31 Jan: Disappeared without a trace. Our first appointment was physical therapy, Cynthia had an excellent report from the retina specialist. The macular degeneration is mild, stable and not wet MD. Great news. I guess we spent all day Friday hiding from chilly temperatures. We did walk to the fitness center, and Ron walked after dark. Again we stayed up too late.
30 Jan: Yet another gray morning at Lake Conroe. We stretched, breakfasted and walked after it warmed up significantly, but today's high is forecast for 57, and this is chilly for us. Ron is delighted to be re-discovering things he forgot that he found about James Lea. Today we go out about noon, so Ron will redo the index then. We had a little detour from our storage unit destination by way of the ENT. A small rubber dome on Cynthia's hearing aid became dislodged in her ear canal, it was lodged against the eardrum, and it had to be removed. Ron offered to try to do the job with needle-nose pliers but she wouldn't agree.
29 Jan: Another gray morning at Lake Conroe in Montgomery, Texas. We are delighted to report ourselves still alive and well. Exercises finished, breakfast was eaten, electronics devices are occupying our full attention. Cynthia intends to organize everything at the storage locker soon. Ron is still luxuriating in relief at being nearly done with the indexing and feeling no compulsion to work on anything particular right now. Last evening he looked at the next SCS package and decided that it can be done quickly and easily - whew, more relief. So this morning he is inclined to spend most of the day working on the James Lea document. Betcha you didn't want to know that much detail about these boring genealogy projects. But, of course, Ron isn't bored with them. He has a high tolerance for tedious. Perhaps it is more entertaining to know that he already worked sudoku and wrote a postcard to Richard. No, not more entertaining. How about the three walks yesterday. Nope, not more entertaining. Gosh, what will we do to entertain our dedicated readers. I guess Cynthia will need to take a few pictures at the storage locker. HAhahahaha.
28 Jan: And another month is drawing to a close incredibly rapidly. Goody, Cynthia found a larger font for the blog. We've decided to stay in Montgomery, TX for the month of February so that Cynthia can attend Rachel's baby shower on the 9th and see her spinal specialist on the 17th. The beauty of modern technology allowed us to participate in an online discussion with DNA specialist Dianah Sutherard. That was too much fun! We were entirely unprepared, but asked vague generalities and received good answers. We walked to the fitness center under an overcast sky, pregnant with rain. Otherwise, it has been an incredibly wonderful quiet day at home. We agree that we are thankful for all that has been, for the future, whatever it is, and for the present moment!
27 Jan: Aaauuuughhhh! Another doctor's day! We dropped tax records at the CPA's in Hempstead before a baked potato lunch at a cafe en route to Brenham, Texas. Cynthia returned to the Ophalomologist for more tests. The retina is good in both eyes, the macular degeneration is stable, but the doctor spotted something that concerned him and wanted more tests tomorrow. She will see a specialist at the Conroe Medical Center on Friday. It is probable wet macular degeneration is beginning to occur. We met a niece with her three boys and her mom. Ron traveled the whole day without Sudokus!
26 Jan: Worship at Grace Lutheran fed our souls; brunch at the Yacht Club fed our hungry stomachs!!! The day was lovely, so was walking together to the lake as the sun was setting.
25 Jan: Ron went to bed at 3:30 AM after researching the Justice files for Becky. Aaaaaaauuuggghhh. The good news is that Ron completed the index for a 700-page book. Is there life after electronic obsession?
30 Jan: Yet another gray morning at Lake Conroe. We stretched, breakfasted and walked after it warmed up significantly, but today's high is forecast for 57, and this is chilly for us. Ron is delighted to be re-discovering things he forgot that he found about James Lea. Today we go out about noon, so Ron will redo the index then. We had a little detour from our storage unit destination by way of the ENT. A small rubber dome on Cynthia's hearing aid became dislodged in her ear canal, it was lodged against the eardrum, and it had to be removed. Ron offered to try to do the job with needle-nose pliers but she wouldn't agree.
