Could be an expensive week!!

We'll wait and see when the bills arrive. Tuesday evening I started the dishwasher and came downstairs to start a post. Suddenly there was a funny noise from the furnace room, kind of a low toned click. Water was dripping onto a box...thank goodness that box was there so I could hear it. There were other dripping spots and one that was a steady stream. Turn the washer off and grab the towels. There was no water on the kitchen floor so it was all under the machine. A plumber found the leak and ordered the part..probably not here until later next week. Time for a good case of dish pan hands. Tonight I noticed that the wood flooring near the washer is raised! In September we had so many bad wind storms with downed branches and one weekend Gregg did a lot of trimming branches. All of that stuff was in a huge pile in the back yard. All those branches still had all their leaves so it was a real mess. With all the rain I wasn't getting out to finish the job. The past week the sun has been shining and it's been so nice to be outside. I started to trim off all the smaller branches into 12" pieces to get into the yard trash barrel..we have that service until the the end of the month. I spent 3 days doing this and had one branch left when wham-o I was on the ground. It was a branch too big to cut so was trying to bend and break it. Yup, there was enough pressure to break it but I wasn't prepared for the wallop when it did. My right shoulder slammed into a nearby tree, then my head whipped back and hit the tree. My hearing aid broke...the battery was even dented. There is a sore bump about the length of my aid behind the ear. My fingers are covering up the scraping on my ear. Thanks to Aleve most of my bruises only hurt when touched....and why are there black and blue marks some places on my right side? The hearing aid is being sent back to the factory to see if it can be fixed. If not...thank goodness it is insured.

This is the quilt I made for a friend to give to her paralyzed patient. He is interested in all sporting events he can watch on TV. Since this is part of the church quilting group I used the groups' thick batting and tied it. Didn't want to try machine quilting with so much puffiness. With all the different fabrics guess it could be called an I Spy for adults.

The "Halloween" cactus started blooming about a month ago...should have gotten a photo then. It was just loaded. What you can't see is the back third of the plant. The squirrels had a feast one day and ate quite a few branches(or whatever they are called) down to about6 inches. I had to be really careful when moving the pot because it wanted to tip forward.

Do you remember last spring when I told about my 84 year old friend who was sitting on a chair at a restaurant and the leg broke? She has had so many problems with her back and neck since then. The restaurant owner was so helpful and concerned the first few days and then his insurance company got ahold of things. The ins. co. wrote to my friend that since she had been sitting in that chair for an hour they were not liable for her medical expenses!!!! She doesn't have much money and was getting huge bills. Anyway, she has an attorney now and a couple of us who were sitting next to her may have to give a deposition, also the gal who picked up the leg and saw a nail in it. Hmm, must have been mended. Only one of our lunch group has been back to the restaurant and she said there are all new chairs!!!

Jerry was supposed to go to the pain clinic this week but we couldn't get his clotting time down..he is on warfarin. His blood can't be too thin when the Dr. messes in his spine. Vitamin K every day, and foods he isn't very fond of. We've had broccoli (with cheese sauce) twice, spinach/bacon salad, Olive Garden Tuscan soup with more kale than the recipe called for and tonight kale with mushrooms and green onions. Tomorrow we start on brussels sprouts with cheese sauce again. It is so funny that there are foods we think we don't like but maybe in a different form they are good. Tonight when I mentioned the kale he had last night he said he hadn't had any........he had no idea that the green stuff in the cream/potato/andoullie sausage soup last night had kale. He had his blood tested 3 times this week. Hope Monday is good!

I finished reading Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult. Such a heart breaking story. Now I'm reading Oprah's book club book, Say You're One of Them. That is heart breaking in another way but still dealing with horrendous things children have to go through. There are 5 short stories from different countries in Africa. All of the stories are about atrocities happening to children and as seen through a child's eyes. Oprah had a web cast Monday night with the author Uwem Akpan, an Anglican priest. I'm ready for a fluff book!!!


Andrew is coming home this weekend and is coming over to saw all the branches I trimmed into shorter pieces. Stephen was here and took down our gutters last week. We're so thankful for help.