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.
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.
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.
Blog twice a week. I think I missed one day. Otherwise, I continued this through the unsettleness of the month.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, the title of this blog post is sure a true statement. I never expected something like this corona virus that would send the world reeling. I never would have expected a stock market meltdown such as we’ve had. And I never would have expected…
…my wife to be in the hospital. On Thursday she woke up to a painful abdomen. It wasn’t long before she realized it wasn’t just gas, that something was wrong. We monitored it, but the pain was tolerable so we went about our normal routine. That is, normal for being socially distant and close to sheltering in place.
Friday morning the pain remained. It had also hit her hard during the night. After a couple of hours we called her primary care physician and arranged a video appointment. That happened but with much trial and error. The doc decided she needed to come in for an office visit. They aren’t doing many of those due to the pandemic, but she said come in before 4. This was around 11:00 a.m. The lab called us back and said we should come in before 3 because they would leave early on a Friday with not a lot to do.
The doc decided she needed a cat scan, so they scheduled it for the Mercy urgent care facility closest to our house, at our request, because we figured we’d be going home afterward. The thing took almost four hours, at which time they said we needed to head straight to the hospital operating room. The problem was most likely a ruptured appendix. We did so, getting there at 6:00 p.m.
Of course, I couldn’t go into any of these places with her. I read in the car. We left so quickly in the morning that neither of us brought chargers and Lynda didn’t remember her new cell phone. Thinking there would be surgery that night (as we were told), I waited in the parking lot, thinking if something went wrong they would call me and let me see her. But Lynda called around 8:00 p.m. and said the surgery would be at 10 Saturday morning.
The surgeon then called me around 10 a.m. on Saturday. They took her early to surgery, got out the appendix laparoscopically, She would be in the hospital a few days due to antibiotics due to the rupture, all of which time I wouldn’t be able to see her because of the corona virus.
In video calls since then, I’ve learned that her heart went into a-fib, she’s quite nauseous, she has an air bubble in her stomach, and water on her lungs. During which time I can’t see her due to the pandemic.
So, today, Sunday, I kept myself busy. I studied for Life Group in case I had to teach (which I didn’t), I had quite a few phone calls and many messages about Lynda. I did some more genealogy research, and I accelerated a de-cluttering effort in the storeroom that I began about five days ago. I actually saw some progress on both research and decluttering today.
And, of course I prayed—much, even almost without ceasing. God has this under control, all of it. He has Lynda’s health, he had the world’s health, and he has my peace of mind.
The nurses told me today that Lynda isn’t in any danger. What she’s going through (except the a-fib) is normal after an operation. Her body just needs time to work through it.
So I will rest easy knowing the Great Physician has this. Amen.
When I was out and about on Thursday, I didn’t see any blooming redbuds. When I walked the neighborhood on Saturday and Sunday, there they were. It’s nice to greet them each spring.
As I write this we are in the midst of the growing corona virus pandemic. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, worldwide cases now exceed 700,000 and deaths are over 35,000. In the USA it’s 143,000+ cases and 2,500+ deaths. In my county in Arkansas we have 33 cases, up 5 since Saturday. Thankfully, no deaths to this point.
We are under many restrictions imposed by the government, and other restrictions self-imposed. Our church cancelled in-person services before our governor restricted gatherings. School has been closed two, or maybe it’s three, weeks now. We go out as little as possible. I’m cancelling a doctor appointment this week, and will not be able to go in the building when Lynda goes for a doctor appointment tomorrow.
In some ways this isn’t much different than normal retirement. We’re a little more isolated, but, since I’m only working a little as my former company needs me, I don’t get out much for that. Normal weekly trips were for church, groceries/meds, and doctor as needed. Now it’s mainly groceries.
Sometime late this week there’s supposed to be a pre-construction conference at Centerton that I’m supposed to chair. They are trying to figure out how to make it a digital conference. But, I also need to sign the approved construction drawings as city engineer. We’ll see if I have to go in to City Hall, speak with no one, just do the signing in the lobby.
For the last two weeks I taught our Life Group via a Zoom conference. It’s been a learning experience, as each week we were cut off before I’d finished. I think we have it down for next week, but we’ll see. It was good to see everyone and hear them, even if we couldn’t be together. On Saturday we had a family Zoom conference, which went well. Nice to see the grandkids, our son, our daughter, and my sister. This may become something regular.
These bloomed all December through January, dropping their flowers during February and March. Here they are blooming again.
Meanwhile, spring has arrived. I’ve upped my walking, now trying to get three miles a day, trying to lose the last 50 pounds I’d like to lose (the doctor says 30). Yesterday I did the three miles in almost perfect weather. The redbuds are blooming, and the dogwoods aren’t far behind. Forsythia are still yellow, and a few jonquils have blooms. Our Christmas cacti have a few late blooms to brighten my reading time in the sun room.
We will get through this. The corona virus hasn’t peaked yet, but the end may be in sight. I suspect we will have another month of social distancing, though even longer wouldn’t surprise me. We’ll see how it goes for us. My prayer is that we humans, in the USA and around the world, would be smart about this and do what we can to end it.
