Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e had pulled pork for dinner last night and it was pretty good.  I made my own maple cole slaw and some hand-cut fries to go with it.  It was a really nice meal but it was an all day affair making it! One thing is certain... Having an outdoor kitchen under a roof makes something like this far easier and more pleasant to accomplish.   I did something a bit differently this time around.  Usually we take the quick and easy route by slow cooking the pork in the oven for about four hours.  That always turns out well but this time I went with a much slower cook on the grill.  I did it on the grill this time around for two reasons.  First, any meat tastes better on the grill.  And two, if I used the grill, then I could actually smoke the pork for even more flavor.   I applied my homemade dry rub on Friday and let the pork sit in the fridge overnight.  Then I started the grill at around 9:45am with a combination of Cherry wood chips and Apple wood chips (all pre-soaked overnight) in the smok

It has been a very quiet Christmas this year due to pandemic distancing and staying as safe as possible at home, alone.  Sheila and I chose to open our Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve.  We had a really nice Christmas Eve too!  Since we will be spending the entire Christmas season alone, safely away from the grandkids, safely away from family, and safely away from friends, we decided to record a video of the two of us opening our gifts.... Tonight, we are having a rib roast, potatoes, gravy and carrots.  Sheila made some cookies yesterday and we also have an apple pie and some other assorted dessert things.  At the moment, Lukey and Kenzie are opening gifts on the Echo Show in our kitchen while Gee watches so I should get back out there before finishing this blog entry... UPDATE - 22 April 2021:   I just noticed that this blog entry was never finished nor published here.  Oh well.  I guess I've really been distracted with health issues.  I didn't think 2021 could be worse, h

O ther than writing about my badly sprained ankle, I haven't written much about my health lately so I figured I should attempt to write some stuff down.   Overall, my typical mast cell disease stuff has been 'typical'.  That means occasional anaphylaxic symptoms, breathing difficulties, dizziness, lightheadedness, and a lot of joint and bone pain.  Plus, regular gastro-intestinal problems, nausea, and too much time spent in a bathroom.   What has been worse for the past year...  far worse...  is the brain fog.  This may have been compounded by fighting off COVID-19 a year ago.  I have had brain fog throughout all my mast cell disease but it has been far, far worse in recent months.  I become non-functional for anything other than simply surviving from day to day.   While fighting off the virus last year, I also had consistent problems with vision and hearing.  My eyes were swollen and it seemed like I had a torn retina but that was probably due to the swelling in my eyes. 

O ne of the things on my very long to-do list is to build a small observatory shed next to my outdoor telescope pier and then fence the entire area to keep out bears, bobcats and skunks.  I have sketched all sorts of plans but, between continuing health issues followed by the pandemic and lack of available lumber, I have made absolutely no progress in actually building this shed/observatory area.  Well...  I did build the telescope pier and the foundation for the shed but that is all that has been accomplished thus far.  My plan was to use an old Hewlett-Packard desktop computer for controlling my astronomy gear and it would be housed in this astronomy shed.  This old computer is in the eight to ten year old range and hasn't been used at all over the past two years.  When I purchased a new computer two years ago, I saved this old computer specifically for the purpose of using it in my new observatory.  I recently started loading astronomy programs onto this old computer to get it r

I t has been about nine weeks since my old ankle injury flared and I'm still limping around wherever I go.  It is slowly improving but, as expected in any recovery, I keep getting set back in recovery whenever I attempt to do anything that requires a bit of weight to be put on my left foot.   On the positive side, I'm now doing some light exercising in an attempt to get back some flexibility in my ankle.  Actually, my whole left leg needs daily physical therapy at this point.  My left leg is now noticeably thinner than my right leg due to lack of use over the past nine weeks.  I have been slowly and carefully getting back into some very light exercising (mostly stretching) to get back to "normal".  Unfortunately, this sets me back by causing a bit of pain, inflammation and swelling again.  I sort of cycle back and forth between feeling "okay" and limping around in pain which is normal during recovery.  We're now assuming that I had a severe case of sprai

