Category: Random issues

We ended last week’s blog with the wonderful news of a found kitty.   Now we are back on a Sunday night to mention the day that started after midnight, about 12:30 a.m.   We had been in bed for a couple of hours, and our youngest and oldest dog began barking in the house.  I awoke and heard a dog barking in our pasture, so I asked John to please check on it.  We kept our dogs in because we knew they would just go out and bark at the situation.  John went to the back window and determined it was the dog barking in our pasture at our horses.  We had been forewarned earlier the day before by a neighbor that a dog from another neighbor was barking at our horses.  Someone was yelling at the dog to come back; John thought the episode was over and went back to bed.  Tne minutes later it started again so he got up dressed, and went to investigate.  He found the dog chasing the horses and the horses running down to the other end of our property.  Our pasture is about 7 acres.  John went and cornered the dog and yelled at him to get out.  He seemed to go back through the fence to his “home”.  John stayed out in the moonlight to check the horses and to put some hay out for them to nibble on up closer to the barn and house, and to calm them down.  The dog came back and John shooed it off again.  He then stayed up till 3:30 at the computer in the back of the house where he could listen to be sure all was well.  Later he heard the dog barking at another neighbor’s house next to us, who has pigs and a cow.

We were all ready to call the police in the morning to have them talk to the neighbors with the dog, because another neighbor had already gone to complain about the dog coming to her property and chasing baby deer.  Nothing was done about the dog.  Before we called the police, we called the neighbor with the pigs and cow and asked if they had heard the ruckus in the middle of the night and if their pigs and cow were bothered.

Turns out we had a soap opera happening, and the dog chasing our horses was a minor part.  There was an altercation in the house which has the dog.  The young woman, owner of the dog, tried to break up a fight between two young males. She got pushed about and bruised up herself and shoved out of the house.  She climbed back in the window to get back to her daughter. The fisticuffs resulted in a large plate glass window a major casuality.  That caused the males to head back to whereever, leaving the young mother and daughter alone and scared in a house with a gaping hole in its front.  She then headed to the nearest neighbors (they with the piglets and cow) looking for a safe haven. They took her in, but already knew there had been a ruckus because they had been out feeding an orphaned piglet and calming down their pigs and cow from the barking dog.  The two guests stayed till 3:30 a.m. when an older brother came to escort them – someplace?  At our place – the dog did not return, the horses settled into a mid-night snack, and peace reigned supreme.

We do not know the end of the story, yet, and we may never.   Supposedly, the brother and sister were going to report it to the police, particularly because of the damage they hoped not to have to pay for.  Daylight may have calmed all and discussion changed plans.

The rest of our day was spent on household chores, playing with kitty, feeding the animals, and looking at the sunshine.  This evening I went in for playing music at the Taize’ service, and we were served homemade chicken and dumplings, biscuits, apples, and cake (two types, choc & carrot) for dessert.  YUMMY.  John stayed home and had leftovers for his dinner.  I must say there was also a Vegan dish at dinner and I made the mistake of taking a piece of “artificial meat” that I guess was made from soy protein.  It was God-awful tasting.  Never again for me.  Even if I were a vegetarian, I could never stomach something so bad, not only the taste, but the texture as well.  We’re big on being able to recognize our food.

I didn’t get home till after 8:00 p.m. and still had some proofing of some GIS material to do for a friend.  Now I’m able to go to bed, and I should sleep well tonight, hopefully without any interruptions by the kitty or the dogs.

Monday.  Started with a phone call from the bank.  It will not be helpful to refinance our house loan for a lesser interest rate – our current rate is quite low and our payoff year not far in the future.  Next phone call from CWU to explain why my ending paid date was Mar 5, 2010 instead of the end of the quarter as I thought, when I thought I retired on Mar 31^st.  And to find out why when I’m still being asked to write letters of reference I no longer can have access to student and past class records.  I requested it so I could better write letters of recommendation for jobs and grad school for my former students.  Being no longer on the payroll it is against the FERPA law

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

to allow me to view the data I have had access to for the past 40 years.  Very interesting.  There are good concepts in the law (protecting students) and some crummy consequences, as noted.

John made the best dinner.  It was stir fried chicken in a soy type sauce, onions, mushrooms, celery, and butternut squash on the side.

Here’s a play on numbers for you, for this year, 2011.                                           This year we will experience 4 unusual dates….1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11  NOW go figure this out–take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it WILL EQUAL 111.  Check it out.  It works.

Tuesday… lazy day at home, but I spent a lot on the phone trying to sort out things such as getting my Group Health to pay for the mouth wash to destroy bacteria in my mouth before they get into my blood stream.  Calling about seeing if I can find a visual enhancer (one is a closed circuit television; CCTV) in town for parents of a friend to try out.  The father has macular degeneration and hasn’t been able to read anything for over 2 years.  They cannot afford a machine to assist for $3000, so I’m looking for community or other resources to help them.  John found there are Lions Chapters that might assist with half the cost.

I also am considering serving (applying for) a position on the Board of Commissioners for the Hospital District here to complete an unused term.  Then it would be renewable in the next election.  I’m collecting information trying to figure if it is something I want to do and could do well.  If I apply, and I think I will, it would only last till Dec 2011, and by then I would know if I am interested in continuing, and if I have the support of the Board to continue.

John fixed some great stew for lunch today, but I don’t know what’s up for dinner.  Dinner was the same good stuff (leftovers) from last night.  Rest of the night I spent on creating a current resume’ for the hospital board application.

Wednesday.  Most of the day was spent on the application letter and resume for me, and calling more about the CCTV.  Also, we washed dishes and clothes, only to find out our dryer has lost its heating element.  So before we could go to bed John had to string rope for hanging clothes on the line.  A few blouses and pants I could put on hangars in various door jams and shower bars.  But now, we need to call a Sears repairman to come fix the dryer.  While here he might as well fix the oven/range door that is held shut with a bungee cord, and the dishwasher that is falling out of the frame.  Oh fun.  We have been putting this off, but going to the Laundromat to dry clothes is not our cup of tea.

Thursday.   Morning started with a phone call from a low vision specialist responding to questions I had given her yesterday.  Then I called Sears repair and found out perhaps one of our two circuit breakers on the dryer had flipped.  Indeed that was the case.  As the tumbling action worked we did not think of a second electron source for the blower-heater combo.  Amazing.  (or amazingly stupid – says John)

Then it was time for breakfast.  I spent the next bunch of time finalizing my application for the Hospital Board position, and got it sent off, just in time to eat lunch and go to town for a busy afternoon… that finally ended with my coming home at 6:00 p.m.  The fog was SO bad I had to drive 20 mph with my lights on low beam.  I wish I had the old yellow fog light that was on my old ’35 Ford.  I even tried my yellow flashing blinkers, but they did not help.  Tonight I have been answering emails, and now it is time to go to bed.  Where did the time go?

Friday was a really busy day.  Started early in the middle of the night with kitty Sunny pushing a phone off its perch.  It awoke us all, including 4 dogs, John and me.  Back to bed and then up at the regular time.  I had to rush around and wash my hair for a trip to town for my first therapeutic massage on my “bad” left shoulder, scheduled for 11:00 a.m. at the Senior Center.   (It’s a free service donated by the woman who performs them.)  That was a great experience.  I was quite surprised to realize the person was my student in 1997!  After that I went to campus for a scholarship luncheon in Barge Hall, the oldest building on campus – built when Central was established as a “normal” school.  “Normal” was the term for teacher-training.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school

And this usage seems to relate way back to the term’s use in ancient mathematics.

http://ref.subwiki.org/wiki/Normal_(mathematics)

And if that’s too boring for you, try this: (dress and a word may offend some):

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

Lunch at the Normal School was super fun and good; tacos with all the fixings, and a valentine theme, plus Rice Crispies bars and molasses cookies for dessert.  Then back to the Senior Center for my SAIL exercise class.  After that I went to school to participate in the telephone interviews for my replacement (just listened).  At 5:00 p.m. I left quickly and drove home to pick up John, my violin, and leave the chocolate milk I had bought, and we got back in the car with the Pork Loin that John had cooked for the music group potluck and jam session.   This time he cooked it with plums and apricots.  Double yum.  Other food included green salad with crabmeat, chili, Hawaiian pizza, chicken and rice, potato salad, and a veggie plate.  Cookies for dessert.   We had a blast there and didn’t get back until 9:20 p.m.  Now we have almost caught up on email for the day, and we are headed to bed.  Oh, I have sat for 15 minutes on and 15 off and 15 on again of ice on my shoulder, as was suggested to help generate movement of the fluids in my sour shoulder muscles.

Saturday, to town after calling John’s sister to wish her a happy birthday.   We drove through a well known speed trap on our way in, and I was slowed (I always do, to the 25 mph limit there).  We mentioned how good it was we weren’t breaking the law.  Went on down the hill toward town, past the University, and in the rear view mirror was a flashing light on a police car.  I pulled over, wondering what I had done wrong.   Turns out my license tabs (on John’s car) had expired Oct 2, 2010.  We do not know how we missed knowing that and renewing, but we did.   The policeman asked to see my driver’s license, but I had to get out of the car to get in the backseat where I had put my “purse” holding my wallet and Driver’s License.  He asked my birth date and then went back to his car, lights still flashing, and must have checked our license plate on-line to see the car ownership (which he had also asked).  He did not ask to see our registration or insurance.  We found out when we got home, the registration was NOT in the vehicle glove compartment.  I have a feeling I brought it in after the last trip to Yakima, when I took all the information and receipts out of the glove compartment to file for tax purposes.  I probably brought it in (tag registration) because it expired  Oct 2, 2010.  I likely assumed the other was still there for this year.  The insurance paperwork was there.  He eventually came back to the car and told me he would give me a warning, if that was all right, because the other option would have been a $210 fine.  I thanked him and told him I would really appreciate the warning.  He suggested we go home and get the registration as soon as possible, and if we got it on line, to print out the paid note from on the web, to carry with us, until the tabs arrive (in a couple of days).  I came home and figured out how to do it on line, paid for it, and requested mail delivery.  Meanwhile, I printed the transaction and that it was paid now till Oct 2, 2011.  We guess the paperwork reminding us must have come in before the deadline, and we laughed to realize the deadline coincided with my retirement celebration.  We have been driving John’s Subaru almost 4 months with expired plates (tags).

