Well, the last weekend of September we had our house painted. We moved in last March and have been waiting on weather to paint. First it was too wet, then too hot. Finally we got a spell of weather that was dry and moderate temperature. My pastor and his son have had a painting business in the past and had all the equipment to spray it. I was an amazing day. I've only painted with roller and brush. If I had done it that way, it would have been two weeks worth of work. As it was they showed up at ten minutes after eight in the morning. After coffee and muffins we got to work about 8:40. We took a bread at about 10 for lunch and already the work was ahead of schedule. Three sides of the house had been painted and all the windows masked all round. Then came the task of doing trim. So the son took to that task while my pastor finished the fourth side of the house and painted my shed to match the house. When we were all done and cleaned up everything, it was 4:30 in the afternoon. Not bad, considering that pastor had estimated it should take two days.

The following week, my wife and I took a weeks vacation at the beach. The amazing thing was that our church honored my wife for her years of service as church cleaner (over 30 years) with a $250 gift certificate for our favorite motel and a $650 love offering from the congregation. I had a $250 gift card given me at the time of my retirement from my job. With all that we had a week, all expenses with money left over.

On the way home, we were in search of two items; fresh crab and fritters... not to eaten at the same time. The crab was fairly easy, though it did take two stops. The first fish market was closed on a Saturday???? The next place didn't take plastic, so I had to find an ATM. But finding a place to buy fritters was daunting. It seems that fritters aren't in great demand at the beach and very few bakeries make them the first two bakeries didn't make fritters, so we headed up the coast, out of our way, to a bakery we know always made an abundance of fritters, only to find out they had sold out and were closed early.

In the next town up the coast we stopped a bakery we had never been to. It turned out it was a kind of local hang out. As I was waiting my turn, one of the locals came in. He looked me over. Mind you, I was out with my wife and needed, for her sake, to be pretty butch. I was wearing my new boots, smooth toe, low heel with a two straps around the ankle; my women's jeans and Woman Within polo shirt and women's glasses. Underneath, I had on my full compliment of undies, including my bra with breast forms. Needless to say, my bust line was noticeable by anyone who wanted to look. The local man gave me a pretty good once over, taking in the feminine style of my boot, my glasses and the swell of breast under the shirt. He finally looked me in the eye and winked and walked on in.

I'm not sure just how to read that. Did he think I was woman butching it up; did he think I was trans and trying to be low key or that I was just a weirdo??? Well what ever, he was OK with it.

Then just to keep things interesting, I went in Tuesday to finally have my thyroid surgery. I've had an over active thyroid (hyperthyroid) for the last 16 years. The right nodule has been increasing in size all that time. However my body has been doing just fine compensating for its hyper activity so there was no real rush to do anything about it. The surgery was to remove the right nodule which had pushed trachea about 2 inches to the left and my carotid artery around to the side of my neck. It would soon interfere with swallowing and breathing, so it had to come out. It's hoped that the left nodule will pick up the slack and keep me from needing to take medication for the rest of my life.

The surgery went well, but I've had a rough couple of days with a sore throat from the breathing tube in it during the operation. That and the afternoon and the next day after the surgery, I was bit loopy from the anesthetic. It took quite a while to clear it from my system. The whole thing put me off my feed what with my stomach being uneasy and my throat sore, making it hard to swallow. Today was the first day that I ate normally and even then, my appetite was off. But I'm feeling pretty good and can see that it won't be long before I put this all behind me.