Category Archives: Writing

Bible study, Health, self-publishing, Writing

A More Normal Schedule

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As I write this on Wednesday, March 5 evening, a feeling of normalcy has descended on the Todd household. Not completely, for we still have health issues we’re dealing with. Lynda has headaches almost daily; our son is, tonight, dealing with a possible break-through seizure; and I’m getting ready to start physical therapy for my right knee. But yesterday I saw my hematologist. My iron deficiency is corrected, and I don’t have to go back to him unless my regular blood work shows my iron dropping. And my cardio rehab will end next week. That is going well, and I’ve increased my workload most days as I’ve been through it. My weight is either steady or inching downward, and my blood sugars are mostly within goal.

But normalcy is close. Saturday, I returned to writing. As of today, I’ve written on four days, with the ideas and words coming easily. I have only three days of writing left on this volume—well, four including the introduction. Then, of course, the editing starts. Meanwhile, I continue to edit Volume 2 of the series. I should finish that on Friday, the day this post goes live. Typing will take less than a day, then publication tasks start.

I’m finding time to do some typing of things that go into my journal—loose papers that will later be discarded. Meanwhile the storeroom is better arranged so that I know where things are and will be able to find them again for decumulation consideration. My work table is marginally cleaner after I went through a desk-top box of hanging files and got rid of a bunch. Some were left for scanning or transcribing, work that is in progress. And speaking of decumulation, every couple of days something sells based on Facebook Marketplace ads.

But the thing that makes me feel most normal is beginning the process of closing out finances for 2024 and beginning to track them for 2025. Today, Wednesday, I did this for book sales, which is a business for me. I was up-to-date with my sales and finances spreadsheet when I had my seizure on Dec 22, so I didn’t lack much to catch up. I finally did that today, reconciled everything, created the new spreadsheet for 2025, and recorded my sales to date. I’m running a little ahead of 2024, which was a record year for me. On Thursday I plan to do this for our stock trading business, allowing me to start on our partnership taxes, which are due to be filed by March 15.

This all feels good, working on familiar things and seeing things getting done. I’m not ready to resume regular yardwork, but will slip some in once in a while. Going up and downstairs to The Dungeon is still painful, but I am able to do it several time a day.

Oh, and Tuesday I took down the string of Christmas card we received this year. A little late, but another part of the house is back to normal.

Bible study, home improvements, Writing

Closer To Normal

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Dateline: Sunday, 2 March 2025

This may not be a terribly long post—we’ll see how it goes.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve felt a little more like my normal self, settling into my normal routines, getting normal things done. When I wrote on Friday, I felt overwhelmed by the things I had to do. But by the time Saturday wound down, and I looked back on the day (and on Friday), I realized I had accomplished things close to normal, as well as having completed a couple of special projects that would allow for doing normal things. Here’s what I got done,

  • Worked 15 minutes out in the yard. That may not sound like much, but that’s the first outdoor work I’ve one since Thanksgiving.
  • Did the final edits on A Walk Through Holy Week, Vo. 2.  I did that over Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Since I’ve done writing only one day since before Christmas, I can’t tell you how good this felt. I figured, If I can’t wrap my mind around writing, I have much editing to do. Perhaps that will be a stimulant toward writing.
  • Finished transcribing some journal sheets from 2014-15 that I found in an old file cabinet. This took a lot of effort. But getting it done was a huge relief. I have a couple of small journal books still to transcribe, but somehow these don’t seem as daunting.
  • Got a smallish batch of family photos (21, I think) sorted, saved electronically, and agreement reached on how to dispose of them.
  • Completed some major reorganization of the storeroom. We have sold off enough things that we have a little extra shelf space available. This allowed me to fairly easy to move things around, getting like things together, exposing some things I hadn’t seemed for years. We still have a long way to go at decumulation, But it’s looking a fair amount better.

Despite doing all this, and working my hardest at a cardio rehab session on Friday, I felt good. My energy level remained good. I took sitting breaks when I needed to, as well as a reading break at midday.

This week I plan on getting AWTHW-V2 ready for publication and actually publish it, maybe by Wednesday. After that, I hope to get a start on the last week of writing to go on the next volume followed by editing and publishing tasks.

And tomorrow morning a woman is coming by to pick up some surplus office supplies for her non-profit. It will be nice to have some surplus materials gone and space recovered.

Well, it’s one to finishing a good Lord’s Day with reading. Nothing better.

 

miscellaneous, Writing

Too Busy This Week

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Friday snuck up on me. I have no blog post ready. It’s been a busy week, as I’ve been overwhelmed with things to do.  I had medical appointments every day. Been working on decumulation tasks every day. One day I was able to sneak in a little writing.

