What my Husband Does for me!

 

The first thing Jim did for me today was not appreciated!  I had gone to the guest bedroom during the night and he came in to say, "Are you still sleeping?"  I was not! I was reading my morning Heather Cox Richardson blog and I was in no hurry to get out of bed.  However, the next thing he did was to have coffee in the thermos for me which he does every morning.  And I do appreciate that first sip of coffee.

Then we do the NYT Spelling Bee together while I finish my coffee.  I had felt inadequate when he always could find more words than I could so now he stops-usually--at the point where I have stopped.  It is amazing how we see separate lists of words.  One day we each had 23 words before combining lists and there was almost no overlap.  

After we made our usual trip to get groceries at McCaffreys, Jim drove me to the Princeton Public Library and parked in the driveway next to the entrance so that I could get my two requested books and find a few more.  Then this afternoon we went to the Princeton Seminary Library where he checked out one book for his research and another one for me that I could not find at the public library or Better World Books.  The movable shelves could be a thing of nightmares for me but after I opened the slot a bit, he went in and found my book and checked it out on his card. 

Later this afternoon Jim will pour me a glass of wine and we will probably do a NYT crossword puzzle together--or just watch the Army-Navy game.  

I rely more and more on the cane he bought for me last April and sometimes am happy to take his arm as well. He encourages me to take at least one short walk each day.   I am thankful for my husband of 57 1/2 years and thankful for each day we have together and I pray there will be many more! 

------------One more thing!  On Sunday mornings, Jim drives the long way to church so he can drop me off right in front of the sanctuary so I don't have to walk from the municipal parking lot or even cross the street.  After church I do walk with him to the car. 

Christmas

 I have led adult church school classes three times over the years both in Raleigh and in South Bend on the topic of simplifying Christmas.  But I still get caught up in the stress of finding gifts for everyone on our list.  I love each person and want to find the perfect gift but am at a loss as to what that gift is. 

At least there are no work obligations or parties.  There are choir rehearsals with our Grace Notes Choir and our two Advent Communion services but that is nothing like some long choir rehearsals in the past--or playing the organ for Christmas Eve services.  Last  night we listened via Livestream to grandson Michael's George Washington Jazz Orchestra's Holiday Concert and saw and heard Michael featured with trombone solos a few times.  Maybe we can do some other livestream events for the Conway grandchildren.  

One traditional gift that is expected by the grandchildren is a chocolate letter of their names.  The letters have been ordered from VanderVeen's The Dutch Store and they have arrived.  I have learned to order them plenty in time for Christmas.  

Almost all the other gifts have arrived from Amazon and Land's End.  I miss seeing the stores all decorated for Christmas but online shopping is so convenient. 

I have ordered Shutterfly cards this year with a family photo of the whole VK gang--18 of us on the steps of the Ocean Grove cottage Laura and Michael rent each year.  I love getting family photos from others and so this year I will reciprocate.  

We have also learned to get our little table top tree on time.  Last year we found one with difficulty at a local nursery.  This year we went to Whole Foods where we have purchased trees many other years and found plenty of choices.  It is so easy to put it up--already in its little stand.  One string of lights is enough.  However, half of the string suddenly died today so we may need to go to Amazon one more time.  

I have made sugar cookie dough for a cookie baking session tomorrow with Laura and Ruth.  My sister sent me the recipe which she thinks I sent her years ago and that it came from our Grandma Vander Molen.  My memory is that  Grandma did not have a recipe but just did a pinch of this or that.  However, this recipe tasted to me like I remember her cookies tasted.  The dough has to be refrigerated for several hours so it had to be made ahead of time.  Ruth bought some fancy cookie cutters which she showed me on Thanksgiving.  They will even make impressions in the dough.  Good thing, because we searched everywhere and cannot find our cookie cutters--one more thing missing from our move here.  I found red and green sugars at Target this week so we should be all set to decorate. Laura and Ruth have made gingerbread cookie dough ahead of time because it also needed to be refrigerated.  This event has taken some planning! 

Every year I say I will not make banket again, but once again I ordered several pounds of almond paste from The Dutch Store.  The folks I have given banket to have been so enthusiastic about it--including Alonso, one of our maintenance men here at Barclay Square who even wondered if I could make it for Halloween too!  It went over very well with our grand-daughter's partner's parents who brought some home for the grandmother on his side.  So I will probably take a deep breath and roll out the crusts and fill them up again. 

I will add photos of the baking session tomorrow. 

December 8 An unexpected joy while walking to the municipal parking lot after church was coming up on the Tigertones, a Princeton University male Acapella group, singing O Holy Night.  They were huddled in a doorway and sang without printed music.  It was so beautiful.  It gave me chills.  It was a Christmas gift to me "O Night Divine, the night Christ was born."  I told one of them I had never heard it sung more beautifully and that was true for my 78 years!  

