July 24, 2021
The past week has been mind-numbingly nutso.
Intensely stressful.
Insanely wrong on so many levels.
Utterly depressing.
Exceedingly tiring.
My brain and body are absolutely taxed out.
*sigh*
I can’t even think straight enough right now to blog about it.
Our family could use lotsa prayer.
Thanks from the bottom of my lil pea-pickin’ heart.
Blessings.
July 18, 2021
Alas, we did not get to go fishing yesterday with John and Aero… because we had thunderstorms all morning. Ah, well, we’ll try again next Saturday morning. We didn’t get near enough rain to amount to anything, but every little drop helps the gardens. We’re supposed to be getting some more rain yet this evening and through tomorrow. I won’t hold my breath on that.
I did go over and watch Aero for a couple hours so John could do some grocery shopping. Aero and I did chalk drawings on their cement porch, then he spent time splashing barefoot in the water puddles as the storms went away. I showed him he could do something cool by stepping in a puddle, then in the spots I did a solid chalk color (to make chalk dust), and then leaving his colored footprints as he walked. Easy for gramma to do and grandson to enjoy.
John’s divorce is still in process – about mid-August will be the final decree. He has custody of Aero for safety reasons. We’d hoped everything would get straightened out, but, well… *sigh* He went way above and beyond what another person would have done trying to save the marriage, however, there are bigger problems right now to contend with, so when the judge does the final decree it will be over. That is not to say that things couldn’t be turned around at some point in the future. For now, this can’t be avoided. Please keep them in prayer.
You’ll notice I finally got around to importing my previous blog (Blogger) onto my domain. Now if you’ve a mind to, you can go back and read those posts if you’re a new visitor. Just keep in mind that the Blogger settings will not always match what I have going on now. For the most part, it looks and reads about the same. I’m not going to go back and try to re-style 120 blog posts. 🤣
I wanted to show you some of my trail walk from the other day when I took Jerry fishing at the nature center north of town. They have two loop trails. I always walk the outer, longer loop. There is an area where they are doing a prairie restoration with native plants.
I stopped for several minutes and just looked and listened. I could smell the natural-ness of it all. I could hear the buzzing of bees, the chirping of wild birds, and saw the skittering of a small lizard as it crossed in front of me. It was all so green and beautiful.
As the trail loops around on the northern end and turns back south, most of it is canopied by the trees for quite a length.
This is usually where I stop for a bit to rest.
#SpreadTheLoveHutch went around doing painted hearts in the middle of the might for a long time (with a phone call and permission from residents or business owners, of course). They did such a cute heart for the nature center!
As I said in a couple previous posts, the cottonwood seeds have been coming down for weeks! These next two photos show how thick the seeds are in the trees and on the ground and plants! *gag* *cough*
I finished the trail down to the south, but instead of going all the way around and through the entrance, backtracked a bit and came out near the tree where Jerry was fishing.
I have lots to do tomorrow, so better quite for now. Hope all of you had a lovely and blessed Sunday!
July 16, 2021
There is always a reason for my absences from blogging. Many times it’s a combination of bajillions of thousands of numerous reasons. So, since my last post…
Our families went ’round and ’round with summer colds. Pretty sure the 3-year-old grandson started it.
The cottonwood seeds, mold, various pollens, dust and dander have been non-stop. What fun to constantly be gagging on sinus drainage and coughing because of the irritation from the allergies.
I’ve had Jerry in the ER several times for his UTIs and kidney infections. Twice they didn’t catch some extra bacteria and I had to take him back.
That pinched nerve I got in my back last month (see previous post) stuck around for almost a month. Made it hard to walk. Couldn’t bend over to do anything. I couldn’t afford to go to the chiropractor to do anything about it. That same pinched nerve has bothered me on and off all of my life. I never know when it’s going to act up. It’s still bothering me to some extent. So annoying.
My tremors are worse and my arthritis is on some sort of high frequency mode now. Ugh. It’s especially bad in my feet which makes the plantar faciitis even more painful (no, it never went away and is now in both feet).
And in the midst of all of that, our car had to sit for over a week due to a flat tire and radiator problems. The tire had to be completely replaced because it had weather cracks in the treads all the way around. Tire guy said it was most likely due to the sub-freezing temps in February and then the recent 110+ temps. Had to wait til John could help us with paying for it. The radiator problems are an on-going thing. The car has so many mechanical problems that one day it will just go kaput. Yes, really. It’s not going to last much longer. We’ll have to do like Colonel Potter on M.A.S.H. when he shot his poor Jeep after Frank ran over it with the tank…
Jerry is spending more time using the wheelchair to get around now than walking. Without any pain management meds, he is unable to stand but a couple minutes. His depression and chronic insomnia are much worse because of it. We just don’t have the means for a good vehicle and gas, so we’re unable go out-of-town to a pain management doctor (the one here is not accepting new patients).
Ah, well. As we used to say as teenagers in the 70s, we just “keep on keepin’ on” as best we can.
Yet there have been some good things, and some fun things.
Years ago, John found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade cheesecake. He began with a few blueberry cheesecakes, sharing them with family and a couple of his friends. At the time, I told him they were so good he should make them to sell. Well, guess what he has started doing in the past few weeks! I took photos of three of them; the flavors in order of the photos are: blueberry cheesecake, Turtles (the candy) cheesecake, and Fruity Pebbles cheesecake…
On Friday evenings, John makes a cheesecake, deciding on the flavor last-minute, then sells that one by the slice over the weekend for folks who want to try before they buy. He can hardly keep up now! It takes three hours from start to finish and then the cheesecake has to sit in the refridgerator overnight; he delivers the next day. Since he works during the day, he can only make one per evening. He tries to set up requests so that he doesn’t do it every night – he still has a 3-year-old son to love and care for! People have requested blueberry, cherry, strawberry, Fruity Pebbles, Turtles, and Cocoa Pebbles. I help him out with the packaging afterward. And sometimes Aero needs to be entertained lol. To answer an obvious question that everyone else has had – yes, whatever the flavor, it is also on the inside of the cheesecake, either swirled (as for blueberry, cherry, strawberry) or sprinkled in when the filling is poured (as for the cereal or candy flavors). The Turtles cheesecake also has caramel drizzled on top. Because I love peanut butter, I’ve about got him talked into testing a peanut butter cheesecake, or maybe a Reeses Peanut Butter Cups cheesecake. We’ll see what happens. I really hope this takes off for him!
John took Aero fishing for the first time a week ago…
I guess he completely understood the idea right off the bat after John showed him how to use the pole. They had a few nibbles but didn’t catch anything.
I took Jerry fishing two days ago and he caught a small catfish…
We’re going with John and Aero early tomorrow morning to go fishing at Lakeside Park in McPherson (about 40 minutes northeast of us). Lakeside Park is where the Scottish Festival was always held until they stopped doing that in 2017. We used to go to the festival all the time because Jerry has Scottish ancestors (he did not know that until we married and I did his genealogy).
Last evening, John took Aero to his first car races, the Hutchinson Nationals, that are held at the state fairgrounds this time of year. He’d bought him some ear protection in preparation for the noise…
And I guess he kept them on the whole time and had a blast watching the races…
Well, I need to stop for now, although I have more to blog about. But I had several interruptions throughout the evening that were important, so I’ll have to save the rest for the next post because I need to get things ready for our fishing trip in the morning!
Hope all is well with you and yours. Love and blessings!
