Scattered Thoughts . . .

This has been a very strange winter. After a little bit of snow the other night, last night the temperature warmed up into the 40s and we had driving, pouring rain all night long. The rain was coming down so hard that it kept me awake most of the night.  Why would rain keep me awake? The back section of our house is covered with a tarp because the roof needs to be replaced... roofing joists as well as the roofing material. It is in bad shape requiring demolition and rebuilding. My health has not really been well enough to tackle this enormous project so we are just waiting for my health and the weather to be in sync so we can repair/rebuild this section of the house. In the meantime, whenever we have heavy rain or heavy snow, I am constantly expecting the worst. As Sheila drove to work this morning, she noticed flooding in all the fields. Actually, the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning and the flood stage was in the "Action" stage. Common sense

This morning we awoke to some snow on the ground which is highly unusual this winter. There was only an inch or two of snow out there but it was nice seeing everything covered in fresh snow for a change. Other than quite a few patches of very slick ice, our landscape has been far from winter white! By 8am, the snow had turned to sleet and, unfortunately, it is raining out there now. Actually, it is pouring rain out there now... 32 degrees and pouring rain... fun.  While everything was clean and white outside, I decided to grab a camera and shoot some photos out our living room window. I limited myself to using my longest lens (just like yesterday while I attempted to get my first bird photo of this year) but I used a different camera body than yesterday. I chose another old, cheap camera (freebies because they are so old) just like yesterday but this one is so tiny it is difficult to hold steadily. I managed to capture a few decent photos though. I think it is supposed to cont

It has been another quiet morning here while my health finds its "new normal" and I recover from a lingering cold amid the usual Systemic Mastocytosis symptoms and spinal pain. I did a little bit of light physical therapy for my spinal injuries and then noticed that there were some birds outside our kitchen window. I grabbed my old... very old... camera which has a Kodak sensor. I grabbed this camera only because my longest lens was already mounted on it. It is a noisy sensor and not great for overcast days like today but it was convenient for me this morning.  I went back to the kitchen and slowly opened the window... the birds scattered... but they returned within a few short minutes.  While I was waiting for the birds to return, I set the white balance, checked my aperture, checked my shutter speed and chose an ISO of 400 (which is the upper limit on this particular camera). It would be a challenge to get a crisp photo of a small bird under these conditions with this

My spinal injuries have been screaming for the past month but that is nothing new. My breathing has been rather lousy for the past eight months so that isn't all that new either at this point. This morning, however, I am feeling both problems and both are rather significant. My lumbar spine is hurting all through my lower back to my hips and buttocks... with pain all through my groin and lower abdomen... and even up toward my kidneys. The pain is bad enough to keep me from sleeping. Needless to say, I'm exhausted even though it is still only mid-morning. I'm going to attempt to get back to some light physical therapy today. I attempted this a few days ago when my lingering cold was feeling like it was almost gone but that didn't go over too well... my cold got worse and that made all sorts of symptoms worsen. I'll attempt to get back into my daily physical therapy today if even a very light therapy involving only stretching. That should help my back at least a l

Helping Gee make some brownies... I'm still feeling rather lousy but we had the kids, Liza and John over yesterday anyway. It was a nice change of pace and nice to socialize for a little bit. I've hardly wandered from the house over the past three weeks other than to pick up some food, pick up medications or see a doctor! The kids helped Gee make some brownies... Lukey helped me prepare our pork roast (and liked taste-testing my dry rub)... we made some blackberry mint tea... we watched some movies... I slept for an hour or so... and we had a nice dinner.  Today I head back to another medical appointment for imaging of my lungs. This appointment isn't a moment too soon since I had great difficulty breathing last night. In the past eight months or so, I've had consist difficulty breathing but last night was significantly worse. This sort of worsening health happens from time and time and can be expected but it will be nice to find out why... whether it is due to

I had an appointment with my doctor again this morning. I had planned to go to this appointment alone (Sheila and I usually attend appointments together but this appointment seemed like it would be uneventful... ie, no life threatening decisions to be made or discussed... so I was going it alone today) but my car is frozen in the mud so Sheila had to leave work to drive me there. Other than giving up some blood, the appointment was rather painless. Sheila and I saw the same doctor last week for Sheila's lingering cold. While we were there for Sheila, my doctor said she wanted to see me for a full exam and to adjust my medications. That appointment was this morning. This appointment was not a moment too soon since my health has been rather miserable lately. I've been having significantly worsened breathing issues since June of 2015... which is a long time and something which should have sent me to the doctor long ago. That was a priority today because it seems to be worseni

My health is finally feeling as though I am over the hump with this nasty, lingering cold. Today is the first day where I feel as though I am "recovering" from the cold symptoms. Although, my overall health is still quite miserable and I'm still struggling with typical Systemic Mastocytosis symptoms which are probably as a result of the lingering cold. The cold itself, however, seems to be waning... finally. Since I was feeling a bit better this morning, I quickly decided to pull out a camera, a lens, a tripod, a light, and a remote shutter release to see if I could get a photo of myself. I think I had to shoot about two dozen photos just to get two decent shots. Absolutely accurate focus is impossible to do with a remote shutter release. Ohhh... I just remembered something I could have done... I could have used my Kindle Fire tablet to choose a focus point... uggg... I should have thought of that this morning. I have an app on my tablet which allows me to control my

I feel as though my weeks-long cold is finally waning which is good news, however, I think this cold has had a tremendously negative impact upon my primary illness. The bad news is that I am well beyond exhausted. It is clear that I am not thinking clearly... I screwed up tonight's dinner... I spent time and energy preparing a pork roast, hoping for a few days of leftovers... seasoned it, seared it, put it in the oven... and three hours later realized that I never turned on the oven. After sitting unrefrigerated for close to four hours, the roast went into the garbage.  Simply walking to and from the bathroom is an exhausting task.  Showering will require more energy than I have to expend so it is not something I have even attempted in the past day or two. My eyes don't want to stay open.  Just the simple, thoughless, involuntary act of breathing while sitting on the couch is using up energy as though I were playing a grueling game of basketball.  I'm exhauste

I've been meaning to write about this topic for approximately four or five years now. Somehow other topics pushed this topic to the side time and time again. I've mentioned this topic a few times in other blog entries so I really need to make an effort to put something together to add to my blog... so here I am. As a teacher, as a supervisor, as a leader, I have been in close contact with many adolescents and young adults over the decades and followed them through early adulthood. In order to teach them and guide them effectively, I listened carefully. Over the decades, I was a teacher of music, aerospace, leadership, and various other specialties. It didn't matter which subject I was teaching but providing accurate information about those particular subjects was my primary concern, however, as a teacher and someone who was in a position to guide them, I would listen to their views on anything and everything. It was my job as a teacher and leader to get them thinking log

The title of this blog entry is almost meaningless since art projects are about the only thing I accomplish since developing Systemic Mastocytosis. Art has many forms and I do try to stay active in many... drawing, painting, photography, videography, music and even designing and building things like models and renovating our home.  In this case, the illness I am referring to is this miserable lingering cold (12 days at this point). I occasionally have periods of clear thinking that are driving me crazy because I am so bored (I need to stay productive and creative) but I'm still not well enough to tackle anything of significance. During these fleeting periods of clear thinking over the past few days, I've been trying to draw and paint. This particular art project is a sketch of the Empire State Building. I already created a matching piece  of the Chrysler Building   a few months ago and it is now hanging on a wall in our newly renovated bedroom. I plan to hang this new sk