Looking Back: August, 2022

All the Rausch family except Brian were very sick with colds the first week of August but not with Covid, so soup and a baked chicken went to them.  They were better by Friday the 5th and headed to a Royals game.  

John was all about making hay this month.  

I got a new tracfone for Johnnie and Irma and programmed it, and sanded and repainted the island drawers.  I continued with reading lessons for Isaac and resumed writing devotions for Daniel as he prepared for his freshman year of high school. 

I made trips to the dentist struggling to get my bridge to stay and fit.  Headaches and eye aches most days. Profound exhaustion. Dental work may have aggravated migraine-like pain.  Bright and hot days are not my friends.  (However, we learned in November that my TSH had risen nearly 3 points in the wake of slowing my metabolism by beginning Atenolol. And so adjusting my thyroid meds sure helped everything--energy levels as well as headaches).  

Meals and food mentioned this month:

• cherry sheet pan pie
• 2 dozen rolls
• roast
• Taco bar
• Sent cookies to Denise and Todd. 
• Multiple batches of pesto to eat and for freezer. 
• 4 dozen cookies for Gould funeral.  
• Flank steak over noodles.

Looking Back: July 2022

 

Our Logan turned ten in July.  

July 2 at 2 a.m. lightning storm brought two inches of rain.  

Irma's birthday float was a winner this year, a train with Logan and Isaac as engineers.  The Rausch family came for supper and fireworks on the 4th.  

I spilled a cup of tea on my old computer and ordered a new one this month. 

On the 9th we put up 14 pints of sweet corn, 15 pints on the 10thm and another 15 pints on the 11th.  

Our "new" swather arrived on July 18th.  Jonathan and John busy spraying and mowing hay.  

I painted a cute "leaner" for a front porch decoration.  

Grandson Daniel really helped us out this month by weed eating, mowing, and cleaning out my flower bed.  We did battle with the power washer against wasp nests.  He was valiant! 

Lots of prayers for the Garnett Borns this month as they all, including momma to be Nicole, had Covid.  

• 2 cherry pies
• sheeet pan meal
• Another birthday cake for John! 
• Prepped 5 lbs carrots and 6 pks celery for a funeral dinner
• Froze 84 pints of sweet corn
• Roast beef and fixins for a family meal on the 17th.  
• Browned 4 lbs hamburger and froze
• Multiple batches of fresh pesto
• Vegetable soup for Jon and Nic as they were sick
• Put up 6 pints zucchini relish
• Made cookies and played aggravation with Logan
• Sweet and sour chicken and rice
• Cowboy cookies

25,185 Days and Counting

Weather statistics show that residents of Kansas City, Missouri enjoyed unseasonably mild temperatures on December 21, 1953. The afternoon's high temperature reached nearly 50° F.  That night, a cold front brought plummeting temperatures and snow. 

At midnight, my dad drove my mother to the hospital in a blizzard.  Entrusting his wife into the capable hands of the medical staff and knowing her doctor had arrived safely at the hospital, he breathed a premature sigh of relief.  

I was a transverse presentation and the doctor was unable to turn me for a normal birth. My mother needed an emergency C-section, and a surgeon was called. Winds gusting to 25 mph and blowing snow kept the surgeon from arriving at the hospital in time.  

The doctor somehow delivered me at about 5 a.m., breaking my right arm in the process. He told my father, "Your wife will be ok but I don't know about the baby."  My dad had to be helped to a chair.  The doctor felt certain I had breathed amniotic fluid.  

Morning light revealed 8 inches of new snow and an inexplicably healthy baby girl who was breathing normally, albeit with a broken right arm taped to her chest and a left arm that was lifeless because of birth injuries.  

Several days later, I moved my left arm for the first time, inspiring tears from an entire shift of nurses. They gathered in my mother's room, taking turns holding a baby whose Christmas miracle was to be that she would go through life with two working arms.  

Today I am humbled by the fact of God's love and grace. Apart from events termed "miraculous" by the doctor who delivered me, I would never have had one day of life. Instead, as of today, I have enjoyed 25,185 days and counting.   

Dear Lord, thank You for life.  Thank You for my mother's prayers. Thank You for Your grace and mercy, that cover us. Thank You for loving us so much.