saturday morning

I woke up this morning with no pain! Not my knees, nor my elbows, nor my shoulders. Not my back or anywhere. Now that may not sound like much to most people, but to me it is a wonderful blessing. My knees hurt almost constantly, just having to stand up usually takes a couple minutes of building up my nerve and then actually standing is dependent upon whether or not my knees decide to work at the first try. Sometimes they won’t straighten out. Sometimes they straighten out but don’t want to hold me. And sometimes it is all three. If I’m standing for any length of time, I rest on my crutchtops, which presses on a nerve or blood vessel or something in my underarm and consequently makes my hands tingle or go numb.

By evening most times I am seriously hurting. And most times the pain will slacken off to an extent over night. It is still there in the morning, but usually its’ less. But sometimes in a wonderful blessed day it is not there at all. On those days I don’t even want to get up. I just want to stay perfectly still and revel in the freedom from hurting.

Today is another gorgeous day. It will be hot later on but right now it’s cool and cloudless. There is a great cool breeze coming in the window and everything is quiet. Notah and the boys, Seth and his friend Zack, have gone into Belen to get some stuff at the hardware store. Kerra and Keva have gone over to decorate the church-hall for Sunday afternoon anniversary celebration. They took Chloe with them so it’s just me and the big dogs—well, Gable is here, too. He doesn’t qualify as a big dog, but he’s a ‘grown-up’ dog.

Thain is lying here under my foot rest dreaming. He has yipped a couple times and grunted. Wonder what he’s chasing. Gab is curled up in his bed. I can’t see Huck, but I believe he is in the corner of the loveseat closest to me and Sadie is in on Notah and Kerra’s bed. It is all peaceful. For so many houses around here it is surprisingly quiet for a Saturday morning.

This afternoon, everyone is going over to the new house to check things out. The tenant is gone and the house is empty at the moment. I believe we have possession on Monday. All the paper work was done on Tuesday or Wednesday and the house was officially ‘ours’ then. I say ‘ours’ because technically it’s Notah and Kerra’s house, but I think of it as mine too.

It is a wonderful place. Don’t assume it is all classy, cuz it isn’t. But it is a nice stucco house with a walled courtyard on the westside and a fenced courtyard on the east and south. The southern side off the fenced yard has a big fenced area that was once a vegetable garden so the fence is to the ground with a varmint guard along the bottom (small grade fencing in the ground) It is a perfect place for the dogs to run—large area and Chloe can’t get out! Neither can a coyote get under to eat her! Of course there are always owls and hawks who would like to snack on a tiny dog. But Thain and Sadie are there. That should discourage anything that’s thinking about swooping down. I doubt if Chloe is going to be any bigger than Spider. (And a hawk tried to take her once!) Our little biscuit-toasted twinkie really is a tiny dog.

In front of that garden space is another section that once had fruit trees but now only has a couple and in front of that along the road is another section of trees.

Behind the house on the north side is an almost attached garage, then a big open field. And on top of all that all long the north side if the parts I’ve described is a big pasture field! Wow. “Eleven acres of peace and solitude” as Notah says. He is a country boy at heart!