Saturday, April 30

Up at 7 a.m., but skipped my exercises so I could get ready to go to another town about an hour away to tour a Pioneer Village open house event.

At 10 a.m., the other scrapbook club member arrived, and we three were ready to head out. On the way, we stopped at a roadside market to buy the area's succulent strawberries, fresh picked this morning. There were only about eight quarts left, and I bought two, while our friend bought one. With all the rain we've had and are going to have over the next few days, I'm afraid strawberries this year will be at a premium. The quarts I bought today were fifty cents higher than the ones Hubbie bought only a few days ago.

We arrived at the other town around 11a.m. Daughter and Great-Grandson were already there at the restaurant where we planned to have lunch. While waiting, they spent a dollar in gumball machines featuring prizes, and both got watches.

We were all disappointed that the restaurant hadn't put out all the lunch offerings yet on the food bar. We settled for pulled pork (Mother had fried chicken instead of the baked fish she prefers), and a variety of veggies (Mother wanted mac and cheese, but it wasn't available yet).

Around noon, we headed to the Pioneer Village. The very back seat in the van was down, but Great-Grandson and I managed to pull it back up. There was still room behind that seat for Mother's wheelchair and wheelchair cushion.

It was an overcast, cool day, with the threat of rain, but we were able to spend an hour or so touring the area before it began sprinkling.

The village featured docents dressed in frontier costumes. A "sheriff," dressed in black, handed each guest a deputy badge, but it was too difficult to open the back so I could attach it to my shirt, so it ended up in the bottom of my purse.

Demonstrations were going on all around the village...cooking at a chuck wagon, butter churning and biscuit making outside a house, basket weaving, spinning, etc. The buildings, including a school house, a two-story home, a general grocery store, a train depot, and a jail, were all open to tourists.

Vendors sold plants, jellies and jams, hand sewn aprons and bonnets, and baked goods, as well as refreshment items like ice cream and kettle corn. The gardens were all in bloom...lots of colorful peonies brightened the area.

Daughter and Great-Grandson enjoyed trying their skills at jumping rope near the schoolhouse, modeling bonnets, straw hats, and coon skin hats for snapshots, and winding the May pole. A woman near the jump rope area stepped up and commented that she tried jumping rope, but found that though she was able to do in her mind, her body had a different idea. I think all of us with a few years on us are much more agile in our heads than in our bodies.

The village is small, so we were ready to leave in about an hour and a half. After dropping Daughter and Great-Grandson off at the restaurant, where their car was parked, we three women headed back home. We chose a good time to leave, since it began raining and rained most of the way home. It stopped though as we arrived in town.

Mother went to her house, and I spent a while uploading pics from today's outing to my social network page. Later, I heated fajitas left over from Thursday night, and Hubbie and I had these, with salad, for supper.

We had barely finished eating when a thunderstorm cropped up. Predictions are that we're in for rounds of thunderstorms over the next several days. Flooding is the main threat, but meteorologists don't rule out isolated tornado threats.

Our TV fare tonight included the Hallmark Hall of Fame production, "Beyond the Blackboard," a true life story about the teacher, Stacey Bess, who as a young woman accepts a position as teacher of homeless kids. Through trials and tribulations, she transforms a warehouse space/homeless shelter into a respectable classroom for kids who cannot, because of their circumstances, be admitted to regular schools.

After that, we watched the 2006 Lifetime Movie Network movie, "Night of Terror." A married couple hit a snag in their marriage and decide a family bonding get-away is in order. But it turns to terror on a stormy night.

Friday, April 29

Up a little earlier today, around 7:30, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Mother came over mid-morning, and I told her the news about Great-Grandson's accident that broke his leg.

Once I was ready for the day, I did this and that around the house until lunch time. After lunch,I went to a local primary school to attend a program and take pictures. The director of the local arts council called yesterday asking that I do this. Artists from Australia taught in the school this week, and today was the culmination, with the artists and the students performing for parents.

