Sunday, July 12: I struggled last week to 'feel good'. Adding to my overall malaise, I have had a sciatica attack that is painful and bothersome, and I want nothing more than to toss in the towel. I might have done just that had I been able to lie down or sit for an extended period. Alas, I could not, which meant I had to be up and about and if I was going to have to be up and about anyway, I might as well do something. Right?
On Friday I went to the Widow's luncheon at church. I went because one of the first people who ever greeted us and when we began attending our church some 10 years ago, is in charge of the Widow's luncheon and she'd just discovered that John had passed away. She asked me to attend, had called me several times over the past two weeks and reminded me each time that she was expecting me. She is a dear, but I gather from the past two weeks that she is very much the 'in charge' sort...And indeed, I found she is the g-General that orders everything and attends to every detail in this particular group. No offense to her. She's quite nice and even nice people can have a bit of a take charge sort of mentality.
So, I started out on Friday mid-morning, with no time to spare. Unfortunately, when I arrived in my town, a semi was blocking two lanes and two sidewalks. He also happened to have blocked the only road where there was the nearest possible turn to avoid said roadblock. I had two options: wait and hope for the best or turn around or drive in the opposite direction, adding extra miles and time to my trip over to the church. I waited patiently in line with other cars and then drove as fast as I dared when we were free.
Well, you'd know that I'd end being late by about 10 minutes. Hence, I interrupted our lead widow as she made her opening talk and found myself directed to a seat at the head of the room right next to her while every last eye turned toward me, which made me feel even more conspicuous.
It was okay. Food was the usual, catered by the same man who does all the church functions. Nothing excellent. Nothing bad. I enjoyed the assistant pastor who was the speaker. But I just didn't feel it was my space to be in. I was the youngest of all the widows (and here I am just beyond my mid-60's!). I gathered that the purpose of the group was merely to meet for a luncheon out once a month, which is not a high priority for me since I eat out often enough and don't mind eating alone, and have an uplifting speaker.
I won't be going back. I feel I would be happier spending my time in other ways, even if I were just at home. I only had two other women acknowledge me and one of those was the official records keeper who needed contact information.
I ran a few errands on my way home, picking up a birthday gift and birthday cards. It was very hot, with the thermometer reading 100F in the car and likely a good deal hotter with the 'feels like' addition of humidity. I had worn the green and white striped version of the same cotton dress from Amazon I shared two weeks ago (and I LOVE it!) so I was comfortable enough but still very warm and glad to be back in my air-conditioned home.
Friday night the Sciatica was relentless in causing pain, spasms and cramps. I got up early more out of the desperate need to get some relief by standing up than anything. I'd noted the county Chamber of Commerce was promoting another event. So far, they've had one about every two weeks in either Reynolds or Butler. This one was a Saturday morning market in Reynolds. After coffee, I decided I'd go out to it. It's only a few miles into town and what harm would be done by walking around?
I was pleased to discover that the flower stall had a variety of small bouquets of homegrown flowers that were quite pretty. The young lady who had them is literally just across the highway from my own home out here on the northside of town. They weren't inexpensive but they were nicer than the grocery store bouquets of the same old same old things. This bouquet had zinnias and amaranth and dahlia and were lovely.
I picked up a local jar of honey. Turned out that while the beekeeper lives on the southside of Reynolds in another small town, it is her honey I've been purchasing for years now. I was ready to get a new pint jar, so I bought one directly from her. There were several booths offering different things. I browsed the stalls (somehow missing the sourdough bread stall) and got a jar of salsa from one stall and a piece of homemade poundcake from another to add to my small purchases. Walking the market took me less than 20 minutes even stopping to chat as I went along.
Heady with the success of doing an outing on my own despite back pain, I headed over to the county seat to pick up lunch at a place I'd been meaning to try for a couple of years. This was not a fast food placed so I had to wait 20-25 minutes. I sat on their 'verandah' as John would have called it, enjoying the sunshine, the constant breeze, the movement of the clouds overhead. It was quite nice. And later when I had my lunch, I was impressed enough with the food that I was glad I'd made an effort to go there finally.
I stopped in the local Napa/Gun store to pick up the Rural Mural Passports for my trip with the kids next week. Then I stopped at another local business to fill up with gas, bought myself a tall glass of unsweetened iced tea which tasted like nectar since it was so very hot outdoors and drove home along the more northern end of the county back roads.
