WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON AND A GROCERY HAUL FROM SHOPRITE

 Hello, friends.  What a week this has been.  Last time I told you about going to the dentist.  Right after that I started running a fever and had a headache I couldn't get rid of.  Then on Thursday my abdomen began to hurt.  Badly.  Especially on the right side.  I thought I might have appendicitis.  I was supposed to go to the cancer center that day, but called and cancelled.  I ended up going to Urgent Care.  The Emergency Rooms are impossible these days.  Last time I waited over six hours and never got seen.  I left.  They are severely understaffed and the staff are overworked.

There was only one other person in Urgent Care and I was able to get seen right away.  The doctor said I have a bladder infection and gave me some antibiotics.  It doesn't feel like any bladder infection I have ever had.  But she pushed on me really hard and it didn't hurt so she said it would be amazing if it was my appendix since if it were I would be screaming with pain.

Now I have antibiotic capsules to take and antibiotic mouthwash for my tooth to use every day.  What a life!

I had to put the prescriptions into the pharmacy at Shoprite, so we finished up our shopping.  It came to about $100.00.  So that is our food for the month.  We will only get what we run out of for the rest of the month.

Here's what I got.

Joe wanted Danish.  He got lemon and cherry.

My treat was a bag of chips.

We got asparagus, broccoli and two large beefsteak tomatoes.

I got four envelopes of brown gravy mix, air freshener for the bathroom, six croissants, butterhead lettuce and salmon salad.  My sister raves about the salmon salad and I finally found it in my store.  It was wonderful!

We were almost out of veggies.  I got California style vegetables, peas and carrots, cut green beans and whole green and yellow beans with carrots.

I also got french fries, corn on the cob, broccoli florets and broccoli stir fry.  Yes, we like broccoli.  Can you tell there was a sale on frozen vegetables?

It's been so hot (102* on Thursday when we went shopping, 94* today) so the ice cream sale looked good.  Turkey Hill, of course.  I got the Peanut Butter Ripple and Joe got Rocky Road.

I had a coupon for the salad dressing.  We needed Italian (we seem to go through that the fastest since I also cook with it).  We also got Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, some cheese and spinach tortellini, bread crumbs, cheese and bologna.

Stove Top stuffing was on sale.  I got Herbed and for Pork.  It's a nice change from potatoes or pasta.  I also got a box of instant potatoes, a package of honey sausage and a box of mushrooms.

And finally my lactose free cheese, low sodium bacon, a honey ham and some hot dogs.

We found that as a rule the prices were higher than Lidl's, but there were some prices that were lower, and they had a much wider variety of goods.  After talking it over, we have decided to stay at Shoprite and go to Lidl's if we are in the neighborhood and need just a couple of things.  Besides Shoprite is only three blocks from my house.

So, friends, that is what is going on here.  I tried to clean up a bit today, but had to stop because I was just too sick.  I will continue on tomorrow.  I am not going to church tomorrow because I don't think I could sit up through it.  Here at home I can at least lay down when I feel sick.

I will try to be back tomorrow with a Sunday Praise even though I won't be teaching it.  See you then.

Kathy

A DENTIST VISIT AND A NEW STORE HAUL

Hello, friends.  Hope you are having a great day.  

Yesterday I was finally able to get to my own dentist.  I love Dr. Phon and it was so good to see her.  Since the office by my house was still closed, I had to go to the one in Southwest Philly.  Even with just a little traffic and my GPS operated by Joe it took almost 45 minutes to get there.  Philly is a large city and it can take over an hour to drive from end to end.  I got so lost because the GPS told me to turn onto a street even though I was just one block away if I had gone straight.  So I was five minutes late for my appointment.  But it didn't seem to matter since she had an emergency appointment and I had to sit in the waiting room for an hour.

When I was taken back the tech took the x-rays.  It was the first time I had the machine go around my head.  It was so much easier than a bitewing.  Then she took me to a room to see the dentist.

I was so happy to see her.  It was a little tough treating me because my chart was at the other office.  But she examined my gum, numbed it with topical and cleaned all around my crown.  She said the abscess was all cleaned up.  Then she took a look at the x-ray.  It seems my root canal has gone bad.  I have to go see an endodontist who has to do some minor (?) surgery to see if he can repair it.  Since I have seen an endodontist in the past, she is sending me back there.  She wanted me to go closer to home which I really appreciated!  So that is a call I have to make today to set up an appointment.  I still may lose the tooth, but let's give it a shot of keeping it.  If this keeps up I will need dentures soon.

After we finally left the dentist we got lost going home.  How can we get lost with a GPS you ask?  The machine says turn here, but I'm in the wrong lane to turn.  Or I don't hear it in time.  Or there's construction and I can't.  So I ended up going several blocks past where I should have been.  But it wasn't that hard to get back.  Much easier to go home than to get there.

We were both hungry so we ended up going to East Coast Wings and Grill for lunch.  After a year of not being able to, it is so nice to go to a restaurant again.  Our favorite waiter, Bobbie, was there.  But he wasn't our waiter.  We did get a chance to talk to him though.

Joe got unsweetened iced tea and I got mango tea.  It's also unsweetened, but the mango makes it so that I don't need any sweetening.  For our food we both went to the lunch specials.  Joe got a cheeseburger and fries.  I got bone-in wings with smoky barbecue sauce and sweet potato waffle fries.

We needed to get some groceries so after we ate we headed to the store.  We have both been wanting to try the new LIDL store so this was our chance.  We knew you had to bring your own bags, so we grabbed some totes out of the trunk of the car, took a cart, and headed inside.  We had no idea what to expect.