29 Jan: Another gray morning at Lake Conroe in Montgomery, Texas. We are delighted to report ourselves still alive and well. Exercises finished, breakfast was eaten, electronics devices are occupying our full attention. Cynthia intends to organize everything at the storage locker soon. Ron is still luxuriating in relief at being nearly done with the indexing and feeling no compulsion to work on anything particular right now. Last evening he looked at the next SCS package and decided that it can be done quickly and easily - whew, more relief. So this morning he is inclined to spend most of the day working on the James Lea document. Betcha you didn't want to know that much detail about these boring genealogy projects. But, of course, Ron isn't bored with them. He has a high tolerance for tedious. Perhaps it is more entertaining to know that he already worked sudoku and wrote a postcard to Richard. No, not more entertaining. How about the three walks yesterday. Nope, not more entertaining. Gosh, what will we do to entertain our dedicated readers. I guess Cynthia will need to take a few pictures at the storage locker. HAhahahaha.
28 Jan: And another month is drawing to a close incredibly rapidly. Goody, Cynthia found a larger font for the blog. We've decided to stay in Montgomery, TX for the month of February so that Cynthia can attend Rachel's baby shower on the 9th and see her spinal specialist on the 17th. The beauty of modern technology allowed us to participate in an online discussion with DNA specialist Dianah Sutherard. That was too much fun! We were entirely unprepared, but asked vague generalities and received good answers. We walked to the fitness center under an overcast sky, pregnant with rain. Otherwise, it has been an incredibly wonderful quiet day at home. We agree that we are thankful for all that has been, for the future, whatever it is, and for the present moment!
27 Jan: Aaauuuughhhh! Another doctor's day! We dropped tax records at the CPA's in Hempstead before a baked potato lunch at a cafe en route to Brenham, Texas. Cynthia returned to the Ophalomologist for more tests. The retina is good in both eyes, the macular degeneration is stable, but the doctor spotted something that concerned him and wanted more tests tomorrow. She will see a specialist at the Conroe Medical Center on Friday. It is probable wet macular degeneration is beginning to occur. We met a niece with her three boys and her mom. Ron traveled the whole day without Sudokus!
26 Jan: Worship at Grace Lutheran fed our souls; brunch at the Yacht Club fed our hungry stomachs!!! The day was lovely, so was walking together to the lake as the sun was setting.
25 Jan: Ron went to bed at 3:30 AM after researching the Justice files for Becky. Aaaaaaauuuggghhh. The good news is that Ron completed the index for a 700-page book. Is there life after electronic obsession?
24 Jan: A quiet day working on our electronic devices. Here is a photo of the Forde family at Samantha and Adam’s wedding: my children and grandchildren, less four great-grandchildren too young to attend, and two grandsons, Brett and Austin, out of town.
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| Ron and Cynthia |
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| Children, grandchildren, and spouses |
23 Jan: Brad came to take the old BMW R75/5 out of the storage locker back to Alabama to see if he can apply TLC and enjoy it.
22 Jan: It is a rainy morning with no appointments. So we luxuriated in bed until nine AM. We believe that our excellent health and fitness are the benefits of exercising together every morning. We do the same exercises at first, but Ron does several additional exercises after Cynthia is done. It is just too fun to do them together. Life is more than good! Thank God. Oatmeal afterward, another healthful choice, and then back to the electronics. The rain let up at 3 PM, so Ron walked the path to the lake and back without getting wet. More rain is supposed to develop before the evening walk.
21 Jan: A 9 AM physical therapy appointment required us to get up "early" ! We dropped off a package at the storage unit, stocked upon fruits and veggies at Walmart, and returned to our electronics. About ten PM, Ron announced he has completed reading 4000 lines of text for the index. Yahoo!
