I told Mr. FixIt yesterday…we are at “that age” now. When you have WAY more doctor’s appointments than you’ve ever had in your life. It makes me crazy. I wish we could sync everything and get all of our appointments out of the way in one week then we could go a long stretch without another one. But, unfortunately, that’s rarely how it works out when you are dealing with two people with different diagnoses.

I saw a story on the news shortly after Mr. FixIt and I got married. It was about a man on a mission. He had lost his wife and consequently, his sense of purpose. She loved her garden and the beautiful birds that gathered there. Especially bluebirds. That struck a chord with me because Mr. Virgo has always sent me bluebirds to comfort me since he died. Ron Rudolph paid homage to his wife’s memory by building bluebird houses. 

I have a second cousin who was fortunate enough to have a portrait taken when her baby was born that included five generations. We never had a formal family portrait made with five generations because my grandma and mom were gone before my first grandchild was born. But, the photographs we have are cherished dearly.

I was playing around on Ancestry the other day and it gave me this collage with my maternal great grandmother, my grandma, my mom, and me. I think mom favors her dad’s people, but you can sure tell the family resemblance with the other three. My great grandmother, Nellie May, died when she was only 28 years old…my grandma was nine. Nellie left her husband with three little kids to raise and he soon had a new wife to take care of them.

We haven’t been back to church since late February 2020. Mostly due to covid and our church’s “lack of enthusiasm” toward mask wearing. But also due to sermons smacking of Christian Nationalism and a lack of financial transparency and accountability. We felt kind of burned out and disillusioned so we took a break. It didn’t keep me from studying the Bible and reading my daily devotionals and praying. But I’ll tell you what it did do. It slowly became apparent I wasn’t keeping my life centered on God. I was spending entirely too much energy on being critical and judgmental of everyone and everything. This isn’t good.

There are days that you wish you could bottle up and keep forever. Yesterday was one of those days. First, we slept great in the new camper. I will say…we ended up sleeping in separate beds because either I would have climbed over Mr. FixIt at least twice during the night to go to the bathroom, or he would have been crammed into the short angle of the A-Frame. Something we honestly didn’t quite think through before we bought this cute camper. However, I was afraid that my sweetheart might not feel comfortable, and wanting him to have the best experience possible, I threw the twin mattress from the big camper onto the lowered dinette in the A-Frame. When given the sleeping choices, he elected to sleep on the twin…but I fixed it with our heads at opposite ends of the beds so we should see each other and talk. Consequently, we both slept very well.

We got a good scare this morning just as we were ready to pull out of the driveway with the new camper. The highway guys had the big tractor with the mowing arm on it, cutting brush, grass, bushes, and small trees across the road from us. As I watch him coming up the road, closer and closer, I wondered if I might be able to scoot out of the driveway and be gone before he got to our drive. Right about then, I heard him hit something and a three inch diameter tree trunk came whirling like a baton straight at us! Fortunately, he was far enough away the tree hit the front of our truck with a whack.

You know how it is when you’re getting ready for a trip. There’s always something you have to do before you can leave. And, this time it was kind of important. Remember my three hour trip to the DMV this week? Well, I went out yesterday morning to put the new license on the little camper. I pulled out the plate and…the sticker said 2020. I looked in the envelope and there was no sticker for 2023. So, guess who had to go BACK to the DMV?

I know I should never declare a day as “strictly stay at home” because nine times out of ten, it’s not going to work out that way. Such was the case yesterday. We were working on the camper. We bought an electric jack that will raise and lower it to hitch it to the truck. It had a crank hitch on it, and even with grease, it was slow going. And, when it’s really hot outside, the last thing you want to do is stand out in the sun cranking that thing.

Bush Lily preparing to bloom; Elephant Ears behind

I swore I wasn’t going to go to town yesterday. SWORE! But, Mr. FixIt reminded me I needed to have blood drawn so I gave in and went with him. We left about 11:00 and didn’t get home till 7:00 last night! There is no such thing as a quick trip to town. *sigh* The bad part was, as I sat in the lobby waiting to be called into the lab, I got to thinking. “Why on earth would that doctor want my blood drawn so soon? I just had it done last week!”

Land’s sake…I don’t know how y’all out West are handling the intense heat and mega drought. It was in the 90’s here yesterday and, of course, that’s with a ton of humidity. As Little would say, you could see the oxygen. The former Mrs. FixIt and my bonus daughter came over yesterday to pick some squash and tomatoes from the garden. They brought lemons and green tomatoes in trade. It was so hot just standing out there for a short period of time. I can’t imagine how people stand it that have to work out in this heat every day.