November 2020, The Healing Power of Gratitude

 November is usually the time of family gatherings and the beginning of the festive Holiday Season.  As this year has been, there is a new normal and way we do many things.  We have 4 family members who have birthdays in November and we were planning to celebrate with most of them.  Those plans were changed and we decided to not travel and to stay home and use the wonderful blessing of technology to stay connected.  

We spent 4 days in Wichita Kansas with our son and his family.  We celebrated Williams 8th Birthday.  We had a great time enjoying the Fall weather and taking our daily walks in the neighborhood.  We made lots of good food, played lots of board games and completed the hardest puzzle I have every put together.  It was a 3D picture from the Harry Potter series.  They read the whole series this year as a family and it was fun to see this picture come to life.

William has so much expression in all that he does.  He loved that the candles came to life and become sparklers.  Fitting for this active boy.  He is kind, gentle and loves his 6 year old Sister.  He is a gifted student and enjoys learning - things like coding and relativity.  He is also very boy and loves sports, skateboards and his bike.  He only has so much patience and then - an explosion!  He works really hard to harness his energy in good ways.

Building puzzles is a great time to visit with family and be constructive at the same time.  When my mother-in-law would come to visit when my children were young, I would have a quilt on the frame that needed to be quilted.  She loved that and we could visit and quilt and catch up on life.  We enjoy building puzzles when we visit Wichita.

In our Church, when a child turns eight, they are given the opportunity to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This was a big birthday for William.  He chose to be Baptized and so on Saturday, November 28 a small group of family gathered and witnessed that special ordinance and occasion.  We made the decision to not return to Wichita and to stay home,  We were able to participate over ZOOM and we are so grateful for technology.  Family from many states were able to tune in and participate.  Blessings.

We have had an ongoing project with our Son, Josh to help restore the original siding on his home.  We completed the second story with repairs made to damaged panels and primed and then painted two coats.  We are now working on the main level where there is more damage.  We tried scraping the paint - a very slow tedious job - but no worries, the labor is cheep.  You can see the progress we were making. He had purchased some original used panels from a refurbishing company, but bought all they had.  We found a lumber yard who cuts what you need and purchased about 30 additional new panels.  So the work is moving forward.  

He decided it was going a little slow and purchased a wood planer and in less than 5 minutes the old paint is gone and the wood is clean, ready to put back on the house.  We now have about 1/2 of this wall done and it will go much faster.  Grateful for nice Fall weather that we can still work a few days a week.  Our days are numbered until Spring.  It will really be nice when it is finished.

Russ continues to deal with Dupuytren's Contracture.  He has had two foot surgeries and 2 hand procedures.  While we were in Vienna, Austria we were able to find a physician who specialized in this and a new procedure that did not need surgery.  He had his right hand done last November in Austria.  It was successful and so much better recovery than with surgery.  His left hand developed the contracture earlier this year and so we found a hand specialist here and he had the procedure done this month.  Because he had never had surgery on this hand it was actually more successful.  This is a photo on day 1 of the procedure and the next photo is the complete process.

We are so grateful his fingers are flat and straight and no complications.  He wears a splint at night for about 3 months, but so far it has healed perfect.

Dupuytren's is most common in people whose families come from northern European countries.  Men are more likely to get this disease than women.  Seeing that 99 % of his genetics are from England, he fits the description.

We had a visit from my niece, Jessica from Arizona last weekend.  She came with a friend to run in a half marathon in Fort Worth, TX.  She visited our home when she was about 10 years old and had not been since.  It was nice to see her even if it was only for a short visit.  She said she preferred the dry, hot dessert of Arizona to the beautiful humid days of Fort Worth!  

We always enjoy feeding the Missionaries.  We had 4 Sisters to dinner and decided to serve them an Austrian dinner.  We had pork schnitzel with parsley potatoes, vegetables and ended with fresh baked apple strudel.  The fun part is opening up our drink bar and serving mineral water with an assortment of flavors.  The ginger and pumpkin were favorites.  We are getting pretty good at the schnitzel cooking.

One of the things I have enjoyed during this time of staying home is reading good books.  I have shared a few in the past and would recommend a few others.

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown takes place in the early 1900's in California.  It opened my eyes to some things that I was not aware of.  Slave Trade has been around for centuries and it is not limited to one race.  It is an amazing story of the efforts of one group of people who made a difference and continues to bless the lives of individuals through their service and efforts.  It is a story that details the long hard road to change and the amazing transformation that can come with hope, trust and love.

