The 2nd of July

No rain today but it's on the way. Mom worked on the yard without nearly enough assistance from my young professional x-boxer (which is different from being an ex-professional boxer) because it's going to be too wet the rest of the week and she's heading back to Riverdale on Saturday and will be gone for two weeks leaving the yard maintenance up to our less than enthusiastic gardener.

I went to the grocery store to stock up on necessities. We were poor hostesses when Aunt Ginger and Uncle Carl were here. I'm generally the one who does the cooking but only if I'm feeling up to par and that day, I was sub-par. Also. We just didn't plan well. Aunt Linda is coming tomorrow so I actually shopped and planned a bit. It's not exactly turning the mountain house into a Bed & Breakfast but there are things to eat with minimal effort. Stir fry chicken and veggies for dinner tomorrow night. I think our offers of hospitality need to come with the disclaimer that you want to schedule your visit for a time when Pop is here. Then you will be fed. Otherwise... you will have things like this...

 for dinner. Cantaloupe. Sweet, juicy, delicious cantaloupe. Trouble licked the juice afterwards. For lunch I had butter pecan ice cream with caramel sundae sauce. Just keeping it real. For breakfast we had lovely yogurt/fruit/granola parfaits drizzled with local honey. I have an odd, very sugar-full diet lately. I lean toward simple, clean, one ingredient type foods (the yogurt was fat free and greek) but I only want sweet stuff. I have also been snacking on bagel crisps since retiring to the Whine Cellar.


The most exciting thing that happened today was this....

 massive mushroom that is growing in our front yard. It's truly amazing. I took photos from the porch, down below (our front yard is a steep slope) and I went up to the top floor of the house and took pictures looking out the window like this...

 I'm just so fascinated by the fact that it's SOOOO large that it can be viewed from such a large distance.I'm hoping our Mellow Mushroom survives the next three days of torrential rain that is predicted. 

And I love the way the sunbeams shine down right in front of it... 

 In other news... Oscar the Security Dachshund decided that he needed to climb up on the stool (that is where I put my laptop when I'm upstairs during the day since we don't really have a table nearby for me to put it on)...He's watching my mom with the weed eater in the front yard. I just thought he looked so cute here... 

So intense!

 Keeping close watch...















In other news... I got a call from the Social Security office today. They have sent me lots and lots of forms and they received them back from the post office "not at this address". She confirmed the address they used and it's the right address. I had noticed the other day that the mailman had a little card in the mailbox that said, "Grant Family only - all others return to sender" and it worried me some because our last name is GANT not GRANT - and from a legal standpoint, my name is DARBY. But I thought... surely... the little rural mail carrier instruction card we had to fill out listed the names of the people who should get mail here and I was listed - would supercede any little mailbox notes. Furthermore, when I closed my P.O. Box I did a change of address form to send mail from the P.O. Box to this address. We made a new note for in the mailbox and I called the local post office and gave a whiny little rant about how this is causing delays in the disability process which is no bueno! I know that God's timing is perfect and I will dwell on those happy thoughts instead of going down the stressful bumpy road that has me running out of money before disability is approved.

I struggled a bit with grocery shopping today. Had another bad dizzy spell. They seem to happen when I walk for any length of time, if my pain is exacerbated, if it's humid outside... I had hoped that it was detoxing from the neurontin that was causing the dizzy thing. Apparently not. Some of the other side effects that were attributed to the neurontin were things like not having muscle control over elimination... it's not a Depends situation... it's just that when it's time to go, it's hard getting things going... my concern, the last time I saw the neurologist (two years ago) was that this is the beginning of a loss of control over those things and he felt - at the time - that it was just a side effect of neurontin. But now I'm not taking the neurontin and it's not getting better. For that matter... despite not working... I still have pain every single day and some days it's worse than it was when I was working full time. This thing is progressive and it's progressing too far and too fast for my liking.

