Starting a new year.

I checked on New Year’s Day morning and found 2 1/2 inches in our rain guage.  We tried to rest  and slept late.  We didn’t have our traditional corned beef and cabbage meal.  The temperature was higher but the wind had increased making it colder than yesterday in the rain.  Of course it was football day with the TV loaded with college bowl games.  Evelyn was vey patient in watching nearly 3 games.  The sad thing for  her was that we were not up for the Rose Parade she had wanted to participate in.  We just saw the finish.  As a concession, I watched part of a movie with her in the evening.  We watched the first half of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.  We just couldn’t focus in the film because we were tired.

Thursday I went to talk with Wayne Wilken about replacing me 3 more times during this season.  He was playing volleyball at the next park, but his wife took the dates and thought they would be acceptable.  We also wanted to send grapefruit to Emily, so we picked 22 pounds from a neighbor’s tree and packed them to mail.  Evelyn also went to Immanuel to check on a method to show pictures from our computer onto a large movie screen.  We had thought we would need to put them onto a flash drive, but the pastor assured her he could do it on the day before her presenting the program for the Mary/Martha January meeting on the 23rd.  We had lunch and then I took her to therapy in downtown Weslaco.  While she was being treated, I drove to Progreso, TX to mail the grapefruit to Utah.  The price was $28.20.  We hope it doesn’t freeze anywhere on the route.  I came home and vacuumed the car before toing back to get Evelyn.  I thought she would want to eat out, but she wanted to go home to eat some of the jambalaya she had made.  It was delicious.  We watched some more football during the evening and went to bed early. 

Friday usually takes us to a nursing home with the kitchen band.  The residents of this one were mostly Hispanic, so I have the job of singing a very popular song with Hispanics.  It is Cieleto Lindo, a song most gringos know too.  I don’t do it very well but it is appreciated.  From there we come home for lunch and then go to the hospital to volunteer.  We were busier than we anticipated but had fun.  Evelyn’s department was closed, so she worked with us some and then went to work on Human Resources.  We were finished by 5 and came home to repeat the jambalaya.  The Beelis had mailed us a box full of homemade candy and pictures.  It was fun to open it in front of them using SKYPE.  They are certainly fun to talk to and very creative.  We thank God for them.   It was still good.  We finished the Button movie and enjoyed it greatly.  It is the story of a man who was born in the condition of a 90 year old and gets younger instead of older during the film.  The makeup was unbelievable.  We retired early but had bad nights.  Evelyn couldn’t sleep until after 2:30 and I wakened at 4:45. 

I just went to work practicing Sunday’s service while Evelyn slept.  I feel fairly good about the message because I had tried it out on Evelyn for the first time in quite a while.  I let Evelyn sleep until she wakened around 11.  We had lunch and then both struggled to stay awake until time to go to a farewell party for a good friend from Immanuel Lutheran.  She will move to Napa Valley, CA to live with her daughter.  We stopped at  Bonny for a short visit, making plans to have dinner with them tomorrow evening.  We went to the Wal Mart grocery for some supplies and came home.  We had a pizza from our freezer for supper.  I had been fighting sleep most of the afternoon but wanted to see some of the Saints playoff game.  I went to bed shortly after 8, hoping to make it trough the night.