After the excitement of being pulled over by a policeman, we went for a small lunch at Jack in the Box, and then on down to the City Library meeting room (large conference room), where there was an Ecology/Environment fair.  Several of my former students were there with poster boards and displays describing work and volunteer interests. [Example: Comparative tasting of bottled and tap waters.  Can’t tell the difference?  That’s the point, so why not drink the tap water and not use plastic bottles.]  There were representatives of the local Audubon Society, conservation folks, local food growers and more.]  We saw several people from the community whom we know.  After that, a short trip for groceries, and on home, into the fog again.

Oh, the other excitement on the web was paying for and downloading a version of Finale Songwriter, for $50.  I only had one more day of usage on my 30-day evaluation copy for writing and transposing music.   I only need to do one more song for my friend with the clarinet for tomorrow night’s service, and then I can branch out or up to new things.  There are still plenty of songs we play in our Fiddlers & Friends group that need to be transposed for the B-flat clarinet.

I will end this now, and pass along to John to put on the blog.

As usual, we wish you a good and healthy week, and we’ll be back same time same place to report to you on the latest in our lives.

Nancy & John and all the critters

Saturday night and Sunday morning brought more rain, and there is flooding on WA’s west side, as predicted by John with help from the National Weather Service folks in Seattle.  The day was overcast and foggy till about an hour ago, when the sun broke through the clouds and displayed nice blue sky.  No trips to town today, so we have just been doing chores, mostly on the computer.  I have taken a break to transpose one last piece of music and also to send some pictures to a couple of people.  I will soon shift back to organizing tax receipts.  John is taking a nap.  I don’t think he slept well last night, but I did, for a change.

We really need to get an early start in the morning on MLK day to get to Yakima for a 9:40 a.m. appointment for me to have my 3-month read-out from my defibrillator device.  While down in Yakima, we will eat and go to Costco.  Because of the holiday, I won’t have to be back for 1:30 p.m. SAIL class at the SR Center.

I suppose I do need to get back to the office to read the rest of the files for my “replacement” position, but it won’t be on the holiday.

Today, MLK Day, is a holiday for many places, but I had to get to the doctor’s office for my device check.  We made it down fine, but had to dodge water on the road intersections down south of us, and I heard there was water over other roads downhill.  Most of the reason is that culverts beneath the road for creeks and ditches are not big enough for melting runoff of rain on snow.  Last night the wind blew (and is again this afternoon, gusting to 45 mph or higher I suspect, and the temperature was up to 44 when I looked at 2:00 a.m.

Yikes—they just recorded 52 mph gusts at the airport (5 miles south of us).  I think I agree, and we might have had some higher ones; we are also protected somewhat to our NW by trees, so out on the “plains” in the valley it is likely worse.

No more rain last night and today, but it is overcast.  Tuesday will find me going to school late afternoon and staying in town for a 6:30 music performance.  I am quite tired after awaking and not being able to get back to sleep last night for 1.5 hours.  Then I didn’t sleep in well this morning either (when I could).  Tonight I went to play music at a nursing home/rehab center up on the hill (nice that it was out of the flooding in town).  There are no such retirement or rehab facilities in West Ellensburg, where the flooding has been bad for homeowners.  The city carried in 90 tons of sand and neighbors are filling sandbags to help each other protect their structures.

We are fine where we are significantly uphill from EBRG.  We are at 2240′ and the south end of campus is at 1500′.  West Ellensburg is a bit lower, closer to the Yakima River.  The KOA campground along the Yakima River was flooded yesterday and today, and Irene Rinehart Park, along the river, as well.  No surprises there.

Decided today not to go to town for exercise, but to stay home and work on taxes and relax.  I have been run ragged for the past two days, and needed to spend time on that work.  Also, I’ve been working on getting materials together for colleagues at the university.  Although retired, I’m still involved.  Bless John’s heart, he just spent a bunch of time in the kitchen fixing lunch and cleaning up the mess we have piled up over the past few days.

Thursday came and went and is almost over.  I spent a ton of time on the tax receipts, some on email, some on checking the web for travel plans, some on cleaning the kitchen, and now we have 2 minutes till the spaghetti is done for dinner.  I have also been proofing labs and lectures for another colleague.  John went with me to town to the store while I was playing music at Dry Creek.  It was fun as usual.

Thursday, late afternoon, our kitty came up missing.  It’s now Friday night, and he is still missing.  John and I both thought we heard him meow tonight, but we have searched and searched all cubby holes and we can find nothing.  This is so frustrating.  I cannot believe we both heard a ghost at the same time.  His meow is a faint one when he is right in front of you.

Saturday, we heard sounds again.  Looked.  Found nothing.  We both heard sounds so we could not call the other one on a “senior moment” or any more inflammatory name.  John knew there were birds outside – mostly  black-capped Chickadees and a vocalizing Steller’s Jay. The Jay was at the seed feeder and doing an imitation of a Red-tailed Hawk. Explanation and photos here:

http://www.seattleaudubon.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=310

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller’s_Jay#Vocalizations

Sounds, search, nothing.  Turn off the heater, so no fans making noise.  Walk around.  Listen.  Nothing.  Walk around, listen. Meow. Where?  Move. Listen.  Going nuts!

Finally, we found Sunny kitty in the garage. The door to the garage is via the wash room and into the kitchen.  John goes out via there and the garage when getting the dogs out of the house for their exercise or when searching in the chest freezer for something to cook.  John’s been watching for the cat at those times – tricky kitty made it out anyhow.

Now back after about 40 hours, Kitty-Sunny is talking more and louder than he ever has in his life with us.  He’s running all over the house and counters.  I think he’s trying to tell us about his last 2 days alone with no food or water.

He was always in hiding when John was in the garage — numerous times — looking for him… till today when I found him.  John had to lure him out with a string where he could grab him.  Funny kitty.  Not so funny all the concern he has caused us over the past couple of days.  We have moved many boxes in several rooms of the already cluttered house, looked under beds, behind furniture, crawled up over the oven for a view, looked behind the frig, and on and on.

John has gone to take a power nap, and Sunny is still roaming around meowing.  I’m also glad he never left the garage as John was moving dogs out to go for the morning and evening runs.  John opens the door from the back yard to the front and one dog runs out through the garage, right by the place where we eventually found Sunny.

He has to do it strategically in a certain way and order or the chaos at the front door elevates beyond an acceptable level.

Okay, John’s back up and around and I will finish this now to send to him to put out on the web for this week’s report.  I never got my afternoon nap, so I will just go to bed early tonight.

Some folks we know are in places that will be very cold this weekend.  We checked with one family in northern Vermont.  They expect -25 degrees Sunday night.  Ouch!  They have lots of good firewood up there (Maple) and assure us they are prepared.  In International Falls, MN it was -46 yesterday. Double ouch!

We wish you a warm and healthy week.

Nancy & John and all the critters

Well, here we are, Saturday night, and John is at the keyboard posting past happenings.  I am in the other end of the house starting a fresh report — home after playing music in town and eating.  He went along too, to make a few stops, then came by and so did 3 other husbands to share in the food at Briarwood, where we entertained for an hour.  John only had several desserts, but I had a roll, 1.5 bowls of 5-bean veggie chili, with Chili Fritos & crackers, and also several desserts:  Strawberries and whipped cream on a Bundt spice-type cake, an especially good cookie with fruit and nuts, and a piece of orange cake.  I haven’t pushed away from the table yet – I guess I’m compensating for all the eating issues I went through last year, including eating nothing but very plain chicken salad and yogurt for about 6 weeks.  Now I don’t wish to touch either.

They treat us well at Briarwood.  We played and sang our hearts out.  They joined us on the singing and even a couple of people danced.  A fellow who lives in a nearby retirement community brought his C Key- Harmonica and joined us for two songs, and then played Auld Lang Syne.  We played along with him, quietly, so he could be heard.  It was very neat.  Made him happy too.

I came home and completed transposing 4 songs for our B flat Clarinet player for tomorrow night’s performance at the Episcopal church.  I had to fight with kitty, Sunny, who wanted on the desk and printer to help.  I know it’s good he is feeling more sociable, but he can be a pain.  At least he is doing better about sleeping through the night.  However, dogs and we still need to go potty about every three hours.  The diuretic medication I’m on doesn’t help.

Sunday.  Snowed at least 4 inches and I drove to town for the Taize’ service.  We had a full time of music, silent meditation, some readings, a few prayers, and a nice lasagna meal afterward with peanut butter cookies.  I took the remaining birthday cake of John’s and some brownies.  Another person brought a bowl of really good veggies, most of which I could eat while on Coumadin.  I shy from broccoli but cauliflower is all right.  They were cut up small and had an oil of sorts spread throughout the mixture.

Monday was an interesting day.  We worked on various projects before I left for town for exercise class.  We made appointments for the cat and the dog to go to the vet.  After my class I went by school to read job applications for my job replacement.  That was interesting.  I returned Tuesday morning to complete them.  I wanted to participate but it is a time sink.

Turns out our vet also cannot tell the gender of our new kitty.  We took him in today for shots and deworming, and made an appointment for a neuter, but the vet said it might be a she and require a spay.   Well, we’ll just have to adjust come 3 weeks from now when hopefully we can tell.  Till then, s/he remains “Sunny Kitty”, a genderless name.  Years ago in Iowa we had a calico cat show up at our front door that everyone in the apartment complex was calling Sam.  Turned out she was Samantha, and we called her Sammy the rest of her life.  (She lived to be 20 years old.)

