What Have I Been Up To?

Most of the time I am fighting my weight or blood sugar. I mean, that is a daily battle, and really... Do you want to hear about it? If so, here's a little update. Finally, I think I have my insulin intake under control - for the most part. I mean, I still have minor bouts of high numbers, especially when I go off diet and binge at the Chinese "all-you-can-eat" buffets. Give me a break. Sushi? Fried fish? Fried shrimp? Fried... well, whatever? And rice? Of course my numbers are going to be out of bounds. DOH!!! Also, I've learned, if I turn just right, I can jolt my back out of place and that insipid continuous pain can sky-rocket my blood sugar, too. So, I deal with it, and on most day, I'm good.

Weight? I didn't gain this spacious 100 pounds overnight; I'm not going to lose it overnight. The faster it comes off, the faster it comes back and usually brings extra luggage and friends. I'm losing at a slow pace, a hair over three pounds over a three month period. That would mean, one pound per month. Maybe I "could" step it up a little, but, well, read the previous paragraph. Buffets? Doh?! If it ain't deep fried, it is coated in a heavy sugary syrup. Hence, when at home, I eat a lot of less carb meals, cutting corners on the carb count as I can. Sandwiches are now basically a wrap, but with lavash bread which is only 4 carbs for 1/4 section of bread which is more than enough to wrap a sandwich. Sure beats 20+ for a slice of bread.

So much for all that same-o, same-o crap about my diet, weight, and blood sugar. Big whoop! I'm controlling it for the most part. I'm happy.

So... What have I been doing? We decided to revamp the front porch. Okay, in full honesty, we decided to revamp the whole appearance around the house. First step was getting some of the weeds under control and to do that, we decided to get rid of some flower beds. We didn't get rid of flowers, just the beds. Flowers now reside in pots and they're doing real fine and I've discovered, so much easier to weed. As I wander around the yard, checking the posies, if I see a stray weed growing in the pot - well, out it comes!!

The garden was six feet by fifteen feet. Slightly raised. To be honest, barely eight inches off the ground. It did help keep the weeds somewhat controlled, but leaning down to get to them. Uh, that was a stretch.

A new raised bed this spring. Smaller. It is - inside dimensions - four feet by nine something feet. Note I said inside dimensions. I used concrete blocks, two blocks high. So the garden is now sixteen inches from the ground and quite reachable. Weeds? Yeah, a few at the start which I was able to remove in less than ten minutes. Now, that's what I call easy gardening. This image is when I first started to put it in. Uh, two trips to Menards to lug them back in the rear of a 2014 Ford Focus, 700+ pounds, just in blocks, each load. LOL.

Almost finished. Just a little more dirt. I've put in some dirt, some sand, and lots and lots of chicken crap. I cleaned out the chicken coop and well, what better place to put all that fertilizer? I let it sit for almost a month, watering it so it wouldn't be too strong.

And, now? Here's what it looks like today.

I have two struggling bell peppers on the extreme right with some nice looking bells. There are 2 rows of green beans and one row of wax beans. My "salad" lettuce is on the left. It is a mixture of different leaf lettuces. And, across the back, I have five (5) tomato plants. Starting from the left, it is a cherry tomato (in case you didn't notice, it is HUGE) for salads and munching, a Beef Steak for sandwiches, a New Jersey Devil which is a strange Roma-type for pastes and salsa, a Pink which will add a lighter color to the mix, and finally, on the far right, a Mortgage Maker which is a heavy bearer and great for sauces. Yeah, a lot of tomatoes going into pint and quart jars this season until the first winter frost kills them. Of course, I'll probably sneak out and grab a couple of green maters to fry up. Love them. Oh, and before I forget, I am proud to say, everything in the garden but the lettuce was grown by me from seed.

I've also been working on the front porch and side deck. Let's go with the front porch. It is "almost" done. I just need to get the LED post cap lights for the four small posts, and I also need to string rope between the posts. Since the porch is only two feet from the ground on the sides, and a couple of inches from the front flower beds, I don't need to have any railing. We love the look without. BUT, we discovered, a strong wind moves the furniture across the porch and well, in the past, the railings kept things contained to the front porch and not flipping all over the yard. Hence, we are placing a decorative rope around to at least keep the furniture on the porch during a storm. Here's the porch, as built in 2006 when the house was going up. The only thing missing is the slapped-up white roof with no trim.

This is what it looks like today, minus the cap post LED lights and ropes ... which are coming soon.

And, now, some close ups. They are: front porch left side, front porch right side, my fancy corner emblem so I didn't have to miter the corners when putting up the trim, and the newly painted furniture.

