Giving Thanks

Wow!  Time passes when I'm not watching.  I thought that once Neal was up and about I would have more time to blog and "get organized."  Obviously that didn't work.  What I have been doing is taking care of all the errands that were postponed while we were so effectively homebound.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The ambulance took us to the medical appointment as planned but the surgeon wasn't there!  Right - make an appointment and then leave town.  Ah well.  The director of the Cherry Hill Wound Center was there and she has known us for 5 years so she removed the staples and gave some instructions about dealing with the tiny little spot of the skin graft that had not healed.  Neal decided that the best thing to do was put himself back on bedrest for another week - and it worked!  Everything healed as it should. 

We did have one more trip back to the hospital for the removal of the central IV line but that was easy - drive to hospital, park the van, check in at admissions, take paperwork to right location, have line removed, thank everyone and return home.

Since then we have sent the bed back to the rental company, said goodbye to the last of the home nurses and learned how to live our lives again.  After 11 months of Neal sleeping in a hospital bed in the family room, it was a little strange to share a room again.  (I need to quit saying "my bed" and "my bedroom" don't I?)

Neal has a Kindle now and enjoys reading books on it, plus he likes having the scriptures and lesson manual with him at church. 

I renewed my driver's license and now have an Enhanced license.  I think I liked the last photo better - I looked younger back then.

We bought carpet for the family room.  Again.  When we bought this house there was Berber carpeting in the family room.  Nothing was really wrong with it but we wanted something different so we picked out a nice long twist that felt good on bare feet.  Six weeks later Neal became a paraplegic and that lovely new carpet was just not compatible with a wheelchair, not to mention how the light color shows wheel marks. So we have purchased something that is shorter and darker and hopefully will show less wear.  It has arrived and is scheduled to be installed right after Thanksgiving.

A friend commented last week that there were only so many days until Christmas and I realized that I'd better get busy.  Last year all I could do was buy a few gift cards at the nearest location and call it good, so this year I want to do something a little more personal for my family.  I still don't like shopping in stores, but Amazon is my friend and I'm almost finished with shopping!  Even better, there are only two more gifts that need to arrive before I can wrap and ship everything! 

We've been teaching the Temple Preparation classes for the stake and just finished another series.  Plus it's almost the end of the year so I am trying to finish posting the 2011 stake calendar but I think the recent Worldwide Leadership Training will have an impact on some of the scheduled events.  I'm waiting on a final copy of the calendar before I can make those changes.

This year Thanksgiving dinner will be at our home, so I have lists for the menu and shopping and countdown and who is coming and on and on.  This is the first Thanksgiving since we were married (2000) that we will host the family Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm excited about it.  I worried about the possibility of a grocery store strike so we have already bought all the food for the dinner, just in case.  Now I have one tiny concern...recently my oven has developed a strange quirk and the controls suddenly lock up for no reason.  Since it is electronic I treat it like a giant computer, flip the circuit breaker and it seems to go back to normal.  But I have this image of that happening as the turkey is in the oven, that the circuit breaker trick won't work and all the family are on their way to our home. Aack!!   But if I didn't have something to worry about it just wouldn't be the same, right?