GOOD WEEK
We had a great weekend with our daughter, Kathy,son-in-law, Keith,two granddaughters, Valerie and Vanessa, and two greatgrandsons, Christopher and Brent here. Keith is in remodeling and undertook the task of installing a pull out table support for the keyboard for Lou's desktop computer in her office. It took him two hours and I would never have been able to do it. Keith gave his grandsons the time of their lives by giving them a ride on the Ford tractor. He even let Christopher shift the gears. Keith ran the clutch and brake. He filled the deer feeders and when the rope came out of the pulley on one feeder he talked Christopher into climbing up in the branches to thread the rope back through the pulley. A learning experience to remember from his childhood.

Brent is two and a cowboy. He was wearing his boots and when I came home from church he was watching me change clothes in the closet and was admiring my lineup of boots. I normally put walking shoes on, but for him I put a different pair of boots on. If his parents find that he has learned a couple of new words that they can't figure out, they are elephant and shark. Two skins on the boots he liked best.

Lou is doing better. Still has back problems but Monday she was walking down the highway when I got back from my two miles. And this morning she made it past the creek, which is a chore in itself. My Shingles have modified from excruciating to aggravating pain and I am weaning myself off of the Darvoset or whatever it is called. I am mostly down to a couple of aspirin three times a day. Today I ate with Mike Friend at Kiwanis and he was the most helpful Shingles patient I have heard. He said he got over his in a couple of weeks, but he was a lot younger then. I had been hearing stories of the pain lasting for years and wasn't looking forward to that. I always thought I had a good immune system. I did get a flu shot at Lou's insistance.

I appreciate hearing from some of you that read the blog. Shay Bennett wrote Lou to thank her for giving the talk to the AAUW and mentioned that she keeps up through the blog and when I mentioned the book NEW ENGLAND WHITE by Stephen Carter back in July, she checked it out of the Library and has been reading it. Lou has finished ABRAHAM by Feiler and is encouraging me to read it again to better understand the Muslims and the problems in the MidEast. I am covering Abraham and his progeny in the Bible in our SS class. She also is working her way through the OT and reading John in the NT. Of course everyday she reads the Abilene Reporter-News, Wall Street Journal and every week the New York Times Book Review, Newsweek and about a hundred other pieces of mail plus reading a book every three days working on her judging short novels for the Spur awards next year. She gets about 3 books a week to read. Mike Friend asked me what I was reading for pleasure and I told him I am still working on Bill Neal's book, GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER IN WEST TEXAS.

LOU GETS ANOTHER AWARD
Tonight the Cross Plains Public Library gave Lou an inscribed silver pen set with a bouquet of flowers to honor her eight years of judging the school essay awards made by the Library. The award was given at the Meet the Author presentation by Bill Neal talking about his book GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER ON THE TEXAS FRONTIER. Margaret Waring, Comanche Librarian, came because she has worked with Bill on his books and his grandfather lived in Comanche. Judge Roger Corn came from Baird as well as a number from Cross Plains and Sipe Springs. History prof Mike Friend was also in the audience. I have been reading the book and the stories about Temple Houston, youngest son of Sam Houston, would make another book. He quotes some of the speeches to juries that are classic.

Lou seems to be in good spirits and fairly good health with a few back problems when she works too hard. She was totally surprised by the award tonight. Also Bill Neal is trying to set up a panel with her for a presentation at Frontier Texas in Nov. or Dec.

I would sure like to be over these painful Shingles, but it may take a while. I am trying to find a flu clinic to get my shot.

AAUW TALK
Today Lou spoke to the Abilene branch of the American Association of University Women at the Country Club. She was a guest of Shay Bennett who is in charge of programs this year. Shay and her husband Pat provided Lou with a lot of letters and other materials for her biography of Jane Gilmore Rushing which was her topic for her talk. She started by quoting from Quotable Texas Women and talked about her journey writing about Texas women writers. The meeting started at 10:30 a.m. and had over 15 there. They seemed to enjoy hearing Lou. One woman had read about it in the Abilene Reporter-News and asked to come. The women are all connected to Abilene schools someway.

Lou is feeling somewhat better and has a good outlook. I still have pain from the Shingles but am learning how to solve it with Bayer aspirin and prescription pain pills when necessary. I thought I could get a flu shot at HEB but found that they only give them on special days, Nov. 9 being the next opportunity, so I guess I will have to go to the CP clinic or somewhere to get mine.

We had a couple of great meals this week when Patsy Harelik, our neighbor a couple of miles east of here brought some great tasting chicken and rice Wednesday. She was also taking food to Sue and Ike. Angels still appear unexpectedly.

