A Should-Have-Been Trip

Tonight's photo I borrowed from the pictures that she sent me after she, Wade, and Erin made a trip to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit. Melany and I had planned to go together as soon as she heard that there was going to be another exhibit. But I ended up taking the tour virtually via the photos she sent after their time there. I had seen some of his work when it was on exhibit before at the Frist Museum, but I had hoped to see more of these unusual blown glass "sculptures." But due to covid and Woody's dialysis, I decided that the trip probably wasn't in our best interest "health-wise" (heading off to Nashville where there is a lot more chance of getting exposed) and "time-wise" (the time that we have in the daytime hours is pretty short before needing to get Woody back on his dialysis machine). I really enjoyed Melany's photos. The one I'm sharing I really like as it is surrounded around the perimeter with pumpkins and mums. Last night's dialysis went very well once again...glad to sound like a broken record for that report! And, so far tonight things are going well too. We got started a bit later today as he had an appointment at Fresenius Kidney Center. It was just a monthly check-in with the nurse. This time we also spoke with the dietician. I needed some questions answered about amount of protein that Woody is supposed to get a day. I'm not too sure if I am excited to have to add that to our umpteen things that we need to keep track of! My fabric finally arrived this afternoon. I have it all washed and dried...now to find the time to make some things with what I bought. One is a bit larger print than I expected...trying to figure out if there is another pattern that would be better to make with it than the one that I planned when choosing the fabric. I'm pleased with all of it. I guess I will make my corduroy pants while making plans for all the new pieces. Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Just Beginning

The Fall colors are just beginning. Yesterday afternoon, I looked up and saw the most beautiful oak branch just filled with glowing yellow leaves right outside our bedroom window...but when I looked out to see more...there weren't any...just that branch...a promise of what is to come. Tonight's picture was taken on this day five years ago and this is pretty much what it looks like around town. Sometimes at the tops of the trees you can see color...but not colorful all over any one tree...at least, that I have seen. Woody had another good dialysis treatment last night. His treatment was finished before midnight and I was upstairs and probably asleep by 12:15am at the latest. Tonight we seem to be on about the same schedule...maybe a little ahead of yesterday as we got started almost right at 2pm this afternoon. We have both been busy. Woody took back the task of making his breakfast and lunch both yesterday and today. Last night Woody had me take out some frozen fresh pumpkin to thaw so he could make pumpkin pudding for Nathan, Kathy and the 7 grandchildren. Nathan came over and got it and the cool whip and according to Abigail they all enjoyed it. I took inventory of the dialysis supplies last night and then called this morning to order more...oh, boy! I don't think that we will be getting too many this time...maybe it will only take one trip in for the delivery man. I'll know in two weeks when the supplies arrive. In a few days we will be finished with the boxes of solution from the original shipment. I have done lots of little jobs around the house today...cleaning here and there and then finishing up the Fall decorating that I began the other day. I got the front porch done yesterday and put out a few Fall pumpkins in the kitchen. Just a few minutes ago I put a grouping of pumpkins on the dining room table as a centerpiece and a few on the buffet. I decided that we needed a little Fall color in our lives...something cheerful! I even fed the birds today...filled all the bird feeders...even the one that takes me using the stepstool out in the front yard to reach the feeder...birds fed and no broken bones! At this point Woody is well into the third cycle of tonight's dialysis treatment. Tomorrow we make a visit back to Fresenius Dialysis Center...this month's check-in with the nurse. In two weeks we meet with the doctor, nurse and the rest of the "team." Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Major Change in Our Lives

