Weekends

I was ever so glad to see the weekend come along this past week. After a very tiring week I was happy to have two days off with not much to do. On Saturday I did my usual grocery shopping and buying supplies for my mother in law. I did get to visit with her through her door, which is glass, for a few minutes on Saturday. I also made a cake for my nephew’s seventeenth birthday and delivered it to him. I made a quick trip to the Mennonite Farm Market close to my house. I bought a few gourds for my front porch and some cucumbers and some cinnamon rolls. These rolls are truly unbelievable. One of my favorite things about visiting the farm market, other than the cinnamon rolls, is the beautiful scenery around the farm. I was hoping more leaves had turned but the color is still a little bland. The weather has turned really dry and the leaves are brittle and falling to the ground in big crunchy piles.

***I took this picture while I was at the farm market. Such a beautiful scene.***

***Some interesting looking gourds. I like the ones that look really different***

On Sunday I watched a couple of movies and knitted and snuggled the babies and basically caught up on laundry and things like that. I had the house to myself this weekend because the hubs had to work. I put chili in the crock pot and knitted on a new scarf. I decided that I would like to go out in the back yard and lay on a blanket in the sunshine. I just knew that Scruffy would want to do this with me. I felt like I needed Vitamin C. Maybe even get some color on these pasty white things sticking out of my shorts, better known as my legs. I opened the back door to go out onto the deck and Molly tore into the house and wanted in her room. Yes she has her own room. It’s the laundry room but it is all hers and we refer to it as Molly’s room. HA!! This got Scruffy all freaked out and he refused to go out the back door onto the deck and out to the back yard. Don’t ask, I have no idea why he just refused to go out the back door. I put Molly in her room and got Scruffy outside. Kitty Kitty was looking at us like we had all lost our minds.

I found a good sunny spot for the blanket and got settled on it with my knitting and book. But once I got out on the blanket I noticed that Scruffy refused to get on the blanket. He just stood next to it looking at me like “Mom what are you doing? why are we not walking?” Scruffy likes being outside if he is taking a walk but otherwise he prefers the comforts of the house. I finally gave up and went inside. No ants crawling up my legs and the couch was a lot comfier.

***Scruffy just wasn’t too sure about hanging out in the back yard on the blanket. He is sooooo weird.***

***Kitty Kitty is perfectly content stretched out in the warm sunshine.***

***This is the scarf I am working on. I love this yarn. It feels so soft and squishy. I am using larger needles, size 13 and it knits up really fast.***

***A couple of nice walks over the weekend. You can see a little color but by this time the leaves should almost be at peak color.***

All in all a very nice weekend just what I needed to gear up for the week. I will be linking with another blogger next week for a post called The Weekly Smile. It will be about things that make you smile during your week. So think about it this week when you catch yourself smiling at something cute or nice or just because you are happy. Hopefully this will become a weekly post where we will share what makes us smile. I think we all need more smiles during these crazy times.

Have a wonderful week

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

A Long Day

Thursday morning, My alarm went off at 3:30 A.M. I changed my alarm from The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock and Roll, to Brandy by Looking Glass. It is a much gentler wake up. It doesn’t almost give me a heart attack when the alarm goes off. Especially at 3:30 in the morning.

I always check the weather on my phone to see what the day will be like. The weather looked promising with lots of sunshine. We were headed to Nashville for a follow up appointment for Mark to check on the shingles. They are doing much better but we also needed to see what the new medicine was doing to his kidney function. Hopefully it was not disturbing it at all.

I ran downstairs for coffee and let Scruffy go out for a pee. I got the babies some food and me a large cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast. I had to boot Molly out too so that she could get a bathroom break in before we left. It was still be dark when we left so we had to put her back inside. I’m not taking any chance on coyotes.

We had to be on the road by 5:30. Our appointment was not until 8:30 and we gain an hour because of the change from the eastern time zone to the central time zone. It is about a three and a half hour drive for us and you never know what Nashville traffic may be like. The reason we like really early morning appointments is because we get in and out before the appointments start backing up. This gets us back home by around 2:00 PM.

I packed a cold pack with waters and a few snacks. Mark can’t have anything to eat or drink until after he has blood work. He sleeps on the way over. I sip on a yeti full of coffee and listen to my music and drive.

The drive over was uneventful, traffic was not too bad. It seems like we have made this drive a hundred times, probably have I have never stopped to add it up.

We arrived about twenty minutes before the appointment time and checked in. They told me that I would not be allowed to go back for the visit this time because they are only allowing the patient. I smiled and said nothing thinking oh yes I’m going, that happens to be my kidney as well. HA!!! And I did.

Mark and I were both concerned that the shingles were not healing as fast as they should be but the doctor reassured us that with him it was just going to take some time. More time than it usually does for the average person. She said the tenderness and some of the irritation could last for months. She also was not happy to hear that Mark was back to work full time she said his body was still healing and needed extra rest. All I could think was “preach sister” he won’t listen to me. When we asked how she felt this new anti-viral medicine that Mark was taking for the shingles was affecting his kidney, she said it should not affect it at all, for the length of time he would be on it. He will have to be on it for another week or so. She said his one kidney was functioning at the same level as anyone else with two kidneys. This is what you hope for of course but it doesn’t always turn out that way. Whew!!! we were relieved!!!!

Mark had to go to the lab and get his blood work and I made a trip to the Starbucks, located inside the hospital, to get him a coffee, his first of the day. Within an hour of arriving at the hospital we are out the door and headed home. After another hour the results from his labs started coming in on his Vanderbilt patient portal that he gets online. Everything looked great!!! The kidney, Baby Kay, was still going as strong as ever. What a relief.

