I Think I Will

The last two Novembers I have posted each day of the month something I was thankful for. Even though I posted something every single day in October I think I will go ahead with my thankful posts this month. It really helps my mindset, you know?

This weekend we are visiting our parents. We stopped at my parents' house (on the way to see the in-laws) to drop off some freezer meals I made for my dad. We had a good quick visit with Dad. And from that comes a few things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for:
...my husband being willing to do the majority (by far) of the driving when we are on road trips
...junk food pit-stops
...being able to witness what the vows: to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part  in action through my dad's devotion to my mom. It's a beautiful thing.

Cooking

I've been making extra food and freezing it in single serving containers.  

Why?

It's my little way of trying to help my dad. He spends all day with my mom, being her cheerleader, supporter and just loving her. I thought that if he had simple foods at home in the freezer to reheat and not have to spend a lot of time cooking, then maybe it would help alleviate some stress.

 So far there is Chicken Wild Rice Soup, Tomato Soup, a chicken/rice/cheese/broccoli casserole and some applesauce. More is coming, Dad!

I Love You in Sign Language

 

I know this isn't a very good picture. We'll just establish that I am no good at "selfies" whether it's of my face, or whether it's of my left hand. I think you have to be of a certain age to be good at taking a picture of yourself and I am waaayyy beyond that age. ha.

Friday afternoon Hubby and I took off for Iowa to spend the weekend with my mom and dad. It had been two weeks since I last saw my mom. (Six weeks ago, Mom had a stroke that took away her speech and her mobility on her right side.)

Mom has been on a rehabilitation floor of the hospital for about three weeks.  I was very amazed at the change I saw in my mom. 

Today I saw her physical therapy session and saw her sitting up unassisted and she seemed pretty steady. I remembered back about 4-5 weeks when she first tried sitting on the edge of the bed for five minutes and would keep leaning over and was very unsteady.

Overall she seems much more alert. She tries to say something, but mostly vowel sounds come out and we don't understand what she is saying. Frustrating to her and to us. 

She gives big smiles when family comes in and it's not totally lopsided. She's learning to nod her head "yes". She's good at shaking her head "no". 

She is feeding herself and doing a really good job. She doesn't want any help and is clear about that. (Her stubborn streak is showing through. Grin.)

My sister and brother-in-law visited Saturday. And a sweet, wonderful bonus was a visit from my daughter and son-in-law. My mom was pretty excited about seeing her youngest granddaughter. She would hug Megan and then motion with her finger for Zach to come over to get a hug. Pretty cute to see that!

This afternoon I tried to teach her how to say "I love you" in sign language. She really caught on! I think Dad is going to work with her on that every day. She held her hand up with all the fingers in the correct position and held it out to my dad. So sweet! 

I didn't think about taking a picture of that accomplishment (phooey), thus the awkward picture above.

I had a hard time telling her good-bye this afternoon. But as I was signing "I love you" to her and saying it to her, she looked at me and I knew that facial expression. It was most definitely, "I love you, too, Honey". Made me cry and made me happy all at the same time.

It was a good weekend visit. It was good to talk with my dad in the evenings at their house. If my readers out there think of us, please pray for strength for my dad. He works so hard to be a support to my mom all day long it wears him out. I admire his dedication very much.

Tomorrow Mom moves out of the hospital to a skilled care home. It's in the same community so she and my dad will still have their support system around them. I'm thankful for that. Mom will get even more intense physical, speech and occupational therapy there.

Thank you for your prayers for our family and specifically for my mom and dad.

It Was Simply Wonderful

All of last week I kept myself crazy busy cleaning the house. I haven't decided yet if the fact that I spent so many days on it means that the house was terribly dirty or maybe I'm just a lot slower at what I do. (I'll go with being slower.) I have made myself a modified version of a cleaning schedule I found on this site that I found through Pinterest. I don't always do all it on a weekly basis because with just two of us, things just don't get dirty as quickly. That and I'm not a persnickety housekeeper. But since we have been gone a lot this summer, it's been neglected more than normal.

(This is probably more than anyone wants to know about me. Just trying to think of more things to write about and frankly, I like reading blogs when people write about just their normal everyday lives.)

(So there you have it.)

Aside from my motivation coming just from the house being dirty, I was also motivated because we were expecting COMPANY FOR THE WHOLE WEEKEND!!!!

(All caps are necessary because we NEVER get company here. Our last overnight guests were last Christmas and then only other people that have been here this year were a friend who stopped by for an hour and a niece who stopped by for an hour.)

(I cannot express how much I hate that no one wants to come visit us here although I can't really blame them because this town isn't much to look at. Not much at all.)

Anyway....

My mom and dad came for a weekend visit! I am thankful my mom was feeling well enough to make the trip, although she isn't back to 100% after her few days in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

We had a simply wonderful time.

I loved planning a menu and thinking about the things my parents like. The blueberry muffins I made for Sunday morning were a hit as was the pork loin I grilled for Saturday night. I can't even tell you how I enjoyed cooking for company. The fact that Hubby cleaned up after every meal and fixed the breakfasts (except the muffins) was a bonus!

