there’s no place like home…for so many reasons

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once,
“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid
or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures,
following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

(being home, for James, is a okay / Julie Cook / 2019)

Lots to say but not being afforded much time, I really just wanted to let those who have
wondered and been praying for our little family…that James got to
come home Friday evening!!

He came home with a 6 month supply of antibiotics.
He will have to be checked out between his pediatrician and Pediatric Urology
surgeon most likely weekly until he grows enough for surgery…
of which will  be in 6 months.

Because he is now so susceptible to infection that is why they are basically keeping him on
meds until he can have the surgery…lest he has to return to the hospital with
a high fever.

And for those of you who have had to either be in the hospital or keep watch over a loved
one who has, you can certainly relate to the joy of getting to finally head home.

(James channels his inner Batman / Julie Cook / 2019)

James has been a stalwart trooper throughout all of this…
his sister on the other hand…
well, let’s just say that the Mayor may have taken advantage of taxpayer money by
misappropriating funds to furnish herself a small oasis of a vacation while her
brother, the Sheriff, was out of the picture.

(The Mayor and Woobooville Chief aide enjoying a break from the unseasonable heat / Gregory Cook /2019)

But as we can all plainly see, The Mayor remains defiant over such allegations…

(trying to keep the hair out of her eyes, The Mayor does not like anything on her head/ Julie Cook / 2019)

We finally took the Mayor back to her Atlanta Office yesterday only to return home today.
But not before this Chief aide at the Sattelite Woobooville office ruptured another
disc in her back.

Shades of three years ago—except this time, it was from the constant picking up of a 24 pound Mayor
who likes to stay on the move.

The Chief aide is now on the floor gravitating between ice packs and heating pads…
and will call the Orthopedic Clinic tomorrow or Tuesday…depending on when they’re open.

Yet despite the hell of this past week that we have just journeyed through,
we give thanks, Glory, and Praise that the Mayor and her new Sheriff are finally
back together again at home—
despite her reluctance to ever admit such.
Always the fickled politician.

(The Mayor nonplused about going home / Julie Cook / 2019)

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,
because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:2-5

slow and determined

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to
go right in someone else’s.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(box turtle / Julie Cook / 2016)

(brown rabbit / Watercolor Resort, Santa Rosa, FL / Julie Cook / 2016)

One thing I’ve never been accused of being is slow.

Determined,
stubborn,
even hell bent…

yes…

but slow….

never.

I’ve never been one to be still for very long.
If I’ve got to be somewhere, I prefer early.
If I’m driving someplace, I drive as if life depends on it…
none of this Sunday driver, leisure business for me.

And it’s not as if I made some conscious decision early on
to take the fast lane in life…
Rather it’s just that I’ve always been like that….like this…
Always seemingly in some sort of quickness or hurry.
Straight from point A to B…no distractions with C, D or E in between…

I have made a point of mostly making the most of my time.
Filling it with as much productiveness as I can….
Maybe that comes from being a teacher as teachers are conditioned
to do so much with so little…
squeezing everything possible into a short space of time…

So you should know that with this disc and nerve business…
slow and determined has oddly become the name of the game and my new normal…
Sigh…
It’s as if my world has suddenly been cast into a slow motion stop frame
of agonizingly slow movement and speed.

As I now have to think long and hard about each and every movement—
nothing herky jerky fast or quick,
lest some shooting, searing new pain emerges out of no where.

And speaking of—this nerve business…

Are you familiar with a cilice?
Something like a hairshirt but worse.

Did you ever see the Dan Brown movie…Angels and Demons?
You may remember the poor monk Silas who wore a metal spiked ban
around his thigh under his habit.
He would tighten the ban as a form of self mortification…
unto bleeding….

I’m all for piousness.
I am gratified and humbled by those Desert Fathers and Mothers
and various saintly ones who have sacrificed both comfort and self
for the union of soul to the Spirit….
but this nerve pain gives new meaning to mortification…

It’s kind of like shingles, without the shingle.
Angry nerves running from the left of the lower back to the top thigh to the groin.

Is it bad if I confess that I have cut the elastic out of my underwear?

And may I add that hasn’t helped?

And that the whole thought of just going naked is making perfect sense…

I had shingles once—long ago—and caught it relatively early enough…
Such that it was short lived.

This disc business however has not been short lived.
And being a modest individual, naked would not be my first choice,
but I am a firm believer in drastic measures for drastic times…

I received notice today in the mail that the insurance company has approved the doctor’s
request to perform a nerve block next week.

How kind of them—

Because I fear if they had not been in agreement,
I might just have found myself in their office holding a cattle prod
asking for the individual who decided I did not need the nerve block.
As perhaps being prodded with electrical pulses from a naked person
might just persuade them otherwise…

I have learned a lot from lying on the floor.
I call it the perspective of a cat.
Not so much that I now know all too clearly that the ceiling fans
need a ladder and dusting…
or that dust bunnies can show up just about anywhere out of nowhere….

but rather that things can look overwhelming when looking up…

Yet the cats are undeterred by their short stature…
It bothers them not that the majority of their world towers over their heads.
They confidently saunter about here and there,
even onto my stomach while I’m flat on my back…
which is not a positive when 17 pounds walks on your stomach
and you’re already in grave pain…

I have even found myself telling my husband that I fear I am no longer earning my keep…
seeing that I’m spending more time on the floor then off the floor.

Now before you feminists out there have a hissy fit,
you need to understand that my take
on marriage is that of a constant continuum of contribution.

Each spouse contributes to the relationship.
My part / his part sort of deal.

When one party feels as if he or she is contributing more and more
as the other gives less and less—-resentment builds.

Ours has always been pretty much unspoken as we each have worked hard at contributing.
Be it going to work to make money to pay the bills…
to actually paying those said bills.
From cooking to cleaning to laundry, to ferrying growing child, to ferrying sick pets,
to cutting the grass—

As there must be balance and an evenness to what is done in a marriage.

Yet there is that whole “in sickness and in health” business….
and sadly ours is a society not too keen on that “in sickness” part.
We can “do” colds but when it comes to catastrophes,
sadly we tend to want to run and hide.

My husband reassured me as he looked down at me on the heating pad on the floor,
that I was very much keepable….

Or I think he was looking at me and not the dust bunny I had found….

So whereas I am not so quick these days, I am gaining in wisdom and appreciation.

I appreciate that I am on the floor by choice and
not because I’ve had one too many drinks to deaden the pain…

I appreciate that I don’t think the ceilings needs repainting…
as that is what I stare at now most of the time…

I appreciate the fact that the cats are well fed and perhaps actually
over weight…
yet love their mommy enough to wonder why she’s on the floor…
obviously there for their enjoyment—
cats are self-centered that way…

I am wise enough now to know that slow and steady are ok and as is often such…
goes to the winner of any race.

I am wise enough to know that things could be worse…
as I think…Dad…

I am wise enough to know that I can cry, and have, but trying to find
something, anything funny, is better…

And I appreciate that I can drive to Dad’s today to met the Hospice Nurse..
thankful and appreciative for people who want to come into people’s lives when life is
looking pretty darn bad…

I think we call that running to the sound of battle rather than from it….

Here’s to not seeing me naked holding a cattle prod as I saunter down the street….

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?
So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.
They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly;
I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control,
lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27