Monday, April 20, 2009

Early Summer?

It reached 98.4 degrees yesterday on our deck! That's a bit warm to my liking during the day but it did cool off nicely last night and the intake fan in the window brought all that cool, fresh air across my face. It was heaven! If I were a widow, I'd have the intake fan on even during the coldest part of winter. I love the fresh air and I think it's good for me.

The view out the sliding glass doors is absolutely beautiful! All the different shades of spring green in the trees, bushes, and grasses are a treat for the eye. Our redbud in the corner of our yard appears to have survived the last late frost. Last year, the late frost killed all the new leaves and we had to wait for several weeks while it grew new ones. It really is amazing how many different shades of green there are in our world. And I'm grateful to my God for giving me color vision. Can you imagine a world without color? What a boring place that would be. I feel sorry for those who are colorblind and miss this glorious world. Our Creator must have had a ball when He decided to be creative and I am so grateful for that.

I put my back out Easter morning getting ready for church and stayed pretty much bedridden for a week. But I did make it to church yesterday morning and then I went back in the afternoon for the Blessing of the Bikes. (It's an annual thing we do for all the motorcyclists in our area.) We have a big bar-be-cue and then surround them and pray for the Lord's protection for them when they are on the highways this year. After being in bed for a week, it was nice to get out for a change even if it did get a little warm. And my face turned it's usual shade of bright raspberry from the heat. And to make it worse, the color blanches out of my face around my mouth which makes the red even redder. Last year, everyone thought I was going to stroke out or something. This year they took it in stride. After a month or two, depending on the temperature, my face will not turn so raspberry when I'm hot. But for the first few hot days, if I'm out in it, I will turn colors and look like I'm about ready to "pop my cork."

I have my last load of laundry in the dryer. Actually I should go out and check and see if they are ready. [Be right back. I've got a few more minutes.] And I vacuumed and made the bed this morning. The house is pretty well picked up but I will need to bleach my counters before too many more days. They stain so badly from coffee or tea and only bleach will get them clean. I still need to do my baths sometime this week but I try not to do anything but laundry on laundry day as I get so tired when I try to do too many things at the same time.

I started a new study last week. Let's see if I can stick with it. (I am notorious for starting things and not finishing them.) It's a study of the proverbs and I am already learning much. I got the study book from Discovery House Publishers and so far it's great. Mon through Fri I do about 10 mins worth of study and then on Sat I bring together everything I learned over the past week. I think it would probably be better to study it with a small group so there would be more discussion but I don't happen to have a small group around. I'm thinking, though, if it stays good, I might decide to lead a small study group for the summer. I need to check on the availability of more books and what the price would be for each. I don't know how things are with churches in your area, but mine here go almost dormant during the summer. I guess they figure most people want to be out enjoying life rather than being cooped upside a building for a study when the weather is so nice. Shirley has a study going that I went to a few times in the beginning and she'll keep that going through the summer but as a rule, we do good to have church once a week. I dropped from Shirley's study because all they are doing is reading Scripture out loud to each other. And while I believe you can always benefit from reading God's Word, I was interested in finding a closer and more detailed look at our Lord. But, as I said, if this continues to be a good study I will offer it and meet with whomever is interested at church. (Can't hold it here at my house because of my dog. He would bark. Even closed up in our bedroom he'd still bark and distract us. It's easier for everyone, I would think, to just meet at the church anyway.)

I can't remember if I told you in past blogs but I'm already reading the entire Bible again on my own. I bought The Daily Bible from Guideposts and it takes you through the Bible every year. This one is in chronological order, which I love, and there is even some devotional and commentary worked into the daily readings. Yesterday I took my books out onto the deck to have my quiet time but today I forgot and just had it here in the house. There's something really special about having my time outside with the Lord. I don't know what it is, but it's special. I wish I had remembered this morning but I'll have a lot of mornings to enjoy this way from here on out. I don't think it will go back to being too cold or wet outside until the end of the year.

I haven't been doing much with my knitting. I don't know what I want to knit. I've done so many afghans and prayer shawls that I want to move on to other things. Of course I have my ever-growing stack of baby hats now too. I knitted two of them while I was laid up last week. I'm currently working on a summer scarf for my older granddaughter. I already did a bunch of winter ones for her. I thought she might enjoy having this one. It is bright red and knitted from Fun Fur, hard to knit but pretty to look at. My friend talked me into entering some of my things in the county fair next month. I don't think I deserve a ribbon of any kind (I'm just not that good yet) but I thought it might be fun. Who knows? Maybe everyone else is a poorer knitter than I am. But I seriously doubt that!!!

I plan to plant my flowers and tomatoes around the first of May. I will use portulaca in the flower boxes on the deck railing, if we can find it again. That's all the little nursery here in town had last year so I planted that and we really fell in love with it. One plant can have five different colors of flowers on it and they attract bees nicely and will pollinate my tomatoes quite well, I would think. Hubby thinks that's why our tomatoes didn't bear fruit the last time we tried to grow them and he very well may be right. That was before the portulaca.

This has been a really nothing blog post but it's the best I can do today. I will try to find more interesting things to share with you. I should keep a pad of paper around where I can record things I want to talk about in a future post and not forget them. The other day there were a couple things I thought about but I didn't write them down and now I can't remember them to save my life. One of those things might have been that I don't have cancer like I thought I did for the past year! Yippee!!! Seems as though all the blood was coming from my bladder that was infected. Doctor put me on 10 days of bactrim and the problem went away. I already in my head had me losing my hair all over again from chemo. I'll tell you, my mind can go on and on and on! I truly thought I was a cancer victim. So anyway that problem is taken care of. I still have a few neurological things I'm not happy with but Doctor said I needed to see a specialist for them and so far I haven't found a neurologist who will take me.

Speaking of my hair ... it has all grown back out and it's better than ever. I don't think it grew back any fuller but it definitely has more body and curl. I don't even need hairspray. I just wash, style, dry, and comb and it looks terrific. I keep it too short to cause any problems even if I'm out in the wind. All I have to do now, if my hair gets windblown is just basically shake my head and it will go back into shape. So nice. I was always embarrassed before when someone would put their hand on my head to pray for me and have it stick to their hands because of the hairspray I had to use on it.

I promise to write more interesting things next time. I stay this boring and people won't stick with me. Sorry.
--Marj

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