Wednesday found us with 4 to 5 inches of new snow, but not as much as predicted.  The sun is shining and it is a pretty day.  We both had eye exams planned and they were executed with good results.  Neither of us needs a change in our prescription.  While I have some glasses somewhere that give me better than 20/20 vision and correct for an astigmatism, I have 20/20 vision with both eyes working together and a little less with my right eye alone.  The back of our retinas are okay too.  John has the start of possible cataracts, but they haven’t changed recently.  I also have a slight membrane that also hasn’t changed in two years, but when it does, I will have it adjusted by laser in the office, not the hospital.  I will know it’s time when my distance vision gets fuzzy.  That was good news.

John’s fixin’ a roast beef tonight and it smells so good.  He also fixed a piece of a Butternut squash.  I spent time in town again this afternoon for my exercise class.  Only 10 of us showed, probably because of the snowy weather.  We worked hard and tired ourselves out.

Thursday.  Off to play music and then afterward to a talk in the geography department at CWU, to hear a former student talk on the Naneum Forest up the road from us.  It was a well done talk.  John had his KVTR meeting tonight, but I stayed home.  I intended to make headway on organizing and filing tax receipts, but I never got there.  I played with kitty and kept him awake so that we might have a good night’s sleep without interruptions from him.  One of the dogs will probably get us up in the middle of the night, regardless.

Friday was a less involved day, with just the exercise class to attend.  I went, and John ran errands while I was in class.  On the way to town we saw beautiful cloud formations with rainbow colors. There were streamers and streaks and gossamer fabric-like patterns; either of fine droplets or ice crystals.  We were heading south and the sky had fluffy clouds and the colored patterns seemed interwoven with the Sun to the upper right.  We called some friends as, unfortunately, we did not have our camera.  Those with a camera took some photos but we all agreed they did not shine the way the sky had – and it changed rapidly. We were the ones with the longest view time but all agreed it was fantastic.

Saturday, it was all day.  We had a nice long phone call from John’s brother in California.  The rest of the day was spent on chores around the house and yard, although rain started in time to wet John and the dogs when they were outside for the  horse feeding. The mountains to the west are taking most of the water out of this system with only the highest peaks getting snow.  If it stays warm our snow will melt and we will have an early “mud” season.  The full snow cover reflects most of the Sun’s energy but the warm ocean-source air flowing our way is still slowly melting the 18 inches of snow we had on the ground.  We won’t have to worry about flooding on this (the east) side of the Cascades as the melting is very slow currently.  Folks west of the crest are not going to be so lucky.  Problems are already being reported.  The Puget Sound area is covered with loose glacial deposited material – designed for flooding, landslides, and trees tipping over in saturated soil.  The sky there right now – not so nice.

It is time to send this to John.

Best wishes for a good week, this coming one.     Nancy and John

. . . put your hands up, turn around slowly . . .”

We ended the blog last week with Friday, so will start this on Saturday, January 01, 2011 with a low temperature at the airport of -1.  It’s interesting when you abbreviate the date as 1-1-11.  We have cooked, cleaned a little, fed the horses, dog and cat, but mostly done emails all day.  I manage to write a few letters to people who don’t have a computer, and to pay a few start-of-the-new-year bills.  John is making a big pot of his famous salt-free Chili for dinner and the rest of the week as needed for lunches or dinners.  Also there is a big container of rice steaming.  Yesterday we made some long distance calls but didn’t do any today.  It never got above 16 here, but was colder at the airport about 5 miles south of us.   We had lots of deer and birds hanging around today looking for handouts.

Sunday – The Taize’ music program has been cancelled until next week.  Suits me.  I will be happy to stay home all day and work on projects.  We have no other pressing plans.  By the time I drive to town and back and spend a couple hours in town, it is a time sink, not to mention the gasoline expense.  My car gets worse gas mileage in the very cold.  I spent two hours sorting and cleaning stacks of receipts off the counter between the den and kitchen.  It has accumulated amazingly over the past year plus.

Monday – I went in for a blood draw and then to the SAIL (Stay Active & Independent for Life) exercise class at the Adult Activity Center.  They have a new policy to help pay the bills and are charging a yearly fee for all AAC activities of $20.00.  I don’t mind paying that at all for the whole year.  My class is only $3.00 /quarter, so a lot less expensive than going to Physical Therapy and paying an insurance co-pay of $25 for 45 minutes.  The SAIL class meets MWF for an hour.  Turns out the yearly fee will cover those quarterly costs and allow us to participate in other activities, such as the first Friday of each month’s potluck with “something-main dish” provided by the center.  This week it will be baked potatoes with all the toppings.

I’m pretty worn out from all the exercise today.  We plan to make cookies tomorrow – chocolate chip & pecans; known by some as Toll House* cookies.

*While the  NESTLÉ® company still brands their chocolate chip related products as TOLL HOUSE®, the “toll house” legal “trademark” seems to have been lost in 1983.  The name does relate to an original stage line toll house built in 1709, near Whitman, Massachusetts.  Story here:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/CookieHistory.htm

and here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_House_Inn

Once each year we take cookies and repay favors owed, including always to the people at Complete Computer Services when we pay our connection (email) bill for the year for the old account we have had since 1995, ( nancy@ellensburg.com ).  They only charge us $5.00/month and that includes the occasional silly computer-tech question that John doesn’t solve on his own.  They set up this “blog” for John to provide “Nancy updates” and (for a reasonable fee) they also fix our serious computer problems.  They are a nice bunch (3) who love our homemade cookies.

It was cold today and tonight.  I couldn’t get my feet warm even with down booties and heavy cotton socks.  So, I found my garage sale wool socks from Eddie Bauer to put on inside my garage sale down booties from Eddie Bauer, and my feet are finally warm.   Only problem is the wool socks have dangling green balls on the laces, and the cat thinks they are meant for him to bat around.

Tuesday is John’s birthday.  We’ve nothing special planned, other than sorting receipts, except I have to call my doctor in Yakima for a report on the blood tests from yesterday.  It beats driving all the way there to hear them.  Turns out I wrote an email to his nurse and she got back to me that all the tests went well, and sent me the report, with my “number” and range expected.

Yesterday, I got a $40 savings from a pharmaceutical company on my $62 monthly prescription (Micardis).  It doesn’t apply to people with state or federal help with drugs, such as Medicare D, which I do not have, but is allowed for those with insurance co-pays.
Today starts the winter quarter at CWU.  Thankfully, I do not have to worry about being there and ready to go with 3 new classes.  Phew.  Retirement has its benefits.
We just had lunch: the foundation was a Marie Callender’s plastic dinner of rice, sweet & sour chicken – with added carrots, a couple of costly panko shrimp (flaky bread crumbs)  and several Idaho fries.  It wasn’t low in salt  but “reduced” by the carrots and the fact that we split it.  John fixed his own birthday lunch and breakfast and fed the horses, and entertained the cat.  We emptied the dishwasher and I am loading it, so we can clean a large Pyrex bowl to mix cookie dough in.  We double (perhaps quadruple) the recipe.  Turns out we multiplied all the items 6 times one year when we finally figured out how many we had to make to give away and still have a few left.   I always forget that until I open the cook book and find those notes from years ago.

Night was spent on the phone with various people who called; one, the longest, was from John’s sister Peggy wishing him a happy birthday.  Then after dinner we both spent a lot of time on the computer.  The kitty spent his time running back and forth between us.

Here we are already Wednesday, and we are back from town and still making cookies.  We didn’t start till this morning and made enough to take a couple of dozen by where we had planned.  John did that and went to get my meds reduction, buy some groceries, and then come back and pick me up from my exercise class.  It went a little better today than Monday, but I’m still sore after the long “lay-off”.  We stopped by our neighbors on the way home to pick up a nice chocolate frosted cake she made for John’s birthday.  Also stopped by the hospital for a blood draw (INR) to check on my dosage of Coumadin.  We missed doing it Monday this week, and it was due.  I’m only on a monthly check now, after it has been stabilized.  So that’s nice.   While baking the last couple of batches of cookies (we still have half the big bowl left), we are making spaghetti sauce with some ground beef John bought this afternoon.  That will last us a couple of meals.  John gave me the choice of a hamburger with cheese, and I declined, asking for this instead.  He is so accommodating, and finally happy that I’m again eating what he fixes.

Sunny kitty is now eating on top of a dog crate on the end of the table in the den.  It’s a great place for him with room to eat and lie down from his perch on high to watch the dogs below him.  He is “king of the mountain”, and now John was able to move his food from out of the window in the computer room, next to the filing cabinet.  Yesterday, he pulled his little bowl down into the cabinet, but thankfully, John had put a newspaper below so it didn’t all fall down into the file drawer.  He now has a bigger square bowl that is more stable.  He will come down the hall from his room, even in the middle of the night, to get his food when he’s hungry.  His water bowl and litter box are still in the back computer (bedroom), where he usually sleeps in the chair or under the bunk beds.

We got some more sad news of people we know losing dogs.  We’ve had dogs, cats, and horses and the average life time is in that order, about 10, 20, 30.  Folks we know got a baby African Grey parrot (now 19) and they average about 55 years.  I wonder if anyone knows why life spans vary like this?

Our kitty is cavorting and mingling with the dogs now.  He’ll get on “their” couch and walk among them on the floor.   He’s also growing and climbing up on more things.  He was eyeing the kitchen counters today and I told him no.   Wonder how long that will last.   He gets a little braver each day.  Still very playful with everything that moves, or moves when batted.  If it makes noise, all the better.  One of his toys is a medicine container with hard dog food it in to make it rattle.  Another is tied to a long shoe lace and hangs from the table.  He will play for many minutes batting it around.  We’ve heard companies are going to market toilet paper without the cardboard centers, but those are another favorite toy.  We need to start a web-campaign to prevent the demise of cardboard tubes.

Thursday was a trip to town for me to play music and John to go shopping and buy stamps at the P.O.  We had a nice afternoon.  Rained on us going in, but nothing serious, and there was sun in town.  We had some fog out here, but had had early morning sun.  John is working on the KVTR newsletter (Trail riding club), and I’m doing emails and need to transpose some music when he wants to take a break from the computer.

