a great day to learn about flying.

We did a little shopping on the way home. And stopped at Papa's and set up his Lifeline alert system. We left him with his alert button hanging around his neck. I feel a measure of peace in that, in and of itself.

Now for a quiet evening at home. Needlework or edit computer files...hmmmm...

Simply Wonderful...

The last few days have been just simply wonderful. I almost don't want to rock this boat by saying that, but 'that's a true statement' as my father-in-law used to say.

Last Thursday we had Papa come out to the house in the morning. He received his lease from the real estate company and we needed to sign with him and get it notarized. He brought his trusty side-kick, Tiny, with him.

He sipped a root beer while we called the Lifeline people and ordered his Lifeline alert system.

Then Papa wanted to take his morning walk up on the hill beyond our home. He loves walking up there. It sort of reminds me of Jake going to Gettysburg. Just clears the head and gives one time to think and ponder the verities of life. I noted the time he left to be sure of the time I should start worrying if he didn't return. Papa enjoyed that walk but he came back puffing. I opened the door and he hurried in and said, "That hill has gotten steeper!"  We both had a chuckle.

Then Papa and Tiny left to go back to Georgetown so Papa could get to the nursing home to feed Mimi.

The rest of the day I worked on projects here and there. It was just a good day to get some things finished up at a leisurely pace. Sure felt good not to have to rush to get something done by a certain time.

Friday morning my new visiting teaching companion came and joined me to visit Linda. Linda lives further out that we do from Georgetown. This would be Debra and Linda's first time to meet each other. I love visiting Linda and her two little grandkids. We had a wonderful visit and enjoyed the time chatting.

Friday afternoon was another slower paced afternoon. I went upstairs to Claude's office and proposed that he take me into Georgetown to visit my mother and then treat me to dinner out. He was up for that idea. So we set the time to leave the house and then finished working on the things we both had started. I visit mom and Claude visited the CVS Pharmacy and the Family Dollar Store (I needed more Sudoku books). Then we went to Appleby's for my favorite dinner of Won-Ton Tacos. Yummy!!!

Rain came a tiny bit on our drive home. But we both commented on what a great day we were having. We ended the evening by watching TV in the basement. While we watched I worked at my computer editing some files I have saved there.

Saturday would be a day at home for both Claude and me. We slept a bit later, not much, just a bit. Then we both started our projects for that day. Mine was to finish my Sunday School lesson preparation. Claude had a talk to finish preparing for Sunday. We kept at it all day and in the evening we curled up in the living room to watch TV. I'm trying to finish up a cross-stitch project and that kept my hands moving.

We also wanted to watch the Super Moon that evening. At 8pm I went out and couldn't find the moon anywhere. Laura called to remind me to look. I assured her I had looked once and couldn't find the moon. Laura said it was just coming up over the horizon in Frankfort. I went out on the deck and looked again, no moon. Then I went out front and walked down the driveway, no moon. By now it was about 8:30pm. I headed back to the deck again with Laura still on the phone laughing at me for not being able to find the moon. When what to my wondering eyes should appear...wait...that's for a holiday in the future!! Behind a building in Sadieville proper you could see a bright halo starting to appear. That lovely moon was just starting to rise over our hills.

It was fun to watch it and go out every few minutes and try to get another picture, always hoping that at least one of the many I took might work out a bit. I did get some pictures that I'm happy enough with that I kept them. The first two are of the moon through the trees, then the last three are of the moon as it rose in the sky. It is not easy to get a picture of the moon with my little camera. But I'll share these because I'm happy with them as my best efforts with my little camera. I've tried on other moons and never had this much luck.

Today was a really good Sabbath. Claude had to be up and out of the house early so he was gone before I ever woke up.

Church was really good. The speakers in sacrament meeting were excellent. I enjoyed teaching my sunday school class. There was a combine Priesthood/Relief Society session about LDS Family Services & Child Services. We tried to have choir practice. I visited my mom for an hour. Then I visited Papa and we picked out music for this coming Wednesday. Claude and I are now home and doing a few restful things. We're going to enjoy the Eagles Concert tonight while I work on my computer files again.

I think I've enjoyed these days because I set the pace for my life and accomplished some things but didn't feel like I had to set the world on fire completing my 'to do' lists. I hope there are some more of those days in this coming week.

Let's Communicate...

First item:  Last weekend I received a message while trying to use Facebook. It seemed strange at the time. I later got an eMail from Facebook stating something in reference to this message. Clearly it appeared someone was trying to hack into my Facebook account. Facebook suggested in their eMail to change my Facebook password and my eMail password. Thus began my adventure.

I changed my passwords. Everything seemed to be going fine. A few tweeks with my Outlook and I was working great. Then, after a bit, I realized I was not getting eMail's on my Blackberry.

I'm honestly not just sure now all the steps and I went through Monday evening. It seemed my Blackberry wanted the new password validated. Hmmmm...which password. The old eMail password first, the new eMail password first, or was it some password associated only with my Blackberry. I know from past experience I have 10 chances to get that password right or I'm locked out of my Blackberry.

