Folks often say, “It’s the little things that count.” They are right.

After spending more than two-and-a-half months in the hospital, it’s the little things that bring me unspeakable joy; getting to take a shower for the first time instead of a sponge bath because the dressing is finally off my wound; feeling the atmosphere God created on my face instead of the manmade unnatural hospital air that dries out skin; getting to freely wash my hair; cooking something I will enjoy eating…the little things.

After I recovered enough from my second hip replacement surgery (to remove the original hip replacement and clean it out because it had become infected) to get up out of bed and wash myself—I still wasn’t allowed to wash my hair. I was restricted to sponge baths because I had a machine (several during the months) hanging around my neck that sucked poison out of my wound. I couldn’t get it wet. I can’t stand it when my hair is dirty—and after two weeks of not being allowed to wash my hair I took a page out of my hero author and friend Val Poore’s book and washed my hair in the basin after I washed myself. I reminded myself of Val’s ingenuity and how she had constructed a little shower on her barge. She has to sit down under it and the water supply is limited. I’m no Val Poore, but I’ve learned from her remarkable books and the basin trick worked until I finally defied the “no washing hair in the sink because of covid” rule and washed it in the sink when I knew the nurses would be out of the room for a while. That rule made no sense whatsoever; the nurses were in the room handling patients who had covid—we all did even though I was the only one who did NOT have two injections and a booster—and after handling covid patients they washed their hands in the same sink I wanted to use to wash my hair.

After I got home, cooking was a bit of a challenge at first—not the actual cooking—but the standing long enough to cook. My right hip is still weak from two invasive surgeries and I’m missing a part of the back of my leg that used to be there—so I have a strange dip and crease along the wound.

They served “spaghetti” in the hospital. It had no meat in it. The overcooked pasta had been introduced to a splash of tomato sauce—but they didn’t even get close enough to shake hands apparently, because there was no spaghetti sauce on the spaghetti. So the first thing I cooked when I got home—was a copious amount of meatballs to put into the generous sauce I made with an appetizing amount of green peppers, onions, and carrots. Then I not only introduced the pasta to the sauce—I made sure they got really well acquainted! It’s the little things.

‘There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer; the rock badgers are a feeble folk, yet they make their homes in the crags; the locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks; the spider skillfully grasps with its hands, and is the kings’ palaces.” Proverbs 30:24.

Never forget the little things.

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