The two artists, both older gentlemen, began the program with a slide show..sort of a travelogue...followed by singing popular Australian folk tunes, while playing indigenous instruments, including the wind instrument didgeridoo. A didgeridoo can be from three to ten feet long. This one was about five feet long.

After the artists performed, the kids, class by class, performed short skits and dances, accompanied by the the artists on guitar or banjo, with one artist keeping time by clacking two boomerangs together. The kids in the classes had created costumes from whatever was at hand...paper plates with cotton balls glued around the edge and the middle cut out to be worn as "sheep" masks, and bright orange trash bags with arm and neck holes to represent fruits.

One class performed the "Twelve Days of Aussie Christmas," substituting Australian animals like kangaroos, kookaburras, emus, koala bears, and parrots, to name a few.

The program ended with the audience joining the student body in a sing-a-long. Words to songs like "Botany Bay," and "Waltzing Matilda," (Australia's unofficial national anthem), were projected on a screen.

The program ended about 2:30. At home, Hubbie and I decided we needed to run a few errands...to the greeting card shop to get a get-well card for Great-Grandson, to the bank, to the WDCS for a few items, and to the gas station.

Later, for supper, we had leftover spaghetti from the freezer, green beans, cottage cheese, and rolls I bought at the WDCS. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched the 2006 Lifetime Movie Channel movie, "Murder on Pleasant Drive," based on the true story of John Smith and his disappearing wives. The daughter and sister of his wife, Fran, persist in learning the truth.

Thursday, April 28

Slept really late this morning, until around 9:15! That's the latest I've slept in a long, long time. So I was very late doing my usual morning things, though I did do a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast.

It was noon before I was ready for the day. Since we'd had breakfast so late, we didn't get hungry again until around 2:30 p.m. In the meantime, Hubbie and I went to the river, so I could snap pictures of the flooded areas. It was a lovely, blue-sky-fluffy-white-clouds day, with a temp in the low 70s.

By today, the river had receded some, but it was still very high, and water still flooded parts of low-lying fields near the river. I took pictures from atop a nearby hill, as well as in the river park, and at a spot upriver of the highway bridge that spans it.

We had lunch when we got back, and then I uploaded some of the photos to my social network page.

Daughter called this afternoon to let me know that Granddaughter's picture is featured on the front page of our state newspaper, so Hubbie immediately went in search of the paper. He brought three issues back. In the photo, Granddaughter is helping friends clean up after their home was destroyed in the tornado Monday night.

Around 7 p.m., I fixed Hubbie and myself fajitas and salads for supper. Then we did our usual thing of watching TV for the evening.

While I was preparing the meal, one of the scrapbook club members called to let me know she would not be able to go on the trip to another town Saturday to attend the pioneer village open house. I'd called her earlier in the week, but she only got the message on her land line today, because she was away from home due to flooding in her area.

Tonight, we watched the third episode of the PBS Masterpiece Theater production of the British drama, "Upatairs, Downstairs." We had to watch this episode on my laptop, since the PBS channel froze up during recent storms. The laptop speaker is not very loud at its loudest, so Hubbie had trouble hearing it. I tried hooking my office computer speakers to my laptop, but they didn't work.

Then we watched the 2006 Hallmark Channel movie, "Wild Hearts," starring Richard Thomas, on our regular TV. When a widowed Los Angeles police detective and his rebellious teenage daughter inherit a horse ranch in Montana, both experience culture shock. In due course, they both learn to love the ranch, but naturally trouble brews when a major development coporation tries to force them to sell.

Note: just before I decided to shut down my laptop tonight, I got a call from my daughter-in-law telling me that one of the very young great-grandsons broke his hip tonight. Seems he begged his mother to wheel him fast in the parking lot as he rode in a shopping cart. Granddaughter lost her balance and slipped down, pulling the cart down with her. The handle of the cart hit great-granson's hip, breaking it. He is now at children's hospital, where he'll remain in traction at least overnight.

If it's not one thing, it's another lately.