Woody and I are just not much for change...not in anything...I believe in putting down roots and letting them grow deep! Woody worked for the same company his whole working career...the only change was moving to California for a two-year period where he worked for the same company...just different heads of the company (Air Force here and NASA in CA). As soon as it was appropriate, Woody let it be known that if an opening came up in TN that we wanted to return to Tullahoma...we didn't like the CA change in our lives. Since our return, (Nathan was one) we have owned two homes...we moved to this house when Woody's mother moved to TN after Woody's father died. His mom moved into our former home and we moved to our present location (Nathan in 6th grade). When Nathan approached me one time about the fact that probably we wouldnt live in this house forever, I let him know that my plan is to leave this house in a box! I love our house and have no intentions to move...unless absolutely necessary. I believe that it can be adapted to our needs as we grow older...after all, haven't we found places for ALL the dialysis supplies and managed to set up the family room for Woody's dialysis treatments!?! Fourteen years ago, Nathan, Kathy, Graham, Abigail, and Joy moved in next door...what a unique situation! It seemed ideal while the children were small and as their family grew. We helped them out and they helped us out. We have been through lots of things together. They were here for us when Woody went through all his treatments for Melanoma and beyond! We were there for them to help care for the children at various times and help with homeschooling. We have become an extended household...just under two roofs...sharing ovens, pantry items (shopping at one Dorrell or the other's "store"), borrowing household items, etc., etc. With the pandemic we have seen each other less often, but still cross paths most days...I, at least, see them out the window...or visit with them outside. But...all that is going to change. We have no inclination to ever move again, and they need change/adventure in their lives. I guess we are stay-in-one-place people...they are not. The Covid pandemic has kept them home more than they have ever been before. We haven't been needed to feed cats, take out garbage, check on things, pick up mail, etc. while they are were on their ministry trips, since there haven't been many ministry trips, though those are picking up once again. They no longer need us for child care. My help with their schooling got put on hold, or so I thought, just until we figured out the dialysis schedule and also due to Covid. But it looks like I can finally say that I am retired (15 years after I retired from Ray's Montessori after teaching there 27 years)! So...all of the above has been said to, in a round-about way, to say that they are packing up...probably as I type this, and are moving to a small farm outside of the Tullahoma city limits..."just" ten miles away...at the moment that ten miles may as well be 10,000 miles...and, really, I would rather they had told me they were leaving to go on the mission field...that...I could accept. I have told them that I can't deal emotionally with Woody's health situation and their move. I am allowing myself to be selfish in order to get through each day...I just have too much on my plate to even talk about their move with them. So discussion is off limits about "the move"...we will just carry on over here on our own as much as possible. Independence is the key word these days...I'm trying not to even text next door to request a light bulb change...we've got to learn to do those "little" things ourselves all over again. They told us that their move was definitely going to happen just as Woody and I were starting dialysis training, so all my concentration had to be on Woody and the training. I will admit to feeling abandoned...this is just not a time that we need to feel alone...and, no matter how often they say that they will be here for us...it will never be the same...that next door security is lost. So "the neighbors" will be no more...our unique relationship due to living next door will be no more...our relationship with our grandchildren will never be the same...the youngest two will lose their unique "next door" relationship with us...they won't remember heading over to Grammy's and Goosey's to play with the toys in the toy closet...or to have school...or to just sit on the front porch and bird watch. I am so emotionally torn/drained that I have to separate myself totally from even thinking about it or I won't be able to function...so...this will be my only mention of "the move." And, Woody is so quiet about it there is no telling what this is doing to him...he made a major offer to keep them from moving...but to no avail. They can go off and live their dream...(and, I always finish that statement with "while we stay here and live our nightmare.") Woody's comment last night sums it all up: "Obviously they don't have grandchildren." And, I add to that "perhaps one day they will understand when one of their children breaks their hearts." I will end this saying how much we will miss the joyful laughter of our grandchildren as they run through both our yards playing. I already miss the stepping stones that connected our households (I made them take them up as I didn't want to be connected to a stranger's house.) Woody and I will treasure in our hearts the 14 years we've had as neighbors...but once they move...Woody's and my life/heart will be missing major pieces...nine to be exact...plus two kitties. So...it's back to being a single household of two rather than unique joint households of eleven! In this instance change has been forced upon us...I guess, we will unwillingly have to accept it with heavy hearts. Be safe! Be well! Be Cautious!

Thinking Fall!

I decided to fall back to some old fall photos. Tonight's is appropriate because a friend brought me some gourds today. This is a part of a fence that we used to pass on our back road trips to Vanderbilt. It always intrigued me when we passed that way. The latter years that we passed by at this time of the year there were no gourds. Yesterday and today have been cooking marathons for me. I was restocking the refrigerator with things to eat that give us a choice. Tonight I made pizza with part of the kitchen makings. I made sauce and also made Italian sausage (shhhh! I made it with ground chicken and the herbs and spices that go in Italian sausage...someone couldn't tell!). Yesterday I made Woody's request for split pea soup and also my mother's recipe for baked beans (to go with German slaw...again for Woody). I also made breakfast sausage out of ground pork for Woody's breakfasts when he has French toast or pancakes. Seems like there is more that I made but at the moment I can't remember...after all it was yesterday! Woody's dialysis continues to go well. Yesterday we moved it up another hour and he was finished around 1am. I just stayed up till it was over. I actually cut out a pair of pants for me and got Abigail's quilt squared up. Staying up and going to bed after makes there seem to be more of a distinction between treatments...doesn't seem like the next one starts on the same day. Once again, the last I checked, Woody's treatment is going smoothly. He was on his second treatment cycle. I have been upstairs for a while as Abigail came over to learn how to bind a quilt. She is down in the guest room, where the sewing machine lives that the children sew on. She has two sides of the quilt done and is working on the last two...doing a good job. Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Three Days In

