Sore Muscles

We’ve gotten the major portion of the tree off of the house. Dang, that’s been a lot of work. My daughter Corrie (from Germany) described it this way:

We (that is, my family and anyone else who's come over to help) have put most of today, and yesterday, and the day before, into clearing up the yard and getting rid of excess, or dangerously unstable, branches and getting rained on. Afterwards, we were obliged to help ourselves to a pint of ice cream (hey, we deserved it!), pizza, and some stout... since American beer is terrible.

We had some interesting things happen. First, it appears that the damage to the house is limited mostly to a busted gutter and one or two broken shingles. We had just put a layer of plywood on the roof before re-roofing, and that probably kept the tree out of Corrie’s bed. We’re checking for hidden damage, but so far, it’s encouraging.

Second, while we were cutting the tree down, my friend Bill slipped and wrenched his back pretty badly. He tried to keep working (he’s like that) and it seemed to me that it got worse, to the point that he couldn’t bend over to pick up his chainsaw, and if he could, he couldn’t have used it. Meanwhile SteveO and I were telling stories about the good things God has been doing. So we grab Bill and pray for his back.

As we said “Amen,” I asked him how his back felt. He said, “It’s fine,” bent over and picked up his chainsaw and went back to work. The pain was completely gone, and stayed gone the rest of the day. Yay God!

We’re also thankful for God’s protection. Two of the very large logs basically exploded as I touched the chainsaw to them; one missed my foot by an inch. We had been working under those giants for a few days, climbing them to get at limbs (and just ‘cuz it’s fun); I guess they were ready to come down any minute. Sure glad they didn’t until we cut them back from the roof and cleared out space underneath.

Sue’s mom is getting stronger in the convalescent home, but she hasn’t been convalescing as well as Medicare thinks she should, so they want to discharge her tomorrow. Janet has improved (in our opinion) quite a lot in the last couple of days. We attribute it to getting her off of some pretty strong drugs, to getting her hearing aids fixed (I was amazed: the audiologist came to the home to fix the aids!), and perhaps to a realization that she needs to improve if she’s going to stay there.

Sue has asked for a re-evaluation in light of these changes. We’re praying for a better evaluation, as Janet clearly can’t go back home by herself right now. So on the one hand, we’re praying for her to stay in the home, and on the other hand, we’re trying to plan for her discharge.

I’m afraid that Charlie’s estate has suffered from a lack of attention in all this. Sue & I were trying to plan for some of the more urgent aspects last night on our date night. We’re going to need people down there – Charlie’s friends whom we don’t know – to help with some of this.

And while you’re praying, please pray for our rest, including our sleep. Neither of us is sleeping as we need to; I’ve gotten 4 hours a night recently, and it doesn’t seem to be enough. I’m not quite falling asleep at work. On the good side, however, we’re feeling like (mostly) we’re handling the stress better than we were a week or three ago. Again, thanks for your prayers.

Christmas is this weekend, before Corrie flies back to Germany. We’ve loved having her here, and we don’t know when she’s coming back: she’s on a one-way ticket this time. Sigh.