Me

 I have had two strokes. Before that I was diagnosed with "Mild Cognitive Impairment". It sounds like I should be a basket case. I'm not. I do sleep a lot, though not as much recently as I did for a while there. Charlene is my closest observer, and she says that I have improved a lot in the last few weeks. She has said that it seems like she has her husband back. She is a tremendous encourager, but she would not tell me that if she did not truly believe it. I am more engaged in whatever is going on. 

Charlene does most of our driving, but I can still drive when it will keep her from going somewhere she has no need to go to. I remember the old family stories, even when others don't. My short-term memory loss is a little hard to describe. By the end of the day, I may not recall what we did that morning. Our activities over the last few days are spotty in my memory. I can tell you of some of them, but not all. 

I am proud of my two on-going accomplishments.  I put out a monthly newsletter for our condo association. It is one page, divided into several sections by topic. I think it looks good. If you would like to see a copy of the latest edition, email me at outofthepews@gmail.com and I'll send you one. It always has pictures.

The other accomplishment is that I maintain the electronic sign in front of the church building.  I keep it current, and I use it to advertise whatever is going on at the church, like the monthly appearance of the food truck, or a potluck dinner, or a special speaker, or an open house for the community. 

That's enough info for today. I plan to be back is a few days. May God bless every one of you.

Charlene

I love this picture of Charlene. She looks so peaceful, and happy and content and pretty. We were at the arboretum with Jim and Sue Lindsay.

And I love Charlene. She is intelligent and talented. She loves people – all kinds of people. She loves the Lord and is always ready to put herself out for His purposes. And she is the best cook and baker this side of anywhere.

And I love her new confidence. The success of her new book is challenging her self-image that nothing she does could possibly be right. Too many people are raving about it in the comments on Amazon. I told her this morning that she can’t deliver a muffin to a neighbor without apologizing for it. That’s an exaggeration, of course.

I love her love for adventure. We talk often about our next adventure, whatever it may be. Our life together has been a series of adventures, one after the other. The next one up is our second book tour promoting her book. Whodathunk? 

And I love that she loves me. She has put up with my quirks and shortcomings and odd sense of humor and love of strange music for 55 years and we are in it for the long haul.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Charlene.

Charlene's Birthday!

As many of our family as could went to Feed My Starving Children last night in honor of Charlene's Birthday.

#1 Making packets of food, using chicken flavoring with vitamins, dried veggies, soy, and rice.

#2 Jennifer (Mick) sealed each bag.

#3 Mike and Gypsy held and weighed the bags while the kids loaded them.

#4 And Charlene, still recovering, took a job with a seat, putting the labels on the bags.

We all had a great time and the kids are already asking when we can go again.

Magalie With Santa

We missed the party last night because Magalie wasn't feeling well enough to truck down the hall. Soooo Santa came to us!

Today, day eight since surgery, has been an okay day. "Granny" has had to hang right with Magalie while Magalie had to lie flat to let the lumber drain do its work. That's hard on anyone. Especially, though, I think, on someone not quite three yet. She did perk up enough to eat - popsicle and ice cream. Here is a picture of Charlene feeding her - a rough life. She may be surprised when it is all over and she has to go back to feeding herself, sleeping alone, and using the toilet.

New Info

This morning, Charlene and Magalie took off for Rochester on thier own. Alex has an appointment this afternoon and I need to be here to get him to it. Magalie was not able to eat anything solid because they are putting her to sleep to do an MRI. Apparently that is standard procedure, but it makes us nervous because it was the anesthesia the hospital mentioned in conjunction with all the bad things that could happen (paperwork written by their lawyers, I am sure, but no less scary). As I write this Magalie is in the MRI and it will be another hour before she is recovered.

Also, we learned yesterday that what we have been calling a tumor is actually part of her brain protruding beyond the cranium. That makes me much more nervous about the surgery than I was. Please keep this little girl in your prayers.

Magalie Meets New Folks

Yesterday Magalie got to hang with Stacy Sikes for a bit. Stacy directs the House of Compassion in Rochester (http://rochesterchurchofchrist.org/hoc.html) and serves as a Chaplian for the hospitals there. It was Stacy who first directed Charlene to a doctor at Mayo, who directed her to someone else who directed her to someone else (you get the picture). We spent the night with the Sykes Monday night and he helped us get to our appointments Tuesday.

Magalie and Charlene filling out paperwork.

Magalie

Magalie Toussaint is an almost three year old girl from Haiti who is visiting with us for a few weeks. She lives in the hill country of northern Haiti. Evelyn Boyd of Haskell Texas discovered Magalie shortly after she was born with a tumor between her eyes. Evelyn connected Magalie with Roberta Edwards, a missionary in Port au Prince, Haiti, who in turn told Charlene about her. It is a longish story which I will probably tell in a later post, but Charlene was able to get the world famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to agree to take the tumor off for free. Roberta, Charlene and others got all the complicated paper work together to get the visa and Charlene flew to Port au Prince last week to bring her here. Kim Meredith flew here with them and plans to return for the surgery. I intend to chronicle her visit here. Stay tuned.