Monthly Archives: February 2019

The “List”

26 Tuesday Feb 2019

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It’s spring down here in the deep south.  At least for now.  Cooler temps along with some rain expected next week.  For those that are keeping up, my to-do list is slowly getting shorter; and I do mean slowly. Being that the weather has turned a little warmer, I’ve taken advantage of it and I’ve been doing a lot of work outside.  My back yard is slowly showing itself again.  I’ve spent several days cutting Privet and dragging the limbs to the street.  My back yard has a slight incline so after cutting the limbs I  have to climb this incline so I’m easily winded and I have to take a lot of breaks.  A person in good health would have already finished with this project and moved on but it’s taking me a little while longer.  I’m still not finished with it.  The limb collector only picks up once every other week so I don’t want a pile of limbs just sitting there waiting to be picked up. So, I’ve been working on doing some painting in the meantime.

Like I’ve stated on an earlier post, I’ve started using a task list to help me stay on target.  I must say that it’s making a huge difference.  The weather has a lot to do with what task I work on but as long as the weather stays nice for a few days I’m able to get quite a bit accomplished.  If the weather is cold or rainy I’ll stay inside and concentrate on doing some housework or do some woodworking projects.

Cooking has always been something I like doing so since I’ve retired I make it a point to help the wife with the cooking.  When both of us worked, it was difficult for my wife to create dishes that were both healthy and quick.  She is tired most days when she gets home so her choices for dinner was usually something unhealthy.  Now that I’ve retired, I do most of the cooking during the week.  I do a lot of grilling, very little frying and some slow cooking in my crockpot.  Most of the items I cook is new to both me and my wife so it’s made dinner very interesting.

Life goes on!!

Happy Valentines Day

14 Thursday Feb 2019

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As a child, I was never fond of Valentines Day.  I remember just like it was yesterday.  The teacher would always tape a bag to the back of our desks and each person would be allowed to drop their Valentines Day card into the sack.  We would do this toward the end of the day so as soon as everyone delivered their cards we would be dismissed and go home.  That’s when I realized just how many friends I had.

The day before our party, my mom and I would count the cards and make sure we had enough for everyone to get one.  I would then sit at the kitchen table and write each kids name on the card then print my name at the bottom.  I wanted to make sure everybody knew that I had given them one.  Most of the cards that I received from our party were not as nice as the ones that I gave out.  Some even had the words, “I hate you.” on them.  I knew I would get them.  It happened every year for some reason so I would rush home and quickly go through them and hide all the ones that were not nice.  That way my parents were never to see them.

I don’t know what I did or what I said but from the 1st through the sixth grade I was the one who was being bullied and Valentines Day was one of the worse days in my childhood.  Telling the teacher or an adult only seemed to make it worse.  One day, I decided that I would end it by sticking up for myself.  One of the kids decided to pick a fight with me during lunch.  The teacher said something to the bully of the day but that only made things worse.  The bully then decided he would meet me after school.  I was there waiting for him and it seemed that the rest of the elementary school was there as well.  I hung in there for a couple of good swings but got jumped by others and ended up on the bottom of the pile.  To this day I don’t know why it ended because after it was over I didn’t see an adult anywhere. I got myself up and walked home.  That was my last day at that school.  My parents moved me to another school the very next day.

I made it through my childhood years without further incident.  As a parent of three, I never have told them about my experiences as a child but I have always told them to tell us if they have ever felt like they were being bullied.   Thankfully, they never have.  Not saying that they were, just saying that they have never told us that they were being bullied.

Being bullied can have a lasting effect on a child.  Did it have an effect on me?  I guess it did but I think I turned out okay without having to go to some type of therapy.  Some kids today can’t take it and they don’t make it to adulthood.  I think it’s so sad to hear this.  It breaks my heart because I know what this child is going through.

Bullying is wrong.  I wish we could end it without it ending in suicide.

The Never Ending “To Do” List

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

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When I retired a few months ago, I knew what I would be doing.  My ideal thoughts were to be traveling to far off lands and seeing the world.  That was never to have happened.  I knew that.  Be that as it may, my fate was already sealed.  Some may call it a ‘Honey Do” list but in actuality, it’s my list.  It’s a list of projects that only I can do or at least pay someone to come and do it. As a family with twins in college, we really can’t afford to pay someone to do something that I might do.  With the disability looming in the foreground, I have to be careful as to what I actually am able to do.  If that makes sense.,

The problem I have is that I start a project and before I finish the project, I start another one.  Now, after several months of being retired, I have several unfinished projects and I was getting stressed out about having all these unfinished projects about.  I think I have come up with a solution to my problem and so far it’s working.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if it’s cold or rainy outside, I can permit myself to do some woodworking projects.  That is if and only if I get the chores done.  If it’s pretty outside, I need to be doing some of these outdoor projects such as painting and yard work.

What I’ve started doing is creating a task list with all the projects that need to be done around the house.  I sit down and list them by importance.  I check the weather for the next day and add a couple of tasks to the calendar.  I don’t add another task until either that task is done or the weather changes and I can’t go outside and work on the project.

I had a fairly large limb come down a few months ago and for the last three days, I’ve worked trying to get it down. It’s down now but I’ve still got some clean up to do.  This weeks weather calls for a pretty good chance of rain each day so I’m having to work around that.  After that I’ve got the exterior doors to paint, sidewalks to clean, the deck needs pressure washed, hedges need to be trimmed, I think you get the jest of what all I need to get done at least outside the house.

 

 

Denied!

04 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Cancer, Leukemia, Photography, Retirement

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Three out of ten people who file for disability actually recieve disability the first attempt.  Unfortunatly, I was not one of those three.  Oh well.  I knew I would be denied.  I had a feeling.  I’ve already sent my paperwork in to an attorney and even he said it could take 18 to 24 months to get a hearing.  I’m not in a hurry.  Just taking every day one day at a time.