That was yesterday, a rainy day. And it was wonderful.
My plans for the day were to go to Wal-Mart around 7:30 a.m. to get groceries and prescriptions at the pharmacy when it opened at 9. Alas, at 7:00 a.m. a hard rain was in progress, and radar said it would be thus for hours. So I put off Wal-Mart till another day and went to The Dungeon for my work.
That work consisted of: stock trading, writing in my work-in-progress, filing. I didn’t have much stock trading to do so I mainly watched the market. For The Teachings, I decided to take a step back from writing and check my timeline. It seemed that I had Adam and Augustus in leapfrogging scenes that didn’t make sense. I mostly finished that, though I might look at it again today. While I added only a few words, as I read earlier chapters in the book, I corrected typos and phrasing, which felt good.
As the rain continued, I came upstairs for more coffee and went to the sun room. I alternately watched the rain, the birds at the feeders, and read. My current read is an historical novel from the 1950s about Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd. I’m now 32 pages into this 460 page book and enjoying it.
As the afternoon went on the rain began to taper off. The Wal-Mart run looked promising. So Lynda and I hopped in the car and got there about 3:30 p.m. The parking lot looked normal for that time on a weekday. The store wasn’t particularly crowded. We were able to get almost everything we needed. The lines at the checkout weren’t long. The pharmacy was crowded but they had lots of workers, so I was in an out without delay. As we were ready to leave the store it was raining again. I went for the car and pulled up to the front, we loaded in our groceries, and off we went to top off the gas tank then home. Through all of this we were more or less able to maintain social distancing. A most enjoyable trip.
At home in the evening I did the usual. Heated leftovers. We had small helpings of a frozen dessert. As we watched news all evening, I pulled up a genealogy book to work on. This is a maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won’t work on it project. It’s on my to-do list for 2020, to look at in March. So I did that. I spent the evening editing and researching. My main research for this was done in 2015-2017, and the thing has sat idle since then. Lot’s more records and the research of others could be on line now. So I looked for sources, made some notes about what needs to be added to the book and about sources I need to read. Soon I’ll develop a work plan and decide what to do about this thing. Whether this book ever comes to be or not, genealogy is so enjoyable to me that the time spent was uplifting.
So here it is Friday. I’m in The Dungeon, into my workday. The clouds still obscure the sun but there’s no rain in the forecast. The market is up a little, though the gains don’t look sustainable. I’m registered for a webinar later today. The Teachings is open before me in Word, waiting to me add to it. The neighborhood streets are calling to me to come walk on them. The sun room beckons.
And, a curious, minor event asks me to watch. Three of the four Christmas cacti in the sun room have new buds on them. I noticed them about two weeks ago and have been watching them. One bud started blooming yesterday. This is an extra treat, one that I’ll watch again today, and enjoy.
While on the trip to Texas this month I caught a cold. I think I felt the first symptoms around Feb 10 or 11. It came on fast but not deep. I was able to keep functioning, and drove all the way home on Monday.
But once I got home the cold deepened and went to both a head cold and chest cold. The last two nights I’ve had to get up due to coughing fits and spend the rest of the night sitting in my reading chair. I may sleep some like that, but not long or well.
Hence, I’m sleep deprived today. And my mind isn’t working well. It was just a few minutes ago I remembered this is my regular blogging day. I intended to write about the Jewish War in 66 a.d. and how that works into my book, but no way can I do that now.
So this post will have to suffice for today. Hopefully I’ll be back to full strength on Monday.
Writing the Leader’s Guide for this has taken more time than writing the book, and it’s just as long.
Here it is Friday evening, and I’m just now getting to my post for today. I have three book reviews backed up, but I haven’t felt like writing those posts yet. They take a little more time to write, and with other things going on I didn’t feel like taking that time.
Today was very busy. I started at the computer, with my end-of-week stock trading tasks. At the same time I was putting finishing touches on the leader’s guide for Acts Of Faith. There may be one chapter that I need to do just a little more work on, but, except for that chapter, I believe I’m done. Over the weekend I’ll re-read it, add that little bit of stuff, and it will be done.
After that I went outside to continue clearing downed tree trunks away from the lot south of us. Midway through my first saw cut my left baby toe started hurting, suddenly and badly. I thought I must have done something to break my toe. I couldn’t work without pain, so I sat down on the tree trunk and pulled my shoe off to find a nail through it. It wasn’t stuck in my toe, but I couldn’t tell if it had punctured it or not.
I had wanted to work about an hour and a half, but I decided to cut it off at an hour. I got a lot done after the nail incident. I knew, however, I needed to get inside and find out what I’d done to my toe. I soaked my feet in Epsom salts, then looked at it and had my wife look also. Neither of us could find a puncture mark. Still, I contacted my doctor about it. My last tetanus shot was eight years ago. I heard back from the nurse and she said yes, I needed to get the shot.