20 Jan: already. This indexing is totally absorbing ALL of Ron's time so that he is missing from the blog. Dedication gets the job done! On this lovely day, we drove past Cynthia's ranch en route to the ophthalmologist in Brenham, Texas. We stopped in Chapell Hill for a fun lunch and gabfest with Carol and Sandy, Cynthia's Hempstead girlfriends. We pulled up at Bever's Kitchen about the same time to learn that it is closed on Mondays. Aha! Sandy remembered a couple of restaurants on Highway 290; they have baked potatoes. Cynthia had good news at the ophthalmologist: the macular degeneration is stable; no changes from last year. From there, we returned to Hempstead to pick up tax materials at Williams Business Solutions. Ron drove home because Cynthia's eyes were dilated.
19 Jan, Sunday: Today we went to Grace Lutheran, so it was another day to get moving too early for our poor retired bodies.
18 Jan: And when the new day dawns, Ron will enter another cycle of indexing. And at 10:30, it is time to sleep again already. My, but time flies when having fun. Fortunately, Ron's cell phone battery died and his toe hurt, so he cut his late evening walk short and got to bed a bit earlier.
17 Jan: Good Grief, another day ALREADY ?? How does time fly so fastly. And again we had to rush through exercises and breakfast to get out the door by 8:45 AM to get Cynthia to her physical therapy spinal decompression. Ron continues indexing - boring. We've now had three days of cloudy days and grey skies. We made a trip to Lakeside Pharmacy and Walmart, followed by a successful long walk to the fitness center and back. The Swedish Colonial Society received a large enough donation to complete moving the entire farmstead to Essington, PA. This is indeed exciting news! Ron's evening walk was cut short again due to ankle pains presumably because he walked too fast.
16 Jan: Another morning out the door at 9 AM. Is it even light yet then? We drove halfway across Houston to go spend a couple of hours with Eric, Cynthia's financial planner. He disabused us of the notion that we can afford to live forever. Then we ate lunch at Pappadeaux with Mona and Gene, Cynthia’s clergy colleague and his wife, friends of 38 years. Thank That place is sooo very noisy when busy, but by 3 PM, it had quieted down to a comfortable level. It puzzles me that I can eat so little during the course of a day and still gain weight. I'll be happy when this ankle is healed so that I can walk for exercise again. After a full day of indexing, I attempted to walk after dark, but didn't make it much farther than yesterday.
15 Jan: Ouch !! We had to get up at 5:30 in order to do our exercises and eat before leaving at 6:30 to see the endocrinologist at 7:30. Then she told us that she doesn't prescribe the "compounded" thyroid that Cynthia takes. At least the Toasted Yolk got our order correct on the second try, their usual performance this year. And Ron found the clippers he needs at the storage locker, and we resupplied cornbread mix and pineapple chunks at Walmart. Ron's indexing is nearing the end, but now comes the tedious part - double-checking. In the afternoon, the audiologist discovered the reason that Cynthia's hearing has been peculiar - the hearing aids were both programmed to think that they are for the right side. After he installed a firmware update and reset them for her new audio test, her hearing suddenly became much better and far less concerning to her. Ron's ankle has remained on the crippled list - well, he can walk about a block without limping.
14 Jan: Where did the 13th go? I'll have to start remembering that ancient history in order to fill in the blog for yesterday. Check the following to see how well I did. Today we woke up, exercised, breakfasted, computered, and then Cynthia followed through on her threat to house clean. Ron attempted to regain solace by walking but discovered that an ankle is very sore and touchy. He was forced to limp slowly back and do the dishes as promised. Now the kitchen is 80% clean, so we are back to computers. Cynthia baked sweet potatoes for dinner and we are happily well-fed and eating popcorn now. Ron again attempted to walk before bed, an abysmal attempt to exercise because that ankle is very sore.
