SUMMER SUMMARY

OK. I am back in business, home (why do the spiders think they can take over a home and make webs everywhere as soon as they realize you are gone?) to a house that needs a huge amount of attention. We have 31 things on our to do list. Truly. Yesterday felt so good...we got rid of some old 45-year-old furniture in tatters and took it to the dump. We moved Dick's desk  (well, not me but our wonderful friend and Richie's colleague Brandon) from the den upstairs to downstairs and now Richie is starting to organize a man cave. He has tons of books and stuff from his office that was just heaped down there when we left. A guy came to hook up cable TV in there and we have Dad's "pheasant" Lazy-Boy for him. There is a bed if he want to nap and cozy carpet and once he is organized, I think it will be a room he loves. Am buying him a laptop today as a retirement gift so he even has his own computer. 

My brain cancer is eroding! Praise God! Of the original 16 tumors last year,there have been only 5 as of spring left. Those 5 they have been watching. And yesterday, 2 of those were unchanged, 2 were slightly smaller, and the 5th, they couldn't find!! I am so grateful for this gift. I will have another lung scan in 3 more months and see what those are doing. The last report said "stable." I will take that again!!

The summer? Cool. Used the heaters every morning because the cabin was so cool. I was in the lake once. I wore shorts 3 times. We have had very hot summers in the past but not this one....will go down as the coolest (maybe 70 by afternoon) and rainiest we remember. I read maybe 25-30 books! The upside of cool and rainy days!!

We had 2 reunions, 2 weddings, a Twins game, a baby shower for my sweet niece Betsy, my brother's bluegrass June gig which we went into Duluth to see, etc. We were on the go. 
We took a field trip one morning that we have wanted to take for years. We found "The Lost 40" and walked the trails through it. It is 40 acres of virgin pine (some so tall you can hardly crank your neck back far enough to see the tops). It remains virgin timber because it was platted incorrectly when they did logging in that area decades ago. It is now a protected piece of land.

Here are a couple pics from the summer.  We don't take many any more. When Sam stopped living at the cabin with us in the summers, we don't have the camera out much! We did not capture any pics of our mama deer and her twin fawns, but they walked by the front windows a few times. We saw plenty of herons and loons and often, an eagle.

Dick in the LOST FORTY

Mornings on the lake were so quiet

Me in the LOST FORTY

Dick and Sam built this cool new fire pit near the shore.

A snapping turtle crossing the road

My brother Mike's amazing bluegrass band, ROADKILL BOYS. Mike is in the Coke shirt.

My physical strength is still poor from the steroids eroding my muscles. I can't bend or pick up anything or get a pair of pants on or squat without a lot of pain and having to hold onto something. My balance is bad because the radiation affected my inner ear. I have some vertigo. I need to get a hearing aid now because of the inner ear issue. That does not make me happy. I feel like I am 80 years old some days. Nothing can be done about the vitreous detachments in my eyes. I long for clear vision again. 

That said, I have been granted LIFE right now and I will live with these deficits until such a time as God chooses to heal any of them. My husband stands in the gap for me about anything I cannot do. Anything I struggle with, he just picks up the slack. He is a blessing.

Sam has a new part-time job that I pray with grow to "big and prominent" one day soon. It is a long-story God thing how it was thrown in his lap. He and former NFL Quarterback Sage Rosenfels do a 20-25 minute podcast on the new website LOCKED-ON (Sam does it solo on Tuesday and Thursday). They talk Vikings. Angles, predictions, after-game breakdowns, inside scoop from Norm Zimmer that Sam gets at press conferences, etc. It is good stuff. Their  "listenership" is growing daily and they need those growing numbers to continue.

These duos have been formed all over the league for every team for the NBA and the NFL. He is in some astute company. Paul Allen, the "voice of the Vikings," was asked first and he declined so Sam was asked!

If any of you are Vikings fans, you will enjoy it. Check it out! The podcasts are at

 https://audioboom.com/channel/locked-on-vikings

There is a summary of that day's topics under each podcast. Even if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, your going to that podcast and clicking on it counts toward their numbers. If you check it out, thank you!


Happy autumn!!