John took a break to come fix dinner.  What a guy!  So, I transposed the last two pages I wanted to do.  Then we ate, and now John’s back at the computer again to work on his newsletter.  It has to be finished, printed, and sent out Saturday afternoon for early delivery next week.  It has to be in the pickup box in EBRG by 4 PM Saturday or it doesn’t go until Monday evening. Mail we send to local folks bypasses EBRG and goes to a processing facility in Yakima, then returned to EBRG from whence it came, and hopefully delivered in a timely manner.   So if we wait until Monday it likely won’t be delivered locally until Wednesday and the meeting is Thursday.

Friday was a food fare day.  I had two potlucks to attend:  one at 11:30 and another in the evening with my music group.  John will be making a baked ham for the latter, and I’m taking cookies to the one mid-day.   Then I have my SAIL exercise class after.  I also played the violin and sang old songs at noon with an accordionist and the group there for the potluck.  They have words to the songs to sing along.

Friday we had an early morning call from a charity fund raiser in Manila, Philippines for the Spirit Lake South Dakota Native American tribe elders and children for help with heating costs.  I am always skeptical of those kinds of calls and ask lots of questions.  I got on the web to check their website and will write someone there about the authenticity of the call I received.  They started with wanting a $100 donation.  I asked where they got my number and address and they said it was from a list of charities we had given to.  I didn’t pursue that.  I know I just should have hung up at the start.  We had had a call last week from an organization saying they were calling for funds only in the state of WA for Viet Nam vets.  We checked that out and found it is a real scam and that the “charity” organizer pockets most of the funds.  I assume that is also the case with the recent call.  When I asked, however, how much of the money would go to the reservation, the caller claimed if I wrote RESTRICTED on my check, that 100% would have to go there and they could keep nothing for administration.  So, who sees to that?  And I wonder if the Spirit Lake Dakotas don’t have telephones?  I’ll take up a collection to get them some.  Send money, please.  Unmarked one-hundred dollar bills will do.

Great potluck tonight and good jam session following too.  John’s ham was appreciated, and there was chili and potatoes and salad, deviled eggs, bran muffins, and brownies, cookies, and angel food cake, and we took John’s chocolate frosted chocolate birthday cake our neighbor made for him.  There was plenty of food and we all ate a lot.

Today, I take off for a play date at Briarwood at 2:00 p.m. and they serve us a meal afterward.  It will be vegetarian chili.  I debated about taking some leftover ham to throw into the mix, but I won’t.  It’s probably already got more salt in it than I need on my “low salt” diet.

We wish you a good week, and we will chat with you next week.

Nancy and John

We ended the blog last week with Sunday, so will start this week with Monday for a change and it might be a short week, if we stop on Friday night.

It was a quiet day, so quiet I don’t remember anything that happened, and I didn’t record anything that day.  Oh, I remember!  I spent almost the entire day working on the web page for my retirement celebration.  It is long and has many pictures, so everyone who accesses it will have to have even more patience than taken to go through our Season’s Greetings newsletter for the year.  One must have a high speed Internet connection to view and also a WIDE computer screen to have it format correctly with four photos per line.  Here is the link if you want to give it a try:

http://www.elixant.com/~nancyh/2010retirementCelebration.html

The only other things I did were eat, rest, and play with the cat.

We did have the very sad news from Jim & Rosy that (one of our long ago pups) a wonder(ful) Brittany, Brigitte (BG) had crossed the rainbow bridge.  She was an incredible positive influence in their lives, as they were in hers.  She will be missed terribly.  We understand, having lost our Brittany family members through the years.  It is never easy no matter how you might try to prepare for it.  Brigitte was very special and they were able to give her a new life after a very rocky start with another family, a trip back to our home for a year, until we fortunately found her forever home with them.  Brigitte was Jim’s fishing buddy.  People on the river knew her by name and others called her “the dog who fishes.”  If you look on the link above about the retirement party, you will see a couple of pictures of BG, and can read how important she was to my life earlier this year when she came for a visit to see me in Ellensburg, in the rehabilitation center.  It was a very special day I will never forget.  Brigitte jumped up into the chair beside my bed to be petted.  Jim and Rosy also came to visit me in ICU, bringing pictures each time, so I was able to show off “our” Brittanys in their loving home to my care-givers.  Everyone was always interested.  Some of them John posted on the wall curtain so everyone coming in the room could see them, just like a greeting card.

Tuesday, was another less involved day.  No trips to town because our neighbor was kind enough to bring us the dozen eggs we forgot Sunday when at the grocery.

Today has been mostly catching up on emails, and playing with the kitty, Sunny.  He is getting bolder each day.  He loves to climb to high spots in all rooms.  “His room”, now has a clear track he can run to get to the window sill to look out.  He launches himself from John’s computer chair (okay- if John is there Kitty uses a leg as a launch pad), to an open filing cabinet drawer with a book placed in it for support, and up to the window. This has been the solution to finding a feeding spot that the dogs can’t get to.  In the den he is willing to jump up into my recliner, but not on command, yet.  He sits beneath me while I’m eating, begging for food as the dogs do.  He’s learned that trick fast.  They won’t beg from John, because he won’t ever give in, as I do.  I finally got tired of it and used a newspaper to threaten him, so now at the end of the week, he just lays on the floor with the dogs and doesn’t climb up.

Dec. 29^th, Wednesday was a day for celebrating.  This day a year ago was the day of my valve replacement surgery that saved my life.  John baked a pecan pie following his mother’s hand written recipe from 40 years ago.  Still warm, we carried it into town to a turkey dinner with new friends — with talk about their times in Idaho, remembering our time in Idaho in some of the same places.  Returning home, we were greeted by our dogs and kitty.  After a moderate month our temperature has chosen this day to plunge.  For our return home it was about 15 and heading down.  We won’t get above 20 until about the 5^th of January.  John says “I intend to turn the oven on, warm the house up, and bake a cake on the 4^th – my birthday some 38 years ago.” [Nancy says that last number is bogus.]

Thursday:  scheduled to play music at Mt. View Meadows Assisted Living Home.  It went well, with an appreciative audience and a new addition to our group (a guitarist who sings).  She was my student 15 years ago and now is a biologist here in town.  She sent me a job-announcement to distribute to my jobs list, and I sent her back a thank you and a link to our Christmas newsletter.  She was back to me in a few minutes saying she didn’t know I played the fiddle (violin) and that she plays the guitar and had been wishing for a group to play with.  She fit right in and was thrilled to join us, and we were happy to have her too.

I went by the bank, deposited a check, and visited with people there over a cup of coffee.  They were so happy to see the condition I’m now in.  I had on my velvet black vest today with the white snowmen on it, and people really were cheered up by it.  Also went by the hospital to donate some money to their “foundation”.  It seemed like the right thing to do after all they have done for me over the past year and a half.

Oops!  Amazingly, I went to look for something in the retirement celebration web page, and found several errors.  I corrected those and changed a few more words in the text.

[John says my errors are inconsequential.  He suggests this web page:

The “oops” list:  http://micom.net/oops/ ]

I had cereal for lunch because I didn’t want leftover beef stew.  Guess I’m getting picky again.  Better stop that or John will quit cooking for me.  We had a nice roast (with onions & tomatoes), acorn squash and leftover rolls brought home from last night’s dinner.  We split one small piece of pecan pie (added ice cream) we brought home from the dinner last night.  Yum.

Friday: Well, nothing much happened today. The temperature struggled up to about 14, then gave up and started down again. I wasn’t going out anyway. John had to bundle up twice to check on and feed the horses. I did download another music program for transposing music for my friend that plays the clarinet.  Last one I used for 30 days and it expired.  There were some things I could not do with it, so now I’m evaluating a more expensive copy and one that will allow me to do some of the more advanced things (such as changing the time signature in the middle of a tune).  I had to change from 4/4 time to 2/4 time for only one measure, and I couldn’t do that with the old software.  The first only cost $10 but this will be $50.  I think it will be worth it.  I can do a few more things.  I maybe could have gotten along with the smaller version, but what the heck ?  I might as well give myself a nice gift.  It also has a way of inputting notes from the keyboard.  I will have to learn that trick.  Right now it is just putting in a note at a time by selecting-&-dragging the type of note I need and placing it on the music staff.  I did one page of music before I ran out of energy this afternoon.

Now it is New Year’s Eve.  In addition to the cold it has been very quiet out here.  Past tense. Was.  The neighbors started setting off fireworks, early.  That upset the dogs, even though they are bird dogs and used to gun shots. Not for years, though.

I’m ready to turn this over to John for corrections, additions, and posting on the WordPress servers. He will post this early Saturday – in the new year.

Nothing big is planned for Saturday or Sunday this week, the first two days of twenty-eleven or 2011.

So, Happy New Year.

May you enjoy spectacular sunrises and sunsets; babies’ smiles, and funny antics of puppies, kittens, and your human friends. May you witness the unfolding of the petals of a million flowers and especially enjoy every astonishing and miraculous beat of your heart. *

Nancy (& John)

________

*For the inspiration for the “May you …” wish, and many more, see:

http://llerrah.com/newyearwishes.htm

or would be if not for a couple of things (Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, Revolutionary War, …, this is Sunday):

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/boxingday.asp

Beginning last weekend:  This weekend has been the most relaxing in recent months.  We didn’t have to go to town, and only had to feed ourselves, our animals, and play with the new kitty.  We did a little house cleaning, but not as much as we should have.  All weekend and most of Monday morning I finished sending our annual newsletter to folks, via email.   We will not be sending conventional cards this year, except to a few, who don’t have computers.  The letter was written with wide margins and is too long for printing to send with cards.  At least the news this year is a lot better than last.  I found the sad letter John sent to a few people last year.  I don’t know how he managed to do that with all the rest of the things going on.