13 Jan: Oh yeah, we spent the day running errands to Cynthia's doctors, including the new ENT and audiologist that impressed us both. The hearing test shows a significant decline in the right ear hearing. Ron always travels with a computer in lap doing genealogy. After the ENT, whose office is closer to us, we ate egg white omelets at the Magnolia Diner before proceeding to Cynthia's physical therapy session. They only did spinal decompression but also dry needling and forced her to do her exercises. Poor girlie was pretty much worn out. Then we shopped for food at Walmart and came home hungry. Ron's weight has not been dropping, perhaps due to the cornbread at bedtime, but he is sleeping for 5 or 6 hours without awakening to pee. Oh yes again, the other doctor was Cynthia's new back specialist, to whom she delivered the MRI of her back that he had ordered. The MRI did not contain good news; Cynthia's spine has continued aging (a good thing considering the alternative), and the space for the nerves has shrunk from that shown in the images three years ago. The good news is that she has less pain, presumably due to our exercises. Thank God. Ron went for another walk and talk in the evening, ate cornbread, and stayed up past midnight despite his firm intentions to get to bed early. Oh Well.
12 Jan, Sunday: I forgot to mention that our "Same Old, Same Old" existence changes on Sunday. Today we are exercised, oatmealled, showered, churched and lunched before we have time for our electronic devices. The walk will come later in the afternoon. Oops! Ron's preparations for the walk did not include changing the condo keys from the church pants to the khakis. Ron remembered that those keys were lying on the bed when we attempted to open the door at the fitness center. No key card !! We continued to the lake and made a phone call to emergency contact number one. Later, we called emergency number 2, and Michael drove over to unlock the door for us despite that he was homesick in bed. Michael owns the property and the management company, so now he knows us a bit better.
11 Jan: Wonderful to wake up every day. No telling what excitement today holds beyond exercises, oatmeal, electronic devices, and walks. Cynthia is getting geared up for a shower.
10 Jan: Another morning, another exercise, another breakfast ... Thank God. We walked after Cynthia's physical therapy. She reports that spinal decompression is exceedingly painful. Ron walked alone late afternoon and returned wet! The bride cooked whole wheat pasta for her love. A fierce 75 MPH wind with severe thunderstorms is forecast tonight. Well, Ron intended to walk after dark, but there was a blowing mist that promised to get him more thoroughly wet than the afternoon rains. Around 11 PM, the lightening started a-flaring and the winds started a-blowing, and then the rains came flooding down, but in an hour it was all over and gone to the eastern horizon. Ron stayed up too late again, but the cornbread seems to do the trick for his sleep.
9 Jan: Ron is again hoping that he can be finally close to done with this indexing project. Cynthia drove alone to granddaughter Corrie's house to visit with Corrie and her three children, 6-year-old Abigayle, 3-year-old Ellanore, and infant Caleb. A fine, fun time was had by all with several hand-made gifts exchanged. Ron wasn't invited and didn't complain; instead, he spent the day indexing. After Cynthia returned, we walked to the fitness center and back. Cynthia reports that the new orthotics are wonderfully comfortable, but following good advice, she is wearing them for only a couple of hours a day. Some things seldom change: we exercise EVERY morning before getting out of bed, we eat oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast, take our morning pills at the 9 AM alarm, eat microwaved, dry popcorn in the evening, and Ron walks every night before bedtime and before eating an order of cornmeal to help him sleep uninterrupted. And we stay crazy-in-love!
8 Jan: brought another lovely, but cooler, morning. And on this day we saw our dentist, Dr. Anderson. Oh, no! Ron has two chips off his teeth, plus stains. How can this be, for he is so diligent in brushing his teeth! Cynthia was instructed to use the manual and electric toothbrushes to get her gum line cleaner. Do you wonder why we post this boring stuff? This is our record-keeping for the IRS! They need to know when we went to the dentist and when we picked up Cynthia’s orthotics at Dr. Margolis's office. They don’t need to know that we went to Jason’s Deli, but they might need to know we had to return the car to Enterprise and trade it for another one because the windshield developed a crack spontaneously that has been growing rapidly.
