April 7: Changing Scenery

Saturday morning, I was looking out the kitchen window as I waited on my coffee to brew.  The grass was green, the trees were green, and we'd been completely closed in once more, our blue house in a sea of green.

Yesterday as we drove over to church, I marveled at the way the views across the river swamp have changed.  From the road going across the swamps the hills rise, and I could see every shade of green imaginable on that hillside.  But it wasn't only the variety of greens I saw that stunned me.  It was the realization that just since Thursday that same view had been altered to a fully leafed forest!  No more peeking tender leaf buds, these were full leaves.  Still tender and beautifully green but full leaves. Talk about a change of scenery!

Today...well the change of scenery has been a watery gray world.  And the views have been from the inside of a courthouse (mostly the hallway).  No jury draw yet but we all have to return tomorrow for that process so it looks like that will be my view for another day or two.  

Let me slip back to yesterday.  We went to church.  The pastor's sermon was powerful and thought provoking.  I'm definitely going to go back and listen to that one again.  His new series title is "Not Guilty" and this was first in the series for this month.  

We didn't linger afterwards, at least not too long, because we had to go pick up our order of Gramma's Fried Chicken.  For whatever reason, I woke in the wee hours of the night and thought, 'I should make potato salad to take with us...", so when I got up this morning, I started potatoes cooking right away.  

When I told Katie I was bringing the potato salad, she said "Oh good...We're short of sides until grocery day."  Well, intuition must have been working then.  I told John when he went into the store to go ahead and get a package or two of mac n cheese for the children, so he did.  

Henry was delighted to see us.  He couldn't make up his mind who he wanted to sit with.  If he was on John's lap, he would scoot and scooch until he was off his lap and on the couch between us.  If he was on my lap, he'd do the same in John's direction, so we passed him back and forth which seemed to delight him.  John told him secrets by whispering in his ear and let him 'ride the horsey' on his knee.  Age old tricks employed by generations of grandparents with infants.

Bella pleased me no end.  She's in a stage of eating.  Generally, she's very picky and mealtimes are mostly a battle to get her to eat as much as they can reasonably do until she's worn them down.  Here lately, she's HUNGRY, obviously in a growth spurt.  She polished off her chicken and looked up at Katie and said, "Good chicken."   Although Bella has not yet been tested (the other parent is refusing) we all suspect she's autistic.  She's only in the past few months begun to use proper sentences.  Anyway, Katie said, "It's Gramma's Fried Chicken," and Bella turned to me and said, "It's good!"  Very gratifying for me to have prompted that bit of interaction.

When we were done eating, Caleb came to me and said, "We're going outdoors.  Come on."  Caleb insists that we take him outdoors but never both of us at once.  One week he'll ask John, then the next me.  He always takes us in turns and individually like that.  John and I don't argue.  Caleb is the boss when it comes to who is outdoors with him.

We stayed a lot longer than we'd usually stay since Taylor has Spring holidays this week and didn't need to go back home until today.  She'll turn 10 in a month, and I've noted with her the same thing that I've noted with Josh.  They both shun the 'little kids' and want to sit with the grown-ups.  So Taylor mostly sat on the porch with Cody, me and Cody's dad.  The children affectionately refer to him not as Grampa, but as 'Not the Mama'.   This moniker came about because one uproarious day the children had all turned to him wailing and he said, "Don't look at me!  I'm NOT the mama!"  And that's what the children have called him ever since!

When we left the house yesterday morning, Travis was here working on the laundry space again.  When we returned...WOW!  Talk about a change of scenery!  He'd finished painting, had cleaned my washer and dryer (!) and replaced them, lowered the wire shelf that was always out of reach and placed the laundry detergent and bleach within easy reach.  He even cleaned off the tray we've kept on the dryer and 'arranged' my remaining things on it so it looked nice.  I was over the moon.  I'd take a picture but it's a dark space back there and the sun is setting so I can't get a good photo yet, but y'all... 

The color is EVERYTHING I wanted and I'm as thrilled over that laundry space as I was over the bathroom.  I can't wait until he can get back here and start working on the kitchen walls. It appears this is going to be a slow process and may take a while.  We will have to be patient!

My hip and knee are complaining after going up and down stairs (no elevator in our 1920's era courthouse) and spending hours sitting on hard wooden benches.  Now I shall end here.  Tomorrow I may have nothing much I can share.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I'm ready to take off my makeup, choose my clothes for tomorrow and try to relax.   

Oh, look at that!  The sun just broke through the clouds.  It looks as though we're going to have a lovely sunset this evening.  Another change of scenery!

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