Norris Family Blog

New Years Trip

The pickup bed cover finally arrived at 6 PM Friday, so Linda and I moved the Malibu to the pole barn and brought the Silverado to the house and I managed to get it into the garage. It just barely fit. The Extang bed cover was rolled into a tight bundle and inside a cardboard box when UPS delivered it. We opened the package and laid the vinyl cover on the living room floor to warm up in front of the wood stove while we put the rails on the truck bed. The cover was still a tight fit and I had to use pliers to stretch it in order to snap it down all the way around the bed.
Saturday morning, Stacey, Linda and I loaded our things in the bed and the back seat, then pulled the truck out of the garage and we piled in and left a little after 10 AM. Traffic was fairly thick during the trip, but we didn't have any problems or delays. We stopped for groceries and ordered a pizza before going to Daleville. At Mom's house, I put the truck in four wheel drive and pulled back and forth in the alley beside the house to make a parking place in the half foot of snow on the ground.

Sunday morning we went to see Mom at the Woodland's Nursing Home in Muncie, IN. Once again, Mom wasn't doing as good. Pauline and Brent came in with their kids during the visit.

The excitement wore Mom out fairly quickly and she laid down to rest, so we said good bye and left. We stopped on the way back to Daleville and ate lunch. Linda and Stacey left me at the house and went to Pendleton to pick up her Mom for a shopping trip. They came back to Daleville around 6 PM and said it had went pretty good with Reba.
Monday, we took it easy for a while and just watched some TV. I made a short trip to the liquor store and picked up some drinks for the party later. We showered and left the house around 6 PM. I drove to Chesterfield and we stopped at Lana and Frank Dial's house for a couple of drinks before going to Shelly and Jeff Huck's house for their New Year's Eve Party. The party was under way when we arrived.


We toasted the New Year with everyone having a glass of champagne. Around an hour later, we left the party. Linda drove us back to Daleville. I was in NO SHAPE to drive!
Tuesday morning, I was moving pretty slow, so Linda and Stacey packed the things for the ride home. We left Daleville and made it home about 20 minutes before 3 PM.

Posted by Dave at 7:00 AM
Categories: Current Events, Daleville

Weekend At Hospital

Linda woke me at 5:45 AM Saturday saying Stacey was having problems. I quickly observed her and we decided to give her 10 mg of Valium to try to avert a seizure. The problem was we couldn't get Stacey to open her mouth and swallow the pill. With no way to give her the Valium, I decided it was time to take her to the hospital. She was already having involuntary muscle contractions and I was worried that it wouldn't be too long until she had a gran mal seizure. I backed the car halfway out of the garage and left the motor running while Linda and I led Stacey from her bedroom to the garage. Sometimes Stacey was able to take a step or two, other times I was nearly carrying her entire weight. We made it to the car, I buckled her in while Linda was getting the small pouch with all of the medications. I drove us to the hospital quickly and we parked outside the ER entry. They brought out a wheel chair and took her inside. Linda registered Stacey while I explained the situation to the ER nurse and EMT on duty. They started an IV and monitored her respiration and temperature. The ER doctor admitted Stacey and we were taken to one of the new hospital rooms. It was the first time we had seen the new hospital wing that had been built with the Economic Stimulus Funds. Stacey remained in about the same condition most of the day. Dr Rice did his rounds about 2:30 PM and I reminded Dr Rice that Valium would bring Stacey out of the stupor and clear up her thinking. He prescribed IV Valium for Stacey as needed and an initial dose to see if it would help. The nurse gave the shot in the IV tube and within 10 minutes, Stacey had straightened up and was setting upright in bed. She ate her supper and then watched TV. About 2 hours later, Stacey had slipped back into the control of the epilepsy and was having more involuntary movements. As Linda took over for the night shift, I asked the nurse to give Stacey another shot of Valium and they did about 9:30 PM.
Sunday morning about 4:30 AM. I returned to the hospital to relieve Linda and she told me Stacey had been OK the rest of the night. Stacey woke around 7 AM and appeared fairly normal during breakfast. Dr Rice came in for rounds about 11 AM and said Stacey could go home after lunch to watch the Colts play football. The nurse took out her IV and we signed the paperwork after lunch.
We are going to get a wheel chair to use to get Stacey from her room to the car instead of trying to carry her. That has been a problem for us for years, we're afraid of her falling or causing us to fall while we're trying to carry her. The other option is to call an ambulance and wait on them to get here each time we have to take her to the hospital, but we feel that takes too long and one trip would cost the insurance company more than the cost of a wheel chair.

Posted by Dave at 9:00 PM
Categories: Current Events

Wheel Chair

Stacey and I took the prescription to the Burkesville Medical Supply store and picked up a folding wheel chair. I had Stacey set in it to make sure it was wide enough for her and I measured the width to make sure it would fit through our doors.

We folded the chair up and put it in the back of the HHR and took it back to the farm. I hope it will be a while before we need to use it.

