In Orlalndo

Dear Family,
While Carla is resting and Cindy is over at one of her friends, I thought this would be a good time for me to blog. Carla and I drove down to Orlando on Thursday for her chemo treatment on Fri. She drove all the way and was feeling pretty good. I offered to help drive, but she seemed to do okey. I went in with her for her chemo treatment and found it very interesting to be there and watch. There were about 20 chairs and for the most part they were all full. It took Carla 3 hour for the treatment alone and one hour for them to prepare her for the treatment. It made me realize how fortunate we are if we have our health. The patients were of all ages, some older, some younger and one little fellow about 5 years old who we saw in the hall but ;you could tell he has had chemo. They all need our prayers, so continue to pray for Carla. Today, Sat. she is beginning to feel her tongue going bad, which is the first thing that she feels. I know she will be feeling lousy by tomorrow, so lift her up especially in the next week that the Lord might give her His grace for this time of feeling so bad and weak. Cindy has the next 4 days off from work to help out as well. WE will plan to stay in Orlando until Carla feels well and strong enough to travel back to TN. Will try and keep busy by cooking and doing anything I can to keep Carla feeling better. Love each of you. Love, MOM

A first

Today, being sunday, it a day of rest, right? Well, this a first for us. This was another work day, not a day of rest. It all started yesterday when we decided not to work too hard since we worked hard, till 7:30 and were so tired on Friday, that sleeping was disruptted. Betty said there was a discount fabric store toward Jamestown that had rooms full of fabric, so we decided to go and see what they had. We also needed to exchange a paint at Lowes, so we left in the morning and did our errands, a Wal=mart run was included in our errands, but on the way home the A/C on the truck stopped working, then the speedometer quit, then the windows wouldn't go up, then the truck completely stopped about 1/2 mile from home. Dad walked home, while I walked to the house nearest us to call Good Sams. Finally after an hour the recker came at towed us home. He thinks it is the alternator going bad. We have had this in the Ford service twice telling them things aren't working quite right. The wrecker driver said not to take it to Ford dealer, they don't know what they are doing, so tomorrow, Monday we call Good Sam again so they can tow us to this repair place (he said these guys used to work for Ford and are good. Today since we couldn't go anywhere we had our devotions and little service here by ourselves and then went to work on the house. Would you beleive, that all the painting is done!!!!We do have touch ups to do, molding to paint, but all the walls have had 2 coats of paint. I wanted to get that done before I left for Orlando on Thursday. We will go down to C & B on Wed and take off Thursday morning. While I am gone Dad wants to frame in the windows and get them painted, plus work some on the outside. I know each one of you have had so much rain. Everything here is dying from lack of rain. We haven't had any rain this month, so send some of your blessing to us. Randy and Marty were out driving and stopped off to see what we have done. We sat out on the front porch and it was so relaxing. Were still eating in the house as the frig is still not working aafter spending $300. to have it repaired. It's just money, right? Dad said that repair man won't set foot on our property. This is getting long so I must close. Keep dry and keep smiling. Love you all. Grandmmaper

Tired, but exciting

Dear Family,
Last night Bill and Carla brought me back up to Crossville. I rode in their new Prius. What an amazing vehicle. You can not hear it running and when you come to a traffic light it feel like it stopped running, but once the light changes you just step on the gas and it goes, by battery at first, then gas. All the way down the mountain we were using battery. Amazing. Almost interested in buying one myself just for the fun of driving it, somewhat like a golf cart. We brought some beef Carla had in the freezer and had noodles and beef with sour cream. Delicious. We ate in the house. Frig in the rig still not fixed, so we eat in the house all the time. Today we got ALL the walls and ceiling primed with Kilz. What a releif!!!! Our stove is in and working and they came out today and we have A/C. It was good to be able to put that on and to keep cool. Tomorrow we have to go and get the panel for the frig and hope that Carl will be able to replace the one that is damaged. If so, we will probably go back to eating in the rig. Hopefully we will be able to get all the painting done before I head back to Orlando with Carla on Thursday, the 28th. I will drive back with her and stay with her until she feels like driving back. This will be her third chemo treatment. She worked today and seemed to do okey. She said she went home for lunch and rested for a while. Great, she has to listen to her body and rest whenever possible. Who is being effected with all this rain from Fay? A foot of rain can be trouble. Don't know if I can get any pictures put in the blog, but I will try. I love each one of you, and you all are in our prayers. continue to pray for our trip back to Orland. Love Grandmmaper

