First Port of Call - Rome, Italy

Rome was the first stop on our Mediterranean Cruise. We joined a group of 4 other couples for a private tour of Rome. The driver acted as our guide except for the times that he could not enter the different places but had to remain with the car. We rode in a mini-van: Peter and Charlene, Bill and Allie, Mark and Debbie, James and Martha, and Jim and I. The ruins of the Coliseum was the first big stop and at that moment there was a loud crash of thunder. From inside the coliseum the thunder reverberated and the building acted as a megaphone magnifying the thunder. During the time that we were there a heavy rainstorm caused us to need the umbrellas that we brought. We had about 30-45 minutes to walk around inside the ruins and take pictures.



After the Pantheon and the Trevey Fountain, our driver, Gilberto, took us to a typical family restaurant for lunch. We skipped the octopus and a few of the other odd looking dishes but we did enjoy most of the others that the owner/operator had on display. All in all it was very good!

The afternoon was spent touring The Vatican with our own guide who communicated with us via a headset that each of us wore and the microphone that she wore. Without her we would have been lost. But as it was we had a very good afternoon. A treasure of the world, The Vatican houses many statues, paintings, tapestries, and mosaics. The barrel-shaped ceilings of the exhibit halls is absolutely awe-inspiring and I was very glad that we had such a great guide for the tour.

My Grandmother

Yesterday I spent the day with my grandmother. I had gone over to her apartment to help her try to get her phone to ring (as opposed to just vibrating). But I even though I was able to figure out that it was in Silent Mode, I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the Silent Mode! So we decided to come over to my house. Maybe James will show up and help us figure it out. We stopped and picked up Taco Bueno for lunch and then came home to eat it.

Nannie particularly likes the dogs and thinks they are very smart. Of course, they are! And she was most impressed with them going and getting in their kennel whenever I said we had to go and that I wanted them to go get in their bed! They are always very much in favor of going to bed (because they get to have a treat!).

Next we drove over to Wyndell (my uncle, Nannie's youngest son)'s house to see if he could fix the phone. He couldn't do it either. After a short visit with Frieda (my aunt, Nannie's daughter-in-law, we left and stopped by the phone store to get it fixed and sure enough when I took it in the girl I asked just punched a couple of buttons and oila! it was fixed!

So then before I took her back to her home, we stopped in Minyards to get some table salt, and some biscuits that she needed to make the dressing that she's planning to bring to my house next week for Thanksgiving. She was able to really move quickly as long as she had the walker in front of her. As we checked out she managed to get them to try to guess how old she is and when they found out she was 105 they could not believe it! Of course then they have the usual question: "what have you done to keep yourself looking so good?"

Her answer is that she has worked hard all of her life. She enjoyed the attention that they gave her and then we left again and went back to her apartment. I thought she did pretty well considering that she wasn't really planning to leave for the day. Hopefully she didn't get too tired from all of that getting up and going out anf about.

I think that we may do it again sometime soon. We'll see!

Closer and closer...

This morning finds the actual day of our embarkation sneaking up on us and we have about a week and a half before it will be off to Barcelona where we will get on board the Norwegian Jade. There we will find our "mini-suite" that will be our home away from home for the next 3 weeks as we travel first to the Eastern Mediterranean and then to the Western Mediterranean (actually North western Africa (Morocco) and islands beyond that).

While I'm very excited about our trip the most important thing right now is that my mom is having out-patient surgery on Wednesday of this week. I will be her care giver or as I think of it her "watcher outer" and will be staying over at her house at least until the weekend and until she can move around better on her own. She will have the carcinoma that they found from the spot on her right leg (between her knee and her ankle) removed and a small skin graft will be made over it. So she will then be sent home with instructions to not move that leg and it will be in a splint in order to remind her of that!

I'm planning to take our dogs, Buffy and Willow over to her house with me because Jim will be in Washington, DC, during that time. Rather than make James be responsible for the dogs all that time we're gone plus this week and, because I know that Mother will enjoy the two of them sitting in her lap, etc., they are going with me. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday (just a check up to make sure my stimulators are doing what they should be and will be for the rest of the year while I'm off on the other side of the world).