I’ll try to be back with a real post on Monday. And maybe later today I’ll drop back in and add a little to this post.

Decumulation, Genealogy, stock market, Writing

The Word Is “Decumulation”

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Pulling writing papers out of the milk crate. I hope to be able to get rid of the crate.

This week I’ve back in the saddle, working in The Dungeon every day. Except this week I decided to do something different. I have only one chapter left to write in the Bible study I’m writing. And that’s the last of eight volumes in the Bible study series, only one volume of which I’ve so far published. I figure four more days of writing on this project.

But that is laid aside now, along with my normal stock trading activities, in favor or decumulation work. Yes, I finally figured out that’s the correct word to use for the process of getting rid of stuff. I’ve been using the word “dis-accumulation,” and all my spellcheckers have balked at its use. I don’t remember where I found the right word, but I was glad to do so.

I sold this box of books within a day of listing it. I wish all my books would sell that quickly.

We need to get out of our big house, into something smaller, hopefully closer to one of our kids. But that requires a lot of decumulation. We’ve been working on that, but perhaps somewhat half-heartedly. For the last six or so years we’ve been saying we’ll decumulate so that we can move in two years. But that two years keeps slipping.

Well, after being gone to Massachusetts last week to visit our son and his husband, I decided to make a more serious effort at decumulation. Saturday, I got another 35 books listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Twenty of those were in two boxes of 10 each for one price. I sold those this week, though haven’t yet got them in the customer’s hands.

A pile of papers here, a pile there. I’ll slowly whittle them down over the next few weeks.

Monday, I decided to tackle the many papers in the house. I’ve done much of this over the last few years. These papers fall in three categories: stock trading, genealogy, and writing. I’ve already discarded most of my stock trading learning courses. I scanned and digitized a lot of genealogy papers, but was holding back a few key 3-ring binders. Well, beginning on Monday I started scanning, digitizing, and discarding those papers. I figure I’m averaging close to 200 sheets of paper a day. I’m down now to about four notebooks, which I think I’ll get through two by Saturday, and the other wo next week.

Tuesday evening, I pulled from my closet the milk crate I’ve used to storing drafts of most of my early writings. This saving of drafts/edits/research papers is what an experienced writer suggested in a conference I attended many years ago. He’s a successful novelist—no telling how many boxes of papers he has in his basement. He might not be thinking about downsizing. Or if he does, he’s famous enough to donate his writing papers to his alma mater and they’d be happy to receive them. I don’t have that status.

So all his week, I’ve gone down to The Dungeon, and spent time at my scanner. Scan something. Got back to my computer, pull up the scanned file, and save it to an organized place on my computer. With my genealogy papers, I had to first create some folders and move old scans from temporary places to the new place. But that didn’t slow me down much.

I take a break at noon to do some reading and have kept evenings clear. I feel good about what I’ve done so far. Perhaps in a week I’ll be able to report significant progress at decumulation.

Health, Writing

My Recent Absense

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A strange thing going on in the brain is the best way I can describe a seizure.

My normal posting schedule is Monday and Friday. For a number of years I’ve stuck to that schedule, missing once in a while, throwing in an extra post here and there. Sometimes I’ve had to schedule a post when I knew I would be gone. When I had my heart surgery Monday Sept 30, I wrote a number of posts ahead of time and scheduled them to go live at the right time.

I had a health issue that interrupted that. Dec 22, Sunday before Christmas, Lynda woke at 5 a.m. to find me in the midst of a seizure. I was thrashing around in bed, unaware of what I was doing. Then I would go still, my eyes open but I wasn’t awake. She could tell something was seriously wrong with me and called 9-1-1. The paramedics came fairly quickly, I’m told, took my blood sugar and saw that wasn’t the problem, loaded me in the rescue squad and transported me.

I started to in the vehicle. I realized I was in a moving vehicle and asked what was going on. The man said I had a seizure and they were taking me to the hospital. I then went back to “sleep”, coming to one or twice more during the trip, and going fully awake as they transferred me to a hospital bed at Mercy Hospital in Rogers, Arkansas. I was able to answer all their questions as to who I was, what day it was, etc.

Lynda got there shortly before 8 a.m., having prepared for me having an extended stay, but by then the seizure was over and they released me. I was home by 9 a.m. and attended Sunday School class and church on-line. It was as if nothing had happened, except my speech, which had been improving since being adversely affected in my Sept 3 stroke was a little worse. All that day, I sat quietly, reading or watching TV.

