After visiting my Grandmother and Uncles in Chicago, I knew I didn’t want to live and work in the city when I graduated from Auburn. I’ve been offered some good paying jobs at large hospital labs, but I’m fortunate live in a great area in NW Alabama, and even though I live in the country on part of what use to be the family dairy farm, it’s only 5 minutes from town. The cost of living is low and the hospital I work at offers cardiac surgery & neurosurgery. Our open heart surgery is rated one of the best in the state. We have a great musical heritage in the area known as the hit recording capital of the world in the sixties, so there is always something going on musically or some type of theater and the arts. I’ll go into one of the Mom & Pop grocery stores in Tuscumbia for a gallon of milk and spend an hour talking to people I know. I don’t take that for granted.
July 19, 2011. Sunrise over the Tennessee River
I’m thankful for my family, wonderful friends, great co-workers who even my Mom considers family. I had knee surgery last week, to repair the meniscus on each side, cartilage and ligament damage incurred while crawling up on a chair in April to change a light bulb. I haven’t lacked for a meal with Mom and my friends around. I graduated from crutches to a cane today, and I am very grateful for that. I think everyone should experience what the disable go through; maybe they would be more considerate and understanding of those with handicaps.
My three hooligans are thankful they have a good home on three acres with all the mice, birds, bumblebees and rabbits to chase. They are thankful their lives are now free of the abuse of the past, except when I yell at them to stop digging up a tree after mice.
My garden really never got off the ground with my knee injury. I planted cucumbers and squash three times, and the extreme hot weather we had during the spring and summer burned them up as soon as the plants popped out of the soil. You tend to fuss after the work you put into a garden doesn’t yield veggies, but I did get corn, and tomatoes. Last week we had temperatures in the high seventies; today we are having snow flurries with temps in the high thirties. Talk about a swing. Before my surgery, I managed to get most of my potted iris and daylilies into the ground. Some aren’t where I wanted them, but they are out of a pot and in the soil. Next spring after I see the colorization of each, I’ll move to an appropriate themed bed.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten to appreciate each morning’s sunrise. It means I get to see another wonder day.
