We have quite a bit going on this week: exercise classes x 2, hair appointment this morning, Michigan Club party tonight, house party on our way home from the Michigan Club party, tomorrow a couple of appointments and John has a sportsman’s club meeting. Thursday a dinner party at Paul Hunt’s house. Friday John has an appointment in Tampa with his rheumatologist. Saturday is Christmas Eve day and we’ll go to the home of some Canadian friends.

The two of us aren’t exchanging gifts and I shipped cards with checks included for Kelly and my grandsons so shopping was fairly easy. We will be getting a new couch as our joint Christmas present and we also bought the new golf cart.

For us Christmas has long since passed the “anxious for gifts” stage. There’s nothing we want except better health for John. That is in God’s hands; not ours.

For many years, we’ve put up this 7.5 ft. artificial Christmas tree in our condo. This is how it looked last year. It got harder and harder. Not only was it heavy, but many of the pre-lit lights no longer worked so we had to use extra strings of lights to fill-in. John just can’t handle it any longer, so I wanted a small, light tree that I can manage. I’d have been happy with one about 6′ tall but John wasn’t interested. He kept saying he’d get the big one down (for the last time). We’d put it up and then get rid of it after the season.

I mentioned it a few times, but it was getting closer and closer to Christmas and still no decorations.

I remembered that there were two old, small trees in the attic so he went up there today but couldn’t find them. He did find the topmost section of the bigger tree. The top by itself is about two feet tall. We’re using that top as our tree. It’s on a tiny table so the whole thing is about 4.5 feet tall. I put all of our pretty handmade crocheted ornaments on it and a handmade angel on top. It’s kind of pathetic, but it’s better than no tree at all.

My mother had one of those vintage ceramic trees which I put on the lanai and tomorrow I’ll put out some red flood lights. We also have a wreath on the door.

It’s beginning to look a little like Christmas.

Yesterday I made and printed our Christmas cards. We don’t send out many (just to our siblings and close family) but it still took quite a while to address them and add personal notes.

We aren’t going to have our traditional Christmas turkey dinner. It’s just too much for the two of us to do (especially since John is always the chief cook and he doesn’t have the energy.) Instead we’ll have a ham, salads, probably sweet potatoes, and other yummy stuff. It’ll be way too much food for two people, but I love sharing a dinner with my guy!

Today John saw his “new” Tampa General pulmonologist for the second time (Dr. Clum). We are very impressed with him.

Can you imagine a doctor who says, “You’re color is better. When I saw you last month, you didn’t look as good as you do now.”

How could he remember John that specifically?

He had John do some tests and vows to keep John from deteriorating further. Those tests are the benchmarks. We’re all working toward a goal of keeping him from getting worse. He explained to us that it may take a year to recover from John’s August pancreatitis and gall bladder problems. The double pneumonia is also slow recovery problem.

John’s oxygen equipment wasn’t working correctly last night. He couldn’t get his oxygen numbers up to acceptable levels. This morning, we took off for Tampa and when he arrived at the office building next to Tampa General, he nearly collapsed. (He was using the same regulator that he’d used last night.) His oxygen was really low. We switched him to a better regulator and he’s doing fine.

This next month he has appointments with a new cardiologist and also a new rheumatologist. Hopefully together they’ll all keep him doing ok.

So glad we found Dr. Clum. We’ll be back to see him in a month.

We’ve been watching a pair of sandhill cranes for a couple hours. They’ve nibbled the grass, and dived for grubs. At one point the larger one became quite noisy, but for the most point, they were just providing interesting scenery.

And a while ago, some kind of a critter move through the grass between two ponds at opposite end of our building. At that distance, and in the grass, we were’t sure what it was. Maybe a very large turtle… but as it moved (quite swiftly) we realized it was too long and narrow to be a turtle. It was a small ‘gator. I got my camera out but by the time I got to the pond, he’d disappeared.

A little later, I looked back toward the pond he’d left, and realized there was about a five food mama ‘gator on the bank.

The sun’s glare was so bright that I couldn’t see the gator as I took the photo. I just pointed the camera and clicked. Not the sharpest, but you can tell it was definitely an alligator.

The sandhills have left. Don’t think they’d want to mess with mama.

Between the sandhills, the many white and black water birds, the occasional hawks, and all the other wild life, there’s lots to view. It’s all fascinating.

I wish I could report that he’s doing better but he’s continuing to get a little worse all the time.

I’m doing what I can for him. My hope is to keep his quality of life up and enjoy our together time!

The hard drive I mentioned in my last post arrived. It was easy to set up and it now does a back up of the whole hard drive twice a day. Restoring would mean reloading ALL the files in one sweep, not individual files. “All” would mean a huge re-load. (That would be great if I lost everything, but sometimes you just want to see the previous version of a single file.)

Since the drive is so large, I am also saving copies of each of the files individual and dating those archive versions. That way, if I want just one file, I can restore it.

So I’m all set. I have all the files including photos. I save the individual files at least once a week, and the whole drive twice a day.

It is $75 well spent. I sleep better.