On Monday Dec 23 we were supposed to fly to Boston and be with our son in Worcester, MA over Christmas. That obviously couldn’t happen. I delayed the flights a week, failed to properly delay our hotel reservations. My doctor wanted to see me on Monday the 23rd. She said the seizure was likely caused by weakness in that part of the brain affected by the stroke. She said I wasn’t allowed to drive in Arkansas for one year after the seizure.

So now it’s Jan 7. I haven’t resumed writing yet. Maybe in my next post, on Friday, I’ll tell you what’s keeping me busy and when I’ll resume writing. Meanwhile, I’m okay. No repetition of seizure symptoms, feeling good, alert, chafing at not being allowed to drive. I’ll keep everyone posted about how I’m doing.

Health, Writing

Healing

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I’m now just past six weeks since my heart surgery. That was the time at which all official restrictions ended. But I’m still going to take it a little easy. I don’t think I’ll be lifting anything over 20 pounds. I still won’t be running, not even for 10 paces.  In short, I hopefully know my limitations.

But Lynda and I have been walking, on sunny afternoons, finally working up to a mile on Friday and 1.2 miles yesterday. And I’ve been working out in the yard. On two days I worked on thinning my blackberry bushes, which I’m afraid I allowed to grow from rows to one big mass of bushes. I’ve finished the main thinning, though I may thin a little more. Saturday I worked on raking up the cuttings, and cutting them into smaller pieces so they will fit in the wheelbarrow. I figure two more days at least, more likely three.

My handwriting is barely any better. I did some writing on Saturday and Sunday. I was sure better than right after my last stroke, but it’s a long way from where it was. My speech is doing better. I still struggle with certain sound combinations. Don’t ask me to say “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,” for I can’t do it. But I’ve been able to sing the hymns at church the last few weeks. It probably helps that I can hardly hear myself over the music. Then again, I taught adult Sunday School class yesterday, and people seemed to understand me.

I’m still gimpy legged going up and down stairs, or even walking on level ground. I make it down to The Dungeon every day of late. But the ability to concentrate on new writing came slowly. Part of that is loss of keyboard control on my laptop, making it necessary to use the wireless keyboard and mouse for everything. Part of it is difficulty typing due to loss of fine motor skills in my left hand, but that might be aggravated by my torn left rotator cuff. Is it the stroke hindering my typing or the fact that it’s difficult to extend my arm to reach the keyboard?

Whichever, I had trouble typing, which resulted in my not wanting to write. I also lost three days of time due to a computer problem. But, by Friday I was ready to put my mind and hands to it and made my daily word goal—Saturday too.

So the healing is coming. Slowly, but it’s happening.

family, home improvements, Writing

Help Is Coming

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On Wednesday, our son and his husband fly in from Worcester, MA to give us some help. One primary project is moving my workstation from The Dungeon to someplace upstairs. This involves moving two monitors, the docking station, the wireless printer, and various supplies. I know where I want it to go. In that scenario, they will also have to move the computer desk, both top and bottom portions. They’ll also have to move a small cabinet for the printer to rest on. And, of course, a chair.

That will be done either Wednesday night or Thursday morning. That will be the start of a new era. But it will be nice to have my remote keyboard again and a surface for it to rest on.

Will it work? Maybe. Our kids are worried about me going downstairs. Other tasks, such as filing business papers, and sorting through things in the storeroom, will for some time require me to go downstairs.

Other projects are on the agenda for while Charles and Mario are here. One is for Charles to look through my stamp collection. He said he wanted to look at it before I listed it for sale. Stamp collecting was extremely important to the Todd family over the years, but those years are over and it’s time to sell it. I don’t think there’s much market for stamp collections, so I don’t expect to get much for it.

Then there’s that spare bedroom set. It’s in the basement storeroom, tucked away to form a wall that divides the storeroom into different areas. We need to pull it out into the light, take some photos, and get it listed for sale.

Moving my workstation will result in freeing up a 6-foot worktable. Hopefully we will move that into the storeroom for staging stuff.

I’m sure we’ll have a load or two of miscellaneous things to take to donation. And boxes of books to move to the garage in hopes that they will sell. Some are already advertised on FB Marketplace, but they seem to be generating little interest.

So, will I get any writing done this week? Probably not, but we’ll see.

Health, Writing

Home Again, Home Again

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Dateline: Thursday, October 24, 2024

Opened up once, and healing from that. The Band-Aid covers where the needle and drain tube were inserted over 15 cm to drain my pericardium.