Cookie baking with Laura and Ruth was a treat in many ways.  Good cookies and good company! And Ruth requested a Scrabble game with her grandmother--and helped hang ornaments on our little tree.

----------December 13  One small crisis was averted I hope.  Land's End sent me just one of the fleeces I ordered for James and Michael.  I checked their website and the second one was backordered for January 25!  With some difficulty I contacted Land's End and used text messaging to change the order to another size and color.  That is being processed right now--I just checked their website. So we may get that by Christmas after all!  

Thanksgiving!

 

Arthur Brooks in his essays about happiness in the Atlantic reminds us to practice gratitude--to list what you are thankful for.  I do this in my private journals and probably that is best.  

But here is a list to share for my blog--with its maybe ten readers--but also for our Blog2Print for 2024 to be put together soon.

I am grateful for family.  57 years ago we made our marriage vows and we have kept them.  And we were so blessed to have three children who married three wonderful spouses.  And now there are eight grandchildren ranging in age from almost 5 to 26. There are 18 in this photo including a boyfriend and a girlfriend for two older grandchildren. And our daughter is in charge of our Thanksgiving meal.   

I am grateful for Jim who is patient and loving to me and takes care of me as I take his arm to walk.  He always has done his fair share of household duties but he digs in more and more.  As I write this, he is taking the laundry out of the washer and putting it in the dryer. I am thankful for the NYT Spelling Bee and crossword puzzles that give us daily challenges to do together.  I am thankful for each day we have together and pray there will be many more.

I am grateful for prayer and know I need to trust more that all will be well when I pray for ourselves, our family, and very much now for our country.

I am grateful for medical help.  I have needed more help in the last month or so and I have found kind and competent people to take care of me.  And there has been healing.  I have expressed my gratitude to them and I know that has been appreciated.

I am grateful for friends--old friends who email and call and new friends here in Princeton.  To make new friends at our age is not something we take for granted.

I am grateful for Sacred Space, an online resource put out by the Irish Jesuits.  It always helps me have more peace of mind and a calmer spirit.

I am grateful for books to read, for Goodreads that helps me find and record books, for our wonderful library and for Better World Books and Amazon Kindle so I can order books easily.  

I am grateful for journals that I keep online--a therapy journal and a spiritual journal.  They let me express myself easily and for my eyes only! 

I am grateful for such a comfortable and luxurious place to live here at Barclay Square.  It makes it difficult to think of moving to a senior living community.  But if we choose to do so, we have the financial resources to make that move and for that also I am grateful.

I am grateful for music in my life--for Grace Notes Choir--for singing hymns in church.  I need to take advantage of making more music with my digital piano right here in our dining room.

I am grateful for a bit of mindfulness each day as I sit on our deck and get some sun on my face and listen to the far off traffic and rustling leaves and do my breath prayers of "healing in and fears out, gratitude in and worries out."  

I am grateful for this blog and for the memories we can access through the Blog2Print books I make for each year.

I am grateful for social media to help me be in touch with friends from many eras in our past.  I am grateful for news sources but have to be aware of too much doom scrolling leading to despair over our political situation recently.

I am grateful for our country but very concerned for the prospects of the next administration.  I have to accept that others see the world differently than I do and hope and pray that the next four years are not hurtful for many. 

"Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits."  Psalm 103:2 

November 29  Thanksgiving dinner was at Laura and Michael's home with Dan and Alex there too. It was  a feast in the dining room with the lovely china that Laura bought from the estate's previous owner.  

Cheering for the Irish

 

Yesterday was a very good day for Irish sports fans like us.  The Notre Dame women's basketball team was on NBC at 4 pm playing against a University of Southern California team.  Hannah Hidalgo with her teammate Olivia Miles put on a show with a combined 44 points, 14 rebounds and 15  assists and in Hannah's case, 5 steals.  Hidalgo is so much fun to watch as she seems to be everywhere getting her hands in the way of the opposition.  It was a 74-61 win.  ND had a plan to stop USC's Juju Watkins and it was carried out well even if she did have 24 points--same as Hidalgo's total.  

Then at 7 pm, on NBC again, the Notre Dame football went up against Army at Yankee Stadium in what was called the Shamrock Series.  Riley Leonard was in control as quarterback until, with the game firmly in hand, the coach put in Steven Angeli to give him some experience before he will probably be the man in charge next year.  A touching video was featured at half time in which ND's kicker Goin was honored for his seven years in the Army before coming to ND to do graduate work in business and becoming a walk on member of the team.  Marcus Freeman praised his mature leadership and thanked him for his service to our country.  It is always impressive to see the Army cadets all in uniform in a cheering section and to remember the commitment they are making well beyond their college career.

