Scattered Thoughts . . .

This entire week has been one health problem after another. I honestly was fighting back tears as my health crashed into anaphylaxis last night. The tears weren't because of pain nor simply because I was feeling miserable. The tears were because I have been so unproductive this week and I now had to accept the fact that the next few days would be, at best, a recovery period of more nonproductivity. This weighs so heavily on me, I suppose, because I want to do so many things around the house but can't... because each day I lose due to this debilitating illness, is one less day I will have in my life. Now, once again, I didn't just lose another day, I just lost a full work-week and this downtime of nothingness promises to be longer. We were doing some light shopping in Williston and South Burlington last night... the first store we visited was all it took. As we were walking into Bed, Bath & Beyond (we hadn't even entered the store yet), I was experiencing breathing

My previous blog post was about a quick photo shoot I did for a friend. I know this friend appreciates all the time and effort I put into her photos so this post is definitely not directed toward her nor is it about her. This post is simply a quick explanation to help people understand why the cost of a good photographer seems so high. Plus, my health has forced another "down" day for me today so, while I am recovering, I have time to write here. After my "quick" photo shoot the other night and posting about it, I thought this would be a good time to make the connection to real costs associated with a photography business using that quick headshot photo shoot as an example.  So, let's first look at just a simple "quick" photo shoot for a single headshot. This type of shoot is probably one of the quickest so this would be at the low end of the professional photographer's pricing scale. Don't confuse "quickest" with easi

I rarely will take on a portrait session, or any photography session for that matter, simply because it takes too much out of me and any activity impacts my health in a negative way but... sometimes there are exceptions! A good friend of ours, Judy, called us last week asking if I could shoot one photo of her for work. There was a rather short deadline and the project seemed simple enough... One headshot on a black background, traditional portrait orientation, a jpeg file emailed to her corporate office. I happen to enjoy photography as an enthusiastic hobbyist when my health allows and I have the equipment as well as the experience necessary for a small photography project like this one so I felt this was a favor I could easily tackle! I was feeling pretty good, healthwise, when I spoke to Judy so we scheduled a time to do a quick portrait session...   As luck would have it, my health suddenly declined in the next couple of days so we needed to reschedule this session. This h

A couple of weeks ago, Sheila and I ventured down to Rutland for an annual train show. We expected to only be brief spectators checking out the operating model railroads at this show but ended up coming home with a very large box of trains! All in all, it was a nice trip.  The guy who sold us the big box of trains was telling us about another train show he is organizing in Winooski.  Unfortunately, this train show in Winooski always conflicts with an annual Christmas dinner that Sheila and I attend with close friends so I really have no experience with this show nor will we be able to attend this year's show. The funny thing is I always see this show advertised but we just never seem to get there. Although, I think I did attend this show once or twice since moving to Vermont almost 20 years ago. While we were talking with John (the guy who sold us the box of trains), he had asked if we would pass along info about this annual train show. He seemed like a really nice guy and I

A panoramic photo consisting of four images.  This was the only way to get the entire vanity wall into the shot!  I refinished the shelves, painted the walls, refinished the vanity,  installed a new sink andfaucet, installed a tile backsplash and refinished the countertop. Sheila recently asked me what had happened to the photos of the first phase of our master bathroom renovation. She thought I had written about it in my blog but couldn't find it anywhere on this site. Later that evening, she explained that she was talking about our home renovations with her carpool friends and they wanted to see one aspect of our first phase of renovations in our master bathroom. So... here is a quick explanation of what we did in Phase 1 of the master bathroom renovations... Basically, our main goal of this first phase of renovations was just to clean up the bathroom a little and to move in a direction toward our design style for the entire house. Here is a short list of the problems...

Struggling with Systemic Mastocytosis, in any of its forms, makes the ability to be productive both difficult and frustrating. The desire to be productive is there... The desire to accomplish just one small thing on our continually growing to-do list is there... And, the frustration of how this insidious illness hinders all we try to do is always there. Those of us with this illness are familiar with the occasional "good" day. We call these occasional days a "good" day but, for us, "good" is a relative term. For us, good simply means this moment is better than the previous. In reality and more accurately speaking, all days with this illness are a struggle, at best. Some moments are just better than others and it is these better moments which we refer to as "good". Sometimes, however, a week such as this past week just slowly spirals downward. It can start with one noticeable symptom... in my case this week, I noticed a problem with my vision.

Pedestal sink will be installed here...  the bowl will be mounted on the wood cross-pieces above the drain and supply plumbing pipes. I had a productive day today... which was a refreshing change!  I managed to install the wainscoting in the new half bathroom today. I've installed this type of paneling in our living room already but I did things a little differently today... In the living room, this paneling runs from floor to ceiling and is stained. In this new half bath, we are using this paneling style as a wainscoting so it is only up the bottom half of the wall. We plan to paint this paneling rather than stain so I didn't need a high quality grade lumber. This provided more options and these new options provided cost savings. I opted for three sheets of 1/4 inch lauan underlayment at $13 each. I installed two sheets to the walls as the background 'panel' layer. Then Adam and I ripped the third sheet on my table saw into two and a half inch strips. I used

Spackling finished... wainscoting will come up to a height of 42 inches so the bottom will be covered rather than painted. The weather is lousy enough today that I don't feel comfortable pulling all my expensive shop power tools out of the shed to start on finish carpentry for our half bath project. Instead, I decided to document where we are at in the project as of today. Waste plumbing is finished... flooring tile is finished... supply plumbing is roughed-in but still need to add three valves after the wainscoting is installed... electrical is finished... drywall is finished...  and now spackling is finished. My health has been poor over the past few days so I accomplished very little this week. I did, however, manage to get a coat of joint compound on the drywall each day. Since it is a very small room, that only required about 15 minutes of work each day. So, at least that has been accomplished this week.  Note:  I'm out of practice with my spackling...  What norm

The past few days, Sunday through Tuesday, have been spent recovering from a busy day over the weekend.  Whenever I use a lot of energy, my health really suffers and it can take days or weeks to recover. This past Saturday was a very busy day for me and I used a lot of energy which was compounded by missing my much-needed daily nap. Even on a good day, I need to lay down for a few hours every afternoon. That never happened on Saturday though. So... what happens if I wear myself down? The best case scenario would be that I am simply fatigued at an overwhelming level for a few days. This fatigue makes just showering or cooking for myself impossible at times. Sometimes the fatigue gets so bad that walking to the other side of the house is a daunting task. Even reading can require more energy than I have to use! Worst case scenario would be that in addition to the overwhelming fatigue, my overall health suffers significantly resulting in breathing difficulties, dizziness, cognitive d

As I mentioned in a previous post, we attended the Rutland Railway Association's train show on Saturday. We had driven down to Rutland in the morning, checked out all the beautiful autumn foliage and ventured back to Waterbury by mid-afternoon. After spending a few hours with friends at a local pub, we headed to Sheila's parents' house for a visit around a campfire in their backyard.   Since we were coming from the train show, I had my new G scale train purchase with us. I knew that Lukey would love this train set so I lugged the big box of trains down to the campfire and set the locomotive and cars on the picnic table. As expected, Lukey lit up with excitement! Even Kenzie was a bit excited when Lukey would give her some space at the table. The kids are at a critical age now... old enough to know their interests and certainly old enough to love accompanying us to train shows... but first they need to learn that most trains at train shows are not for touching. We see