My brother, Scott, lives with my mom, but works odd hours--from about 3:30 in the am until 2:00 or so in the afternoon. So he's really not a lot of help when it comes to her getting some help. My brother Clay will be there at the hospital too so he can help a little bit that day as much as he can because he, just as Scott does, has to go to work. So, it fell to the "retired" family member (that would be me) to be there the most.

That reminds me of my grandmother with whom I spent the day yesterday. But that's another story...:)

Keep us on your prayer list, please!

Just 26 days until we depart for the Mediterranean!

We are so excited! We got a call from the travel agency and they said that the cruise line was happy to offer us an upgrade free of charge! And so we accepted...of course! Instead of an inside stateroom on deck 5, we will be dwelling in a mini-suite with a balcony on deck 11! That's incredible!

We've never even been inside a room with a balcony so as you can imagine...we are looking forward to it! They had tried to upgrade us earlier last month but said they couldn't give us the same room for both cruises --our 21 day cruise is actually two cruises---the first is a 12 day trip to the eastern Mediterranean. Jim is probably most excited about this part of the trip...When we land in Alexandria, Egypt, we will be there for two days--so we'll be taking a private small group tour (12 couples) from there to Cairo with an overnight in a 4star hotel in Cairo. We can't wait to see those great pyramids and the sphinx!

And then at the end of the 12 days we go back to Barcelona but this time we head west and go to Morocco--Casablanca and Agdir, and then the Canary Islands, a Portuguese island and then to Malaga, Spain before the 9 days bring us back again to Barcelona--- and then we will spend two nights in Paris, France before coming home to Arlington!

We will arrive here on Dec. 23, hopefully ready as we can be for a very happy and merry Christmas!

Then Jim will still be on vacation when we get back---I think he'll have to be back at the office on about the 6th or 7th of January!

A New Vehicle for us!

Finally, something new and different! We picked up our new car (new to us- it does have 12,000 miles on it) but it is a nice one. We came home with a Cadillac SRX Crossover...as you can see from the pictures it is very similar to a station wagon...We drove it this weekend to Lake Elliott which is near Texarkana on the Red River Army Depot. Once we got there all we did was relax and play Bocce Ball, cards, and we ate three main meals there. Lynda, Cole, Dennis, and June went with us. It was a nice weekend.

Fire Alarms at 1 a.m. !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The very first night of our stay we were awakened at about 1:00 am to the sound of people running up and down the hallwayand slamming doors outside our room and what we finally recognized as the fire alarm. Jim said that when he first woke up he heard people yelling, "EVACUATE THE BUILDING!" Both of us finally threw on the first thing we could find---I put my t-shirt and pants on over my pajamas, stuck my feet into my shoes, grabbed my walking stick and my purse (although later on it didn't really have the right stuff in it!), and we walked quickly next door and banged on the Hardisons and the Parishes doors. Lynda and Cole came out but Dennis stuck his head out his door, said for us to go on and they'd catch up. We were not in the main building but in an "add-on" part, on the third floor, and so we headed for the stairwell...Once we got down to the bottom floor we first ended up in a kind of "boiler room" --- the exit door was padlocked! So we backtracked a little and went a different way. Eventually, we ended up in the inner courtyard where the pool was. From there we could see the lobby and the front door of the hotel. As we came out those doors we headed across the street and then toward the curb on the opposite side of the street where we sat down and waited. Probably in about ten minutes or so, Dennis and June finally caught up with us. Still no firemen though. After what seemed like forever, the fire trucks could be heard arriving and then the firefighters in their gear were streaming into the lobby of the hotel. There had been no smoke or fire but someone pointed out that it smelled like rubber burning near the elevator. It turned out that the elevator was the reason for the late night "fire drill." It served to remind us of those things that we all did not do when the actual time came to "evacuate." Jim and I both said that from now on we will make sure the stuff we need is together instead of spread all over the area, before we go to bede each night!

