Saturday's Scribbles

Good Saturday morning to you from our corner of Iowa where winter is making itself known with wind, snow, and temperatures dipping into the low teens.  The high today is 13 degrees with a low of -3 for tonight.  Yikes!

Speaking of cold weather, we have been walking in the Mall this week due to wind chills. I think after 5 days of walking past stores decorated with sale signs and snowflakes, we are now officially Mall Walkers joining our tennies with the over 60 crowd!  We are missing the fresh air of the river road and walking paths, but grateful we have somewhere to put in our 35 to 40 minutes of daily exercise. We recognize the faces of other regulars now, and I try not to feel like a turtle when the hares pass me at record speeds.  Our destination is the same, right?  We did walk down the river road yesterday....wind chill was 20 so not too bad, but the mile and a half seemed longer with the cold making itself known.

Speaking more about weather, what about all those tornadoes in the Midwest last Sunday?  Wow.  It truly seems like the weather is getting more unpredictable than ever with bigger storms.....bigger tornadoes....bigger typhoons.....My once upon a time meteorologist now cowboy preacher husband has some thoughts on all of it!

This has been a challenging and busy week.  On Sunday morning we drove 35 minutes to the church Joel is filling in at.  It is a beautiful church with great people, making it a fun job for Joel.  He will spend three more Sundays there.  When church was over we stayed for coffee and were visiting with someone when I felt the need to check my phone.  In my head I thought, "No, it would be rude to check for messages when this man is talking to Joel and me", but the urge came back so I checked.  I had 4 phone calls and one text!  Turns out my sister Joanne, who helped raised me had suffered a stroke and was being taken by ambulance to a local hospital in the Twin Cities.  We headed home to eat and change and then drove two hours to the hospital.  The bad news is that she had a small stroke in the cerebellum so her balance and coordination were affected.  The good news is that it was small, and she is already doing so well she will be home by Thanksgiving!  Lots of prayer and good strong genes have her heading for a full recovery.  We drove back home the same night so felt a bit tired on Monday.

Tuesday we had a phone call from Joel's brother that he and his wife were only 30 minutes away and wanted to stop by.  We ended up having a great day visiting and eating out before shopping at the antique stores in a nearby town and then heading to a large country quilt shop a few more miles away.  It was a nice day and we explored places we had not seen before.  I would love to quilt, but after seeing what it costs to purchase kits, patterns, etc. I think I better find a less expensive hobby.

Thursday was Joel's monthly Pastor's conference and I went along this time.  We rode with another couple to the church 30 minutes away.  It was great fun to be able to attend and share about our trip and our healing journey once again.  Yesterday I made homemade soup and caught up on placing orders for things we needed and for Christmas.  I had hoped to get the Christmas newsletter written but time got away from me! 

Joel is going to be interviewing in the coming days for two Interim positions.  Things seem to be falling into place for one that is close to home.  That would be nice, but it is all in God's hands.  He knows what is best.  I don't look forward to him being gone again, but I do know how much he loves his calling.

I talked and texted with my sister Jan a few times this week about our sister Jo and also about coming down to see her and her hubby in Arizona in the coming year.  I also chatted with a high school friend who moved there this past June.  Looks like our next adventure will be to the southwest!

Speaking of adventures, I am nearly finished sharing our two weeks of traveling here.  It has been fun to recap everything and we are still smiling from the great time we had.  Hard to believe we left a month ago tomorrow!

I have not been reading much this week.  We did enjoy our usual TV shows and a Hallmark movie last weekend.  Our Thanksgiving will be a quiet one, but we may go see my sister Jo for a few hours.   What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Until next time............