Praise God from whom all blessings flow.....

Those are the first few words from The Doxology.  After playing piano & organ in church since he was in the 8th grade, Joe literally could probably play The Doxology with his eyes closed or actually asleep.  However, after those 40+ years, he doesn't know the words.  I learned that today when Joe and I went to church this morning.  It's not the first time we have been in church together, but he is always at the piano or organ and I am in the congregation.  However, today, we were both in the congregation and as we rose to sing The Doxology, Joe whispers to me, "I don't know the words".  The Doxology is not supposed to be a time of laughter but it was difficult for me to keep the giggles quiet as he mumbled through the song.

Today was his first time back in church since February 13th, the week before his surgery.  There were lots of smiles and hugs and a few tears today, but it felt wonderful to be back.  Joe smiled so much on the way home, was very talkative and generally in a great mood all afternoon and I know that most of that was due to being back at Pleasant Grove this morning.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to come speak to Joe and me and wish him well, and quiz me over my clumsiness and boot.  I was very excited when we got to the church this morning because there were signs all over the Church saying, "It's coming, April 10th".  I turned to Joe and told him how exciting it was but totally unnecessary  for the Church to make such a big deal about my birthday.  I mean really, everyone has been very kind and loving, but making such a big deal over my birthday was not fair to everyone else.  Of course, I was only kidding about actually thinking the signs had anything to do with me, but it was nice to see just the same  :)

This week will hopefully be an uneventful, slide back in to a somewhat normal schedule kind of week.  The home health care nurse will be here only twice this week and then we will see them no more.  Joe's incision continues to heal very well and we just change the dressing 2 times per day.  Each day there is less and less evidence of any drainage on the dressing when it is removed.  All in all, he feels good, and his energy is getting better daily.  Of course he is far from 100%, but we'll take what we can get right now.  I even let him go in Target to pick up a few things without me today (I drove and stayed in the car....the walking thing poops me out very quickly right now).   We had Jill & Mark over for dinner tonight and sat and had some good laughs and watched a little basketball.  With the warm weather tomorrow, Joe hopes to sit out on the patio in his rocking chair and maybe get some reading done.  He has been reading one book for about 8 months now and he needs to finish it so he can move on to a special book that was given to him when he was in the hospital.

Joe finished editing his latest CD this past week that was recorded 2 weeks before his surgery.  It was sent off for production on Friday and hopefully will be here the week of Easter.  Called "A Time of Centering" it is a collection of some of his favorites, some favorites of persons close to him and one that is very special to me, my late father's favorite hymn and the one that was sung at his funeral.  He is very excited that he was able to get all this accomplished before his surgery and able to get the edits done this past week on his computer.  I think everyone that hears it will feel the love that he put in to making it.

Continued thanks to everyone who keeps us in their prayers.