A Very Busy Day

Tomorrow will be a very busy day for me. Beginning at about 9:00 I have an appt. for a haircut. Then I need to run downtown to take care of a possible mixup with the ticket I got for running a red light back in April. I've taken Comedy Defensive Driving and sent in the certificate but after a 25 min. wait on the "busy" agents who must have been talking for a very long time with each person who called, I don't think they have my certificate. The deadline is Aug.4 and I finished my course on June 30. (Wish me luck!)

Then at 11:30 I am meeting two retired friends and one other friend who continues to teach for lunch at BRAVO in the Highlands. After lunch I have a doctor's appt. with the doctor who will be taking care of my colonoscopy. (this is the appt to schedule it...)

On Thursday morning I have an appt with the nurse practioner at my gp's office. She's checking my ears for me to see if we need to flush them out.

Then I need to get with Janet W. in order to let her use some of my storaoge type stuff for toting her scrapbooking supplies to Weatherford with us this weekend.

James is meeting with his store manager and one of the regional big bosses--he has been working all night to straighten the store up for the guy so I hope he's impressed!

I've also got to start packing up my stuff for this weekend. We'll be off to the Covered Bridge Inn in Weatherford ( actually not in weatherford but in the country to the south of Weatherford.

Can't believe it but don't have any great shots of Carolyn and her family from a couple of weeks ago when Marylee and I visited them...I'll close with those...You have better pics...send 'em my way! please, Marylee or Carolyn!

Last night we celebrated Patrick's birthday ( and my mom's birthday too, actually) . James was off work, so he came too, and we all had dinner at Mijo's. (Mijo's is a favorite place of ours that we used to eat at once and sometimes twice a week. But it had, believe it or not, been 4 weeks since we have eaten out!)

That's as a result of our new "diet" and exercise program that Jim and I are now involved in. We had fallen into the habit of almost always eating out and that had added a little more of the dreaded "belly fat" to each of us! But now we are eating much healthier and enjoying a better fit of our clothes, so that is terrific! The diet is the same one that we sort of followed back last year before we left on the first cruise (Western Caribbean). That was very successful for as long as we stuck to it but this time we have the added exercise plan that we did not have the first time. It includes "interval walking" every other day...and then a total body workout on the opposite days. We need to get with it though with the exercising...kind of not quite in the habit of doing that yet.

James is working hard at his job---training for assistant manager---still paying us back for the money we've loaned him and walking the straight path as far as we can tell.

Patrick is back after a week in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where he was the program coordinator (both curriculum and worship services with the senior high students each night) for their mission trip this summer. In a couple of weeks he'll be serving as the dean of the camp at Glen Lake for the senior high summer camp in Glen Rose. Other than that he's struggling with trying to stick to the 'part-time' schedule that he is paid on at the church. He really needs another job but he doesn't want to give up the church job and he really needs a degree to get one of the full time positions that are available every once in a while.

I'm really enjoying the scrapbooking hobby--too bad I don't get paid to do my own stuff...but I really enjoy it! Our friends the Parishes just returned from a trip to Colorado and the Hardisons will be returning from a Caribbean cruise on Sunday. Makes me wish I could go now too...but our next cruise will be after Jim finishes the job he's assigned to right now...He has already booked us for a TWENTY-ONE DAY Meditterranean Cruise embarking from Barcelona, Spain and stopping in Rome, Athens, Ephesus, Cairo, Malta, and back to Barcelona, then to Morocco, Canary Islands, Portugal, and Spain with two nights in Paris on the way back home....It is going to be so very exciting!

CTMH layouts continued

And these are the pages that you inspired me to put together, Carolyn!



This one makes me think of John Travolta for some reason or other! :o)

scrapbook layouts for CTMH

ok so do you remember this picture from a couple of months ago? This layout just seemed too pretty to put boys' pics so I decided to add some of the first pictures of me and pictures with my mom and dad and also my 105 year olod grandmother who is about 45 in this picture. Here is the finished product:

Just a few words and a bunch of pics

First word: frustrating -- that is the feeling I keep being filled with while we attempt to help James get his life back...



Second word: love -- the very feeling I keep coming back with, not only for James but for Jim and Patrick who I feel so proud of and so much love for both!