Three days into October and it is definitely looking and feeling more like Fall. When I was out and about today, I noticed that the trees are starting to turn. I always look forward to the beautiful fall colors...sometimes we get them and then sometimes they just aren't as pretty as other years. I'm hoping for a beautiful Fall this year. It partially depends on how much rain we have had...lately not a lot but earlier in the summer we got quite a bit. We will see what that bodes for our Fall colors. The reason that I was out and about is that it had been two weeks since I had been to Kroger and it was time to restock. And, restock I did! I was happy that Isaac was out in the yard when I got home. I enlisted his muscles and he brought most of the bags in. I carried a few and he left the eggs and the potatoes for me to bring in at the end. He was a big help. It took quite a while at the store and then quite a bit of time to get everything put in its place once I got home. There is a semblence of order in the kitchen so I must have been mostly successful in finding spots for everything. Woody had been wanting a BLT...so I bought him some turkey bacon which doesn't have all the additives in it and bought low sodium. I think he enjoyed a taste that he had been missing for some time now since he couldn't have tomatoes when we were trying to eat in such a way to keep him off dialysis. We managed to keep him off for 2-1/2 years. So now he is enjoying some of the "no-nos" of that diet. I have a feeling as we go along in this dialysis process "no-nos" will surface again, but at the moment he is enjoying a little more freedom in his eating than he has for a long time. His treatments continue to take shorter times...last night again was under 10 hours. He finished around 2am. I went downstairs and disconnected him and did the post dialysis routine and then headed back upstairs and supposedly to sleep. Was upstairs shortly after 2:30am, but couldn't seem to fall back to sleep so worked on the Sunday School lesson/thoughts. Either Marie or I send out a weekly summary/food for thought about our weekly lessons since we can't meet in person. I am doing them at the moment since Marie is recovering from knee replacement surgery. I got the lesson completed and ready to send, then tried to go back to sleep again. Still couldn't so read for a while till I was ready to doze off. Again, I slept till closer till 8. Woody fixed his own oatmeal and when I got up he and I went over the grocery list. He still is a bit more of a picky eater than he used to be so I want to be sure that what I have planned appeals! I don't like to be left with most of what I have prepared. I like to share in the partaking! We have some yummy things planned for the upcoming two weeks...at least I hope he still thinks they sound yummy when it comes time for me to make them. Tonight's dialysis treatment is going well so far. He has completed the first cycle of four and is probably in his second dwell time...or at least close to it. I came up to blog so don't know exactly where he is. So far tonight...NO ALARMS! Very good. Each night there seem to be fewer and fewer alarms. Either the machine is getting used to the way Woody's body is handling this form of dialysis or Woody's body is getting used to the way the machine works! Either way it is good that things are going more smoothly. I can't believe it but this coming week it will be time to make another order for supplies and then two weeks later the order will arrive. We have used up about all the boxes of the least strong solution so I will be using some from the second shipment soon. I have started using one of the least strong solution and one of the middle strength as he has had some swelling in his ankles. The higher the strength of the solution the more immpurities and the more water is pulled out of his system. 2000 ml of solution is put into him each of the four cycles. Sometimes not all of the 2000ml is drained off...by the end of the four cycles most of the time all the solution is drained and then sometimes more than what was put in is drained off...that is called ultra filtration. The ultra filtration is what pulls off the extra fluid that builds up in his body. Sometimes it can pull off too much and sometimes not enough...it is sort of a balancing act...we don't want him to be dehydrated, but we don't want fluid to build up. I am in charge of keeping an eye on how his body is reacting to the solution strengths and change them up if needed. When he saw Dr. O last we felt he was dehydrated so we decided that we needed to use two bags of the lesser strength solution which we had been doing up until a couple of nights ago and I decided that he might need to have one bag of the middle strength and one of the lesser. I'm not too fond of having to make these decisions, but that it is a decision that falls on my shoulders. I think that things are going fairly well. This coming week, we go back to the Fresenius Kidney center and will take bags of the drain fluid from one night so they can evaluate how his dialysis is doing so far. I'm sure after evaluation we will be told to continue what we are doing or change things up a bit. Time will tell! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Two Views...Same Barn...

