Monday, Oct. 7

Up at 6 a.m. to get ready for water aerobics. Br-r-r...chilly morning. I dug out my fleece wear and hoodie for the trip to the college. Thankfully, the pool was nice and warm.

Everybody wanted to know where I was last week, and when I told them that I hadn't gotten word that the pool was open, several apologized for not getting in touch with me. I assured them that it was fine...no one could have known that I'd been left out of the loop.

Our leader was there this morning, too. I know she had a rough time when the elderly man she was taking care of died, and I offered my condolences. He'd been a family friend for many years, and since he had no family living nearby, she saw as her duty to care for him. She did it graciously, but I know it was burdensome to her at times.

I didn't ask, but she felt the need to talk about his final day. She said he had decided to take a shower Saturday night before the college football game. While he was in the shower, our leader heard a crash and went to see about him. He was slumped in the shower and bleeding from the nose.

She tried to get him up, but he couldn't help himself, and he was too heavy for her to lift. He was conscious...in fact, he told her to shut the shower off, since she was fully clothes and getting soaked.

She called an ambulance, but he lost consciousness on the way to the hospital. Doctors wanted to airlift him to our capital city, but our leader stressed that the man (92 years old) had emphasized that if anything happened to him, he didn't want to linger.

So he was placed on life support until his sons and grandsons could arrive and make decisions for him. After family, and our leader, had seen a scan that showed he had suffered a brain hemorrhage, they agreed that he should be taken off life support.

This was a man who was well loved and respected in our community. He served as a preacher right up to his last day. There was a front page story about his life in our local newspaper last Monday.

Our leader reminded us this morning that the pool will be closed again until a week from Wednesday...I'm not sure why.

Back home, I enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee to warm up, and then got ready for the day.  In the meantime, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house.

Back downstairs, I began decorating the mantel for fall. The first thing I discovered was that I didn't know where my pilgrims were. Hubbie had re-boxed them last year and then stowed them we knew not where.

We went through the closet in the spare bedroom, where they'd been stored every other year, but they were nowhere to be found. Hubbie removed every box in there. Nope, they just weren't there. They weren't on any of the storeroom shelves, in the upstairs closet, or in the outdoor shed.

I was sure there was another tote of decorations somewhere, because there were other items missing. So Hubbie scoured the garage. Sure enough, he'd stowed a tote there, and the pilgrims were in a smaller tote inside of it.

Problem solved, and I finished the mantel. By now, it was time for lunch, so I fixed Ramen Noodle soup for Mother, and the leftover Dragon Soup for Hubbie and me, along with bread and peanut butter.

After lunch, Mother went to her puzzle, Hubbie ran errands, and I did this and that. Later, Hubbie decided to go buy boxes of sweet potatoes for family, and Mother and I went along for the ride.

For supper, I heated leftover Salisbury steaks in gravy, mashed potatoes, and spinach. Afterward, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house, and then he and I watched episodes of "One Tree Hill."