Scattered Thoughts . . .

Today is Saturday at the end of a week that has kept both of us struggling with the flu.  The flu still holds a tight grip on both of us and we're still feeling quite lousy.   Sheila's worst day was yesterday, particularly last night.  She had uncontrollable coughing fits for a few hours last night.  We threw a bunch of extra medications at this problem and that seemed to settle her down after another hour or so.  Today, all her muscles from her abs to her upper back are sore from the coughing fits.  She's still struggling with sinus pain, a headache and runny nose.   I'm still struggling with a relentless headache, some sinus pain, coughing and diarrhea.  The worst symptoms are the headache and especially the diarrhea.  Sheila never got the gastrointestinal problems like I did but I could have been dealing with this due to my systemic mastocytosis.  Unfortunately, this is one of my usual symptoms so I deal with this very often...

I've been sick with the flu all week and Sheila is one day behind me in her symptoms.  It has been a brutal week and I'm still feeling miserable. I can't sleep because the cold medications don't stop the itching, burning, runny nose.  The persistent cough is brutal too.  My eyes are watery and burning.  I have waves of violent shivering, fever and nausea.  I haven't eaten much this week and yet I've spent a lot of time in the bathroom sick as a dog.  Every part of my body is in pain but especially my sinuses.  Sneezing and coughing hurts in the center of my chest.  The itching, burning and runny nose is relentless and brutal though.  Worse yet, the cold medications can't seem to knock any of this down enough to get some much-needed rest and sleep. I'm exhausted...  I'm weak...  I'm in significant pain...  this week has been bordering on unbearable.  

W e finally had our family Christmas celebration at our house over this past weekend.  We had to reschedule it because Sheila and I had COVID from before Christmas and well into January.  Unfortunately, almost every one of us who attended this last Christmas party at our house is now sick with a terrible case of the flu.  My guess is that every single one of us will be sick within another couple of days.   I feel miserable.  I felt rather lousy yesterday too but, by last night, I was feeling pretty miserable.  Now I'd say I'm feeling overwhelmingly miserable.  Sheila is about a half day or a full day behind me.   I'm not sure which is worse...  the flu or COVID...  COVID lasts forever and it's still quite painful but this flu is brutal at this point.  Everything hurts.  I have chest congestion.  I have a massive headache.  I have a painful sore throat.  My sinuses are burning.  I'm dizzy, nauseate...

I have a long list of things that need to be done around the house but I'm still recovering from our latest bout with COVID so I don't really have the energy for much. I've been sick for over a month at this point so this is now very much beyond old.  I feel like I've been sick with COVID every summer and every winter since the pandemic started!  And, with each bout, I'm down and feeling lousy for at least a month.  Breathing problems are the biggest complaint but losing two+ months each year is frustrating. Our Christmas celebration with the grandchildren is this coming weekend after cancelling Christmas due to being sick last month so there really is a lot that needs to be accomplished around the house.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about what needs to be done, I have some cooking to do too.  Uggg...  I'll have to get started on that tomorrow.   In the meantime, I took a little time this morning to do some sketching.  I haven't sketched...

W hen I shot these photos below capturing the view through the viewfinders of cameras of two different formats, my purpose was to see if I could capture better images through the viewfinders than I had shown in my previous blog entry.  So, in short, this was initially an exercise in trying to capture better photos shot through a small viewfinder.  After capturing these photos, I noticed something else that I wanted to point out. I should first explain that I had used my cellphone for these photos and it is difficult to hold the cellphone perfectly lined up with a clear view through the rather small viewfinders.  Then, when you touch the screen to capture the photo, the whole cellphone moves ever so slightly causing some motion blur.  It was tough keeping the cellphone lined up perfectly to capture the entire view through each viewfinder. I really can't understand why anyone would want to shoot photos with crappy cellphones and I am reminded of this every single time ...

M y 40 year old medium format film camera had a simple matte focusing screen on it which made focusing a bit difficult.  This matte screen simply showed the scene and you would have to sort of guess what was the best focus.  There was nothing to help you actually see if the image is in perfect focus.  Using only your eyes makes it easy to slightly miss focus especially with older eyes like mine.  I knew I wanted to replace this focusing screen with a better one. The main problem with wanting to replace anything on this camera is that this is a 40 year old film camera that has been out of production for decades.  Finding parts can be difficult.  Regardless, I went on a search for the type of focusing screen I wanted.   I wanted a screen with a split prism in the very center, a micro-prism collar surrounding the split prism, and a matte ground glass field.  These can be difficult to find now but I happened to find one in Japan so I purchased i...