So we enjoyed two big wins yesterday with hopes for a continued winning season for both teams. 

-------------December 10 We get to cheer for ND in the college playoff football games when they play Indiana in South Bend on December 20.  Should be a cold game to watch--and we hear very expensive. 

------------December 12  The women beat UConn and Hannah Hildago had so much fun and we had so much fun watching her. Jim was just chuckling at her moves.

Lifting my Spirits

 

I have been despondent today.  I should not be surprised but Trump's nominations for cabinet posts are terrible and dangerous.  The qualification has been loyalty to him and a desire for revenge on groups that cost some angst in the past.  I am trying to tell myself that there are good signs--that the sensible Republicans in the Senate have appointed Thune as their leader instead of Trump's man Scott thanks to a secret ballot.  Trump can't take revenge because he does not know how each one voted.  Not all Senators are Trump loyalists --some may refuse to confirm his appointees. Or he may push them through with "recess" appointments. 

None of this will affect my confortable life directly but I despair for our country and feel so powerless.  

My dear husband turned on the gas fireplace, put together some queso and chips and a glass of wine, and we did our usual NYT crossword puzzle--and could even do today's puzzle because it is Thursday.  I am grateful for these ordinary pleasures and was able to take joy in them.  

-----------------I just spent some time perusing old blogs--especially those of the pandemic days.  It is so good to read them and to remember those times--the difficulties and the joys.  It helps me to write my thoughts at the time--with my musings for today--and it is good to have the reminders of days gone by. 

Pain

 About ten days ago I began having pain in the middle of my back.  Jim went to our small group from church alone while I stayed home tethered to my heating pad.  Happily, the pain went away after two or three days.  But it came back the following Monday.  I went to the small group and chose a seat where there was a pillow behind my back.  I was not comfortable but I did it.  I went to Grace Notes Choir the next day as well--with some tension, but I did it.  

Thursday I sent a message to my primary care physician on our portal.  Sadly, he was out until November 18.  I was told to call to see someone else or to find a back doctor.  I went to United Health Care and looked for a doctor who would take our insurance.  The first one I called sent me to another practice and that practice said they couldn't see me until late November and then they would no longer take our insurance after December 1.

I called our primary care people at Montgomery Internal Medicine and they gave me an appointment with Sylvia Okoji,  a nurse practitioner,  for Friday, the very next day.  Jim had seen Sylvia before and respected and liked her. 

I was asked how bad was the pain on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst you ever had.  It was not a ten--that was my ruptured disc pain in 1986.  I said 6 or 7.  Earlier that morning I told Jim that it reminded me of labor pains--intense, squeezing pain.  Some of those were tens!  Especially my last labor with a nine pound baby! 

Sylvia was kind and thorough.  She eliminated shingles and a urinary tract infection.  She gave me  prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and an x-ray.

I called Penn Medicine Radiology to schedule the x-ray and they said to come in at 3 pm--in just a few hours! 

The waiting room at Radiology was packed with folks and I despaired but I was called very quickly and Kyle, the technician, was also very kind and helpful. Because it was Friday afternoon, I didn't expect results over the weekend.  But to my surprise, when I checked the portal Saturday am, there was a message from Sylvia that the x-ray was negative.  So the pain probably was muscular as she thought. There was no disc problem and some arthritis showed up.  

I was so grateful to be able to get care quickly and with kindness and compassion.  However, it is now Sunday and the pain is still there--and I have had a couple of rough nights trying to sleep while getting the heating pad positioned for relief.  I have taken four out of the five muscle relaxers pills and am hoping that today is a better day.  It's not excruciating pain, it is just gnawing and can't be ignored.  Fortunately, the heating pad and lying down helps but that is not a good way to live. So if I am not better tomorrow, I will contact Sylvia again on the portal.   Last Thursday, I didn't know which way to turn to get help.  But now I have someone caring for me and am trying to hope for relief--along with prayers for healing.

----------November 11--a good night of sleep without any need for the heating pad! Hooray!

November 12--No pain today and it is such a relief.  I thanked Sylvia on the portal and received such a kind message from her in response.  I told her about this blog and I hope she reads it and feels my gratitude!

November 19--I did a survey from Penn Medicine but decided to call their customer relations and leave a more directed compliment for their prompt reading and response.  First thing Monday morning I got a phone call from them thanking me for my compliments and saying they would pass them on to their Leadership Team along with the specific names of the people who had helped me. 

