Home Again

We're back in Olympia. We have some recommendations to make:

· If you need to go to Los Angeles, fly, don’t drive. It’s a honkin’ long drive! Two days at 9 or 10 hours a day.

· If you have to drive, drive something comfortable. You’ll be sitting for a long time.

· And drive with someone you love: you’ll be spending a long time with them.

· If you have to tow something, use a truck with a diesel engine if you can. We’ve been so impressed with this truck (my dad’s) on this trip.

· Time your drive to miss the Portland rush hour. Dang! They know how to have traffic jams!

· Redding is a great place to stop as a halfway point. It’s almost exactly halfway between Olympia and LA, and there’s a wonderful church there.

· There’s a coffee shop in the church’s lobby that makes great coffee. They have this five-shot thing called Nancy Cobb’s Barnburner or something. That’ll put hair on your chest. You probably want to make sure you want hair on your chest first.

· It’s wonderful to travel with the grace of God. His presence is really cool, and all kinds of problems almost happen instead of actually happen.

So we’re home. We have missed our kids, and we’ve already had several sock fights. My son was remarkably eager to install the larger TV into the living room with the video games and the DVD player. My daughter the craftsperson is excited about the tools and supplies we brought home – and almost went into apoplexy over the gold leaf!

We have a lot of work to do with the things from the estate. We have even more to do to help Sue’s mom deal with her finances. She really has spent all she has on staying in her home, and we’re working on other options now, mostly other options for her to stay at home, not a group home of some sort. She’s definitely getting stronger, but – contrary to her own perceptions – she is not getting strong enough to be on her own again. That could be an interesting conversation when she thinks she’s strong enough to be on her own, and nobody else sees it that way. . .

She’s also recovering from another infection, a doozie that’s resistant to all oral antibiotics, so she’s going to the hospital every day for a week to get her antibiotics intravenously.

We’re also praying for more people to help with the care-giving so Sue doesn’t have to respond to every little thing every time something is out of the normal. She’s pretty worn out.

It seems that FeedBurner isn’t sending out my updates recently, and hasn’t been for a little while. You might visit the website for the last few posts. I’ll send these out manually until I have a chance to figure that beastie out.

You’re a wonderful blessing!

David