Last Monday, October 31st, would’ve been my
mother’s 105th birthday. She passed away December 12, 2003, at
the age of 86.
One time when she was in the hospital’s long-term care
section for three or four weeks, a nurse would come in multiple times a day and
ask questions to discern the state of the patient’s mind and cognitive
status. This got old, and not a little aggravating to Mama, though she
was unfailingly sweet and compliant with her nurses.
I was there one day when the nurse came in to commence her
interview for perhaps the third time that day. She was one of those sorts
who had procedure all down-pat – but truly had no (or very little) common sense
whatsoever.
“What is your name?” she queried. Mama dutifully told
her. “How old are you?” continued the nurse.
Mama, in her sweet voice, asked, “What year is this?”
The nurse’s eyes widened, and she looked around at me,
clearly thinking, I knew it! She’s all confused, and going
downhill fassst!
“It’s 2002,” the nurse told her primly in clear, pronounced
syllables.
Mama smiled. Anyone who knew her would’ve spotted that
twinkle in her eye. “Well,” she told the nurse, “I was born in
1917. So now, what you do is, you subtract the year 1917 from the year
2002, and then you’ll know how old I am. And maybe if you figure it out that
way, you’ll remember, and then you won’t have to keep asking!”
The nurse, evidently as short on humor as she was on common
sense, stood a moment, nonplused, then, with a small smile at Mama, she nodded
and scurried out. Mama grinned at me, and I gave up trying not to
laugh.
Last Tuesday afternoon, I heard a vehicle traveling slowly down
our little lane. It had a diesel motor,
whatever it was. I finally went and
peered out the window —
Well, how ’bout that.
People were having a wagon ride, right there on our lane! That’s never happened before. I don’t know what the wagon was being pulled
by; the vehicle was behind the trees by the time I looked. (And yes, it was a vehicle, as opposed
to horses, unless horses now make low-pitched, rumbling, diesel noises.)
I got an email from the Executive Director at the nursing
home that night telling me that they have one new resident that has tested
positive for Covid. (I don’t know if that means it’s really a ‘new’
resident... or if she just means they ‘newly tested positive’.) So I wasn’t able to visit Loren again
Saturday.
Wednesday was a windy, windy day, after a windy night, with gusts
up to 45 mph. But it was sunny and 67°.
That afternoon, I heard a racketing around in a lower kitchen cupboard. I jerked open the door, and there was a baby mouse, trying his best to get a chunk of a peanut from one of the mouse traps. He didn’t weigh enough to spring it. He stared at me, looked at the peanut, looked back at me – and finally toddled away through the back of the cupboard. I shut the door, went back to my recliner – and soon he was over there THONK-THONK-THONKING away again.
I promptly ordered new mouse traps in a new-fangled design
that are supposedly more sensitive.
Meanwhile, the mouse evidently ate enough peanut butter that
he gained a sufficient amount of weight to spring the trap. Bye-bye, baby mouse. 🥴
Thursday, November 3rd, was Larry’s 62nd
birthday. “Now I’m as old as you,” he
informed me, “so you needn’t keep acting all superior and stuff!”
I vacuumed, dusted, cleaned the kitchen a bit, started a
load of clothes, and then worked on pictures. A bunch more clothes for
the grandchildren for Christmas arrived; they should just about all be here
now.
A friend inquired into one of the pictures I took of
a coal train. Nowadays, 120-car trains
are normal (though sometimes there are two or three times that many cars) with
each car carrying roughly 120 tons. Thus
the capacity of a modern unit coal train is often around 15,000 tons per train.
Isn’t that amazing?
Here’s a picture I took as I headed to Omaha to visit Loren a couple of weeks
ago. Whataya know, one of the first
trucks I met on my way out of town was my very own husband in his boom truck as
he returned from a job. That’s a big
load of aluminum forms – 47 tons, to be exact.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a wonderful old hymnbook
that Andrew and Hester gave me for Mother’s Day called Hymns of Heavenly
Harmony. It’s by Bilhorn Brothers Publishing, copyright 1910.
