Happy Halloween.  I think we will skip dressing up this year,  wait we do that every year?  Not our think,  but enjoy watching the rest of you if you enjoy it!  Nice picture Judy and Mary!    I thought you would go for the playboy bunny or milk maid costumes, but that was OK.   Thanks for the kind words, you have already lived through the homes and aging decisions and I appreciate your counsel.    And you are leaving on your train trip shortly?

We saw Mom on Friday night and Saturday.  She is trying hard and says she has to toughen up and get through this.  She is trying much more than I ever would have thought she could 5 years ago.  She is working hard in therapy and walking and trying to get to the point they sign off on letting her go to the bathroom on her own.    And she wants more  independence and less rules,  but in another way she likes having the nurses and aides around and worries about being on her own.    And she enjoys company and a chance to talk.

We left Mom and headed north.  We spent a very nice evening with Skip/Claire/Denise and Claire’s brother and sister in law at Kessler’s bed and breakfast in Cleavland WI.  Lot’s of conversation , a very nice meal (I pigged out on prime rib) at a restaurant in town, a good nights sleep and German style breakfast and more conversation this morning.  Very relaxing, after leaving Mom,  as hard as she is trying the visits can be ‘trying’ at times.  God Bless Skip.

Made it home this afternoon and took advantage of being home to get some more work outside done.  Cool and rain today,  but I had to get in the lake to work on the shore station and remaining dock pieces, so the rain did not matter much.  And good to have those things done,  I think I worked off last night’s prime rib.

So cold wet weather makes me think of Florida!  Early December before we get down there.   We will get to Detroit first for Thanksgiving, and a Packer Game!  That will be fun.  So November will go quickly leading up to Thanksgiving and finishing fall chores.  And work continues to be trying.  But that’s life.    Hope your week and weekend has been a good one.  At least we are not in the northeast for early snow!

The weeks seem to go by quickly.  Work is still filled with lot’s of challenges and more changes coming.  But it is just work.  We have sunshine and blue sky today, although at 10 am it just made 40 degrees.   I hate seeing that temperature that starts with a 3 when I get in the car in the morning.  Although I will hate 2 and 1 even more!    But the wind is down, after a number of days of strong wind again.  I should stay home and work on getting the shore station ready for winter,   but we will head to Milwaukee shortly.   We will see Mom and then spend a nice evening and over night downtown.  And then stop and see her on Sunday.  Skip bears the bulk of seeing her and giving her company so he can have a little break.   We were down on Thursday for a meeting with Manor Park.   She is progressing and able to walk 150 feet.  And she is not experiencing much pain,  which amazes all of us.  But she still is not getting up on her own without assistance, and they estimate another 3 weeks of therapy.  But by then she should be able to get out of the nursing home.   For now she is trying hard, and lot’s of anxiety over what to do next.  We had looked at some options, but for now have decided on bringing her back to her apartment.  After looking at some ‘dorm’ room assisted living she had some shock.  And with help, we think she can be independent yet.   At her complex, if they qualify her, she can get assisted living ‘light’, which will get her some help and 3 meals.   So we will try that and can take the next step if she is not doing well in that environment.  Our goal is still to start cleaning out things from her apartment.  Lot’s of ‘stuff’ in two bedrooms.   Clothes she wore 100 lbs ago.  She just cannot get rid of things,  so we need to help and see how that goes.  But the good news she is stronger than the therapists would have expected and pain has not become an issue.

Otherwise outside work we are having fun.   Chris had an Insurance Women’s state meeting last Friday Saturday, and it was in Appleton.   Last Saturday I made some more progress around the house, although not much since then.  Sunday I attended the Green Bay-Rams football game with my group of homebrewers.   We start early with a tailgate and my breakfast burrito’s, and lot’s of good beer.   It was a very fun day, topped off by a Packer win.   Wally is happy the St Louis Cards finished the Brewers season,  but at least we have football!

So we hope everyone is enjoying the fall.  Most of us are blessed and have lot’s to be thankful for.  Get out and make someone smile today.

This is really Columbus day isn’t it?  Of course when he became politically incorrect I guess it doesn’t matter.   We have had wonderful Wisconsin weather for fall.  This too will come to an end but it has been a great ride.  I have lot’s of things left to do before winter – finish moving 9 face cords of fire wood for the winter, move trailers, winterize trailers and boats, set boats for the winter, gardens need work, yard needs weed and feed.   But if it doesn’t get done it doesn’t get done!

Noel and Jo Ann were up here on Saturday and helped me accomplish a lot.  We took both boats out of the water and took out the dock.  And took the canvas top off the shore station, and cleaned and put it away.  A lot for one day.   I still have to move the shore station but we made great progress.

We had a meeting at the doctor for Mom today.   Relatively good news.  Her knee is pretty bad.  Bone has degenerated and caused the leg to angle off at 20 some degrees instead of the normal 6 degrees.   But after resting it a couple of weeks he said she can start to put weight on it and work with the therapists on walking.  We worried about her being able to walk again, so this was good news.  We will still need to see how much pain she has, and she will need to wear the brace for walking.  But even if she can only walk short distances her quality of life will be greatly improved.   And we talked about possibly moving her to an assisted living situation.   She is OK with moving elsewhere and agrees she will need more help.  As bad as I think Manor Park is understaffed and needs an attitude adjustment,  she really likes the food there!   So if  their assisted living acomadations looked good she would like to stay there-if she gets the same food.   So she has worked hard on trying to stay positive through this.  She was in an upbeat mood when Skip and I left today.  She had feared the worst and got better news.  Now we see how the therapy goes working with the walker again, and have lot’s more decisions to make.

I am enjoying a long weekend in Colorado.  Weather here is wonderful, as opposed to what looks like cold and windy back home.   We should be in the 80’s today.   Thursday we walked downtown Denver and spent the evening at the Great American Beer Festival.   462 breweries, hard to make choices.   But we did our best.  Yesterday we spent a big part of the day in Boulder.   Deb we skipped Coors tour, although I heard it is a good tour.  But Colorado is home to an unbelievable amount of great breweries!  At Avery Brewery in Boulder they are wonderfully inventive with their brews and barrel aging.  I had beers there that cannot be had anywhere else.   And we went to Mountain Sun, Walnut Street, and BJ’s breweries.  And just walked the fun downtown area.  Then back to the Rehfeldt’s home for their great hospitality.  Will have to see what today brings,  but we need to catch the start of the Brewer’s playoff series and the Wisconsin/Nebraska game!

Mom is at Village at Manor Park,  Maplewood Healthcare Center, room 1405.  Skip said she is settling in pretty well.  Hopefully the bones in her knee heal up and they can teach her to walk some with the brace.  They will give her lot’s of therapy to try and keep her strength up.  And in a few weeks we will see what the next step is.

Judy congrats on selling the big trailer! And on the new one.  It won’t be as much fun pulling it into Penninsula next summer!  Hope you have electricity, I see a lot of people in Door County don’t because of the winds.  Marie I hope to bring Chris back here to Denver one day, and then we can drive down to New Mexico!  So hope everyone is doing well, enjoy the weekend.