The shock is wearing off

I have decided to post what is happening with us even though I have told several of my readers already.  Last Thursday Gerry was told that his position as Director of Research and Development was being eliminated.  He was then escorted out of the building.  He had to make an appointment for after work hours today to come back in with
supervision and get his belongings. Needless to say he was in shock. He was completely blindsided by this.  Now after a couple of days, the shock is wearing off.  We are taking stock of where we are financially and thinking about what he might want to do.  Our family and friends have been so supportive.  Great to have at a time like this.  It also
has caused us to think about what is really important in life.  Gerry and I are so grateful to have each other, our health, family and friends.  We do not have to worry that our house will be in foreclosure, like so many people have had happen.  Se we are hanging in there. Will keep everyone posted.

Book sale again

An organization that I belong to, AAUW, has a very large used book sale every year to make money for the scholarships we give out.  This last week I spent 8 hours helping sort books.  Then I will work at the actual
sake next week too.  The neat thing is that I am making some good friends doing this. I donated two boxes of books this year and hope not to bring home more that I donated.  It is a challenge to decide if a book is worth selling or if we should just throw it.  People do donate everything: medical or text books that are 24 years old-out they go.  We do have a member who finds the value of actual antique books so we don't just give them away.

No pictures of this

This post will make you shutter.  Last Thursday I was slicing raw potatoes with my mandoline.  I was in a bit of a hurry and did not use the shield until most of the potato was sliced.  You can see where this is heading.  I sliced my right index finger resulting in getting 10 stitches.  Do I know better?  Of course.  You can be quite sure I will not do that again. I am happy that there has been on infection.  My guess is that I will have a nice scar to remind me to slow down and be careful, When it happened I wrapped it tight with the help of our exchange student, who cannot stand to see blood, and then drove myself to the ER which is about 5 miles from our house.  I am bummed out because everything takes twice as long with one hand, but have no one to blame but myself.  I labeled this "No pictures of this" but G did take some pictures. Don't worry I will not post them.

Think like a child

Kyla wore her winter boots when they came over for Easter.  At the end of the day when they were getting ready to leave they were no where to be found.  We looked all over the house (upstairs, basement) and out side too, thinking she had carelessley thrown them somewhere.  After they left I kept looking.  They were foumd in Gerry's closet on the shoe shelf.  Right were they should be if you were being a neat, consciencious child.  I later recalled seeing Bryce wearing them.  I am sure he was the one who put them away.  To give you another example of how organized he is, when he helped me put the silverware in the dishwasher, he lined up all the forks in one row, all the spoons in one row and knives in another.

Finances

I am breathing a big sigh of relief today.  It is only April 4th and I have finished doing the taxes.  I was considering paying off the mortgage on our house but wanted to make sure there were no big surprises with the taxes before I did that.  Well great news.  There were not surprises and we were able to pay off the mortgage.
Gerry always said he would not retire until it was paid off.  But this does not mean he will retire tomorrow.  He seems to be quite challenged by his job (that may be an understatement) so there is no word when that will be. When I told a friend that we had paid it off, she said you then paint the front door red to tell the world that you no longer have a mortgage.  I have never heard of that tradition.  Gerry is all for it, but I just do not think red would look good with the maroon shutters and I have better things to do than pain all the shutters red.

Surgery on right eye

Today I had the cataract removed from my right eye.  A new lens was put in.  So now the right and left should "match" each other.  I have started the every two hour regime of eye drops.  I am just glad to have it completed.  Of course it will up to a month before I have the new glasses, but am now using "cheater" glasses from the drug store. I can see great at a distance but need the glasses for close up. The actually surgery takes about 10 minutes. Of course it takes a day to recover from having the eye dilated  and from the anesthesia.  It is amazing.

Last week I was able to start my outside yard work.  I pulled up some spreading Juniper that was under the flowering cherry tree.  It had become about a foot deep and was causing problems with fungus on the tree so that the leaves would drop prematurely.  Then I dug out all the day lilies in front of the house, tilled the soil, added more soil and compost and replanted a fraction of them.  They were completely overgrown.  We had had beautiful weather to do this, but last night had a frost.  That was not a problem for my yard, but I worry about the blueberry bushes where I pick each year.

Trip to Minnesota

The silence on the blog is due to a 10 day trip to Minnesota.  On the first leg of the journey I stayed three nights in Kankakee with friends.  My friend there, J, is a Master Gardener and loves to draw landscape plans.  I had previously sent her a drawing of our house, deck and area around the house drawn to scale as well as several photographs of each side of the house.  We spend two days on her drawings.  It is about 350 miles to her house.  The next part of the trip is 550 miles.  I was in MN for 5 days and was able so see my 90 yr old mother each day as well as all of my brothers and sisters and G's bro and wife and son.  All in all it was a great trip.  I didn't take too many pictures, but may have a couple to post.

Tonight is check emails, snail mail and look at calendar for the next week.