Monday, July 8th, I had a great PT appointment with a new Physical Therapist doing the stretching at the end of the appointment. Well, he is new to me, not to the practice. He was greatly impressed with my progress and told me to expect at least two more months before my arm will be near the end. In our talk, I mentioned that Dr. Sajadi was my surgeon. He was very happy with that. He assured me if Dr. Sajadi did my surgery I should heal very well. He said that honestly when people come in after surgery, there are about three surgeons he knows they will do well. If they tell him any other name, he wants to say to them, "Good luck with that!" Oh My!! Grateful for a good doctor and honest PT guy. I also went home with a few ideas of office PT to incorporate into my home PT to help me progress a little more. Great visit. That stretching does me in but I know it is so good for my shoulder to learn it can go all the way back in this controlled way so that eventually it will go back with my efforts.
I am also very grateful for my hubby who has driven me to all these PT appointments without complaint. He even comes to pick me up with a soda in the car. That is SOOO refreshing after all the stretching at the end of PT. It is a little thing that truly means a great deal to me.
Tuesday, July 9th, I was grateful for a good full day again. Claude and I got donuts for breakfast. Then I worked at my laptop and accomplished some good things. I did three sessions of PT at home. Claude got the yard all groomed again. He actually had not cut the front yard for three weeks because we haven't had rain to help it grow. For dinner, we took ourselves to McAlister's. Then we came home and tried playing a game of Scrabble followed by a movie in the evening. A really good full day where it began to feel like I may be back to my old normal.
Wednesday, July 10th, I was so grateful to wake up with NO pain in my shoulder. This was the first day I can remember feeling that good when waking up since February 28th. Hallelujah.
Claude and I also did a thing. He got the mail which had a flier from Norwegian Cruise Lines. We have cruised with them in Hawaii and the Baltic Sea. Claude saw a cruise that piqued his curiosity. It laid it on my computer table. I looked at it and agreed it would be a great cruise. I went to NCL website and actually found the same type of cruise with better ports of call. I shared that with Claude. They were having an amazing sale and that was ending that day. We discussed it and decided to book it as our big trip out-of-the-country for 2025. We will be going to Greece and Turkey. Yeah!! We will find something inside the United States to do in the Spring.
Thursday, July 11th, I am grateful for whoever the neighbor is that has brought our garbage can from the street to our garage door. Such a sweet kindness.
Claude has the itch to travel. I was able to plot us a day trip for Friday into Ohio.
Friday, July 12th, I awoke happy I had been able to sleep on my right side for an hour or so during the night. I sleep best on my right shoulder and it has been a very long time coming. I can't do it all night and shouldn't at this point. But the people at PT said I could as long as it didn't hurt. Felt so very good.
We were off for a Day Trip to Ohio. I saw a post on Facebook about a spontaneous weekend road trip in Ohio. I took that information and pared it down to a day trip for Claude and me. There were two potential unique places to stay overnight. I took those out. There was a visit to the Carlisle Reservation and I took that out. It could be a day trip alone. This left us with five places to visit in one day. I created this page with times it took to get from one place to the other to be sure it was possible to fit all five into one day. It turned out to be a great road trip. We packed an overnight bag in case we were exhausted and wanted to rest over night before the drive home. After all, it was to be a relaxing trip.
We would drive about 2 hours and 15 minus to Stan the Donut Man in Dayton, Ohio. We each enjoyed a twist donut. It was a good donut. The lady at the counter told us they were being selected for Best Donuts in the area.
Our second stop was about 10 minutes away. It was The Magic Castle in Dayton, Ohio. We went for a round of mini golf. There is so much more to do here. Inside is an arcade with lots of games and a playland for little ones to climb around in. There is a place to get something to eat. Outside is the mini golf course, batting cages and picnic area. We only played one round of mini golf. Can't even remember the last time we did this. My recovering arm was very tired when finished but it was good to be using it again. Claude won by a landslide. Great fun. Oh, we considered hiring the two very young kids playing a round of mini golf after us with their grandfather to bend over and pick up our golf balls from the hole each round.
Our third stop was Clifton Mill in Clifton, Ohio. This is actually an old town with several of the old buildings in it. We focused on the Mill. We arrived here at lunch time. As good fortune was on us, they have a little Cafe and we enjoyed a light lunch. After, we walked behind the the mill and thru the covered bridge over the Little Miami River. Great stop.
We were a little ahead of our schedule at this point. We found a McDonald's and went inside where it was air-conditioned and enjoyed a soda and Claude had a burger. This allowed a bit of a rest and refresh before going to our next stop.
Our fourth stop was at the Westcott House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Springfield, Ohio. We have visited Falling Waters in Mill Run, Pennsylvania several times when we lived in Maryland. There is a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Frankfort, Kentucky. I love his design and style. Very geometric.
You enter at the Visitor's Center which is in the garage or carriage house for the original home. You watch a brief video about the house falling into extreme disrepair and concerned citizens working together to restore this home to its original glory.
You walk from the garage along the outside of the pergola walkway from the garage to the house.
The front of the home is very nondescript. You would walk right past and not even know it was the front door. However, built to the side of the front door is this interesting structure. It is actually a birdhouse for starlings.
The first room we saw was the study. The bank of bookshelves with glass doors was stunning. The geometric designs in the glass are typical to Wright's designs. Another thing of note is he puts windows along the one wall, but he extends these windows around each corner of that wall. This main level was built so it looks even with the park (actually a very old cemetery) across the street. He only uses shades that can be pulled down. Never curtains. Interestingly, our guide had a picture of the original lady of this house and she is standing by the windows with drapes hanging from them. Wright would not have approved.