news from grandmmaper

It was good to be able to come down to Carla and Bills and fix dinner when they got here in TN. but much better to see them and to see how good Carla looked. I thought the trip would take its toll on her, but with her spunk, she is bouncing back better than I expected. Oh, she doesn't have the energy that she normally has had, but she looked real well and her color was good. The hardest thing will be to keep her from doing too much till she gets to feeling better and her white blood count is up. She gets tired easier and she has to listen to her body more. This morning she had 2 eggs, few hash browns and a slice of bacon and small piece of english muffin. That was great and it was so good to see her eat and enjoy breakfast even tho the food doesn't taste as good as it should. Dad went back to Crossville last night and I am staying here with Carla for a few days trying to keep her from doing too much. Right now she is working on some work she brought home from college to do at home. Just going into get the paper work and bringing it home made her feel tired. From listening to some of my friends who has gone through the same thing, this is a normal feeling and rest is the necessary remedy. Dad is going to have the wonderful experience of working on the house without having me around telling him we should do this or we should do that today. This week we will have the gas company come in to hook up our gas stove and back-up gas heater. On Wed they will finish putting our A/C -heat in so we could, if necessary live in the house. Infact the refrig went out in our rig so we had to put all the food in the frig in the house and were eating our meals in the house. Our next beg job is painting. We have to prime all the walls and ceiling and then give them the finished coat of paint. We then have to frame out all the windows and put molding all around. I am painting the molding a darker green. That sounds so simple, but all this has to be gone over with putty to fill in all the edges and nail holes before painting. Before this gets so long, I had better say so long, it's been good to hear from you so keep writing. I am blogging on Carlas computer so hopefully we will hear from Dad as well. Love each one of you. Grandmmaper

black counter

My dear family,
Have I really gone out of my comfort zone with a black counter top? They got the counter installed today and it looks very nice and I am pleased with it. Look at the pictures close up and look how nice it looks. Our BR has the primier coat of paint on and tomorrow, I hope to get the final coat on. The bathroom door is in so hopefully tomorrow they will get the BR door in as well. Dad is trimming out the windows and putting molding around with I will paint a darker green. Not sure if I will add any draperies/curtains at these windows. On Sunday after church and eating out we decided to head down towards Pikeville to see the 127 garage sale. To our surprise, we only saw about a half dozen. Don't know if the gas prices made the difference or was Sun afternoon too late to get any bargins. Anyway, next year, Lord willing, we will try and go on Friday, just to say we experienced the excitment of the 127 yard sale. Did I mention, we were at Lowes, picking up our counter and doors and saw some 5x8 rugs on sale rack. They are 100% wool, were 179. on sale for $42. I bought 2 for the living room. They are not what I would have chosen, but for the price, I might just decide I like them well enough. Would you beleive that we are having night temp in the 50's. Infact the other morning we put the heater on for awhile to take the chill off the house. Are all you enjoying the Olympics as well as I am enjoying them. Dad couldn't even watch football when the Olympics are on. He did watch the Bucks and saw their win. "ME", we pray you are not feeling too week and are praying that you will soon be feeling better and be able to eat. We hope the shot will help with the way you feel. Let us know how you feel. We love you and pray that God will give you His comfort and grace to travel through this hard time of your life. Love Grandmmaper

mudding, I'm not good at

One thing I'm not good at is mudding. Can anyone guess how many buckets of mud we have used at in this house, each bucket containing 61#? Would it surprise you that 10 buckets were used. Thats 600# through out the house. It was interesting to watch Brian mud. He was very good at it and very fast. I couldn't beleive using that much. Our job is sanding the walls and ceiling tomorrow and starting to paint. We got the bathroom all painted so now we will start in the bedroom. Sanding is so messy with dust all over the place. BMS, it is good thing I never flip flopped a house years ago. Don't think I would have tackled this job. There is much more to building than a person thinks. A suggestion, have someone contract your house, you don't want the headace of making so many decisions. Having someone else do the work makes it look much easier than you trying to do it. I think it would have taken Dad and I a month to mud since we really are amateurs and didn't have the knack to mudding. I guess if I would have left BMS and PMS play in the mud as kids and go play with them, I would have had a better understanding of what is involved with this job of mudding. Anyway, everything is looking good. Our kit top is in so we will go Monday and pick it up and they will be installed, probalby on Mon. Things are looking up. Will take some pictures again and let you know how things are looking. Dads asleep on the chair, so I guess it's about time to hit the sack. Love each one of you and our prayers are especially with ME this next week. SMG

pictures

Am making german potato salad to take to our community barbq, but will try and publish these pictures on my blog. Will write later. Love mom