Tuesday's Road Trip

As those of you who live in Michigan or Minnesota will understand, I never made it out to New Baltimore to see my Mom this Sunday. So, I arranged to leave work today at 2:00 PM and drive out there, along with one 4-cup container of my latest Beef, Mushroom and Barley soup
and another 4-cup container of my version of Jake's Potato Soup. I set the cruise control at 80 MPH and got there just under one hour!!!

Mom was sleeping when I walked in, but awoke immediately. She said the therapy is wiping her out (and, she said she did tell her therapist how I had said there were times when I wanted to kill the therapist who came out to my house. Okay, so yes, I did say that, but not so she would repeat it, merely to give her an idea of how tough it would be! Geesh! They will all probably ambush me in the hall and beat the snot out of me!!)

Anyway, they have modified her walker and at the last session, she walked 26 feet!!! She has changed her aspirations somewhat as a result of this progress. Instead of saying all she wants is to go home, now she says she would like to stay there until her therapy no longer gives her any improvement. In her own words, "I want to be out at Lake Orion this summer, but not in a wheelchair. I can walk 26 feet now, but Joe said its about 40 feet from the front porch to the kitchen, so that's at least how far I need to be able to walk."

The old gal still has spunk!

And, now the moment you've all been waiting for: She loved the split pea soup! She said she was a little worried when she read in the Blog I added red pepper flakes instead of salt, but she said it wasn't too spicy, just really good. Now, I hope "somebody" will call and let me know if she liked the Beef, Mushroom and Barley Soup and/or the Potato Soup.

I left just after 4:00 PM, hoping I'd miss the rush-hour traffic and, mostly, I did. I got home about 5:45. Before I got home, my brother Joe called me on the cell phone to let me know how she was doing (I appreciate that, BTW) and was surprised I had just left there. I guess I should have told everybody I was coming to see her, but it was a last minute decision.

Once home, I was tired from the driving, so I decided that dinner tonight would be the last three chicken legs (cold) and a tossed salad. That made clean-up pretty easy - threw away the paper plate, rinsed out the salad bowl and my fork and I was done!

I watched some TV, but called it an early night.