This of course is Mother’s Day Extravaganza Weekend! It’s that time of the year when we celebrate Mother in whatever generation she is found. Yesterday, Cheri and I took our second trip to Grafton in five days to take her mom out for an early Mother’s Day lunch, and to bring her the pair of web folding chairs to use on her patio this summer, that were supposed to arrive last week, but instead came the day after our first trip. No problem – four-hour round trip, and a chance to visit, so I think we have cared for that part of Mother’s Day.
Now we move into the three-day weekend of enjoying whatever Cheri wants to enjoy. Presents have all been purchased, including a new recliner that is scheduled to come on Tuesday. I will be making a coffee cake tomorrow for Sunday morning breakfast, and we will go and get the snow crab for supper that evening. That should take care of most of all the paraphernalia and other stuff… However, given my wonderful wife’s predilection for never standing still, the list of things to “get done” – you know, the “projects” continue to grow, and to grow more urgent. This means that instead of enjoying a couple of days off, this will be the Mother’s Day Campaign, to conquer all the things we have been talking about for a number of weeks, when the snow was on the ground. Now, however, there is no excuse – absolutely nothing stands in the way of accomplishing things… which of course is the essence of Mother’s Day, right? Getting things done – and not frittering time away with leisure or relaxation. So, I woke up later this morning, having willed myself to sleep in on a day when the car did not have to move by 7:15. My dear wife, on the other hand, also slept in until nearly 5:15, so that when I awoke two hours after her, she had already had her breakfast, almost finished the jigsaw puzzle, took care of the cats, finished some reports for work (on her day off) and a host of other little items. Have I told you that I wake up slowly? Especially when I no longer have to be in a car driving four hours to get to a 10am meeting, I find it delightful to sit at the dining room table, have a cup or two of coffee, even breakfast, and begin to start to think about considering moving into my day. After nearly 40 years of marriage, it’s evident that we, husband and wife, are wound differently. So, as I sat at the table, enjoying caffeine, Cheri immediately began to rehearse her/our/the universe’s plans for today and this weekend. Realize, it wasn’t, “Did you sleep well? How are you feeling today? It sure looks like a pretty day to sit out on the back patio and just enjoy the sun!” No. We have seven new yet-to-be-hung bamboo curtains for the gazebo. Before the first cup of coffee was down, she was ready to “just try” one of the curtains and see if the hooks from the old curtains matched up with the eyes of the new ones. If I had been in Vegas with a huge wad of cash, it would have been truly appropriate to bet on “no, they won’t work.” So, leaving the coffee behind on the table, we carried one of the blinds to the gazebo, opened them up, and again, what to my wondering eyes? The hooks were set 3 ½ inches too narrow for the new blinds. Jackpot! Except I didn’t bet. This meant, of course, that instead of spending 20 minutes taking down seven old blinds, and simply hanging seven new ones in their place, we now expanded the process of hanging the new ones by measuring to see if they indeed were 48 inches wide (they weren’t) and where the center of the blinds were, and the center of the window, and then measuring from the center each way to find the distance to the eye, and then translating that to the wall, removing the hooks, and carefully screwing them into the new location, hopefully so the blinds would be precisely centered on the window – of a gazebo, with bamboo blinds. Of course, Cheri had a different method, that required measuring the old blinds, and then the new ones, and moving the hooks to where the new ones should be… this all happened before 7:30am, as my cup of coffee cooled on the dining room table. We are going to do this seven times. Should be done in a matter of hours, I would estimate. The list spilled out of Cheri’s mouth and mind: we need to paint the huge plastic pots that will sit in the front of the garage with flowers in them. Yes, you can guess that after they are painted and dried, we then will need to shop for flowers. We also have about three branches on one of the spruce trees that have turned brown, that she has been looking at for a number of weeks. Those must be cut off, or else tragedy will ensue. She then thought we should sweep out the garage, which will also mean cleaning out the garage and reorganizing, and so on. She mentioned our steam cleaning the carpets, and the floors really need a good cleaning as well. You know, every one of these things is pretty important, and helps to maintain the house and spruce it up, and make things nicer. It’s all true. It’s just going to take some time, is all. And I guess, if this is what she really wants to do in spending her Mother’s Day Extravaganza weekend, I’m all in. But I do have the right to sigh, just a little, in private, since work and play rarely intersect. If, however, I can best show my love to this woman who has cared for me and raised our sons for so many years by working like a dog all weekend, then I am happy – or at least willing – to take on that task. It’s just a matter of me changing my mind and doing what she wants to do, even if it is working too hard on a weekend when she should just relax. In the end, it’s the love that counts, and maybe the tasks that get finished… Word for the day: decubitus. Pronounced dee-cue-BEET-us. It’s a Latin word that in it’s most pure form comes from de meaning “down” and cubare, meaning “to recline” – so it became decumbare, “to lie down,” and decubitus becomes the act of or the position of lying down or reclining. “She can’t come to the door right now – she is decubitus.” Of course, the medical industry can’t leave well enough alone, so if you are in a constant state of decubitus, they decided that the sore that comes from lying down so long – what we call a bed sore – is in effect, a decubitus. So get up now and then, and avoid that!
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AuthorAfter 43 years of ministry, Randy Cross lived his "fourth life" and shared about retirement, living boldly and intentionally in our world. To be sure, there was some North Dakota thrown in. Archives
March 2023
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