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2 Fires
We were back to freezing this morning as the temperature outside was 32 degrees. I called the Illinois Eye Center at 7:30 am just to make SURE the appointment really was at the Peoria Facility. The lady that answered the phone confirmed that. At 8:15 I left for the appointment and arrived at 8:41 am, just 4 minutes before my appointment. The receptionist checked me in then had to figure out where the doctor was working as he had been moved over. She finally had me go to waiting room number 2 where I sat for an hour and 15 minutes. Marcus the therapy dog was wandering around the building and came in our waiting room where anyone that wanted got a chance to meet him. As I was near the door he came to me first. Some of the patients did not want to touch him but quite a few did.
The picture below was taken as he went to the other side of the room. 
Once I was called in and checked over by the nurse I was taken to another waiting room until an exam room opened up to see Dr. Kolettis. It had been 10 years since anyone has looked at my eyes. In those 10 years I have a good start on cataracts and now have to go yearly. I also was struggling with being able to open my eyes each morning and that was diagnosed as dry eye and I have to get 2 different kinds of drops for that. One for the daytime and one at bedtime. Oh well I guess it is part of getting old. At least both are just over the counter so I didn't need a prescription. I thought I would be able to drive over to the Berean office once finished as I thought if it starts at 8:45 am I should be less than a half an hour late but the nurse stuck 2 drops in my eyes around 10:00 am, one was a yellow numbing medicine and the next was to dilate my pupils. When I walked out of the Eye Center at 10:30 am I was really struggling to see. I knew I would be useless at the Berean office. I was given sun glasses which helped some and I drove myself home but it really wasn't safe. Thankfully the roads were not crowded and the way home well known. When Mark walked in he had to laugh at my eyes.
This was around 11:00 am. It took quite a while for the pupils to go back to normal. It was cold in the house. Mark had decided to remove the wood from the porch but I wanted to start a fire to warm the house up so chopped some kindling while he loaded some of the wood up then swept up the area before moving the wood rack back.
Joan needed to borrow the truck and 2 horse trailer to pick up some furniture in Groveland and take to to Morton, IL to Faith and Andrew's new house. I took the golf cart up to the barn then hooked up the truck to the trailer. I was just getting ready to pull it out so I could clean it when Joan arrived. She cleaned out the trailer. Once she was on the road I took the cleaning supplies over to the barn and worked there for 3 hours getting the gym and game room organized, the floors swept the master bathroom closet organized and hunted down and swept up Asian beetles that found their way in. There were 4 fuzzy caterpillars that survived the winter and some how crawled into the gym. They probably wont survive their next adventure as they were thrown into the garbage and that bag hauled over to the dumpster. I stopped in to see mom before going home to make dinner. I tried a new coleslaw recipe and Mark, who doesn't like any coleslaw liked this, he recommended making it for a Sunday dinner but we won't be here next Sunday as we are leaving on Friday for Gulf Shores. We have an airbnb guest coming into the foaling apartment Thursday for 3 nights and also a group coming into the barn on Saturday. Anna and Braelyn are willing to clean the foaling apartment as they will still be here when the guests leave.
News here in the Peoria area was right at the junction of 74 and 474 an Aldi truck caught on fire and shut down the interstate.
I'm not sure who took the picture above but the video below was posted by the Peoria Area Scanner & Dashcam
Gulf Shores is also in trouble. There is a fire at the state park. WKRG posted the picture below. A tree fell on a power line and started this fire.
Helicopters are being used to bring water from the Gulf.