We had to go pick up our newer van from the body shop, and I had to go by Lowe’s to return a light and pick up the right one. After that I went by the pharmacy and got the shot. They say it’s going to hurt for up to three days, but so far no pain. Nor does my toe hurt. I think that the nail, while it punctured my sneaker, didn’t puncture the skin.
So now it’s evening. We’re done with supper and watching a little tv. I’m about to get us some dessert (probably some fruit). I hope to read a little later.
One thing I learned recently, that just really came to my consciousness today, was that writing the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith has been significantly more time consuming than writing the Bible study was. It’s also almost as long as the Bible study, both in words and page length. I don’t know how long it will now take me to get it to market, but I hope in a week for the e-book. I hadn’t planned on issuing it as a print book, but perhaps I will. I’ll have to think about that.
Will this be my only poetry book, or will inspiration to write more ever return?
This morning I awoke at about 4:30 a.m., did a restroom break, went back to bed, and couldn’t sleep. This has happened before. Normally I go right back to sleep after being up in the night, but sometimes, only on the later in the night awakenings, I don’t fall asleep. At 5:30 I decided lying there with disjointed thoughts was silly and got up. Throwing on a long sleeve shirt, slipping my feet into my aging and almost done-for slippers, I took my mug of water and headed for the sun room to read.
No coffee, you ask? No, I don’t like to take coffee before I weigh and take my blood sugar, and I wasn’t ready for the latter. So I went to the sun room and started to read in Jack, a life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. I had loaned this book to a friend and asked for it back recently, as I wanted to read it again. I say “again” as I’m not 100 percent sure I read it before. I think I did, well over ten years ago, about the time our Life Group was studying The Screwtape Letters. I’ll know if I read it before if, in the last chapter, I find a certain scene there. If this is my second time through it, it’s quite fresh and enjoyable, given the time lapse since the first reading.
The windows in the sun room were still open, and it was cold. I regretted not pulling on jeans and my inside jacket. The temperature was to get down to 40 overnight, and I was sure it was that low. Outside, the air was stirring. Breezes came and went. The rustling in the adjacent wood was almost constant, though never strong. Occasionally it came through the open window before me. Why didn’t I shut the window? And the one to my side? Why didn’t I go back to the bedroom and get dressed more properly? For one, I didn’t want to risk waking Lynda. Also, I much enjoy being slightly cold. It was easier to pull a blanket over my legs and chest and enjoy the coolness.
I read with good concentration and made much progress. Shortly after 6:00 a.m., Lynda opened the door. We had a brief conversation. I got up, weighed, took my sugar, got dressed, got coffee, and went back to the sunroom and reading, while Lynda went back to bed for a while. I returned to my reading, but with a little less concentration. Thoughts of poetry began to take some brain space away from the words on the page. Oh, my comprehension was still fine. It’s just that I’d like to be able to write poetry again.
Poetry is probably an affectation for me, not something I should spend time on. When I wrote quite a bit of poetry over a decade ago, I enjoyed it. I don’t know whether I produced good poetry, but it was the type of poetry I like to read, so it was good for me. In my mind I’ve outlined six additional poetry books, and have listed their potential titles on the page. I know the order I’d like to write them in. Yet, I have no inspiration beyond that.
I’m not going to force it. I have too much else to write, both works-in-progress and planned, to devote time to poetry without inspiration. I like to say that poetry comes either by inspiration or perspiration, and probably requires both. I’m going to wait, however, and not apply the perspiration in hopes that the inspiration follows. I think the opposite order of things is better.
I need to get the Leader’s Guide for this done, but it’s progressing painfully slowly. More perspiration needed, I think.
So what will my day consist of, now that the sun has risen enough behind the dense cloud cover to show light through the trees outside The Dungeon windows? I hope to finish a chapter in the Leader’s Guide to Acts Of Faith. I made some progress on it last night. I hope to write a scene in “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, and get that to the halfway point. I have a few short-term stock trades on, a couple of which will come to a conclusion today; I’ll have to pay attention to them, though all looks good right now.
I have some engineering work to do. I went by the office of my old company yesterday and picked up two project for review. One, I’m fairly sure, is small and I can possibly complete in less than two hours. The other may be larger; I won’t know for sure till I get into it. Plus I have construction reports to review. I anticipate spending three or four hours today, and as much as needed tomorrow to complete these tasks. It will cut into my writing time, but the money is good, and it’s also good for me to keep my mind engaged in engineering work.
One other thing I may do today, time permitting. II might create the computer folder and files for my next book. Tentatively titled The Sayings, it is book 3 in my Church History novels series. I plan on starting it next month, but it, too, is taking up gray cells. I need to get a few things on “paper” so that I don’t lose them. Plot threads are coming to mind. Specific scenes are coming to mind as I read for research. I’m not sure I’ll do this, but perhaps it’s better to get it done and see if I can free up that brain power for the real tasks at hand.
So, it’s going to be a full day for sure. Some exercise would be good as well. I would say that this is a day when I have truly “awakened the dawn”.
