Being in Florida for a week may have made us more sensitive to this, but it seems like God flipped a switch as we went from early fall to almost winter overnight. We’ve been running our heat since we got home, and we had our first frost yesterday morning. The kids have also enjoyed their annual run through Steve Freeland’s corn maze.
CANCER UPDATE. I haven’t mentioned Pauline’s chemo in quite a while. She has been doing really well. She even had another treatment while we were in Florida. She went today for a CT scan to check her progress. We are hoping the results of this will give us some idea how many treatments she has left.
Speaking of results, we are relieved that Mom got good results today. The Monday after we got home from Florida (the 20th) she was scheduled for her annual mammogram. This year they asked her to come back the next day for more tests which revealed two spots of interest. She had a biopsy Monday of this week (the 27th), and, as I said, the results came back negative. (For those who may not know, Mom had breast cancer back in 1990.)
POLITICAL BOY. I will be so glad when Election Day has come and gone if for no other reason than to silence our phone. I sure wish the Do Not Call list applied to political campaigns!
Nate sure has the election on his mind (he has learned about it in school). He’s been asking people at church, etc., “Are you 18 yet?” If the answer is yes he then wants to know, “Are you voting for Obama or McCain?”
What makes this funny to us is Nate’s concept of old. To his five year old perspective all adults simply have a larger age than his. Nate is not so sure what that number is, so everyone gets the “Are you 18?” question. This includes Aunt Mar who has seen 18 years go by more than 5 times now.
LOST AT HOME. Everyone has to get up during the night to use the bathroom. Maybe not every night, but we’ve all done it. We find the bathroom, take care of business, and return to bed almost automatically. Nate, on the other hand, gets lost. We know this because we hear him frantically running through the house in the middle of the night looking for the bathroom, and we have to get up and steer him in the right direction. We’ve had a lot of close calls, but no catastrophes.
THE WHISTLER. Ben has learned how to whistle, and he sounds pretty darn good! It took me forever to learn how to whistle, and I can’t say I do it correctly. I can only whistle when inhaling, not exhaling like most people do. I sound like a sick bird. Jenna is a lot like me in this, and when she hears Ben whistling it sort of gets her goat because he sounds better than she does. Since Ben is a Star Wars fanatic we mostly hear The Imperial March coming from his lips (with Nate humming right along), but since Disney World we’re getting some Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A Pirates Life for Me mixed in.
THE CAMP OUT THAT NEVER WAS. You’ll remember that we went camping back in September. While on that trip we talked about getting another trip in before cold weather got here. Everyone liked this idea, but when we started trying to coordinate with the church calendar it got pushed back to October 24 -- last Friday. This was all a go until we saw rain in the forecast for Thursday and Friday. Rather than letting this be a total loss we just called all the families who planned on camping and organized a party at Kenny and Lori’s barn. We had pizza, the kids played, and the adults visited. We were 11:00 getting home. We had so much fun everybody just got together again the next night to watch the Tennessee-Alabama game. Being true orange blooded Tennesseans we quickly lost interest and started playing several games including Trivial Pursuit ‘80s Edition. We had a lot of fun regardless of the pitiful football game.
A STARTLING DISCOVERY. It was late June that we found our cat Lilly in the fence row in front of Pauline’s house. She was very small then -- a newly weaned kitten. That was the only time I looked to determine her gender. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I was watching Lilly play with a toy and as she rolled over...I saw something very unexpected! Upon closer inspection I looked at the kids and said, “Guys, we have to rename the cat. Lilly is a boy!”
Rag me all you want, but just take comfort in the fact that I like to respect a cat’s privacy as much as anyone’s. Besides, there’s a lot of fur down there on her...him. Anyway, Lilly is now Willie. Vicki is having a hard time with this adjustment.
Joe
