Flowers & Electronics...

Monday, April 5, 2021, I woke up and checked the tracking on my 2nd new cellphone. It was due to arrive before 4:30pm. Yippee!! I posted this in a previous Blog entry about getting this phone. 

I made it to Dr. Fine, my podiatrist, after leaving a treat bag for Papa. Dr. Fine gouged his way through my big toe on my left foot to get a hangnail out. I go back in a month to be sure all is okay. Previously he sold me a nice set of inserts for my really good sneakers to help my feet, which seem to be falling apart. He asked about them and I assured him they hurt like all get out when I did our mile walk at Moss Park. We determined I need to take the inserts out that were made in the sneakers and that might alleviate some of this pain. Go figure. I then assured him I was a Southern girl and that meant barefoot for me as much as possible. 

I spent Monday evening learning my way around my new cellphone so it was set the way I thought I would like it best. There are definitely things that are a bit different but I believe the learning curve with this phone will be less that when we purchased the Samsung 7's. 

Tuesday, April 6, 2021, I found a voice mail on my phone that I had not received while trying to use two phones at one time. It was from Glen at the Nursing Home. When I had my first visit with Papa the previous Tuesday, I noted Papa was using a different walker than his. It seemed the seat in it was smaller. I asked Glen about it when setting up the appointment for this Tuesday. His voice message was telling me Papa was using a different walker as he has a wheel that broke off. 

Claude and I began our day with a biscuit and soda on the front porch. The first picture I took with my new cellphone was of our biscuit on the porch tradition. 

I went into Georgetown ahead of my visit with Papa to purchase him a new walker. I found one at J&L Pharmacy a block away from the nursing home. It is blue and Papa will have a hard time learning that the blue walker is his and he no longer has a red walker, but he will get it eventually. 

I was able to take Papa out of the nursing home for the first time in 13 months!! We got him in my car and away we went. I drove out to Stamping Ground and some of the old back roads out there. Then I took Papa to the park along Elkhorn Creek and the geese came right up to the car and honked at Papa. Then I took Papa to Burger King and got him a chocolate shake. Papa was so happy to be out in the fresh air and driving through the countryside. It is funny how he used to say the same thing every time were went for a drive. It had begun to wear thin on my weary nerves. This day, it felt like good to me to hear him notice the dead trees when we were out to see the beauty of the world, or to tell me all the houses were multi-family homes because he can't grasp that people live in bigger homes nowadays. These comments felt good and I was grateful to hear them from his lips again. I thought as I drove home how good it was to have this experience. If Heavenly Father decided it was time for Papa to come home now, it is okay because we got him out doing things he enjoys again. I did note as we watched the geese, that my poor father really needs a haircut. I sent these pictures to my family and my sisters. I commented to them that Papa might be giving our Hayden a run for his money on letting one's hair grow during Covid-19.

I purchased charging cables for the new cellphones as they have a different "C" connection. We are trying to get charging cables in all the right places now. We can't get rid of all the older types because we still have a few things that use them. I also mailed back the 1st new cellphone to AT&T. After purchasing dinner for us at Jimmy John's, I hurried home to have a nice meal with my hubby.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021, Claude had an ophthalmologist appointment in Georgetown followed by errands. That gave me some time at home alone. We have truly enjoyed being together for the past year. Now we will have to learn to not be together 24/7. 

I found some flowers opening in our yard. I am going to post all the flower pictures here. These were taken at various times during this week. I love watching things burst into bloom in the Spring. It never grows old. Even though the allergies flare and the sneezing begins, I do love the beauty of Spring.

First, my eye caught something blue in the center front flower bed of our home. I have not planted a blue flower there. I walked down to check it out. This is what I found. I do not know what it is. It makes me smile so it shall have place in my flowerbed.

This is a cluster of buds and blossoms on our crab apple tree. It will be interesting to see if we get enough crabapples to make some crabapple jelly. It is a favorite of our family.

When Lanny and Arlene were visiting with Cordell, I rode in their car and pointed out things they might find interesting about Kentucky. I mentioned that in a short time we would have redbud trees in blossom all over the state. They don't have redbud trees in Utah to the best of my knowledge. When Bonnie, Claude's mother, first visited in April, she fell in love the redbud trees. She had never seen them before. They burst out in spots all over the state. Not uncommon to see a forest of green trees with lots of redbud trees blooming throughout. I took this picture of a redbud tree in front of Dr. Richardson's office. Hope to get a few more along Hwy 32 and then send them to Arlene.

