Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e've done a lot of walking over the past week which has resulted in my ankle and knee swelling up again so I'm laying a bit low lately.  To recap, back in January, I first sprained my ankle badly enough that I could not put any weight on my left leg at all.  That required about four months to heal well enough to do some things again.  However, the four months of hobbling around with all my weight on my right leg only resulted in a sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament) on the side of my right knee.  The knee injury was mostly better until we did miles and miles of walking this past week.  Now my knee is painful and swollen again so I am now back to ice and elevation for a good chunk of each day.  My left ankle is a bit painful too but nothing like my right knee. Putting my health problems aside, I always try to accomplish something, anything, each day.  Mostly, I've spent my time at the piano lately but I have managed to squeeze in a few other little things too.  Time

T he weather has been horrendous anyway but my health has really slowed down any sort of chance of being productive over the past week and a half or so.  I think the rainy, damp, wet weather may be playing into the amount of pain I'm in all day long so I suppose it does have some bearing on my health.   My main issue is pain...  joint pain, bone pain, spinal pain.  My sprained left ankle (since January) has worsened in this damp weather so I'm limping a bit due to that.  My right knee is still a problem even though it is better than it was a month ago.  The pain in these two joints alone is enough to keep me up through the night.  I also have nagging, relentless bone pain.  My extensive spinal injuries are always worse in periods of damp, wet weather too so my spinal pain has been worse lately as well.   The pain wears me down and causes sleep issues so then there is overwhelming fatigue added into the mix as well.  I just want to sleep.  Well...  I suppose I really want to sle

I've been feeling rather lousy for the past week or more so it was not much of a surprise when I quickly realized this morning that today wasn't going to be much better.  For the most part, I've been extremely fatigued and inexplicably weak over the past week.  My usual bone, joint and spinal pain has been far worse as well.  I have pain all day every day but far too often this pain dips into severely debilitating levels.  This is where my health has been lately.   I've also been feeling "not right".  Sometimes I just can't put my finger on what is wrong.  All I know is I don't feel right.  I think this is usually due to multiple symptoms spiraling down into the debilitating levels but no single symptom seems to stand out.  Regardless of why I feel this way, I have been feeling this way lately.  Late this morning, I began having some difficulty breathing.  No red flags were waving in my head though because this is a common occurrence in warm environmen

A few weeks ago, we did a short photo shoot with Lukey and Kenzie and I wrote a blog entry about that evening previously .  I ended up with a lot of great photos but I thought I would share a few of the outtakes here and briefly describe the problems or difficulties we had in getting a good shot. This first one shows what happened when I tried to use a reflector to bounce some of sunlight that was shining brightly behind them onto Lukey and Kenzie's darkened faces.  They had the sun at their backs so they were very much silhouetted against the bright, colorful background.  My camera is capable of capturing a lot of data in a larger dynamic range than most cameras but adding some light to their darkened faces would make things better for light, shadow, contrast, color, and clarity...  this reflector was a tried and true way to brighten up darkened faces...  or so I thought...   No matter which type of reflector I used, the kids could not keep their eyes open!  I first tried using th

I made something a little different for breakfast this morning.  We had the usual things like coffee, toast, bacon and home fries but I also made Eggs Poblano.  I have to say that it was pretty good and, even though it is a dish that is moderately spicy, Sheila liked it too.   Eggs Poblano is a poblano pepper cut in half with an egg nestled inside it.  It is then topped with diced ham, some chopped poblano pepper, and shredded cheese and fried, covered, in a pan.   Anyway, it turned out to be a nice change for breakfast!

W e did a photo shoot with Lukey and Kenzie at sunset last night.  At around 6:30 yesterday evening, we headed out for a nearby grassy field where I could put the setting sun behind them.  It worked out fairly well and the kids learned a little bit about the real difficulties of modeling.  The kids learned that good modeling is about knowing which angles and poses work well for you...  about knowing how to express a natural smile and not a forced plastic goofy smile...  about knowing which clothes make you look good...  it is about knowing what to do with your eyes, your hands, your feet, your chin, every part of your body.  What they learned is that modeling is not about simply being a beautiful, attractive person and just standing there but that modeling is actually a verb that requires a lot of knowledge, skills and abilities.   This was good practice for me too.  I haven't done any sort of photo shoot in about two years or more.  Shooting portraits with the sun behind your mode

T oday, we will be having our first dinner guests since getting vaccinated.  I was finally fully vaccinated this past Wednesday which was two weeks after my second dose of the vaccine.  Sheila was fully vaccinated a week before I was fully vaccinated so she was already good to go.  So, today, we'll be having Sheila's parents over for dinner. Yesterday evening, Liza and the kids stopped by for maskless hugs.  They stayed long enough for Lukey and I to play a few rounds of golf in the backyard.  Afterward, the kids played with the walkie-talkies learning a bit more about aviation/military radio etiquette and terminology.  They even chose callsigns for each other...  Lukey is "Hockey Puck" and Kenzie is "Skater" and the playhouse is "Playhouse Ops".   Back to tonight's dinner... our dinner will be barbequed shish-ka-bob consisting of tender steak, potatoes, red onions, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, fresh mushrooms and a couple of skewers of fres

I 've been saying for years that I want to make a bench for our mudroom.  It would be nice to be able to sit to put on our shoes and boots rather than have to balance on one foot.  After my recent ankle re-injury (and months-long recovery...  it is still recovering) and now a knee injury (yes, I'm old after  physically abusing my body for decades), this bench project was moved to the front burner.  Both Sheila and I are tired of the physical balancing act as we attempt to put shoes on at the door. Another reason it was time for this bench project is because lumber is scarce and the little bit of lumber that can be found is a bit pricey.  This has put all the larger home improvement projects in a holding pattern for now.  I was thinking that I had enough scrap lumber lying around to build a pretty nice bench so it was time for this "little" project.  On the positive side, this project would also allow me to put a dent in the scrap lumber inventory I have lying around!

I noticed that corned beef briskets were on sale at Shaw's a couple of weeks ago so I threw one in our cart.  I had been wanting to make some homemade corned beef hash for a long time and this seemed like the time.  We rarely see corned beef in our supermarket and, when we do see it, it is often priced so highly that I was quick to grab one while it was available at a reasonable price.  Homemade corned beef hash is actually nothing like the cans of corned beef hash you see on the shelves in the supermarket.  Those cans taste more like deviled ham combined with spam which is nothing like real corned beef hash.  Our supermarket has two brands of canned corned beef hash...  Libby's, which tastes more like cat food and consequently I find inedible and should always be avoided or, Hormel, which tastes more like some deviled ham/spam combo.  I was having a craving for real corned beef hash so I needed to make some myself. I put the corned beef brisket in the oven on Saturday morning

M y right eye is back to feeling normal again so I guess my scratched cornea has healed.  It was quite painful for a while! In the beginning of the pain, I didn't remember doing anything that could have caused a scratched cornea.  Then one evening when I was tending to my eye in front of the bathroom mirror, I did something that reminded me exactly of what caused my scratched cornea.   I had picked up my eyeglasses with one hand because the eye drops were in my other hand.  Usually I use two hands with my eyeglasses so that I don't cause bent lopsided eyeglasses.  This time I had the eye drops in one hand and tried putting my eyeglasses on my head with the other hand.  I suddenly remembered that I did the same thing a few nights previously... Back a few nights previously, I had something else in my right hand when I attempted to place my eyeglasses on my head with my left hand.  Unfortunately, I misjudged distance and I poked my right eye with the right temple tip of my eyeglas