I ate my lunch, napped briefly, crafted, read blogs, journaled and spent a rather lovely afternoon that passed by gently.
I took a different over the counter anti-inflammatory that I tend to avoid which stepped firmly down on the Sciatica pain and gave me real relief (hence the nap!) and carried me well into the wee hours of the morning before any pain returned.
This morning, I headed into church. Mindful of the heat index again today, I opted to dress more casually and comfortably in a simple t-shirt and jeans. I have to admit, I felt far less presentable for the morning's service than I did for the Widow's luncheon. I think I'm going to make it a point to try to dress more nicely for church. I always dressed rather casually just to keep from standing out too much from John who wore the same 'uniform' year around: black cap, black shirt, black suspenders and jeans or khakis. Not that he would have been self-conscious, but I wanted to appear to be in keeping with him, if you know what I mean, and not as though I were showing him up in anyway.
But I've been noticing that the people I tend to focus in on each Sunday are those who dress a little less casually and look a little nicer. I guess it's nostalgia in a way for when we'd never have dreamed of going to church, much less gone shopping, in some of the things we tend to wear these days to do either. I will always be a casual sort of person, I'm afraid, but I can look a wee bit nicer than I did today.
It was no less hot today than yesterday. I arrived home damp with sweat. I've repeated yesterday afternoon: eat, nap, craft, watch vlogs, write. I've filled in gaps of time contemplating a plan of action for the busy week I have ahead of me
Monday, July 13: Misery last night. I had to double the dose of the medication I'd taken on Saturday at noon. Truth, I hate this particular medicine as it tends to make me feel bad in other ways, but I was desperate by the time I took the second pill. It must've worked well enough because though I woke in pain, the key point is I said I woke, which means I slept, which must mean the pain went down to tolerable enough levels to sleep through.
I eased into the day, really. Lemon water with sea salt taken on the back porch with the pets. I had a phone call from Miss G, the head widow of the church. She's called me once or twice a week since she discovered I am widowed and it is awfully nice of her. I felt like something of a heel since I'd purposely avoided her yesterday at church.
Nothing she did at all that made me avoid her. It was a gentleman who, with his wife, has sat near John and I for years in church that led me to scurry away from people in general.
He seems a very nice man overall, older than John perhaps. And yesterday he'd suddenly leaned down after church and said, "Where IS your husband?!" He had no clue John had died, and I could see he felt perfectly awful for asking once I'd replied. And since I was feeling rather tender inside anyway that morning, it just went all over me.
Suddenly I just wanted to go home and stay there. I noticed that Miss G had headed out the door and there was no way I was going to get by without speaking to her if I headed out the door right away. I was afraid I'd not hold up well if I did stop to speak. So, I avoided her. It wasn't just her. I was pretty much in avoidance mode, period. Sometimes it just seems like all I want is to not ponder the need to be sociable at all.
At any rate, it was a short but pleasant conversation with her this morning, and I appreciated the call very much. I came indoors to prepare coffee and mix up a batch of banana bread.
I got up this morning determined to manage my day well. Even though I started it later than I'd meant to, having whacked the dismiss button on the alarm at the time it went off.
I am on a banana bread failure streak. I made some a few weeks back but had tried to use the bread machine. Blech. So today I decided I'd make more as banana muffins. There was a cookbook on the counter, but not the one containing my favorite nut bread recipe. "How different can it be?" I asked as I found the page in the book. Well...different enough I regretted using the recipe! It has no fat or milk in it at all, and it does change the texture of the bread considerably to have neither of those ingredients. They are edible. But a disappointment to me just the same.
However, it was fun to note that I'd apparently used the same recipe to make Banana Bread on March 8, 2008. I'd noted on the recipe the date and that we'd had snow flurries! Katie would have been in 10th grade then. No doubt my own excited comment was related to her joy at the idea of having snow.
My big task today was to begin the great master bedroom closet clear out and reorganization. I had a later than planned start to the task what with sleeping in and puttering around with breakfast and banana muffins before I settled to work. So, I began just before noon today. The plan was to work in sections, a means I've employed before when I felt a task might be overwhelming. And it was very overwhelming when everything was out of the one section of the closet and lying all around the room.