I would like to say we zipped right back home but we ran into one delay after another, car wrecks, road work, road closures etc. We finally made it home by 3:30 exhausted but so relieved that everything was going well that it was all totally worth it.

I hope you week is going well.

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!

A Darth Vader Kind of Saturday

Last week I got a phone call from the Assisted Living Center where my mother in law is living. The director was letting everyone know that limited visitation would be starting. I knew there would be restrictions, but oh boy are there restrictions!! I know I should be glad that we can visit at all, and I am, It has been seven months since we have seen her. We talk on the phone all the time but haven’t been able to visit since March. Only one person can visit at a time right now so Mark and I decided it would be me. She and I are really close.

I set up a time to visit for Saturday morning, yesterday, at 10:30. Oh yes that is one of the restrictions. You have to set a time, you have to wear a shield, I was told that one would be assigned to me on my first visit. The visit could only last for about fifteen minutes and we had to remain six feet apart. Oh and the visit would have to take place outside. I asked if the outside visiting area would be covered and yes they said it would.

When I woke up yesterday it was pouring down rain. I did not even think about cancelling the visit. I was sure she had been waiting and counting the days since I had told her about it last week. I had to run to the grocery store to get some supplies for my mother in law before the visit. I would stop back by and get my groceries after the visit. The Center is about thirty minutes from my house.

Once inside the grocery store I noticed some amazing pumpkins. I wanted some for fall decorating and they had those large flat-ish white ones. I ran and got a cart and wrestled two of those and several orange ones and then several small white ones into the cart. You see how my ADD is kicking in here? But the thing is I knew I would have groceries to buy when I stopped back by later and no room in the cart for them. Anyway, I got the pumpkins and the couple of things she needed and headed out. It was still raining. I got the wet pumpkins into the trunk and headed to the assisted living center.

When I arrived at the center I went in and called the nurse, because they never have anyone in the front, to let her know I was there. She came out, took my temp drilled me with the usual COVID questions and gave me a shield. She said this would be my assigned shield and if anyone else in the family visited they could use it. YUCK!!! I also had to wear my mask. To say I sounded like Darth Vader would be an understatement .Hellooooo I am your daughter in law!!!! My little mother in law can barely hear when I am sitting right next to her. I knew I would have to yell now to be heard. Not to mention with the mask and the shield the shield was fogging up until I couldn’t see. I had to drive around to the outside, covered, area where we would meet. Nurse M had rolled her wheelchair out to the covered patio where we would visit.

It was wonderful to see her. As I said she couldn’t hear me. I had to yell to be heard but that was o.k. I did show her some pictures on my phone because she loves seeing pictures of the babies. So all in all an o.k. visit, just different as so many things are these days. Maybe someday. I can tell that she is much more confused than she was a few months ago. I just hate that these people can’t have visitors. I think the isolation is really making them decline even faster. She will be 87 next month and to be able to visit with her family she would probably risk COVID. But I guess that is not for us to decide.

After getting my groceries I realized I had been out and about for a few hours and I had had coffee, water and a Diet Coke!!! I really really didn’t want to go to the bathroom at Walmart. I could wait until I got home. I know better than this, someone my age, with my bladder and one kidney doesn’t play around with things like that. An almost twenty minute drive home, backing down my long driveway, fumbling with my key to get in the back door. Let’s just say I know better. Everything went well, I backed down the driveway, jumped out of the car and walking very carefully yet as fast as I could I got through the garage to the back door. Fortunately we have a bathroom right at the back door. Everything was still going well until Molly, my big outside baby who stays in the house a lot, saw her opportunity to run in the back door. She ran in front of me to get in and blocked my way. I ran through the back door screaming for Molly to get out of the way while I was kicking my shoes and pants off. As soon as Kitty Kitty heard the yelling and saw the shoes flying she made a beeline for the stairs. I think my pants landed on Scruffy. Mark came into the kitchen and barely blinked an eye. It’s not the first time I have raced in the back door and ran straight to the bathroom. He’s used to it. He was probably considering calling the Assisted Living Center to see if they had an extra room for me HA!!!

That was pretty much my Saturday. How has your weekend been so far?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

I Am A Proud Helicopter Wife

Hello friends, how are you? I told you in my last post that my husband has dubbed me a helicopter wife. He has had shingles for a few weeks now and yes I probably have been hovering over him. I have become mama bear, nurse, queen nurturer and everything else I can possibly think of to describe how I am acting. I think my husband may have a few other choice words to describe my actions. I guess never being a mother to children of my own often makes me feel entitled to be a mother to the world. LOL. I have been told by people that I tend to mother them. Especially my husband, family, friends and my team members at work, ok. a lot of people. At work I am the one who calls when someone is sick so I can check on them. I tend to tell them what to eat or not eat and offer to drive them home when they are sick or feeling bad. You may hear me saying things like: “stop drinking that energy drink don’t you know they’re no good for you!!!! Have you eaten this morning? no wonder you are feeling light headed, here’s some crackers. Go back to the break room and get a cold cloth and put it on your head and you will feel better. And just how much sleep did you get last night?” I tend to go into full mama bear mode when it’s my people. So you can imagine how I have been with the hubs. I have been trying to dial it back a bit because I know he is getting tired of all the attention, but it is hard for me. I quit taking pictures of his shingles every day to document the healing progress, just in case we need to show the doctors the pictures. I thought this was a great idea by the way. The shingles blisters are getting so much better day by day it is just a process. The shingles is a long process of healing for someone who isn’t on immunosuppressants let along someone who has to take them.

So I guess if all of this makes me a helicopter wife then I am one. SO WHAT??? I am a proud helicopter wife!!!!!

Are you a nurturer or someone that likes to be nurtured? maybe both?

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!