Mountain Mama's Point Of View

  We are experiencing such lovely weather. Rumor has it that it will last through the weekend. Fairly balanced this morning I wondered out to the dog's yard to tend to some much needed poop pick-up. Instead of bending over, I used the rake and an old shower curtain and dealt with the leaves at the same time. Then mowed, maybe for the last time this season. Bo stood watching me, as he stood in the sun. He eventually lay down to enjoy the warmth. Might even have dozed for a bit ..... until I saw that a creature had been digging in one of my raised beds!! My mind eliminated Eddie at once.  Eddie, being short of legs and lazy, would need a big incentive to climb into the raised beds. It was either Toni Louise who loves to dig and lay in the dirt, or Bo, who very agile and curious. This is when I noticed two hollowed out areas. One was larger, like Toni sized, the other looked to be the size of Mr. BoJangles. Like any mother, I use his full name when I am annoyed with his antics! H...

  My canines, awaiting a treat. I had a carrot in my hand! They love carrots and green beans. I am happy to report that Charming Eddie's fur is growing back in. His belly is still pretty bald with the beginnings of a new coat. His paws are no longer tough skinned and naked. Today is Eddie's birthday. He is 6 years old. He shares his birthday with my 23 year old granddaughter, Layla. Eddie is handsome, but Layla is gorgeous! She is also talented and smart. The most amazing thing about Layla is her kind nature. I always said she is the girl you wanted to hate in highschool because she was so pretty and talented and an honor roll student ..... but you couldn't because she is so sweet and nice to everyone. I think it is safe to say she didn't get that from me!! While Eddie and Bo are clear eyed, Toni Louise has cataracts and that blank eyed look. It hasn't stopped her from watching TV. She enjoys a good show with dogs and laugh tracks. The boys look dumbly at the TV, se...

  Yesterday was a decent day. HeWho loves to go out to eat took me to breakfast. I wasn't even dizzy! On the way home, the colors were just lovely, but he drives too fast for me to get a picture. When we hit the road to home, he slowed and even stopped a couple of times for me to try to capture the foliage. This is on the road to home, just before turning into our little area. It doesn't capture what I wanted ..... After we returned from breakfast, I had him drop me off at my She Shed. My gardens are fading, but the marigold has grown to three feet high in some places. I made the mistake of bending over to deadhead some mums, but refused to succumb to the dizzy spell. So much to do to organize my shed awaited my attention.  I had put some pegboard on the wall last year, just to be able to get the smaller items out of the way. It was temporary, so that was the first thing I intended to tackle. I had the wrong bit for my drill and had to ask HeWho to hunt one down. He returned w...

  HeWho: "How do you feel?" Me: "Dizzy." Maybe I should have said, "with my fingers." HeWho: "Oh." Along with a deep sigh.  Me: "Where do you want to go?" He is getting antsy. He seems to think I should be suddenly cured. He wants to go out to eat, so I tell him that I can do that. Then I gave him a list of chores to complete. Nothing all that labor intensive, like feeding the canines and the turtle. I would have suggested that he take Dora and her habitat outside to clean it, but I asked him to do it once and he "forgot". Translation, he had no idea how to go about accomplishing this task, despite having seen me do it twice a week for the past couple of years. I finally changed the sheets on my bed, with some help from HeWho sleeps in the bed. I could have asked him to do it, but I am particular about my place to sleep. I like very taut sheets, no wrinkles, can't stand wrinkles, crumbs, dead skin from HeWho's wounds a...

  My rehab sessions start on the 30th of this month. I am dreading and looking forward to this in equal portions. Blogger buddy Val told me that her husband had vertigo and they flipped him upside down. That thought is always in the back of my mind. I doubt I will handle it well if they do that to me! I ordered some slip covers for my love seats. I have a couple of sets, but they are wearing out. These were a bargain I found online. They cover the entire piece of furniture and come with a matching throw pillow cover. This morning I decided I was balanced enough to put them on the loveseats. I opened the first package and pulled one out. I shook it, hoping it might have a clue as to how to put it on, or even a label that said "front" or "back". No instructions were included, just the round foam sticks to push down in the back of the cushion to make it stay put. They were some seams, but hard to see, since it was a printed stretchy fabric with elastic around the botto...

  Still dizzy when I make sudden movements or forget and bend over, but, no more meclizine! That might mask the dizziness, but not worth the side effects. So, yesterday, I was feeling pretty good and wanted to go some where. HeWho is always up for an adventure, so I asked him to take me junking. This is not something he would enjoy under the best of circumstances, but he agreed. When we began our search for property in this area, we followed the route Siri provided. I was sitting in my place, dogs on my lap, able to look out on only one side of the RV. As we approached Murphy, NC, I noticed that there were thrift stores popping up every 500' or so. You can imagine my happiness at this discovery. On the way back to Missouri, looking on the other side of the road, the same thing, just a little further apart. Of course, they seemed so far away from my new home at the time. You know how it is when you move to a new place and are still finding your way around. Murphy is not far from me!...

  Mr. BoJangles here. It has been a strange time here on my mountainside. It causes me to ponder things I don't understand. Mom told Dad she was dizzy. I had to consult with Toni Louise. She is much older than me. You can tell when you look at her face, it is turning white. But I now know what dizzy means. At first Dad just grunted and told her to sit down. She did, but I don't think it was because Dad told her to, as she was already in the act of sitting. She got up soon enough to do her chores, or that is what she said. She filled both the washing and drying machines and then she washed the dishes while she made dinner ..... but when dinner was done she didn't want to eat. She scooped up Eddie and stumbled to the bedroom. I laughed because I thought she was just playing with us dogs, but Eddie told me later the she almost fell down and he was in her arms! He was scared. The next day, she was still dizzy. When Dad asked how she felt, she told him she was just a dizzy broad...