I finally finished up entirely somewhere around 4:30. All I wanted then was a cup of coffee. The closet looked great, but my room was a disaster overall, having gotten a bit disheveled while I was sorting out the closet and had to be straightened up after everything was in place in the closet. I'd left tools out in the guest bedroom which I'd needed to use earlier, and I knew I needed to put those things away since I will have the trio of children tomorrow night.
I can drink coffee just as well at 5:30 as I can at 4:30...So, I got busy and cleaned up my two rooms and then I treated myself to a cup of coffee.
I have two bins of files that I need to sort out that came out of the closet. That will generate a lot of shredding. It's part of my grand decluttering of 2026. But the rest of the closet is lovely and organized and looks neat as a pin. I have a pile of things and a trunk that I must donate tucked into one corner of the bedroom. I still want to go through my dresser drawers and then do some minor rearranging in my room before I can call this job completely done. Today, my goal was the closet, and the closet is what I did.
Wednesday, July 15: I picked up the children yesterday morning about 10:30 and we began the Rural Mural/Discover Georgia project. I'd picked up our passports on Saturday. There's only one trouble with the whole thing in the kids' eyes: there is a lot of car time, and it's all driven through rural areas without much of interest along the way. Josh diplomatically called it "Fun, but boring at the same time," yesterday afternoon. Honestly, we were all weary and tired when we returned home and we didn't complete half the planned visits.
I think it would help a lot if there had been other things we might have done along the way. The next part of the project will be about 100 miles round trip. I guess we did about that much yesterday. We viewed six official and two extra murals and stopped to see a historical covered bridge. We ended up in our county seat where I picked up pizza for supper.
Millie practically begged to go to bed at 7pm last night and I was in my own bed by 9:30. Isaac was half asleep in a chair here in the living room, Josh sprawled across the bed in the guest room. I heard the boys bouncing around about 10:30pm but they were soon settled in. Josh wanted to sleep in the living room. I have found that if I pull the two ottomans up to one of the armchairs, it makes a bed roughly long enough for a boy who is about 5 feet six inches feet tall with a bit of room to spare at the foot. The kids swear that 'bed' sleeps as well as any in the house. Which just goes to show you that here I've had a spare 'bed' in the house all along and I keep forgetting about it!
This morning I was up long before any child. I'd slept some last night with a little less pain than the past few nights, but I was hurting enough I longed to get up and just sit in a chair for a while. I stayed in my room, not wanting to disturb the children. And not one of them woke when I did finally come out of my room just before 8 a.m. I managed to make coffee and have a cup before the children rose. Millie was up first and she woke the boys. The children helped themselves to cold pizza for breakfast. So be it. But that was my lunch plans shot for them. I texted Sam, I'd have them home by lunch at his house since I was out of food options.
When I took the children home, I picked a big handful of basil stems and a few of oregano. Sam came out to walk about with me, and he and I laughed over Josh with the 8 teeny tiny basil leaves he'd brought over last week. I noted his basil is getting ready to go to seed and I told him to be sure and save some of the seeds for future crops.
Sam's garden is done. Squash borers, cabbage worms, green horned worms have all taken their toll, as has the heat.
He'd brought me a slice of Hot water crust Beef Pot Pie last week and I missed eating it because I didn't check the bag, which also included returns of some of my serving dishes which he'd washed and returned. I took him a bag of goodies today: muffins (the kids will eat them happily) and one of my last jars of home canned collard greens, as well as his own freshly washed serving dishes which he'd sent over to the house.
I've put a big bouquet of basil in water and placed them in the kitchen window. Perhaps I'll root and plant some of this. I so love the aroma of basil. It's scented the air of the house and is just lovely.
Saturday, June 18: Oh, my goodness. Time seems to slip by so quickly at times, doesn't it? On Thursday the pest control man came by. He's a cook himself and he paused long enough to tell me about his most recent attempt a Pasta-laya, a take on Jambalaya but made with Pasta. He said it was a long process but super good.
I'd been watching You Tubes about exercises to help with Sciatica earlier Thursday morning and found one for seniors that involved being seated. I've added the link in for you all if any should need it. I followed the exercises and before I was done with the first set I felt a long deep 'thunk' in my Piriformis and immediate easing of pain. I went on to do all of the exercises (a total of five though the video says it's three) and had moderate pain for the rest of the day. That was a help.
I got the guest room closet cleaned up this morning and it took only minutes. It is not decluttered. It was merely straightened up after Taylor left it in such a state the other day. Tackling the decluttering part is on the schedule for next week.
