Sorry about the long delay on this post. It's harder to keep up with this site than I thought it would be. :-) Anyways, here's a brief rundown of our Christmas. The first part is the hard part to write. The good part will come in my next post.
Some of you may know that my Grandpa Don (on my mom's side) was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer. By the time they caught it, it had already spread to his lungs. He was visiting my uncle in Alaska when he began having problems. The doctor there suspected pneumonia and thought he ought to be sent home where he could go to a hospital. (There's just a clinic where my uncle lives, and the doctor only visits from time to time. Between times, they have semi-trained personel who call for advice when they cannot help the patients). Anyways, he was bad enough that my uncle was afraid for him to travel alone, so he flew with him as far as Seattle, and my mom met him there and travelled with him the rest of the way home. They took him straight to the hospital in Tulsa from the airport, and he was diagnosed with cancer there. Arthur and I were able to make the trip to Oklahoma twice before he passed away. I was glad for the time I got to spend with him, but I wish he'd been awake and alert more when I was there. He passed away about a week and a half before Christmas. He had insisted on going home the day before, so they took him in an ambulance. My mom said in her entire lifetime, she never knew her dad to profess to be a Christian. However, he did a lot of soul searching and praying in the hospital, and before he died, he told her he had gotten saved and was ready to go. It's amazing how God works. His whole life, he was unable to profess Christianity. When he was in Alaska, before he got sick, my uncle told him, "Dad, I just feel like I need to tell you this, and I'm not sure why. You know, you can be saved if you want to. I'm not a preacher, and I don't know a lot of things, but I do know this. You have to trust and obey. If you do those two things, you can be saved. I just felt like I needed to tell you that." My grandpa said, "Don, I'm glad you said that." As far as I know, that was the extent of the conversation. Later, in the hospital, my grandpa asked my uncle if he was still preaching. At first, Uncle Don didn't remember, but when he did, he said, "Trust and obey, Dad." My grandpa was not normally a singer, but while he was drifting in and out mostly asleep, he was singing and saying something about "Hallelujah." Then, just before he left the hospital, he told my mom he was ready. The funeral was on Monday, December 17.
Arthur and I went down for the weekend. Mom and Dad were still out of electricity because of the ice storm. There was a LOT of damage. Fortunately, Dad's old generator for his welder had broken when he loaned it to someone, so he bought a new one just before the snowstorm. He was able to run the entire house on the new generator. He said the old one never would have handled the job. The drawback to generator life: 1. The gas it guzzles is EXPENSIVE right now!!! 2. It gets turned off at night. I guess it's not all bad... I had a good excuse to cuddle for warmth. :-) It was a hard weekend, but I'm glad Arthur was able to get off work to go with me. It was a looong drive back after the funeral on Monday, and Tuesday morning came all too soon! We had one weekend trip over and two more still to go!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Un-Post
Warning: This is not really a post. It is a little blurb informing you that I will try to actually post something later this week. I have lots and lots to write about, some things that are very happy, some things that are not so happy, but there will be a post!
Since you last heard from me, I have lived a very eventful existence. :-) If you know me at all, and I think most of you do, you know I can be prone to somewhat clutzy moments... Okay, I can be VERY clutzy! (As those of you who fished my phone out of the toilet can verify). Since my last post, I burned myself on the oven rack (If there is a hole in a pot holder, I will find it), severely sliced my finger on glass (thought it was paper and grabbed it really firmly), caught a towel on fire (I set it too close to the electric burner. I hate electric burners. I'm ready to get back to a gas stove, though it may be a long time), and glued my finger to a toilet, and that was just in one week! Umm, yes, I did say that I glued my finger to a toilet. It is a sad strange story. Lest you all go crazy with curiousity, I guess I'd better explain that one now.
