DAY ONE OF THE 2023 ANNUAL CONFERENCE (SUNDAY)

 Hello, friends!  This past week has been very busy.  Joe and I attended the 140th Annual Conference of our church's denomination.  We always like going to these.  This is the 7th year that we have attended.  I already posted the video for this week on YouTube and I got a comment that there were more men there than women.  That is because it is for Pastors and Elders.  There are several wives who come along and sit in the back to observe, but it is really not for us.  The pastors and elders are there to make decisions concerning what goes on in our churches, accept new congregations into the denomination, and to ordain new pastors.  So if you see more men than women in these pictures, it's because there ARE more men than women.

Joe and I went to the Pocono Mountains a day early.  We wanted to visit with my sister on the way up.  We hadn't gotten together for Easter so we wanted to see each other.  We traded Easter baskets and she fed us this wonderful dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts.  We didn't stay very long because I did not want to drive in the dark.  But...  Joe actually did all of the driving.  I was the passenger and took lots of pictures of the mountains through the car windows.  The first three pictures are of the road on the way to my sister's house.  I wanted to get the beautiful trees.  The rest of them are of the mountains.

We got to the Super 8 hotel around 7:00 p.m.  The handicapped accessible room was occupied, so they gave us another room on the first floor.  We had to go down four steps to get there.  My legs were so sore and swollen from the trip that I barely made it.  I ended up spending most of the evening in bed eating some popcorn that Elaine had given us.  (I shared with Joe of course.)  I ended up falling asleep around 9:30 and sleeping through the entire night.

So that is the story of day one.  I will continue tomorrow.

Have a good evening and a wonderful Sunday.

Kathy

HERE I AM

 

Hello, friends!  I know I haven't been around much.  I just haven't felt like writing.  Any of you get in a blogging slump?  It is so much easier to me to make a video.  More creative too.  So I hope you have been following me on "Kathy's Happy Home."  But let me share some things with you.

First of all, I have to have another tooth extracted.  I went to one dentist who is an implant specialist.  He does not sedate you though and I MUST be sedated.  I tried it once without sedation and the dentist had to send me home without doing anything because I was so scared my blood pressure elevated to a point where he was afraid I was going to have a stroke.  People are afraid of all kinds of things.  And I can have anything else done in my mouth.  I've had root canal, crowns, fillings, but don't extract a tooth!  I know it's unreasonable but that's how it is.

So my regular dentist then sent me to an oral surgeon.  I had been to the practice before but not this particular doctor.  I really liked him.  He put me right at ease.  They are going to use the same technique that they did last time.  I am not totally out, but relaxed enough that I don't really care what they are doing to me.  It's a weird feeling, but afterwards is a much easier recovery.  When he was leaving the office he told me that he would take good care of me, I shouldn't be nervous about it, and it wasn't his first rodeo.  Ha, ha!

I had taken Joe with me to be the navigator.  This place isn't hard to get to, but is tricky.  They have a small parking lot, and I parked with all the other cars, front facing the building.  There were these little curbs you park against.  I'm sure all of you have seen them.

I parked in what I thought was even with the car beside me.  When we came out, we got into the car and I backed it up.  There was a scraping sound.  I went, "Oh no!"  Joe said he thought it was ok and we should just go home.  But when we got home, Joe saw that the front bumper had been pulled off of the one side of the car and was hanging there.  I was so upset.  He got me to call the insurance company and to my surprise they are covering the repair and a rental car except for $100.00 deductible.  So right now it is in the garage being fixed and we have a Kia Soul Range Rover which I do not like.  I can't wait to get my cute little car back.  At first they told us it would be ready the beginning of May sometime, but now it is April 29th.  It is being worked on now.  

Joe has been driving the Kia around.  I haven't gotten behind the wheel yet.  To be honest with you, I'm sort of nervous about it because it is so large.  But Joe used to drive a pickup truck so it doesn't bother him at all.  I will get into it today and give it a try around the neighborhood.  We are going to visit my sister this weekend and we usually share the driving because it is a long drive.  I want to be able to do my part.