Friday night we watched a movie. Parental Guidance. My new favorite movie! We all had seen it before, but some movies I can just watch over and over. Saturday afternoon we made a excursion to the local soft-serve ice cream place. Saturday night Hubby and Dad played a game together. Dad beat Hubby three times! (Hubby is really good at games and 99% of the time he wins.) Sunday morning Mom was too tired to make a trip to church, so we had our own church service in our living room. Mom said it was the first time she had gone to church in her pajamas! grin.  We sang a couple of hymns with Hubby playing the piano. (Loved hearing my dad's bass voice.) We listened to a sermon on-line from our son's church. (After we figured out how to play it so it was loud enough for everyone to hear. I connected my phone to our Bose radio/CD player.) We spent some time prayng together. (Sweet.) Lunch on Sunday was at our favorite restaurant in town.

Right after lunch my mom and dad headed back to Iowa. My dad had found out Saturday morning that his lifetime friend (as in since they were babies) had passed away. His friend had asked my dad to do the funeral service, so Mom and Dad went to meet with the family. The funeral is tomorrow and it will be a really tough one for my dad. I'm planning on attending.

Late Sunday evening our niece stopped by for a quick visit. She's in the area visiting friends before her college classes start next week. We had such a fun chat with her and felt so very honored she took the time to stop to see us. She's a sweetie, for sure!

Monday morning I woke up and realized the house was empty. I cried.

My mom taught me so much about cooking, keeping a house and being a good hostess. I love to have her visit so I can show her what she taught me.

Easter Tuesday

I decided to declare today Easter Tuesday since this is the day I chose to write about our Easter weekend.

While we were on the cruise,

(Anyone remember I went on a cruise?) (ha ha) (I have one more post to write and wrap it all up... don't worry I'll get it done!)

Where was I?

Oh yea, we were on the cruise ship...

While still on the cruise, my mom asked what we were doing for Easter and invited us to come spend the weekend with them. Hubby and I talked it over and decided it sounded like a great way to celebrate Easter.

So Friday night we packed up the car and headed to my parents' house about 3 hours away.

We had an enjoyable weekend that started with some yummy appetizers and some basketball watching.

As I walked up the stairs to get ready for bed I got to see the newly remodeled bathroom. I walked in and looked around (I liked it!) and walked back out in the hall and asked my mom, "Did they move the door?" It was moved probably only 10-12 inches, but I sure could tell. It helped the layout of the bathroom quite a bit. When I was showering the next morning, I kept looking around me because it was so different. (I was eleven years old when we moved into that house.)

Saturday we mostly sat around and talked. I guess we didn't run out of things to talk about even though we had just spent a whole week together. :)

In the afternoon, we all trekked across the street to visit with the neighbors. They are the parents of my childhood friend who died about a year and a half ago. We had a good visit with them. I noticed they had several pictures of my friend around the house. Made me really miss her. Her sweet mom got tears in her eyes when I hugged her goodbye. Made me cry too. I'm really glad we popped over for a visit.

Back at my parents' house, I went searching through a drawer in the bookcase in the living room and found a treasure trove of cassette tapes. For many of the junior high and high school concerts, my mom would bring along a portable cassette player, much like this:

My dear mom not only sat through all those concerts, she recorded them and then subjected herself to having to listen to them over and over at home while I insisted on listening to them repeatedly and sang along or tried to pick out my violin part. (My violin career was only three years long. Thankfully.)

In amongst those tapes was one labeled Pam, Beth, Paul and Judy Nonsense. THIS was the tape I was hunting for! I wrote a post last October about eating peanuts and the childhood memories that it invoked. One of the memories was a song with the words:

Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now. 

Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just know.

 

I remembered singing it into a tape player when I was 9 or 10 years old. One side of the tape is hard to hear much of anything on it, then a little of my siblings and me talking nonsense. The other side of the tape features ... ME! I had the tape player in my room and I was just talking about what clothes I was changing into, friends we had gone to visit, what was on the bulletin board in my room, who was in my Sunday school class, I sang some songs, read a couple of little books like this one:

 

and played a little plastic instrument I called a Keymonica. Mine looked a lot like this:

I laughed so hard as I listened to myself from 42ish years ago. (I told Hubby that it was my version of what our kids did with the video camera in the late 1990s.) I texted my kids to ask them if they have cassette players and told them I had a real treat for them when we visit next!

Easter morning was at the church Hubby and I were married in. I really loved singing a couple of wonderful traditional Easter hymns...especially because of the pipe organ accompaniment. Such a majestic sound to go with Christ the Lord is Risen Today.

We had a very nice Easter weekend with my parents.

Cruising

The fun started right away on the cruise ship.

 The Travel Agent my dad used had a plate of chocolate covered strawberries sent to each of our rooms. Yum! And that was just the beginning of the scrumptious and plentiful food!

Hubby and I have been on two other cruises. This cruise was a little different. (Well, it was a different cruise-line than the other two cruises we had been on.) We had an assigned time for dinner and an assigned table. So each night, all ten of us gathered at 5:45pm in a very nice dining room.

My mom and dad. Can you believe they've been married 60 years?