Russ has always been an avid reader.  He reads several novels a week.  I had purchased the Fire and Steel Series by Gerald Lund several years ago.  He wrote one a year for five years and I ordered most of them as E-books.  They take place in the late 1890's through WWII in Germany.  I wish I had read these books before I lived in Germany and Austria.  I grew up with watching John Wayne movies - either westerns or war movies.  Friday night Drive-In movies with the family.  Clearly, the stories I watched and learned in history classes was not the whole story.  I am only in volume two and cannot put it down.  I am learning not only about some of the history of the countries but about the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the War years in Europe.  Having been in most of the cities it takes place in and meeting people from these places, it fills in a lot of history that helps me understand things better.  It is very easy reading and enjoyable as well.

As we complete the month, we were looking forward to flying to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving and Birthdays with our family there.  As Covid-19 continued to spread, we decided it would be best if we did not travel.  Again, we were able to fill our days in ways that turned out to be great blessings.

On Friday, November 20, President Russell M. Nelson spoke to the world wide Church in a special 15 minute devotional.  He shared his feelings about the current state of affairs in the world and then shared that the greater need in the world was to overcome the spiritual plague that is affecting us.  He said the Healing Power is in Gratitude.  He asked each of us to spend the next 7 days expressing Gratitude and using Social Media as our Gratitude journal.  He asked us to share with #GiveThanks.  He then asked us to Pray daily.  He said, "Prayer brings forth miracles."  He asked us to pray to Heal our hearts, families, societies and the world at large. It has been a truly memorable week as we not only accepted that invitation and shared our thoughts of gratitude with others, we also were blessed as we spent hours reading the thoughts and feelings of our friends and family who participated.  Nothing else really mattered as we focused on Gratitude.  Even when a tornado hit less than a mile from our home, we felt the peace and calm of following the Prophet and his promised blessings.  He said, "Counting our blessings is better than recounting our problems."

I can truly say I have felt peace and calm and not fear as I have looked for all things in Gratitude.  

I am a "ministering Sister" to 3 ladies in my Ward (Church).  One of my Sisters has some special needs and I have been helping her for the past 7 months by taking her to Doctors appointments, scheduling appointments, helping with daily tasks, etc.  She has never cooked a Thanksgiving Dinner and struggles with food preparation in general.  I invited her to my home on Wednesday to learn how to cook a Turkey dinner.  We started with pies.  We made pumpkin and lemon meringue.  We made sweet potatoes in orange sauce, cranberries, stuffing and ended with stuffing the turkey and baking it.  We cleaned up and talked while the turkey was baking.  She was able to take home the whole turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, gravy fixings, cranberries and pumpkin and lemon pies.  It was a great experience for her to actually get to make it and to watch and then help in making each of the items.  I am grateful I was able to help her learn a new skill that will hopefully help her in the future.  I met with her the week before and we made sloppy joes, meatloaf and chicken foil dinners and put them in her freezer so she has meals for this month already made.  I know she will start to feel better if she is getting better nutrition and eating more regularly.  

Last year we fed 80 YSA for Thanksgiving, so preparing two small Turkey dinners this year was great.

Russ and I worked really hard the past 6 weeks on a wellness challenge.  We invited our family to join us and we had a great time sharing recipes and challenges and success's along the way.  We just wanted to be in better shape as we came into the Holiday Season - so we could enjoy it without gaining too much weight.  We each lost 5 pounds and many inches.  I lost about 14 inches overall.  That is a great feeling! 

                    

Birthday Boys with Dad, Andrew

FIT4FALL WINNER!

Andrew just found out he was the grand prize winner in his age group for the Fitness challenge we participated in.  He had his choice of an Elliptical, Tread mill or Rower.  He chose the Elliptical.  
My Son-in-law lost 30 pounds and many inches.  He has about 120 pounds to go and he is doing so good. A granddaughter found some foods she had been eating that were causing her some inflammation problems and she has also lost several pounds and is feeling much better.  We are grateful for our bodies and the amazing creations they are.  We know we have been blessed with good health and pray we will continue to stay healthy during this crazy time.  

And so we close another month.  A perfect ending to a month of Gratitude as we decorated our home for Christmas.  We decorated the trees and put out about 40 Nativity sets.  Even with no visitors or parties, we delight in bringing the sights, sounds and smells of the season into our home.  There is no better feeling than the Spirit of Jesus Christ to be manifest in the lights and decorations and the spirit of service.   We look forward to December and all that it will bring.

Sunday was the first day of Advent.  We love this tradition we learned about in Germany.  We celebrate the remembrance of Jesus entering the world as a baby at Christmas and also the Advent to come, or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The candles on the wreath symbolize hope, love, joy and peace.  You light one candle on each Sunday before Christmas.  You spend time as a family together and reading Christmas stories.

#LightTheWorld

Cooked 10 mini pumpkins left over from Fall Decorating today - Pumpkin soup is calling - its Dinner time!

With much love,

The Grimmett's