Our toilet handle was broken. To be more specific, the rod running from the toilet handle to the internal flushing mechanism thingy was broken. Did I just use "mechanism" and "thingy" in the same sentence??? Anyways, while Arthur was at work, I got very tired of dealing with the lid to the tank sitting on the counter, and I was tired of having to stick my hand in the tank to flush. I understand that the tank is filled with only clean water, but I still don't like it. Anyways, I thought, hey I have had to be more creative with scraping together crafty teacher projects at the last minute than this job will require, so I scoured the house for something with which I might temporarily repair the rod until our landlord supplied us with a replacement. I found toothpicks and electrical tape. Seemed like a good idea. It would have been if the break had been on the straight part of the rod, but it was right on the bend where the rod and the handle connect. (If you will lift the lid on your toilet tank, you will see what I mean :-) ) Anyways, the toothpicks and tape did not keep it solid enough. It would bend when I pushed the handle, so it was not going to work. Just then, I remembered that I had some superglue. Again, it seemed like a good idea. It was not. It might have been if I had taken into account that the nice runny superglue runs down hill very quickly and is not very visible on a damp, white, plastic rod. I applied the glue, put the two pieces together, and held them very tightly for a long time to make sure it would stick very well. It did. I had been careful to hold the rod far from where I applied the glue, but as I said, it was very runny. My thumb and first two fingers were stuck VERY tight. I could just barely reach the sink from where I was stuck, and I got the soap and wet a washrag. I spent a full half an hour soaking and gently pulling with my left over toothpicks. I couldn't reach any phones, so I was pretty well on my own. 30 minutes of my day, gone, but boy was I happy to be free to move! I was really happy that I didn't damage much skin too. Just a tiny spot on my thumb. The handle worked really well, though..... for 6 or 8 flushes.
That was a long un-post. In case you were wondering, our landlord came by on Tuesday with our new part, and the toilet flushes better than ever! Yippee! Anyways, hopefully you will hear more from me next week, and I hope to have pictures!
Since you last heard from me, I have lived a very eventful existence. :-) If you know me at all, and I think most of you do, you know I can be prone to somewhat clutzy moments... Okay, I can be VERY clutzy! (As those of you who fished my phone out of the toilet can verify). Since my last post, I burned myself on the oven rack (If there is a hole in a pot holder, I will find it), severely sliced my finger on glass (thought it was paper and grabbed it really firmly), caught a towel on fire (I set it too close to the electric burner. I hate electric burners. I'm ready to get back to a gas stove, though it may be a long time), and glued my finger to a toilet, and that was just in one week! Umm, yes, I did say that I glued my finger to a toilet. It is a sad strange story. Lest you all go crazy with curiousity, I guess I'd better explain that one now.
Our toilet handle was broken. To be more specific, the rod running from the toilet handle to the internal flushing mechanism thingy was broken. Did I just use "mechanism" and "thingy" in the same sentence??? Anyways, while Arthur was at work, I got very tired of dealing with the lid to the tank sitting on the counter, and I was tired of having to stick my hand in the tank to flush. I understand that the tank is filled with only clean water, but I still don't like it. Anyways, I thought, hey I have had to be more creative with scraping together crafty teacher projects at the last minute than this job will require, so I scoured the house for something with which I might temporarily repair the rod until our landlord supplied us with a replacement. I found toothpicks and electrical tape. Seemed like a good idea. It would have been if the break had been on the straight part of the rod, but it was right on the bend where the rod and the handle connect. (If you will lift the lid on your toilet tank, you will see what I mean :-) ) Anyways, the toothpicks and tape did not keep it solid enough. It would bend when I pushed the handle, so it was not going to work. Just then, I remembered that I had some superglue. Again, it seemed like a good idea. It was not. It might have been if I had taken into account that the nice runny superglue runs down hill very quickly and is not very visible on a damp, white, plastic rod. I applied the glue, put the two pieces together, and held them very tightly for a long time to make sure it would stick very well. It did. I had been careful to hold the rod far from where I applied the glue, but as I said, it was very runny. My thumb and first two fingers were stuck VERY tight. I could just barely reach the sink from where I was stuck, and I got the soap and wet a washrag. I spent a full half an hour soaking and gently pulling with my left over toothpicks. I couldn't reach any phones, so I was pretty well on my own. 30 minutes of my day, gone, but boy was I happy to be free to move! I was really happy that I didn't damage much skin too. Just a tiny spot on my thumb. The handle worked really well, though..... for 6 or 8 flushes.
That was a long un-post. In case you were wondering, our landlord came by on Tuesday with our new part, and the toilet flushes better than ever! Yippee! Anyways, hopefully you will hear more from me next week, and I hope to have pictures!
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