Now, a little about the furniture. Originally, the love seat was the same insipid "tan" color as the table next to it. The Adirondack chair was a lovely shade of dark army green. The other chairs were also a shade of dark moss green. I painted them all a dark blue. We put new blue and white cushions on the old rockers. And, in the near future, I will paint the tables white. Also, I plan to paint all the shutters on the house to match our new color scheme. Yup! It will be that dark blue.

I'm currently working on the side deck. It is a mere eight (8) to ten (10) feet above the ground on the east end of the house. I had some of that crappy plastic trellis screwed to some of the uprights. Not really all that safe. I have since put up welded fencing and will be covering it with wood strips. When I finish that project, I'll post. Hopefully, by then, I'll also have the rest of the front porch, and shutters completed. One neighbor asked if I was getting the house ready to sell. I informed him I was changing a lot of things around the house to make it easier for me, a seventy-two year old fart, to keep things up-to-date. I will be enlarging the "hillside" flower bed this fall. My son bought a new place and my DIL doesn't want to fiddle with all the myriad of flowers. Guess who is going to inherit them? And, in the manner of keeping it easier for me, I'll add a simple path through the new bed to make weeding easier when in the flower bed.

A Gardening Lesson

Here's a gardening tidbit. When is the best time to weed? Well, of course, when the weed first emerges from the ground and has very little root... but, well, we don't tend to catch them until they are larger than the flowers. LOL. So, now to answer the question. After it has rained. If you get a heavy deluge, or really good dousing of water that seeps deep into the ground. The next day... or later that day, grab your bucket and whatever weeding tools you use and get out there. PULL... yes, PULL those weeds out. If the ground is really wet, they will literally slip out, maybe even with all the hairy little roots still attached. I did that for a mulch area, pulling dandelions, Queen Anne's lace, thistle, creeping Jenny and all sorts of other weeds out - tap root and all the little roots, too. If you get the root out, they don't tend to grow back. LOL. I've got a little weeding to do and it has threatened to rain for the last couple of days. Even the weatherman believes it will rain. It hasn't. Each day it doesn't rain and I don't pull the weeds, they get stronger root systems and bigger. If it don't rain tonight, I will get the sprinkler out and let it run for about an hour in the morning, then again for about thirty minutes in the afternoon. Then, in the evening shade and cool, I'll sit on my little bench and pull those weeds out. BTW, if you know my luck, it will pour that night after I've watered so well.

Until next I ramble on...

What I've Learned OR The Rainy Day is Here!

I've made 70 circles around the sun. If you want a more impressive number, the moon has made over 900 cycles around the earth in my lifetime, so far.  BUT... In that time, surprisingly, I was able to learn a few things. Some of them were easy, others took a little more ... shall we call it wedging with a sledgehammer?

I'm retired.  I spent many decades working, always giving my all to my job, fretting when I couldn't make it in due to illness and feeling guilty when I was on vacation when a big project had to be finished. A friend of mine told me "This company doesn't give two farts to the wind about you. Don't stress yourself, they don't."  But I did.  I actually thought the company couldn't continue without me.

I was wrong.  I retired. I left and went back about one month later to see how things were going. Some people didn't even realize I had retired and been gone for any length of time. Everything still stood, life continued and didn't care if I was there or not. Yeah, I was a little depressed. I felt sure there would be a myriad of questions of how this or that was done. The questions didn't come.

In fact, it wasn't until about 6 or 8 months after my retirement that I got a frantic call about something failing. Seems they cleaned house over the weekend, getting rid of a lot of old equipment. They removed the sign "Do Not Turn Off" and removed the server over the weekend. On Tuesday, when the one employee attempted to print a seating chart - it failed. I got a call the following Monday as to what could be the problem since I wrote the program. Found out they removed the server which removed the program, the source code and the compiler. There was nothing I could do to help them. I'd printed out the source code with an explanation of what each line of code did for every special program I created, but it was deemed a waste of paper and tossed. They "hoped" I had a copy at home. Uh, no.

It was obvious, my last place of employment, and several of the others prior, had no regard for me or my work. Unless it impacted them and/or the bottom line ($$) they didn't care. Why should I?

So, again, I reiterate - Unless you own the business, don't fret about it or kill yourself, nobody cares. In other words, go to work, do your work with pride and go home and enjoy your real life.

