Mom took me to her church this morning. The pastor commented on it being St Patrick’s Day and asked if there was anyone who didn’t have green on. He had a green leprechaun hat, the green and white hat band which he took off the hat, and a green scarf to give out, but after that, he said anyone else without green was on their own!

There’s a gallery in the church where members can sell their work. Today, it featured two painters. One was into mixed media which didn’t do a lot for me, but I liked the other one’s work.

Today was the first Sunday in a month that Mom has attended church. She said she didn’t like the way they are doing communion now and I suggested that she could still go every Sunday except Communion Sunday. Hopefully, she will start attending again.

After church, Mom took me to Shari’s for lunch. She had a cup of tomato soup and I had a plate of broccoli. They aren’t very well set up for plant-based diets! Then Mom ordered a slice of Marionberry pie to go. We shared that later.

Yesterday, Mom’s neighbor across the street invited us to come over and see her flowers. Her name is Jean and she recently had surgery on her right hand so she’s had a difficult time doing anything. She had asked us to pick up some daffodils for her to give to her daughter for her birthday today. We got some and when we brought them to her, she wanted to pay but Mom wouldn’t let her. She said that Jean buys her stuff all the time, not to mention all the things Jean bakes and brings over to her.

When we got back to Mom’s house, we were looking at her back garden. She has a lot of perennials that are starting to bloom, but her berm was covered with weeds. Mom and I spent some time pulling up all the weeds. Fortunately, the ground is still moist and the weeds came out easily.

When we went into the house, Mom said that she was tired. I asked if she wanted to go to her bedroom and lie down with her biomat, but she said that she wanted to lay on the couch and have me tell her stories. I asked what kind of stories she wanted and she said real stories, so I decided to tell her stories about all the places we worked when we were Workamping. I started with our first job at a gun range in the coastal mountains of California, then moved on to our activity director jobs in Oklahoma, doing the Amazon Christmas rush in Nevada, and working at a campground in Alaska. As I was telling her about sugar beet harvesting in Montana, her eyes started to close. She awoke for a moment when I was telling her about operating the Christmas tree farm in Texas and asked a couple of questions, but then she fell into a deeper sleep when I told her about our first summer at Wagon Trail Campground in Door County. From there, I talked about getting to spend a night in the Judd family home (her ancestors) in Ontario, Canada, and seeing Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, and then seeing the Statue of Liberty from a bridge in New York. I told her about our winter job in Florida cleaning bathrooms and then going back to Wagon Trail Campground to clean bathrooms for another summer. That was when Mark decided he wanted to go to RV tech training school in Florida and I spent the winter with Mom in Oregon. That was also the winter we bought our house and the paperwork had to travel all over the country to be completed. I talked about the jobs I had in Door County my first summer, starting at H&R Block and Block Advisors in Tucson, and then going back to Wisconsin and getting my job at the welcome center. I finally started talking about getting the job at the Noble House and that was when she woke up. Mom usually has her TV on when she wants to take a nap because the voices lull her to sleep. That was what I was trying to do for her, so I was really glad she woke up then because I was running out of stories to tell!

After she woke up, we started playing Scrabble, but this time we alternated playing Scrabble on the board with playing Bananagrams, or as we like to call it, Banana Scrabble. I lost count of how many games we played this afternoon and evening. It was such a beautiful day, I would have liked to go for a walk with her, but on the other hand, playing Scrabble stimulates her brain and right now, she needs all the brain stimulation she can get!

Mom finally went to bed and I came to my room and called Mark. He went to church this morning and actually listened to the sermon! After the service, there was a finance committee meeting and Mark was invited to come and give a presentation. Mark has been working on applying for a grant for more church security. Given that my church was torched a number of years ago and robbed last fall, this has been a high priority for Mark. One of the things Mark had suggested was that the driveways in the front and back be gated. The gates could be left open during the day and on certain evenings when there are groups there, but the gates would be locked at night. Mark says that a day or two ago, the pastor, his father, and Mark put up a gate on the back driveway. Mark also has other safety measures in mind like cameras and lights. I’m not sure what he’s including in this grant, but I’m very proud of him for taking on this project. There aren’t too many people who would take on something this big without training!

Did you hear that Mark? I’m proud of you! <3