We sure have an active social life lately.  Family Dr.  Heart Dr.  heart failure P.A.   eye clinic, optometrist, labs for blood work, hospital for tests, and for coumadin checks, dentist, etc.  At least we don't have any funerals or viewings to attend.  (Shh. someone might hear us.)

Did I tell you that hubby isn't allowed to have salt anymore?  I have to hide the salt shaker.  He can have 600 mg. at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and 200 at snack-time.  That adds up to 2000, which sounds like a lot, but most Americans eat between 4000 and 6000 each day.  It's not so much the obvious salt, like in potato chips, but they put salt in everything these days.  I've been trying to buy food without high fructose corn syrup, now I have to watch the sodium too.  It will be easier when I get new glasses and can read the tiny print on the packages.

Changing the subject.  Our big pine trees out front had some pretty icicles on them.

It's snowing again today. It looks like we're living in a snow globe.

Scene 1          Before the storm.

This story is about the tall tree in the right of the picture, next to the house. The large tree in the middle of the picture is still standing straight and tall.

Scene 2 That evening.

Another tree bites the snow.

Scene 3 The next morning.

The tree has now been cut off and rolled down the hill to fertilize the next generation of plants. The End.

Seventeen inches!   That's the amount of snow we got from Sat. evening "til Mon. morning.  The kids were excited.....another day off school.  Even some businesses were closed.  Our son came today and plowed our driveway, and later hubby went to work for a bit.  The only place I went was to the mailbox.  Oh, I also shoveled a path on the deck so we could get to the bird feeder.

The heavy snow toppled the tall skinny pine tree near our front porch.  I'm not too sad, because it had grown bigger than it was supposed to.  It was some fancy kind, I forget what, that was only supposed to be 6' tall, but someone forgot to tell it, and it was at least 10 ' and still growing.  When son came to plow, he sawed it off and it is down  the hill amongst the weeds and wild trees.  I might plant another rose bush in it's place, or just leave it, and let the hostas and garden mint take it's place.

We go see the heart specialist tomorrow.  Lots more Dr. app'ts and labs coming up.  Hubby is the sick one.  My eye is doing better.  I even read a little bit using the reading glasses.  Trouble is I forget I'm wearing them and try to walk with them still on. It must look like I've been drinking hard cider. I don't know how long it will be 'til I can drive.  In the meantime the kids can take turns driving me places.  I knew I had all those kids for some reason.  Smile.  Seriously, they have been really good to us both.  We are blessed.  I'm also blessed with friends, both in real life, and on computer.  You all are real friends too, but the internet is not real life.

My eye pressure is back to normal.  I had them take the one lens out of my glasses.  I can wear them for seeing larger things, and walking around.  Or I can just do without.  I bought some reading glasses for computer and reading and puzzles.  I'm doing pretty good getting the drops in as prescribed.  Hubby is feeling just a tiny bit better.  We go to the the P.A. who is a CHF expert on Tues.  After that he will have an echo-cardiogram to see if they can figure out what's wrong with his heart.  He's not bed-ridden or anything.  He still drives to breakfast with his friends most mornings, then to the P.O. bank, and  the shop.  Then home for an early lunch and a nap.  We may not go anywhere tomorrow.  We're supposed to get a huge snow-storm.  We will see.  My daughter and I went to the grocery store this morning, and it was Crazy!  Everybody in town was there!  Superbowl weekend, plus a snowstorm.  From the looks of people's carts, they now have enough food to last for weeks.

Well, we're making progress.  Tom saw the family Dr. yesterday and he changed some meds.  The cough is greatly lessened already, and the swelling (fluid retention) is going down.  He goes back to see him again Fri.  Then next Tues. we go to see a P.A. who specializes in congestive heart failure.  We'll see what she has to say.

As for me, I managed to get the eye drops in today.  I was more worried about that than about the surgery.  I had cataracts removed from one eye about 10 years ago and it was quick and easy.   At that time the Dr. said he'd make some small slits to lessen the astigmatism.  Well, that made it worse.  That was my bad eye.  Now they are going to do the good eye, but the technology has improved since then, so I am hopeful that my vision will be improved, or at least maintained.  I also have glaucoma, so would like to continue seeing as long as possible.  I need to be able to drive safely.  And I love to read, work jigsaw puzzles, and read computer.  I realize you can enlarge the words on computer, and I will do that when I have to.