Third word: distress -- I really am concerned about Jim and his feelings about the loss of his mom. It could have been so much better if he and his brother were on better terms..(aside to that--how can I help my two sons maintain a healthy relationship with each other)



Change of subject: Here are those pictures that I've done most recently after we did the fi rst scrapbook using Close to my Heart materials and supplies...As you can see, I got started on some pages of pictures of my childhood and I really have enjoyed working with these pictures.

Having Fun Looking Through Old Pictures

Since I was looking for one particular picture to use on a layout about a birthday celebration five years ago, I have had the most fun for the last couple of days sorting through old pictures and trying to get them into boxes by their date taken (which sadly is missing on most- - let this be a lesson to everyone - - label your pictures!)

Today I read Carolyn's blog and that made me want to find another picture that I remembered...So, I even went over to mother's house to pull her old pics out and finally I found it and a lot more--that's it right up here..>>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^So, even though I didn't have any girls to take pictures of playing "dress up" I did find pics of me doing that very thing! I will enjoy putting these into scrapbook form...thanks for the idea, C!

Random Thoughts Re: our lives

Today is such a beautiful day with a temperature in the mid 70s at 6:00 pm. This kind of weather makes all of us wish for the warmer weather of spring time and the pear trees are already all covered with blooms! Our yard is sprouting several spots of dandelions (which I'm sure our neighbors are not thrilled with since our weeds tend to encroach on to their weedless and regularly sprayed yards!) I'm thinking about calling our yard guy and asking him to come and cut the yard, but I'm also wondering if I have him do that, will it cause the weeds to spread even more? What do you think?

I just spent the afternoon with my grandmother. Even though I'm retired I tend to just stay home most of the day unless I have something like lunch to go out for or the tutoring that I'm doing at my old school each week -- 2 half days and 1 full day. My grandmother fell over her walker one night two weeks ago and is recovering from that. She said today that she is very sore and thinks she broke a couple of ribs. Amazing, considering that she is 104 and will be 105 next month.

One more story about my grandmother...she is a democrat through and through and even though she had fallen two weeks ago and was very uncomfortable, she managed to GO TO THE POLLING PLACE (!) and vote last week! She told me that the people at the school where she went to vote were really hopping trying to make sure that she was ok once she got through the door. Bobby, her friend ala Driving Miss Daisy, is one of the most unbelieveable saint-like people. He takes care of her by taking her places like SAM"S and the doctor's appointments that she has occasionally. She insists that he drive her car, and he does similar things for others who live in the apartment (Sr. active living) complex where she lives alone. Ah, but , I digress..more about Bobby another time... back to the election ... I was sharing a joke that Patrick made with my grandmother = Last Tuesday night, Patrick and I met Jim at a restaurant and then Jim left in his car to go vote and Patrick and I came back to the house. At 7:00, Patrick and I walked over to the rec.center in the park that attaches to our neighborhood. The center had served as a polling place for 4 precincts and the place was very crowded. We were directed to the gym and found people standing around a person who served as a signpost by holding a paper with the precinct number on it. We found our number and stood with our group. I looked around and didn't see anyone that I knew! Usually I always see someone having lived here and taught in this area of town for over 26 years! But...no one! When I voiced that to Patrick he came back at me with a funny observation: "Well, Mom, all your friends are REPUBLICANS!" Ha! That must be true of the neighborhoods nearby for sure (even though when we left after staying an hour amid the confusion, I saw two friends from church and three friends who live next door...) but I can report that I was a part of TX history this year after that primary election. Jim has always teased my grandmother about being a democrat with three children who vote republican but I don't think that she realized that Jim and I lean to the left most of the time...so she was a little surprised at the funny from Patrick.

New Computer!

Friday afternoon when I got back home after meeting with some teacher friends at Starbucks Jim arrived at home just a few minutes before me. He said there was a surprise in the scrapbooking room for our anniversary. Much to my surprise, there were four big boxes sitting in the floor of the room: a new Compaq desktop computer, along with a new printer and an adapter to get that computer onto our home network so that I can check in to the internet.

We had talked a little bit earlier about getting this setup so that we could share the laptop (after we take it in to be fixed before it's warranty runs out...So, now I'm in the process of learning an updated version of the Windows Vista.

