Category Archives: Health

Bible study, expatriate life, family, Health, holidays, The Teachings

The Beginning of a Quiet Week

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Thanksgiving week is usually a busy week for us. People are coming in. Last year was larger than normal, as both of our children were here, with grandchildren, a sister, and a cousin, plus spouses. We had to set up an extra table for dinner. Thanksgiving has always been a busy time, yet a fun time.

This year, the pandemic has canceled all that. It will just be Lynda and me. Our son was here with his partner last week. They quarantined for two weeks in Chicago before coming, as did we here, so we all felt safe doing that. Charles also came for a week in October, and, if plans work out, they will do the same in mid-December. Our daughter’s family has sickness running through it. Not the corona virus, but the strep throat that kids seem to get every year in school and pass on to parents. So they will hunker down in West Texas.

Last week we had an early Thanksgiving dinner with our visitors, not quite traditional but close. We are now eating leftovers and soon I’ll be making soup and figuring out how much turkey I have to freeze, along with other things. For sure we will be eating leftovers on Thursday. So Thanksgiving will be a quiet affair.

That is actually back to normal. Life is quiet for us. Lynda’s health issues would have forced us into quietness even if there hadn’t been a pandemic. The double-whammy means we don’t go out. I still go to Wal-Mart for groceries and meds, but try to shop so as to go every nine or ten days instead of every five or six days as I used to. I still go to church, except when quarantining. We still see our neighbors on occasion. In this rural neighborhood we have more vacant lots than built-on lots, so you have to go out of your way to see you neighbors. Getting out of the house mostly means taking walks, not drives.

This week, as I look ahead on Monday and build my to-do list, looks to be a writing week. My stock trading activities are now quite efficient and don’t take more than an hour a day. I normally stretch that out to two or so. Last night I spent some time on a writing project: adding commentary to the transcribed letters from our Kuwait years. This went fairly quickly. I want to keep commentary to a minimum. At this point I’m halfway through the book with just a few hours work, and could easily finish it this week. I still have editing to do on the letters, then proofread it all and compare it to the original letters, then decide if I’m going to add photos and if so how many. I don’t know that I’m going to make this a continuous task or rather work on it in odd moment as the spirit moves me, such as when multi-tasking before the television.

I might spend a little time fleshing out the next Bible study I want to write. I’ve selected it and, having taught it twice, have a lot of beginning material. But other studies have been nagging at me, suggesting I develop and write them instead. I will have to spend some time deciding.

A letter to an old friend of my wife and me is in the offering, perhaps as early as today. Listing more things on Facebook Marketplace will also be a task quite soon, maybe even today. While I’ve been pleased with how that has gone, I’ve found it is time consuming. I plan on listing my box of JFK assassination magazines that I bought at auction some years ago, as well as our old treadmill and older bicycles. All of that will take some time. As will a few other downsizing activities.

Which brings me to my novel-in-progress. Yes, I want to get back to that. I think I know how to plow ahead with it and not be stymied by the historical elements. Ideas are floating through my mind and I need to get them written before they totally float away. It is a featured task on my to-do list, though I may need to do a few others first.

All of this is possible because of the quiet Thanksgiving. I will miss not seeing my children and grandchildren all together. But I will also feel good knowing they are protecting themselves where they are, perhaps getting some rest rather than going through all the trouble of travel. We will look forward to making Thanksgiving a busy time in 2021.

Documenting America, goals, Health, home improvements, reading, Writing

Weary Once More

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My plans for today’s blog was a book review. But it would be an intense book review, and I don’t know that I have the strength of mine for it at the moment. So I’ll write about weariness.

Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors.

After having written about the Kuwait years letters in a recent post, I did a little more searching in the storeroom and found a few more items and transcribed them. The collection is now up to 143 items, the computer file running to 152 pages and 89,000 words, maybe 300 of which are commentary I’ve begun to add. I think I’m done with it. I hope I’m done with it. The Saudi years will be some time from now, after I get the Kuwait years into published form.

