This week has been beautiful. The weather has been great (with a few days hitting record highs) and the trees have looked surprisingly vivid in spite of a very dry year. To look on the bright side about the dry weather, the farmers have had an easy time getting the soybeans in. Larry and Tommy Pinson cut Mom’s beans this week.
MOM IS HOME NOW! I brought her home on Thursday. I am pleased with what she is capable of doing as she can get up and down from a chair or bed and walk around with a walker. She has some difficulty on the up and down part but I’m proud she is capable of getting around the house and taking care of herself without major assistance at this point. Vicki or I are staying there at night and we check in on her during the day but we simply aren’t able to stay there 24 hours a day and I really don’t think she needs that any way.
One thing I never dreamed I’d ever do is give Mom a shot. She is taking Lovenox (to prevent blood clots) for the next couple of weeks and it has fallen to me to administer this medication. Of course, I’m not letting an opportunity like this go by without a mock sadistic comment. I am all the while getting the “evil eye” from her. I enjoy “poking” fun at her in this way!
All the nurses and therapists who have worked with her have said she had a top notch surgeon and that she is progressing nicely. It’s just going to take time to heal. I think the roughest thing for Mom right now is pain management. Please continue to pray for her.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CANDY. With Monday being Halloween we made our annual, three hour Trick or Treat run. Jenna dressed up as a sensible princess (sensible because she wore tennis shoes). She curled her hair and wore real lipstick for the first time and she asked at lots of our stops if her lips still looked good (they lasted the whole night even through sampling her goodies). She was so pretty. We wondered how she’d look in 10 years for her senior prom.
Both of the boys were Superman. Ben’s costume had a red Speedo sewn in it. He asked Vicki what it was and she said it was Superman’s underwear. He quickly covered his privates as he looked at Vicki with shock and embarrassment. (He got over it but Vicki enjoyed the moment.) Nate enjoyed dressing like his big brother. They were quite a pair.
Last year Nate was pretty much just along for the ride. This year he got the hang of it pretty quickly. Starting with the fourth house we visited when walking through Cross Plains he would turn to Vicki and say, “More candy, Mama!” He couldn’t explain why but he knew he had hit the mother lode and he wasn’t complaining. By the end of the night his bucket was so full his little arm was shaking. This year was a good year for chocolate. We’ve got so much candy now that I really don’t even want any when I see it.
I think the best costumes I saw were on Ross, Donna, Rachel and Betsy Swann. They all had white tee shirts with a large “P” painted in it. They had also painted black face paint around one eye. That made them the black-eyed peas!
NOT CHRISTMAS ALREADY! It’s bad enough that all the stores have their Christmas wares on display but we noticed one of our neighbors had their tree up the day after Halloween. That really takes the cake! Last night Vicki and I went to Applebee’s for dinner. As we were driving down Fifth Avenue in Springfield we passed several houses with inflatable Santas and snowmen in their yards. We were pleased to see that one house had the guts to go against the grain with an inflatable turkey.
We’re actually behind the times. With Mom being in the hospital we never got around to carving our jack-o-lantern until yesterday. Ben had bought a pumpkin from Steve Freeland and he was going to carve it or bust. He picked out his pattern (a pirate’s skull) and even cleaned out all the pumpkin’s goo and seeds. He is very proud of it and has it on the floor by his bed.
Joe