This is an open concept home built in 1908. Look from the study you see past the sitting room or living room into the dining room. In the next picture, I am standing in the dining room looking back at the study. Our guide pointed out the mantel over the fireplace. Note the lines are all horizontal. The bricks are long and thin. The mortar between them is of two colors. A light color going left to right and a darker color that doesn't stand out going top to bottom. This enhances the horizontal effect of the wall and mantel.
The dining room table was gorgeous. It seats eight people. There are posts with lamps on the top at each corner. These posts have a space under that lamp where an arrangement of flowers or a decoration could be placed. The chairs are very geometric in design.
From the living room window, we could see the side yard. We would go out to this yard and look back at the house. There is a tiled flooring patio that is covered with an awning. This would have been used for entertaining. Beyond this is a pool that would have had waterlilies. On either side of the pool and the stairs going to the yard are enormous urns filled with plants. These two huge urns are original to the home. Replicas were made using this design for other places in the yard. When you look back at the house from the side yard, you can see the living floor that we were touring. The second floor is the sleeping rooms. The tile roof was made by the same company that made the original tile roof. They found some extra tiles in the attic and they were used as guide to replicate for the restored roof. The concrete above the tile roof is where the chimney's come out of the house. The chimney on the made floor in the living room divides into the two chimneys on the second floor and they exhaust out of the concrete structure at the very top of the house.
The family who commissioned the building of this home for themselves had two children. In 1908 the son was young and this was his playroom table. His sister was a pre-teen when they moved into the home. She probably didn't use this playroom as much as her brother. The second picture is looking out the window of the playroom at the pergola walkway from the house to the garage.
We would go upstairs to see the bedrooms. As you go up the stairs there is a landing and this geometric glass is in the ceiling providing a lot of light for the landing.
The bedrooms all had windows along the sides. There was a bathroom and closet for each of the two main bedrooms. Each also had a door to go out onto a porch. The beds had specially designed bedspreads on them.
Our guide opened the door onto the sleeping porch of one of the main bedrooms. Sleeping porches were a big thing in these days of no air-conditioning. It was believed that fresh air kept people healthy. From this sleeping porch, I was able to look down on the side yard we visited earlier. An item of note, during the war, the family did not own this home. There was a shortage of housing so many of these huge homes were turned into apartments. The sleeping porches were closed in a served as a kitchen for each apartment.
From the daughter's bedroom window, I was able to get a view of the other side yard, garden, pergola walkway and the garage (carriage house). There were two small bedrooms on this level for the maids. The kid's bedrooms had a Jack and Jill bathroom and the maids bedrooms had a Jack and Jill bathroom.
We went down the back stairs to the kitchen area. It was a large room with a period stove. There would have been a large table in the center for preparing things. The glassed in cabinets had dishes and serving pieces. There were "ice" boxes above the counter by the windows.
We walked past the laundry room to the side yard. This had the garden in it. A gardener wasn hired who designs Wright gardens to put this one in its proper order when the home was restored.
We went back to the garage and gift shop. In the back are the stables for their horses. I was smitten with the very interesting lamp.
We really enjoyed this home tour. Claude was sure he would have enjoyed living in this house. I think we both felt a little like we did after visiting Ernest Hemingway's home in Key West. Both of these home we would have enjoyed living in.
Our final stop for the day was at Marion's Piazza in Dayton, Ohio. This one proved a little tricky to find. They have a sign on the Shroyer side of the road and that is the main entrance. But it is right on the street. You have to drive around the side and park almost behind the restaurant. There is a pick-up entrance there. Claude ordered us a pizza with lots of toppings on it. This pizza is thin crust with no curled up thicker edge around it. It is cut into little squares. That is their 'thing'. It was good pizza. The interesting things was you must go to a separate counter and pay there for your beverage. I'm guessing it has to do with the selling of alcohol as well as soda. Felt a little awkward but easily doable. Good meal.
We finished eating and, knowing we have a little over two hours to get back home, determined to go on home and not spend a night on the road. We would get back to Georgetown about 8:30pm. It was a great day. We saw some fun things. Tried playing mini golf after many years. and enjoyed some good food. Grateful we found this on Facebook and adapted it to fit our lives.
Claude indulged my proclivity for puzzle making on our outing yesterday. I now have a 1000 piece Frank Lloyd Wright design puzzle. Shall I save it for Christmas? Who would help me?
Saturday, July 13th, was our Katelyn's birthday. I posted this to Facebook: "Well folks, today we have the next birthday in our 2024 family birthday journey. Katelyn Roper, our first-born grandmonster, begins another journey around the sun. She gave us the names Blampa and Blamma, our 1st great grandmonster and tons of joy. Happy Birthday, Cherub!! Love Ya Bunches!!"
In the afternoon the Elkhorn Creek Ward Relief Society had a "Modern Homesteading" activity. Cassie Zitter is our activity chair and she did a masterful job with this one. We learned to use cream to make butter and whipped cream and buttermilk. We made juices of several kinds from fruits to veggies and combinations of those items. We learned about making sour dough bread and everyone was given a sour dough starter. And we learned about herbs. Great training and lots of conversation and mixing with the sisters.
Sunday, July 14th, we had a good church service. Our entire bishopric was out-of-town so the Elder's Quorum took charge and conducted the meetings. Claude went up to Josh Rayburn, our Elder's Quorum President after sacrament meeting and told him he had a LOT of problems he needed to talk to him about. This was because Josh was acting in place of the bishop. Josh got a chuckle out of it which is what Claude was going for. Then Josh assured Claude he would refer him to the Bishop when he was back in town.
We had Burger King for lunch, took quick naps and I am getting my laptop items taken care of. Another good day.
This week I am very grateful for improvements in my arm, time with my hubby, planning for the future, enjoying time with ladies from church and so many, many other things. I have a good life.
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