One of the songs in it is called Grace As We Need,
with the lyrics by H. L. Frisbie and the tune by P. P. Bilhorn. The copyright of the song is 1909. There’s a spot in the chorus where the top
layer of paper is peeled away, and some of the words and notes are
missing. I put some notes back in, and a couple of the words – but just couldn’t
think of two words – or one two-syllable word – that would fit in one last spot.
Just as I used to do in the years when I played piano for
the church and found a line in a song that I didn’t care for, I begged help
from my blind friend Penny.
“I’ll give you the words to the song,” I told her, “and then
do you think you could come up with a word or words to fill in the spot?
I’ll write ‘blank, blank’ where the words or syllables are
missing. Here it is.”
1.
Not grace for tomorrow, or grace when I die;
But grace for the moment
just now passing by;
God heareth and granteth
when humbly I plead,
The grace that He giveth
is that which I need.
Chorus:
Grace all sufficient, Grace which ‘blank,
blank’;
God in all fulness, grace will supply;
Grace overflowing, Matchless and free;
God in abundance, gives grace to me.
2.
Not strength for the future, some far distant day;
But strength for all
duties I meet by the way;
My weakness God marketh,
but grace is decreed,
The grace that He giveth
is that which I need.
3.
Not patience for crosses I never may bear;
But cheerfully lifting
each burden of care;
Not heedless or careless
in tho’t, word or deed
The grace that He giveth
is that which I need.
4.
Lord, give me this grace in a measure that’s meet;
I ask for this gift
bowing low at Thy feet;
Just what is sufficient
for that I now plead,
The grace that He giveth
is that which I need.
Fifteen minutes
later, I got a reply: “How about, take
out the word ‘which’, and put in ‘ever nigh’?”
“That’s good!” I said.
“Thank you! I knew you could come up with something appropriate.”
Penny then reminded
me of the time I ‘fixed’ some bad lyrics in a song we wanted to sing as a
special number. Neither of us remember
the original line or the song, either one; but these words fit right into the
tune, and rhymed, too:
“He hiked up his britches and lit out on the run.”
Our singer of the evening, way back then, was not amused. The rest of us thought it was hilarious. And now, having reread it, I’m laughing all
over again.
That was the sort of poetry that came easiest for me, by
far. 😄
Friday afternoon, Amy sent pictures of Elsie’s bed with
stuffed toys, including the one we gave her two or three years ago that started
the entire collection:
“She made her bed today
with all of her stuffed toys,” wrote Amy.
“It took her a long time to get them all just right. Suppose she’ll have a hard time sleeping with
that many eyes staring at her?”
Larry and I got each of
the five little granddaughters big-eyed stuffed toys at Nebraska Furniture Mart
for Christmas of 2019, I think it was.
We hunted through the store, and I finally reluctantly chose them
because there just weren’t any other toys for the little girls. I wasn’t particularly fond of them – but the
little granddaughters all loved them. We
were trying to get all our shopping done at Nebraska Furniture Mart, because we
had credits on our account.
Amy then sent a picture
of Warren, dressed in a suede and leather cowboy hat and a leather jacket that
she had found at the Goodwill.
“It’s nice enough that
I’m not sure it should be ‘play’ clothes,” said Amy, “but today it was for that
‘criminal’ look!”
“Ha, pretty cute criminal,
if you ask me,” I responded.
Here’s Elsie, also in a
cute little outfit they got at a secondhand store.
I sorted and
bagged Christmas gifts that day, and felt like I barely made a dent in my
list. I stopped for a bit to fix
supper: Uncle Buck’s Bacon Cheddar
biscuits from Bass Pro Shop (one only needs to add milk and cheddar cheese), baked
pollock, California Blend vegetables, and pecan sandies for dessert.
