HI AGAIN

Back on the grid, friends! Had a wonderful summer. The fiber-optic cable that we were promised 2 years ago made it up to our house, but we can’t get it activated til next spring. It will be SO nice to be able to have the internet!! We still won’t be able to use our phones because we may only get 1 bar if we’re lucky, but we WILL be on-line and we’re happy about that.

We went to my sister and brother in law’s anniversary party in Iowa, and my niece’s wedding in Frazee, MN. Also had a wedding up here at our chapel. Went back to Sioux Falls after the Frazee wedding for a doctor’s appointment and had to end up staying a whole week. 

My doc recommended trying an increase in my daily chemo and the side effects have increased. Much more muscle and joint pain and imbalance. We’ll see if the increase  is doing anything after the next scans.  I celebrated my 8 year anniversary of my diagnosis in August and I am so grateful to God for the extended years of life.

The biggest loss for me this summer was not blueberry picking. Dick took me once and we quickly realized that I am too crippled to do it alone. Every time I needed to move to a new patch, I had to call Dick away from his patch and have him lift me up and move me to a new patch. I quickly deduced that I was more of a hindrance to the effort than a help. So Dick became picker extraordinaire and spent many hours in the hot sun securing our lot for the year. Coming home with fish fillets and blueberries always feels good.

I spent the lion’s share of my summer reading novels and more novels and a half-dozen non-fiction books. I bet I read upwards of 30-35 books. Dick laughs at me because when I would run out of books, and knew I couldn’t drive to town to the library for a day, my reading addiction becomes obvious. I pace, I get anxious, I feel a physical NEED for a book. My dad’s genes…..only more potent!

I did plant my very first flower garden in the brick bed I made last summer with Dick’s help. I know NOTHING about gardening, but it turned out to be lovely array of purple fountain grass and polka-dot plants. I nearly cried when I had to pull each one out a few days before we left.

Sam came up on 3 weekends. His schedule is so packed, he doesn’t have the time to come home to “Sam’s Place” (a sign an older friend made for our house when he was born) very often. But every time was great fun, with laughter and closeness.

Dick worked nearly 6-8 hours per day with some sort of maintenance project or another. He made me some beautiful cedar shutters for all the cabin windows which we will install next spring. I can’t even begin to count the dead trees in the woods which he chopped up and hauled off.

I am trying to figure out how to get my pictures downloaded. Somehow GMAIL changed everything over the summer about receiving pictures. It used to be so easy. Dick will help me and I'll post them tomorrow.