TAKING A LOOK BACK

 

Hello, friends!  Hope you are having a wonderful end to this month.  By the time you read this, it will be the last day of June.  And how did this happen?  How is the year half over?  How is it summer already?  And almost Independence Day?  Ah, time sure passes quickly.

And this thought brings me to my post today.  I wanted to see how I celebrated July 4th in the past, so I read over my blog entries to see just what I had done.  How interesting!  I found that some things remained the same, while others had drastically changed.

In 2011 I got up early, did laundry and dishes.  Then I cleaned the house and had my friends Carole and Walt over for dinner.  Joe had a sore throat and actually stayed in bed while we all ate at the dining room table.  He finally came down and ate a little while staying far away from us so he wouldn't make us sick.  The post says I made a buttermilk crumb cake with peaches and blueberries.  I have NO recollection of that.  And I haven't made that cake since.  I must look it up and make it again since it looks delicious!

In 2012 I leaned over and threw out my back so spent the day in a lot of pain.  I couldn't move!  And Joe was sick again.  I did manage to do a load of wash and hang it on the clothesline outside.  But then my back was so bad that I couldn't take it down and put it away!  What a day that must have been.

To keep the sick theme going, in 2013 I had an absess in a tooth underneath a crown.  Oh the pain!  I made dinner for Joe but couldn't chew anything so I had juice.  And then we watched the movie "Oz, the Great and Terrible."

Finally in 2014 we were both well.  But tired.  I was still working at this point and could never get enough rest.  I slept until 11:00 a.m., but Joe slept until 2:00 p.m.  We had some leftover panzanella salad (I haven't had that in a long time!  Another thing I need to make.) for brunch and then went food shopping at 4:00 p.m. because we had nothing in the house for dinner.  Apparently, everyone else had the same idea because the store was crowded.

In 2015 I slept almost the entire day again.  I remember always being tired when I was working.  It was the beginning of my heart problems, but I hadn't been diagnosed yet and no one knew that is what was going on.  I did do a load of wash and made a dinner of hot dogs and potato salad.

2016 was a low key Independence Day.  I went to Rite Aid and Shoprite.  Who does that?

Finally, in 2017 I had a decent holiday.  My brother and sister-in-law had just bought their house, and they had an open house/barbecue.  Lots of food, friends, family and a wonderful time.

We had just gotten a new pastor in 2018.  His wife was away visiting family, so we picked him up and took him out to eat at East Coast Wings.  Another low-key holiday.

2019?  The only thing I wrote is that we had hot dogs for lunch and barbecued chicken for dinner.  That must have been an exciting year.

In 2020 I watched a couple of Amazon Prime series and had barbecue food.  Woo hoo!

And finally last year it was a Sunday.  We went to church, had a sandwich for lunch, and made a great barbecued pork dinner.  I also had a tooth ache and was looking forward to calling the dentist for an emergency appointment the next day.  Those teeth of mine like to act up around holidays.

I thought this was so interesting and I'm so glad I keep a blog.  It is like having my own online journal.

What are we doing this year?  You'll see.  But I'm not planning on sleeping in, doing wash and watching TV.  We are planning on going somewhere but I won't say more in case it doesn't work out.  Curious?  I'll be posting it.

Have a wonderful day.  I'll be back soon.

Kathy

MY HEALTH UPDATE

 

Hello, friends!  Welcome to Summer.  I'm sorry I haven't been around for awhile.  I had no idea it was so long until my sister told me the other day that I hadn't written anything since the 6th!

Things have been busy for me.  I have been seeing a lot of doctors and spending time in the hospital.  It has not been fun.

On the 9th I saw my gastrointestinal doctor.  It was a good visit.  Things are going OK.  And he gave me some medication to try to settle my stomach when I eat dinner.  I keep forgetting to take it, though.  I'm supposed to take it 1 hour before I eat and I'm usually busy making dinner and the next thing I know I've eaten and it's still sitting there. *sigh*  But I need to get better at this.

My cardiologist called me on the 10th and said my heart monitor results had come back bad.  I had to wear one for 14 days.  He wanted to see me right away.  But...  when I could get to the office on the 14th, he wasn't going to be there.  So I saw his colleague who was also a very nice doctor.  I was put on blood thinners and have to go back in two months to see my regular doctor.  However, this new medicine has been giving me major headaches, so I don't know how this will work out.

On the 17th I ended up in the Emergency Room.  I went to get x-rays because I thought I had broken my left leg.  There was a big lump right under my knee and I couldn't put any weight on it.  My friend, Carole, took me and stayed with me.  After lots of x-rays, they told me that I had major arthritis in both knees.  I already knew that.  They gave me a prescription for some steroid cream to take away the pain and take down the swelling and sent me home.

This past Thursday (the 23rd) I went to see my orthopedist.  He took more x-rays and gave me cortisone shots in both knees.  My right and left knees were both swollen and bothering me.  The right knee responded great.  The swelling and pain went down within 24 hours.  The left leg swelling has gone down and the pain has gotten better, but it still hurts a lot.  He said I may have to have knee replacement on it.

