Scattered Thoughts . . .

Assuming my health cooperates, we will be visiting family in New York soon.  As always, I plan to shoot a few photos while we are out and about in New York City and on Long Island.   Whenever I am thinking about a photo shoot, even if it is simply sightseeing, I like to review photos I have previously shot as well as photos others have shot.  Basically, I like to research. I like to prepare. I like to figure out the best time to photograph a particular sight...  finding the best light, best shadows, a new interesting angle... Truth be told, I research before doing anything including photography. So, while I am up and awake in the middle of the night tonight, let me share some of my old photos I have shot while in New York on previous trips.... This first shot is from the Museum of Natural History...  elephants stampeding through the Africa Hall...  This is a very dark hall which makes it difficult to focus without getting motion blurring.  In this case, I made the motion bl

Far too often, I completely miss the signs preceding Systemic Mastocytosis episodes.  Today was another one of these times of missed clues. I had a few dizzy spells late in the afternoon...  This should have been a huge indicator of failing health. I strayed from my strict diet today by eating leftovers for lunch followed by processed food and condiments which are highly restricted for dinner...   I know better and after straying from my strict diet for two consecutive meals I should have preempted any decline in health with extra medications. I awoke from my three hour afternoon nap in a very warm bedroom...   the temperature in the bedroom was in the upper 70s which alone is more than enough to cause anaphylaxia and a violent reaction.  I should have known this would lead to crashing health. Any one of these things should have caused me to immediately jump on taking extra medications...  powerful medications...  and to collect my emergency medications.  I think I have fallen

Our house is on the other side of this stand of trees... to the right... The weather has been awesome this morning here in central Vermont.  The skies are clear, visibility is good and the temperature is in the 60's.  This is definitely my kind of weather! I have great difficulty in temperatures above 74 degrees. When it gets that warm, I must minimize my exposure or risk (and the probability is high) breathing problems, anaphylaxia, gastro-intestinal problems and a whole myriad of neurological problems depending upon which area of my body my mast cells decide to attack.  Fun stuff.  So, I try to minimize my exposure to temperatures above 74 degrees.  Today's temperatures, however, are just awesome for my health which allows me to get outside and be mildly active.  Fortunately, my health is cooperating along with the mild, beautiful weather! The leaves are getting a bit brighter in color now so I figured I need to take advantage of the beautiful morning and get outs

We're always on the lookout for events providing us with a good reason for short little day trips. My health really hinders all of us far too often so, when my health is relatively stable, we like to have an on-going list of events to choose from to keep life interesting and fun. This past weekend, we traveled down to Rutland, Vermont for a little train show which turned out to be quite nice.  The proceeds from the show went to the Rutland Railroad Museum. We will have add this museum to our on-going list of events. We have been to so many train shows in the past few years that were at 'national level' that this small regional show seemed too small to us.  It wasn't as small as it seemed though and we have definitely been to smaller shows.  It was, however, a bit short on working model railroads for people to view.  They had a few small modular layouts but we were left wanting to see more.  Of course, there may never be enough working model railroads! We're u

I've been busy the last few days working on some sketches again.  This time, however, I've been sketching the new World Trade Center which is not completely built yet.  I'm not even completely sure of the design.  Of course, because the buildings do not exist just yet, trying to get the scale right was a bit difficult.  Being the perfectionist that I am, naturally, I am still not completely happy with some of the angles and proportions but I think it might be close enough. Regardless of whether I am happy with this sketch or not, I wanted to post a small copy here before the skyline is actually completed in real life.  It will be interesting to see just how close I am with this little project.   Funny thing is, the more I worked the sketches and the more I researched what is actually being built, the less I like this design.  I am left feeling as though this was a poor choice for the design of this high profile project.  Artistically speaking, I'm not sure what they w

Kenzie is holding up a couple of figurines from my Dickens Village as she watches little people on the train video... Just about everyone knows I enjoy trains and model railroading.  I've always been drawn to trains as far back as I can remember.  I asked for my first train set when I was only four years old and I have been hooked ever since then.   Lukas and Mackenzie were with us today and I couldn't help but notice how excited, entranced and mesmerized they became while watching three videos of model trains that I received just today.  They were very animated... jumping... dancing... screaming "dains" as they point at a new train entering the scene on the television screen... making chugging sounds... running up to the television and looking as though they think they could just reach out and grab a train for themselves. I've never seen them so glued to the television for so long! So, what is it about these little models that causes almost all kids to

I have always hated having to try to decipher some code and type it into a box before being able to proceed with something I want to do online.  Most often, that code is so hard to read that it requires three tries to get a code correct before I actually get the code right!  This can be extremely infuriating!  As a result, I have always avoided using this step on my blog, however, it is time for a change. I am having to sort through far too many comments each day that are only spam.  I want to keep comments available to anyone, including those who don't have any account with Google or Blogger, so my only other option was to enable a word verification procedure for each comment in order to eliminate spam comments.   In essence, the word verification procedure is less of a problem than the spam I need to sort through every single day.  The crazier thing is that only a tiny fraction of a percent of the comments on my blog posts are real posts...  hmmm...  Maybe I should just elimi

My health has been rather lousy for the past week with the last few days being the worst.  This happens fairly often.  Well actually, it happens far too often!  Anyway, whenever this occurs, I find myself sitting around thinking about all the things I wish I could be doing instead.  I'd rather be building things for the house...  I'd rather be active with some hobbies...  I'd rather have energy for socializing with family and friends...  and I truly do wish I had the energy and health to workout like I used to do every day and not just the basic daily physical therapy I struggle with daily! And, I can't begin to explain how much I miss having a job that I absolutely love. I find myself sitting around trying to remember what it was like to have no pain...  to be able to breath easily...  to be able to do anything at all without pangs of shooting pain...  to have the energy like I did before this illness changed my life completely.  At this point, it is incredibly dif

Grammy and Kenzie... Once or twice each month, we invite a few family and friends over for dinner on a Sunday.  This past Sunday was one of those Sundays. Frank and Christine had just returned home from their wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii so it was nice to see them.  We skimmed through the first batch of photos from their trip...   around a thousand...  and we look forward to seeing the rest of the photos when they have them all uploaded and ready for viewing.   We even viewed a video of their Hawaiian beach wedding ceremony!   It was really nice to see the newlyweds and hear about their long tropical pacific trip.  As always, we enjoyed their company this past Sunday. Sheila's parents, Liza and the grandchildren were here as well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the day together as well as the dinner. Story time... For dinner, I roasted a large top round roast beef...  herb encrusted...  with fresh garlic cloves embedded in the roast.  We also had mashed potatoes, a

The arts can be an amazing therapeutic tool for those of us living with chronic illness and/or permanent disability.  The arts such as music, drawing, painting, sketching, crafts can provide a much needed pathway for expression when even the simplest of everyday tasks seem overwhelmingly daunting. For the most part, my health has been quite lousy for the past few months.  This sort of health affects every aspect of my everyday life, and unfortunately, this is especially true when it comes to my ability to express my creative, artistic side.  Expressing myself in art is difficult when my thoughts, as well as my emotions, tend to be shrouded in darkness. I have struggled with this sort of thing my entire life.  For many, performing music or being creative in art lightens moods, entices relaxation and rejuvenates one's soul.  On the other hand, there are those people such as myself who just cannot find a single creative nor artistic fiber in my being when I am not completely relax