The Best Laid Plans...

I just should have known better than to make plans.  I woke up this  morning with more creaking bones than is normal for me.  Within an hour or so my lower back had given up the fight and said to me, "Just go find someplace warm and comfy.  And dig out that heating pad.  You're gonna need it."

I checked our local weather forecast and sure enough.  Another cold front is headed our way.  Not as severe as the last one, but enough to send temperatures into the sub-zero range by tomorrow evening.  Maybe I should rent out my arthritic joints to the weather service.  My predictions, based on my joints, are usually more accurate than the professionals predictions.

I am beginning to better understand the advice my Dad gave me.  On the occasion of his 90th birthday he said to me, "Sis, if you get the chance to live to be 90, don't do it!"  By that time Dad had gone from a strong, vibrant man to one who was unsteady on his legs and who, within another year or so, found it necessary to live in the nursing home.

I have to say this for Dad.  He never lost his sense of humor.  When he still lived in his own home and I lived a couple of hundred miles away, he would make sure during our phone conversations that I knew about the apple pie cooling on his counter.  He knew how much I loved his apple pie.  For years I tried to get him to mail me a piece and for years he would tell me that he would, but he just couldn't fit it into the envelope.  Even after leaving his own home, he kept his sense of humor, joking with the nurses and aides and teasing with his older sister who lived in the same nursing home.

So I think I will ignore Dad's advice and strive for that 90 year mark.  But I will follow his example and keep my sense of humor that has to laugh at the absurdities of the Universe tossing a monkey wrench into my best laid plans.  After all, it's not like I have a schedule.  If I get out to play this week or next week isn't important.  What is important is that I woke up this morning.  Even with aches and pains, I still woke up.  The stairs in my building may be a temporary problem, but I can still get around well enough to put a pot of soup on to simmer and bake a loaf of bread.  And a pan of brownies may be just the thing.

Never give up.  And keep on smiling.  And chocolate makes everything better!