He even moved me out of my university office, while I was in the hospital and the rehab center.  He packed 22 boxes of stuff and hauled most to our outbuilding.  We have yet to even think about going through that yet.  The house also has boxes stacked up in the living room, den, back bedrooms, and hall.  I never felt like going through any of this since I have been home.  I didn’t have the stamina, which has just returned at the end of this year.  Maybe in twenty-eleven, I will slowly tackle some of the clutter and we will have an un-Boxing Day.

The most important thing now is to make room on the counter for my laptop computer where I can enter tax receipts into an EXCEL spreadsheet.  Then I can copy totals by “code” from there to enter in the Turbo Tax software.  Oh, fun, but it will be, because we really need to get the taxes done.  They will be very complicated this year with all the things that happened.

One day this week John made a big pot of chili which is good for my low-salt diet. The only thing with salt was the can of chili beans, but the garbanzo beans and tomatoes were without.  It seems he will have to start with dried beans to get to a near zero salt concoction – will it still be chili?

This week marked the first day the kitty has ventured out of the back computer room and into the rest of the house with the dogs and us.  He’s gaining more confidence and the dogs are getting used to him.  This morning and last night, he was lying on the floor with the dogs, in front of my chair, waiting for a handout. If any of us move in the “wrong” manner he dives through a slot and disappears behind the chair.  His idea of wrong still eludes us, so while the situation is somewhat tense, it is getting less so.

Tuesday, we were invited to a Solstice party and were served potato pancakes.  We took a cut-up fruit cake along for the group.  People were asked to bring their musical instruments and there was some jamming afterwards.  It went well.  There were a couple of friends there we did not expect to see.  The food was pretty good, and there was apple sauce and our fruitcake and salad to eat with the potato pancakes.  One person also brought an apple pie.  I had several of the great Christmas cookies one of our friends brought.  We sang some songs, but I was the only one willing to play my fiddle.  Our friends brought several percussion instruments and played along with the tunes.  It was fun.  John thought if one is going to make real shredded potato pancakes then the rest of the food ought to complement those.  This wasn’t the case (except for the applesauce) so he came home and searched the web for an idea for next year.  The one he liked is artery clogging but the Winter Solstice (‘sun stands still’) only happens once a year so how much harm is there in this:

Potato Pancakes, Kielbasa, Caramelized Onions, Sauerkraut

http://www.yousaytoo.com/polish-kielbasa-with-caramelized-onions-sauerkraut-and-crisy-potato-pancakes/247602

Wednesday was a strange day.  It started snowing in the middle of the night, and kept going all morning.  We had over six inches before it ceased.  Our neighbors do not have 4 wheel drive and they are in their 80s, but needed to go for two tests at the hospital.  John drove them in, and also let me off to play music at Dry Creek.  We played (just 3 of us) in the lobby for a large and appreciative crowd.  They sang along on the Christmas carols and songs.  We stopped by a friend’s house for cookies and to see their decorations, and to receive a gift.  I left the gift there to display for Christmas because we don’t have an appropriate flat place yet cleared in our house.  Perhaps by next Christmas!  It is a plastic/crystal angel playing a violin – lovely.

Thursday.  We started the morning with a nice gift from our neighbor (different one) with a big tractor, who plowed out our driveway and the area up on the road in front of our mailbox and paper delivery boxes.  John went out and talked to him and his cousin, and thanked them.  John had just broken the handle off of the broom implement he uses to push snow around.  Then we played with kitty Sunny, and I got ready to go for a haircut at my neighbors.  Wow.   I have hair again grown back to be able to cut.  Another nice gift for the morning before Christmas Eve.  I was all pretty to go to play music at Hearthstone Cottage, and I put on a vest I found in the old chifferobe (choose your own spelling), in our bedroom, where we store seasonal clothes.  On the web you can see a picture of one that looks like ours.  Ours is walnut, and belonged to my parents, who were married in 1937.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Collectibles-General-Antiques-682/2009/5/antique-chifferobe.htm

OR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifforobe

Search Google images for the variety of styles.

The vest is black velvet, with snowmen, and a blue denim back.  I don’t recall where I acquired it, nor that I have ever worn it, and it was way too large for me, but I wore it anyway.  After our playing, my friend in the music group heard me talking about it, and how big it was, and offered to “take it up” for me on her sewing machine.  I was thrilled and she carried it home with her while I did other things in town, and I picked it up on my way home.  She has done alterations before for a theater group.  Perfect.  Now I have a lovely new vest that fits. I showed it to John and he had me link to this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703581204576033591833091626.html?KEYWORDS=christmas+vests

Thursday evening I spent more time on the retirement celebration page, which is still under construction, but can be accessed at:

http://www.elixant.com/~nancyh/2010retirementCelebration.html

Before I quit Thursday’s reporting, I need to tell a story that I had left out, but just told John the day after Christmas as we were driving to town.  He said I needed to add it to the blog.  So, here goes.  I played music that day (discussed above) and left the Hearthstone Cottage.  I had to park on the street because the parking lot was full.  So did my friend, and we left together.  I was closer than she and got to my car and managed to get in and shut my door before a car came screaming by splashing slush up on my car.  I watched as the car proceeded by Mary still standing by her car, with the door open, and watched in horror as she was covered with the slop by the inconsiderate driver.  I drove up beside her and got her attention to say I saw what happened.  She was sitting there in disbelief and said she was composing a letter to send to the local paper for the Thumbs Down column.  I left her and drove to the grocery store.  As I drove a few blocks down west I saw two people walking IN the street because the sidewalks had not been shoveled.  They were in their fifties, and looked like they needed a ‘thumb’s up’ experience, instead of what I had just witnessed.  I slowed WAY down and drove by them, waving.  I had not gone a half block when I suddenly pulled a U-turn and went back to ask them if I could give them a ride.  They were first a bit surprised, but quickly accepted and told me their names and I told them mine.  I moved my fiddle case over and got my purse, and the man sat in the back seat and the woman sat in the front.  Once in the car, they said they were going to the hospital, which was about 2 blocks down the street, and I figured maybe they lived near it.  As we approached, the woman said, just pull up there by the dumpster (behind the hospital).  I figured they must be in the apartments behind, but not.  She opened the door and got out and went past the dumpster to a black container to empty the contents.  Her husband told me they were addicted to nicotine but couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes and so she was getting butts and they would take the tobacco from them to roll their own.  Source shown here:

http://www.newpig.com/us/janitorial-supplies/cigarette-ash-receptacles/cigarette-posts-urns/

YIKES.  I smiled and told him he needed to figure a way to kick the habit, even though I knew it was hard, that I had lost my dad at 58 to a heart attack and he smoked cigars.  The guy said, ‘Oh my.  I’m 55.’  I said, ‘Well, you give me a Christmas present and try to stop smoking.’  He claimed he would.  She came back to the car almost empty-handed as someone had beat her to the container.  Then I still had the two of them, and didn’t know where they lived.  I asked if I could give them a ride home.  He said he had to go catch a bus (no idea where), but I said, you mean you have to go to the bus station?  ‘Nope, just to Bi-Mart.’   I assumed it was to wait for Central Transit there (free bus service around town).  He told me they were married but lived in separate places.  So, I took them there and realized she was not going on the bus with him, and so I offered her a ride home.  She said no, I can walk; I live right behind there in Briarwood.   So, I bid them adieu and wished them a Merry Christmas.  That completed my thumbs up for the year.

Friday.  We need eggs we forgot to get when in town, to make John’s mom’s Pecan Pie for sharing with the neighbors’ family for Christmas dinner.   Perhaps we should just go borrow some from them and save the trip to town.  John decided he had 3 eggs, and could make just one pecan pie to take along, so we saved a trip to town.  We have a half of blueberry and a half apple we have combined and frozen.  We’ll take it along too.  There are 16 coming to dinner.

Tonight we were having chili –I was in my recliner and John was in his chair across the room from me.  I looked up to my right (on a table) and Sunny Kitty was coming in over my pillows and blanket headed to my chair.  He came on over to see what was on my plate.  Nothing at that point.  I was holding the bowl of chili out of his reach.  Remember, he doesn’t like the recent canned food (pate’) John bought for him.  So, he was so interested and jumped down on the floor and back up on my foot rest.  I moved my plate down to the foot rest.  I put some chili, with tomato, beans and meat on the plate.  He ate the tomato and the meat and sauce, but not the beans.  Funny kitty.   We offered him some more fresh canned food later, and he declined.

He will still eat his hard food, so that’s good.

It’s Christmas Eve.  It is not snowing here, but we hear there is a lot in the rest of the country, Great Britain, and even Australia where it is mid-summer.

Christmas we will be going to two different homes for dinner and for dessert.  First is to our neighbors across the street and second is to our friends’ parents’ house out East of Kittitas.  We had a nice visit both places.

Today, Sunday, we went to visit a family about 12 miles south of us, in the valley.  Their girls are home from work and graduate school, for the holidays.   It was good to see them again.  Hadn’t seen the one gal in well over a year, as she is in Oklahoma. She brought up a USA snow-depth map on her lap top.  There is even snow in ol’home town Atlanta.  What a hoot!   I remember a snow when I was a kid in Atlanta, and writing 1951 on the windshield of our 1950 DeSoto.  I took a picture of it with an old “brownie” camera.  I’m sure it is buried some place in my mom’s stuff we hauled up from GA many years ago.  To finish our visit:   we ate cookies and fudge, saw their gifts and admired their Christmas tree and Gingerbread house cake with candies.

Will close now with hopes John can get this on the web for our regular readers while it is still December 26, 2010. [John adds: Read the “Sightings” thing at the bottom of the ‘Snopes’ link. Maybe today’s blog entry should be headed as Nancy’s emulation of Good King Wenceslas – helping strangers in the snow.]

