The best news -- I've heard from Eddie and he says he has updated my e mail. He is okay. (I was worried about him.)

A couple of months ago the burners on our GE Profile stove top went kaput. What I most hated about this stove was that the seal on the oven door allowed grease to form inside the glass panels. Gross. Cleaning it out meant taking the door apart. I found out how to do it on the internet, but thought I’d screw it up and not be able to get it back together. We’d had it a number of years, so Ed decided we could get a new stove and we went to Bill Smith, the major appliance outlet in Cape Coral. They sold us a Samsung, not our first choice, but checking alternatives meant a trip to Fort Myers, what a bore, so we took it.

Learning how to use it was not simple. Sort of like being asked to fly a military bomber without training. The manual, when you could locate what you wanted, was in Sanskrit. Laboriously and, over time, I got the hang of it. Now I know how to bake and broil and get the right size burner depending on the pan I am using. There are a dozen other features I WILL NEVER USE. It has a time/date panel that goes black after a few minutes and you have to push the control to get it back. Call me crazy, but I like the time feature to be always on. At least the Microwave always tells me the time. It is really easy, when cleaning the area around the controls, all in the front, to touch something that starts something. So after wiping, I make sure I haven’t left anything on. Sol’s boyfriend, more techie than I, showed me how to set the clock and then I forgot how. I fussed with it, got it, but If I were to take a week off, I might well forget again.

That has been my recent challenge.

Ed is struggling to maintain energy, taking rehab 3 times a week at one of the Cape Coral Hospital rehab centers. He leaves early so he can get a parking space that doesn’t require a long walk. His mood is usually dark because he is impatient and is itching to be whole again without effort. I have a spasmodic back, and am tired most of the time but I'm doing more so I guess something is improving. However, making the beds – we have a tempurpedic split king – is a nightmare and when I am done, I need to rest. If we had it to do over I would get two separate twins and push them together. That way you could make them without turning into a pretzel. And many times I will lose something between the beds and have to get on the floor and shine the flashlight to find it.

That’s all for now. I’d ask you to pray for me, but there is no God.

Xx, Teal