Yesterday Grandpa and I were planning on going down to Quincy to see if we could get a key made. But then we got a call and our plans changed and we didn't make it to Quincy. The call that we got was to let us know that Jerry the man that used to live here in Hamilton and would come and ask for food all the time was needing to go back to the Montabello care center here in Hamilton. The thing is Jerry was just brought home from the care center to his apt in Dallis City about 45 minutes from our house. So Grandpa and I changed our plans and brought him back here to the care center. I am not sure what is going to happen now. We will have to go visit him in a few days to see what is happening.

Last evening we picked up the Sister missionaries and went into Nauvoo to the Annual Pumpkin Walk. There were about 300 carved pumpkins! The street was packed! It was really alot of fun.

Thursday afternoon/evening, Grandpa and I went over to Dr Dunn's office to get the trim put up. We ran into a little snag with the corner trim. There is already a chair rail trim in place and wainscot that Grandpa has to work around and it is proving to be a real challenge. I had brought our book to read but that didn't work either. For one thing there was the air compressor that Grandpa had to have to use the nail gun. When it would go off it was pretty loud. But that wasn't very often. Then there was Grandpa's chop saw that he used to cut the right lengths of the trim. We were working around that and doing well, then Dr Dunn came and told us that he had a patient that called and needed a treatment. So while they were there we couldn't read. Then in the other half of the building the Nauvoo community choir came in so they could practice. We would have been able to read, but when they came there ware chairs and tables and such all over so they called one of the owners because it wasn't set up for their choir to practice. The owner came and helped direct them where to move things so that they could be set up for the choir. When she heard the saw in the back she came to see what we were doing. She was happy to see the progress in the office, and that is what stopped the reading then. She stayed and we talked. The owner is a member of our ward. I had seen her at church but have never talked to her. It was nice to get to know her a little better. She loves books too, but her taste in books is very different than mine. She doesn't even like Besty Brannon Green novels!

Yesterday I found out that Lisa Miller was coming home from the hospital. I offered to bring dinner in to her and her family. There is just her and her husband and son who is a Junior in high school and on the football team. I made chicken soup, and rolls. That sounds simple enough, but of course I made a major project out of it. Since Lisa just had gallbladder surgery I went online to see what she could eat. I actually found people who had blogs about what worked best to eat. I gained from that, that I should make something that wasn't too spicy and fatty, and if I was going to use onions and garlic to spice it with I needed to make sure that I drain them out of the broth. I also read not to use anything with seeds. That is all fine and good. But here is where I made my mistake. I decided to cook my vegetables in with the onion and garlic. Now if I was making a regular soup that wouldn't have presented a problem. But as it was after I strained the broth from the vegetables, I then had to pick out the potatoes and carrots from the onion and garlic. Silly me. Next time if I need to make a soup like this I will know not to do it this way! Oh, and the rolls. I decided to use a recipe I hadn't used before. The dough didn't seem to be rising so I wasn't sure if they were going to work. Also I was making the rolls at the same time I was making the chicken soup. I almost felt like I was in an "I Love Lucy" episode! The recipe that I was using made 3 dozen rolls so I decided to cut the recipe in half. Then as I was almost thu putting the ingredients together, I realized that I had not cut it in half!! So in the end I ended up with 3 dozen rolls and 2 small loaves of bread. I was just wondering what I was going to do with all these rolls. I needed to put Buster out and as I did so, there were the sister missionaries! So I asked them to come in and apologized that of course I was still in my night gown. Grandpa came home about then and brought Buster back into the house. We found a basket and put 6 rolls in for the missionaries. Also since it was almost Halloween we fixed them each a treat bag. They left a prayer in our home and started on there way again. While Grandpa took the last of the rolls from the oven, I finally got dressed for the day. We then loaded up the car and took the soup, a dozen rolls, and trick or treat bag full of candy in for the Millers. I sure hoped they liked it. So in the end we are left with 2 small loaves of bread, and 1 1/2 dozen rolls. I am going to send 1/2 dozen rolls to Great Grandpa and Grandma Pierce. We are going to drop the dozen rolls off to the Evans family on our way out to Quincy this morning. The two small loaves we will keep. So everything came together in the end, except if I use this recipe again I will have to allow more time for the dough to rise, because the rolls were a little heavy. :(

Earlier in the day, I worked on the Christmas card for the ward. I got it pretty much done. It just needs a few more things tweaked on it. This is just a sample to see if this is what the Bishop wants for this year. He had asked Grandpa to see if I could do something. So Grandpa is going to bring what I put together in and see if it works.

