Rainy But Good Day

 We had rain start up last night and now it continues on and off today and probably thru Saturday, except on Saturday snow might mix with the rain at times. 

The grass has greened up and I see flower buds on my daffodil plants. Today is still fairly warm (around 60), but we could see highs only in the 30's as the week progresses and into next week. 

We went to Creighton's Crazy Egg cafe for lunch today. We had eaten breakfast here before, but this was the first time for lunch.

 On the way home we stopped at Meijer to buy some grapefruit that had been advertised. My husband is the grapefruit eater. BOGO free so a good deal. I half-heartedly walked to the back of the store where the soft drinks are. They had some caffeine-free diet Pepsi! I have been trying for over a month to find this in several stores. Snapple was also on sale. And we even managed this shopping while the rain was stopped. We turned onto Highway 30 from the parking lot and drops started falling all the way home. 

I have been coping with lower back and hip and thigh pain for several years now. It has gotten worse in the past few months. I can only walk about 4 blocks before I need to find a place to sit to relieve the pain.

On March 4th I woke up with a stabbing pain on my left hip. When I lifted my leg to put my sock on the stab was terrible. I managed to communicate through the portal with my primary care doctor. She said to see an orthopedist. But since she thought all of the pain was related to the back, I saw the nurse practitioner of a back specialist. I will be starting some PT next week. However, the stabbing pain which is different in nature than the deep aching pains, the NP thought was bursitis.

 Last Monday I saw a hip specialist. He did X-rays and an exam. He also thinks it is bursitis. I am to take a strong anti-inflammatory prescription med and do some PT related to the hip. 

Falling apart is not fun. 

No News Is Good News, Right?

 I haven't posted for a while because things have been fairly routine around here. I did finish and electronically file our federal and state income tax returns this afternoon. I also wrote my book review of the Fives Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride for this coming Wednesday's Winona Literary Club meeting.

A few weeks ago I used Hoopla for the first time through my public library because I had seen a review of a book I wanted to read but didn't want to purchase because I was unfamiliar with the author. Art and Faith by Makoto Fujimura was an interesting listen. Yes, the only thing available on Hoopla was an audio book. I prefer to read (even electronically) because I remember things visually better than by listening. For that reason, I won't post separately about the book. It becomes inaccessible on my tablet on March 17th anyway.

 Mr. Fujimura was born in Japan but became a United States citizen. He lived near enough to ground zero on 9-11 to have to find other accommodations. He writes on how the terrorist attack in New York affected him and his art. He starts the book with comparing the Christian life to the Japanese artform of repairing broken pottery (ceremonial tea cups) with gold. The gold represents the suffering and brokenness in our lives that God redeems to create something extraordinarily beautiful. He also has an intriquing chapter on the tears of Jesus. 

Once when I accompanied my husband to Chicago where he had a conference, I signed up through the Chicago Historical Society I think, for a tour of the Ukrainian Village, an ethnic neighborhood.

The Ukrainian National Museum was a delight to see. I learned about Chernobyl's nuclear accident, how Stalin starved Ukrainians by taking all of their grain and food products, and more pleasantly about the painted Easter eggs and the folk costumes of the country.

The museum tour guide had originally come from Ukraine. He mentioned that there were a lot of undocumented Ukrainians in the neighborhood who came on tourist visas but did not return. They blended into the community because so many people still spoke Ukraine in every-day life. 

We visited the nearby Eastern Orthodox Church where I was surprised to learn that the church ladies were preparing lunch for us. There had been no mention of that in the tour description. 

I mentioned several years ago about the Marcel Fund that provides for impoverished babushkas in Ukraine. I saw in an email from a local church that they had to relocate some of the workers in the eastern part of Ukraine to safer places. That was before the recent fighting by Russian forces, the actual invasion by Russia. Some of the workers decided to stay in danger in order to be available to the elderly ladies.

Our local newspaper had a story today about 2 local men who joined 2 others in a ministry in Poland to help distribute aid. These men had gone to Poland many times to preach and teach and had friends and contacts in Ukraine. They will be there a few weeks. They described the ministry of a church that they knew from their trips.

Continue to ask God to intervene and stop the killing. It looks dark from a human perspective, but a miracle could happen.