January 1, 2014 - New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

Stayed home for NY's Eve --DH doesn't like to go out because of the drunks and stupid heads.  He went to bed but not to sleep.  I stayed up, doing some cleaning & piddling.  The pop, pop, pop of either gunshots or firecrakers rang out about midight and Luci was scared.  She was barking her head off in the middle of the king size bed, trying to make Daddy get up to go stop whatever was happening.  We stay away from the doors/windows in our house during this time.  It is not unusual for bullets to be flying in our neighborhood.  We toasted the New Year with caffeine-free diet coke.
Today we slept in (LOVE being able to do that), then had a morning of doing a few things and enjoying our time.  This afternoon we went to a NY's blackeyed pea party hosted by friends Joan and Bill and saw a bunch of our friends we haven't seen in a while.  Friends, food, a little good wine.  We left before totally dark because if we leave after dark we have to drive by Braille - DH can't see at night but doc still says its not time to remove cataracts.  And I have a tendency to go to sleep in the car.  So we need to get home before totally dark.

DH will be working at the mission tomorrow morning, then will meet up with our buddy Jack at the Civil War Museum where he will spend the afternoon learning various things about volunteering out there.  It will be great for him.  It will be the first time he wears his uniform.  He had tried on the jacket Christmas Day, as well as the shirt.  But tonight he finally tried on the pants.  These come up on the belly, not below the belly.  The pants were made according to the waste size and without consideration of his skinny legs!  Two people could get into the legs of these pants and the butt.  And they had not been hemmed.  I contacted my friend Maggie in Mississippi who makes period clothing to get "hurry up" advice about what to do.  She says they are supposed to be baggy, not fit like modern clothing.  Also told me to turn the pants up and run a fast whip stitch instead of cutting them off since they haven't been cleaned yet (will probably shrink a bit).  I spent about an hour turning them up and hand stitching them...they don't look the greatest but will do for tomorrow and then we'll get a tailor to hem them.  He's just going to have to wear big baggy pants.

Oh, well, need to go to bed...it's 2:15 a.m. on the 2nd!  I have a doc apptmt (vascular doc) at 9 a.m.  Hopefully going to find out if there is anything that can be done about my left leg.  Veins have collapsed, won't pump the fluids back up, is extremely painful and huge with edema.

Enuf for now...need sleep.