The past few days have been eventful ones.  Doug and I spent a cold, windy, Midwest Friday afternoon traipsing through his family cemetery and checking on names, birth dates and death dates from the tombstones for his “family tree”.  I confess to enjoying the family history clue chase…even if they aren’t my personal ancestors!  We also copied photos of his family’s ancestors to create a book for his 95 year old mother.  We did find one photo on Ancestry.com of his grandmother when she was young and his great-grandmother.  It was actually a photo his mother had never seen!  She loved it and, of course, recognized her mother and grandmother immediately.  I’m glad I was there to see her happy reaction…much like mine would be if I could find photos of my ancestors online that I had never seen!

We spent Saturday helping my daughter and her family out at their new six-acre farm site complete with big red barn dating back to the late 1800’s, 62 apple trees, large garden site and a long stand of black walnut trees.  Doug and my son-in-love worked hard taking a large portion of an old tree down…a tree that was growing around a pup tent that had been in it for years!  My oldest grandson worked hard hauling limbs and brush back to the burn pile.  My daughter had prepared homemade chicken noodle soup the evening before.  I stayed with the three youngest grandchildren and got the cornbread ready for our lunch.  After lunch, we headed back out to the farm.  My two youngest grandchildren and I helped haul branches.  It’s going to be a beautiful place for their new farm house!

Sunday morning began with a lovely church service and then to Walmart to buy items to fill two Operation Christmas Child boxes…one for each of us.  I think we’ll specify two girls – one in Brazil (he supports a young girl in Brazil named Eduardo) and one in Peru.  If we pay the $7.50 shipping fee online through Operation Christmas Child, we will be able to see where the boxes are delivered.  I think that would be neat!

Afterwards, we headed out to his house where we began preparations for a dinner party on Sunday evening – for his 95 year old Mom and her primary caregiver, Joan.  We were very much looking forward to it!  I had put the roast in about thirty minutes earlier and was getting ready to prepare the winter roasted vegetables.  I had unloaded the dishwasher then did something that changed the course of events…and I knew better!  Years before, my mother had fallen over an opened dishwasher door and broken her hip, so I knew better.  But I left the dishwasher door down and left the kitchen to ask Doug if he had a pan for the vegetables.  He followed me back inside to look for a pan – about ten feet behind me.  I had forgotten the dishwasher door was down and my eyes were not adjusted coming back indoors from outside.  In less than a split second, I tripped over the dishwasher door and went flying across the kitchen…landing with the right side of my face and head – not to mention my right knee and the right side of my body – hitting the closed oven door with full impact!  My glasses slammed into my nose and broke.

Needless to say, Doug flew to my side, scared to death of what he would find.  After determining I could move and eventually stand up, we headed to the Methodist Hospital Emergency Room – a level I trauma center!  Although they did not have a room at the moment and there were five people in front of us, they managed to get me in rather quickly.  They put me through Cat Scans of my head, neck, chest and back…and x-rayed my painful right knee.  With a history of neck and back surgery in the past, they were not taking any chances.  THANKFULLY, nothing was broken!   Guess I’m a pretty tough cookie after all.

So a word to the wise:  never, ever leave the dishwasher door open!