I set most of it up myself having more than a little bit of trouble with the wireless adapter to hook me up to the internet. Other than that, it was not a difficult thing to do and I was successfully making changes to the setup of the current programs.

I'm hoping to be able to use this c omputer to access the Heritage Makers site and making a few books . This week I should have lots of time to do that and Ihope to be able t0 finish some other projects. Jim is off to Minnesota and Iowa for the week. It will be a long week for both of us!

I'll add more to this tomorrow...

Latest News

This past week I think that I had a pretty successful doctor's visit ... I met with my new neurologist (remember that my Dr. Stewart retired--or at least he's trying to retire--seems like he still has a bunch of patients). But anyhow, I met with Dr. Thomas the week before and at the time she was so busy with patients, phone calls, and office stuff that she really didn't give me any help at all. Actually, I left her office that day worse off than I was when I got there. So a week later, her office was not nearly as crowded (just one other fellow DBSer who also was in the same boat that I was! ) Thus, she had a lot more time to devote to talking with me and getting to know me and the way that I react to programming. She told me that she and Dr. Stewart did not do things the same way. I told her that that was ok as long as I didn't go home in worse shape than I was at that moment!

She managed to get me back to the way I was before I went in there and maybe, just maybe, I'm a little bit better. It's difficult to tell...

My friends at school are in the process of choosing another new principal for next year. I most likely will not tutor again next year. The extra little bit of money is great but next year, I'm not sure exactly who will be there. One of my old team members is moving to Waco and the other two (who've been longer there than the 17 years that I was there are sure to retire as soon as they can...)

Right now I'm watching the OSCARS always one of my favorite things to do. I feel like it's much earlier than usual...It's still February!

More later...

New Movement Disorder Specialist

Well, my first appointment with my new MDS didn't go as well as I had hoped. Not that she (the doctor) wasn't very pleasant and seems to be very compassionate with her patients, She was all that and some more.

It was strange because after we talked a few minutes she took out her remote device that she uses to program the neurostimlators and after checking the side that controls my right side she was just getting to my left side when the phone rang and she had to go take the call. She was gone about ten minutes and then when she returned she said that the remote registered that I was already turned "off" when she tried to check it.. She even showed me the screen where it said zero voltage...

Anyway, then she "set it at a "low" setting and I began to have an obvious tremor. She suggested we should wait in the waiting room a few minutes and she would check me again. During that time I took my meds and Jim and I watched as the tremor became more and more prounounced on the left side.

When we had arrived earlier I was surprised to see that my friend, Lark, was there...she had the appointment right before mine. In all the waiting that we were doing we decided that Jim would go back to work since he had an appointment at 1 pm, and that Lark would drive me back by JIm's office when we finished getting me "tweaked." The plan was to go eat lunch and then return once more to check with the dr,. one more time. We did that and then she set the settings at the place where they were last set..(on July 31, 2007). We decided not to wait anymore (especially since Jim had parked my car on the street downtown and was feeding the meter until I could get back to it. ) Dr. Thomas told me to call if I needed to and I should return to her office next week if my settings were not right.

Well, now I'm waiting for her assistant to call me and put me on the schedule for next week. And the left side of me is shaking at the end of each dosage of medicine. Curling toes, too! and a little bit of numbness in my feet and arms.

So, even though we didn't exactly communicate the best I did like the new doctor--- (I can reember thinking at times that Dr. Stewart was not hearing me (figuratively not literally!) and that I couldn't figure out how to tell him what he needed to know Sometimes it 's difficult to come up with the words to describe how I feel .

I'll have to come up with something though --- this tremor bit is a lot too m

Prayer Requests...

As far as me and my family---continue to pray for James ( I haven't talked to him since Christmas Eve), for my grandmother that she continues to enjoy the quality of life that many never achieve, for my mom that she also continues the healing process (broken hip in November) and begins to get back to her old self, for Patrick that when he gets to the end of this semester he has done well at school and the job at Meadowbrook UMC will begin to grow ( He has decided , I think, to focus on the area of Christian Education)..., and for Jim, that he and the drama team are successful in their effort to entertain those who attend their presentation on FEB. 15-16. It is called MISSION: POSSIBLE. It has a stewardship theme, and for those who remember, is a sequel to the mystery dinner theatre that the drama team put on in 2004 called "MURDER, MAYHEM, AND MARSHMALLOW SALAD." I would appreciate any prayers for me and for my new neurologist who I will be meeting with in 3 weeks.