Last Saturday, I went to the ER due extreme difficulty breathing under even mild exertion. I had gone to the ER for the same thing on Thursday, but they sent me home. On Saturday, it was much worse. This time they re-did the test from Thursday (a chest x-ray), did a CT scan, and admitted me. In the middle of the night, they did an echo cardiogram and determined my pericardium, the sac around the heart, had filled with fluid, making it hard for the heart to beat, making it hard for me to breathe.

On Sunday, I underwent moderately invasive surgery to remove the fluid, also putting in a drain tube. They then watched me several days and measured the continued drainage. In all, they pulled 1070 cc of bloody fluid from my pericardium. That’s a fair amount.

An echo cardiogram yesterday morning showed the sac to be clear of fluid, so I was released in the afternoon after a long session with my cardiologist. I’ve been on blood thinners ever since my first stroke in January, and on stronger thinners since my stroke in September. He is concerned about the risk of continued bleeding. So I’m now off blood thinners until a repeat echo cardiogram next week shows no accumulation of new fluid. After that, I may go back on a mild blood thinner.

So what does this all mean going forward? Today I’ll spend some time looking at where my different writing projects stand, and make some plans for the next couple of weeks. One thing that will happen is I will (well, our son and his husband will) move my workstation upstairs, out of The Dungeon. Working in a new space will take some getting used to—although I’ve done that before

Health, Writing

Remaining Impairmentss

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The hematomas from the hospital blood draws have mostly healed. But next Monday I get to do it all over again.

The impacts of my stroke:

  • Left side weakness: mostly gone. But this has exposed the fact that my right leg is still weak from my July 15 accident. I’m still working on that.
  • Left side loss of balance: seems to be gone.
  • Double vision: affected the middle distances, seems to be gone.
  • Loss of left side fine motor skills: still greatly impaired. Can’t write. If I tried to write a check the bank would reject it based on unreadable handwriting. Practiced writing some yesterday, and it had improved a little since my last practice on 9/16. Touch-typing is slowly coming back. I’m no where up to the speed I used to be at, but I’m better than at OT on 9/11.  Of course, with my bad rotator cuff from my other July accident, who can for sure tell what is an impact of that and what is from the stroke.
  • Speech: slow to come back. Still hard to say certain sounds. I have not worked on this enough, but it’s painful and tiring to talk out loud. I sang at church yesterday. Fortunately, the noise level in the sanctuary was such that no one could hear me, and I couldn’t hear myself. The words seemed to come easy to the two familiar songs, much harder on the new song.

Hopefully I will be more diligent at working on the remaining impairments. Possibly I’ll give a follow-up report on Friday. Meanwhile, I have no thoughts of resuming writing. It’s a good thing my only current writing work is scanning photos and loading them into a book of family letters.

 

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, expatriate life, letters, self-publishing, Short Stories, Writing

August Progress, September Goals

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Vol. 2 may be published this month—if I can make my goal.

Well, August was another strange month, as I continued to recover from the two freak household accidents I had in July. While my output was certainly affected, I wasn’t shut down from some progress. Here’s how I did relative to my goals.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. I had lots to write about.
  • I’m not making a goal of attending any writers meetings, partly from not knowing how my surgery and illnesses will lay me up, and partly because one meeting may be cancelled due to lack of a venue. I went to one meeting.
  • Complete two editorial passes through A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol 2. I managed to do this. Actually, I made three editorial passes through and have declared it “Done”. Publishing tasks to follow.
  • Figure out any final changes to the latest Danny Tompkins story, then finish and publish it. Did this, and published the short story on Aug 5. Made changes to it over the next few days.
  • Complete the commentary between letters. If I can get that done, begin selection of photos and insert them in the book. Did this. Completed commentary, Introduction, proofreading the letters and commentary, and started selecting photos.
  • And, one more for good measure: Make a start at outlining Vol 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Nope, did not work on this at all.
Hopefully, I’ll come very close to finishing my next book of expatriate year letters this month.

September will be an odd month. My heart surgery will be on Sept 30, and I have lots of pre-op stuff before that. So I don’t plan on any writing this month. Publishing tasks will take precedence.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend three writing group meetings. I present at the one on Sept 10.
  • Complete publishing tasks for A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2 and publish it to Amazon. I may have to do so with a temporary cover.
  • Complete adding photos to the Saudi years letters book. A really stretching-it goal would be to do enough formatting to order a review copy.
  • Spend at least a little time organizing Vol. 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.

That’s it, and it may be more than I can accomplish. But it’s better to have a goal that requires you to work hard and efficiently.