At Large 1710 days

"McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup."

Saturday my Emmaus brothers and I went to Baytown, Texas to make repairs and paint a house belonging to an elderly widow. As much as I hate to paint I found that I actually enjoyed painting as part of a group. The exterior paint we were putting on looked strangely pink while wet but dried to something like a dusty rose. I painted about 4 hours and felt very little pain in my back. Then I stopped for lunch and sat on the front steps of the house. When I got up to go to my car I felt like a gorilla had been beating on my back. I could barely straighten nor lift my feet enough to step over twigs. My back has hurt ever since. I can hardly get my breath for the first 30 seconds after sliding into the driver's seat. Every bump I hit felt like a kick in my kidneys. My back is not getting better.

I planned to have an easy Sunday with only Sunday School and Church on the schedule. When I woke this morning I quickly realized I wasn't even going to be able to drive to church. So I went back to my recliner and slept another 4 hours. I realized I had not reported any progress here in over a week so I took a bunch of pictures of the kitchen with my iphone and stitched them together with an app. The floor tiles at actually grayer than the picture. The black at the upper left is an artifact from the "stitching" process. It is almost impossible to tell but one of the upper cabinet doors is still missing. I searched, unsuccessfully, all day for the mounting screws and decided to go to Lowes to buy more screws and a pair of shelf brackets for another glass shelf to the left of her dressing mirror in the bathroom..

Click the picture for a larger view. I returned from Lowes with 16 feet of wainscoting caps, 1/2" X 1 / 2" quarter round, four tomato plants, 6 broccoli sets, paint roller set, paint brushes, a gallon of Olympic Paint Cinnamon Diamonds flat latex paint, a gallon of Olympic Paint Winter Mood flat latex for the front room ceiling and 2 rolls of 2 inch painters tape. No screws. No shelf brackets. I sure do miss my short term memory.

Tomorrow the home care nurse will be here to change my wife's dressings. I have changed her dressing 3 times but worry each time about contaminating the wounds. She has a 6 inch incision on the front of her right thigh, a 4 inch incision toward the bottom right of her abdomen and a scary triangular incision about 5 inches long in the crease between her right buttock and her thigh. All the wounds look like they are healing well but they sure are in terrible places. I know of no place on the human body that flexes and stretches like the butt/thigh/groin juncture.

Plans for tomorrow:
1. Mix potting soil in bags (4) into garden patch,
2. Plant tomatoes and broccoli,
3. Set PVC framework over patch,
4. Stretch bird netting over PVC frame,
5. Buy screws for cabinet doors,
6. Buy shelf bracket (picture in iphone),
7. Buy IKEA corner table or shelves for southwest corner of dining area 22" by 18",
8. unload dishwasher,
9. Carry dried and folded and hangered clothes to proper areas,
10. Move chest of drawers out of my closet to her closet.

3/2: Father God, let your love shine through us so that people will see you in us and desire to know you better, as we pray, "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation."* Amen. 3/3: O God, have mercy on us, and grant us grace to be faithful in prayer. Amen. 3/4: Lord, help us to set love above politics, race, nationality, or anything else that can separate us from one another. Amen. 3/5: God of all our days, help us to treasure each person and each day you give us. Guide us to live always for your glory. Amen. 3/6: Thank you, God, for the power of Christ that works through us in our weakness. Help us to trust you to work out your good purposes in us. Amen. 3/7: O God, help us to be grateful for opportunities to forgive -- and give us the strength to do so. Amen. I had not realized just how blessed we are until I started driving the church van to bring these Santa Maria women and the residents of Turning Point and Independent Living to Terrace United Methodist Church. Please click on a PRAYER LIST for the women of Santa Maria and Bonita House for the week of March 1, 2010.

Click the picture for comic strips on-line.

An Italian grandmother is giving directions to her grown grandson who is coming to visit with his wife.

"You comma to de front door of the apartmenta. I am inna apartment 301. There issa bigga panel at the front door. With you elbow ,pusha button 301. I will buzza you in. Come inside, the elevator is on the right. Get in, and with you elbow , pusha 3. When you get out, I'mma on the left. With you elbow , hit my doorbell."

"Grandma, that sounds easy, but, why am I hitting all these buttons with my elbow?

"What . . . .. .. You coming empty handed ?"

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson