How much did winter 2014-15 suck? It's already taken some of my favorite people off the planet. I'm sure this AM's sad news won't be the last. I hope our family's not the next one "culled."

I hope none of the Cat's habitues are hit next too, and a quick skim of the thread shows that you're all having as much "fun" as Hardi and I have been having...

Pipes froze, check, and thawed with salamander before floods, check.

Car embedded in drift, check. No one but me to dig it out, check.... with 5 trips out back to spell my back, dug out.

Ramp in front so snowed over so bad it needed snowshoes to use it to get trash out, check. Salt applied with last of back energy, check. Coal shovel on hand to slide off the thawy bits, check-- after I open a section of the dog-escape-preventing SNOW fence that lines the damn ramp, enough to slide shovel-fulls out through the balusters! Leftover roll of snow fencing found froze to porch floor under snow, check-- to patch what I open up with scissors. I'll  remake that open section REMOVABLE on the first "warm" day.

Nurse flu-like hubby to be work-go-able, check. Avoid shooting myself, check. Avoid shooting HIM, check. Nurse hubby thru recurred ankle sprain, check. Avoid shooting myself, check. Avoid shooting HIM, check. So far. ;-) 

How? Prayer. Thyroid meds. People helping teensy-weensy bits at critical junctures. Patience. Grace. Having been to all of the above rodeos many times before. Having GREAT co-counselors with which to weep and laugh thoroughly! And a day here or there with blue skies and over-10-degree, windless days couldn't have hurt!

But I made a number of mistakes that could have cost money and lives. Hardi is strong enough to help me when I get sick or hurt, but the reverse it not true at the moment. So I broke the news to him that if his ankle goes out again I'm calling his doc to auth a home health aide with rented first-floor hospital bed. It's time to head off my next round of mistakes!

Next Ohio trip is April, on my own. My son is planning a visit to me there in mid-trip to be sure I ain't gone bonkers, and THIS time I take a lab order for thyroid WITH me to get a re-test there if brain fog sets in again.

White privilege.


~Susan