The last two days have been full, though in some ways I wonder exactly what I accomplished. In the evenings I worked on saving e-mails to Word documents for my letters file. I also collated five notebooks of printed correspondence, a task that’s not quite complete. Wednesday morning I worked outside for an hour. I intended to yesterday, but rain quashed that notion.

Then I’ll get to correct this one in the same way.

I attended a writing group meeting via Facebook live stream and Zoom conference on Wednesday. On Thursday I attended a writing workshop on improving books for getting noticed on Amazon. Much to consider.

A writing task I’ve been planning to do was to correct and republish my original Documenting America book, updating the works by this author section all versions, and correct the running heads and locations for page numbers for the print version. I then will republish it, then do some Amazon ads for it. I originally published this in 2011, and I don’t think I ever updated it.

And, this one will also need some updating.

Alas, I found my computer files in a mess. I had files here, files there, folders inside of folders, duplicates and triplicates. I couldn’t tell for sure which was my latest file. So, while listening to the webinar yesterday, I multi-tasked by creating a good file structure and move files into it from their scattered locations. I found that work mentally exhausting, and I was good for nothing after doing that. Except I did figure out which was the latest print book file and began working on it.

That came after Thursday normal stock trading work, a Wal-Mart grocery and meds run, and getting a roast started for supper, adding the veggies after the webinar. Then it was off to the sunroom and reading in a David Morrell novel. Then to the living room and more work on e-mails. I eventually dished up supper, and store-bought pie for dessert, and went back to e-mails.

Then, I was exhausted. We had The Curse of Oak Island re-runs on, which are easy to tune out and do other things. Then it was read aloud in an Agatha Christie mystery. Now, Friday morning, I’m doing trading, and work on the book revision. Soon we’ll head on a 45 mile drive for some medical tests for Lynda.

And I’m weary. Weary in well-doing. Weary in from doing too much. Getting my book corrected and re-published has to be my top priority. I hope, when we get back from the distant lab, to get back to the print book. I could finish that today and get on to the e-book. I’m hoping some energy will return.

Health, letters, miscellaneous

The Best Laid Plans

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I’m interrupting my planned posting schedule, once again, due to a health concern. This time it’s me, not the wife. Yesterday, after a quick, early-afternoon trip to the pharmacy for some needed meds, a huge wave of tiredness came over me. I was unable to do any writing, nor did I feel like doing my afternoon reading in the sunroom. I sat, caught up on e-mails and Facebook (i.e. wasted time), but had not gumption to do much else. Heated up some supper and dished out some already prepared dessert.

Then, around 7 p.m. or so, I noted “weakness” in my left arm. I don’t know how else to describe it. No pain, just weakness. Since heart attacks and strokes are sometimes first indicated in the arms, I paid attention all evening to how it felt. Took a low-dose aspirin. No change. Didn’t feel like doing our reading aloud.  Went to bed early, around 10:30 p.m.; no change. Prayed. Got up after half an hour to sit in my chair, figuring I’d better stay awake to monitor it. Prayed. Fell asleep at some point.

Woke up around 1:00 a.m. and felt much better. Barely any feeling of weakness in my arm. Went back to bed and slept well. Up around 6:00 a.m. with just a twinge of the same weakness. Decided to go about my business, but not go outside for my early morning yardwork. The extended darkness due to heavy cloud cover, with thunder rumbling from storms to the west, helped convince me to just get my coffee and go to The Dungeon.

So far I’ve transcribed three letters (two were almost duplicates of one from before) from our Kuwait years into the Word file. That’s now up to 92 pages and over 50,000 words. It looks like about 25 more letters to go, though I’m not sure I’ve found all the ones we have.

Meanwhile, the weakness in my arm is almost gone. I’m wondering now if I did something yesterday to slightly injure it. I’ll take it a little easy today. At least typing doesn’t seem to bother it. Maybe I can add 1,000 to 1,500 words to my novel. And, re-do my now-in-a-shambles blogging schedule.

