RGBP'S FRIDAY FIVE - WHAT I REALLY, REALLY LIKE...ABOUT SUMMER(WINTER0:

What are five things that you REALLY REALLY REALLY like about the current season where you live?

1. All the flowers that are blooming and the critters that come to them - hummingbirds,
finches, honeybees, bumblebees, all kinds of butterflies and hummingbird moths.

2. Fresh herbs and tomatoes growing in the garden.

3. Longer evenings to enjoy.

4. Walks with the greyhounds in the cool of the evening - although that won't
happen again for a very long time.

5. Usually getting away to the beach in WI - which also won't happen this summer.

and, for a bonus:

Something you are looking forward to about another season?

Having my knee function normally again - after this surgery and long, slow, painful process of healing and rehab. That would bring me to fall and cooler temps!

CONFIRMED!
My suspicions were right all along. I have a quad tear on the left knee and will have to undergo surgery next Tues and three months of healing and gruelling rehab. My position will end the end of July and I am hoping to preach & lead worship the last two weeks of July with a heavy, hinged leg brace.
I am not looking forward to this at all. I've been through it 7 years ago on the right knee. I know what it all entails and the pain.
After the Wed. evening potluck with program and communion yesterday, I had to get my leg in the van and one parishioner watched. After I got in, not as smoothly as I had hoped and with some pain, I simply smiled and said, "I'm in. A piece of cake!" She laughed and away I went for a painful ride home. It has been sore ever since. I may have bent the quad more than I should have. Upon getting home, I promptly took a pain pill and feel asleep for an hour or so.
Alas, LH will have a vacation week and will spend it tending his wife, cleaning house, and watering the garden, rather than being at the Lake and enjoying a change of scenery. I feel ever so bad for him. I was ready to see my sister as well and delight in being by the Lake.
It's going to be a long, hot, painful, depressing summer. I can only pray that in this time of healing, God will provide a new opportunity for me to serve. We need some income.
After going through this 7 years ago, I wouldn't have wished this on my worst enemy, and here, I will go through it all again. But, I will do all I can, because I know, that this is a temporary affliction and all the hard work of rehab will bring my movement back and tone and strengthen all my muscles. So, I should be much more toner and buff by the end of the summer!!!! There are some benefits, meager though they are.
I will trust in the healing power of my Lord, who will raise me to new life through this.

KNEE UPDATE -
My MRI is scheduled for Monday and I now have my knee imobilizer. I forgot what
a pain it is - always slipping down.
I'm really only using it to get my leg on the couch, to get into and out of the van so that I can preach this evening and tomorrow morning.
I meet with the Orthopaedic Doc on Wed morning. I already am anticipating the worst - surgery to repair the quad muscle tear. There are just too many similiarities to the right knee 7 years ago. Only this time, I am more aware of what's going on, how to do things that I'd forgotten, and relying on the walker. Makes me feel like a really elderly person!!! But I am thankful that we kept it. I also don't think the quad is torn completely off the knee like last time, but I have been very careful with it.
So, I guess I just have to wait til Wednesday to hear the bad news of what I already fear. Just have to take it a day at a time, do what I can, and go easy with that knee.
It is an awful surgery, so painful. The most painful surgery I've ever had. I just don't want to go through that again. I pray that God will give me the strength to face what I must and for patience with myself and LH with me.
I doubt that we will be able to take our week vacation to the Beach. Perhaps, later. I know that the whole process will take 3 months. So, that will put vacation to Oct.
Will just have to wait and see. Healing prayers are most welcome. Thank you.