It was a small store which surprised me.  There was a lot of fruit and we got some.  Not so much veggies.  They had everything, but not a lot of choice in things.  For instance there were a lot of different breads, but they were all white bread.  There was tons of beef but it was either a steak or ground beef.  We did get some things we needed though I will have to go to Shoprite tomorrow to finish up.  Here's what we got.

A bag of mini pretzels, milk, unsweetened iced tea for Joe, sweet tea for me.  I saw this duster and decided to get it.  I don't have one and with Jack the cat things get dusty around here.

I got some salmon at a very good price.  The only other fish they had was tilapia.  But I'm not fond of tilapia even though I eat it.  The only other seafood they had was shellfish which I don't eat at all!  There was a big selection of chicken though and I got breast and thighs.  Joe needed lunch meat so got the honey ham.  I didn't look, but he said there wasn't much of a choice there.

I needed a lemon for a recipe I'm doing.  Joe wanted bananas and oranges.

Joe saw some apricot mini streusel and got that.  I asked what the discounted bread was and when Joe picked it up, it was a ciabatta.  So I got that.  We were out of bread so we got a loaf of white bread and we had no hot dog rolls so Joe got that.  But we couldn't find the hot dogs.

Finally, we needed eggs so got 18 brown eggs.  I got a box of Krusteaz cinnamon swirl crumb cake mix.  I have the treat at church in two weeks and this will be easy to make.  I don't mind baking in cooler weather, but it's just too hot these days.  I like mayo but Joe likes Miracle Whip.  We were out of it so he got a jar of the store brand.

We still needed bottled water.  There was some there, but the packages were all ripped open.  So after we got back into the car, we headed for Rite Aid.  LIDL also doesn't seem to have a drugstore like part.  At least we didn't see it.  Maybe they do and we just missed it.

Joe got the water and a few other things and then we headed home.  It was a L-O-N-G day.

I have so much to do today.  I need to get a lot of cleaning and yard work done.  I need to toss a lot of things.  And I need to go to drop some things off at the Salvation Army and then go to Shoprite.  Besides finishing up my shopping, I have to drop off a prescription.  So I am going to end and get busy.  Have a wonderful day and I will see you soon.

Kathy

 

SUNDAY PRAISE

 Good morning, friends!  Happy Sunday.  I am coming to you early this week so I don't know how many kids I will have in Sunday School.  I am hoping about four but we will see.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having lunch with my former pastor, his wife and two of his daughters.  It was so fun to see them all again and have the delicious lunch that his daughter Karen prepared.  She has just moved into an apartment at Salem Harbor, a complex on the Delaware River not far from where I live.  The apartment was beautiful, but so much smaller than what I am used to.

While we were there Joe and I took a tour of the sample apartments.  As I said the one bedroom one was small.  But great for someone who doesn't need a lot of room.  The two bedroom one is something I could live with.  There was a large living room, very small dining room with a balcony, open kitchen with new appliances and a pantry, a large linen closet, a small bathroom with a washer and dryer, then you go down a hallway and there are two large bedrooms.  

There are no apartments available right now, but Joe and I put in our names on a waiting list and if something opens up they will call us.  This is something we have thought about for several years.  We love the house and neighborhood but we are getting older and it's harder to do the yard work and shovel the snow, etc.  I will let you know what happens!  We might be staying where we are for several more years or we might be moving by the end of the year.  You never know with us.

But let me tell you the lesson for today.  It is about King Josiah.

JOSIAH

Josiah was only eight years old when he was made king.  When King Josiah was sixteen, he began to worship God.  King Josiah loved God and obeyed his ways completely.

Josiah had noticed that many of his people had begun to worship idols.  Idols were objects that people would pray to like they were gods.  But Josiah wanted his whole kingdom to worship God only.  For six years, Josiah worked to get rid of the idols.  He had the altars used to worship idols torn down, and the idols ground into dust.

Because so many people were worshiping idols, God's temple, holy place -- like a church, was not cared for properly.  When King Solomon had built the temple, he had richly decorated the building to honor God.  The walls and floors had been lined with carved cedar wood and gold.  Even the doors and door posts had been beautifully carved.  But it had been 250 years since repairs were made to the special temple.

Josiah was only twenty-six years old, but he knew it was important to have a place to worship God.  He gave orders for the temple to be repaired.

Money was collected to buy the materials needed for the repairs.  The men chosen to work on the temple were honest and could be trusted to work hard.  They bought wood and stone to make repairs.  When the temple was repaired, Josiah brought back the singers and musicians to celebrate.

God was pleased with the young king.  He wants his house to be clean and in good repair.  Josiah led the people to making a new vow of love and loyalty to the true God of Israel.

(based on 2 Kings 22:1-6)

How old was King Josiah when he gave orders for the temple to be cleaned?  He was 26.  A young man with a heart for God.  Oh that we had young men in our churches with hearts for God.

The second question this week is who can keep God's house clean?  And the answer is everyone.  I think this is important since the kids tend to just throw things around the Sunday School room and I end up cleaning after the lesson.  We are going to have clean up time starting today.

I found a new to me website that will email me a Sunday School lesson each week.  Each lesson also has games, coloring pages, puzzles and other things attached to it.  I was looking for a puzzle page for Josiah and came across this.  I joined their page and am looking forward to having new lessons each week.  It may not match up with mine, but that's OK.  I can print them out and keep them in a folder or three-ring binder and use them as I need them.  So for today I have a game like Concentration -- cards that are turned upside down and they have to find the matches.  Then I have a maze "Help Josiah find the scroll" and also a coloring page.  I think the kids will have fun with it.  Having fun helps you to remember the lesson.

Now I have to get off of here and get something to eat, get Joe up and get ready to leave for church.  I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Sunday.

Until later...

Kathy