Health, home improvements, letters

Change Of Plans

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So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full). Edit: The letters originally in this box are all transcribed. Many more are added and I’m just starting on those.

When I made my blog post on Friday, I had intended on the post for Monday to be the next in my series on racism, moving on from how to combat racist acts to how to end racism. But that’s not happening due to a change in plans.

You see, on Friday, while working in the storeroom, moving a smallish box of books, I caught my leg on a trunk on the floor and took a tumble forward. I dropped the box of books as I was going down to free up my hands to brace against the fall. I did this on another box of books that was on the floor in front of me.

A fall is never good, but I was glad this was a minor one. It’s the first one in the house, my several others having been outside. I tried to scoot a stick out of the road while walking and went down. I slipped on leaves in the woods and went down. I slipped on a slick driveway and went down. I slipped on an icy driveway at that neighbors and went down hard. That was in February 2018, and I haven’t fully healed from that. Otherwise, the falls outside didn’t do much damage. An hour or so after those others I was back about my tasks. I figured the one in the basement would be the same.

This plastic bin has more incoming letters than outgoing. Most are not from our overseas years. We will have a hard decision of what to do with them.

Alas, I soon after went upstairs to fix lunch and thought to myself, “Why is my knee hurting so much?” Then I remembered: I fell fifteen minutes ago. Ah, well, no big deal. I took an Aleve, ate lunch, then went to the sunroom to read. While there, my knee kept hurting. I looked down at it to check for swelling and saw that my leg was bleeding, down near the ankle. Obviously that came from raking across the trunk as I went down. Naturally it was my leg with the bad knee that I caught on the trunk.

I cleaned and bandaged the wound with a gauze pad and went back to my afternoon activities. Slowly my knee got worse, the pain being in unusual parts of the knee. And my leg started hurting below the knee all the way down from the ankle. Not the abrasion, which I could barely feel, but the shin and calf. It felt muscular, not skeletal. I was certain it wasn’t a break. Muscles and tendons or ligaments had suffered trauma. Just sitting in my reading chair in the living room was painful—as was lying on the floor on my stomach. Another Aleve didn’t do anything.

Slowly it got worse as evening wore on, the main pain being in the lower leg, not the knee. I went to bed a little early but couldn’t sleep. I used a topical muscle rub that may have helped some. But an hour and a half of tossing and turning caused me to move to my reading chair, then out to the sunroom. Eventually I was tired enough to sleep through the pain. But that was at least an hour after I took a hydrocodone pill.

Ah, this one had the Saudi and Kuwaiti year letters besides the 25 or so I started with. I see hours of enjoyable transcribing ahead.

Obviously my normal heavy yardwork on Saturday was out. I took it easy, reading, and transcribing letters. Same for Sunday, with some on-line church and Life Group thrown in. Came Saturday evening and I thought the leg felt better. Come the night and the pain was as bad as Friday night. I finally went to The Dungeon and laid back in the recliner. Finding a comfortable position was still hard, but I think I slept a little better than on Friday.

What does that have to do with my intended blog post? With my leg in more or less constant pain, I didn’t think I would be able to concentrate on the important topic of ending racism. So you have this fluff piece instead. The letter transcription was an enjoyable diversion. I completed the 28 letters I found a few weeks ago in an unexpected place in my mother-in-law’s things, all letters to her from our Kuwait years, all but a couple from Lynda to her mom. While I shouldn’t have, I decided to drag out the larger bin that has letters from Saudi and Kuwait.  Actually, I had to pull three different bins/boxes off the shelf to find the rest of the letters from the Kuwait years. I will consolidate all of them into a single box, properly label it with large, black lettering, and put it where I’ll never have to hunt for it again.

