Many plans for the future

In the past week I have seen Purdue play both poorly and adequately.  It was supposed to be a total wipe out when they played Notre Dame, but they were still in the game right to the end.  I read Scripture at church once and Evelyn assisted with Holy Communion twice.  We have had 2 Sunday hand and foot with our usual partners from the neighborhood group.  The men play as partners and have beaten the women every time we have played.  And not by just a small margin.  We don’t even count the points on the final round.  Of course the entire game depends on who gets the cards.  There is little skill.  I have played golf twice but can’t seem to get much better.  Gary and I have played only 2 courses and can’t master either.  I have also assumed the presidency of our Cypress Meadows Homeowners association.  Gary has decided to retire, and no one else will do the job.  I would have done it long ago were it not for our being gone all winter.  I guess no one cares now.  We continue to sing in the choir and have got a new member.  He is a retired pastor from Florida.  We went with them to the Herren House for brunch one Sunday and got to know him and Deborah a bit more.  She was from Indiana, so we had something in common.  We plan to have them come for crawfish etouffee tomorrow evening and will deepen our knowledge of them.  We also attended a dinner for volunteers who worked for the Folkmoot USA event here in town.  We have volunteered for more than 5 years and usually enjoy it.  It is something very prestigious for this area of Western North Carolina.  We have made friends with many locals through our volunteering.  We have also done the usual amount of over shopping, especially for groceries.  In our defense we have needed them because of the aforementioned dinner and the football party last Saturday.  We invited 4 couples and had to use many of our groceries in making chili for the party.  We ate at 6 and visited until the game began at 7:30.  We always ask the guests to bring nothing, and they always bring something anyway.  One of the ladies brought a fantastic dessert to go with the apple turnovers Evelyn made.  She and I spent a lot of time in preparation of this meal and the meal we will have Tuesday.  I have also spent a great deal of time planning our trip to Texas from Xenia, Ohio where our grandson, Noah, will be wed in November.  We had planned to meet some friends at the Wurstfest in New Braunfels, Texas as we have for years, but no one is able to meet us.  Therefore, we decided to go straight to the Valley.  That meant I had to change all of the advanced motel reservations I had spent many hours reserving.  It takes a long time for this process because I try to stay in places less than 350 miles apart, so we don’t have to drive so hard.  We will stay in Lafayette again where we can dance.  We have also spent much time in slowly packing for our cruise coming up a week from tomorrow.  We are experimenting with rolling our clothes to prevent some of the wrinkles.  We will not pack many dress clothes and plan to wear casual clothes most of the time.  I have not booked any shore excursions but may not.  We have taken a very similar cruise in the past and won’t have to book many things that will be new to us.  I prefer to just go ashore and knock around.

A quick week with good news.

Our week has been normal except for Evelyn’s contracting a cold.  We did have some good news from 2 doctors: the dermatologist said we have basically cancer free skin and the urologist gave us hope that Evelyn’s thyroid is still pretty normal.  We praise God for that news.  Now we are still fighting the cold.  She spent most of Thursday after leading her final Bible study for the summer.  She was also the hostess but got through the morning while I played golf with my neighbor Gary.  Evelyn spent most of the day in bed Friday until we picked up Gary and Linda to go to Vincenzo’s restaurant in Asheville for dinner.  I had a coupon for $50 off our meal, but we had to spend $100.  We really enjoyed the meal and the music played by a friend from our ballroom dances.  Another event of the week was a non event.  Everywhere around us has had great rainfalls.  We have had virtually none in the past week.  We also had a relaxing Saturday and I watched Purdue get whipped by Central Michigan.  Sadly we are scheduled to host 8 people next Saturday when Notre Dame will crush them.  I hope everyone has a good time eating the chili and drinking the beer.  I did learn that the golf course I often played in Texas has closed for good.  It was the course we liked a lot because we could walk it.  I may have to give up golf—something I should probably have done several years ago.  God is good, all the time.