T oday is Sheila's birthday so, Happy Birthday to Sheila! She took a couple of days off from work so we started her birthday celebration a couple of days ago.   It has been a wet, damp and muddy weekend so far.  We have some fresh snow on the ridge of the Worcester Range just outside our living room window, which looks really nice, but our yard is a squishy swamp and the driveway is like quicksand which is typical silty Vermont mud.  This month has been brutally bitter with high winds whipping across the flats and rattling our roof all day and all night long.  Between the wind, the rain and the mud, this really is rather typical weather for Sheila's birthday. Anyway, Sheila opened her birthday gifts the other night.  One of the gifts was a nice app-controlled heated coffee mug.  She seems to be enjoying this gift so far this weekend so this turned out to be a nice gift and especially for someone who works from home. There is no need to be microwaving cool coffee anymore!  The m

It has been warm the past two days and today is looking to be a beautiful, sunny, warm spring day too.  I had planned to utilize the good weather to start working on things outside where sawdust is not an issue.  This week is looking good for that and I have a bunch of small projects that need to be accomplished.  Actually, I've been waiting months to be able to pull out woodworking tools to accomplish a few things. Unfortunately, once again, my health is being a bit uncooperative.   My ankle is still healing.  Sheila and I wandered outside yesterday to take down wreaths and Christmas lights.  I stepped up on the first step of a stepladder and quickly realized my ankle was still in no condition for climbing a short stepladder.  I instantly fell off and onto unlevel snow on the ground.  This hurt both of my ankles again setting me back a couple of days.  I have no need for my cane now but getting around is still a bit painful and slow-going.  I'm taking small steps and taking th

After a month of significant pain in my ankle, hobbling around and residing on the couch with very little relief, this morning was the first morning that I awoke feeling halfway decently.   My ankle can finally support a bit of weight and I am limping a bit less this morning and even without the use of my cane.  The pain has significantly subsided too.  There is still a bit of pain but I'm no longer in the 8-10 pain scale range! I'm going to continue taking it easy on my ankle for the next few days...  continue with some icing occasionally...  at least through the weekend.  At that point, I'll start a physical therapy period by slowly and carefully increasing my range of motion with no weight on my foot.  Then, over the course of days, I'll slowly add a bit of resistance and weight to the therapy and exercise.   Considering I've already had one significant set-back that set me back about a week, I'm only cautiously optimistic and I'm convinced I need to take

At this point, I've completely lost track of time.  This ankle injury is taking forever to heal and one day is blurring into the next and the next and the next. Something that has happened a lot is that I get up in the morning and my ankle is feeling "fair".  I'm still limping and there is still varying amount of pain but, first thing in the morning, it is feeling far closer to being normal than being injured.  Then I shower... I don't know if it is hobbling around the shower that causes my ankle to get worse.  Of, maybe getting in and out of the shower causes my ankle to get worse.  Or, maybe the hot water from the shower that causes my ankle to get worse.  Or, maybe it is a combination of all of the above.  Whatever the cause, I feel quite lousy after I shower.  My ankle and foot is always swollen again and hurting to the point that I need my cane again.   This happened again this morning.  I felt pretty good this morning and, as a result, had some plans to acco

Working on the refrigerator for five hours yesterday clearly placed my ankle injury a step or two backwards in the recovery process. I had difficulty sleeping last night due to the pain in my ankle.  It is abundantly clear that I did far too much standing on it yesterday.  At rest, I am back into the area of three on the ten point pain scale.  While walking...  well, hobbling, really...  the pain is in the range of five to six and I am back to needing the use of my cane.  Today, I'll be residing on the couch again with my foot up.  The ice will have to come out of the freezer again and get wrapped around my ankle too.  It will be a day of sleep (hopefully) and movies. It's bad enough when you cause a step or two backward because you did something you enjoy.  I had no desire to work on the fridge yesterday...  I needed to work on the fridge and, honestly, I don't enjoy having to fix things.  Not at all.  I enjoy designing things and building things but it really annoys me to