The sun is shining. The sky is bright and beautiful. Birds singing and trees budding and greening up. What could be better? One of my hobbies to looking at houses on Zillow. I get ideas for interiors or tweaking my deck or greenhouse area, even bird feeders. Of course, I also think 'what if...,' but there is nothing in the country that could meet my needs any better than what I have here at home. I have a little acreage, plenty of wildlife, one neighbor that's kin to me and another that I've known since we were in diapers. We don't flood, comparitively speaking. My yard gets full of water sometimes, but not like real floods in other parts of the country. We don't really get tornados. Storms that come up from the south seem to go around us and storms from up north often stop right before they get to my house. I feel like ground zero in protected planet! Yes, my place is pretty nice.
We have Pepper the cat that thinks she's a dog, which has come in handy with our little Riley we adopted in November. I sometimes thinks he misses being part of a real pack. You recall he came from a hoarder house with multiple animals. In fact, four of them were released to the Currituck Humane Society at the same time. Danny is now his pack, and Pepper the cat is his sidekick. I'm left to be the audience. We just bought the talking buttons and have begun to teach him how to use them. He's a tough nut to crack though. This may be a year-long task! He doesn't want to use his paws to push the buttons, so we're now trying to go for a nose job on a sticky-note to get him started. So far the only one that's trained to use the buttons is Danny!
Since January Laurie and I have been going to a nursing home every other Tuesday to sing with residents. We're having a fabulous time singing with the "Melody Makers." The group is growing with every visit and I'm surprised to find that a lot of residents used to be in church choirs. They've expressed over and over just how much they've missed singing and really appreciate us coming over. We've made song books with words for them and I take a laptop to play the music. We sing church hymns, choruses and even a some contemporaries as well as a little Elvis and '60s radio rock that everyone grew up with. Mostly women attend, but a few men also show up, some quite regularly. I take a photo each time and use my recordings to match names with faces. About once a month we go at night along with Hollie and our husbands to do devotions and sing while we listen as residents share their stories and experiences. It's all very uplifting to know that I'm part of something so simple that means so much to so many.
We are patiently waiting for the tree people to come take out some of our demented cedar trees. They have been overtaken by wisteria and especially over winter you could see right through the trees. It's really very sad. I look around while riding down the road and see lots of wisteria blooming now and realize that people don't see it's taking over and killing the trees.
Crocheting is still part of most of my days. After Christmas I donated about 25 hats to the homeless. With our crazy weather it's never too late for a winter hat, right?! I continue to make blankets for the nursing home too. I'm currently making one in pink, cream, and purple with main colors in 3 rows of single crochet followed by 1 row of reverse double crochet. The small divider rows in purple are just 2 rows of single crochet. It's turning out prettier than it sounds.
The gaps in routine are filled with weekly chiropractor visits to straighten out my screw-ups, like using a shovel last week. Ugh! We don't get to eat out much anymore. Riley bit through the metal crate while we were at church a couple of weeks ago and it was all we could do to get back before he got his head stuck. I think we both flashed back to our golden retriever Willie who did that and almost died before we could get him to an emergency vet. Luckily, there was no repeat event. Danny repaired the cage but Riley's separation anxiety is preventing us from leaving him alone very long. It's a good thing he can go inside at the chiropractor's office! We've just bought new calming chews to try. The perscription we have says to give 1-2 hours beforehand, but I think we need to give 6-8 hours ahead of us leaving. Usually he's not calm until long after we're home again and then he's like comatose for hours. We really hate giving him anything, but I'd like to go out to eat in a restaurant again! Maybe over summer things will get better. One can only hope!
We are patiently waiting for the tree people to come take out some of our demented cedar trees. They have been overtaken by wisteria and especially over winter you could see right through the trees. It's really very sad. I look around while riding down the road and see lots of wisteria blooming now and realize that people don't see it's taking over and killing the trees.