Squeaky Clean Cell Phone :o(

Probably shouldn't admit this but I just washed my cell phone! Somehow or other it got mixed up in the laundry and the next thing I knew I was picking it up from inside the washing machine! Now I'm in the market for a phone but at the moment it doesn't have to be immediately because we are the owners of one "extra" phone and it works when I pulled out my SiM card and moved it into the old RAZOR phone that Jim had lost and then replaced with an iphone, and then a few weeks later he found his old RAZOR phone. Patrick had dropped his and thought it was broken, so he was using Jim's old one that I now have because Patrick's phone works now! Did you follow that? I'm not sure I did! LOL

I'm actually hoping that my new clean one that still has water in it will dry out and begin working again! Keep your fingers crossed!

Scrapbooking Retreat

I returned Sunday evening from a terrific weekend spent with fellow scrapbookers. We were staying and working at the Covered Bridge Inn in Weatherford, Texas...a wonderful spot specifically set up for scrapbooking with 5' tables for each of 20 people who were there. That's an aerial view of the place to the right here. This weekend there was actually 21 of us...Six of them were there with me and my friend, Michelle had 3 with her. Luckily we were able to fill up Michelle's extra spots and go this past weekend. The picture to the right here is of the bedroom that Michelle and I both slept in...and bumped our heads too! OUCH! You can't walk standing up next to the heads of the beds!

The food was delicious as it has been in the past. My favorite this weekend was the Poppy Seed Chicken. The desserts are the very best thing of all! This is the dining hall.

This is the crop room. It is furnished with rolling chairs, a big screen tv, many sizzex machines and other goodies such as every kind of punch you can imagine. There are windows on both sides of this section of the retreat.

All of the bedrooms are upstairs. This is the huge sitting room available to guests and not pictured here is the massage room. ( I highly recommend it!)

As of right now, Pat is booked up for most of 2008 and even some of 2009. We are hoping to schedule a time to go next in August... (C.D. how about this time -- do you want to go this weekend? should be Aug. 1-3 cost remains at $180. but includes more of the traditional "make N takes, door prizes, etc. from the scrapbook store owner who is sponsoring that particular weekend... I've seen some of her stuff...it's nice! Deposit of $100 is due to get your name on the list.)

At the end of this are some of my group who went , as well as a picture of Michelle...(they were all first timers--my third visit and Michelle's 4th or 5th, I think!)

And last of all are the two stacks of supplies that I took with me...I packed well but it was still a lot of stuff to take with me! Next time, I plan to try for less.

Scrappin' Weekend Ahead

I am getting packed up and ready for a scrapbooking weekend at the Covered Bridge Inn in Weatherford. It is my favorite place to go with friends who also like to record and remember the past and the present by scrapbooking. The Inn is owned and operated by my friend Pat F. -- a fellow teacher retiree and church member.



Part of the reason that I enjoy it so much is the chance to see so many other people's ideas for their scrapbooks and the pages that they come up with. I have learned all I know about the "how-to" of scrapbooking from watching others chronicle their life in this way.



This weekend my plan is to begin putting together the book for the latest cruise that we took to the Southern Caribbean and if I tire of that and want to try something different I'm also taking the pictures and other memorabilia from our trip to California in 2001.

Losing a Friend

Today I found out that one of my favorite people among the Parkinson's Community died over the weekend. Ray Farkas was a super person as evidently many others felt that way too. His daughter posted a blogspot in his name and asked for contributions of "stories" that involved her dad and his career and life. I posted this:

I'm so sorry to hear the news about Ray! I, too, am one of the lucky people who have two holes drilled in my head along with all the other hardware necessary for the Deep Brain Stimulation. It was about six months after I had my brain surgery that I read something that Ray had written on the DBS group site on Yahoo. He was "singing" the praises of his surgeon, Chris Kalhorn, but he was also writing about his connections to his friend, Dr. Manjit Sanghera, a neuro-physicist in Dallas. When I realized that he was referring to one of the doctors who had been a part of the team who changed my life, I sent him an email telling him a little bit of my life as a PWP (Person with Parkinsons) and congratulating him on his successful surgery.

