Land’s sake…please forgive my sloppy summer clothes, but…I have one sleeve done!
As I plug along on this sweater for Big, I send prayers up. I wrap them in the soft cotton and bamboo yarn. I pack them into the spaces of each stitch. I ask God to wrap my sweet girl in warmth…comfort…and safety. When we sent Daughter #2 out into the world, she chose to attend the local community college so her baby sister would know who she was. That was providence, as she met my wonderful son-in-law the first week of school.
I had my followup appointment with my endocrine surgeon yesterday. Almost all of my numbers have settled down into the normal range except one and it’s only mildly elevated. Overall, I’d say I’m about 80% better than I was before the surgeries and I will take that as a hug win! I suppose what symptoms I do have can be easily attributed to age related changes and there’s nothing anyone can do about that except make healthier lifestyle choices, i.e. eat clean and green and exercise more. I don’t have to see him for six months and then I’ll be discharged barring any unforeseen consequences. Yay!
We had appointments with the eye doctor yesterday. Time for new glasses, I’m afraid. For years, I only bought my eyeglasses through the optometric clinic. Sometimes I had really great insurance that provided a new pair every year. Other times I had none and paid out of pocket whether I could really afford it or not. We didn’t have much of a choice of buying options. Now we live on a fixed income with Medicare and Social Security. We’re back to being careful with our money. As they say…watch your pennies and your dollars will watch themselves.
The view from the front door…which is actually the back door.
I read an op ed yesterday that said both parties want you to be afraid. They’re counting on it. Some for real, scary reasons. Others for whipping up zealous fervor. For me…and for my mental health…I am trying to keep my life on an even keel. There are so many places to seek the truth based on actual facts. I will do all I can to remain sane while staying informed. AND…I will try my best to keep it out of here.
We have four days of rain coming up so we spent the entire day outside getting caught up on mowing and trimming. If we don’t stay on top of it, we will soon look like a tropical rainforest. I was looking at the hedgerow around the fields and the yard yesterday. We really need to get the hedge trimmers and the chain saw out and get some of this stuff cut back before it takes over.
We often end up mowing on Sundays simply because of the way the storms roll through. Unfortunately, they don’t keep a schedule and, as the old adage says, you have to make hay when the sunshines. We were blessed the last three days with a half inch of rain and the grass was too wet to mow yesterday. I sat in my recliner with my headphones, listening to worship music and knitted on Big’s sweater. I’m almost ready to knit the ribbing at the bottom, then I can start the sleeves.
It’s America’s birthday weekend and lately I’ve been feeling like she doesn’t deserve a party. Then I remember…it’s not HER. It’s some of the attendees that are making this place downright scary for a whole lot of people…myself included. And I also remember…we don’t have military parades going down Pennsylvania Avenue. We didn’t lay in bunkers listening to bombs raining down on our cities last night. We got to sit out on the lawn in small town America and watch fireworks and have picnics and eat watermelon. Many of us were safe and could pretend all was right with the world while others only WISH they had a bunker to hide in. The world isn’t equitable. Neither is America. We are desperately out of balance and we are fighting to breathe. It’s exhausting. Edward Abbey wrote an excellent essay about being a part-time crusader. Because, if we give and give and give and forget the beauty of what we DO have and we squander that life we’ve been gifted with, then…the enemy wins.
Just about every year of my adult life, I took at least a week…and often two or three…and brought my girls to West Virginia to see their Mountaineer family. Most often, we came in July. You could pretty much bet the monsoons of June were past and it wasn’t so dreadfully hot and humid like August. Since my girls are almost sixteen years apart, there were just a few years I had both of them with me.
So, is 2022 really half over? Is the glass half full or half empty? Neither…it’s full to overflowing! You can see the water…it looks diminished. But there is air filling the rest of the cup. And that air, even though you can’t see it, is just as important. The calendar may imply we’re half done, there’s an awful lot of unseen days ahead with great potential if we give it our all! We can make a huge impression on the world in six short months!
We had to run to town yesterday to do errands. Usually that turns into an all day ordeal, but I managed to schedule things to make them go smoother. I dropped off Mr. FixIt at his buddy’s house to work on the tomatoes while I went to get my blood drawn, then we stopped at the post office box and the pool supply store. A quick stop at the gas station and we were home by 3:00…a record, I think!