And that was pretty much my entire day. Nothing much to it. Getting up and walking about, sitting to rest my hip, and light household duties.
I slept fairly well, but I did end getting up at one point to sit in my chair in the living room and sleep a while, before going back to bed to stretch out. I did my exercises. No major easing overall but no more pain than usual either.
I ended getting up very early Friday morning, since I was going out with Susan for today. I'd already texted her to cut back on our plans as I did not feel I was up to another long drive/ride today. We decided to run around the local areas.
Nicest surprise of the day was our stop in Oglethorpe when we spied a junk shop open on one corner of the main road. A few doors down was another shop and two more that were closed, plus several little restaurants. I was very impressed. Alas, the old houses are starting to look rather grim, but the immediate downtown area appears to be revitalizing itself.
We went to the Deustch Haus for lunch and visited the bakery on our way out. I indulged and bought half a German Chocolate Cake. I'd just last night determined that would be what I'd make next. Well, this one is homemade and while some might balk at the price I paid, I knew that buying ingredients required to make the cake from scratch would cost me at least as much. I can slice and freeze or give most away if I choose.
Susan and I roamed about and talked for a good three or four hours before heading home again. When we returned, we found my lawn freshly mown and dust from the mower disappearing along the path between my house and Sam's. Susan and I were eating a cookie and having a cool drink when Sam came through the back door. He looked absolutely done in by the heat, immediately took two of the canned drinks from the fridge and downed them then helped himself to cookies as well. He had purpose for interrupting my visit with Susan however, beyond just loving to see his Mama and show off himself to her company, lol.
He asked if I could give him a portion of John's ashes. "I've decided I'm ready...I'm going to go out tomorrow morning to run errands and I'm picking myself up a beer to bring home. Then I'm going to sit under the pine tree where Dad always stopped to rest while he was mowing, and I'm going to sit there and have a beer and talk with him before I spread his ashes." My eyes filled with tears on two counts.
Sam's been the longest in facing up to his grief for one thing. Katie feels it every day, and JD feels it as much as he feels anything, but Sam has continually said he didn't have time to grieve, as everyone else's grief took precedence over his own (he meant his household by the way). But he's alone this weekend for the first time since John passed away and he felt now was the right moment in time for him to deal with it.
It also made me smile because John always came home from mowing Sam's yard talking about how much he loved to stop under that huge old pine tree and just admire how beautiful the property was. That Sam chose the Sam spot to pay his last respects seems more than fitting to me.
After he left, Susan and I continued to talk. I cried a bit, being emotional due to all the pain, lack of sleep, and this final breakthrough for my son. Susan and I spoke of deeper things. She reluctantly ended our visit only when her husband texted that he was starting supper, lol.
I went to bed mentally and emotionally done last night. I had been dozing off in my chair and when I got up and went to bed it was still daylight out the window. Never mind. My body wanted the rest and I crawled into bed and gave it what it required. I slept well into the morning hours, sat in my chair in the living for a couple of hours where I dozed off and slept more, then back to bed to sleep still more. I was still up quite early since I'd set the alarm.
I sat on the back porch with my lemon water, Sassy leaning against one foot, Rufus leaning against the other. I did my exercises which still hurt but are at least doable three days in, I made pancakes and watched tv as I ate my breakfast. I played with the 'broken' coffee pot and lo and behold it is working once more, as is the hairdryer! I'm grateful for both to be back doing their duties well.
I was able to give myself a pedicure this morning, which I'd despaired of being able to do anytime soon with the sciatica. I'm well pleased over that.
I assembled the new lamp for my study area and am debating the color of the curtains. I've partially unwrapped the rug and admit I quite like the color though it's far more color saturated than I'd imagined from the picture. I have a side table I've yet to unpack and assemble, meant for a cup of coffee or glass of tea when I just want to read in the room.
I am not putting any of it out at the moment, except one lamp. I am going to be moving furniture and painting the walls a lovely pearly white. At least that's my plans. I think the white will make all the other colors sing. I'll be painting my desk a pale pink and I'm thinking I might paint the bookcases as well. Overall, the study will be a fairly girly room with plenty of John's music stuff and pictures up to balance it to keep it from being too frou frou.
It's been a decent week overall, despite not feeling well. I've had fun, worked enough to please me and feel better.
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