A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb

A room without a book is like a body without a soul.

(We have no rooms without books)

My home office bookcase.

One of the bookcases in the living room.
We have books laying around everywhere!
Many of our books are leather bound gold leaf so they have priority.



Kitchen bookshelf.

It's a new day at Harmony Acres and I'm feeling much better today.  Yesterday, the pain from my ankle surgery was excruciating.  I took a pain pill yesterday morning; to no avail.  Luckily, one of my neighbors dropped by in the afternoon and brought me a red beer (beer and tomato juice).  I rarely drink alcoholic beverages (have enough bad habits, don't need another), however; under the circumstances, I made an exception (really glad I did).  Another friend called after he heard (at the little store) that I was having problems with pain (he offered to bring me a bottle of whiskey). 

Becky asked if anyone offered to bring me an herbal remedy for the pain.  Yeah, right.  We live in cowboy redneck heaven so homeopathic remedies would not even be a choice.  A nice big steak, maybe (there aren't a lot of vegetarians around here either).  No matter.  I slept like a log last night and feel like a new woman today. 

One of the bookcases in Becky's room.

As we sat on the front porch, drinking our beer and talking about our gardens, it occurred to me how fortunate I am.  Good friends, good neighbors, a nice vegetable garden, a happy home with lots of happy critters and a daughter who is a true blessing.  Simple Living certainly agrees with me!

Today is a perfect day for reading (cloudy and raining).  The sound of thunder assures me that I have made a good decision. Seldom do I take the opportunity to relax and do nothing. These are some of the books I plan to browse through and take notes from today: 

The Backyard Orchardist
by
Stella Otto.

The Old Farmer's Almanac Book of Garden Wisdom
by
Cynthia Van Hazinga

And The Waters Turned To Blood
by
Rodney Barker

For Mother's Day, Becky gave me Perry Stone's How to Interpret Dreams and Visions.   I am so excited about a day of reading and  relaxing.  My breakfast is ready (two boiled eggs, a multi-grain bagel smothered in oven roasted red pepper hummus and blueberries) and coffee in my favorite cup. By the way, I buy my eggs locally from the Allison family because they are from contented Baptists chickens. Oh Dear! Rain is pouring down outside and I am now ready to retire to my recliner in the garden room.  Life is good!

 

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience : its the ideal life.

 

Surgery Day...... Hell with fluorescent lighting.

How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
~William Shakespeare, Othello, 1604

Well, it's done!  I had my minor ankle surgery yesterday.  My fear knew no limits. Every beat of my heart said "run, run now, run, run, run". My own personal hell on earth.  This is how it went down:

The before pic of my gross ankle:

I arrived at David and Vicky's house at 2:00 p.m.  We decided Vicky would drive me to the doctor's office and Brother Dave would stay home and work on the peacock pen (that's a story for another day).  We arrive at the Doctor's office about 2:40 (this is important as you will see later in the story).  There are three ladies already there ahead of us.  Hang in here with me here because it gets a lot more interesting and there is a lesson to be learned. 

And we sit, and we sit, and we sit.  Finally, about 4:00, one of the ladies ahead of us marches to the receptionist window and says "Cancel my appointment"  young lady at window politely responds "would you like to reschedule?" lady in a huff says "no" and stomps out the door.  Vicky and I look at each other and say "two left ahead of us now".  Then one of the nurses comes out and tells us "Dr. Robison is on his way from the hospital where he had to perform emergency surgery".  I'm O.K. with that.

He arrives in the office around 4:30 and immediately begins to see patients.  They save me for last.  An older lady (yes, even older than me) comes out in a little while and starts to leave.  The receptionist (God love her, she should get hazard pay)  says "Mrs. _________ you have a $30.00 co-pay today."  The lady goes off in a matter of fact tirade that it should be free since she had to wait three hours. 

I've told you all this so I could put forth my opinion on the situation.  I understand that my doctor is in high demand because he is so good at what he does (would you want to stop to eat at a restaurant where there were no cars parked?  I think not?)  So when I go to his office next week to have my stitches taken out I will pack snacks and water in my purse along with a good book.  Instead of wasting our time fuming about things we can't change, perhaps we should take a mental time-out and enjoy it. 

This is what I think: What is more important?  Taking a cyst off my ankle (it's been there 2 1/2 years already)  or saving someones life at the hospital?  The choice is clear to me. 

So, we get to the little room and Dr. Robison comes in and has a nice chat with me (I'm sure the overwhelming scent of my fear is in the air).  At long last we have a name for the knot on my ankle!  (big medical word I can't  pronounce) cyst.  It's a cyst! That's why he gets the big bucks.  After playing "name the knot" for two and a half years with other doctors who simply say "Gee, I don't know what that is"  it finally has a name. Cyst.  Now, we can get down to the business of removal.  

I turn my head away so I don't have to see the needle going into my ankle to numb the area.  I'm thinking one injection and we're done (good thing I didn't look because there were injections all the way around the ankle).

Blood droplets from the multiple injection sites! Yikes!

 

This is what came out of my ankle. Cyst! Ouch!
Looks like an alien life form, doesn't it?

When the cyst was removed, it was placed into a little jar and then packaged in plastic bag that said "bio-hazard".  Now, I'm not sure what I thought was going to happen to the bio-hazard (maybe, send it to Santa Claus and he can re gift it to me in December?) but it is now called a "specimen".  Later I found out they send it to a lab for testing.  That's O.K. with me.  The real shock was the lab charges by the size of the "specimen".  What? What? What?  Now, wait a minute.  The U.S. Postal Service has a policy "if it fits, it ships for one flat rate."  But the instant a cyst becomes a specimen, the value of the little devil goes way up.  We live in strange times!

My ankle after cyst removal.

Time to stitch her up, kids!

There were seven stitches inside (Vicky said you don't count those, but let me tell you, I count every one of them) and eight stitches outside.  Now, it's time to wrap up the ankle and go home with no pain medication (he said take Ibuprofen).  I was awake all night.  The Ibuprofen didn't help at all.  I need to be medicated!  Scrounging around in the medicine cabinet, I found pain pills left over from two years ago.  That's right!  I took them!  He vastly underestimated my tolerance for pain!  I'm whining and I deserve to whine! 

Dr. Robison was kind and gentle throughout the procedure; checking with me often to make sure I was not in pain (if I had known what was really going on, my mind would have conjured up pain).  He was worth the wait and I would not hesitate to use his services again.  Thank You Doctor and Thank You Vicky for being there for me.  Now I want everyone to show the proper shock and horror at my experience and give me tons of sympathy and tell me how brave I am.

Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.  ~Arnold Glasow