December 12--I got a bill for $30 from Penn Medicine this morning.  I saw that the charge for the x-rays was $3361. Thank God for health insurance!   Many are complaining about United Health right now after the murder of its CEO but we have no reason to complain.  Our co-payments have been low thus far.

Can I Move to Canada?

  A week ago, I googled if I could move to Canada if Trump wins the election.  The answer is No.  I am too old.  I could not get a work permit.  I could visit for a few months, but I could not stay.  In any case, I would not want to leave my children and grandchildren and I like where I am living--our apartment and our area. 

But when I think of Donald Trump as president, I am ashamed and embarrassed that such a man could be elected and could represent our country.  He lies, he insults others, he is vulgar, he incites violence and he threatens to do terrible things if elected.  Rounding up immigrants, legal and illegal, and putting them in camps?  What a horrible, demeaning idea.  Getting rid of civil service employees and replacing them with his loyalists?  Scary.  It was bad enough when he had some brakes on what he wanted to do in his previous administration. The New York Times listed 91 members of the Trump era who find him unfit to lead our country.   They see how dangerous he could be.   Calling out the military to punish his political opponents?   Would my private little blog be a reason to punish me?  I doubt it but more public folks who disagree with him are called enemies.   Would my giving a small amount to the Harris-Walz campaign mean I am an enemy?  I should have given more if it would make a difference.  

I dread the election.  I dread the days after the election when we await the results.  I dread Trump's winning but I even dread his losing if he incites violence as he did the last time.  He has done many immoral and really illegal things, but refusing to accept his loss in 2021 is maybe the most dangerous one for our country and he is setting the stage to do it again.  

I pray nightly for our country and I pray for Donald Trump--that he could have a change of heart and stop his lies and his insults to others.  Maybe he could even say he was sorry although he has said he has no need of asking God for forgiveness of his sins.  Do I really believe God can work in someone's heart?  I would like to think so and hope he hears my heartfelt prayers. 

------------Then in church last week I realized that among the sins I needed to confess was my anger towards Donald Trump when I probably should feel compassion for such an unhappy man.  He must be unhappy because otherwise he would not have such a need to disparage and insult others--a need to put others down to raise yourself up. 

-----------October 28--It just gets worse by the day.  Trump's rally in Madison Square Garden was nasty--insulting to Puerto Ricans, vulgar in comments by several including insults to Kamala Harris. He has referred to Arnold Palmer in admiring but vulgar terms.    Trump hints at his "secret" with Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, as to what they will do if he does not win the popular vote. Mike Pence was the hero in 2021.  

November 1  And on it goes.  Now Trump's  desire is to see Liz Cheney lined up with rifles pointing at her so she can see what it is like to go to war.  I hope and pray no one takes Trump's suggestion to heart and goes after Cheney.  She has been courageous in supporting Harris as one of many Republicans who have done so.  It is incredible that he can be so dangerous in his speech and get away with it.  Three more days and the votes will be in and ready to be counted.  I am afraid and have to keep praying and remembering that God is in control.  

November 5  Election Day.  We voted by mail and received notice via a postcard that our votes were counted.  The system is working in Plainsboro, New Jersey and I pray that it is working everywhere in the country and that the votes will be counted and recognized as valid and that the results will be accepted without violence.  

November 6  Trump won.  I am sick at heart.  How could so many people vote for such an immoral man who lied, was vulgar, and insulting to anyone who disagreed with him?  How can he be kept from carrying out his goal of retribution to his so-called enemies?  I downloaded a photo of him for this blog but I can't bear to put his face in it.  May God preserve our nation.  

November 10  As one pundit wrote, Trump is my president whether I like it or not.  So what can I do beside pray?  The election is over; Trump was elected and democracy worked even if I don't like it.  My opinion was sadly in the minority. I can still pray for justice and for good leaders.  But I also renewed my ACLU membership and gave an extra amount to the ACLU Freedom Defense Fund because ACLU will fight the deportations and the separation of family members.  

November 14 It gets worse by the day as we read of Trump's appointees to cabinet positions in which loyalty to him is the requirement, not expertise.  Matt Gaetz as Attorney General will no longer be invesitgated by Congress because he resigned form Congress.  We hope the Senate will refuse to confirm some of these unqualified people.  The Senate in secret ballots voted Thune as their leader and not Scott as Trump wanted.  

November 22  Gaetz withdrew his nomination.  This is good news.  Maybe there will be more--one can hope!  Hegseth as head of Defense is troublesome; Gabbard and Kennedy are not qualified.  Musk with all his money seems to be a shadow president and will have a lot of control over financing the government.  We watch Washington Week every Friday night and it is depressing.