Then yesterday (the 24th) I went to my eye doctor.  I got a great report there.  I am seeing great, my cataracts are small and stable and there is no sign of glaucoma.  I didn't have to get new glasses, but I did since my insurance pays for it and this way I will have an extra pair.  I really like the new ones.  They look very much like the ones I already have except the wire rims are thinner and instead of being purple, they are lavender.

Today I was going upstairs and tripped, hit my left foot, and badly broke my baby toe, ripping some skin off of it.  At first I thought the nail had come off too, but fortunately I didn't.  The whole foot is swollen, the toe a lovely shade of black, blue and purple, and it hurts so badly I can barely walk.

So what else is new with me?  That's how this month has been going.  I am not happy.  But I know God has a reason and a wonderful plan for my life so I just keep trusting him.  I really have no other choice since I can't control any of this.

But... happier days are coming.  I am looking forward to Independence Day even though now I don't think I can do much to celebrate.  I am looking forward to getting all the junk out of my house and starting over to make it so much better than it is now.  I am looking forward to the vacation I will be taking with my sister the end of July.  We are heading to our happy place, Lancaster County.  I don't get enough time with my sister and this is our getaway every year.  So things are looking up.

I hope I haven't bored all of you with my medical problems.  I have to realize that I am getting older.  Much older.  Closer to 70 years old than 60.  And I have to expect my body to begin to break down.

I have been keeping up with my YouTube channel because it is easier to do and I have videos made ahead for a few weeks.  I hope you will stop over and see me there (Kathy's Happy Home).  Also, I want to have a Q&A on there and hope you will ask me some questions I can answer.  You can just put them in the comments here.

And now I have the church bulletins made up for tomorrow.  But I still have to put a fruit salad together since I have the treat for Sunday School tomorrow.  I figure since the weather is so HOT that a cool fruit salad would be better than a pie or a cake.  And then I am headed to bed.  Hope you all have a great weekend.  I will be visiting all of you soon!

THE COOKOUT

Hello, friends.  Hope you are having a wonderful day.  I thought I would tell you about this past weekend.  Every year around this time my sister has a cookout at her house to celebrate the birthdays of Joe and our friends Marion and Frank.  All are within days of each other.

The traffic was really bad and several times I got caught behind slow moving trucks.  So it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get there.  We were the last to arrive.

We brought our friend Carole with us.  As you can see it was very sunny.  And very hot.

I took this selfie and thought it turned out pretty good.  I guess doing my YouTube channel has given me a lot of practice photographing myself.

I always have liked Elaine's patriotic wreath on her door.  The "America" sign underneath is from Kirklands.  I have one exactly like it except mine broke in half.  I'm trying to figure out how to glue it back together.

This is my brother, Larry.  Even though we live about an hour apart, I almost never see him.  We are both really busy.

And my sister, Elaine, the hostess.

Here's Marion the birthday girl and her husband Rich.

Elaine got a birthday cake with all their names on it.  It was really good.  She made rice pudding too that everyone was raving about.  I don't like rice pudding so I didn't have any.

We made good time going home and got here in exactly 2 hours.  In spite of it being so hot, it was a good day and we all had a great time.

On to another month.  Trying hard to wrap my brain around this year being almost half over already.  Yikes!  See you all later.

Kathy
 

IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S ANOTHER

 Hello, friends!  How are you all doing?  Me?  Well...  You know how things are with me.  If it's not one thing, it's another.

A few days ago, I was putting the dishes away and I dropped one of Jack's cat food bowls.  It broke all over the floor in front of the sink.  I cleaned it all up and was pretty sure everything was fine.  On Monday night I was making potato salad and I stepped on something in my bare feet.  I have such bad arthritis in my feet that I often walk around barefoot because shoes hurt so much.  I looked and brushed off my foot and thought everything was OK.  It wasn't.  My heel began to hurt worse and worse.  Then it started to swell.  I stayed off of it as much as I could and sort of walked on the side of my foot to not hit the heel.  I went to the bathroom, got my magnifying mirror and a pair of tweezers, and went to work.  I saw a mark on my heel and some blood.  So I picked at it trying to get out whatever was there, but couldn't.  Joe was taking a nap, but I woke him up and he tried to get it out too.  I figured he had a better view.  But he couldn't get it either.

Yesterday I went to Bible Study and of course was wearing my shoes.  My foot started swelling even though I was sitting down.  It hurt a bit driving home, but I figured it was just so sore.

But it didn't get better.  So after I got something to eat, I went to Urgent Care.  The doctor there had me get three x-rays and they saw a 3 mm. fragment of something about an inch into my heel.  The doctor got some very sharp tiny tweezers and tried to get it, but no luck.  So she checked to make sure my tetnus shot was up to date, gave me some anti-biotics to take because I have a foreign object in my body, and told me to soak my foot in warm water several times a day.  She said for sure my body would work it out and expel it.  But it might take a couple of weeks.  *sigh*

I had gone to Urgent Care by myself, but I called Joe when I got out and he went with me to get my medicine so I wouldn't have to walk across the store at Shoprite to get to the pharmacy.  I waited in the car.  When he came out, he had a rotisserie chicken and some potato salad for dinner so that I wouldn't have to stand and cook.  What a sweetheart he is.

Life goes on.  It's not always good, but it's always interesting.

See you all later...

Kathy