Walked in the rain this morning.....

 

Oh, My Aching Back

After our morning walk and breakfast I headed out to the yard.  Spent some very peaceful time pulling out dead weeds.  Only a couple cars drove past, no one was on the street, it was like I had the place to myself.  Perfect temp, not in the direct sunshine and yes, it was lovely.  And I even found a ladybug.  Haven't seen one of those in ages. Yay for me.

The previously chemically killed weeds came up easily.  Yay for me.  The hollyhocks still sent up new leaves after the chemical treatment.  The roots are so huge and deep I couldn't get them up.  So, I just cut them down as close as I could to the ground and will hope if I keep doing that and the plants don't have to have a chance to seed that eventually they might just give up and never sprout again.  They were pretty - the first year.  Now they're a nuisance.  

We had to run an errand and as we left the house I was so pleased with how the garden beds look without all the dead weeds and errant grass.  Yay for me.

But not yay for me?  My back.  I've had some small improvement in my back pain doing the exercises The Husband was prescribed when he had a bad episode with his degenerative disc.  Felt a teeny bit hopeful that I'd be able to manage the incessant pain.  And probably would have had I not spent all
that time bent over in the yard cleaning everything up. We're supposed to go to the Saturday evening session of Stake Conference tonight but I'm thinking I'll take a pass.  It has never been my favorite meeting and a couple hours sitting either on one of those miserably uncomfortable chairs or even in the pews would not be good for me.  So maybe it is yay for me that I get to stay home tonight.  😬

Yesterday afternoon we came home to find the mower here (yes, it's a luxury but so very needed to have someone mow our yard) getting our grass looking so nice.  Had to wait to pull in the driveway because he'd stopped and was taking a picture of our pretty hawthorne tree.  I am constantly surprised at how tall it has gotten.  A couple weeks ago when the berries were all fresh the tree was constantly alive with dozens of waxwing birds feasting.  They were so pretty.  I tried and tried to get a picture but all I managed was a blurry fluttering of feathered wings, so those pictures were deleted.

And I wanted to link to this article.  Found it very, very interesting.  Connections are complicated, right?

True Friends Needed

Today I am again grateful for repentance.  Why, oh why, do I need so much repentance?  (Though seriously, I know that "why" questions like this rarely have an answer.) Life is a struggle for sure.  I'm trying hard.  Failing often. Repenting more often.  Sigh.

Now It's Friday

We had a fun Thursday -  love our standing Thursday lunch with our friends.  Yesterday we didn't get home until 4:30, and then were so full, still, we only had a small peanut butter sammy for dinner.  The food at lunch wasn't as good as I expected, better than some of the others expected but laughing a bit with our friends was just what I needed.

The contract with the CPAP is apparently fulfilled.  I have no idea for how much longer the insurance company will monitor the usage, or if they even still will.  But there feels like less pressure. So that's always good.

Neither one of us had a good night last night so when 5:30 rolled around, I rolled over and went back to semi-sleep. Just couldn't make myself get up and go for a walk.

The iris that were gifted are blooming and beautiful.  The Hawthorne tree is all of a sudden blooming and beautiful. The supposedly killed (don't want them around anymore) hollyhocks are not so beautiful.  We'll be heading out in the morning after our walk and pulling them out, cleaning up the actually dead weeds and sprucing up the area.  Our backs will suffer but the yard will look better. 

And I'm sad that one of my most asked questions these days is:  Do you take cash?  That should always IMO be the default.  I'm discouraged that everything these days is a card or an app - mobile thru at Chick-Fil-A exempted. But that's my old-person thing coming out.

I'm grateful today for a new mop that makes the floors feel clean and is a quicker-to-use option than the steamer which always seems to take me forever.  Grateful for clean throw rugs.  Grateful for a pretty good book to be reading and grateful for the possibility of two new movies to see in the next couple weeks.

Jumble of Thoughts

I have written and re-written and decided to just put all these mixed up thoughts down so I won't forget.

A couple prevailing thoughts:  

• Yesterday we saw someone drive off - the driver being the only person in the car - with his left foot hanging out the window.  This same person has in the past been seen driving standing up with his head and part of his body (he's tall) sticking through the open sun roof. It would never occur to me to do those sorts of things.  I'm aware I am by nature obedient and a rule-follower.  I realize the world actually needs "out of the box" thinkers, however, from my personal perspective a bit of maturity and rationality benefits every one.  Thinking only of one's self and immediate whims/wants can lead to danger and un-safe conditions.  

• On our walk yesterday morning we saw these deer.  I love when we see the urban deer.  We stop and chat at them for a minute then are on our way - as are the deer. Still, our morning walks are my favorite time of the day.  Today I hoped for a spotting of one of the Lyrids meteors streaking across the sky, I love to see the shooting stars.  But this morning was w-a-y too cloudy, though the clouds themselves were beautiful. 

• Ran across this article the other day.  This woman "gets it". I suspect more than a few of us women/mothers/wives in our 70's feel some of these emotions.  I don't agree with everything she says, of course.  Our culture isn't very welcoming or kind to us oldsters.  Irrelevant, invisible, unimportant - things really change when you get to be old.  It's not a comfortable place to be. Being 70

• Headed over to the hospital yesterday for a quick test.  I dislike taking medications, mentioned in our physicals last week I really didn't want to take a statin if I didn't have to. Because of the history

of heart disease in my family, and my somewhat elevated cholesterol, this test was decided on.  One for The Husband, also.  (The test administrators came through the door and called our names - The Husband responded "Bingo!" and everyone laughed. My dear, loved companion:  never a dull moment!) Anyway, hopefully this test will tell us how much calcium, maybe plaque, is in our arteries.  Thank heavens they just charge a rather small fee.  Information is generally valuable, fingers crossed the results will be good. After our tests we rewarded ourselves with a Chick-Fil-A cone, something we haven't done in quite some time.  Absolutely yummy!

• We need something to look forward to.  Haven't quite figured that out yet.  We've a wedding in May, and I'm thinking maybe we'll head out of town for a day or two in July for our sealing anniversary.  I subscribe to the thinking that everyone needs someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to (family and friends to love, job or work of some kind to do and hope/anticipation for something good).

And...The Husband just walked in and said he wants to go on a date for lunch today.  We're together probably 99.9% of the time but apparently he needs something a little different today.  I guess that solves the "something to look forward to" desire for today. It'll be fun.  I won't have to fix a meal, it'll be somewhere we rarely go and we'll have a good time.  Yay for spontaneity. 

I'm grateful for good medical care, grateful for our good dental visits the other day, grateful for someone who gifted The Husband some cash so he feels a bit of joy in being able to treat us to lunch.  Grateful for the kindness of people - who even make a medical test less stressful for this person who is always a bit stressed.  😏