On the Literature side of the house, Lou is still reading novels for the Spur award. One was so funny she gave it to me to read. I still haven't finished Bill Neal's book about getting away with murder on the West Texas frontier. And I have to pick up two books at the Library to review for the Heart of Texas before Nov. 7.

GREAT INLAWS
Not only is this great weather but my grass is mowed all over the place due to the Saturday dawn to dark efforts of my son-in-law who designed this house and wants it to look good. Kathy and Keith came Friday to relax from their hurried lives. That morning Kathy went to the funeral of a 38 year-old woman who was last heard from by her husband on her cell phone and was found later in a ravine where her car had left the road. Keith came in Friday from a NARI meeting in Las Vegas where he had learned that remodelers from all over the US have the same problems that his firm has. He is the president of the San Antonio chapter of NARI. Which I think is the National Association of Remodelers something. Our daughter was her useful helpful self cooking and doing all the laundry before they left Sunday morning to go by their lot in SA to see the new house going up next door. Keith has the plans for their house at the blueprinters and they hope to negotiate a loan and start construction soon.

Lou has gone five days from her last chemo with no ill effects. She walked about one half mile this morning. I walked my two miles and it seems to help my Shingles. I finished my 7 day ValTrex treatment this morning and the pain and blisters are still with me but somewhat lessened. If I take the pain pills I can sleep some at night although the dreams walk on the nightmare side. I hate taking prescription pills but sometimes you have to give in. Lou is not having stomach pains. Still has some back pains that move around. She has a real good attitude. Her day was much brightened yesterday when our new preacher, Rev. Margaret Friend, came for her first visit. She brought Lou a book and spent 2 hours visiting with us. We learned that she spent a year in London on assignment by American Airlines when she was one of their computer experts.

Lou continues to study for her finals by working her way through the Bible. She is having a hard time with the Lord in Numbers. Especially when the Lord tells Baalam to get up and go and then gets mad at him for doing it. I told her I read the other day that the Lord's ways are not our ways and we can't expect to understand him. She prefers the God of the NT. She is through John on that part of the exam. Her other literature work is reading for the short novel Spur award. She gets 3 to 4 books a week to read. She also reads background files for her memoir. Right now she has over 130 emails from the Levelland class of '53 that she corresponds with. Apparently they are great story tellers.

The weather is beautiful. After Keith mowed the lawn Sunday early Monday morning a storm dropped 1.25" of rain to make it look great in the sunshine. This morning I walked in a heavy fog and the sun hasn't shown itself through the clouds, but no precip.

CANCER UPDATE
I called Dr. Hancock's office this morning and got the CA125 report from last Wednesday's test. It is now 420 which is not what I wanted to hear after a month of Dixol. It should be headed down, not up. Lou says not to worry about it that CA125 isn't too accurate and Dixol is cumulative and should show results next time. It doesn't bother her but bugs me. She still takes ginger every day but only 2 gms. The cranberry juice says it helps with platain chemo and I don't think Dixol is. I bought some cranberry juice but we haven't opened the bottle. So your prayers are our best hope to move that CA125 number down.

RAIN AND CHEMO UPDATE
Wednesday we drove to Fort Worth for Lou's second round of Doxil infusion. Our son and daughter-in-law were very helpful. Mary Kathryn was there when we arrived and listened to Dr. Hancock's diagnosis. He said he was cutting back on the dose because it is cumulative and didn't want Lou to have problems with it. He said her blood tests on white and red cells and hemoglobin were fine and the CA 125 would be back Friday. He also authorized Flu and Pneumonia shots for Lou. After they started the infusion took a little over an hour. Mark and MK brought us food for lunch. Mark had an important meeting at Lockheed and couldn't stay, but Mary Kathryn visited with Lou while I read Bill Neal's book on getting away with murder on the Texas frontier. He will be the Meet The Author speaker for the Library Oct. 23 and I hadn't read the book. He is from Abilene and practised law for over 30 years spending half time on prosecution and the other half defending. He had heard stories of the early day trials and decided to write a book about them researchine court records and interviewing surviving relatives of the principals. He has a lot of interesting stories about colorful characters that populated the early justice system in West Texas.

Oh yes, the rain. This morning I walked my two miles and saw lightening in the north in a black cloud. After I got back and we started eating breakfast the storm moved in, rained about 1/2" and was over when I went to get the mail at 9:30. It was cloudy and even sprinkled a little more until noon, but has cleared off and is sunny now. The meteorologists totally missed predicting the precip.

