Hot

It was 91 degrees here at 10:00 this morning. The grave side service went well though the Hospice Chaplin was a few minutes late. I asked the funeral director if he had a tent with a/c but he said it was broke. When I got home my shirt had very few dry threads. I worked on my income tax audit and made some phone calls to get some information. Janie was a big help raising a question about the taxes which I had not thought about. It should make a big difference in what we will most likely end up owing.

Janie and I are on a diet that I like really well. We eat four bites every two hours. We include all the food groups to keep it balanced. I never get hungry. The principle is the same as having your stomach stapled but without the surgery. Just eat less but keep it balanced. I loose weight and feel great with lots of energy. I never have heartburn or indigestion on this diet. If you try it remember to keep it balanced by including fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, and dairy (even ice cream). Four bites every two hours. You can drink all you want of V8 juice, milk, and fruit juices. Drink plenty of water as well. The first time I went on this diet we went out to eat and I ate just four bites and then asked for a to go box. I ate on that one meal the rest of the day. Just kept taking out of it four bites and heated those four bites in the microwave. We do not eat out very often on this diet but if we did one large meal would take all day to eat.

I am really enjoying our Tuesday morning Bible study. We sit at the dinning room table with coffee, Postum for me, and take our time going through the scriptures which relate to future events and the end of this world. Small group discussions are an excellent way to learn and teach the Bible. I was scheduled to attend a surgery in the morning but it has been postponed for two weeks so I will be at the Bible study in the morning.

Clint is doing very well. He is eating food now and making really good progress. His graduating class is going to have a fund raiser at our church parking lot July 18th. They hope to raise some money to help with his medical expenses which are going to be massive. I plan to call the lady in charge of the fund raiser and meet with her some time next week.

Well I had better go clean off the table where I have all my tax stuff spread out after all the ladies will start arriving about 9:30 in the morning. The picture is of me standing by the fence that me and my brother-in-law repaired for Janie's uncle Trenton. God bless you.

Uncle Bill

Bro. Davis brought a good sermon today at our church and we had a good visit afterward. Janie and I took them out to eat. They headed back to Tyler and we went back to the house. Janie took a nap while I reviewed my sermon and report for the evening services.

We received a notice in the mail from the IRS saying that they had accepted my proof of expenses but that I had reported them on the wrong forms. They said nothing about that in their original letter to me. When I called them they simply stated that my expenses seemed excessive and needed to see proof that they were legitimate. They gave a long complicated explanation of the changes they made to my return and said that I owed them money. I disagree with their assessment and with what they have done and plan to call them tomorrow.

I will focus first on the funeral in the morning and give that my undivided attention. I have just finished my part of the Bulletin for next Sunday and will work on the Sermon for next Sunday tomorrow. Tuesday I will go to Waco for a surgery there and will finish up the sermon for Sunday and the lesson for Wednesday night. As I mentioned in an earlier blog I will spend my Thursday off hiking with my brother. I am not worried about the heat because we will have plenty of water to keep us cool. Friday and Saturday our grandchildren will be at our house and we will enjoy their company. Next week we will go back over to Henderson and hopefully install my mother-in-law's kitchen sink. My uncle Bill who lives in Lowell Mass. helped to train me as a plumber. I borrowed the picture above of my uncle and his wife from my sister's facebook page. I really enjoyed working with him. I am hoping to get to see him next year Lord willing. God bless you.

77777

The Odometer of our car reached 77777. That would not be so bad except that it is just a little over 2 years old. Notice also from the picture the temperature. It seems we have a high pressure dome setting right on top of us and there is no rain in the forecast just 100 degree temperatures.

Bro. Harold Davis will be at our church tomorrow to preach in my place. I am really looking forward to his sermon. I plan to take him out to eat afterward and enjoy a good visit. We went to the hospital for a visit with one of our church members and then later took some food over to the lady who's husband died. I will be preaching that funeral Monday morning hopefully before it gets too hot. This second picture is of the Expo center in Springfield where the ABA messenger meeting was held. It was hot there also reaching 98 degrees each day we were there. I took this next picture of Janie at Wal-mart where we went to pick up a few things to help out the family of the man that died. I saw one of the men I use to work with at Lebus while there. He had been back to Lebus last week for a visit and said that they had laid off 70 people. I had wondered if the state of the economy had effected them.

This evening Janie sewed up the hem of one of my suit pants. She just will not let me forget that I am a married man. She takes such good care of me. She suggested I put more pictures of me on this blog and less of her to which I responded "But you are the love of my life not me." Thursday this coming week is my day off and I plan to go hiking with my brother, Steve. It will be hot but we will be dressed for it and will drink a lot of water. Hopefully the trail will be somewhat shady. I will post pictures here of our hike. God bless you.