By the time we were on our way home from the Millers, I realized I was exhausted. When we got home Grandpa warmed up some leftovers, while I was getting my computer ready for a project that we are doing. We took care of one step needed in our project and then we went to our room and put a movie in and ate dinner. We barely made it thru the movie and both Grandpa and I were falling asleep. I really wanted to stay up late, after all it was a Friday night! We must be getting old, if we can't even stay up past 10:00 one day in the week!

It was cold in our home when we got up this morning. I guess it is time to change over to the heater in the house. I am not sure I am ready for the cold to come. We have been really spoiled to have such warm weather up to now.

I got my VT message done. It took quite a few hours to do the cards this month. There was no formal message this month. There was a special Ensign sent out all about Temples. So that is what we were to do our message on. I scanned and copied pictures of your parents as they came out of the Temple on the day that they were married and put them in the card. I also put a picture of Grandpa and I too. Anyway it took a lot more time than I thought it would. I now just have to get it in the mail. I also need to print up the Ward birthday cards for the month.

When Grandpa gets home from work today then we will be loading the car up with his tools and supplies and heading back into Nauvoo so that Grandpa can install the trim work in Dr Dunn's office. The next step after that will be to install carpet if there is enough of what we have to do his office.

It is hard to believe that it is the end of October already.

Today is supposed to be a game day. I don't think that anyone will be coming. Which is okay.

Good morning everyone. Yesterday was a full day, and I didn't even get done all I needed to. I started out thinking that I would put together the chicken dish we would be eating for dinner that evening with the Sister Missionaries, and get it in the fridge to have it already to just pop in the oven when it was time. It really helps me to do this since I usually run out of steam in the afternoon. I knew that I may not have enough ham to finish, but thought I would do what I could. Jacob and Tally were going grocery shopping and while they were out they were going pick up more of the meat I needed to wrap my chicken in. I put what I was able to get done in the fridge. Next I went into the office to make a call on a statement I had received in the mail. It said that if you paid the balance within the next 30 days you could take 10% off of the balance on the statement. Well, what I thought would be a simple phone call turned into a day long project. Our hospital has a separate billing company that they use, and that is where some of the confusion takes place. When I called to see if I could take the discount, the person that I was talking to couldn't even find that amount on my account. She then told me that I owed all these other amounts! She asked if I would like to have an itemized statement. I let her know that would be really a good idea. So then I went thru all my statements that I had received thru the year and all my check copies made to the hospital. I also went online to make sure that all the checks had cleared the bank. After I had checked everything on my end I called the billing service back. This time the person that I talked, understood better my account. She was able to explain most of the totals. The balances still outstanding are from my July hospital stay. In the mail that afternoon I actually got that statement with that balance. The billing company was still confused about some of the payments and some of the totals that were showing up. I was able to decipher what those amounts were. So anyway, what should have taken about 10 minutes at the tops, took most of my day. Another thing that added to the "fun" of the day was when Jacob and Tally went to pick up the meat for what I was making for dinner and they found out that Walmart was completely out of it! So I told them what they could replace it with. Well, they were all out of that too! Finally we settled on something that would work. Whew! What a day.
So by the end of the day I had all my medical records, and all payments thru the year highlighted and organized, and we had a successful dinner with the Sister Missionaries. For dinner last night we had what I call "mock chicken cordan bleu", rolls, vegetables and mashed potatoes. For dessert we had the brownie pudding that I had made on Sunday. I had Jacob and Tally pick up more coolwhip for me while they were out shopping. I mixed a little more coolwhip in the brownie pudding to make it more fluffy, and not quite so heavy. It worked great. It seems that when we feed the missionaries everything comes together in the end.