Tonight's photo shows how we approach barns on our barn trips...move slowly along in the car and take pictures at various angles...through gates, over stone walls and through the trees. Again, this is a barn trip from Marcch...just prior to "shelter at home." We have taken one more barn trip since then, but at the moment we have barn trips on hold since "our driver" for the barn trips had knee replacement surgery recently. But when she is healed and rehabbed we'll really be ready to hit the highways and biways of the surrounding counties! Woody, again, had a good dialysis treatment...less than 10 hours...I think the shortest time yet. I went downstairs around 2am and was back upstairs before 3am and slept a bit later today...till 8am. He said that he did get some sleep once he was free. I have had a messy cooking day. I made sourdough waffles for our breakfast. I was melting butter in the microwave and didnt put a cover over the bowl and "BIG EXPLOSION!" So had that mess to clean up after I finished cooking the waffles. One good thing...a nice clean microwave. The cover was at "Woody's microwave," our old one that got moved to the family room when we were remodeling the kitchen. Woody decided that he liked it there so we left it for him to make his oatmeal in and heat up things. I leave the cover on top of that microwave and didn't feel like walking out to the family room to get it...guess I should have taken those steps...lots easier than cleaning the whole inside of the microwave which is greasy with melted butter! Oh, well, live and learn! I also dried slices of the rest of a loaf of sourdough bread in the oven...a step toward our Thanksgiving dressing. The mess from that was when I cut up the slices little crumbs sort of flew everywhere...all over the counter and even on the floor. But that mess was easier to clean up than melted butter! I laugh that I did a step toward Thanksgiving dinner...I'm guessing that a family Thanksgiving won't take place due to Covid...so the dried bread cubes are probably for a Thanksgiving dinner for two. It doesn't look like Covid is leaving any too quickly...especially when we learned today that the President and First Lady now have it...this disease is no respector of persons. We will continue to be safe, hopefully well, and cautious! Abigail is over at the moment. She has found some time to work on quilting the quilt that she made during her home ec class with me a while back. She got it pieced but due to circumstances she hadn't gotten to do the quilting. Once she is finished with the quilting then I will bind it for her. This is a throw-size quilt...very colorful! Very pretty! I guess the cooler Fall temperatures have her in the mood of a finished quilt to curl up under! She came over in shorts! I told her no wonder she wanted to finish her quilt...that she needed it to warm up! Woody is well underway with tonight's dialysis treatment. If I have it figured right he should be in the midst of the first drain of four for tonight. Hoping that it goes as well tonight as it has been the last few nights. I think that perhaps his body has figured out what it is supposed to do with all this solution that is being pumped into it. Be safe! Be well! Be cautious! Wear your masks!!!!! We are finding out what happens to those who choose to not wear one most of the time when out and about!

Wow! It's October!

It doesn't seem possible that it is time to change calendar pages once again. And, just think after this calendar page turn there are only two more for this year...perhaps that is a good thing?!? Last night's dialysis exchange went much faster than ones of the days before. I told Woody when I went upstairs last night to go on and page me if it finished early like it looked like it would. He paged me a little after 2am and I was back upstairs and ready to fall back to sleep by 3am...not bad. He also said that he got some sleep after that. Tonight's first cycle went along at a good pace...and, there were actually no alarms. He is now well underway with his second cycle of four. He is dwelling at the moment...or I guess I should say the dialysis solution is dwelling. I'm not sure if he will sleep much tonight as he has done a lot of sleeping this afternoon and even this evening. Oh, well, as I said last night, we sleep when we can these days! I decided that with the next cold front that is approaching...supposed to get into the 40s tonight and not out of the 60s tomorrow...that I wanted potato soup, my accomplishment of the day. Oh, my other accomplishment was finishing my 99th book read this year...next one I finish will be 100. Looks like I am well on the way to doubling my usual goal of 52 books a year...so that will mean an average of 2 books a week if I read 5 more. I have a feeling that will happen since I have three months to accomplish it! After making my Absolutely Ultimate Potato Soup recipe, I was tired and took a short nap...had to set an alarm so I would be sure to wake up in time to get Woody's dialysis treatment set up and then get him connected and his next treatment started. Woody slept through my getting it all set up. He woke up at just the right time to have his vitals taken and get ready to be tied to his cycler machine for many an hour. I expect that he will wake me up again when his treatment is finished tonight since that seemed to work rather well. And, so far tonight everything is proceeding right along. The first cycle took less than 2-1/2 hours...good time...the drain time was just a little over 1/2 an hour...maybe a record...plus it drained almost all of the solution that was put in. Usually after each cycle not all has been drained out...getting it all out and then a little extra usually happens on into the cycles. But tonight there was just a little over 200ml left in. Hopefully the first cycle is representative of the next three! Time will tell! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!