We’ll be back next week.  Have a good last week of the year, and a safe New Year’s Eve.  It will be the new year 2011 the next time we write.     Nancy & John

http://www.weihnachtsseite.de/christstollen.html

I think I must start with Sunday, where I ended last week before anything had happened in the afternoon.  I joined my music group and 9 of us played for the Rosewood Retirement Community’s Christmas Dinner.  That is all it was, and was it ever good!   They served us a full turkey dinner, buffet style.  It bothered me that I could not partake of the ham and the cranberry sauce (salt and meds won’t allow), but on the menu I could eat was turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, corn, green beans, salad, and a fabulous choice of desserts.  I had cheese cake with berry sauce on top (I think it was boysenberry, raspberry, and blueberry mixed).  After an hour of eating and visiting, we set up to play for the folks that stayed.  We played a mixture of old time music and Christmas songs and carols.  This group of musicians is called the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends.  Thank goodness, the Taize’ music was canceled till next year, so I didn’t have to stay in town till 6:00 for that.

I came home to find that my neighbor had plowed my driveway.  Thank you, Ken. What a great gift that was.  The drive into town was awful because the roads had not be plowed, and the drive home was only slightly better on a road west of us, but I had to come back over to our road and it was in horrible shape for the last 2.5 miles.  Getting to the driveway and finding it open made me very happy.

Monday was an early morning departure in pea soup fog for Yakima for a morning appointment with my cardiologist.   That turned out to be a long day, but it was good news from the standpoint of my health.  The doctor was a little late getting to us, but spent a lot of time with us, as he always does.  In addition to reviewing my two recent procedures (lungs and heart), he also gave me an EKG and an examination.  He reviewed all my lab reports from a fasting blood draw a week previous, and he reported to us on all items.  He dictates his findings and recommendations and we will get a transcript of that, as will our family physician.   He also changed some of my medications, consistent with the lab report findings.  I always feel complete confidence after a visit with this doctor, because of his thoroughness and willingness to explain everything he is seeing and recommending.  We ate lunch in Yakima, and made it back in time for my exercise class at 1:30.  John shopped while I exercised.

Tuesday was spent almost all day working on the Christmas newsletter to put on the web for electronically reaching those with email access to the Internet.   Evening found Nancy going again to town, this time to Hearthstone to play Christmas carols with a group called The Connections.  There are only two violins, and a keyboard, everyone else sings.  Occasionally, one person plays the guitar but not for Christmas carols.

Wednesday.   Exercise class was followed by a musical trio of which I was part, with another violin, and a guitar, at the Rehab center where I spent 6 weeks earlier this year.  It was especially nice to be near the front entrance where lots of people walked by (my previous caregivers) and recognized me and stopped for a hug or just said hello in passing.  We played Christmas carols for about a half hour.  Several patients came down the halls (we were at the conjunction of three), to join us.  After we finished there, we packed up and walked back to the nursing home next door.  We were greeted happily by everyone on the staff and they went off to tell residents we were there.  We had a really good audience for just appearing without much warning.  Our larger group only visits this place on the 5^th Thursdays when months have them (only happens about 4 times a year).  December is one such month, so when they were asking us to come back again soon, we could tell them we’d see them in 2 weeks, the Thursday after Christmas.

Tonight I finished the web page with our Seasons Greetings on it.  I am in the process of sending the link to everyone in my email address book, who I think will be interested.  But, I have several accounts, so I hope I don’t hit people more than once.  Meanwhile, there are several of you reading this blog for whom we do not have email addresses.  There is part of our family back in PA we have heard read this regularly, but again, we do not have their email address.  If you are one of those folks and want to access our newsletter (with pictures), then please feel free to click on this link below, and also, please get back to us with your comments.  We would love to hear from you.

http://www.elixant.com/~nancyh/2010Greetings.html

Thursday was a neat afternoon.  Went to play music at Dry Creek Retirement center and our group was well received and appreciated.  They gave us a Christmas card with tons of signatures on it from residents there with thanks for coming to share with them.  Several came up for hugs at the end of our playing.  One of our members thought to take a whole bunch of bells and shakers, so they could join us on Jingle Bells, Jambalaya, and Silver Bells.  They and we had a great time.  We stopped by friends on the way home, and had a nice visit with tea, cookies and bread.  The bread had been given to us by a former student as we were leaving the music venue.  It is made locally in town and is a German Holiday Bread, they call Stollen:   (English, this time.)

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/Stollen.htm

It has raisins and citron dried fruit (orange) that has been soaked in rum.  In the middle is an almond paste filling.  The entire loaf is rolled or sprinkled with powdered sugar.  It is eaten sliced and dry.  We shared some with our friends, and we have had slices with two meals thus far.  The best was lunch on Saturday, with leftovers from the pork loin roast, cooked with orange slices, the day before.

Friday was a one in-town event day, my exercise class, but I went and was glad I did.  Our teacher brought us all a present (candy) and a thank you note (very personalized) for the baby shower we put on for her last week.  Our “new” teacher (leader) was there today.  He will take over for her for the next quarter while she has her baby.  He is a senior in Exercise Science and Physiology at CWU.  He went through the class with us today and will take over January 3^rd.

I came home to spend time on email a little and then to wrap gifts for our gift exchange tonight at the potluck with the musical group.  John cooked pork loin roast all day.  The gifts were difficult to wrap, but I managed.  One is a stick with a horse head on it, for children over 4.  It is really cute.  When you pinch his ear, he whinnies,  plays a tune and lifts his head up and down, nodding.   The other gift is a stuffed 18” Santa Claus with sleigh bells on his hand.   It’s really cute.  They probably each are worth more than $5, but we got them at yard sales and probably didn’t pay more than $3 each for them.  One of the people there will be able to give the pony to a grandchild, probably, and several of the people may want the Santa for their house decorations.  I thought we were going to play the gift exchange game that goes by many different names around the country.  Everyone picks a gift and then names or numbers are drawn and you can exchange your gift or keep what you have.  If you want to exchange, you simply go to the person and take their gift, saying, “Merry Christmas! May I please have your gift?”  They have to give it up.  As it turned out, there were few enough of us there that we could sit in a circle and listen to a story as described below that is full of rights and lefts.

Each time the word is said the gift is passed that direction. e.g., “Mr. and Mrs. Right left for the country right as it began to snow.  They left in a hurry and forgot the right directions, etc.”   At the end of the story, you keep the gift in your possession.   Some examples of the way it starts out follow:

Christmas was almost here, and Mother RIGHT was finishing the Christmas baking.  Father RIGHT, Sue RIGHT, and Billy RIGHT returned from their last-minute Christmas errands.  “There’s not much LEFT to be done,” said Father RIGHT as he came into the kitchen.  “Did you leave the basket of food at church?” asked Mother RIGHT, and the story proceeds.You can follow the link below to find the whole discussion:     http://www.santalady.com/xmasgame/leftright.html I didn’t get home till very late–after 10:00 p.m. because I stayed after dinner, and we had fun playing music.  John and I drive separate cars so he can come home and be with the animals and feed them.  Three of us played an hour longer than the rest last night.  We were enjoying ourselves, so why not?Our gifts were a big hit.  The horse head on a stick ended up as my gift at the end, but I was sitting next to the man of the house who sponsored the party, and they have horses, and grandkids and great grandchildren, so I just traded him my gift for what he had ended with (two boxes of candy—chocolate covered cherries and chocolate mints).   He and his wife were thrilled with the gift.  I was happy I had some control over the person to whom it went.  Of course, I had to demo pinching the ear to make the horse do his thing.

Today is Saturday, and it is has been a light day, and the next several will be likewise.  That’s good, we need a rest from all the activities, and the kitty needs attention.   It was snowing this morning but we only got a little over an inch accumulation before it stopped.

There is snow predicted for us (1-2 inches) each day this week, including Christmas.

Hope your week before Christmas goes well.  The next one of these will be on Dec. 26^th, because we will be sharing Christmas dinner with our neighbor’s family, where we have spent most holidays, since we arrived at this house, across the street from their hay field, in 1989.  They adopted us into their family and it has been a wonderful experience.

We remain grateful for the blessings of the year and Christmas.

Till next week,

Nancy & John

12/12/10

This week starts again with Sunday, but it was a pretty uneventful day (except for playing with kitty) till I left for the Taize’ service.  We had a new member join us to play the clarinet.  This was the person I had been transposing music for recently.    I couldn’t have anything but water after midnight because of having a fasting blood draw Monday morning.  That pretty much started the week, and I went to the grocery store while in town, and I went back in the afternoon for my exercise class.

Tuesday we had the farrier out to trim the older horses.  While John was out I spent time on my computer emails and should have been working with the music transposition on his computer.  Now it is late and I probably won’t do it before dessert and bed.

Wednesday.  John got up early today and left to take his Subaru to Yakima for servicing and, while there, went to Costco too.  Bought us a bunch of the fruit cakes we liked so well, and now we have to freeze for the year!  Per pound these Bundt-pan-shaped treats are only half the cost of those sold in the Ebrg stores.  Meanwhile,   I met a former student for a small lunch and then went to exercise class, by school, Bi-Mart to get a battery for my watch installed by them.  My trip by school today unexpectedly resulted in participating in a thesis defense for one of my former students.  I didn’t know about it till I got to the department.  The normal announcement was not sent out on email, but was just posted there.  Also, filled up my gas tank on the way home, and was not happy at the price/gallon ($3.359 for premium).  We are one of the highest in the nation. http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Schedule for next 4 days:  music Thursday at 2:00, Friday, scholarship luncheon, followed by party for exercise teacher (baby shower), followed by potluck/ jam session in the evening; Saturday music at 2:00 , and Sunday music/dinner at 2:00 to 4:30 ? at the Rosewood Retirement Community’s Christmas party.  They are feeding us a complete turkey feast for playing music for them (mixed old time dance music with Christmas songs and carols).

We did make some headway on cleaning off the part of a table top so we moved the kitty’s crate into the den with us.  Might rename him BB or boots.  He has 4 white paws and a white bib and getting more playful with us.  He is no longer bony.  John sits him in his lap a lot.  John also bought him three toys and one, a little ball with beads inside, is the favorite.  Kitty loves it, and has been playing with it for a couple of hours.   He just changed and took that away and gave him a dumb-bell cloth one, which isn’t as much fun, but he does play with it.  At least it is quieter for night.

