2017 November 01-03

Wednesday 01 I did the devotional at Grandies. It was based on parts of Psalm 139. Since Ella and I have just been to the doctors for our annual check ups, it seemed a good time to talk about a spiritual check up. “Search me, O God, and see if there is any wicked way in me.”

Ella now has the full blown creeping crud that I have been trying to recover from. There were lots of nose blowing and hacking coughs. We both returned home after Grandies and slept covered up in our recliners most of the afternoon.

We made it back to church for choir in the evening. I don’t think either of us felt much like going to sing. However, this was our monthly choir party to celebrate November birthdays and anniversaries of our members. Ella’s birthday is in November so she was one of the celebrants. We ate and even sang as much as our restricted airways would allow.

As soon as we were home we took night time cold medication and went to bed.

Thursday 02 Thanks to the cold medication I didn’t wake until my alarm went off at 7:00 a.m. I got out of bed, dressed and washed dishes. This is part of my Thursday routine. I do the dishes on Thursday mornings to get my hands nice and warm in the hot water. And to make sure they are very clean before I stick my finger to draw blood. My INR test requires a good size bubble of blood and if my hands are warm, the blood flows more freely. I also check my glucose level at the same time. My diabetes is so well controlled that I only test once a week.

I received two letters from the VA. One said that I owed them money and the second contained a check for an over-payment. Isn’t bureaucracy a wonderful thing? So I cashed the check and sent them a check in return. We’ll see what happens next. Oh darn! I just thought of what I should have done. I should have sent them their check back and written “pay to the order of the VA” on the back.

We spent the morning and early afternoon at the Over the Hill Gang. There was a larger crowd today. There usually is on Fried Chicken Day. Our canasta game broke up around 2 o’clock when one of the players had to leave. It seemed like a good time for us to leave also.

I wanted to check out the Santa set at Lakeline Mall. So we drove on into Cedar Park for a look. As it turned out, nothing … not even the huge Christmas tree … was in place yet. Last year I (Santa) had already started having children share their Christmas wishes with me.

Neither Ella nor I have completely recovered from the upper repertory infection so we came home and napped away the rest of the afternoon.

Friday 03 The morning started foggy and with drizzle. Not a great way to start a day that included a trip to Marble Falls and the Blue Bonnet Café.

One of the many things that our Grandies for Christ group does is, collect aluminum cans. Once we have a sizable amount of cans we take them to Hill Country Recycling in Marble Falls and cash them in. Unlike some states that pay a bounty of 5 or 10 cents a can, Texas has no bottle/can deposit/redemption. So, we are paid by the pound for the aluminum. Generally we collect between $4 and $8. Today we collected over $24.

I don’t know where Anne got all of those cans but she brought a LOT. I had the back of my pickup loaded with just half of the bags of cans that she donated. June had her trunk filled and Louine had the back of her mini van loaded.

Around ten o’clock Louine, Donna, Cephas, Wanda, June, Ella and I formed a caravan and headed west. I had to stop outside of Burnet because one of the garbage bags had come untied and some cans flew out the back. The other three vehicles were ahead of me and didn’t see me stop. Ella sent a text message to say what had happened and that the bag was retied, and we were back on the road again.

I had never been to the recycling center before and had only a vague idea how to find it. Ella loaded the GPS on her phone and guided us in. Once we had all unloaded the cans, we went to the Blue Bonnet Café for lunch. A good time was had by all.

If you look at the map of our trip you will see that the road from Liberty Hill to Burnet is fairly straight, as is the road from Burnet to Marble Falls. Even though it is going through the hill country they are pretty easy drives.  However, you will notice that the drive back from Marble Falls to Liberty Hill is a lot more … interesting.

If the weather had been nicer in the morning, I would have driven that route. However, high speed, wet pavement and twisted hills to go up and down and around … in the fog, didn’t seem like a good idea. But by the time we left the Blue Bonnet Café, it was a bright and sunny day. It was a beautiful time to tour the Real Texas Hill Country. While it is true that most of the trees are evergreen and live oaks, there are still plenty of trees that were in their Fall colors. And the vista across the valleys and hills is like medicine for my soul.

It was slightly after one when we arrived home. The outside temperature was in the mid 80s but the temperature inside the trailer was in the low 90s. We soon got the AC blowing cold air. Again, neither of us have fully recovered from our colds so we dosed with cough medicine and napped away the afternoon in our recliners.