Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Binder/Mama's Recipes from Zazzle.com

Binder/Mama's Recipes from Zazzle.com

Give Mom a recipe-binder for her favorite family recipes ... to pass down to you later! :)

Apron/Mother's Day from Zazzle.com

Apron/Mother's Day from Zazzle.com

Great gift for Mom ....... if she cooks!

A great day ...

A glorious day in Kansas today - at least, here in Wellington.  Hubby John worked out in the yard and in the garden, planting seeds and plants - it's looking better every day.

  I kept myself from joining in since I've been spending lots of time the past three weeks or so at the chiropractor.  I have been mainly sitting in the recliner for the past two days, due to a pinched nerve on the left side of my neck.  Horrible pain, as anyone who has had the same problem knows.  :(   I've been to the chiropractor, been  using moist,  hot compresses and keeping a "thing" wrapped around my neck to hold it still..  And praying.  LOTS of praying.  And friends have prayed.  Thank the Lord, THANK THE LORD, truly, last evening my neck could suddenly move again.  I could turn it from  right to left and back again, with barely any pain.  It was, and is, at least back to where it was before the pinched nerve happened.  Not perfect.  But "do-able".  :)  I had already been coping with a pinched sciatic nerve for three weeks.  Of course, there HAD to be two DIFFERENT nerves being pinched; couldn't have been the same one causing all the problems.

Today, taking advantage of not having to be careful about moving the neck, I tried catching up on some house-work that's been getting put off.  Mistake.  I overdid it a bit.  The sciatic problem is still there and began making itself known after I'd been standing awhile. Ouch. I had an appointment at the chiropractor's (which has become my second home lately) this afternoon - that helped somewhat.  He was amazed, pleasantly, at how much better my neck was than it was last Friday.   We both were.  :)  Friday he had said that if it wasn't better today that I may have to go to the medical doctor for narcotic-type pain meds, in order to bear the pain, which was bad, REALLY bad.  I didn't want that.  Ah, well.............hoping and praying that the sciatica, too, will disappear or at least get LOTS better.  Please, God!

Since this was such a beautiful day, and I haven't been able to really enjoy any beautiful days lately, we ate supper outside.  John cooked hamburgers on the grill.  Yum!  Kept it simple:  hamburgers, chips and the trimmings. John and grandson Christian had ice-cream for dessert but, after two hamburgers, I was too full. It was nice sitting under the tree listening to the birds; watching "Sullivan", our English Bulldog, running around in circles, and admiring the growing garden.  I loved being able to lean my neck back far enough to stare up into the tree-top, taking in the beauty of the spring-green leaves accented with the dark branches. I'm always silently (too timid to yell it out) saying:   "Thank You, God!  You have created such gorgeous things!"

While I was still sitting at the table hubby went over to dig around in the dirt. I heard him say something to grandson Christian about a SNAKE.  Oh, no!  I don't WANT snakes to be in the yard - again.  Usually they are harmless garter snakes ... though "harmless" doesn't mean anything to me - a snake is STILL a snake.  :( Had I known we would be finding garter snakes or ANY kind of snakes in our yard four years ago when we moved here - this house would DEFINITELY not have been "the" one.  Oh, no.  Coping with the invading pesky little ants every Spring is bad enough.  But snakes...........Ugh!  Anyway, Christian was excited.  He ran around to the other side of the wood fence, in the alley, to follow the snake.  And caught it.  Held a stick down over it as he yelled, "Nonny!  Can you go get a jar?"   I had limped around to where he was to see if there was REALLY a snake.  There was.  It didn't look like a garter snake, either. Maybe it is.  Not sure yet. But, being the "wonderful Nonny" that I am, I went to the house to hunt up a plastic "something" to become the motel room for this snake.  I only had one, rather large, clear plastic food container (had better start saving up some more, I guess) that had been emptied of its biscotti contents recently.  It would do.  Back to grandson and his "find".  Ewwwwwwww - his "find" is squirming! Yuck!  He got it in the container, added some stuff (grass, a branch, etc.) and brought it to the porch  (he better keep that lid on tight....).  Later, I put air-holes in the container for that yucky snake (now that's really being a wonderful grandma!).  Yucky snake is now sleeping peacefully on the back porch.  Grandson Christian is going to ask a teacher tomorrow if she'd like it for her classroom (she supposedly mentioned one time she'd like one....) We'll see.  While I was making the air-holes, Christian jokingly said, "Nonny, what if I put the snake in your bed, and you climbed in, and....................."  I reacted QUICKLY to that:  "Christian, if you EVER do that, or even let that snake out in the house, I don't promise HOW I will react, but I can tell you now that it won't be a NICE reaction!!!!!" 'Nuff was said. ha!