We just put together a blueberry and strawberry cobbler to take to tomorrow’s parties.  (midday).  John is making baked apples and heating Stouffer’s frozen lasagna for the dinner.

Now we are getting ready for supper and it is beef stew.

Friday was expected to be a busy day.  We made it to town (nice beautiful sunny day) to the first venue, noon at the new student recreation center, for a scholarship luncheon.   Our dessert was a hit, and we emptied only one dish.  A friend washed the dish and gave use her leftover pink Jell-O/cottage cheese, whipped cream salad.  It was great.  We took it to the next party at 1:30, with the other full pan of cobbler.  Not all was eaten so we have some cobbler for us, and we took the pink salad to our evening potluck/jam session, along with the Italiano Lasagna and baked Cameo apples John fixed.  It was a great meal.   There was twice as much food there as we needed. After dinner, John left for home to take care of the animals and I stayed for the music jam session.  Didn’t get home till after 9:00 p.m.

Saturday:  I plowed (pun intended) through a lot of snow to get to play music today at Briarwood, but the trip was worth it, as they made us a wonderful white bean and ham soup.  There were bread sticks to go with and also Fritos and rolls.  For dessert  was the old Nabisco chocolate pinwheels I remember from my childhood, and some other cookies I didn’t try, and the best homemade brownies, with chocolate frosting.  I brought home four of those for John to share.  We only had 3 people show to play and only a handful, about 8 or 10 show in the audience.  It snowed the whole time there, and the drive home was not pleasant.  John brushed me a path to get from the car to the front door.  He had done the same when I left, but I think it snowed another 4 or 5 inches while I was gone.  He had to do the same for me to get back to the house.  He was in the 3-cornered shed where I park, moving snow when I got home.  I paused, and then couldn’t get started again to get into the shed.  I backed up and took a running leap and made it through.  Wow, if this keeps on, I will have a tough time getting to the dinner and play time tomorrow.  I’m worried that the couple from Thorp with our microphone and amplifier won’t make it.  They chose not to come today and it was a good thing.  They also play two key instruments, an accordion and guitar.  We were pretty “light” without them today.  We are having leftover lasagna from the potluck for dinner tonight.

Sunday arrived and I’m almost ready to leave for the play date.  John has been shoveling snow and my neighbor drove in the driveway to punch it down.  My Subaru should make it out all right.  He may come back with a little loader to move some of the 15” out of the drive.

I’m going to send this to John to put on the blog, while I am gone in town to eat and perform at the Christmas Party.

We hope you have a nice week getting ready for the holidays that will be with us quite soon.

Nancy & John

This week starts with Sunday morning, Nov 28^th, and with wildlife in our front enclosed yard (4’ fence).  John looked out the kitchen window and a doe was nibbling on the bottom of our mountain ash tree.  He was concerned, because on the front porch under the roof was an open bag of black sunflower seeds he has been giving the birds.  Good thing she didn’t find it.  He took a couple of pictures of her and then tried to scare her away by “shooing” from the bathroom window.  She didn’t react.  I was standing at the kitchen window and saw she wasn’t leaving.  I slammed the window and she sailed over the fence right behind the white Subaru.  The ease with which they jump fences will never fail to amaze me.  She stuck around outside the fence and he went and threw her some apples.  I suggested that was not good, that she might interpret it as a reward.  I think she did, because she was still hanging around behind the back of the car after eating the apples.  So he went out and shooed her off to the neighbors and let Meghan out for the morning run.  He was coming back for the others, when she returned, or another came, and he had to run that one off too.  [Others come and go  — 14 is the most counted at one time. ] Finally, he got all 3 female Brittanys out the door and into the pasture, and came back for Dan, who has to be on a retractable leash.  John was going to feed the horses and exercise the dogs.

I fixed myself an apple fritter and was just sitting down beginning to eat it, when he came back in the front door.  That was too soon, and I said, “What’s wrong?”   He walked on in with a small kitten in his arms.  It is a yellow one about the same size as the one we had for 5 days several weeks ago.  This one has a very thick coat of hair but is boney.  He or she (we haven’t checked yet) was cornered in the barn by Annie, our youngest Brittany.  John rescued the kitty and brought it in to me.  It was scared and not wanting to be held.  John still had all the dogs outside and needed to get back to them.

He asked me to sit and hold the kitty till he returned.  Before John gave him to me, I put on gloves and a coat, and sat with it in my recliner.  He calmed down and actually started to close his eyes.  I was rocking him in the recliner but holding him tightly and then petting his head and talking to him.  The temperature is up to 31 now on our front porch.  He was beginning to accept my lap, but I didn’t want to let go of him.  When John got back from exercising the dogs, he looked for the little crate we had had the other kitty in, but couldn’t find it.  So, he got a bigger one from outside and wedged it into the space on top of the washing machine.  I put the kitty there, and “he” was happy to go.  Then I found some dishes for water and put some canned kitty food in with him.

Later in the day, he ate the food, and John gave him more.  He ate that.  I gave him more, and he ate that.  He’s now had about a ½ can of kitty food, small sized can.  When it’s gone we will switch to a larger can of cat food.

Don’t know if he has drunk yet, but he has water in a small bowl and a little litter box.  He can’t be more than 8 weeks, and has a VERY thick coat of hair (with being outside in sub zero weather, it’s a good thing.)   I hope we can housebreak him and get him to stay with us.  He is orange tabby, with white on all paws.  We still don’t know his gender.  Maybe it is a little girl.  Regardless she has a home with us if she / he wants.  We’re calling it Sunny for Sunshine, just like the other one who didn’t stay around.

This one’s eyes look better than the other one we had.  I think the other was starving and his eyes were large and out of proportion to the rest of his head.  This one is not so bug eyed.  It also doesn’t hiss at us when we approach the crate.  The other one never got over that, and also would lash out with his paw and claws.  We had to reach in with gloves on.  This one will rest in John’s lap or on the table in front of his keyboard on the computer.  They are quite a team.

My Sunday evening Taize’ music service was canceled tonight, so I didn’t have to change clothes and drive to town.  Suits me just fine.

Monday – day with kitty and trying to clean off space on a picnic table in the den/dining room to put the crate for kitty.  Not making very fast headway.  There is so much dust on everything and then it has to be sorted.  I can only work for so long and have to sit down and rest.  I did leave after lunch to go to my exercise class.  (Now at the end of the week, it is still not completed).  Too much other stuff going on.

Tuesday, home with intentions to clean off the table and counters some more, but never got to it till late.  John went alone to town (it snowed all day) for supplies for us and for the kitty.  I needed meds.  The kitty needed food.  I spent time on emails on the computer, and talking on the phone with friends.  John has sat with her in his lap twice today, and every day this week, as it turns out.

Wednesday, will be another exercise class and then in the evening we are going to CWU for a lecture by the new biogeographer.  The title of her talk is: “Vegetation Change and Fire History in the Pacific Northwest since the Missoula Floods.”

Thursday will be time to go play music again, and John will go along and we will leave early for the Geography Department afternoon lecture series, at 3:00 start.

We heard a nice talk from another geographer this afternoon entitled:  “Global Currents, Local Landscapes: Notes from the Americas and Europe,” but he said it is really, “What I did on my summer vacation.”

Friday was fun and full of parties.  I started at 11:30 a.m. at the Adult Activity Center in town.  I joined a bunch of people for a potluck, and the center provided lemon meringue pie (baked there by the staff), and a wonderful turkey soup.  I took some of John’s applesauce.  There were other yummy things people made such as salads, potato rolls, and cornbread.  At noon, I got out my violin and joined a lady on her accordion, to play and sing Christmas songs.   Before we played, Santa Claus arrived and we were given presents and a number.  No one could open gifts till after we played.  Then everyone did, and the staff started calling numbers.  A person could trade for another gift if they wanted.  I traded candy canes for a tine with chocolates and more candy canes in it.  Then they took pictures of anyone who wanted with Santa Claus.  My friend’s husband was there, and both of us had the same surgeon for a valve replacement (him two years ago and me last year).  We had our picture taken so we could take it as a Christmas Thank You card to our surgeon in Yakima.

Then we had our exercise class.

We went back in to the Anthropology/Geography Christmas party, Friday night, and then by the hospital to visit our neighbor who is back in for Pancreatitis and severe pain, to see if they can relieve it.

Saturday could have been a light day, except John had to put in a bunch of work to get the last newsletter of the year out before the Dec 12^th Christmas Party of the Kittitas Valley Trail Riders.  We won’t be going this year because I have to participate with my music group at the same exact time, at the Rosewood Community Christmas Party.  They are treating us to dinner with them, and then we will play for an hour or so, using a mixture of old time dance music and Christmas music.

John did complete the newsletter (48 of them printed, folded, stamped, and I helped him seal them with piece of tape on 3 sides).  By the time he finished, it was too late to have the postal person pick them up from our mailbox at the end of the driveway, so he had to drive to town to the P.O.  While in town he shopped for needed (and un-needed) groceries.

I suppose I should end this and have John place it out on the blog for this week.  Tomorrow is a slow day, except for my going to play music in town in the evening.

As to “Who Knew?” – – – today’s heading – – – that one year after John’s first entry on this site that the activity would still be going on?  Happy anniversary to Occasional Updates on Nancy.

Next week will again be full of events.   We hope you have a nice week getting ready for the holidays.

Nancy & John

Starting this week with Saturday, picking up from going to a Celtic music performance while John was sending a report to the blog last week.  I told you then it was planned, but I was writing it on Friday night.  I went with a couple from my music group to the Teanaway Grange to hear Prairie Spring’s concert.  This was my first time to hear the three of them play their own stuff.  As individuals, they are sometimes members of our fiddlers and friends group.  As a trio they perform Celtic music and it is superb.  One woman is on the fiddle, another is on the Auto Harp and Drum, and there is a fellow on the guitar.  They do instrumentals and some vocals.  There was one song where they had audience participation on the chorus.  The audience was incredible too.  They were stomping the floor and clapping and giving vocal appreciation calls. (Those have a name but I missed what it was called).  I took a Costco Fruit Cake all cut up in pieces to the potluck.  It was well received.  Later we found a fruit cake in our local grocery store, for 7.98/pound.  The Costco one was only 3.72/pound.  The quality of what we got was excellent.  It was so full of fruit and nuts it was difficult to cut.  It was not mostly cake and in fact we couldn’t find any cake even though the ingredients mentioned flour!  Next time we are at Costco we will be buying more and freezing them to use throughout the year.  They do freeze well, but you have to age them 4 weeks before storing them.  We found information on the web.

