Dog whimpers

Mom has been complaining of late about being "mauled". I can only imagine how hard it must be to not be able to move on one's own and have to put up with so much handling by others. Mom is still adjusting to being sedentary and of course she doesn't like it. Our care of her is an evolving adventure as we discover new problems and new solutions. Of late the problem is the mauling thing. So I gave her an option of wearing sweats on days that no company is expected and sleeping in the same outfit so as to cut down on the man-handling (woman-handling, actually). She likes the idea so we are doing it. But each evening she has begun with what I teasingly call dog whimpers. As I lift her and rotate her for the evening routine the whimpers begin. She sounds like a little dog crying for attention. "What's wrong, Mom," I ask. "Nothing" she replies. And the whimpers continue. I often look her in the eye, call her my little doggie, and whimper back. That cracks her up. I love to see her smile and laugh (she does too little of both) and so the whimpering evening conversations continue. Such is the "evolution" of things with Mom.

A friend suggested that we face Mom's chair toward the view window in the living room. I did that and she loves it. When she awakes from her daily snoozes, she looks outside at the panoramic view, and it pleases her. I believe nature has great powers to heal the spirit. We have blue skies today but the massive amounts of rain have turned our countryside into a velvet green. In the picture here you can see the lovely view that Mom sees from her easy chair. There are such wonders of nature that dance before our view, if we take the time to see. I need to do more of it.

We've had such storms and winds here. They reek havoc with our fussy yard, adding to our problems with growing things. So many of our newly planted trees have died that we treasure those that are left. The front yard holds one of the last of the trees close to the house. It is a flowering cherry tree and my special baby. The wind blew it down last week. It was a sad sight indeed to see it lying there in the mud, surrounded by exploding poppy plants. Layne was ready to haul it away, but Cliff carefully righted it and tied it up. We'll see if it can survive. In the meantime, the few poppy plants I put in the yard have had multitudes of babies. In the same picture you can see them. They are everywhere! So we have found a growing thing that likes it here, a little too well. Who knew that we would need to actually control the spreading of a growing thing out here? Wonders never cease.

We've had a busy week. Layne sang in his quartet for our Church's stake conference. He looked so handsome standing on the stand, between his singing companions. He has a fine singinging voice. Sometimes I forget how fine a man he is when he is so much with me. Because of him, our place is in working order, with all broken things fixed. He manages his time, as always, most efficiently. I, being basically free spirited and by nature disorganized, do my best to emulate his good example. After years of watching him I must admit that I am a tad more disciplined. How I admire order and organization. I continue to be a work in progress.