Letter transcribing doesn’t get the weeds pulled, or cut posts for the completion of the fort I’m building with the grandkids, or trim the bushes in the front yard. It doesn’t burn off the pounds I so definitely need to lose. It doesn’t get my novel-in-progress back to where I actually see progress. It provides great satisfaction for me, however. And it stirs the memory, as I read through things I experienced and documented but now don’t actively remember.

As of Sunday evening the text file of letters was up to 49 pages and just under 30,000 words. So far fewer than half the Kuwait letters are transcribed, and the Saudi letters are untouched. This will be a long project, most likely multi-year. What will be produced in the end is not yet clear. But at least I see hours and hours of what I would call oddball satisfaction for the transcriptionist.

books, Health, letters, memories, miscellaneous, stock market

A Strange but Good Day

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Tuesday, July 28, 2020. A most interesting day, and perhaps typical of the jumbled life I live right now.

You’d think life would be simple, being retired and mostly staying at home due to the corona virus pandemic. You’d be wrong, however. I suppose the reason is in part that I have too many interests. Let me catalog some events from the day.

So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full).

I woke around 6:15 to see my digital alarm clock flashing. Must have been a power failure in the night, probably momentary but enough to reset the clock. I got up and weighed and checked my blood sugar. No change in weight (still at the lower end of the range I’ve been bouncing around in). My blood sugar was 81, a good number. The day before my new doctor’s nurse called to convey the doctor’s follow-up comments on recent blood work. All was normal, except iron, which is a little low. Since the nurse didn’t mention the reduction in insulin dose that the doctor said, and since that reduction wasn’t in the printed office visit summary they gave me, I told the nurse what my blood sugars had been with the lower dose—the same as they had been with the higher dose. She said she would tell the doctor. Fifteen minutes later the nurse called back and said the doctor wanted me to reduce my sugar further by a couple of units.

But that happened on Monday. I’m talking about Tuesday. It was raining at 6:15, which meant I wouldn’t be able to go outside for my morning yardwork. Instead, I went into the sunroom and just rested for 30 minutes. I then got up, dressed, got my morning coffee, and went down to The Dungeon for my normal work. Everything seemed very normal. I read devotions, prayed, recorded my health info, checked my book sales, opened my stock trading programs, then checked my e-mail. And the first surprise came.

I had an overnight e-mail from a man with Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. They wanted to use a photograph from this blog for training purposes; would I let them know how to acquire the rights to do so. Wow, this was strange. I spent 15-20 minutes trying to figure out if this was legit. I found web pages for that organization and it all looks legit, except the man’s name was nowhere on it. He’s in an administrative position, however, and they don’t list any administrators on the site. So I sent him an e-mail to try to verify that it’s a legitimate claim.

Shortly after this an e-mail came from Amazon, confirming my order for $543 and change. Except I have no orders outstanding with Amazon. I compared the e-mail with the one from my last order. They looked much the same but there were telltale differences. So I contacted Amazon, confirmed it was most likely a phishing attack, forwarded the e-mail to them for investigation, and went back to my normal business.

Normal business on a weekday includes stock trading. I placed a trade and it filled. Good work. Then, instead of working on one of my books, I began transcribing letters from our Kuwait years. Have I discussed this before on the blog? I can’t remember. I won’t go into it much now except to say that morning I transcribed three letters. That brings the total transcribed to sixteen. In the Word file they run to 24 pages. I have ten more to go in this box, and dozens more in the main box. These are just some I found lately going through my mother-in-law’s things as part of our decluttering effort. They will be added to the large plastic bin (30 x 24 x 6) full of other letters from our Kuwait and Saudi years, all waiting to be transcribed. I also managed to do a little over a half mile on the elliptical.

That got me to lunch time. From that point on the day seemed more or less normal. I made a quick run to the nearby Wal-Mart pharmacy for a couple of prescriptions, had some reading time in the sunroom since the day was cool enough. The wife and I did our evening reading in an Agatha Christie mystery. Normal seemed good.

