Saturday, April 7, 2018
It rained and rained last night. It was really good sleeping weather listening to the rain on the roof of the motor home. However, the alarm clock went off early again this morning. The rain had stopped but the temperature was considerably cooler and according to predictions was going to drop all day. They were right about that but wrong about the rain that returned this afternoon. The forecast now is for a low of 32 with rain/snow mix tonight. I guess this is spring in Alabama. Summer one day and then winter again the next.
We were up again at 5:00 this morning because we needed to be at Aunt Jean’s assisted living by about 8:00 to take care of Newdul the turtle, pick up a few things Jean needed and get the mail. We then had to be in Oneonta at 10:00 to take care of Jean’s admission to the rehab center. They were so nice to go ahead and admit her and let us sign everything this morning. Of course since we had just done all the same for Helen a few weeks ago we guess they trust us now. Everything went very smoothly. We visited with both Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Helen seems to be doing quite well. She is scooting around everywhere in the wheelchair and walking around in the room without even a cane. She seemed quite content, smiling and laughing. She didn’t mention going home until right before we left but when we said she still had therapy to do she started talking about something else. Aunt Jean’s room is right next door to Helen so Helen has been going in to check on her. Jean isn’t doing well. She appears to have lost more weight since we saw her the day before we left for Baton Rouge. Debra said she seems better than Wednesday when she got here. She is just so weak. Hopefully therapy will help her as much as it has helped Helen.
A funny thing happened earlier this week at the rehab facility after they admitted Aunt Jean to the room next door to Aunt Helen. Our sister-in-law, Debra, and her sister were there visiting Aunt Jean while Aunt Helen was at dinner when the therapist came in to do an assessment. She asked Debra several questions, then started to get Aunt Jean out of the hospital gown and into clothes. Debra and her sister stepped over to Aunt Helen’s room and sat down. A few minutes later the therapist came in with more questions and after a moment asked “Don’t you think we should go back to Jean’s room? If the resident comes back to this room and finds strangers sitting here it might upset her.” She was really encouraging them to get up and leave the room. That was when Debra realized the therapist didn’t know “the resident of the room” was her aunt too. The therapist must have been pretty horrified that Debra and her sister would just make themselves at home is someone’s room.
After leaving the rehab center, we did some grocery shopping, had a salad for a late lunch and then decided to ride out to Camp Sumatanga to see if we could find our dear friends Dave and Carol Hill. They are leading the NOMADS team at Camp this period. They weren’t home when we arrived but we were able to visit with one of the maintenance guys we have worked with on previous projects. It was great to see him again and then we saw Dave and Carol drive by. We headed out after them and had some good reunion hugs after we caught up with them at a stop sign. We decided to go to Cracker Barrel for Carol and Dave to have a late lunch and visited for quite a while. We shared an apple dumpling that was very big and very good. We would have that again. We had a wonderful time visiting and catching up. We will be working with them in Baton Rouge in about a month.
We hope to go out to Sumatanga again Monday and have devotion with the team before we go to assisted living again to meet with the director. One of the things we have really noticed since being back in the country is the number of dogwood trees blooming in our woods. The azaleas are also in full bloom. We got two springs this year. Nice.
We then returned to the mountain and visited with Debra at Aunt Helen’s house. Love, love, love our sister-in-law. Thank you, Debra, for all you do. We are now back at the sticks and bricks and are happy all seems fine. It’s been quite a while since we slept in the house. Thankful for a warm house with a good heat pump.
It was another really nice spring day in north Alabama. High in the low 70’s and lows in the mid 40’s with bright sunshine. God blessed us with another treat of nature as soon as we got out of bed. There were three deer munching on grass and playing around right outside the bedroom door. Possibly because there has been no recent activity at the house they are closer than usual. We got to see one of the deer stand on it’s hind legs to try to reach leaves that we higher up on a shrub. Sorry we didn’t get a picture of that. Both of our best camera’s were in Fred in Tuscaloosa so all we had was the phones but at least we got something. Love to see the wild life.
RVing With a Purpose 