Wouldn't Wish This On Anyone!

I believe since the day after my last post I have had sciatica of one intensity or another. This is not something I would wish on anyone! And I now have complete empathy with anyone who has it or has had it! One friend said she "felt my pain in her butt", since she's had the same thing. True empathy!
From out of nowhere came the burning, cutting, stabbing feeling to the right of my tailbone over to the right hip joint and down the front of the leg to the knee. Wish I could at least say I had been climbing Mt. Whitney at the time! Nope, just doing normal everyday stuff. That lasted for 10 days. Didn't matter what kind of pain pills or whatever I took, it stayed the same. No sleep.
Then gradually, gradually, one pain pill seemed to help, ice seemed to help and I kind of sort of got some sleep. Now on day 15 I can say that I have slept 3 or 4 nights in a row (with chemical help) and the pain has changed to a feeling like I have been kicked by a bull in the right hip. I guess that's progress! I can walk around the house for about 5 min. before the affected muscles get really tired and I have to sit/lay down. Hmmm, at this rate I may be able to be back to normal in several months!
The best thing is I was able to go to the KH Tuesday night. I just hobbled in, sat down and did OK. Sitting seems to be what I do best right now!
So, that's my current situation. I know many people have much worse ailments and that makes me very sad. Hopefully I can write something much more encouraging next time!

Mr. Toad & Getting Up Early

A week or so ago I raked the leaves out of our little garden area on our patio. I was trying to make a larger dirt area for Kobe to do his business! Apparently I disturbed our resident TOAD when I raked up the leaves! We thought we had a toad or a frog this last summer because he (or she) would makes it's song every evening, although we never saw it. Kobe discovered the kind of medium sized amphibian and thankfully didn't try to eat him. Michael brought it inside for the night. He thought it was sick but I think it's body was just confused about whether it should hibernate or not. Nov. was mostly cold but now it's in the 50s. The next day Michael made a burrow in the dirt next to the pond for him and covered it with leaves. Hope he survives until spring!

When you're not used to getting up early it's hard! I had to get up at 3:30 a couple of days ago and it was weird! Of course just knowing I had to get up at that time had me worrying and looking at the clock all night. Then the cat was being very irritating and there was construction going on on the highway not far from the condos which we could hear quite distinctly. Blah, I pretty much didn't get any sleep and then had to function until 10 pm the next day. Once I got to the job site (health fair/flu shots) my brain was supposed to work......guess it went OK. No complaints so far! I don't know how night shift workers do it!

Our S.A.D. was great. We had one from our congregation get baptized. There are many interested people attending our meetings lately. It's great to see! Hopefully next year we will be building a new Kingdom Hall right next to the one we attend right now. That will be fun to take part in somehow and there really is a need in our area for it.

Hope everyone is well and doing fine. Until next time.......

Alarm Clock

Ha ha.....last night I set the alarm clock for 6:30 AM because Michael needed to be at Elder's School at 8 AM. It went off, we both jumped up and did our assignments. Him to just get ready and me to make coffee and lunch. After 1/2 hr. I went upstairs and noticed that the wall clock said 6 AM not 7 AM as I thought it should. Yep, we got up an hour early because I set the clock wrong! Michael laid down in his suit for a few more winks and I went back to sleep until 8. It's a good thing we both thought it was pretty funny! Also we saw a very bright star or comet on the horizon as the sun was rising so that was a bonus for getting up way too early!

Cold weather is setting in and Kobe can't be outside much since he has virtually no hair or body fat. We zip him into his fabric kennel when we leave the house but lately he has found a way to unzip it! Then he proceeds to find things to destroy. Mike's leather meeting bookbag, two couch pillows, various cardboard things. This is not good. And winter has just begun. Now we are securing the zipper!

With the Elders School, Spanish C.O. and S.A.D. coming in rapid succession now our meetings are all over the place. Will I ever remember when they are supposed to be when things calm down? Time will tell :)

I have had quite a few nursing assessments for long term care insurance policies lately. They are quite time consuming in that I have to make sure I use objective language until my opinion is called for. I have to go over and over them before I send them in! Mostly I would like to say "Just give them the insurance; they can't take care of themselves anymore!"

