What A Day!!

 Today started moderately early after a not-to-bad night.  First thing both Dear One and I sent text messages to our child who turned 50 YEARS OLD today!  Hard to believe, but true.  I remember that activity very well.  It was a very long day, ten extra people in the delivery room (after all, it was a teaching hospital...) and finally he was born about 9 :00 PM.  Forceps delivery.  Lots of stitches then around 11:30 PM the nurse came in where I was still being stitched up and said, "Your little boy is going to all right, after all."  After all?!!  What the heck?  I had no idea there was anything wrong with him.  As I recall they told me he had a a"retracted rib cage."  I did not know what it was then and I still don't know.  All I know is that "after all" he is just celebrating his fiftieth birthday.  I am very glad for that.  He was a wonderful oldest brother.

After scripture study and a tiny bit of knitting I went downstairs to see what I could do to improve the kitchen.  The last two days were so busy and no dishes got washed plus the bags that came into the house were just where they were dropped since there was nothing cold in them. So, I put on my headphones, started listening to the Saturday Afternoon session of October 2023 General Conference to keep me company while I worked, and set to work.

We have an "instant on" or "on demand" hot water situation in our house but it is on the other side of the garage.  To get hot water in the sink, I put a 2-gallon bucket in the sink so I could collect the water for the plants and turned on the faucet.  The first bucket got emptied into the Greenstalk garden tower on the back deck and I came back for more water since the hot water had not yet turned up.  One more bucket out to the Greenstalk and then the water was hot.

Washing, washing, washing and by the time my legs and back gave out, I had filled the counter with clean dishes.  This was into the fourth General Conference talk...!  I sat down in my very old blue platform rocker that Dear One purchased for me in West Lebanon, New Hampshire in the building that used to house J W Barber's store. I have long since forgotten what JW had in the store, but I do remember the name.

Picking up some knitting I kept listening to the Conference talks and was touched by every one of them.  Elder Ronald Rasband invited more couples to become Senior Missionaries.  His talk was lovely and took me back to our time in the Oregon Portland Mission in 2017-2019.  How we loved that service!

As I sat there knitting, Dear One came downstairs, saw me sitting in my chair, saw the counter full of clean dishes then, without saying a word, he started putting them away.  He next opened the dishwasher and put away all the clean dishes from there...the whole reason I was washing by hand was that the dishwasher was full and I was afraid I would deflect myself from the dirty dishes if I stopped there and put away the dishwasher dishes.  I know.  Dumb thinking, but...

When the dishes were all put away I had recouped a bit of energy and we went outside where we bagged up some brush and I took the small hand saw that Dear One had retrieved for me on Tuesday and I started pruning the live oak tree on the front lawn.  With the branches hanging down low it was hard for the lawnmower man (Dear One!) to mow without getting jabbed by the tree.

This is the tree now with no low-hanging branches.  I am rather pleased with that job.  I wish I had opened the garage door and gotten out my new heavy leather gloves which would have protected my hands somewhat.  Slivers were not fun.

While I was sawing off branches I saw something that gave me great joy:

Last fall I found a package of daffodil bulbs at the dollar store.  After a few weeks I finally put them into the mulch at the base of that live oak tree.  Will you look at this!!!  One of those daffodils survived.  I would love to see the sweet face on this plant sometime.

Later in the day Dear One noticed that it was Pi Day and that Marcos Pizza was having a sale with a medium pizza at $3.14 if you bought a large one.  Dear One is a pizza guy.  You had to order online or with their app.  I had the app but could not order through it.  I kept getting the happy note that my password was wrong.  After about ten tries I went online to order.  Same story. I told Dear One today was not his day for pizza.

He went out to mow some more of the lawn and when he came in the second time he said he would try his phone. (By this I knew that he really did want some pizza even though we had some perfectly good food in the refrigerator...) He was successful in ordering a large pizza and a medium pizza.  Of course,  it was not the Pi Day deal!  So annoying.  But he got his pizza.

Many other things happened on this day but now I am calling it quits and will probably be in bed way before my usual time.

The pitsy thing about the day is that I had put my watch on the charger before starting the dishes so many hours ago and never picked it up again until 5:00.  I did not "get credit" for all that moving I did today...so sad.  I really like those little pats on the head from my watch and the Health app.  Oh well.