How exciting to get a phone call from him later on inviting me to be interviewed for part of his new film, “It Ain’t Television, It’s Brain Surgery.” Such a unique man and he was just as you’ve all described…easily making all of us feel at ease while he sort of “primed the pump” and got us talking about our life since our surgeries. I must be on camera for less than 60 seconds but Ray always made me feel like an important contributor to the film.

The next summer I was in Washington, DC, with my husband and Ray came to the hotel where we were staying to meet my husband and visit for a short while. When he came bounding in with a huge smile on his face and a large box in hand, he loudly greeted us and said, “Here’s something for you and your first grade students! “ It was a game similar to the old game of OPERATION but this game was called BRAIN SURGEON. It’s a game for small children with a rather silly looking character that speaks electronically. He pushed on the lighted red nose of the clown and it began yelling out “encouragements" and “gently ribbing” the players of the game. I loved it! I think Ray said he had two games like it (given to him by clever friends) and so he thought I would enjoy sharing it with my kids at school. He was right and that game was a big favorite for the next three years in my classroom on rainy or cold days. I retired from teaching last year with 25 years behind me--the last four years possible only because I can proudly claim to be “a DBSer.” That wheelchair that I was often teaching from, pre-DBS, was rolled into the attic and I haven’t needed it since that life-changing operation. I’m happy to be a member of the hole-in-the-head gang and enjoy singing the praises of my doctors ,just as Ray enjoyed sharing his experiences with prospective patients and others who just can’t seem to get past that idea of having a couple of holes drilled in their head.

I enjoyed Ray’s sense of humor and his love of life. I hope that I can be a great “encourager” and “demonstrator” for other PWP just as Ray was to so many people. I will always remember Ray’s enthusiasm and his positive attitude. I was blessed by my encounters with Ray. May I be for others what Ray was for many…a positive, enthusiastic well wisher!

Now that I think about it, it probably seems a little bit unusual to be able to refer to someone as a friend that I've only actually seen and talked with about 4 times but that's just the way Ray was...he made you feel as if you were HIS friend and he was...you can read more about him and even look at some of his films online at http://www.offcentertv.com

To all old friends...thanks for being there when you are needed!

New Chairs!

Today we went shopping for two new chairs that Jim wanted to add to the living room set up that we now have. He has put his recliner out in the garage (and it looks like it will go home with Patrick). We ended up after we left the first store with a new area rug (8' x 10') to "define the seating area" as quoted by Jim. I think he's most likely been watching too much HG stuff on TV.

The store that we went to was in Irving (north of DFW airport). The name of it is THE DUMP. They are only open on Friday-Sunday and today was extra crowded because they were having a clearance sale. EVERYTHING MUST GO!
We couldn't find any matching chairs there so we grabbed the rug and paid for it (that was the major problem there ...we must have stood in line for an hour--and we were at the head of the line !)

Lunch at Schlotsky's and we stopped at Stacy's in Grapevine. You know the place where "if you're not shopping at Stacy's then you're burning money!" Nice store--we narrowed our choice down to three different recliners (smaller than the humongous version that I was expecting). Then we compared to the rug that we had out in the car and actually found one in the store--taking pictures and running across the store to compare to the chairs...Jim was reluctant to give up his first choice but it really didn't go with the rug. Our mind was made up by the salesman when he looked up the list from the warehouse and told us that they didn't have one of the chairs but they did have two of the other one. So, that's the one we have and tomorrow Patrick's truck will be put to use driving out to Grapevine and picking up the two chairs.

Remember the rug pictured above and just imagine Jim's favorite chair on it...ready? Here's the chair:

The colors match but the patterns are much too busy! He agreed that it was too much and so here is the picture of the chairs we are picking up tomorrow...