It is Jehovah's love that will get us through what we must endure.  Today the love others have shown us is fresh in my mind.  It is comforting to reflect on that love.

So Bill and EO stayed home yesterday after all.  Carol & Deenie were doing well enough that they said they wouldn't need them, and for them to get some rest.  EO still spent some time just visiting with Bill, but EO also made time to just rest.  He also did a little bit of tinkering in the garage. He has been working on isolating his workshop and so he finished that up, it took him like an hour to do.  He said it has been bugging him to not have it done so now he is happy with it.  His next project is to add onto the barn so that he can put the boat in it and then we can have three cars in the garage.  Plus, at some point i think he is going to try and put an awning/roof off the north side of the garage, so a fourth car can be under it.  It will have the one garage wall to protect it from south and southwest storms and the thick woods to protect it from the north side.  I have no idea when that will get done.  but to get the third car in the garage he wants that done before winter.

I haven't heard anything about how Carol is doing today.  EO & Bill left a couple hours ago.  Plus I also don't know if they will move her to the Villa today or not.  But when I do, I will be sure to post an update.

We are trying to do some more cleaning here.   But, it always seems to fall onto me to decide what we should get rid of and what to keep, and being I am so sick all the time, it just never gets done.  Plus, you  have to try and nail down everyone's feet to get them to do all the physical work.  So I told Colton what I wanted down with the living room and in a couple weeks he will get that done.  I just have a couple knickknacks I need to move, but he is going to do the rest.  

Yesterday I dragged out 4 huge bags of blankets/comforters.  Mostly they belong to the girls, just a couple of them were ours.  My plan with a couple of the blankets was to recover them.  But... it is just too much work for me to do that anymore.  I have recovered blankets for so many years, so it is hard for me to just toss them, unless they are really nasty.  Well anyways, I pulled them all out of my room... yeah, they were all over in my room and closet.  Anyways, the girls looked them over and said they didn't want them. ..... ok, so I am so glad we have made the kids by their own bedding for years, because they have it for a year or so and then they don't want it anymore... bedding is costly.  Thus the reason I recover comforters.  OK< so... there is one satin purple and another one that is satin light blue comforters that are so pretty and in really good condition, but everything else has some sort of flaw.  We thought about selling them, but again that is too much work.  EO is going to take a couple of the blankets up to Jeff's hunting shack (not the satin ones though.... lol.... satin in a hunting shack...to funny!).  Another reason I hung on to them is because when we have had people stay the night, there is always plenty of blankets to go around.  But we don't do that so much anymore and we don't have a sofa sleeper anymore, so we might as well get rid of them.  The mound is over four feet high and three feet wide.  Crazy!  

WE have boxes of stuff we never look at or never use.  Boxes of stuff we I have no idea what is in them because it has been so many years since we packed it all away.   So my goal is, to get rid of pretty much EVERYTHING by May 13th.  One day at a time, I plan to throw at least one thing away (if not more).  The reason I picked May 13th is because that is our 25th wedding anniversary, and it is a gift i am giving myself.   Speaking of gifts, I have decided what I want to get EO.  I have worked it out with the kids as it will take a group effort to accomplish it.  It will also be a gradual gift.  He will get some of it in a few weeks and then a little more this winter, and it should be complete by May (if not sooner).  And it isn't the house cleaning, even though he will love that too.  Earlier this year I talked to Lauren about a gift I wanted to give EO which was a anniversary party and for him to not have to do any work but just attend.  I would have loved it to be a surprise party, but I wasn't sure we could pull  that off.  But anyways, I've changed my mind and am going with something that he will feel like a king of his castle.  (at least I hope he does, well if not a king, he will enjoy it anyways).

Funny thing, my whole life I have attended so many 25th anniversary parties, most of them have been dances, and I always looked forward to my own.  All these years we have been married and I have thought of having the kids help us with ours.  Maybe being a surprise party.  But now that the time is here... I don't want it anymore.  How I can dream about it as a kid, how I can look forward to it for so many years, and want it so so so much, and now, Not?  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but recent events have changed me.  it just isn't important to me anymore.  Now that Carol is having to fight cancer, it has just caused me to have these constant flashbacks of loosing my dad and I feel like I am reliving it again.  

I am even afraid to touch Carol to give her a hug because of how the slightest bump hurt my dad so badly.  I was a scrawny 11 year old, trying to push my dad in his wheel chair and turn the tight corners down the hall and into his bedroom.  it was sooooo hard, and when I would bump the wall, he would moan.  With my being so sick and when my bed gets bumped ... I understand what that jarring pain is like.  and how it just runs through you.  So, it makes me afraid that I am going to hurt Carol.  So I often ask the kids or EO or someone else to hug her for me.  

It is all on my mind today... really bad.  The doc gave my dad 6 months and my dad didn't live 3.  He had lymphoma and sarcoma, the cancer was throughout his whole body, not just the football size tumor under his arm, but throughout his whole lymph system and even in his lungs and other organs.  Each week I would would see him deteriorate.  I would stay home from school to take care of him every Friday because my mom and brother would go to work that day.  When my parents cleaned for the phone company, my dad would take a nap right after the meeting Thursday and then would go to work around 1 or 2am on Friday and get home around 1 or 2 am on Saturday.  While he could still work, sometimes I would go or sometimes my brother would go with him to help him.  Then when he couldn't work anymore, my mom and brother would go and I would stay home and take care of my dad. 

A sister in our hall would cook a hot dish and give it to us Thursday night, and then I would heat it up and serve it to my dad for lunch and dinner.  I would make him toast or cereal or something like that for breakfast.  That sister was a life saver and although my dad and mom really appreciated it,  I didn't realize until I was older what a remarkable blessing she was.  Only in Jehovah's org do we see people showing such love for others.  She knew our situation and how I would be the only one there to care for my dad and her loving kindness will never be forgotten.  If my mom couldn't go to the meeting there was a brother and sister who would pick my brother and I up for the meetings.  Their love and kindness to go out of their way for us... had such a huge impact on my brother and me.  Rob became really close to that brother.  Sometime after my dad died,  the brother had a heart attack and Rob had to take him to the hospital, where the brother died... Rob was never the same after that.

So yeah, I am reliving my past as if it just happened.  I have been trying not to dwell on it, but it just keeps coming up and choking me.  So I thought maybe if I write about it, it might help.