Yesterday I spent the day resting. I just wasn't feeling well. In the afternoon after Grandpa had finished some of the things around the house that he wanted to get done, we went out to the garage so that Grandpa could finish putting the stain on all the trim that goes in Dr Dunn's office. I came out to the garage so that I could read to Grandpa while he was doing the staining. Grandpa brought our recliner chair out to the garage so that I could be comfortable while we were out there. When Grandpa finished up the staining we decided to go to Dairy Queen and pick up dinner. I had the salad with the grilled chicken on it. Grandpa had the chicken basket. When we finished eating we watched a show on the Hallmark station that was pretty cute, and then we finished the book we were reading. Time to begin a new one!

Today again I wasn't feeling real well so I stayed home from church. This evening Jacob and Tally came over for dinner. We had spaghetti and string beans. Jacob and Tally brought the garlic toast, and for dessert we had brownie pudding. It was really great having them over. I wish that we could do it more often

These late nights, or early mornings are getting to be a habit. Yesterday, I wasn't feeling well most of the day so I spent the day just pretty much resting. Grandpa and I have decided to get out more and do things within our own town and get to know it a bit better, and let the people of the community know us a little better. We went to the VFW for dinner tonight. They have a restaurant/bar that is open from 5:00pm to 8:00pm Tuesday thru Friday. Each of these nights they have a special for $6.00 a plate. Tonight was all you can eat catfish. You get all you can eat fried catfish with two sides. It was really good. We plan to go back again. After we ate we went over to Montebello nursing home to see Jerry Mueggi. He will be there for a couple of weeks getting care, then he will be sent back to the care facility he has been at. He was surprised to see us and was grateful for our visit. Then we headed back down to Quincy to get the rest of the supplies Grandpa needed to finish staining for the trim work at Dr Dunn's office. He plans to start installing it next week. So it ended up being a big evening for us. I actually had been asleep, but my body isn't cooperating and after using the bathroom, I am unable to sleep. Well looking on the bright side, I did remember that I hadn't written in the blog yet!

I didn't get my post done last night like I wanted to. Sorry. This morning I did finish the poster of the pictures we took of Buster and I posted back on the original blog. Oh, and I know that these are not the cards we use for Hand and foot, but it is the closest I could come. :)

Yesterday I was pretty sore from the previous day's activities! Wow, talk about sore! I still went to the pool and did the weights and rode 2 miles on the exercise bike, and we did our swimming. I made a kidney bean soup and put it in the crockpot for dinner last night. The Jarvis' picked me up just after 2:30 to go work on my family history. Grandpa picked me up from there to go to Dr Dunn's office for an adjustment. My back felt much better after, but I was so tired and other things were hurting. While we were there Grandpa hung a sign for Dr Dunn out in front of the building where his offices are. The door to go into his offices are on the side of the building. When we got home we ate dinner. After which I went to bed, and Grandpa went to do his Home Teaching. So now you can see why I didn't make my entry.

Today is going to be an interesting day. I am preparing for game day, but I don't think anyone is coming. I heated up the soup from last night. I made a big batch. This afternoon I am supposed to go with Grandpa into Nauvoo. He is going to be putting a finishing coat of paint on the walls at Dr Dunn's office. We are doing this work to barter for some visits with Dr Dunn. I am going to need a lot of visits! The interesting thing is going to be whether or not Tracey Grow comes to game day. If she comes to game day then I am going to see if I can hitch a ride into Nauvoo so I will be there when Grandpa gets off work. Then while he paints I can read from the Clair Poulsen novel "Coverup". If I can't get a ride into Nauvoo, Grandpa is going to get off work early so that I can still be in there and keep him company while he works.