  Still dizzy here. The dogs find me quite entertaining, though. This morning, while still able to walk a straight line, I ventured out to breath fresh air and look at my garden. I raked some leaves and toyed with thoughts of walking up the drive. Instead I decided to pot the plants in the ground that need to come inside. I doubt very much that HeWho would be able to accomplish this, even with a lot of instructions from me. My plants are not familiar with him .... I am so tired of just sitting here. We have two remotes for the TV. One is good and the other one is finicky. We lost the good one several days ago. Yesterday, while in a lucid state I pulled out the vacuum in hopes of sucking it from its hiding place. Instead, I found a lot of dog hair and a USB memory stick (no idea what might be on it). I assumed the remote was not there. I checked the cushions, taking all the furniture apart to find even more dog hair and gave up. A hard whack to the temperamental remote will result i...

  I am back, sort of. I was experiencing severe episodes of dizziness, accompanied by a nagging headache. I resisted a visit to the clinic for 6 days. My symptoms were getting more frequent and more intense. Vertigo was my diagnosis. I have always felt like vertigo is more symptom than diagnosis. Whatever, I got an RX for Meclizine and am relatively balanced right now. Since I have been doing nothing much other than sitting on my diminishing derriere (if the scales are not lying, I have dropped another 5 lbs) and watching movies on Netflix; I decided to venture out to my dying garden plot. A bounty of green tomatoes awaited me.  All kinds of green tomatoes. Some will ripen in the widow sill, but past experience lets me know that most won't. I will be doing some research for recipes for green tomatoes later today.  Before I went to my vegetables, I visited some of my flowers that will be gone very soon as the night time temperatures drop below freezing.  The kalanchoe...

  I woke to a rather chilly morning in the low 50's. Made me wrap myself in a fluffy robe while I made coffee. I love this time of year with the bite of chill in the morning. I looked out my kitchen window where the colors are changing to red and orange. So, the "fair" The Patient found as he scrolled on his phone was a carnival with rides. We found cotton candy on the outer area and purchased some, then left and went to find some real food. We tried a new Mexican restaurant touting Tex-Mex. It was good enough and the prices were reasonable. I indulged in some serious cotton candy eating while we watched TV. My dogs were all as close to me as they could get as they watched me putting the fluffy stuff in my mouth. Mr. BoJangles assumed his usual perch on my left shoulder. He likes this position with his head down, just in case I drop something he can grab it before the others do. Eddie set politely on the ottoman with my feet awaiting a sample, while near sighted Toni Loui...

  Finished my basket. I still need to pull away the strands of glue. I am pleased enough with it. Today we set out for a place in Franklin to have the belt put on the mower. Siri was confused about the location and the signage on the business was indistinct. We turned around, a lot. I told him to stop somewhere and ask for directions ...... I suppose you know how that went. Then I asked him if he should stop and call the place. He did, told them where we were and we still drove right by without seeing it. He finally asked two men in a truck next to us at a red light and we finally made it. I took some pictures along the way and my phone and computer are finally communicating again. I can get the pictures off the phone, but the icon to edit them is not where it used to be and I can't seem to find it. I wanted to zoom in a little. But still, you can see that Highway 64 is a nice scenic drive. I failed to get a picture of the wildflowers growing along the roadside. He wouldn't sto...

  The pile of ripe tomatoes stare at me from the window sill. The only way the patient eats fresh tomato is on a BLT. Not me, I love them in just about anything. I have cherry tomatoes still setting blooms in my garden. When I pick them, I usually just pop them in my mouth. I don't use chemicals, so I am not afraid to eat them straight from the vine.  One can only eat so many tomatoes, though and now I am faced with having to use them or lose them. I thought about roasting them all in the oven, but when you live in a small space, such as mine, you think twice before turning the oven on. It will heat the entire house. If you do decide to turn it on, you want to cook as many things as you can in the hot house. Salsa would be an option, but who wants a gallon of the stuff. There are only two of us and it would go bad before using it all. I does not freeze well and thus far, I have lived without a canner. That could change, though. I don't feel like shopping and if I order one, th...

  Anyone know what this is? When I brought it home, The Patient was bewildered. I will give you a hint. It is made of cardboard and used as packing to ship something. He wasn't bewildered because he had no idea what it was, he was bewildered that I brought it in at all. I was in the $ Tree to pick up some self adhesive shelf liner. Of course I roamed up and down every aisle. You never know what you might find that you can't live without. Or inspiration. The store was being stocked and there were empty boxes everywhere. I get plenty of boxes since I order a lot of things used daily from Walmart and shipping is free. You didn't think someone as thrifty as myself would pay shipping, did you? This was sitting in an aisle and I was inspired. It was in the stack of laundry baskets a worker was stacking. I asked if I could have it and she said, of course. It was going to be crushed with all the boxes and she didn't care. Of course I took a picture of the side with the crooked ...

  This past week has been exhausting. Every morning I wake and wonder what project I will address tthat day. Some days are quite successful and some, not so much. The Patient is healing .... very slowly. He woke me just yesterday at 6:30 am to ask me to get the Tylenol. I admit that I did not respond immediately, using the bathroom first, then counting the steps to the kitchen where I keep all the meds. Six steps to the kitchen counter and six back to the bed. I toyed with thoughts of just starting the day, but it was still dark and it just seemed wrong, so I slipped back under my covers and slept for 2 more hours. I always feel like I am cheating if I sleep late. I don't know exactly what or who is being cheated, but I still feel it. My old nemesis, depression has had me in its grip for the past week. I seem to get alot done while I am depressed, so I just go with it and do all the solitary chores that take me away from the house while The Patient sleeps. I unloaded and painted th...