What else did I learn? Learn to pick your fights. Sometimes you don't actually get that opportunity. Yes, the opportunity to pick your fight. It seems no matter what you do, the fight is coming to you and you're going to be in the mess. When that happens, take the appropriate action. BUT, if you can avoid a fight, do so. Is it really worth the effort of fighting about whether this or that is true or false? Step back and evaluate the battleground. Give it a lot of thought. With you winning or losing, will it make a difference? Next week, next month, next year - will the outcome have some bearing on it? So, it don't make a difference, why engage? If you win, it won't matter. If you lose, it won't matter. So why even get involved? Walk away.

Another tidbit - Money. What did I learn about mone?. One never seems to have enough. When I made $1.25 an hour, I wanted to make more. When I made almost $50 an hour, it seemed I still needed more. I didn't realize until I retired the true reason for that... even though it had been flaunted in my face at one time. Each person will consume to the level of income. That is almost a universal law. When I was cut back during a company-wide crisis back in the 80s - another employee friend of mine moaned that he wasn't sure how he would survive the 15% cutback. Sorry, but I couldn't empathize with him - I'd been cut back 22.5% and when I explained my situation, he explained he had a much higher cost of living. Our friendship sort of withered during the cutback and never re-bloomed when things got better.  It didn't matter how much one made, we all lived to the full capacity of our income and a cutback, whether 15% or 22.5% - it hit the paycheck. So, what did I learn about money? Try to stay within the means of your income. Actually stay within 75% of your income and avoid using credit. Yes, it is only a few dollars each month, but the number of months is astronomical in the long run. I am currently working to eliminate all debts and expenses except those needed for day-to-day living that one can not eliminate: trash removal, phone service, electric, water and other such amenities.

Another fact of growing up. A friend of mine retired shortly after me and from what I can tell, he quit shaving, showered when others made faces or flat out told him, and basically vegetates in his house. He said to me: I cleaned and shaved every day, put on a fresh shirt, tied that tie and wore a suit with shiny shoes for a professional look. He decided to go feral. Okay, I retired and gave up the fancy suit and tie look. Yes, I'd worn "monkey clothes" for most of my working life with a few days of simple dressing. After retirement, I started to wear shorts and t-shirts, going barefoot when I could. I would put on long pants and a nice polo shirt when going to town. By the way, this is my year-round apparel wearing routine. Yes, I walk outside to get the mail wearing shorts, even when the snow is blowing, I just add a hooded sweatshirt or jacket. And I wear moccasins almost daily.  Sunday, when I go to church, I tend to dress up - a nice shirt, slacks, socks and shoes, but the minute I get home, they get changed to shorts and t-shirt.  Retirement is about enjoying life - your way - but it always means that you still need to function within society, so one does need to bathe and consider hygiene.  Still, it is your life, enjoy it as you see fit... you worked for this moment, enjoy it.

Remember the phrase - We're saving it for that special time? Exactly when will that special time happen? We had "good" china, special candles and fancy clothes for a special occasion. Of course, it could anything you have that you've been saving. Why? When will it be that special moment? Use it. My wife and I have lugged special china I bought while in the Navy all over the USA with us as we've moved over the years. Always keeping it for that special meal. I think we've used it maybe 3 or 4 times - hardly worth the effort of keeping it all these years - over 40+ years! We are now considering down-sizing and it will be up for sale. Why? At this point in time, every day is a special day and we don't use them - we use paper plates for convenience. Time to clean house. We had some crystal china my wife had collected and we finally decided to use them as everyday plates. Rather fancy for a meal but we used them and finally sold them. My mother received a blouse that was expensive and she saved it for a special day. She's gone and the blouse was sold in the estate sale, never worn. If you have it, use it. You woke up today so it is a special day, make it even more special and enjoy the stuff you're saving - otherwise it will be sold at a sale. It may mean something to you, but to those who "inherit" all your fine things, it probably won't mean a thing - 25¢ blouse or 10¢ plate. Enjoy what life has given you, don't stash it away for a rainy day.

Oh, wait - that might be the magic phrase I'm trying to allude to - Forget the rainy day, enjoy it now!

When it comes time to regret, you'll always regret the things you didn't do. Seldom does one regret doing what they did. They may think it a better choice not to have participated, but will they regret it? Not really!

I enjoy my family, my community, my hobbies: traveling, writing, fishing, gardening and being with my wife.

It is better to have ______ and lost than not to have ______ at all. (fill in the blank to fit your need)

I see rain but I also see a bright sunny day in my very near future. I'm purging myself of all that is holding me back, cleaning house, and moving forward. In the words of Johnny Nash...

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there's nothin' but blue skies Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Yeah, the perfect song. Enjoy it... and remember, you are your first priority and that includes your family. The rest will fall into proper place.

Until next I ramble on...