Coffee Chat: End of October Autumn Rain

Hello dears.  It looks drear and colder than it is outdoors, but never mind.  We'll sit inside and look out the windows and you'll be convinced that cup of coffee or tea in hand is the perfect beverage for such an autumn day.



It began to rain as soon as I was up this morning and I knew John would be loath to keep his appointment to get oil changed in his car.  If it's not a work day, my husband always has a deep desire to just stay home out of the rain, but he made the appointment yesterday when it was sunny and I knew that it was up to me to set the pace of the morning.  So if I got up early and showered and readied myself for going out, then he'd reluctantly do so as well.  And that's just how it was.  I had to appear a great deal busier than I was which meant letting my coffee cool considerably, as I puttered about the house.  Even my second cup of coffee grew cool as I worked.  Sigh.   But it was all in the name of getting John motivated.    If there is one thing I really want in the morning, it's to gentle into a day with a really hot cup of coffee in hand first thing.  I surely missed that this morning!  So I'm especially happy to have a nice hot cup just now while we visit.

Oh!  Did I tell you I have my Christmas gift from John?  A few weeks ago John and I were walking through Target, as Katie bought the last lot of baby things on her must have lists, and we passed through the kitchenware aisles.  John and I always look at plates for some reason.  I don't know why...He and I never agree on the same sets but we're always hopeful we'll find something we are mutually agreed to own...Anyway, he went down the small appliance aisle to look at coffee pots.  My dual pot (single cup/full pot) has had moments of acting up lately when the thing just doesn't turn on or does and then switches right off again.  John wanted a new coffee pot but what he wanted we found very pricey.  In looking however, there was a Keurig in turquoise blue.  "Oh look!" I exclaimed and John took one look at the price and said "Humph.  You'll have to sell your ring if you ever want one of those!"  Well I wasn't about to do that, lol!

A bit later, Katie told Taylor that one day she was going to buy me a Keurig in turquoise blue.  I thought "Aw how sweet!"  And I smiled happily to myself because to me, it's just as sweet to have someone want to give me something as it actually is to get it, you know?

Two weeks later, we were headed home from the pick up point for Taylor and I mentioned to John that I'd seen a dual Keurig at Walmart for $99.  His work partner had bought a Keurig for his home and John knows that Andy researches things deeply before purchasing.  So he was more open to the idea of a Keurig than he'd been previously.  John said "Well then get one!  And get the color you'd like too! It can be your Christmas gift..."

Now this is typical of John, that I get my Christmas gift in October.   Katie was with us and immediately started accessing information over her phone and comparing units and customer reviews and prices.  "Well dad,  it's nearly $50 more for that unit in the color mom wants...but you can get a smaller machine that is a single serve with a reservoir and sells for just $60 and in the exact color she wants," and then went on to extoll the features that we'd like about the new pot, ending with "And you can buy permanent k-cup filters and fill them yourself and save money."    Goodness that girl is smart.   She sold her dad on that coffee pot, convincing him we'd be saving money to buy it!  And so it was that John said "Well when we get home, order it then."

That's how I came to have a new coffee pot just a week before my old computer stopped working.  And while I love that new coffee maker and my anniversary ring as well, I did look at John ruefully one morning and say, "I am so grateful for my gifts, but I confess I've thought several times that cash would have gone far towards a new computer..."  And he looked at me with something sort of like compassion because he knows I do enjoy my writing time.  Well, little did we know how rapidly I would be blessed with this beautiful new computer, too!  Isn't it just wonderful how things work out at times?


So Katie is very near meeting her baby.  It will happen next Wednesday week., on November 6.  I sure would appreciate prayers on her and baby Caleb's behalf.  She will be a repeat C-section and she's all scheduled and ready to go.  We have one final doctor visit next Tuesday morning and then we're off to do lab work and on Wednesday morning she checks in to the hospital.  An ultrasound shows that he will be 6 pounds and he appears to be fully developed and ready to face the world.  Ultrasounds are a marvelous thing, they are truly, with their ability to see both the outside of the baby and the inside, too so that organs may be viewed and measured to insure everything is growing as it should.  But I'd be a silly woman to deny just a little apprehension.  It's surgery for goodness sake!  There are risks even yet, since she's placenta previa, to both her and the boy.  So yes, prayers would be deeply appreciated for them both, and the surgeons and staff who will be in the OR that morning.


I've been so focused on what is needed of me these last few months and in the weeks just ahead that I've given only a passing thought at best to Thanksgiving which seems to be a major concern for many folks.   I have seen multiple blog posts of late about planning Thanksgiving...

 Mama has already begun her annual finagling to insure that she has 'Chicken and dressing' and not turkey or stuffing (or pumpkin pie) as well as an attempt to wrest everyone's plans to her own wishes.  John wants turkey and stuffing (and pumpkin pie!) but I know it's impossible to have Mama here.  I said last year as she left  following our Christmas family day that it would be her last visit to this house because of her great difficulty in managing the  steps at the back porch and truly she has not visited here since.  As well the drive is a trial to her.  I don't want her to spend the day alone but I'm not at all convinced I can get anyone else to change their plans and John...well he can be quite stubborn, too and why shouldn't he want what he wants after all these years of working the holiday and having to make do?    I feel incredibly torn and guilty and though I know that were it my plans, Mama would have no consideration at all for them, it doesn't make me want less to try and accommodate her.

