A DAMMIT DAY

GOOD MORNING WORLD

Today I am in prayer all day long for a friend of mine.  I got a message a week or so ago from his wife that she was anxious to talk to me.  Give her a call as they are home for a couple of days.  This beautiful couple has been part of our hearts and family since 1997.  She was the first one to appear at our door as we moved into our home in Ballwin, Missouri.  She had a flower and a box of chocolates.  Friends for life for that alone.

They soon endeared themselves to us and hopefully we to them.  The message simply said she had wanted to talk.  I thought I cannot wait to chat it had been too long.  Then we had to go to Maine and to RochesterNY and to NazarethPA and clean and pack and unpack and I did not call.

I got an email from mutual friends yesterday saying that the husband was going in for a heart cath today.  On Tuesday he is having a 5-6 hour open heart surgery to repair a badly damaged mitral valve.  It is elective at this point.  The doctors say he is in great health and this is a good time to do it before he gets any of the classic symptoms and it is a dire situation.  His wife is a nurse so he will have the best of care.  Who knew?  To see this man he is the picture of health.  He is thin, exercises by playing tennis regularly and is energy personified.  You never do know!

So today I am in prayer for them both.  I cannot imagine one without the other.  It would be like salt without pepper or a yin without a yang.  So I am praying for the surgeons, the nurses, the staff to be guided in their skills by the loving hand of God that this procedure and subsequent surgery will be textbook – smooth and correct!

For me I am going to try to find their cell number to send a text.  I will not waste time nor energy in remorse for not calling.  I failed again and wallowing in it does no good.  Prayer is better!  Please Lord let out dear our St. Louis Don Quixote be soon be back to health to joust at more windmills with his beautiful Dulcinea!!!

Lesson learned AGAIN to not put off………….

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…

VALENTINE’S DAY IN THE THRONE ROOM

GOOD MORNING WORLD

Yesterday I had an item on my very long to do list that I had to get to and complete.  As I have shared along the way January 6th is the time to take down Christmas.  For me it is the time to put up Valentine’s Day.

Think of it.  Valentine’s Day really gets shorted in the world of decoration.  It has 41 days to decorate and celebrate and in there are Super Bowl and Mardi Gras decorations vying for the same spots.  A friend of mine already has her Mardi Gras decor up.  I must ask her if she ever puts up Valentine’s decorations!  Then it is Lent and no decorations for this season unless you do St. Patrick’s Day then Easter.  Honoring the Lenten season I usually have nothing at all or a plain grapevine wreath hanging on the door.

Spring and summer have floral wreaths and fall brings colored leaves until Halloween.  This is another holiday that has few days to celebrate as we have back to school and fall decor.  Christmas goes up earlier and earlier squeezing Halloween.  I would put forth that Halloween is so over the top in decor that it stands alone and loud for the multiple themes – spiders, pumpkins, cemeteries, ghouls, mummies and multiple spooky ideas – so the number of days is not important.

Valentine’s Day has a heart in various forms plus cupid maybe.  Do you remember your Valentine’s Days in school?  I do and somewhere I have scrapbooks filled with every Valentine I got in grade school by grade!!!  They are there all with the signatures of my friends and classmates.  Everyone got one and maybe a ‘special’ one from someone you were sweet on at the time.  Oh too funny to think about.

When the kids were little I used to help them make special Valentine’s for their grandparents out of lace paper and red construction paper.  As I think about it the first card I ever got from my husband was a Valentine’s Card.  What a neat ‘remembering’ – glad I started with this theme today!

The chore I planned to do was to clean the powder room downstairs.  It is 5×5 so thought it plausible that I could actually complete this job.  There is not much to do in there except clean the toilet, sink and floor.  Most of which is done on a regular basis anyway.  Off I went.

I decided to start at the top first.  The cabinet over the toilet is an antique that belonged to my husband’s grandmother.  It has the neatest lock and a rail around the top so I have knick knacks up there.  There is a birdhouse on a stand that I decorate according to the seasons.  There also up there are three pictures.  One each of our grandchildren in a tub.  They are really cute!    Also are some cloths that were hand laced by my sister and a couple
embroidered by me.  Yesterday I also found a little basket.  Had no memory of this and what a mess!

I took down all the cloths and pictures and the birdhouse.  I reached for the basket not so carefully much to my dismay.  It was full of some sort of white flakes that of course spilled all over the room.   I had not planned on this and looked at the increased mess.  I actually think I said some not so nice words.  This was going to be more of a job than originally planned!  After much thought I determined that the flakes were soap residue from when I had cut a big bar of soap in half to fit the soap dish.  Wish I had remembered that!!!  I grabbed the throw rug and folded it up best I could and threw it on the porch and began to clean up the added mess.

Since the top of the cabinet was clean of items I dusted.  Once again there were tons of people coming and going up there if ‘dust though art to dust becometh’ is really true as I said the other day!   I replaced the birdhouse after dusting as well as the pictures.  The basket was put inside the cabinet as no longer necessary.  It had done it’s damage!  To the floor to clean up the soap flakes.  The floor got washed.  The baseboards were cleaned.  The throne was polished.

As I am laying on the porcelain to clean behind the bowl I thought with thanksgiving how I have not been sick for a long time.  I also had a fleeting memory of times when I had imbibed too much causing a visit and thankful that this foolishness is long behind me.  Then it was done and clean and a throne suitable for a Queen or King!  Sink is cinchy to do.  Then it is to the decorations in the room to clean and shine with Windex.  Off to get that bottle.

As I am dusting the pictures, the mirror, the bedpan and chamber pots I wonder if anyone else has these things in their powder rooms.   This room is as eclectic as I am and probably a fairly good representation of my idiosyncrasies.  On the wall facing the throne and sink I have a gallery of items.  If you have to sit there you might as well have something to look at is my thought.  Or read as the china chamber pot on the floor is filled with reading material.

The extra rolls of toilet paper are in a wooden tool box set on it’s end.  The cover of the tool box becomes a door to open to get the rolls when needed.  On top of that is a metal chamber pot filled with seasonal hand towels.  On the wall are various pictures and hanging.  I have a slate in case you are moved to write something.  There is a poem entitled “When I am an Old Woman” for your reading pleasure.  A quote from Hodding Carter that says there are only two things we can give to our kids – roots and wings.   There is a print of the doors in Ireland a friend brought back for me.  There is a Picasso print of Don Quixote and Sancho.  I framed a 45 record by Elvis in honor of our Memphis time.  I enlarged a picture I took of our sons old boots.  A canvas I did trying out acrylics tops it all.  This is not really a good painting yet I could not toss it as one day I may reuse the canvas so needed a storage spot.

Since I believe in leaving out a Christmas item all year long to keep the spirit about there is a Christmas Goose I painted on a slate and a framed puzzle of a manger scene leaning on the floor.  Of course I have a night light in there as well.  It is the leg lamp from The Christmas Story our daughter gave her dad.  Why pack it away?  

Completing the cleaning is the watering of the plant in the bedpan.  Years ago a nurse friend of mine had used this in a bathroom of hers.  I told her when I found a china bed pan that I was going to do the same.  It gets lots of comments!  Job done!  Interesting bit of time and memory to make the chore fly by after all.  So what is on task for today for me???  For you???

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…