Wednesday, April 27

Slept really late this morning, until around 9:15. I guess I was warn out from the storms, though we were not directly affected by them...just hours and hours of tracking them, and worrying about family in the path of them.

Did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast, then once I was ready for the day, I called the scrapbook club members to arrange a possible trip to another town for the spring open house of a pioneer village. Before that, I contacted a village representative to make sure the open house was still scheduled after the storms of the past few days.

The representative said that the village will be open, with docents dressed in pioneer costumes. There will be lots of demonstrations, including one about a featured chuck wagon. The owner of the chuck wagon was supposed to bring along a team of oxen, but village reps asked that he not bring them, in case the ground is still soft on Saturday after all the rain we've had.

In talking with one of the scrapbook members, I learned that one of our members, who has not attended sessions in some time, is in the hospital. She collapsed at church last Sunday with some sort of stomach problem. Since she has been in the hospital, she's had another episode, and the doctors are treating her for inflammation in her pancreas.

Mother came over around 11 a.m., and I suggested she complete the word search contest puzzle in the newspaper, which she did. Last week's $50 winner is someone we know from the Extension Homemakers Council. The winner before her was a man I didn't know, but whom I recognized while Hubbie and I were at the gas station. He was at the adjoining pump. The reason I know he was the winner is that his unusual name was engraved on his belt. And I recognized his face from the contest winner snapshot. The elderly gentleman must have just come from the doctor, because he had bandages taped to several places on his face and arms, as well as on the top of his head...there was on large bandage on his jaw...probably all suspicious mole removals. I figured this was a man who needed a bright spot in his day, so I'm glad he won the $50.

After lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands. First we took the puzzle to the newspaper office, where I talked with one of the reporters I'm well acquainted with. He told me that he had surgery last December for diabetic retinopathy, and was told then that not much could be done for his loss of sight, Surgery would prevent further loss, but he probably would not gain more sight, though it seems he has. But lately, he has experienced some bleeding, so he's a bit worried.

He also said that a woman died in the storms that passed east of us last night. An apparent tornado destroyed her home and tossed her into a field, where she was found a couple of hours later. Her husband had been at work.

That same storm knocked our power out for a couple of hours. We tracked the storm on the radio, and learned that it was following a path through towns east and eventually turning deadly in a community about 30 miles away.

We fervently hoped this was the end of an outbreak of storms that continued over several days. However, today there was another small tornado about two hours east of us. It caused property damage but no loss of life, thank goodness.

From the newspaper office, we went to the river, where I hoped to get snapshots of the flooding there. But as soon as I stepped out of the van, it began raining, accompanied by streaked lightening. I didn't dally. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get pictures.

We went on to the WDCS for a few groceries, and then to a grocery store for a couple of on-sale items.

It was a little late to accomplish much after we got back home, beyond reading a state newspaper we picked up while we were out, and the local paper that was delivered to us. I was interested in reading about Monday's tornado, but the paper also carried a story about the death of someone Hubbie and I knew while we worked for the state agency for the blind. The lady was only 59 years old, but she had multiple health problems.

Later, Mother and I fixed a breakfast-for-supper meal of sauteed potatoes, ham, and biscuits and gravy. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched a movie from the Lifetime Network.

Funny: I tried to call Daughter-in-law this afternoon to check on her and Son, but not having my glasses on, I managed to dial the Caring Hands Hospice coordinator instead (she has the same first name as Daughter-in-Law). I started right in talking about the tornado and clean-up, but soon realized that the person I was talking to didn't have a clue what I was referring to. I explained myself to her and asked how she was doing. "Fine," she said, "but who am I talking to." Duh, I hadn't even told her my name! We laughed about the whole thing and then caught up with Caring Hands news. I promised to wear my glasses when I tried again to call Daughter-in-Law.

Daughter called this evening to suggest I check out the online edition of the local paper in her town, which is carrying photos of the tornado damage in Son's neighborhood...Granddaughter is shown in one of the photos helping clean up after the storm.