This week we also went to the eye doctor.  I had fallen asleep on the sofa wearing my glasses.  I must have pulled them off in my sleep and threw them on the floor.  When I woke up, I sat up, stood up, and took one step.  In that one step, I ended up stepping on the glasses and destroying them.  Oh no!  The lenses stayed in tact, but the frames were broken beyond repair.  I have been wearing my old glasses for several weeks now procrastinating on driving over to the eye doctor.  We finally did it.

The tech said they always have those frames in stock and it would take just a few minutes to pop the lenses into the new frame.  Great!  But...  this one particular frame was out of stock.  It figures.  So they ordered it for me.  It cost me $30 which isn't bad at all.  But while I was there I saw another frame which I absolutely loved and looked great on me.  It is sort of plastic (but doesn't feel like plastic when I'm wearing it) and is clear.  You can hardly see them on my face.  Believe me, if I had seen them when I got my glasses in January, they are the frames I would have gotten.  I asked how much it would be.  My insurance covered them too, so they were only $50.  Great deal!  I am getting them also.  I think they will be my primary glasses and the wire frames I'm replacing will be my secondary ones.

Here is a google picture of what they look like.  I'll show you the real thing when I get them in two weeks.

Well, that's all the news from here.  Joe got me a sausage, egg and cheese croissant sandwich from Wawa and I want to eat it while it is hot.  After breakfast I have to get out and cut the grass in the yard.  It is so high.  How did that happen?  Talk to you all soon.

Kathy

WHAT'S GOING ON

 

Hello, friends!  Good morning!  As I write this, it is around 4:30 a.m.  You may think this is early, but I have been up for an hour already.  I was working on my lesson for Bible Study today and fell asleep on the sofa with the computer on my lap last night.  So when I woke up earlier, I just turned on the computer and kept working.  The part for today is finished.  I feel confident with it.  I am not sure if I am teaching or if Pastor is, but in any case I am ready for the lesson.  We are still in Matthew chapter 5.  We have been there for several months now.  But I would rather go slowly and know what it says than try to speed through it.

I take the last of my antibiotics today.  My mouth is much better.  It is quite a thing to have your tooth extracted.  I thought one place was going to do it, then another.  Found out the second place would extract it only if I was getting an implant.  The cost of the implant is almost two months of my Social Security.  In other words, I can't afford it.  So if I wouldn't get the implant, they wouldn't extract it.  Now it is back to the first place.  Oh my!  I have such lousy dental insurance too.

Sunday was Palm Sunday but it really didn't feel like it.  I bought two new dresses from Amazon.  One for Palm Sunday and one for Easter.  They are a perfect fit!  Like someone made them just for me.  I wore the navy one on Sunday and I have a mauve one for Easter.  I want to take them with me when I go on vacation too.  They don't wrinkle which makes them perfect to pack.  And they have pockets.  Don't you love a dress with pockets?  So many women's clothes these days are not pocket friendly.

I have not been doing great physically lately so all my great plans of getting things cleaned up and cooking wonderful meals and desserts has gone by the wayside.  I did make dinner two days in a row and did a load of dishes yesterday.  That is a big thing.  Most of the time I just lay and sleep.  But I think if you are not feeling well, sometimes that is the best thing you can do for yourself.  I've been really stressed out lately too.  I'm sure that is contributing to things.  I can't wait for my vacation.  I so need to get away.  I can't begin to tell you all the stuff that has been going on around here lately.

We had several tornados go through the area last week.  It was scary.  Much too close for comfort.  When I went to church on Sunday the sign in front of the church was torn down by the wind.  In fact, the thick wooden post it was on had snapped in half and it was laying on the ground.  Wow!  I was going to take a picture of it but I was running a little late for church, so I figured I would just get it on the way out.  But by the time I left, it had been cleaned up.  But take my word for it, it was surprising.  Apparently around church they lost electricity and Pastor said he could feel the parsonage rocking.  We live about four miles away and didn't get any of that.  We just got some wind, heavy rain and hail.  That was bad enough!

Well, it is almost 5:00 a.m. now, so I have to get off of here and get myself ready for the day.  Hope you all are having a meaninful Holy Week.  I'll be back soon.

Kathy