But just at the moment, all I really feel able to focus upon is the few weeks ahead in which I shall make numerous trips to doctors and hospital and picking up Taylor and returning her and trying to see that Katie has meals and rest to recover and...   Yes.  That IS quite enough and if things don't work out for others' plans then I'm terribly sorry but I've long since realized I'm not that elastic.  I can't be all things at once.  I can only deal with things as they present themselves and necessity is necessity isn't it?

 Back in July (?) Katie was having some major nausea and often threw up.  There were two or three days in a row that she couldn't keep a thing down. She was too sick to work one night but went off to fetch some of her things from a friend's house and on her way home she passed out and wrecked her car.  She seemed fine,  the baby was fine, but the car wasn't.  It was completely totaled.  And no, this wasn't the wreck earlier in the spring, this was a separate incident with the new car.  At the hospital they pumped her full of fluids and anti nausea medication and sent her home at first, only to call her back to the hospital later that day to say "Oh yes, we read the x-rays and you've several broken ribs..."  The doctors told her there was nothing to do for the ribs but to take Tylenol and wait for them to heal and to expect it to take six weeks or so.  

Well, we just stood back and assessed the situation.  Because the newer car had been bought outright, she'd carried only liability insurance on it.  She wasn't working the night she had the accident.  So there was no coverage on the car.  No car, no job.   She couldn't work with the broken ribs anyway and being as well along in her pregnancy as she'd be when healed (7.5 months), it  seemed foolish to even think of looking for another job at present.  So we agreed to cover a few of her usual expenses while she just got through this pregnancy and we'd wait for things to fall into place.  

This is why I've been so busy going back and forth of late.  Katie is not the sort to be unappreciative nor to whine much about how things are.  I confess that trait of hers makes it mighty easy to do what we have for her and I know that as soon as she can she'll be independent once more.

So far it seems nothing much has fallen into place and it has at the same time.  I mean there isn't a car, or a job, but I remain steadfast in believing that all things  will all come at all the right times as they have thus far.  Somehow all the major stuff needed for the baby and most of Katie's other needs have been met.  She qualified for some assistance that has been a powerful help.  She's found some incredibly good bargains on yard sale and group sell sites.   

My next step is to see Katie through the few days remaining before her delivery date.  So Friday we'll run a couple of errands.  We'll pick Taylor up for the weekend on Saturday and when we've taken Taylor back we'll assess what needs to be done at Katie's house to insure it's ready for her to come back home to after she's released from the hospital.  Katie is the sort that nests early and hard.  The baby things are ready.  There's only some minor housekeeping that will need to be done and to look over her food stores for the first week.  She's made a few meals ahead, I've got a few meals set aside for her.  I'll make a few more next week now that I've room in my freezer to do so.  We'll manage.  But yes that is "the next thing."  And maybe nearer Thanksgiving I can look at that holiday and determine what will be done.  But not now.

We've done very little with this vacation time of John's.  There's been all my usual running about to do but John has, for the most part, been at home.  For him to spend such an extended time at home is quite unusual.  We went out one afternoon to pick up his check and later that week we went to the grocery and then out to dinner at our favorite restaurant.   That was a pleasant time out but I don't think John has done a thing since then except going out to get oil changed in his car yesterday.

I've heard a great deal about his worries over retirement.  He finally looked at social security information, has studied Medicare Part B plans (so confusing!) and looked at retirement income and it appears we shall be lingering in pretty much the same neighborhood of income we're in just now.  That relieved him of at least some of his worries.  But my husband is not one for change of any sort.  Truthfully I would think he'd give up the fight, because the more he protests that he doesn't like change, the more things change!  I'm trying hard to be sympathetic and at the same time, trying hard to not get too weighed down by his concerns because I have a few of my own.   I've reassured where I can and pointed out that we should manage quite fine according to paper and that my own insurance will decrease somewhat as income is decreased.  But I say this sincerely, I had not expected it to be such an emotional issue for him.   I'm afraid that were the county not intent on privatizing he'd not leave anytime soon and I say that sincerely.  However, I am pretty sure it's the being wrested away from the job that is the real culprit of his anxiety over it all.

Well we shall endure this journey as we have all others in our married life: side by side, with us each stumbling along into the unknown assured of companionship.   I have a feeling, and perhaps I'm just an optimist overall, that we're going to find the years ahead rather pleasurable.  It will be a lovely autumn of life for us.  I just feel sure it's true!

Now I shall end here, short a visit as it's been.  I'm off to find another cup of coffee, just one more lovely warming cup and to flip through the pages of yet another cookbook that I likely shall find I don't need, don't want to cook from and have no clue why I own it...I suspect I'm going to be reduced to my notebook and the three cookbooks I turn to most often.

Have a lovely rest of the week dears!