An Update

Getting better, but it has oddly varied the past few days.  One day or even hour is fine then another is not.  I've been avoiding even ibuprohen the past few days (4 weeks of it is a lot of even mild meds to my way of thinking).

Sitting is actually a problem.  It is comfortable, but the longer I sit, the harder it is to get up and walk around.  I need to be careful about that.

I am really a lay-about recently.  12 hours in bed seems good.  Well, it IS a heated waterbed.  Hard to leave, LOL!

On the other paw, I can walk better when I get myself up out of a chair.  I am still careful on the stairs but level-walking is a lot easier.  I went out to get the mail/newspaper, and it was "almost" normal.  I may actually be being more careful than I need to be.  Some "push" on the muscles is apparently good.

It's the good/bad moments that are annoying these days.  But there is sure a lot better than just "bad moments".  I'm recalling the first week when it was nearly impossible to get in or out of bed without grunts and serious pain, so it sure is a LOT better now.  

Driving the car and shopping is easier.  I even managed a delivered 50# bag of thistle seed and a 40# bag of black oil sunflower seed.  Not like I could lift them, but pushing them into a trashcan on its side and leveraging IT up worked.  I cut the bottoms and slowly lifted the bags up to spill into the containers.  I used a small hand dolly get the trashcans into the basement where I carefully scooped seeds into smaller containers.   I've gotten good at doing things "easy".

I AM refilling the birdfeeders and suet cages regularly.  A 6' stepladder is not a 12' extention ladder and I make sure it is solid. It's not like I have to stand on the top step.  Besides, I'm not trying to pull a cat off the birdfeeder...  LOL!

My life is Not Going Right

Have you ever felt that too many things are just mostly not going right?  That you thought it was all OK, and then suddenly you wanted to screaming out into the night looking for a clue about how it should be going? 

I shouldn't be at 68, but I am.  Maybe I have lived alone for too long and it is finally catching up to me.  But I can't imagine living with another person 24/7.

Maybe I''ve just lived just lived in the same house too long.  But I can't find anything wrong with the house.  It is actually easy to live in, a nice circular arrangement of kitchen, living room and TV room with 1 and a half baths and 3 bedrooms at the other.  The yard is a 1/2 acre and that's not bad. 

Maybe politics is getting under my skin.  Sometimes it seems to me that we are collectively going crazy.  The world is getting crazier.  Nations are becoming more partisan and controlled by crazy people.  Evil people are learning to control the world again.  I used to think the United Nations could solve some things.  I don't think that now. 

Or maybe it is just domestic politics.  I used to think things were getting better there, but they seem to be getting worse too.  I used to hope about elections; now I just dread them.  Everytime the political commentators say we have hit the bottom, the bottom gets deeper.

Well, maybe the yard has gotten out of my control.  I was 36 when I moved here and felt I could tackle any problem.  32 years seems like yesterday in one sense, but ages ago in another.  I can't do what I used to do.

Or maybe it is just the same old same old furniture.  I've lived like a college guy in his first apartment with hand-me-downs.  And the furniture does mean something to me being old family stuff.  But I don't want "House Beautiful" either.  I live a relaxed style.  My parents once asked us kids what we wanted from their house when they moved to a Florida rowhouse.  I waited for my siblings to choose and then named some furniture after they chose what they wanted.  Dad kept bugging me to chose "something".  I didn't expect them to be alive when the time came to "claim the stuff". 

I didn't want what I had "claimed".  It was a fancy walnut dining table with chairs, china cabinet, lowboy, etc.  That's not me.  And I'm introspective to understand "why".  When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to do any rough stuff on the "fancy furniture".  Maybe if I bought fancy furniture on my own it would be different, but who knows? 

Rosewood seems interesting, but I would be afraid to live with the stuff.

The garden is frustrating.  Not enough sunlight.  I could poison a few trees to make enough sunlight get through, but I can't get myself to do that.  I found a spot where the sun shines brightest,  and planted 3 tomato plants there in July.  And I got more heirloom tomatoes from there in the past 2 weeks than I got in the regular garden all Summer.  All at once of course.  I picked 7 tomatoes today.  I can't eat 7 tomatoes today.

I understand this doesn't match the problems some people have.  But they are MY problems

But together, it means I'm not in the right place, I'm not happy here,  I want a different house (all one level) and I'm on emotional tear here.   I don't like my life.  I need to make some serious changes. 

And I think I am "losing it".  I'm going altogether nuts.  I want to move, but I'm afraid to because I have so much "stuff".  I'm afraid of losing my good city water.  I'm afraid of losing my Verizon cable service.    But I also want to get a good garden and escape this traffic jam of a city. 

When I moved here 32 years ago, it was on the outskirts of residential places, there were no trees round, and life was great.  Now it is a traffic jam morning to evening, I get no sun for gardening, and light pollution is so bad I haven't seen the stars at night for years. 

I'm being stupid.  But also real for me.   

Sister Visit, Not

I live 2 hours away from the town where most of my family lives/lived in MD.  When my sister and hubby decided to move to FL after retiring, she planned to visit me before leaving the area.  Well, moving is stressful and busy, and she couldn't get the free time.  I understood that.  I would have been equally pressed for time.

This April, she emailed that her hubby was returning to the old town to meet old friends and go fishing in Canada with them.  Susie decided to go along as far as the old town and stay with her daughter and visit old friends there.  She said she was going to drive the 2 hours to visit me one day here.

Things happen.  She decided driving 2 hours in a strange rental car (she doesn't like driving) was too uncomfortable.  We considered meeting in the middle, but that would have just been in a restaurant for or hour and that's not a great place to talk.  I considered some outside locations, but the temp is hitting 95+ and the heat index over 100, so that wasn't a good idea.

We decided to just keep talking on the telephone every so often.

I miss her generally.  She is not only a sister but a person I like.  I mean, if she was only a neighbor, I would like her too.

But with 2 months notice, I started fixing the house up.  I'm a single guy set in his ways; I don't worry too much about how the house looks inside.  But I repainted the bathroom, mopped the floors, washed other walls ( the kitchen really needed it), etc.  And I had yard stuff to show.  The new compost bin, the new deck (3 years old but she hasn't seen it), the enclosed garden, flowers everywhere.  Etc.

It would have been nice to show her the things I've done.  And to sit and talk to her.

But at least I have a nice clean house!  That should last about a month, LOL!