Our Quiet Weekend.......

After all the excitement of our days at the ranch with Amber and Mike and the 'babies'.....and then the scare of taking Louis Dean to the ER.....I think a few quiet days were in order for us.

I had baked two cakes on Wednesday which turned out to be a very good thing since we slept most of Thursday.

Friday morning I saw Dr.Bloom for my yearly visit. He's my urologist.

It's a wonderful thing to have a good doctor and he has done so much for me.

For over 25 years I battled constant raging bladder infections. I had no insurance and used herbs and Azo to treat them until I turned 65. I loved that birthday! I applied for Medicare and my son, Benjamin, was in the insurance business and signed me up for the best medical supplement United Health Care had to offer! After years of being insurable - I finally had insurance cards!  I was and still am so happy about that!

That's when Dr. Abraham recommended I see Dr. Bloom.

It has been nearly 4 years since I have had a UTI.

The quality of my life has vastly improved and I am so grateful!

It's always a good thing when you really like your doctor.

I've been blessed in having doctors that I trust and that I can talk to and that treat me like a real person. Dr. Abraham and Dr. Bloom are those kind. All of Louis Dean's cardiologists have been that kind, too. First Dr. Jennings, then Dr.Yepes and now Dr. Uppalapati.

I'm happy to say my office visit was 'routine' and I love 'routine!!'

I took a tin of two kinds of cake - both Crack Cakes!

Slices of lemon and of pistachio.

Dr. Bloom loves the treats I bring! And I love to bring them!

I was in such a good mood when I picked Louis Dean up to go to Fort Worth.

He was feeling better and we were looking forward to seeing Lillian.

I had called the nursing home and left messages with the social worker and the nurses station.

She never got either one.

We had meant to be there on Thursday and I know what it feels like to wait and watch for someone and the disappointment when they don't arrive.

We can tell which room is hers by the sunflowers hanging by the door.

The wreath belongs to Margaret.

The fact that they both love sunflowers was a good sign they would be great roommates and they are!

When we came in about 2:00 Friday afternoon, they were both in bed for a nap.

I gasped as soon as I saw Lillian's face.

She had fallen when she got out of bed at 4:00 Tuesday morning and face planted on the floor!

Her right eye was ringed with bright purple and blue fading into some awful green.

She assured me she was much better.

I had my laptop with me so I showed her and Margaret all my March photos. They especially liked the ones from the ranch. Plus I showed Lillian the secretary and chair she had given me and how they look all fixed up in our bedroom. She was real happy about that.

Their room is too crowded for Louis Dean to set up his music so we went from one community room to another until we found a place for him to play.

He played a couple of songs and then other residents came in with their visitors and children began to go in and out the door to the courtyard. Louis Dean has the attention span of a gnat and he couldn't concentrate with all that going on - so we moved again.

By this time the people in the living room area had left and it was in a quieter corner making it a perfect place.

We always think of this song as Jutta's.

I sent it to her in Finland on our message feed. 

We are across the entire world from each other and yet we talk by messenger every single day.

I pulled a chair over and we all put our feet up and relaxed while we listened to the music.

Life is better when you can prop your feet up!

We went back to their room and had supper together.

I had brought homemade spaghetti with rich meat sauce.

It's a good thing I did because the aid brought their dinner trays to them in the living room where we were and sat them on the table. I lifted the cover and saw three 'meat' balls, white rice and corn. And a dinner roll.  The dinner roll was the only good thing on the plate. I tried the meatball and had to spit it out. I don't understand why the food isn't any better than it is.

Lillian was not able to keep the microwave we had bought her last week.

I did not know she had a pacemaker! oops.

I asked the social worker how she could get her things heated up and he said to just ask the aids and they would heat it up in the nurses station where they have the ice and a microwave.

Except Station #1 where Lillian's room is told me their microwave had just burned up that morning.

No problem! We happened to have a brand new one. Louis Dean had just taken it out to the car when he had to turn around and go back and get it. Now Louis Dean gets lost in the nursing home!

All.the.time.

I have to walk with him everywhere or he wanders around the halls like a lost resident.

I was mistaken when I thought he could go out to the car and back to the nurse's station.

He did get the microwave but took it to the wrong nurse's station.

I happened to be walking back from the break room where I was heating up the spaghetti when I saw the nurse hauling that microwave back to her station!

She said, "Honey, you were right about your man getting lost! He took it to the wrong place and I had to go fight for it!!!" Never a dull moment!

I changed Lillian's sheets for her and put on what I thought she would love - warm jersey sheets.

I had bought them when Amber was in the hospital for 52 days when she was pregnant with the quads. They were dorm sheets and extra long...perfect for hospital beds.

Lillian says she likes silky ones like the sheets that came with the set I bought for her last week. 

She says that when she turns over in the night, she just slides.

I didn't tell her but that might well have been why she fell the other night.

She may have slid right out of bed!

I made a quick run to Walmart to restock her fridge......

cottage cheese, milk, the canned International coffee she says she used to love - I found a Maxwell House version - cheese sticks, bananas and I surprised them with two things from the deli - coleslaw and a shrimp/seafood salad. And I bought another 12 pack of cream soda. The nurses have been drinking hers so we put these under the bed.

The nurses break rooms aren't in any better shape than the rest of the home.

I think the place has new owners and I'm not sure they are good ones.

It was 10:00 when we got home Friday night.

We were so tired we went right to bed.

Saturday was wonderful. 

We slept late and had no agenda other than to putter around.

I've been cleaning and purging and changing things around a little.

I decorated the bottom freezer section of the great white fridge.

$3 from the Dollar Store!

They peel off and can be reused elsewhere.

I peeled the apple design that was on this section of the fridge and moved it to the coffee maker side.

We do love our coffee!!

Saturday evening we took a glass of wine out to the driveway and sat out there enjoying the birds and the flowers and our newly cleaned up year.

The lawn guy came on Thursday and I was so happy to see him I gave him a big hug.

He trimmed all the bushes, blew all the leaves out of the nooks and crannies and mowed it all.

I still have some work to do in the flower beds but the hard stuff is done!

Saturday evening I had a friend over for dinner and a visit.

It's important to have lady friends you can talk to. I have children and grandchildren, my husband and all sorts of people in my life but I also need my friends. We need each other.

It wasn't really late when we went to bed Saturday night but Louis Dean was sleeping so soundly when I got up to get ready for church that I let him sleep on.

Pastor Ed Young kicked off a new series called March Madness.

It has a basketball theme and the whole church is decked out with all things basketball!! 

It was pretty exciting!

The message was from James chapter 1......

COUNT the score. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

KNOW the fundamentals. Prayer, church attendance, tithing, serving.

LET the game come to you. Don't force yourself into or out of a situation.

ASK God for wisdom. It's easy to remember the message when you have more at play than simply hearing. The visuals help you keep the message in your mind and in your heart.

Louis Dean was still asleep when I got home. It was 3:00 before he got up!

We have had a good Sunday. I fixed up our pill boxes for a month. That's 8 boxes since we both take morning and night medicines.

I mended. I wrote a few notes to put in the mail. I did a bit of repair work in the dining room. I paid some bills. You know the type of day when you just catch up with the odd and end thing you have been needing to do. I even took a late nap at 6:00 which is why I am still up now at nearly 1:00 in the morning. But I will close now and read my book for an hour or so before I turn the light off. Louis Dean is already asleep. I guess he's been really tired lately.