Saturday January 15th

 TERRY

I would say Terry is the same today.  As I write she is awake and reading the paper.  She has had coughing the last day or so and that concerns me so we will see how that is today.  Anyway here we are at the third Saturday of the month and of the year.  

So I need to change some things.  I desire to lose weight so starting January 1st that was my goal.  Here we are two weeks into January and I have lost all of 2 pounds.  I happened to look at myself sideways in the mirror and I almost wanted to go hide!!!  So starting today it is a new dawn and a new commitment to a better healthy life style and body!  We will see how I do.  One would think that a guy who is going to be 75 before the end of the month would be able to plan out a path and stick to it, right???  Well I am going to keep people up dated daily so maybe that will help be stick to the plan.  We will see what tomorrow brings!

I had one of the most fun days on the tennis courts yesterday that I have had in a long long time.  The fact that Karl and I won the first set 7-5 really had nothing or very little to do with it.  We switched partners for the second set and I think we were down maybe 3-4 when time ran out.  BUT the play was even, it was actually good tennis and the sportsmanship was excellent.  I would say one of the things that made it fun was the 4 players were kind of even in skills at least yesterday.  I have not been playing on the weekend so will see what Monday brings.

Our neighbors with whom we share a wall moved yesterday so we have new people.  The people who moved are in something like their 4th or 5th place in the last 10 years or so.  I think they are now in a high-rise.  When I say high-rise I am talking about a building that is maybe 12-18 stories high.  I do not know what level they are on but I am sure the place is somewhat pricey compared to where we live.  Prices on home down here have gone crazy but a guess is prices at a high-rise may vary from 700-1.5 or so.  Of course the higher you go the more $$ you spend.  I do not know what level they moved to.  They are not far from here maybe 2-4 miles I think.  

As I ventured out to get the papers this morning I thought to myself "it is kind of cool".  I looked at my phone before I starting writing and it is 52 here.  I then glanced at St. Paul and there it is 2 so I will not complain!  Of the many places I have on my weather app the coldest is Cayuga at -14, yikes!  I see even Judi and John are a bit cool at 56.

I have nothing planned for the day except Terry really wanted something good to eat.  For some reason she gets tired of sandwiches!!!  Well her suggestion or request should I say was mashed potatoes with Swedish meatballs.  So that is what it will be.  I will do my best.  The meatballs are kind of fancy with as they are made with bread crumbs etc etc.  I thought about buying bread crumbs but of course that seemed too easy and Terry never would do that!  So I bought bread and Terry says I should break it into pieces and then use the blender to crumble it.  That should kind of easy so I will see later today.  I will do my best but as one could guess my best is pale compared to Terry's norm.  I should add that with Terry bed bound my best will have to do!

I have this desire to make lefse but I do not know if I dare try.  To this day I remember helping Mom make it and it seemed like often she would get half through and then she would start having trouble with the dough sticking SO maybe I will just live with my desire but practice NO action!

I have not been feeling very good the last few days.  It seems like I am tired a lot but IF I lie down to take a nap sleep seems to be elusive at best.  I do usually get up twice a night to cover Terry as she seems to have a fight with her covers every night.  I should add IF it is a fight she loses as the covers are often on the floor.

I now interrupt my blog to let everyone know that it is already 7:45 AM and I have NOT cheated on my eating plan for the day---way to go Carmen!!!

A drawing from my book.  This is pretty much what our cook stove looked like.  It went the way of the junk pile when Dad decided he needed a darkroom so in came the small propane stove and out went the cook stove.  Some memories that go along with the cook stove are:

• bringing in old wood or corncobs to burn.  We used an old pail like this:

• Dave and I would often fry sliced potatoes on the stove as we played ping pong on the kitchen table.
• It was on that stove that we had to heat up water to do dishes.
• In the fall Dad would sometimes give us $.05 for a pail of corncobs and that gave us money for the fall church festival.
• Mom would always get up before us in the winter time so by the time we came downstairs which was COLD there would be a nice fire in the stove making the kitchen cozy.
• To this day I can remember Dad taking out the stove for his darkroom.  I think Mom was kind of happy but not sure.  The dark room did nothing to make our kitchen better--in my opinion.

Then there was my friend Larry.  I am guessing I would ask Mom and Dad several times a year if Larry could come and stay overnight.  I think it happened maybe once a year.  Here it looks like it is my 12th birthday and as you can see on Dad's face Mom had made fried chicken which was ALWAYS the best!  To this day I call Larry maybe once a month or so.  He lives in Havre MT with his arsenal of firearms!!!  We spent our time together from 4th grade, when we started going to Cayuga school, to the middle of our junior year of college.  We roomed together on the third floor of Reed Hall at NDSU in 65-66.  Then we rented a basement place right across the street from the campus in 66-67 and then in the fall of 67 we lived with some others in a house.  I then transferred to Minot for winter quarter as Gail and I married after my junior year.  Some of the fun times involved when Larry and I both had motorcycles.  He a Honda 350 and I my Harley 250.  Fun days and fun to remember also.  In grade school Larry and I turned out to kind of the normal ones.  Let me explain.  We had several boys in our class who were not your outstanding students if you get my drift!  I should add that several of them did NOT have the home life that some of us had.  Anyway back to the picture.  I love Dad's look and you can tell Mom is enjoying family liking her cooking.  I should add that during the time I lived at home I do not think we ever had bread from the store as it was always homemade and delicious.

Here it is 8:15 and time to sign off for the day.  My FP is almost gone and that is usually a sign to end.  AND it was delicious as usual.  I will end by saying that now at 8:15 AM I have been up for 2 1/2 hours and still on my eating plan for the day!!!!!