Larry and Carla - Choraegus

10/18/2026

We're missing our long, leaf-crunching October walks in northern Michigan. We'd intended to go to the Upper Peninsula this month too, but, as you know, necessary surgery messed up our plans a bit. Today, the urge to go walking was there, but the ability was not. 🤣 We drove a little way, then spent about ten minutes enjoying the great outdoors here in Holland (the Michigan one), then came home again. Baby steps, but it's all progress in the right direction. 🥰🍁🍂

10/18/2026

Happy Sunday, everyone! ❤ We're not yet at the stage where we can get back to playing our handbell duets together, so we hope you'll enjoy our 8-bell arrangement of "He Leadeth Me", recorded earlier this year. The tune for this hymn was written by William Bradbury in 1864, and the text is inspired by Psalm 23. 🥰

"He leadeth me: O blessed thought!
O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate'er I do, where'er I be,
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.

He leadeth me, He leadeth me;
By His own hand He leadeth me:
His faithful follower I would be,
For by his hand he leadeth me.

10/18/2026

It's sad to be a handbell ringer who has to sit in a recliner and watch a rehearsal that you can't be part of. On the other hand, no one is aware of the mistakes you make as you silently air-bell your way through the concert pieces. There's always a silver lining, right? 🤣🎶

10/16/2026

This is like a lesson in how to make a Christmas carol a LOT less interesting. 😂 We think this tune should be easy to identify, even with the top four notes missing. Larry's very much looking forward to having his handbell duet partner back with him in the near future! 🥰🎄🎶

10/16/2026

My brain, having a sudden burst of energy, 18 days post-hysterectomy:

"Hey, now would surely be a great time to start doing a bit of house-cleaning!"

Ten minutes later, this is the new plan. (Thanks, Sophie!) Isn't this the prettiest Sudoku book ever? 😂❤️

10/16/2026

One of our recent projects has been to revisit some of the 8-bell arrangements that we hadn't played in a long time. "O Worship the King" was one of those. We recorded our original demo video in 2016, and didn't remember playing it since then. 😂 This is the HANOVER tune that's less familiar than the usual LYONS tune. This new recording was made in September, before our little re-recording project was interrupted by surgery. 😬 We're looking forward to being able to play duets again soon (but not yet). 🤣🎶

10/15/2026

Um... two cups of coffee? Also, a blanket. And Warmie Chicken. 😂🐔 Currently reading Margaret Drabble's "The Radiant Way", but dozing off from time to time. It's a low-achieving day here. 🥰

This sounds pretty luxurious to me. I could use a week or two of this exact setup.

10/14/2026

One or two of our friends suggested that yesterday's "name that tune" video was too easy. 🤣 Here's today's Christmas carol – an 8-bell arrangement, performed by Larry with half the notes missing. Do you recognize the tune? 😎🎄🎶

10/14/2026

It's Day 16 post-hysterectomy here, and I'm still doing well. Thank you for the continued prayers and good wishes. 🥰 The last couple of days have been a bit of a "two steps forward, one step back" event, which is apparently very normal, and absolutely to be expected. I'm learning more about the things I can and can't do at this stage in my recovery:

Sit in the car for 15 minutes without being too uncomfortable: YES.
Get my grey roots taken care of at the hairdresser's: YES.
Take short walks: YES.
Go up and down stairs in a vaguely normal way: YES.
Bend to pick something up: NO.
Bend just for a tiny quick second, to pick something up: STILL NO.
Just quickly reach over to pick something up: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

And yes, I do have one of those grabber things on a long stick. Taking no risks here. 🤣😂🤣

10/14/2026

CATASTROPHIC TEMPTATION. 🤣 It was love at first sight. How could we resist? 😍🐔