Throughout the day I was careful of what I ate, though I wouldn’t say I dieted. Yet, when I weighed Wednesday morning I was at my lowest weight in over two months. I followed a similar eating regimen on Wednesday and we even lower on Thursday. This was while reducing my insulin dose (per doctor’s orders) and seeing only a small increase in my blood sugar. Maybe my health is improving.

As I finish this post on Thursday afternoon, I have a generally good feeling about where things stand. A good felling and outlook is…well… good. Bring on Friday. Bring on the isolated weekend. I might even get some time to work on a book or two.

construction, Engineering, family, Health, miscellaneous, Writing

Not Quite Back To Normal

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Summer is here in NW Arkansas. This week we will be in the 90s (one day may hit 100), no chance of rain. Definitely stay-indoors weather. We have a couple of appointments that will take us out for a while, but not a lot. Time to get things done, get back to normal.

Except, the time has come for some major work on our house. Three hailstorms this spring have severely damaged our roof. Our insurance company, on the second inspection, agreed. We will get a new roof and some work on the gutters. Since our attic space is not ventilated, I’ll spend a little money and have some vents added. Since some water leaked in and stained the ceiling, we will get a new living-dining-entry room ceiling.

But before that work is done I wanted to have some trees cut away from the house. I arranged for that work with the tree company that worked for us after the August 2019 storms, asking them to hold off a little until the visit of our grandchildren was done. The guy called me Saturday to schedule it, then called me back and asked if they could do it that day. So my Saturday up till about 1 p.m. was consumed with directing their work. At the same time I picked weeds from the front yard, something I had delayed doing. It’s now weed free except for a small area where I had to stay clear of due to the tree work.

After that I was way too tired to do much of anything. I did get some blackberries picked. If I do so again this afternoon I will have enough fresh ones to make a cobbler.

At the same time we may have another bug matter we have to deal with, different than the one from May 2019. Lynda has picked up on the decluttering effort and is working on it. That makes the house a mess, though “this too shall pass”.

And, to top this all off, my residual work at CEI has decided to peak right about this time. Last week I made six construction site visits with the man I’m training to take the work over. I still haven’t written the reports yet. I hope to get them done this week.

And, Lynda had her first cataract surgery last Thursday, with the other one soon to come.

Through all of this I try to remember I have a writing career. Stock trading continues and can’t be put off as writing can. The corona virus pandemic makes little difference to two retired people. Church and Life Group on-line takes up almost as much time as they did in person.

Once again, I hope to return soon to writing. I hope to return to the blog series I started on racism and lawlessness. Plans abound; time to execute them is difficult to find.

family, Health

Wearing Down, But Happy For the Cause

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This bridge on the upper trail is a favorite destination for hikes. The end of the trail comes beyond this, after a hard uphill climb.

Yes, I’m worn out this morning. I slept well last night—had my fifth or sixth “all nighter” in a row, if you know what I mean. My weight is steady to slightly dropping, and my blood sugars have been low, low enough to cause me to reduce my insulin dose a little.

The cause of all this is, or course, our grandkids. Yesterday is a good example. We took two hikes. In the morning, before breakfast, we hiked what I call the lower trail. We walk downhill from our house to where the trail comes right by the road then walk the trail. It’s not an official trailhead, but it’s easy access from the street. The end of the trail brings us back to a city street and about 4/10th of a mile back to the house. The whole thing is 1.62 miles. Before breakfast. Three of us went on that hike.

Occasionally we have to bathe them. Even that is work.

Then, after supper, all four grandkids and me went to what I call the “upper trail”. It starts at the same place where the lower trail finishes. It goes through the same sort of woods, with a small bridge near the middle of it. The end of that trail segment is at a city street, where it continues across. A difficult uphill section takes you to that city street, and the three older grandkids run on ahead to that while the 3 year old and I go as far as we can and head back, the three older ones catching up to us. That entire route, up to the far street and back, is a little over two miles. Elijah and I did 1.93 miles.

