RVing With a Purpose

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Today was another beautiful sunny spring day in north Alabama. It has rained a lot this past week, the gray skies making our moods even gloomier. The low last night was a chilly 39 degrees but with the sunshine it warmed up quickly today. There was some scattered frost around but none at our house so no damage to plants yet. Our tulip magnolia still looks great. It will be in the 30s again tonight but tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day.

Sorry we left you hanging all week. It was a very difficult week for us on all sorts of levels. Aunt Helen has been such an independent lady all her life and she is not happy about needing assistance since she has basically loss the use of her right arm for 4-6 weeks and possibly 8-10 weeks while her clavicle fracture heals. She actually has required minimal pain medications, but the dementia just makes everything so difficult. She forgets she is not supposed to be moving the arm and that she must not take the splint off. Somehow she manages to get out of it if you look away for just a second. She forgets her clavicle is broken. She forgets where she is and on and on. She frequently is pitiful, homesick, and scared. So very sad. We were told by two doctors that she must go to a skilled nursing facility for rehab instead of back home. We spent every day this week at the hospital with her or visiting rehab facilities. By the time we got home in the evenings we were just to tired to prepare a blog post. Dealing with the hospital and insurance company all week was exhausting.

We were able to finally get Helen transferred to a rehab facility in Oneonta, 15 minutes from our house, last night. We were discharged at 5:15 just in time for the worst of the rush hour traffic. This center seems to be a good fit for Helen and we are very hopeful all will be okay. She, of course, only wants to go home NOW. Very difficult decisions lie ahead. We need your prayers for wisdom and courage.

The good news is that Helen had some good times today. She enjoyed Bible study this morning and really had a good time at a gospel singing this afternoon. She also got to meet the facility cat, Lucy. Lucy enjoyed Helen’s petting. Helen also seemed to enjoyed meeting the other people at rehab. Praying good times continue for her.

Good news for us is that it appears we are going to be able to get back to the mission work God has called us to with the help of some cousins and Helen’s church family that have volunteered to help care for her while we are gone. We know we are the hands and feet of God in all that we do, including helping care for Helen, but we also know we are called to be helping the victims of flooding last year in Baton Rouge. When all of Gods people answer their call all of God’s work gets done. Hopefully, by the middle of the week we will be in Baton Rouge preparing for the start of the NOMADS disaster rebuilding project there. But as always, we will remain flexible. Also hopefully, we will now be back to daily blogging and will soon have some more interesting and uplifting items and pictures to share with you.

Remember, we all need to be in prayer for our worship services tomorrow and that God prepare our hearts to receive the message He has for us. Hope you had a great week and a restful and enjoyable weekend.

Friday, February 23, 2018

Today was another beautiful spring day. High temperature was 80. Don’t know if this was another record but it was nice. Everything is starting to bloom now. The tulip poplar that had only 2 blooms 2 days ago is approaching full bloom today. Beautiful. Now we are starting to think about fresh local strawberries. It won’t be long.

Today we installed a new medical alarm at Helen’s. We are trying to do everything we can to make her environment as safe as possible so she now has a fall detection pendant/medical alert button. She is suppose to wear it all the time, especially at night. We told her to never, ever take it off. We don’t want her to fall and be in the floor all night.

We took advantage of the beautiful day to get the grill out.  We like to keep some grilled smoked sausage in the freezer to add to omelets and have with biscuits and the freezer was empty.  Now it is restocked with three pounds.  Since we had the grill out anyway, we also decided to have some steaks, potatoes and salad.  Good meal.  Max really knows how to grill a steak.  Of course we have no pictures of the steak.  It was eaten as soon as it was done.

We also began reloading FRED today. We never really unloaded everything but today we started sorting and taking the sweatshirts back inside and bring out more short sleeved shirts for Baton Rouge. We plan to take Fred to Tuscaloosa Sunday and leave him there until we head to Baron Rouge in about 10 days so we have to get everything loaded tomorrow. It will be a busy day. We were able to get our 4 miles in again this afternoon. We are getting back in better shape. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Thursday, February 22,2018

Sorry, we have been offline for a while. Think we just needed some down time. We have done better the past two days. Actually been able to accomplish some things and feel like we could think again. There were a few days where we just really felt like we were in a fog. Maybe the lack of sleep finally caught up with us. We have slept better the past two nights but probably the biggest influence has been wonderful, gorgeous, record breaking warm spring like days. We had highs in the 80s the past two days which is about 10 degrees above our normal February days. It’s been wonderful. We have gone for nice walks for photography as well as our usual 4 mile cardio walks every day this week. Also think getting back into our normal exercise pattern of weighing in each morning with the Wii and walking or riding several miles in the afternoon also helps our mindset. The trees are budding out and our tulip magnolias are beautiful. Yes, we know – time for a frost. At least that is what happens a lot of years. At least for the next 10 days the forecast looks safe. The star magnolias are prettier than normal this year. Anne’s dad’s favorite spring bloomer was the forsythia and it is starting to bloom too.

Other than trying to be a little kind to ourselves the past few days, we have also been working on all the stuff that has to be done to handle the business end of our mothers’ affairs. There are thank you notes to write, bank accounts to balance, bills to pay etc. Canceling upcoming doctor appointments was one of those unexpected landmine things. It hurt. We still have lots to do and more decisions to make but we are feeling more capable these days. And we are giving ourselves permission to just stop when we start feeling overwhelmed. So, for today, we did good. We will take this one day at a time. Thanks again for the cards, calls and concern. Hoping we get back to some more interesting blogging soon but at least we have some nice pics for you today.