I found two places on the Blackberry to change your eMail. I tried both to no avail. I'm not sure how many tries I did and I didn't want to get locked out. Eventually, I just decided to let it be and wait another day and see if my number of chances reset so I had 10 again.

Over the next few days I tried to log onto Blackberry's home page. Apparently none of the passwords I had would work for that either.

Yesterday morning (Wednesday), I called AT&T at 10am. I explained my situation and concern and asked for help getting my eMail back. I had everything else on the Blackberry working, just no eMail. These people were very, very nice. It took three of them to help me through my process. Eventually I had eMail working.

Ryan, the third person I spoke with, asked me if there was anything else I needed help with. Hmmmm...I told him I was not able to send myself a Word or Excel document and then be able to open it, read it, and save it for later reference on my Blackberry. This was a feature that should be available on the Blackberry. I told him in July 2010 (I've tried to correct this problem for a LONG time.) I downloaded from DataViz the DocumentsToGo software to my Blackberry. This should have fixed the issue but it didn't.

Now, I started this phone call at 10am. By 1:45pm Ryan finally isolated the three issues that weren't allowing me to get these files and save them to my Blackberry. This guy had me in the bowels of my Blackberry checking out all the files that make up DocumentsToGo to be sure they were loaded on my Blackberry correctly. But he got me working properly and it was definitely a fix I couldn't not have done on my own.

Through this whole process I ended up losing all my data on my Blackberry. This was not a problem since I did a Sync on the Blackberry last Sunday prior to all this stuff happening. I had all my data on my computer and could get it back with another Sync. We also uninstalled the old DocumentToGo software and reloaded using my authorization code from July 2010's download.

I am grateful for those wonderful AT&T people that spent all that time helping me get these things to work right. Claude and I are both amazed at how connected we are with these silly cell phones now. It is hard to believe we ever lived without them. I even remember 'party lines' being the only way to make a phone call. I remember 4 digit phone numbers, then 7 digit phones numbers, then living in the DC area where you had to use an area code for all local calls because there were sooooo many people and phone numbers.

I'm happy I can send and receive phone calls and check my eMails and Facebook on my little cell phone now.

Next item:  I found an advertizement in AARP for a 'Lifeline' item that I felt strongly Papa needed to have. It is a button gadget that you wear on your wrist or around your neck. If you fall, you press the button and they will respond with an ambulance or calling your relative for you. I did the Internet research on it and learned all about how it worked and the two different styles you can get, etc.

Last Saturday I took Papa to lunch. After I finished eating I shared my findings with him. He said he had seen the advertizements and thought about it but didn't feel like he wanted to use one right now. I tucked the paperwork back in my purse knowing that if he didn't buy into the idea this alert system wouldn't be worn by him. I saved all my paper research away for future reference.

This week on Monday Papa had a bad dizzy spell. He did not tell me about this. It scared him enough that he started a quest for a different place to live where he could be watched over a bit by medical personnel if needed.

Tuesday Papa and Claude were to work a shift at the Family History Center in the afternoon. My visiting teaching came that morning and I didn't call Papa to remind him. When my visiting teacher left, I called Papa's apartment to remind him that Claude would be there to pick him up and to be ready by noon. No answer. I waited 10 minutes and tried again. Still no answer. I left messages both times.

Claude left at noon and went to Papa's apartment. There was no Papa there. Claude headed to the Family History Center and I called the nursing home to see if he was there feeding mom lunch.

I got Kim on the phone. She told me about Papa's episode and his concern. He had inquired about their apartments attached to the nursing home. She was very concerned about him and asked him several times if he talked to me about all this. He told her he had not. I told Kim about trying to get him to order a Lifeline alert system on Saturday. We agreed she would share with me things he told her and might not have shared with me. I explained that he was supposed to have been picked up by Claude and taken to the Family History Center and he had obviously forgotten. She said she would tell him.

Papa left the nursing home after Kim talked with him, went to his apartment and called me. I explained that Claude had gone on to cover their shift. He tried to explain that he and I needed to talk about the Lifeline thing again. I asked if he felt safe enough to drive himself to the Family History Center. He said he did and he would go there now. I assured him I would let Claude know he was on his way.

Wednesday afternoon I went to Papa's apartment before we were to sing. We discussed the episode Papa had on Monday. He was working at his computer and needed more paper for his printer. He has a swivel chair at his computer. Evidently he twirled on that chair and then got up to get the paper on a shelf across that room. When he got up he was very dizzy and it only got worse. At one point after he got the new package of paper and was headed back to his chair, he even felt like he was laying down when he knew he was standing up.

I suggested it my be something to do with his inner ear or with needing to regulate his meds for his atrial fibrilation. He has an appointment with his doctor for his next checkup in a few weeks and will cover all this then. Unless he has another spell, then he'll make an appointment immediately.

We also decided to purchase the Lifeline alert system for him.

This morning Papa came out to our home and while he was here we came down to my sewing room and called and ordered the system. It will be here in about four days.

