The Apple Store in Little Rock made short work of replacing the hard drive in the MacBook, but I did lose some music because of a failure to frequently backup iTunes—lesson learned, and lost a lot of financial data.  Apple allows the hard drive to be partitioned to run Windows, and I had done that in order to run Quicken.  Kay and I have all of our non-cash transactions recorded via Quicken back to when we first married.  As it so happens, when I ran a “complete” backup for the MacBook Pro, it only ran the “complete” backup for the MacBook side of the computer.  Consequently, all the data on the Windows side of the hard drive was lost.  Our most recent backup of Quicken was June 2013.  We opted not to partition the new hard drive, meaning that we had to acquire new Apple OS based personal financial software.  After loading iBooks 5 and populating the accounts, it crashed twice, resulting in a reboot.  I finally acquiesced and bought Quicken 2016 for Mac, and spent from the better part of 3 days populating accounts via recovering data from financial institutions’ download sites and hard copies, finally accepting that there were going to be gaps—hard for an OCD personality type—and entered a one-line item adjustment for a couple of credit card accounts.  Anyway, bottomline is that we are close to being back “whole”.  And the weather cooperated by being rainy and cold, foreclosing outdoor activities.
The cold weather brought new ducks to the lake behind the house and lots of birds to the suet feeders hanging off the deck rail including Eastern Bluebirds, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens, Crows, White-breasted Nuthatches, and Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers; ducks included Mallards, American Coots, Buffleheads, and some I’ve yet to identify.  Squirrels are still a nuisance, but almost tolerable.




With the approaching holiday season, Hot Springs Village abounds with activities.  Early in the month, we saw The Hit Men Live, former performers with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Tommy James and the Shondells, The Critters, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Jim Croce, Barry Manilow, and Elton John and Kiki Dee—wow, were they awesome, with old women and men dancing in the isles!  We also saw the Village Big Band perform to open Garvin Gardens Christmas lights, and the lights along the 1+ mile trail were outstanding.  There are several other concerts scheduled between this writing and Christmas.
Golf has slowed considerably with the combination of almost 10 inches of rain, and then cold weather with some sub-freezing temperatures.  With relatively dry weather I played on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, joined by good friend, Jim Morris.  The fairways were green, but by Saturday they had all gone into dormancy, perhaps helped with the addition of another 5+ inches of rain right after Thanksgiving.

We opted to remain in Arkansas through December of this year in order to celebrate the holidays with family in the new house.  In that regard, we hosted Jenny, Harper, and Brian on Wednesday and Thursday nights,  and on Thanksgiving, enjoyed a brief visit from Karyn, Ridge, Aker, and Matt, including a great dinner for the family.  For me, particularly, it was very gratifying to have the kids and grandkids interact, and particularly to watch Ridge and Harper play outside.  In addition, Kay set up a tree in the sunroom just for them and had a box of ornaments for them to place on the tree—awesome—and we couldn’t be more blessed!  We are so blessed that in our blended family, Ron, Karyn, and Jenny, and their respective spouses are really good parents.  Praise the Lord.  With this being Ron and Cheryl’s first Thanksgiving as husband and wife, they opted to have Thanksgiving with their blended family.  We visited them on Saturday, especially to see Kayden, home from college for the long weekend.

Kay really got serious about Christmas decorating on Friday evening and Saturday despite the steady rain which continued through Sunday, keeping us indoors.

With Kay’s help in the glazing department, I made apricot fried pies Sunday afternoon, using dried fruit no less.  Though I only took a bite or two, they were pretty awesome.  A good way to end the month.

The last half of October was quite busy for us.  Kay has begun playing bridge once a month with a group of ladies, and mid-October was their playing date.  She really enjoyed the game, and as always, came out on top.

Continuing our family-filled week, we drove to Bryant on October 17 to visit with Kaden a day after his 20th birthday; he was home for fall break from college.  And then that evening, we attended a marriage celebration in Little Rock; it was at the Crowne Plaza in west Little Rock, and the food was fabulous.  Our final birthday of the month was Ridge’s; we returned back to central Arkansas for his 4th birthday party a few days early.  No more birthdays this month.
October 21, while Kay was at Bookclub, Jerry and Karen Smith, birding friends from Rio Grande Valley, stopped over for a few days on their way to the Valley from Wisconsin.  We had a great visit, and enjoyed showing them Hot Springs Village, Hot Springs, and the mineral mines west of the Village.  They invested in the area by visiting Oaklawn and Jerry found some coins at a local shop to add to his collection.
Upon checking on the motorhome, we were advised that the dash air conditioner had a leak and that it would require about $2,000 parts and labor to repair it.  I called good friend and former neighbor Wayne, and he volunteered to repair it this coming spring.  We sure miss him and Loretta, one of our few big-time regrets of leaving north Arkansas.  He was always available to help me with mechanical repairs, etc.

On October 23, we had our first substantial rain since early July.  Kay, Jerry, Karen, and I attended a fantastic concert at the Woodlands Auditorium. Ricky Skaggs and his 6 piece band, Kentucky Thunder, put on a really good concert.  Of course, he has won 14 Grammy awards.  The following morning, Jerry and Karen departed for the RGV,.  We had a really good visit, and look forward to seeing them in January.  Kay used the afternoon for a long shopping trip, and the rain continued.
The last Sunday of the month, we tried the new service—The Gathering—at Christ of the Hills United Methodist Church and really enjoyed the music and the preaching.  The service was rough around the edges, but spirit-filled.  Rain continued throughout the day.
Late in the month, I had yet another spinal injection, the third.  This time, I took it easy that afternoon.   Again, rain continued.
We picked up the motorhome from Russellville on October 27, almost 3 weeks after it was towed there for repair.  It was good to get it home, and in our driveway, though the drive back was a bit cautious wondering whether or not the brakes would work.  It barely fit on the driveway, with a couple feet to spare.  Rain continued.  With the motorhome back, we took advantage of a break in the rain, and winterized it for the first time since its first winter in 2011—we have been in the Rio Grande Valley every year before the first hard freeze, and didn’t return until the chances of freezing weather were slim.  We also discovered that the “house” batteries were dead, so we made a quick trip to Sam’s Club to get new batteries, and had them installed just after lunch.  After finishing with the motorhome, we hung suet from the deck bird feeding stations, and the squirrels immediately “found” them, but so did a few Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice.  And then, it began raining, very hard, again.
Late in the month, Kay accompanied other women from church to the Holiday House in Little Rock, but only purchased a gift or two for Ridge and Harper.  After all the hoopla from the previous 4 weeks, life it beginning to return to “normal” for us.
Normalcy lasted only a day or two; on October 30, the University of South Alabama women’s golf team arrived in the Village to play in the Diamante Classic, and we hosted the team’s graduate assistant.  Members of the team are staying with host families in our neighborhood, and there are events planned each evening of the tournament.

Maybe things will settle down next month.  Yeah, sure!