But ... for now... all I can do is just relax, keep breathing, live the best life I can, be grateful for my family and how well they take care of me... and love on this.... sweet little Trouble Kitty (he's sleepy here, not mad) ...

And cuddle up with little dogs who like to share my recliner....

He's covered up in my skirt. I had only a knee length skirt on so he had to relocate to the couch with Mawmaw because she has all his warm fuzzy blankets.








One more picture...

My adorable unemployed game playing  grass cutting (occasionally) mop head of a teen. Y'all, those of you who pray, will you join me in praying for guidance in his life, that he will find his way. He's not doing *bad* things (that I know of) he just has no real idea of what he wants to do with his life and how to get that ball rolling. He needs to learn to drive. He needs a job. He needs to figure out what kind of college or technical school he wants to go to. Aspergers makes this transitional time of life so. much. harder. Having no paternal influence or encouragement... having a mom who has limited ability to take him places and help him push through the boundaries that make this whole process so difficult. His small motor skills are horrible. His handwriting looks like a six year old did it. Everywhere he is asked to fill out an application, he feels like "what's the use". I'm going to try to get him back to the jobs program he was in last year... see if we can take applications away from the work place so that I can fill them out for him. I don't know. He's just lacking motivation and I'm not good at pushing him.

Anyways... that's what's happening here in Cleveland, GA on July 2, 2013. Hope you're all preparing for a great 4th! We have watermelon and hotdogs - we're all set!

Love and hugs!

First Day of July

It's Monday.
July 1st.
Two months since the last day I worked.
I'm still here....

 and it rained today. We're expecting rain most of this week which is great because it means it won't be hot-as-blazes like it usually is in Georgia in July but it sort of stinks because arthritis plus rain = pain.

Today I had a banana and some cherries for breakfast... leftover spanish rice for lunch... a kitkat (my newest chocolate addiction) ... and some Stouffer's chicken and rice bake thing that was much better than I thought it would be for dinner. We need to go to the grocery store but nobody has been motivated enough to go.

The garden seems to be doing what it's supposed to be doing but I'm very much not a gardener so my only measure of success is "still green". It has not provided any sustenance yet although I imagine it will at some point.

Our basil plant (in a big pot beside the driveway) had some sort of web thing in it last week but we cleared it out and hopefully it will resume good health. Have you ever noticed that people who grow things in the dirt like to show you all the things they're growing in the dirt? Purple Michael always did and I loved taking the "garden tour" with him every visit.

Austin sprained his ankle while mowing grass yesterday. He seems to have a thousand impediments to grass cutting. He was kind enough to lower the porch swing for me - it was too high for me to reach the ground when sitting back in it. I'm fairly short, you know.

Uncle Carl caught a bass this morning. I don't think Mama's caught anything over the past few days but she went and bought more bait today so she's set to try her luck later.

Mama's new boat - which was Granddaddy Pennington's old boat - has been safely delivered and is resting beside the driveway. I would have taken a picture of that to show you but it would have required a walk upstairs and I'm not up for that this evening. The boat has a bullet hole in it which we believe can be repaired. I don't know where the bullet hole came from - perhaps target practice by one of my cousins.

My spine has had a rough July so far... my couch-bed has this piece of wood where the back connects to the seat that I had never discovered and somehow last night I rolled into bed (onto couch?) aggressively and smacked my spine against that wood with a thud. There is much padding on top of my spine so that had to be quite a whack to make a sound. Then this morning I was sitting in the recliner and Oscar the Fishing / Security Dachshund saw something outside that he needed to attack so he made a running leap onto the recliner but instead of landing smoothly, he bellyflopped my left foot and bounced back to the floor. He may only be sixteen pounds but that was sixteen pounds at sixty mph and it really jarred my back. My mom was all, "Poor baby... are you ok?" to the dog.

And that's about all the news that's fit to print from today. I leave you with a dozen pictures of the cat because that's what I do... take pictures of the cat. Happy July. Love and hugs.