This turned out to be a fun time to hear about everyone's day. We all got incredibly spoiled with the service! We lamented how no one at home would put our napkins on our laps for us or refill our water glasses or grind freshly ground pepper on our food for us.

(The whole pepper thing got to be kind of funny. At one of the first meals, my brother picked up the pepper grinder and started grinding the pepper {gasp} and the waiter jumped at him saying it was his job to do that and we were to relax and not do anything for ourselves for the week! The waiter each night would take the pepper grinder off the table when we sat down.)

(It was funny to us.)

(And probably more of a you-have-to-be-there kind of a thing.)

(And this blog is mostly for me to write my memories, so my readers should just chuckle and nod when there is a you-have-to-be-there kind of a thing.)

Check out the presentation:::

Our first port-of-call was to an island called Eleuthera in the Bahamas. We started the morning with having breakfast delivered to the room. We ate it out on our balcony. Such a wonderful treat!

Hubby and I took a tour of the island on a bus. My mom and dad were with us. It was so fun to spend the day with them.

I was so thankful to be able to see the beauty of this island. God sure must have had a lot of fun creating this earth and making it so diverse.

We were greeted with some beautiful bougainvillaea flowers. These grew all over Singapore and we have always loved the pops of color.

Our first stop was here:

 

Wow. The colors are just stunning! (So different from the lakes here in the midwest.)

If you look closely, you can see my mom sitting to the left of the door of the church.


We were struck with the number of buildings that were run-down and dilapidated.

Hubby loved soaking up the sun:

My favorite part of the day was when Hubby and I wandered away a bit from the tour. The rest of the gang was listening to the tour guides tell about a government building. But Hubby and I walked around the corner to an Assembly of God church that was having a worship service. I could hear some singing, so I set my camera to video and recorded some fantastic, heart-felt praising:

My dad peeked in the door and said there were only about 10 people in there! This just makes me smile.

I tell ya, I felt so privileged to not only see this part of God's beautiful creation, but to be able to witness His people in this part of the world worshiping Him.... just....WOW.

Such an amazing start to a wonderful week!

More to come....

Sixty

Today my parents celebrate their Sixtieth Wedding Anniversary! In honor of their anniversary I had some sweets made:

Yes, that is their wedding picture on one of those M&Ms. So fun! I've always wanted to get those personalized  M&Ms and finally found a good reason to!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!!!

July Journal -- The Trip to Iowa

Thursday and Friday I took a little road trip by myself. I drove to Iowa to spend a couple of days with my mom and dad. Those two are a bit hard to find at home. (Kinda like Hubby and me I guess...) Shortly after I arrived, Mom and I took off for a mega shopping trip at Target. Where else? I think it was totally worth the 3 hour drive just to shop at Target, don't you? It's my happy place.

That night we took in a concert put on by the community band down by the river. Here are my folks waiting for the concert. I don't think my dad wanted his picture taken. Hi Dad! :)

A little boy who was about 5 or 6 was passing out Toostie Roll Pops to every one. So cute. My mom said he's been doing that every summer since he was in a stroller. I picked a green one.

I was unnecessarily skeptical about the quality of the music the band would play. The majority of the people in the band are either currently or retired music teachers and band directors. It was really good stuff.

Can you see the man on the saxophone that was the band director when I was in high school? ha. He and his wife are good friends with my parents.

The main reason I decided to spend a couple of day with my folks (aside from just visiting and eating my mom's wonderful potato salad) was to deliver this quilt I made for my mom.

I found the pattern for it on the Moda Bake Shop website. I collected most of these blue and yellow fabrics 10-11 years ago to make a quilt for the guest room. I never did make that quilt because I bought one instead. I cut the 5" squares with the die cutter I rented a couple of months ago from a quilt shop. I decided use those fabrics to make this for my mom. Her favorite colors are blue and yellow, after all.

On the back I added a strip of zig-zags. I love how it turned out! Such a fun surprise when you flip it over.

I sent it to the Missouri Star Quilt Company to have it quilted. They did a terrific job. I will definitely send more quilts to them!

I even made this cute label to attach to the backside. Love how that turned out!

I just had to get a picture of my mom with the quilt. Doesn't it go nicely in their sun-room?

Fifty-nine

Today is my parents' wedding anniversary. They have been married for 59 years! For some reason that has really surprised me. No, I'm not surprised that my parents are still married, silly. I just haven't been adding up the years and I hadn't realized that it was 59 years this year. That is a heck of a lot of years. (We only have 32 more to go! We have been married for 27 years and that feels like a long time. I pray that God will bless us with at least 32 more.)

In honor of today, some pictures:

Mom and Dad dancing at our daughter's wedding

 (The cool thing about this event is the fact that my mom was in the 

hospital for three months earlier in that year.)

Mom and Dad last December

Mom and Dad on their wedding day

I just have to post a picture of us on our wedding day. Not because I want to steal their thunder, but to show you all that I wore my mother's wedding dress.

The only difference was that Mom wore a hoop under the dress, I had a different veil and I did not button the buttons all the way up.  (When I watched the royal wedding last spring, the princess's wedding dress reminded me so much of this one!)

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!