We brought back a few tulip bulbs a few years ago from the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan. This is the results of two of those bulbs growing in our hosta bed in our back yard. They are not fully open, but we were due to have a severe thunderstorm that night and I wanted to be sure I captured them in pictures in case they didn't make it through the storm. Love this deep color.

I planted a little groundcover like flower in our front flower bed. It just spreads and spreads. Sometimes it will hang over the edge. It blossoms all summer long. This year I found a darker pink growing in the front flower bed along with a lighter pink. Same plant. Different shades of color. 

Thursday, April 8, 2021, we received our new Genie Mini. This is a little receiver for the television in our master bedroom. We had not had reception on that television and the beginning of March we did an Internet chat with DirecTV and determined a new receiver was needed for that room. One was ordered but never arrived. After a month, I figured I needed to yank DirecTV's chain a bit. I called and they said there was a wrong phone number on my order and they couldn't reach me by telephone so they did not deliver the receiver. Clearly this was a typo on the person taking the order as I never entered anything in a computer or signed any papers. All was done via a cellphone call. No matter. They sent another receiver and made sure they had a correct phone number for me.

Claude and I carefully installed the new receiver making sure all the connections were set up exactly like the old receiver. Then we got the remote and tried to follow the instructions on setting up the new receiver. It did not work. The remote was being extremely weird. I called a phone number with the instructions, explained the situation. Barbara was very kind and eventually came to understand it was the remote. I asked if the remote could be reset. She told us how to do that and we went through the process with her. Eventually, it all worked great. Barbara assured us she was sending us a spare remote just in case this one went whack-o again. I honestly believe technology is what is going to do me in!!

Friday, April 9, 2021, I awoke and asked my poor hubby if he would give me another haircut. He agreed. It is a humbling experience to watch my left-handed, large hubby use my haircutting scissors the right size for my right hand reflected in the mirror as he cuts away at my hair. I put the hair up in clips so it can be layered down as he cuts. He starts at the bottom with a thin layer of hair to cut a baseline. I assure him this should only be about 1/2-inch as it will be more than that when he reaches the top layer. Sure enough by the time he got to the middle of my hair, he was cutting an inch off. He kept leaving one side a bit longer than the other. I would point out what I saw after he finished each layer and he would cut a bit more to be sure it was even on both side. Quite a pair we make. It is a humbling lesson in patience for me since I have cut his hair for 51 years now. But, he did it and he did a great job. He is now sure he needs to start a new profession. 

I got the laundry going while Claude tried to see if he could fix Papa's old walker. Alas, it is truly a goner. The brake broke (that sounds funny) and we didn't feel it was safe to give an elderly person who can't walk a repaired walker that had a broken brake. 

We went to Georgetown in the afternoon to take Papa his treat, mail back the old Genie Mini, return a wrong charging cable, pick up prescriptions at CVS, take our walk at Moss Park and have some dinner. Whew. Felt like we were going back to old times. Except everyone is wearing a mask and staying away from everyone else. 

Saturday, April 9, 2021, we had a day at home. All day long. My plan was to find a phone number for my HP Printer and call someone to help me get it to work. I tried on Friday to scan a packet of pictures Claude found. Could not get my laptop to recognize my printer when trying to scan. It would print just find. But scanning it was not inclined to do in the least. I finally gave up and went upstairs on Friday and worked on entering my paper scripture markings to my Kindle Gospel Library. So, Saturday was the day I was going to, once again, try to get electronics to behave. Imagine my pure delight when I tried to scan a picture and the very first time it did scanned a picture. Not an issue at all. I decided to sit there and scan as long as it would scan for me. I have several stacks of items that need to be scanned as part of our family history. After several hours, I went upstairs and got a drink. When I came back downstairs, the laptop once again didn't recognize my printer/scanner. Ugh!! I did spend the rest of the afternoon being sure some of the pictures Bonnie gave us were truly in my picture files and did not need to be scanned. So I did get a lot of scanning done and then some other work done on this 3-foot tall pile of things with which to deal. 

All I can say at the end of this week week is: Thank heaven for pretty flowers to offset electronic issues. I am grateful that Covid-19 is lessening in Kentucky and around the world. There are still some hot spots but it is so much better in Kentucky I get to actually take Papa out of the nursing home. What a blessing! What a blessing!! That, my friends, is a tender mercy of the Lord in my life.