I really don't know if anyone besides Darci and Richard reads this blog. Any other readers out there? :)

Snowing on Mt. Rose

It was pointed out to me today by my blog fan club of 1 (you know who you are) that I haven't posted in a while. So, I'll try to think of things we did in the last month that might remotely be interesting.
We took the Chateau A Go Go out to Washoe Lake 15 miles from our house about 3 weeks ago. That was probably the last time this year since we have a winter storm coming our way. Washoe Lake is a deserty and flat area but the campground looks straight across at the Sierras, so we like that. There are no big trees, just big sage brush that smells good. Our objective was to star gaze! We had a nice campfire and sat in our camp chairs staring up.
First the sun set behind the Sierras which was very pretty. Then the stars came out one by one until it was a full blown Milky Way extravaganza......awesome! Only 2 shooting stars but one was very low and lasted a long time. And 3 satellites. We like to look for them even though they aren't made by Jehovah. :) Just one night there but it was quite enjoyable.
Kobe is not much of a camper. He is a condo dog. He doesn't like dirt. He just acts miserable and whines. Or maybe he just didn't like this particular campground!
Last weekend old friends from Palm Springs passed through Reno and stayed with us for 3 nights. Tom and Sherry Cardona. We've known them for 25 yrs. We didn't do anything special. Mostly sat around and told stories about things we've done together over the years. We did go to the Sunday meeting. Then on Tues. they were off to wine country and the coast of California below San Francisco. I don't even know if they are back in P.S. yet.
Next month will be a blur of activity. C.O. visit to start the month, 2 day Elder School for Michael mid month and our Special Assembly Day on the 28th. Sounds tiring but fun!
So that's 30 days condensed. Till next time!

A Visit, Etc.

Brooke and Michelle arrived last Sat. night. Brooke from Palm Springs and Michelle from Corpus Christi. Poor Michelle had a lay over of about 5 + hours in Denver but finally got here about 11:30 PM.
On Sunday we got the Chateau A Go Go up to Nevada Beach at Lake Tahoe for them. We were there parts of two days only. Too much stuff to do down in town last week.
I think they enjoyed their short time being at the Lake. The crowds are certainly gone now. They practically had the beach to themselves! Also discovered that on one end of the beach they allow dogs, so Kobe got to go!
I had work almost every day last week. Not that it's 8 hrs. a day or anything but 2 to 3 hrs. I don't think I could do 8 hrs. a day anyway! Last night we went to sleep at 10 pm and slept till 8 am.! We were exhausted. Getting old.
Looking forward to more service this week. And yesterday was a nice day in the territory. We need to get the mountain side territories covered before the snow flies!
Michael gives the public talk today. I just gave him a haircut so he'll look purty when he's up there!
Till next blog....

Convention and More Camping

We had a wonderful time in Sacramento for our District Convention! I would give the venue, hotels and surrounding neighborhoods a 9 out of 10 points. The only drawback was that all the seating was on one level so it was hard to see the stage. Oh, and by the way, our hotel was indeed only 3 blocks from the convention center. Super convenient!
Our favorite talk was given by someone in our very own Kingdom Hall on Family. It was a lot of people's favorite talk since almost all of us are dealing with the subject matter.
We were asked to work in First Aid this year. It's been a long time since we've been in this dept. Gone are the days of practically delivering babies, thank goodness! But we did have some interesting problems come through. We would just size up the situation and say bye-bye, off to the ER or home or wherever with you!
We had a 2 & 1/2 day camping excursion planned for the weekend after the convention. The weather dudes were telling us it wasn't going to be summery and it wasn't! Cold temps, wind, rain and possible snow in the mts. In Aug!! All but the last actually happened. Good thing we had Chateau A Go Go with us. Stayed inside a lot of the time with the heat on all day and night! We're going to have to get Kobe some little sweaters. He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him!
One last camping trip planned for Sept. 14th for 3 days. Actually Brooke planned it. She will be coming and meeting one of her friends from Texas here. Camping at Tahoe. Wonder if it will be snowing by then!
Would love to hear of your conventions and summer adventures!

Convention Coming Up!

Wow, here we are in the second week of August already and our district convention is coming right up! Before that there is an open house at the Adult Day Care where I work, the Pioneer School lunch is on Friday, there is still invitation work for the convention and an assessment to do in Carson City, bla, bla, bla.......but I'd rather be busy than just sitting around!
We have done a few things to our Chateux A Go Go lately. Ripped out the ancient carpet and put down stick on tiles. Now we will at least know what we are putting our feet onto! Also painted the walls in the tiny kitchen bright orange! Livens it up a bit.
Oh yes, our little doggie Kobe ran away yesterday and was probably out on some dangerous streets for a couple of hours! A very nice young lady and her mother stopped and coaxed him into their car so he wouldn't get run over and called us because our phone number is on his dog tag. They even brought him to us. Thanks again to the unknown ladies!
The weather has been so pleasant lately. Only in the low 80s and 40s at night. "They" say it's going to be 100 by the weekend though. Hope that's not accurate!
We found out that instead of our hotel in Sacramento being 3 or 4 blocks from the convention center, it's 10 blocks! We will check it out Thursday when we get there. How far is 10 blocks, a mile? We may or may not have the energy to do that walk morning and night for 3 days. :) Maybe there will be shuttles!
Hope everyone is well. I will write again probably after the convention.