Indoor times, like this hide and seek game, keep the uproar going.

That was the day of greatest walking. Today, I don’t plan on any walks. After breakfast I plan on cutting wildflowers with the two youngest. After that it will be into the woods with the two oldest to work on the fort. I may add a picture or two of it later, or maybe in a future post. It’s quite a production. So far that project is all building and no playing. Maybe that’s as it should be. The fun is in the building.

They all wanted to walk this tree, down across a small pond, about 7 feet to the water. I wouldn’t let the little one do it.

Is it fun? It’s fun to be spending time with #1 and #2 grandsons. Working is healthier than sitting at the computer. So, yes, I believe it is fun. Exhausting, all the sawing of logs, placing them, lashing them, and clearing away the debris. Ephraim is starting to understand the needs a little better and is requiring less instruction. Still, the work falls heavier on me.

They don’t believe me when I tell them this raccoon was frozen into the tree trunk last winter.

So my writing is on hold for another week. And my blog post series as well. I may or may not post on Friday and next Monday. Shortly after that I hope to be back in writing mode after that.

Church History Novels, Health, The Teachings, Writing

Getting Back Into Focus

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The to-do list remains as big as ever. I chipped away at it over the last three days, but didn’t get as far as I wanted to.

I fixed a bookshelf that was overloaded. It seems that bookshelves are always built cheap. Fully load the shelf and it begins to sag. I discovered this only after loading a few of them and, after a few years, seeing them sagging. I unloaded several and put additional supports where the front bar attaches to the shelf. This generally is enough. However, I recently noticed one shelf sagging again despite having been fixed. I unloaded it last weekend, took it to the garage, and put weight on it to straighten it. Yesterday I tried an experimental method to strengthen it. Tomorrow I’ll put it back in place. One item checked off.

I did some reading in magazines and in a book. I think I finished three mags and put them in the recycling box. I’ve made a lot of progress on this and my mag basket is no longer overflowing.

In yardwork I had weeding of the rock yard (progress made) and moving an old wood pile from the backyard into the woods (progress made). I have lots more to do, but I’m pleased, at this point in the season, with where the yardwork stands.

I did other typical weekend chores, including checkbook, budgeting, filing (well, a little). On decluttering I mainly consolidated things. I found an underused plastic bin, combined the contents of the two, thus freeing one bin. I used that to put our old letters and cards in. I need to go through them some day, but at least they are all in one place now.

Which brings me to my writing career. My novel-in-progress, The Teachings, has been languishing for a month and a half while I expended writing and research energy on other things. Last weekend I read-through a print-out of it (close to 100 pages double-spaced, making edits along the way. I found that I barely remembered where I had left off and where I planned to go.

So around Tuesday I went back to reading for research in the 66 a.d. Jewish War. I re-read a chapter dealing with where I left off in the narrative. Then I went on to the next chapter. Josephus included a couple of dates in his account. When I checked that against my timeline I discovered I have events taking place in the wrong season of the year. So I have to work on getting that right.

Yesterday, after a 2.4 mile walk on one of our new trails in Bella Vista, I took Josephus, my manuscript, a mug of coffee, and some paper out on the deck. The temperature was about 69, a nice breeze made it quite pleasant on our eastward-facing deck. I began to write what my next few scenes will be. My two main characters, Adam ben Zechariah and his son Augustus, are moving from place to place in Israel, each hoping to see the other but just missing each other.

After less than an hour’s work, I had the next five scenes identified. These will be fairly easy to write.

But first I have to fix the timeline. For that I have to go back to Doctor Luke’s Assistant again and see what month and year I left off in. I know I was at the right time at the end of DLA. I hope to start on that tonight, and to have the five scenes written by the end of the week.

Genealogy, goals, Health, Writing

About To Re-Start

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I’m not talking about the U.S. economy, about ready to begin emerging from the business shutdown to help slow the spread of the corona virus. I’m talking about me.

