Well, I know I said my goal was to write every day, but it has been quite a week, and life got in my way. One week ago today, my dad had his left knee replaced. As I posted earlier, I was planning on giving my folks as much help as I could. With the exception of yesterday, I've been with them every day, and most days I've been there from early in the morning until later in the evening. I'm happy to report that Dad is doing very well. Today, he was able to walk short distances without the walker and even went out to the mailbox. At this point, he still isn't convinced that he made the right choice in replacing the knee, but I'm thinking that his opinion will change once his healing is complete. It truly is amazing to me how well a 77 year old guy is doing only one week after such major surgery. His goal is to be playing golf again next winter, and I think he has a very good chance of making that goal.
Today was a good example of how our days are typically going. I made a cinnamon struesel coffee cake and had it in the oven while I got ready for the day. Then, I went to the grocery store and got some stuff to make dinner and then headed out for the drive to my parents' house. When I got there, Mom went off to volunteer at hospice, and I made lunch for Dad. Their cell phone had a weird error message on it, and I fixed that by just shutting off and turning on the phone again. I showed both parents how to do this. I prepared a maple glaze marinade for salmon and got that going in the refrigerator. I helped Dad get situated in his PCM (knee bending machine.) He napped while the machine did his bending for him. I went out to address a problem I had caused with the computer.
For Father's Day this year, I wanted to get something that would occupy Dad while his movement is restricted. I decided upon a Flight Simulator computer program and a fancy joystick. Bob and I tried to move their desktop upstairs and install the program for them. Unfortunately, when we moved the computer we couldn't get the modem to connect again. We checked the cable outlet and it worked fine on a TV. Mom was upset because she has had recent difficulty getting service through the cable company. I placed a call, and they checked the connection remotely and said we had a problem that would require a service call. The service man could not come out until today. I thought that their modem was very old, so I brought a new one for them. I couldn't get the new modem to work either, and the service man came today. He checked everything working back from the modem out to the street. The problem was in the wiring coming into the house. We put on the new modem anyway, as it is much faster than the old one. By this evening, we had the simulator software installed, the joystick installed, and had calibrated it. We set Dad up to fly a Cessna out of our local airport. There is a significant learning curve involved, but I think he may like it.
When the service man left, I put the maple glazed salmon in the oven, and made rice pilaf and peas for dinner. It turned out fine, and my folks said it was tasty. After dinner, I did the dishes, and got Dad flying on the simulator. We watched most of the Twins game and then headed for home, getting home around 9:30. This is how Hunter looked when he realized we were finally getting home to make his dinner.
How could you not love that look? Or this one?
Jack was just as excitable as he was on June 14 (see post prior to this one.)
So all in all, it was a pretty productive, and good day. Dad wasn't in too much pain, we got a few things fixed, dinner was yummy, and I was able to help out a bit. I will close with a couple of pics of the peonies that my mom cut for me from her yard. These peonies came from my grandmother's yard. My mom dug them up when they were going into a nursing home 18 years ago. They are still absolutely gorgeous!
Be grateful and see the beauty in each day!
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