CHEMO AND CRANBERRY JUICE
For women who are having their first chemo that uses one of the carboplatin infusions they might be interested in the following that I copied off the web:
Ovarian cancer is the seventh most common cancer in the United States and the fifth leading cause of cancer death among American women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Chemotherapy treatment commonly centers on so-called "platinum drugs", such as cisplatin and paraplatin. However, many women develop therapeutic resistance, necessitating the use of ever-higher doses that in turn raise the risk for both nerve damage and kidney failure.
To assess cranberries' ability to alleviate this problem, Singh and Rutgers colleagues Dr. Laurent Brard and Rakesh K. Singh teamed up with K.S. Satyan of the Molecular Therapeutics Laboratory at Brown Medical School's Women and Infants Hospital.
With funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the authors collected ovarian cancer cells from patients experiencing platinum drug resistance. They then exposed some of the cells to a purified extract drawn from a store-bought cranberry drink that contained 27 percent pure juice. Doses varied, reaching a maximum of about one cup of juice.
All the cancer cells were subsequently treated with paraplatin chemotherapy.
The result: Cells pre-treated with the juice extract were killed at a rate that was equal to six times that of cells unexposed to cranberry components.
In addition, the juice appeared to slow both the growth and spread of some cancer cells.
It's not yet clear how cranberry juice might kill ovarian cancer cells, the researchers said, although an antioxidant unique to cranberries -- the "A-type" proanthocyanidins -- could be key.
This specific antioxidant is not present in other fruits and appears to bind with -- and block the activity of -- tumor proteins found in ovarian cancer cells, increasing their sensitivity to chemo.
Singh cautioned that it remains to be seen whether the cranberry-chemo effect can be repeated outside a lab setting. Testing in mice and rats is about to begin, followed by human trials, the scientist said.

SHINGLES! UGH
Now it is my time to complain. I have been having pain and blisters on my back and chest for several days and finally went to the doc today and his diagnosis was SHINGLES. I know a lot of people have had this so I will get a lot of sympathy. Lou had it a bunch of years ago so she is sympathetic. I started on the anti-virus med today along with a stronger pain med so maybe I can get more sleep tonight.

Lou is doing better and tomorrow she will take her second Doxil chemo treatment and we will get another CA125 to see if it is working. She still has pain but it is in a different place each day. She is staying downstairs as much as possible and uses her new laptop to handle her email.

A literary note. I got mentioned in Judy Alter's Dallas Morning News column last Sunday. One of Lou's friends at TWU sent me the web site: http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/books/stories/DN-bk_alter_1007gl.ART.State.Bulldog.41ff720.html
I got an email from Henry Chappell today thanking me for the mention.

RAIN!

Wednesday I drove to Abilene to have the pickup serviced. It was sunshining there, but a large thunderhead was building up in the East. I wondered if it was over Halsell Hill. As I drove east on I-20 and turned south on 2228 I ran into the clouds and had rain showers down the road. As I got close to home it was dry. When I started walking toward the house there was a light sprinkle. I went up to the computer and about 5:15 it started raining. I came down to eat with Lou and it started pouring. It was over in an hour but we had 1.4" during that time. Not much soaked in. We needed it.

Kathy called last night and told about their weekend adventure. Thursday one of the parents of her students called to ask if she could use 4 Aggie tickets. Of course. When she, Keith, Jim and Christopher got to the game their tickets were in the Zone Club. Really fancy with comfortable chairs, access to snacks and ice cream, large TV screen, etc. I told her I had better seats right down on the field on my TV screen, but she reminded me she had TV also as well as being at the field. It was a great game even if my alma mater lost to the Aggies. They spent the night with Sylvia Grider and went to church with her Sunday. An unexpected great weekend for Aggie graduates.

Louann in Alaska reported seeing the first snow on the mountains. I will post her email.

Hey, everybody,

It's getting colder....I woke up this morning and was welcomed by a beautiful sight. The mountains behind the village across the bay were capped with snow during the night. The day has been absolutely beautiful. I found a new place to walk behind and to the north of the air strip. It was so much fun! I got to see the the village from a different viewpoint, and I think I got some wonderful pictures. It felt so wonderful that I jogged all the way back to my apartment......smiling the whole way. God is so good! (I will include those pics in the next email.)

I think I have decided on a Christmas theme....Christmas Around the World.....many of our carols originated in different countries....I could dress the kids in costumes from each country.....I think it could be real cute, and I do have my Christmas file here.

I am attaching pictures of the wonderful fall scenes around the village including one of my boys hunting like I described in the last email. Several of you commented on the peacefulness of the village.....it is very peaceful. I wish so much that you could share this with me.