Some quilting
friends were discussing trips to the grocery store, with or without their
husbands, and which way they preferred to do it. One lady told of her
husband putting things in the cart that she didn’t need, which reminded me of the
times when Larry and all the kids, however many there were at the time, would
all come along when we went shopping.
We didn’t have pennies to
spare, so we’d make a big fun excursion out of going to the store. I didn’t piddle around; I had Stuff to Do and
Places to Go; but we had fun at the store.
BUT! – I learned to pay
attention, and find out just what was so funny, if any of the kids
looked like they were trying to keep from laughing. Time and again, it was because their father
had loaded up the cart with a dozen boxes of Orios or something. I’m one of those odd ones who doesn’t like
Orios. Too cloyingly sweet to suit me.
But more, I was very
careful about what we ate, sticking to vegetables and fruits for the most part,
with not an overabundance of meat, but as good of cuts as we could afford. I made bread with whole grains, and when we
had dessert, it was homemade, and usually something with fruit in it, and easy
on the sugar. So the stack of Orio
cookies was always a big joke.
Other times, I’d look
around and discover the cart piled high with bags of potato chips. haha I never
bought potato chips. I have never
liked them, and they aren’t what I ever consider ‘good for you’. To this day, if I’m not paying attention as we
pass the food around at a picnic or a reception of some sort, Larry’s likely to
put a handful of potato chips on my plate, just to hear me exclaim and rake
them all onto his plate after I look down at my plate and see them.
Anyway, it sure made the
kids laugh, when Larry would heap the cart full of junk food. Sometimes he would suddenly point, gasp, and
say, “Look over there!” – and while we all looked, he’d tuck one of the little
ones under a clothes rack, with admonitions to “keep very, very quiet”. (They invariably giggled and gave away their
whereabouts.)
Friday evening, I found
a picture on Prairie Meadows’ Facebook page of Loren (standing, with the cap
on) petting one of the little goats Scatter Joy Acres had brought to the
nursing home for everyone to enjoy.
Every once in a while, I remember days gone by and am
thankful that I’m not checking SpotTrace and Vyncs Tracer to see where Loren
might happen to be right now. I tried hard to help him be independent as
long as possible, and I’m glad I did. But, oh my, the last three years
were stressful.
When Larry came home that
evening, he told of driving his truck on a county road about 90 miles to our
northeast, when a tawny-colored animal went loping across the road some
distance in front of him. Wow, that’s
a big coyote, he thought, and then immediately thereafter, That’s no
coyote! – It’s a mountain lion!
This picture is from National
Geographic. Nebraska probably has about
60 resident mountain lions.
Saturday was the end of Daylight Saving Time.
“Yayyy, I get another hour to do Stuff & Things today!”
I said to a friend.
Yes, yes, I know that the extra hour is after
midnight. But you see, I consider ‘today’
that time during which I’m awake, from the time I wake up until the time I go
back to sleep, never mind whether it’s a.m. or p.m. ‘Nighttime’ is that
time during which I sleep, regardless of what the clock says.
I don’t mind this ‘falling back’ part; but the ‘springing
ahead’ thing is a pain, as I invariably lose an hour of sleep on a Saturday
night (sometimes on the night before Easter! – that’s really a pain),
which is when I have the most difficult time sleeping in the first place,
making Sunday School and church the following day something of a chore through
which to stay awake.
I made Charles Dickens proud with thet thar sentence, I did.
Since I couldn’t visit Loren, I spent the day sorting and
bagging gifts. Why do I never have
enough toys, tools, gadgets, and whatnot for the boys? And why are boys’
toys, tools, gadgets, and whatnot so expensive?
That evening, we went to Walmart to pick up some groceries I
had ordered. We stopped at Walkers’ shop
on the way home to put a little more air in the tires, and then Larry decided
to wash the Mercedes in the big wash bay. I retired to the company break room, as it was
cold in that bay, and I didn’t have a coat.