7 Jan: dawned bright and beautiful here in Montgomery, Texas. We are awake, exercised, fed, and computering again. Late AM, we boogied for a four-mile walk, followed by a trip to the Post Office to mail Cynthia's annual class newsletter. Then Cynthia lined up the physical therapist for the next few weeks. Our readers will discover we are boring in the winter when we aren't hiking and traveling. Boring and very happy, that's us! Ron continues indexing apace.
6 Jan: Already nearly gone. How does time evaporate so quickly? More later. This is how the day evaporated: we met with the spinal specialist who analyzed Cynthia’s recent MRI. The L5/s1 has narrowed and is compressing nerves. The good news is that she is in far less pain now than several years ago, thanks to core strengthening. The doctor said to continue physical therapy for a few weeks and check back. The Apple Store was conveniently close enough to have the Mac and IPad checked for issues. We ate lunch at Jason’s Deli, ran a few more errands, and then it was time to walk to the lake.
5 Jan, Sunday: A lazy morning. Cynthia is working on her next publication about Harry King, and Ron is indexing again.
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Handsome Smooch in Blue!
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4 Jan: How about a Happy Danish Hygge, a Scandinavian Christmas, New Year’s family celebration on January 4th? Yup! Norwegian Lefse was shipped overnight from Northern Iowa, all sorts of Danish delights and Danish ornaments were shipped from Elk Horn, Iowa, to add to our festivity. Daughter Roxanne hosted the family to a lovely luncheon, decorated tables and house, and convinced all of her siblings and most grandchildren (7 out of 11) to show up. A fine, fun, wonderful time was had by all. Fyn was quite taken with Ron's earrings made from the Danish table ornaments! (See photo to left.) After returning to Montgomery, Ron again walked (without earrings) after dark to the fitness center and back, but his weight remains high.
3 Jan: We at again ensconced at The Point in Walden at Lake Conroe in Montgomery, Texas. Yup, we relocated after successfully putting money in the pockets of our favorite doctors. Dr. Dougherty said that my pacemaker reports no episodes of atrial fibrillation or any other arrhythmia. Dr. Gould said that he always gets a boost from seeing us at the start of the year because we obviously are taking care of ourselves - as opposed to so many "normal" people. Cynthia and Ron were both disappointed that the scales reported our weight to have crept up by several pounds while were in Crystal Beach. Cynthia was outraged since we had walked so far so diligently. She picked up "our" rental car at Enterprise; we loaded the car with items from the storage unit, bought groceries, dropped prescriptions off at the pharmacy, picked up the condo key ... and Ron had the laborious job of making ten trips, loaded with groceries or belongings, up the stairs to our condo. Cynthia prepared wild rice with dried cranberries and wild-caught Alaskan salmon marinated in orange juice, ready to bake, wrapped in foil. After dark, Ron walked to the fitness center and back. (Walking and talking on his cell phone is his favorite exercise nowadays.)
2 Jan: After breakfast, we were able to walk around the-four mile Rice perimeter campus trail again. Then we walked up Main Street to Dr. Dougherty's office on the 25th floor of 6400 Fannin. Rain was forecast but did not materialize. Ron continues to be absorbed indexing Volume 7 of the Colonial Records of the Swedish Churches.
1 Jan: Happy New Year, 2020! We had fun remembering Ron’s marriage proposal on New Year’s day 2009 after five months of traveling together 24/7. We surprised ourselves with the question and the yes! We hoped to get moving this morning by 10 AM, but Ron just had so many fun things to finish first. The ferry ride was quite delightful, watching two little boys feeding a frenzy of hungry seagulls. Fortunately, the gates of the recycling center in Galveston were open even though the center was unmanned. The ride to the medical center was pleasant and uneventful. After unloading we managed a four-mile walk on the jogging trail circumnavigating Rice University.