I inherited the astigmatism from my father.  On the whole he was very healthy most of his life, and I have been too.  I'm thankful for that.

Enough about me.  Now I'm going to read what the rest of you have written.

Please pray for my husband, Tom.  You may remember that he had quadruple bypass surgery last March.  Then in December he had blood clots in his lungs, and was in the hospital a week.  Lately he has had an extremely persistent cough, no energy, not much appetite, plus swollen feet.  He saw our family Dr. a few weeks ago.  He listened to his lungs, and said they sounded clear.  Last Mon. he saw the cardiologist.  She said his heart is OK but he's still having some irregular heart beats.  She also said his heart is functioning at 35%, and she hopes it will get up to 50% as he gets better.  I need to ask her more about that, as I don't know if that is after the surgery, or after the blood clots.  She changed some of his blood pressure meds.  Also he is cold all the time........that could be from the coumadin he's taking.  Anyway, I'll call the family Dr. tomorrow morning.  (Why do people always get sick on the weekends?)

On top of all that, I'm supposed to have cataract surgery Wed. and a lens implant to lessen my large amount of astigmatism. Should be an interesting week.  My 97 year old mother is the healthiest one in the house.

Mealtimes in Africa can be interesting.  They usually only eat 1 meal a day.  These pictures were taken many years ago, so food was not as scarce as it is now (due to the war.)  In the following picture, my son is sharing a meal with the 2 young men my husband trained to be mechanics, and the man who helped me with household chores.  The white/grey stuff is manioc.  We called it gozo.  It is also called manioc, or yucca.  There is a sweet variety that is kind of like potatoes.  The other kind is sour, and has to be soaked in water to remove the toxins, then dried on the ground, then pounded into flour.  It takes a lot of work.  Once the flour is made, it's cooked with some water until it's the consistency of a thick porridge.  It's kind of like library paste, if you remember that.  We really liked it, and my kids loved it.

It definitely is an acquired taste.  It's served with a sauce.  Often the sauce is made from the leaves of the manioc plant .   It's usually flavored with peanut butter and a little hot pepper powder.  (Today when I cook chopped spinach I add peanut butter and a drop of cayenne pepper.)  Once in awhile it's a meat sauce.  The best sauce I ever tasted was a peanut butter sauce with mushrooms.  You break off a piece of the gozo and dip it in the sauce.  It''s best not to chew it in case it has sand in it.

The men eat by themselves at a table if there is one available. The women eat together with the children around the cooking fire.

Sometimes there is a bit of variety. My friend Alice caught 9 field mice running from the bush fire. I did Not eat with her that day!

Field broiled grasshoppers........yumm.

Actually I did not eat any of them either. My daughter probably did. At least she had fun hunting for them with the other kids.  I should explain that the fires are set each year to burn the tall grass.  They are controlled fires, but sometimes they get out of control.  That can be tragic.

The next time you sit down to eat, remember to pray for the poor and hungry and oppressed all over the world, and especially the children.  Thanks

When my brother and I were little we had a puppy for about 3 months.  That was all.  After Tom and I had been married a few years and had our first 2 children we decided to get a dog.  One reason was because our daughter was so afraid of any kind of animal.  So we went to the pound (that's what it was called back then) and found a nice calm puppy to adopt.  We named her Katie.  For the first 2 weeks our daughter, who was maybe 3, and her brother, 15 months younger, would not walk on the floor when the dog was in the room. They climbed from the couch to the chairs, and then back again.  Our son wasn't as afraid as his sister, but at that age he copied her.  Finally they got used to her.  Then we had another problem, she and my husband had a personality conflict.  One thing she did that irritated him was to come and find one of us when the telephone rang, and then walk in front of us on the way to the phone while looking back to make sure we were coming. It's a wonder we didn't trip on her.

