#thepersonalside: Mid-Year Wrap-Up

Photo by Mike Marquez on Unsplash [click on the image]

There are events in my life I’ve begun to tell you, my online cronies, but I haven’t followed through with what has transpired. I’ve either decided the occurrence was too drab compared to what is probably going on in your lives or I thought it might be deemed imprudent. The latter is probably unlikely but how am I to really know what some else’s opinion is unless he or she tells me?

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in knowing what has changed and what is still the same in my personal life.

Not quite a year ago I wrote a post about a chronic health issue I have developed since age has crept up on me, minor digestive problems. [In that post I included links to two other previous posts to give more explanation.] As to be expected, I still have the condition, although it’s become a bit more manageable. What has caused this small change? I stopped eating dairy products. I even try to avoid most breads because of a little milk or butter in them. It didn’t even take a week for me to start feeling a difference. Am I lactose intolerant?  I don’t think so, not really. I could be lactose sensitive though. Nonetheless, I’m going to stay clear of dairy as much as possible because I generally feel so much better. As a bonus, I’ve lost over 30 pounds by doing away with the fat content in dairy products.

This last May, my husband and I were faced with a leaky roof. It was quite a hassle getting it taken care of but we’re finally happy with what we have now. It started a series of other updates to our home. We got a new sliding glass door going out to our deck. Finally, we can push the glass door to the side to let fresh air in without having bugs come in. In the past, we were keeping the glass door closed all the time except to feed our “outside” kitties because we didn’t have a screen. Right after getting that done, the dishwasher died. It was the original from the 1970s. We weren’t surprised by the death at all. Seeing we were replacing the dishwasher, we also replaced the range hood for our stove, which was also from the 1970s. Now all of our big kitchen appliances match. 😀

This spring and summer have been incredibly wet. We’ve felt lucky to go three days without rain. If I had the means to do it, I would ship all this precipitation back to California where the drought continues, dumping a bit in the southern Rockies of Colorado where forest fires are blazing. We’re absolutely soggy here in the south. [I am unduly relieved we have this new metal roof.] Because of all the humidity, the ticks are in abundance. Every time my husband mows the lawn, he sprays Off all over himself and checks himself for ticks when he’s done. Sometimes he’d asked for my assistance with the examinations due to he can’t see his own back. Even with the spray and tedious inspections, he got a case of Lyme disease. He’s on antibiotics now so he’s beginning to feel a little better.

It was just last week when I told you about the free writing course I’ve been kept busy with. I actually started the classes the middle of June. I was caught a little off guard by how much I’m learning from the course. It isn’t so much that I haven’t known that I’m doing in my writing but more of a case of how my mindset had been for over three years about this part of my life. The classes have given me the moral support I’ve been lacking, telling me what I’ve been doing skill-wise has been right. I feel more unrestrained now. I am in my last week of classes, week 8 to be exact. I want to take a couple more courses but I’m going to take some time off from studying and, instead, get back to work on that rough draft.

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Such is life for an old fogey in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. 😛

The marvelous richness of the human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. ~Author: Helen Keller