Posted by Dave at 10:30 AM
Categories: Current Events

Road Trip

Linda came home from the school and told us that school was canceled due to the flu for the rest of the week. I thought about it over night and this morning I began looking at places we could go. I figured out that there wouldn't be a lot of people in Gatlinburg. I used a program from the internet to check out the availability and prices of several of the hotels in that area, then called the number. Nothing I had done on the internet was correct. I hung up and looked at some more hotels and found a few that were pet friendly, one had an indoor pool and all had free internet access. I called and made the reservations. We quickly packed our bags, threw the dog cage in the trunk and loaded the car. It was almost 1 PM when we pulled out of the driveway. We made it halfway to town and had to go back to the pole barn to pick up the dog's leash. Attempt two went better. We filled up with gas and headed south to Cookville, TN. I had programed the GPS to take us to Cheddars to eat. We had a great meal and were back on the road fairly quick. Seems we hit it right between lunch and dinner. Interstate 40 was close to the restaurant and we took it due east. Knoxville, TN seemed like a very large city and I was glad I had the GPS to lead me through the many lanes of traffic at rush hour. We left I-40 and turned south towards Gatlinburg. Nothing but buisnesses the entire way. One shopping center after another, Linda and Stacey couldn't call out the names as fast as we passed the stores. We drove right to the Fairfield Inn & Suites, then I went inside and checked in at the desk. We carried our bags inside and went swimming in the indoor pool.

Posted by Dave at 7:50 PM
Categories: Current Events

Smoky Mountain National Park & Shopping

The first thing we did after a brief breakfast at the hotel was drive about a mile to the middle of Gatlinburg and stop at Cooter's Place. After that we made a hot lap to check out our location and get an idea of anything we wanted to see. Then we drove into Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We stopped and made a picture at the sign, then continued upward.

When we were near the highest point on the road, we pulled over at the North Carolina and Tennessee state lines and Stacey climbed out for a picture. It was really a bunch cooler and raining while we were at the top. As we drove back down we stopped at an overlook and took a picture of the top of the mountains in the clouds and the town down below in the sunshine. As we drove into town, the temperature warmed up and I used the A/C in the car to cool us down. We stopped and ate lunch at the Golden Corral.

Linda and Stacey were the main shoppers and I was the wheel man most of the time. We used the GPS to navigate our way around the town like we had lived there for a long time.

Part of the time I would just leave it on the shopping setting and it would give us a readout of what shops we were near.

Posted by Dave at 3:30 PM
Categories:

Back Home

We checked out of the hotel in Gatlinburg and made a few more shopping stops in Sevierville before heading home. After entering Interstate 40 West we encountered a misting rain. It steadily became worse as we passed through Knoxville. As we started down from the Cumberland Plateau we ran into a thick fog with the rain and it slowed traffic down somewhat. We were getting close to Cookville and it was almost lunch time, so we stopped at Logan's Roadhouse and had a couple great steak dinners. Stacey had a steak burger that was too big for her to eat, so she took some to the car for Coco. We continued our ride towards the farm and the weather cleared off until we entered Burkesville. We could tell the rain had just stopped because there was water running everywhere. When we turned onto 61 North, we could see that Big Renoux Creek was muddy and the water was moving quite fast. I parked the Malibu in the garage and we unloaded our clothes and stuff, then I took a Mule ride around to see if there was any damage. Nothing seemed messed up, so I went to the house and parked the Mule.

Posted by Dave at 4:30 PM
Categories: Current Events, Farm

Chromebook

I have been looking for a new laptop computer and had checked out the Google Chromebook from Samsung. Each time I had looked for one to buy the web sites had been sold out. I finally found that Best Buy had a few in stock so I ordered one from their web site. Amazon was taking orders to be filled in 5 to 6 weeks at that time. I expected delays in shipping, but was pleasantly surprised when I received an email stating the Chromebook had been shipped and with an UPS tracking number. Three days later they delivered the package, I signed the electronic acceptance form and opened the box. The Chrome Operating System is slightly different from anything I had used before, but I was able to type in the 64 bit pass phrase for our wireless access points. As soon as I applied the phrase, I was online and the Chromebook was updating itself.

I bought the Chromebook for web browsing and I think that is exactly what it's made to do, not much else. There is a keyboard that has a smaller layout than a desktop PC. It has some keys that are specific to the Chrome OS and is missing a few keys that I am used to using. There are no left click or right click buttons at all. Those actions are done with gestures on the touchpad. Scrolling is accomplished using two fingers being dragged up or down on the touchpad. It didn't take long to learn to use those. The toughest things to do are highlighting and dragging and dropping, such as window resizing or copying and pasting. The screen size is 11.6 inches and the resolution is fine for the net. I've imported my bookmarks from my desktop and am browsing for up to 5.5 hours on a single battery charge. The Chromebook is very light and sometimes I feel like if I double tap the touchpad too hard it might break the whole thing in half! LOL I think the Chromebook is about the same as an iPad, only half the price and not as durable.

Posted by Dave at 10:00 AM
Categories:

Freezing Rain

Yesterday school was canceled due to freezing rain in our area. The roads were slick most of the day and the power lines were drooped down with the weight of icicles. In the afternoon today the ice began melting and I decided to take a ride in the Mule. Daisy was the only female that wanted to go along, so I took her with me.

After crossing the creek, I let Daisy out of the Mule and watched her run. She was hopping around like Marmaduke because a lot of the ice was falling from the tree limbs and she thought it was an animal in the woods.

After we made the rounds, I put Daisy back in the barn stall and gave her food. Her water wasn't frozen, so she was all set for another night.