Again here it is very late. I just barely got the picture of Buster added to last nights post. I have several that I am going to put together. Today Grandpa, Jacob and I all helped in getting some fun pictures of Buster. Hopefully I will have them put together tomorrow and then I will post them. I wanted to get something tonight since I said I would have something.

As I just said I spent some time taking pictures today. I also spent time putting together some cards for weddings. I like to make them personal, and that means spending some time on them. I know that they will be thrown away soon after the card is read, but still it is part of their gift. As I was at the computer I fell asleep! I was asleep for almost and hour! When I woke up my arms hurt from laying on them like that. Then the phone rang and it was Grandpa calling and said that I was invited to the Youth activity that he was going to that evening. It was the combined activity. The plans were to go to "Kathy's Pumpkin Patch" and go thru the corn maze there. So I went with Grandpa to the corn maze. Everyone who participated had a good time. Grandpa, Judy Mills and I ended up finding one of the early outs about halfway thru and took it and ended being the first ones back to the wagons. I was feeling bad until later when alot of the others also came out of some of the early outs and didn't complete the maze. Well we can feel good that we got about halfway thru! After everyone was out of the maze we went to where there was a fire pit and we roasted hotdogs and those king size marshmallows. I am so glad I was invited and was able to go! It was a lot of fun!

I had better close before I fall asleep again. I would have been done sooner, but I already fell asleep for awhile while I was getting this post done. Silly me. :)

It is very late, but I wanted to at least make a post. Grandpa has been trying to get me back to writing in my blog every day. It was so easy to get out of the habit. Now I need to work hard at getting back into the habit again.

A day doesn't go by that I don't think about every member of our family. We have such a wonderful family. I thank each of you for making it such a wonderful family. When we are together we have so much fun. Grandpa and I love to go online and see pictures of all your activities that you are involved in.

Last Friday I shaved Buster. I know it will be winter soon, but he was still scratching so much Grandpa and I decided it would help keep the fleas away. When I shaved him I found no traces of the fleas, but he had horribly dry skin! We will finish giving him the rest of his pills, but now we will add peanut butter for a treat each day so we can help him with his dry skin. I don't have a picture yet of Buster with his new haircut. I will get one and add it to this post tomorrow sometime.

This weekend was our Stake Conference. It actually started Friday night. Grandpa and I went to the Temple and attended an endowment session there. After we completed the session we went out to the Adventure Zone. It was just opened for a little get together for those in our Ward who went to the Temple to come enjoy some pizza and also enjoy sometime visiting with each other. We really enjoyed the whole evening.

Saturday morning Grandpa went to the Temple again. He went to help a man who was deaf.

In the afternoon Grandpa had Priesthood Leadership meetings. At 6:00 that evening was the adult session of Stake Conference. I got a ride with my friend Cheryl who was going in by herself since her husband was already in there for meetings too. The session was very good. The talks and the music were very uplifting. Loved it all.

The Sunday session began at 10:00. It also was very good. It is great to be Spiritually fed like that. In fact our stake theme this year is to do things that will bring you close to the Spirit. And to learn about the Holy Ghost and listening to promptings.

Today I went to the YMCA with Lisa. We started out in the exercise room. I rode 3 miles on the exercise bike today. I was telling Lisa about fry sauce. She has never had it before! I had made some and told her that she had to come try it. So we stopped and got a large order of fries on the way home so we could have some of the fry sauce I had made. She also had to make a stop at Walgreen's. While we were there I decided to buy Grandpa a package of those Coconut flavored M&M's that remind me of a mounds bar. I decided that I should buy a package for Lisa and I too. So after we had our fries, we had our dessert of M&M's. Well this definitely was not a nutritious lunch and I don't recommend it for a healthy diet, but sometimes it is just the way things happen. Grandpa ate his M&M's when he came home from work. After Grandpa got home we went back into Nauvoo for our Chiropractor visits. Dr Dunn is really doing a great job with both of us. My back hasn't felt this good in years!!!

Well, it is almost 1:00am. I really need to get some sleep. It feels good to write again. I will have to keep it up!