My new mouse and mousepad with the gel wrist rest have done
wonders for my wrist. It isn’t hurting at all, and hasn’t for the last three
or four days.
Time to get back to the wrapping and bagging of
Christmas presents! I will need to get a
few more toys, books, tools, and so forth. I like to give the children ‘sets’. If I have a cute stuffed fawn, I look for a book
about fawns. I had a large stuffed
tiger... forgot it was a tiger and thought it was a leopard... ordered a nice
book about leopards from Wild Kingdom... went downstairs to my gift-wrapping
room and discovered the ‘leopard’ was a tiger – and then of course I had to
order a book about tigers, and a stuffed leopard. 😄
I had an adorable little stuffed Simba the Lion King,
and found a small, cute Simba chunky board book; that’s for Baby Willie. The fawn is about the same size as the stuffed
Simba, and I found a chunky board book called ‘Little Deer’ – that’ll be for
Baby Oliver, who is just five days older than Baby Willie. Having 27 grandchildren means we can’t spend a
whole lot on each of them; but we can at least give everyone something cute or
useful. I got a nice clothing item for
each, and didn’t break the bank doing it.
Here’s what I do: I go to eBay, enter the child’s size, then
click the following options: New with
Tags, Shipping from US only (so it gets here on time), Buy It Now (I don’t want
to fuss with auctions), and finally, Lowest Price First. Then I scroll through any junk offerings until
I get to those items nice enough to give as gifts. In so doing, I wind up with such things as
this soft, beautiful Adrianna Papell blouse for Joanna for $11.99 (shipping was
free) – and it still has its $79 price tag on it!
I’ve refilled my feeders again, and there
are Northern cardinals, blue jays, American goldfinches, English sparrows, the
migrating Harris’ sparrow (largest sparrow in the U.S.), and dark-eyed juncos
coming to the buffet. I hear Eurasian
collared doves; soon they’ll be strolling about the deck picking up seeds the
other birds spill from the feeders. A
couple of nights ago, a little opossum was scavenging seeds from the ground,
one story down from the back-deck feeders.
I have an essential oil diffuser going,
this time with some drops of Rose oil from Rainbow Abby. These are some of the best oils I’ve found
besides Young Living, which is over my budget.
Rainbow Abby is quite affordable, and they have all sorts of scents that
I really like. I am not fond of tea tree,
some eucalyptus oils, and wheat grass scents.
I prefer mulberry, lemongrass, rose, lilac, jasmine, lavender, citrus,
and suchlike. I don’t put a lot of drops
into the diffuser, and I run it on low speed, so the aroma is not strong, but
quite pleasant.
Here’s another picture I
found today on Prairie Meadows’ Facebook page:
Loren is feeding the Golden Retriever ‘Tank’ a pumpkin biscuit he helped
make.
People can take their
pets in for the residents to see, and there are nearby farms that bring in all
sorts of animals, such as little goats, chickens, miniature horses, and
suchlike. Somebody brought in a baby
ferret, not long ago.
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Friday night, a friend
excitedly wrote to tell me she had purchased however many Powerball tickets $15
buys.
I, knowing she would not be offended, promptly replied, “What?!
You wasted $15? You could’ve bought a 1 ½ lb. bag of Southern Pecan
coffee beans from Boyer’s, for that!”
The next night, she wrote to say that she scanned her
tickets and gotten a notice saying, “You won!”
(Scanned... where? How? I know nothing about these things.)
She continued, “I don’t know how much, but I do know it’s
not very much.”
(How does she know?)
“Maybe it’ll cover the price of one of the tickets!” I returned
in my cheery, encouraging way.
Turns out, she won $12.
“What shall I do with the $12?” she inquired. “Invest in coal futures?”
“Hummus!” I responded. “I think hummus is the
investment of choice.”
My gift-wrapping room is calling!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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