I have met more of the villagers, and they are opening up to me more each day. One of them stopped today and asked if I wanted to go to the cannery with her. She was on her way to gather medicine weeds. I chose not to go because I had left a cake in the oven, and I wasn't dressed warmly enough for a four-wheeler ride. There will be another time. And I did enjoy exploring a new area.

Just 77 more sleeps until my flight home for Christmas! I love it here, but I am looking forward to my trip home.

I love you and miss you, Louann

NEWS FROM ALASKA

I have new emails from our niece, Louann, in Alaska:

Hello, Everybody
Let's see.....it has been rainy here for about two weeks. Today was our first day of all day sunshine. It was so nice! As I said last time, things have settled into fairly routine days. I haven't been away from the village except to take walks and soak up the fresh air and beautiful environment. I was asked by someone if the children are very different from the children that I have taught in the Lower 48. Here is what came to mind.....

Several weeks ago as I was taking a walk I met one of my students and her mother driving back from a goose hunting trip on their four-wheeler. Since the children often ride behind the driver facing the opposite direction, I turned to wave at my student, Mama Beaver, as she passed. However, she didn't even see me because she had her eyes riveted to her DS electronic game with the dead goose tucked under one of her arms. Now where in the US are you going to see that! So I guess children are basically the same everywhere. It is just their environments and lifestyles that are different. I so wished for a camera but I had left it in my apartment.

Then one day last week, I saw two of my little boys hunting birds out in the bog in front of the school. It was so fun to watch them. I wish I could show you what they were doing. They were very synchronized in their movements. They would "sneak" up to the birds. They were stooped over.....walking and stopping at the same time. Then one would shoot his sling-shot, and they would pop up together. It was so cute!

When we say there are three more days until a certain event or day, they say instead, that there are three more sleeps until that day or event. I'm even saying it now. The first time that I heard the expression, one of my boys was telling me, "There are only 6 more sleeps before my backpack comes in the mail."

One of the things that I wanted to do with my children here was to incorporate "the happy dance" for times to be celebrated in the classroom. Well, I finally have all of them standing and all but one is dancing with me. It is so much fun watching them transform just during the time that the music is on. I have one in kindergarten who just came alive on Friday. I've never seen him just let loose and have fun, but on Friday, he was the cutest. I have another one that smiles the biggest smile the whole time we are dancing. It is pretty amazing. Remember, the only music these kids get at school is whatever they get with me whether it's finger plays, concept songs, or happy dance time........which is a personal favorite of mine.

By-the-way, if any of you teachers out there have an idea about a Christmas program, please send your ideas my way. It needs to be something K through 8 can do......mainly K-3 but involving the older ones in some way. I'm serious, I am desperate for ideas....enjoyable for me as well as for the kids. Something cute but simple......I'm all ears.

I guess the personal lesson that I have realized in the past couple of weeks is that all of those distractions that I mentioned missing last time, are the things that have kept me numb, so-to-speak. And in that numbness, I have neglected to continue growing and developing and/or discovering my purpose or potential. I still have to be careful about using the internet and satellite as distractions. That tends to be so much easier to do than to concentrate on being a better Louann. I realized this one Saturday morning when the internet was down. I figured that I could be irritated or I could choose to be happy. I had a wonderful Saturday without the internet......big lesson for bush living.

I've also realized that living here cannot be a continuation of my Lower-48 life. To expect it to be is asking for disappointment out here. It has to be considered a whole new chapter or maybe even book. You guys are my wonderful support system, but if I am going to be happy out here, I have to accept this lifestyle as my lifestyle. I hope that makes sense, because once I embraced that, I knew that I could survive here. Now, am I looking forward to coming home at Christmas?......YOU BETCHA!

Hopefully next time I will have some new pictures. I think I will try to send some more pictures of the village this time just to give you a better of idea of my surroundings. (pictures will come in separate email)I want to thank each one of you for being so supportive..... each in you own special way. I am learning much about myself out here and about how much each of you mean to me. That is something else that I think I may have unknowingly taken for granted......there is nothing like the support of my family and friends. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I love and miss you all.

Louann

Here are the photos, I had some trouble learning how to copy and didn't rotate one

CAR:

The brown building is the school. The four windows on the upper left side are my apartment windows and below is my classroom. The picture of the long road is the road to the beach and is the road where I walk and pick berries. The pictures are of the main part of the village. The two-story blue building is the Tribal Council building. The new construction (if you can see it) is the new clinic.

The brown building is the school. The four windows on the upper left side are my apartment windows and below is my classroom. The picture of the long road is the road to the beach and is the road where I walk and pick berries. The pictures are of the main part of the village. The two-story blue building is the Tribal Council building. The new construction (if you can see it) is the new clinic.