Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Two more days and the holidays are upon us! This is a busy time of year. Turkey day is the official start of the Christmas tree selling season. We've already sold a half dozen trees and there are another dozen tagged. The fields actually look rather picked over...we're considering not putting up our "Trees for Sale" sign. We'll just sell to the people who already know about us. We'll see. A 12+ foot tree left the property today in this big truck...

Yep, that's our boy Adam the Army man...he got a dandy big tree for his unit to enjoy.


We went to see Davey Boy in Connecticut this past weekend. He and Mel (our daughter-in-law to be) and Tom and I took a spin an hour or so north to visit Lake Benedict where Dave proposed to Mel in August.

It was a great weekend. And now it's a short week and I'm behind the eight ball. Getting ready for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and Thanksgiving again on Saturday, and trees to sell, and hunters to get ready for, and my two part time jobs. Man, is this the abundant life or what?!?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Be Free

That continual feast I wrote about last Tuesday...well if I heard the message right in church this week we are encouraged to enjoy the feast with abandon. If the Savior has set you free, then you are free indeed. What he sets us free from is sin. Goodbye millstone of guilt, hello peace that passes understanding and unspeakable joy. (Okay, enough of the cliches already?) I didn't hear anything I didn't already know, but sometimes truth is shared in such a way it makes your heart sing. (Couldn't help myself, last one, I promise.) All that to say, it's a good start to a new week!


Last week in review. Nathan is off to California. After careful planning, printing directions and a map, loading as many of his worldly possessions into his car as possible he set out on his cross country trek. He's kept us abreast of his travels by phone, making good time, not tired, no car problems to speak of. (?) It's all good.

I'm off my crutches...not necessarily because I should be, but, well, that was all I could take. I do not get an "A" for patience. With Nathan gone I had the little girls on my one day a week babysitting stint all by myself. We got along just fine according to me. It might be another story if you ask the 3-year-old. She so wanted an underduck push on the swings.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Life is a Continual Feast

I am rich...not to be confused with wealthy, though I am that too by some standards. Our Pastor was ruminating about how easy it is for us to cry the financial blues, forgetting the untold blessings we have, barely noticing that our every need is met. It was a short aside that he ended by saying, I am a rich man. If I were an "Amen!-ing" kind of person, I would have "Amen!ed" that. The verse I read in my devotions this morning was Proverbs 15:15 "For the happy heart, life is a continual feast." And to that, in the privacy of my own home, in the quiet of my heart, I whisper, amen. Life is a feast. An all you can eat country buffet. My happy heart takes it all in until I'm so full I think I'll burst.


Of course there are a few things on the buffet that I don't like, and yet... they may be good for me.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Fall

I think Phoebe is sad because the pool is closed. Or maybe she's just enjoying a warm sunny day. Indian Summer!  I see from the picture that I still need to cut the dead flox and cone flowers and pull the lily stems. If the weather holds, I'll get to it. If it doesn't, the snow will cover it up. No worries. My slight incapacitation has helped me to lighten up. That's a good thing. Even better, I'm not harping at Tom or Nathan to do everything I see needing done and can't do myself. I got that out of my system the first week of crutches. Now I'm settling into a more reasonable mode. Here's my trick. Don't look at what needs done. Bury your nose in a book or waste time on the computer. It's working for me. I also found myself a part time job that requires being on the computer 4 hours a day. So I'm plenty busy, and some things just have to be let go.

Besides, it's not like nothing's getting done. A little reprieve from the cold wet weather is giving us time to finish the outdoor projects. Nathan has taken charge of tree nursery chores, I pulled all the dahlias (before my shoulder injury), and Tom took care of getting the leaves off the lawn. There's the upside of my physical woes!



Tom took care of all the leaves this year. He mowed and chopped, raked and used the leaf blower, and finally burned. They are gone, all gone. And I didn't help. Whoo-hoo! We have a lot of deciduous trees in our yard so leaf raking is a huge job. Here's a peek at some fallen leaves, and this is just one corner of the b-i-g yard. These pictures illustrate another way I got a break because of my injuries. Nathan helped with babysitting. (Audrey is going to miss her big buddy when Nate heads out west later this week. I'll miss him too!)


In case you're wondering, Tom doesn't have to work all the time. This week he dressed up in camo and went out in the woods looking for turkeys. He called this one in...and... boom. We'll be having fresh turkey for dinner this week.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Saving Betsy's Knee

Protecting my right knee has become nearly as dramatic as Saving Private Ryan. And it's got me wondering if the ole right knee is worth it. I was given very little instruction about using these dang crutches, but hey, if I have to use them, I'm going to do it like a champ. They're not stopping me from anything...much. I figured out that when you're in a hurry you can skip on crutches. It goes like this, crutch, swing, step, hop, hop. Again, crutch, swing, step, hop, hop. And when you don't have to go far, instead of crutching it you can just hop. In fact you can pretty much hop all over the place, steadying yourself on furniture, walls, whatever. It works great, until you notice pain in your severely overworked left knee. Then you have to sit down to rub it out, and your hips scream at you. A current of sciatic nerve shoots through the glutes and down the left leg. The achey lower back begs for an ice pack. But the right knee? She's feeling fine. Coddled like a baby.

Seriously, I got the message and brought the abuse down a notch. No more hopping, just use the crutches properly. Which is what I was doing last week when the left crutch slipped out from under me. I didn't fall. I used the pampered right leg to save myself, put all my weight on it, fast. Now I'm wondering if I undid all the weeks of favoring it in one fell swoop. No time to worry about that, I've got bigger problems. I wrenched my right arm, shoulder, pecs, lats in the near fall. Whoooey, that hurts. Or could it be that I cracked a rib? Whatever the case, walking on crutches aggravates it something terrible. So now I'm down for the count. I've decided that my bedroom with its soft wheat-yellow walls and impressionistic wildflower border, and big windows letting in lots of light, is a perfectly fine place to stay for a couple of days. I've got a telephone, laptop, good books, and lots of pillows. I'll walk gingerly to the bathroom when necessary and nowhere else. I'll reach and lift only with my right arm. I'll let Tom and Nathan wait on me. Two or three days of this and I'll be better. Regenerated. Right? Watch me. I can do this...I hope.