Home

We are home. It took about 9 hours to get here because we stopped a few times to stretch. I started out driving and got us headed the right direction and then Janie took over. She drove for a little over 100 miles while I slept. I had a headache and at our first stop I took some aspirin and took over the driving.

This morning before we left the hotel I got a phone call from the funeral home telling me that the husband of one of our church members had died and the funeral will be Monday. When we got about half an hour from home I got a call that one of our church members was in the emergency room so when we got into town we went right over to the hospital. They are going to keep her for observation so we will check on her again tomorrow after we check on the lady who lost her husband.

Clint is eating solid food now. Here is the text message I got from his mother today: "Got to eat mashed foods today and drink apple juice put cast on foot to help stand." They have not given a prognosis for his right hand so that is still a concern.

I have tons to do tomorrow so will head for bed here shortly. Be praying for our Son in France as they are having some problems finding and renting a house. He is also pursuing a loan to buy a car for over there.

The first picture is of us sitting at the meeting with our grandchildren. The second is of me at the entrance of the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield. This third one was taken on Thursday at noon. We were one of the last ones to take down our exhibit. It looked kind of sad standing there by itself. God bless you.

Morning Session

The morning session here at the meeting went well. Many of the messengers do not stay for the Thursday meeting. The major business is taken care of on Wednesday. There was a motion yesterday to not raise salaries of the missionaries or the staff of the office of secretary of the ABA. Today someone moved to raise the Secretary's salary but it failed. It was pointed out that this should have been done when everybody was here not when most are gone. We splurged and went out to eat for lunch. Stacie and her family are on their way to Michigan. When we adjourn at 4 we plan to go site seeing and then enjoy a quite supper together. We will head back to Hillsboro in the morning. This picture is of the meeting and you can not tell but from it but Bro. Brooks is standing at the microphone setting the messengers strait as we so often need. God bless you.

Manning the booth

Good morning. I do not usually blog this time of day but as busy as our days have been I have to blog when I can. Services were good last night with an excelent sermon. The grandkids stayed in our hotel room with us last night. We had pizza for supper. We had a lot of "hits", so to speak, at the booth yesterday. A lot of people curious about France missions. We will take the booth down at noon today. Scott is on the phone in the bathroom. I guess we should run him out of there so we can get ready to go. He is talking to his mother who lives in Michigan. He did not want to bother us while on the phone. It is time for everyone to rise and shine anyway. We are going to stay here tonight and get some rest before making the trip back to Hillsboro. We should not have driven 8 hours with only one 10 minute stop coming here. We will make more stops going home. The picture is of me Manning the booth on Wednesday. God bless you.

Never a dull moment

Meeting has not been dull. We are behind schedule. We ate a small quick lunch at the booth and had Jason on skyp helping to tend it. People seemed fascinated by being able to see and talk to Jason live from Paris. Our oldest daughter and her family will soon be here and will most likely eat supper with us. More news and pictures to come. The picture is of our hotel room Wednesday night when our oldest daughter and her family stayed with us. God bless you.

We made it

We made it to Springfield. We have had about four hours of sleep and are about to head for the meeting. Sarah and Justin left early this morning for Branson. We have been unable to get in touch with Stacie and Scott. Hopefully we will see them at the meeting. I have packed our lunch and supper for a long day. We should be back at our room by 11 tonight. I will post some pictures later of the meeting. This picture is of me at the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield. God bless you.

Jury's Out

Jury duty went well today. We had 54 cases which were not as interesting as last month's. We broke for lunch at noon and I went home, ate a quick sandwich, and finished packing the suitcase. I got back to jury duty at 1:00 and we finished at 4:00 p.m. When I got back home we put our things in the car and took off for Springfield, Missouri. I decided to go by way of Oklahoma City due to the traffic we would face in Dallas. It is about 50 miles longer but I thought I would make better time. As of the time I am writing this, we have come 463 miles and are only 75 miles from our hotel.

My youngest daughter, pictured above, has been text messaging us from the meeting. It seems all has gone well with things there so far. We expect to arrive about 12:30 a.m. The meeting gets underway in the morning at 9:15 a.m. so we won't get much sleep tonight. Looking forward to the meeting tomorow even though we won't get back to our hotel room until 11:00 tomorrow night. We tried to call our oldest daughter and her husband who are supposed to be at the meeting as well, but were unable to get in contact with them. We are looking forward to seeing the grandkids. This is a picture of our youngest grandson, Jonathan, trying to stand on his head. God bless you.