My dear goodness, what a couple of weeks it’s been!
It started with my husband’s deteriorating back condition, which has been causing him increasing pain and severe muscle spasms. So we have been making multiple trips to town for fun things like an epidural steroid injection (cortisone in the spinal cord), and then when that didn’t work, more doctor’s appointments to get his surgery scheduled, get a medical clearance from his primary care doc and cardiologist, preop appointments at the surgeon’s and the hospital. He finally had surgery Wednesday, and the lining on the spinal cord got torn during the process, so the poor guy spent a day flat on his back to prevent “spinal headache,” which is a miserable experience. He’s finally beginning to make some progress but still having a lot of pain and muscle spasms.
Then the mercury spiked to over 100 and the pump went out. Took almost four days to get the new pump in, which meant we were hauling drinking, washing and flushing water from the spring. Just as we headed to town on the morning of hubby’s surgery, we discovered the hot water heater was leaking.
Of course, this all happened the week of my granddaughter’s graduation, and since Nana was making her dress, she needed all these extra activities like a hole in the head, especially since she was also doing all the feeding, milking and irrigating, and taking care of the baby chicks – my meat bird experiment – who need to be fed and watered three times a day.
I admit my standards are not terribly high when it comes to housework, especially in the summer, when we are the busiest, but I outdid myself this last few weeks. My wonderful daughter came over and swamped out the place the day I was sitting in the hospital waiting for hubby to get surgerized; when I came home and had a clean house, I was so happy I cried.
Despite the difficulties, we had some bright spots: new Quarter horse filly Dixie, born in the early morning of June 2nd; the blackberries started blooming and the hailstorm that went over Monday night didn’t do much damage (unlike the one a few years ago that shredded the blossoms so badly we got no berries); the bear that has been bugging us may have finally gone off to greener pastures or more interesting garbage cans.
Still, I was a little disappointed this morning, as I had hoped things were finally going to settle down. Then I discovered the flat tire on the four-wheeler and the seized-up motor on the vacuum cleaner. Sometimes it’s just your turn in the barrel…