A NIGHTMARE COME TRUE -
As if battling with a part-time call is not enough, I am facing another knee injury.
It all started out innocent enough. A walk with the dogs after dinner (and the rainstorms that dumped an inch of rain) for my health and theirs. We made it around
the cul-de-sac and were just across the street from our house when Renoir decides he
wants to go home, whips around and starts to run toward the house, catching me off balance and down on my left knee and hip - thankfully in the grass. I could not get up but held fast with each hand on the leads.
A woman out walking with her son, came over and when I realized I couldn't just get up, volunteered to take the dogs home. She rang the bell and LH got the dogs inside.
Our next door neighbor is a physical therapist and came over to see if I could get up and had her burly husband and the neighbor one door down - who are expecting their second child in Aug. - help me up and walk me over. They were such tall fellows that
by the time we reached the driveway halfway, I had to take my arms off from around their necks because my arms were aching too much. LH went in the basement and dragged out the walker from 7 years ago. I could walk with the walker and made it into the house and onto the couch with my neighbor (God bless her soul) lifting my left leg onto the couch. Several icings later, the left knee was really swollen. After a fitful night on the couch, getting up at six, falling asleep sitting up for another hour or so, I made coffee and made a doctor's appointment.
If I hadn't pushed to be seen, I'd have had to wait another day. They got me in before lunch and it was an hour and a half later, after an x-ray, with Dr. orders for MRI and knee immobilizer that I left. LH was simply wonderful, lifting my leg gently,
keeping it straight to get in and out of the backseat of the car. He didn't make it into the office today. Tomorrow, he will get me outfitted for the immobilizer. The MRI won't be til Monday and then on to the Orthopaedic Dr. I thought I'd never see again.
I'm thinking there is some nasty negative energy being poured out in my direction.
I've already done this - 7 years ago, right knee. I don't want to have this type of surgery again. We can scarce afford it and how would it look to interview somewhere with a leg brace?
It is a struggle to stay positive, to remember that God loves me and cares for me. I did not need this. Not now. Not ever. So God and I will wrestle through this together again. And why such a crappy redux, as if once were not enough. I cannot jeopardize the part-time call I have. We need the income. Surgery, if needed, will through a huge monkey wrench into preaching and serving. NOt to mention the physical therapy afterwards. Another 3 months.
How does one keep hope, stay calm in the middle of the boat in the midst of a life-threatening storm? Only by keeping focus on the One who can calm the storm and who is there in the boat with me. To my Lord, I'll cling. Keep me in your healing prayers.

It's so dry...we're giving out rainchecks for baptisms!!!!!!!!! We're in an official drought here.
The lawns in the neighborhood look like the African veld, dry, brown, and yellow.
A local farmer just mowed the meadow which had grown quite high since March and was
beginning to look like tinder. There are at least 25 rolls of shredded wheat which as I write are being loaded onto flatbed trucks.
I've had to water the flower beds, day lilies which haven't bloomed yet, the herb
garden and my milkweed plants growing just over our fence in the meadow, as well as our poor little gingko tree which is just thirsting and has only small leaves on it. It's just too, too dry. Normally, this happens in July/Aug. and not already the whole month of June. All the storms dry up before they reach us. We haven't had a decent thunderstorm with an inch or two of rain all spring.
Feeling a wee parched as this interim continues. I did receive a call about an interim position, but too far away on the state line that I would have to rent a place and only get home - who knows, every other week or once a month. I just can't do that again. Spending all that money on extra rent and utilities and being far from home. It is too hard on my spirit.
I'm praying that another position will open up for me, with more hours, better compensation and pension and close to home. Do I hope for too much?
Although, I'e been encouraging the congregation about trusting God, God's plans for their future, I have been in need of that myself. I keep trusting the Great Silence and pray for God's mercy on us and for us.
I think I feel ready for some vacation. I'm only taking a week, since the church can't afford a supply. I have two weeks earned and another week tallying up. With the Wednesday evening potluck, program, and communion, I am putting in long hours on my day at the church. But it's working out ok.
It's also getting very hot in these here parts. So hot, that walking will not be option for most of the week. That puts a kink in getting my exercise and exercising the greys. I did walk through most of W-Mart this morning and that counts as some. I also did some wall push-ups this morning.
I'm thinking being middle-aged and sometimes forgetting something isn't all that bad. It just means an extra trip up and down the stairs for something I've forgotten and some extra exercise!!!! Who knew?!!?
Prayng that you are more quenched than we are and that God is showering your lives with abundant grace.

RGBP'S FRIDAY FIVE: SUMMER FUN EDITION

Please tell us five things you are doing this Summer.

1. Driving to the Lake (Michigan, that is) via Chicago and Wisconsin to spend time
with my sister and BIL, enjoying the beach.

2. Weeding & watering - the garden and flower beds.

3. Walking the dogs in the cool of the evening.

4. Harvesting fresh herbs, garlic, tomatoes and maybe a red pepper or two.

5. Hosting July 4th with the SIL's.


Bonus? One thing you're not doing, but WANT to be doing

Seeing my niece and my nephew and his wife. Timing just isn't going to work out
to get together at the Lake house. A real shame.