I'm very happy about this move. It will give me more peace of mind. It only works in his home and within a football field radius of his home. But he can wear it 24/7 and even in the shower. He will press that button and they will answer and ask if he wants family called or an ambulance. He can even press it if he smells smoke or thinks there is an intruder. This should help Papa and me both feel better about his living alone longer. One of Papa's big concerns has always been if something happened to him, how long would it be until someone recognized it and got Tiny to take care of her. This should give him some measure of peace of mind regarding that as well.

Next item:  March is a big birthday month in our family. Aubrey Anne's birthday was Monday, Andie's birthday is today, Nissa's is on the 26th and Paul's is on the 27th. We called Aubrey Monday evening just as their family was about to sing Happy Birthday to her. We joined in on the speaker phone. Today Claude and I called Andie to sing Happy Birthday to her. It was the most awful rendition of Happy Birthday you ever heard. We both started on a different key, Claude cleverly changed some words, it was just pathetic. But we sang and Andie had a chuckle. She said this gives us time to practice for Nissa and Paul.

Next item:  Wednesday afternoon Papa and I sang at the nursing home. They rolled Ray in during the program. After every song Ray would say, "That's a good song." It was just good to see him enjoy the music that much. Another lady called Papa over as we were leaving and told him how much she enjoyed singing along with us on these 'old' songs. Geraldine was having her 89th birthday and we all paused after she got in the room to sing a rousing Happy Birthday to Geraldine.

So much good comes of these little music sessions. It is so very good for Papa to still do that thing that he loves, music. It fills his soul and means a great deal to him. It is so very good for those residents of the nursing home. They are very forgiving of any mistakes we make. They just love the music and time spent with other people. It is so very good for me. I've always played the piano and done the accompanying. I love singing but my voice is very low. Singing with Papa, he can change that key on the guitar and I can sing lead. I know when my father passes away, I am going to treasure these memories of singing with my father for these dear people on Wednesday afternoons.

Next item:  One of the fun things about being a grandparent, is that your grandmonsters call to share things with you. 

Last Saturday Hayden called all excited because his tadpole arrived in the mail. He got a habitat to raise this tadpole in for Christmas. He shared with me all the rules of raising a tadpole so it grows into a frog. He assured me it needed a special kind of water called 'spring water'. That was the only kind the tadpole could have and Pa and I could bring him some if we wanted, as long as we were sure it was 'spring water'. Bailey came into his room and got her first peek at the tadpole as they let it into the water. She pronounced it as 'bootiful'.

This week we also got a happy phone call from Katelyn. She had good news and called to tell us she had a job and an interview for another possible job. This is very good news for a college student needing money for gas, insurance, books, etc., etc., etc.  Michigan is a hard place to find employment now and we were very happy for her. And we were even more happy she wanted to call and share this great news with us.

So there you have it. Communication from the cell phones, to the alert systems to give us a bit of peace of mind, to the joy of music, to grandmonster phone calls. Isn't it grand that we have words and ways to share those words with each other? I just went to bed last light reflecting on all the communication that goes on during any day. It is quite a neat thing.

A Monday Miracle...

This afternoon my father called. The timing was right after he would have been to the nursing home to feed mom. His first words were, "I need to tell you what happened today." Antenna up!!! When you are caring for and about your parents, and one of them has Alzheimer's, these words are sometimes the preface to bad news.  But Papa's voice sounded happy and not concerned.

Then he shared his little story...

Papa got to the nursing home and went into the multi-purpose room where they feed the meals to the residents. He went up to Mimi and, as is his custom, gave her a big hug and looked into those brown eyes and said something like, "Hello baby, how are you?"

Papa then related that Mimi looked him straight in the eyes and said, as clear as a bell, "I love you!"
.
These are the tender mercies I want to remember when all of this is said and done with my mom. Those wonderful moments that melt your heart and give you strength to carry on and joy in the hours you have spent caring for her without those kinds of warm words.

I asked Papa if it didn't just melt his heart with joy. He said, "I almost cried in front of everybody."

Thank you Heavenly Father for giving him a moment of joy with his honey. It is a blessing we are very, very grateful for today and always.

Music to My Ears...

It happened again today.

Last Sunday and this Sunday we had a family with little children sitting behind us in Sacrament Meeting. Each Sunday it was a different family. But each family had a little girl that must be about 7 years old. When it came time to sing the hymns, the daughter in each of these family opened their hymnbook and sang right out in a beautiful, clear kid's voice. They read those words perfectly from the hymnbook and followed the melody line to the "T". It was just wonderful to hear these little ones singing out like that and obviously enjoying the hymns.

Then, today during Relief Society, we could hear the little ones singing. The Primary room is right next door to the Relief Society room. When the little ones are enjoying their music it sounds like they might be right in the room with the ladies. It is just fun to hear them singing with so much enthusiasm.

I just love hearing the little ones sing. And I found today it just made my Sabbath worship complete to hear these precious little bundles enjoying hymns and kids music alike.