When we moved to Indiana we rented our house in Calif. and left the dog there. Actually we let a couple of college girls live in it for free in exchange for taking care of the house and dog. (The house was for sale, but hadn't sold yet.) That year we drove to Florida to spend Christmas with my mom and step-dad. While we were there, our neighbors phoned to tell us the girls had left.....what should they do with the dog? I caught my husband in a weak moment, and he agreed to let them put Katie on a plane and fly her to Tampa. You should see the photo I have of our family that Christmas. He was not a happy camper! He and my step-dad drove an hour to Tampa to get her at the airport, and Tampa was foggy so the plane landed in Orlando temporarily. Finally later the same day she landed in Tampa, so they made another trip to get her.
Then, of course, she had to ride home in the car with us to Indiana. Actually she was a good traveler.
In case you're wondering what kind of dog she was, the vet told us she was part basset hound and part terrier. The little girl in the picture with me is our 3rd child. The picture was taken in Indiana.

When we went to Africa we gave her to a family from our church. She was a good dog for them, and they had her for many years. We saw them and her 4 years later when we came home for a 1 year furlough. She must have remembered us, because she was quite friendly with me, but she still didn't like my husband.

I almost forgot to tell you about her puppies. She had 8 of them, 1 natural, and 7 by C-section at the vet's office. That cost a bunch, which we couldn't afford. I had to write  2 post-dated checks before they'd let me take her home. The pups were cute as puppies usually are. I named the 5 girls Rose, Pansy, Daisy, Petunia and Fern. The 3 boys were Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. We sold a couple of them, gave away a couple, and took the rest to a place that said they'd find homes for them. I doubt if they did, but I left them anyway. Then my mom sent us some money to get Katie neutered. She said she thought 8 children were enough for any girl. We never did know who the daddy was.

Katie and Mindy were the best dogs we ever had. Some other time I'll write about Mindy.

No, it's not what you are thinking. We were married in March of 1958. This picture was taken on our delayed honeymoon in May of 1959. When we were married we had a very small wedding because my mother refused to come if my father came, and my father refused to help with expenses because we were still in college. Naturally there was no money for a honeymoon, and no time to take one.

After we had both dropped out of college, and were expecting our first baby, we finally went on a honeymoon. We camped in one of my favorite places, Sequoia National Park in the High Sierras. It is so beautiful there.

Do you remember when pregnant gals wore maternity tops?  Personally, I think they looked better than the tight stretchy shirts that gals wear nowadays.  Oh well, styles change, and they will probably change back again one of these days.

We haven't been camping in many years.  The last time we went was about 1990.  We took the 2 youngest children and went to a campground near our home here in Indiana.  It rained most of the weekend, and we ended up going to a movie, and to a restaurant to eat, then we drove home.

We don't camp anymore.  If we had to sleep on the ground, how would we get up in the morning?  I have to have something sturdy to use my arms to get up from the floor.  Fortunately we now have enough money to stay in a motel when we travel.  I have a couple more camping stories, but I will save them for another time.  Do you have any camping stories?

Thank you all for your comments on our "park."  I am still amazed that God has given us such a beautiful place to live.  Both of us grew up in the city, and always wanted to live in the country.  In fact, Tom went to Ag. school, until we were married. Then we figured out that you need either money or land to be a farmer and we had neither.  For awhile he worked as a milkman (remember when they delivered milk to your door?)  Then he worked at the P.O.  Finally he became a mechanic.

One day some missionaries came to our church. We took them out for pie and coffee after Sun. night church, and were told they badly needed a mechanic. To make a long story short, that's how we ended up in Africa. After 7 years with the mission we returned to the U.S. and lived a short while in PA, near Gettysburg. We loved it there, but had trouble making a living (by then we had 5 children.) We could have gone to Calif. but really didn't want to raise our children there. So we moved to Indiana, thinking we might eventually go back to Africa. That didn't happen, but Tom was able to start his own garage. We lived in town for about 20 years.

We enjoyed going to auctions. I noticed an ad for a house and 6 acres in the country but near to town. We went to look at it, and loved the yard. The house wasn't much but we knew it would be adequate. At that time we only had 2 children left at home. So we made arrangements at the bank, and went to the auction prepared to bid on it. That was scary, however we got it for a good price. 7 years ago when my father died we had enough money to build the house we live in now. It's about 10 feet behind where the back of the old house was.

The thing we didn't realize about our beautiful yard was that it requires a lot of maintenance, and we aren't getting any younger. There are things we did when we first moved in that we are no longer able to do. Our kids help out, but they are married with families and houses of their own.

We've had an interesting life, and I'm thankful to God for caring for us, and allowing us to live in such a lovely spot.