Visiting great-grandchild

Keating and Lee and baby James Denison Garth
have gone on their way.  Keating and James
will be with Keating's mother for three weeks.
Lee has about 10 more days of leave and then
he'll be returning.  This means Keats will be 
on her own for the trip back across the pond.
That'll be hard because she has so much baby
stuff to deal with, but she'll ask for help
and I'm sure folks will help her.

It was great having them here although I did
get very tired.  It annoys me because we
either did carry-out or went out for most
meals.  I slept well, but still feel 
wiped out.  I think it is the pain, probably,
more than the company.  They were very
easy guests and helped as much as they
could.

James has a lovely smile and smiles a lot.
He came down with a cold while he was here
so the second day he was a very unhappy
baby, but the rest of the visit the did
fine despite a rather stuffy nose.

Our road is closed at South Boulder Rd.
Apparently drivers are not informed of
that at the Baseline end because they
drive past the road closed signs
and get to South Boulder Road and
discover it is closed; a few do a U-
turn at Brockwy where there is a huge
"No THRU TRAFFIC" sign.

The chick-a-dees and house finches are
very busy at the feeder just a few
feet away.  It is lovely; I shall look
forward to what the winter weather
brings.

Meara has some sort of illness not yet
diagnosed, but she has tremors and
her legs are wobbly.  She was to see
a neurologist, but I haven't yet
heard the results.  But, it is very
concerning.

Our two huge ash trees are turning 
yellow and their leaves are flying
in the wind.  It looks pretty, but
the result is a yellow lawn of
leaves. Looks like a lot of work,
but we are waiting until most
of the leaves have fallen before
we start to rake.

Robert has injured his shoulder
so finds it difficult to sleep.
He isn't sure how or when he did
it and we hope it'll mend itself
soon!  He also, when he isn't
thinking about it drags one foot
which is the result of the 
shingles.  If he concentrates
on picking up his foot he can
do it, but it means he has to 
concentrate on walking.  He
does not have pain left over
from the shingles, thank goodness.

I find I get really discouraged
from time to time because of the
pain I am still experiencing from
the shingles.  My forehead burns
and gets spikes of pain from time
to time and my scalp stings and
itches, all very unpleasant.
I wake in the morning and
wonder how I can deal with it
another day.  Then, I talk to
myself and say, "deal with it!" and
I do.  The meds I'm taking help
a lot, but don't smother it
completely.  I have upped the 
dosage once and may up it another
300mg.  I am taking 1200mg of
Gabapentin and the maximum
dose is 1800 mgs.  I started at
900mgs.  I feel very lethargic
and I think that is from the
meds.  I sleep really soundly
at night and I don't feel
sleepy during the day, just
lazy.  The most annoying
thing for me is that I can't
read very well.  My left 
eye is very blurry and if
I wear my old glasses the
bad eye soon begins to hurt
from the strain.  I can
read using my Kindle and
making the characters very
large...but I have real books
I'd like to read and I can't.
I go back to the eye doctor in 
two weeks and he expects to
give me a new Rx for glasses.
I assume I'll be able to 
read after that.

We do try and walk most days
and on our last walk we 
discovered an area of County
Open Space.  When we got home
Robert looked at the open
space maps and discovered
there is a finger of Open
Space that touches 76th
St. right across the street
from us!  We're anxious to
explore further.