Tuesday, April 26

Spent the morning getting ready to go to a town about two hours away to visit with Son and Daughter-in-Law, who suffered through Monday night's tornado. Mother and I baked a bunch of potatoes, wrapped in foil, that we kept warm in a hot/cold chest, and gathered lunch items and other things, while Hubbie went to pick up several sacks of ice and fill the van with gas. The ice was for a large chest, to be used to store food from Son's refrigerator, since the power is out in the stricken area.

Around noon, we were ready to head out. On the way out of town, we stopped at a fast food place to pick up a large bucket of chicken. We kept this hot in a hot/cold bag.

We checked with family to plan the best route to Son's house, since there were road blocks in a number of places, preventing curiosity seekers from getting in the way of officials working at the storm-torn site.

We had no problems traveling, until we arrived at a small community a few miles from the highway intersection. A power pole lay across the road, with power company workers trying to remove it. So we had to back up and detour around the site.

Daughter-in-Law had alerted us earlier that we needed to call when we arrived at this point, so they could meet us at the gate to their residential area, because personnel was stopping people from coming who were not guests of the residents. So I tried a couple of times to call...no answer.

At the highway intersection, we had to wait for a while, as state police directed traffic, but we were not stopped from proceeding on the road that leads to the residential area where Son lives.

As expected, at the gate to the residential area, fire department personnel stopped us, saying that Son would need to come to the gate to vouch for us. I explained that we were the parents and grandparents to Son, but the guy was adamant. He was maybe worried that three senior citizens might loot the place? I was a bit aggravated by his officious attitude. I wondered what we would do if we'd come all that distance and couldn't get past the gate guard.

But Hubbie backed the van up and out of the way of other traffic, while I tried again to call first Daughter-in-Law, who didn't answer her cell phone even after I'd tried three times, and then Son, who did answer after a couple of tries. I would have called Son to begin with, but thought I heard him say last night that he'd misplaced his phone. Later, I learned that the battery on Daughter-in-Law's cell phone had run down, which is why she hadn't answered.

While I was doing this, Nephew and a young man drove up in a truck, and Niece and her grandmother came in a van. We all had to find places along the roadside to wait until Son arrived.

Son arrived presently, and we all proceeded to his house, where Nephew and the young man he'd brought along used a chain saw to start cutting up the many trees lost in the tornado. Daughter-in-Law estimated that they lost about 20 trees, which was disheartening, but at least their home is standing, which is more than is so for much of the neighborhood completely destroyed in the storm.

Nephew and Niece brought along two of their younger children and another child, who played among on the trunks of the fallen trees, as well as in the mud holes created when the trees were knocked over, roots and all. It's always amazing how children can find fun even in the worst of circumstances.

Son and Daughter-in Law and I cried and clung to each other upon our arrival. They, including Grandson, had been terrified as they crouched in a closet during the storm that violently shook their house and toppled the trees into the yard and onto the top of a truck. Their camper was flung against a tree, and the trampoline was disassembled, leaving only the legs arranged in a pattern on the ground.

It was strange how the trees were toppled in what looked to me like a perfect circle around the house. I laid awake in bed later contemplating this, and decided that maybe Son's home was at the outer edge of the tornado, and that the trees were caught in the swirling motion of winds on the outside edge of the storm, while the central funnel tore neighboring homes to bits.

We stayed at Son's home about two hours, until Niece alerted us that more storms were moving in, with the threat of tornadoes about an hour away. So we all packed up and left. Nephew and Niece went to their home, while Son, Daughter-in Law, and Grandson opted to stay in a motel for the night.

Hubbie, Mother, and I kept ahead of the storms on our way home, and arrived safe and sound. Mother went to her house for a little while, but returned to our house before long. In the meantime, I put leftovers from Sunday in the oven for Hubbie's and my supper.

After supper, we sat down to watch weather reports on TV, but before long, the power went out, and we resorted to candles and flashlights, and listening to weather reports on the radio. Around 8 p.m., there was a report of threatening weather to just to the east of us.