April was kind of a blur. I worked on and finished the genealogy/family history book. I did yard work. I did massive decluttering, getting rid of piles of paper, a score of empty boxes, five old computers. Some of that stuff is still in the garage, awaiting re-opening of the technology recycling center.

I took my wife to the hospital on the third, bringing her home on the 22nd after two operations and a difficult recovery. Now I’m her caregiver, though she is getting stronger each day and will be somewhat back to normal soon.

Now it’s May 1, my regular blogging day as well as the first of the month. It’s time for me to report on how I did on April goals and set some goals for May. But given how April was, I feel like I need to totally re-start things. I don’t know  what the new normal will be, either in the world or in my life. Thus I’m not really ready to set new goals for my writing life. I guess, however, I can report on April progress.

  1. Blog twice a week. I think I missed one day. Otherwise, I continued this through the unsettleness of the month.
  2. Get as far as I can with the genealogy book. I finished this book. Yesterday I did a few tweaks. I still need one last proof, plus one last check to see that I have all events in the people’s lives covered. Plus I need to check the formatting to make sure the graphics insert properly. I may do that this weekend. Then, I head to publishing steps.
  3. Spend at least some time in The Teachings. I should set a word goal. Let’s say 3,000 words is my goal for the month. All I did on The Teachings last month was re-read the first few chapters. Since the genealogy book consumed me, I kept this set aside. Maybe today and this weekend I’ll get back to re-reading the whole thing, and back to new writing next week.
  4. Give my talk to the Village Lake Writers & Poets on April 8. This was to have been a virtual talk due to the ban on gatherings of over ten people. However, this was the day when Lynda was at her lowest in the hospital, and I found I couldn’t give it. I told the organizer I was willing to do it, but she said no, given the circumstances she would do something back-up and reschedule me.
  5. Do some research into the next Documenting America book. Maybe it will just read the document I found. Maybe it will be to peruse the site that document came from and note other documents for use and at least skim them. I did nothing on this.

So there you have it. I’m not ready to set goals for May. Maybe I will be ready by Monday, or maybe not at all. As the U.S.A. looks to turn back to something normal, perhaps a new normal, so it is with me. Right now decluttering will take a higher priority than writing.

Look for my post on Monday. Perhaps I’ll have some clarity by then.

family, Genealogy, Health, reading

A Day Late, But Hopeful

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I won’t write much at the moment. I’m a day late with this post. While my wife is in the hospital and I’m unable to see her due to the corona virus outbreak, I’m keeping myself very busy so as not to go crazy. On Thursday, between the elliptical and the trails in our area I walked almost four miles. Yesterday I took a new trail near the house and walked three hard miles. That was after an hour and a half of yard work.

I was quite tired after that and didn’t accomplish much the rest of the day. I read and re-read portions of the genealogy book I’m writing, still not able to let it go and get back to my novel. I’m decluttering, but that means I have more clutter than ever. It will all come together when I finish deciding what to get rid of, but not yet. Actually, I can see some progress. Things are better organized if not eliminated.

Lynda is doing better. She had at least five or six complications from the surgery and general health issues and has slowly, with the help of an excellent medical team, worked through them. Right now the remaining problem is her stomach not draining. Some kind of blockage, perhaps in the small intestine, is preventing that. She’s had to have an n-g tube in for days now to drain her stomach otherwise she has extreme nausea from gastric fluids building up. Today they are supposed to do a test to see where the blockage is so they can do a treatment for it.

Keeping busy prevents me from going crazy with worry. I have prayed much, read much, worked much. I think it was Monday evening that, after an extensive time in prayer, I had a wave of peace come over me. I knew in that moment that Lynda wasn’t going to die in the hospital, that she would be coming home to me.

I must now get back to my work. I found on the table in my office a book I read but didn’t review on this blog. It’s a book I’m not going to keep, so I need to review it and take it to the donation/sale pile. Look for it on Monday.