Sunday, John and I worked in the morning on chores, his being all outside in the cold.   He has put a tarp over the top of our old Motor Home, because last year it leaked from a vent on the roof.  After lunch we went to our friends southeast of town to get a couple of hearts from their beef that was butchered in the morning.  John wants to dissect them and see what they look like (after hearing and learning all about the valves in my heart over the past year and a half).   They have some extra “ tenderloin” their butcher called it, and he said it wouldn’t age well in the hanging process for aging, and that he would just toss it.  John determined from a web search that it is really called hanger steak.  Here is what Wikipedia describes it as: “   A hanger steak is a cut of beef steak prized for its flavor. Derived from the diaphragm of a steer, it typically weighs about 1 to 1.5 lbs (450 to 675g).   In the past it was sometimes known as “butcher’s steak” because butchers would often keep it for themselves rather than offer it for sale.”  John is cooking it for our dinner on Tuesday of this week.  Check below for our assessment.

The taize’ service Sunday night was different from previous times.  We had a snow storm, and the students cancelled their coming.  We only had two violins for the music.  The minister was not there because she went to the Philippines to be with her family for Thanksgiving.  One of our former musicians will lead the communion and another will read the scriptures.  Few people came to the service from the community.  It was, however, a nice one.  And, the supper was thick potato & leek soup – with the consistency of mashed potatoes.  There was Vanilla Diet Pepsi to drink, and many desserts left over from a previous service in the day.  Good tea cakes (which I always called shorties).  Mostly just butter and sugar and nuts, rolled in powdered sugar.  I drove home in a raging snow storm at 20 mph because I couldn’t see out the windshield and the road was not clearly visible for the center line nor the sides and where the berm existed or dropped off into a ditch.

Monday found us on the road to our family physician in Cle Elum (35 miles away) for working on the ear wax filling John’s right ear and keeping him from hearing, and for lab tests (and blood draw) for Nancy. The Doc claims that ear grunge almost always occurs in only one ear.  Why?   [The “over the counter” remedy didn’t work, thus the trip to the pro.]  On the way up, it was not snowing, but it started as we pulled into town, and continued, all the way home.

Tuesday was a slow day, except I used all morning to organize the play list for our upcoming performance of our music group.  We will try it out tomorrow at the Hearthstone facility in town.  After that is over, we will go to the Community Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s always fun.  One of the women in my exercise class is cooking one of the several turkeys they provided at the center for volunteers.

Winter has arrived.  We have about 8 inches of snow from the last two days of its snowing hard.  John has been doing lots of chores getting ready, and it’s a good thing.  Today he put black sunflower seeds in a bird feeder and hung it up in a walnut tree to keep it out of reach of the deer.  The quail found it amazingly fast.  There were juncos and starlings (we think), in our mountain ash tree eating berries.  The starlings were all puffed up and sitting on the branches.  We only saw one or two moving around eating.  Maybe the others were full and resting.  Later in the day, they were joined by Flickers.  Before long, ALL the berries were gone.

Report on Tuesday’s dinner.  John fixed that Hanger Steak mentioned above in Sunday’s report.  He cut it across the grain, and the flavor was great, but it was still tough.  We had it in a nice gravy with onions & mushrooms, served over mashed cheese potatoes.  We had green sugar snap peas with it.  We will follow tonight with Marion berry pie and ice cream.

Wednesday will be even colder than today. Tonight it is supposed to drop to single digits and possibly go below zero; they’re calling for minus 4.  Last night here it went to 15, but friends in town said it was down to 10 at their house.    It is 7 now at the airport at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday.

Okay, Wednesday . . . [Too cold, – 8 here.  Lower in the valley it was -12.] . . . is here and I went to town in John’s Subaru (his has gasoline and I didn’t want to have to stand in the cold filling mine).  We played music with a lot of Christmas songs added to some of our regular repertoire of old time music.  We were a hit and everyone enjoyed singing along and thanking us afterwards.  It makes it worthwhile.  I visited with a 92 year old lady who came up especially to tell me thank you and how much she enjoys us, but then she said, “You are looking so much better than before.”  I was happy to tell her I no longer have any infection.  She smiled and gave me a hug.  The residents there love us as family.  Before we started, I was talking with a woman in a wheel chair.  She looked up and saw the silver necklace I had on, on top of a black long sleeve “tee” shirt.  It is of a lone wolf, baying at the moon.  She said, “Is that a wolf around your neck ?”  I answered yes it was and told her where it came from in northern Idaho.  (given to me by friends, after they visited the wolf sanctuary there – 50 miles NE of Spokane, WA).

http://www.wolfpeopleofcocolalla.com/index.html

She said, “You need to come to my room and see all my wolf stuff.  I just love the creatures.  I once had a wolf from a “pup” in Alaska.”  So we visited a little longer and she told me all about him.  Then it was time for us to start playing music so I had to leave the conversation.

Then off to Rite Aid to buy some Alcohol Swabs for my neighbor.  Then on to the Community Thanksgiving Dinner.  My music group had already gotten there but I was able to join them at the table.  We were served a plate full:  Turkey, potatoes and dressing, with gravy, a veggie medley of cut up carrots, corn, and peas, a roll and butter, cranberry sauce on the table, but I cannot have that with the Coumadin I take, and it ended with a piece of pumpkin pie.  Now tomorrow I will have another meal with turkey.  [Coumadin and vitamin K intake have to be consistent.  Thus, foods with K, such as cranberries, can be eaten but overall the same quantity has to be eaten each day.  Keeping track of the details and then eating some everyday is so difficult that most folks just don’t eat any of the things on the list of high Vitamin K foods.]

Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving.  We were up early with a 7:30 a.m. phone call from a friend wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving.  We left the house at 12:30 to go to our neighbors.  I helped with peeling carrots and putting relishes into a serving dish: homemade pickles, prunes, and canned olives.  There was quite the feast.  One of the daughters-in-law baked and brought the turkey, dressing and gravy.  Her daughter made rolls and a Jell-O/pear salad.  John made Blueberry/grated apples pie and an apple pie.  We brought home enough of both to cut and fit half of each into a pan to freeze for me to take to a potluck Dec 3^rd at the senior center where I will play Christmas music with an accordionist (just the two of us).  The lady of the house today, made a large pumpkin pie that was superb.  Also, she made yams, mashed potatoes, and a cranberry/marshmallow dish.  Another neighbor brought a green bean casserole.  There was enough food for an army.  We enjoyed the company and stayed till almost dark, needing to get home for John to feed the horses.  Our dogs were good while we were away, and ready to go outside when we got home.  It is too cold to leave the window (doggy door) open now.  That limits the time we can stay away.

I came home and worked on transposing more music for our clarinet player.  I have done 12 small songs for the Taize’ service next week, Dec. 5^th.  I have about that many left.  I’m learning how to use the program, and getting better at it.  Remember, I have to do it with the computer, clicking note by note, one whole note above the one written on the music I’m transposing from.  The program knows how to change the key to one appropriate for a B flat clarinet.  This procedure was written up in last week’s blog.

Friday will be a slow day.  Maybe I will get some bills paid and tax receipts filed.  (I didn’t, but I did transpose some more Taize’ music for the clarinet.)  There is no exercise class because the senior center is closed for Thanksgiving.  We don’t really have any reason to go to town.  John needed to do the chores with horses, birds, and giving apples to the deer.  I can help with the dogs and sighting the deer… as they come to the back fence to beg.  The buck (4 points on each side) came to the back fence, and John threw him some apples.  He let John walk out and take pictures as he was eating them.  Sorry we cannot put pictures in this blog.  If you want to see him, let us know and we will send to your email address (be sure we have it).  Send your request to nancyh@ellensburg.com please.

John dissected a beef heart we got from our friends when they butchered their cows (mentioned above on Sunday).  I took pictures while he cut through and examined various portions and tried to match parts with drawings.   John looked for photos on the web but there are only drawings of not much use for his intent.  Also, the hearts we had were sliced off at the top and sliced into the chambers to let them drain.  Still, we could see quite a lot. The nerve fibers for electrical signaling inside the heart were all there.  This suggested link is a bit technical, but still useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_conduction_system_of_the_heart

The bands for closing the valves (chordae tendinae)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chordae_tendineae

were mostly there but some damage had been done by the person removing the heart so that was disappointing.  The surface arteries were there but the major veins and arteries to and from the lungs and elsewhere were all nearly gone.  So if you want to try this, ask for a more complete specimen.

Saturday was a slow day, but we did go to town shopping and to deliver some apples.  I spent a lot of time in the afternoon transposing the rest of the Taize’ music for my friend who plays the clarinet.  John did all the normal chores with the animals, including feeding apples to the deer and sunflower seeds to the birds, who knock them out of the feeder (up in the walnut tree) on the ground and the deer eat them too.  He hangs it way up in the tree to keep the deer from raiding the bird feeder, as we have had happen in the past.  Somewhere we have a picture of a large buck standing on back legs eating from the feeder.

I guess I should stop this and get it to John to put on the blog tonight.   Sunday will be pretty much the same as last week.  Nothing special is planned.

We hope your Thanksgiving was as good as ours, and that next week will be a good one for you.

Ours will be full of events… and we’ll tell you next blog.  Till then, our best regards to you and thanks for reading our news.   We are so happy to be able to report good health news, instead of what’s been filling most of this blog since last Dec 4^th, when John began doing the reports.

Nancy