Mother hung around until it appeared the storms had passed, about 11 p.m., and then Hubbie accompanied her to her house. We hit the sack shortly afterward, where I lay awake, the events of the day swirling around in my head, until about 2 a.m.

Monday, April 25

Up around 7:30, and managed to get a treadmill session and weights exercises in before a thunderstorm rolled in. It wasn't a violent storm, but it it did bring some rain. Hubbie dumped a couple of inches of water out of the rain gauge, accumulated from last night and this morning.

The yard is soggy and promises to get a lot soggier with predictions for some hairy weather coming in later tonight and tomorrow. We'll probably be glued to the TV, tracking possible tornadoes. A few counties on the western side of the state are already under tornado warnings, and those storms will track east and possibly gear up in our neck of the woods.

Mother came over mid-morning and worked on her jigsaw puzzle. She didn't sleep well last night, thanks to her cat being restless over the weather.

I spent the morning in household tasks, while Hubbie ran a couple of errands...to the pharmacy, and to a roadside veggie and fruit market, where he picked up four quarts of this season's first strawberries. Naturally, I had to sample one right away, and it was so-o-o good. Strawberries, especially our state's succulent ones, are at the top of the list for my favorite fruits (followed closely by our state's wonderful watermelons).

A few minutes after Hubbie got home, I searched the fridge for lunch ideas. Mother, who was standing close by, stepped back...onto a cat's foot or tail or something. She started to fall.

I flung a container of food I had in my hand onto the little table we use for food preparation, yelled an expletive, and grabbed Mother by her shirt. She grabbed the table. Down she went, me holding on for all I was worth. She hit the floor on her bottom, anyway, but I'd managed to break her fall so that she didn't sustain a major injury. It took Hubbie and me both to get her on her feet again.

Her bottom might be a little bruised from slapping the floor, but at least her bones are intact. I very nearly ripped my fingernails out by the roots, and my fingers are a little sore, but I'm fine otherwise. At least I didn't wrench my weak lower back.

This is certainly not the first time Mother has fallen. Over the years, she has had lots of falls, such as:

*Several months ago, she fell for no apparent reason in front of the staircase. When Mother falls, she's like a turtle on its back...she can't lift herself up, and she can't roll over. So that time, I had to physically roll her over so she could get on her knees and use the steps to get back on her feet (with my help).

*Once, after a performance at a church, she fell face first into the backseat of the van, so that she was on her knees and couldn't get up. Hubbie had to help her from the other side of the van, while I boosted her butt.

*while on a trip a few years ago, we were taking a short boat cruise, and she tripped over a doorway ledge and fell onto the deck. Again, it took Hubbie and me both to get her up.

*On another trip, she fell while we were touring a museum. She was flat on her back that time, because she'd gotten woozy. Fortunately, a nurse was in the group who gave her orange juice and found a wheelchair for her.

*Several years ago, we were at a lake in a nearby town, when Mother slipped on the path and rolled down the hill toward the lake. Had it not been for a bush that caught her (where she lay on her back like a turtle, naturally), she'd have gone for a swim. It took some real effort on Hubbie's and my part to get her out of that one. Oddly, on that same day, another woman was on the path and also slid down the hill. This lady was obese. I thought Hubbie and I would never get her back on the path, even with him pulling her arms and me bracing my shoulders against her ample bottom.

*Many years ago, before I married Hubbie, I was helping Mother take my dad to the doctor. At the clinic, Mother got out of the car and tripped over the parking block. Her very heavy purse pulled her forward, and down she went right on her face. So now the doctor not only had to see Dad, but he also had to treat Mother's swollen face that later turned all kinds of black and blue.

*The worst tumble she took, though, happened maybe ten years ago, when she tripped over her previous cat (that has since died), fell against her kitchen counter, breaking some ribs. I'll never know how, but she managed to walk over to our house afterward to tell us she was hurt. That accident required an ambulance and a trip to the hospital.

Every time she has one of these accidents, my heart goes in my throat. I've tried in the past to convince her to use the walker we got for her several year ago, to no avail. I suggested it again today. Maybe now, she'll try it.

After lunch today, Mother resumed her jigsaw puzzle, and I relaxed with my laptop, the Sunday newspaper (which I didn't have time to read yesterday), and our town's daily paper.

In our daily paper there was a report of the automobile accident I talked about in my Friday blog. I feared for the individual who was the driver of the older car with the missing door...the one that was on the bed of the tow truck. The report said it was an 1989 Ford Crown Victoria, driven by an 83-year-old man, who was killed. Seems he failed to yield at the intersecting road to the highway and was t-boned by a truck. The driver and passengers in truck, including a two-year-old child , were injured but released from the hospital by this morning.

Supper tonight, of course, was leftovers from yesterday's yummy meal. Tonight, I was supposed to meet my new Literacy Council student at 6 p.m. at the college library about a mile down the road. But I decided that it would be advisable to cancel the session because of threatening weather.

Afterward, we stayed close to the TV, tracking storms. Mother went home, but Hubbie had to go get her later when there was a tornado warning in our area. The storm passed east of us.

But earlier, when I contacted family about two hours south of us, I learned that a tornado hit Son and family's property, knocking down trees, damaging vehicles, etc., but they are okay. Granddaughter's family is okay, too, though a swing set blew away at their house, and a dog is missing.

The town where they live is devastated...lots of home damaged or destroyed, trees down, power lines dangling, and worst of all, a death. We won't know the extent of the damage until TV reporters can get into the damaged areas.

On a light note: a granddaughter said that when the power went off at her house, she lit a candle, but her two-year-old son blew it out and began singing "Happy Birthday."

Sunday, April 24

Up around 7 a.m., but skipped my exercises, of course. Once I was ready for the day, I fixed a couple of Easter baskets for Mother and Daughter. Then I stuffed a bunch of plastic eggs with coins, dollar bills, and candy, which I then hid around the living room and dining room for Great-Grandson to hunt.

Downstairs, I set the table with linens, my mismatched China, Hubbie's family heritage silverware, stemware glasses and the Easter baskets. Shortly after Daughter and Great-Grandson awakened and had a light breakfast, I sent Great-Grandson on his Easter egg hunt. I know that at twelve years old, he thinks himself too big for such childish things, but it was evident that he was pleased.

Mother had come over right after I was ready for the day, and the two of us did several lunch-related things. Then, since we had a couple of hours to kill before lunch, I suggested we play the card game Duo. Christopher had never played the game before, but he caught on right away, and immediately won the first game. After that, Mother won a couple of games, and Lyle won one. Yours truly...zilch.

By the time the games were over, lunch was ready for the table. We all enjoyed the ham, potatoes au gratin, carrot salad, asparagus, whole kernel corn, deviled eggs, sliced tomatoes, and yeast rolls, and angel food cake and strawberries with whipped topping.

Afterward, Mother, Daughter, Great-Grandson, and I went out into the yard, where I snapped some photos. Shortly afterward, Daughter and Great-Grandson left for home. It was good that they left at that time, so they could get to their home about two hours away before storms rolled in.

Mother spent part of the rest of the afternoon working on her jigsaw puzzle, while I played on my computer. Then we watched a Hallmark movie I'd recorded on DVR..."The Shunning," starring Danielle Panabaker. An Amish girl feels something is missing in her life, and then is told she was adopted twenty years earlier. Her Mother was an "Englisher."

Later, Hubbie and I watched the first two parts of "Upstairs, Downstairs," from the PBS channel. I'd recorded these on DVR, as I did tonight's third and final episode. But when we tried to watch the third part, we found that the channel had frozen and nothing had recorded. Maybe the stormy weather affected the channel's transmission. Hopefully, the episode will be aired again in the near future. In the meantime, I'll check tomorrow to see if it'll be at their website. I checked tonight and found that the first two are there.