Health

This country person does enjoy being outside and doing what she wants to do, but lately I have not felt good....now saying I have  exaspcerbated asthma....wow.  It has kept me coughing and wheezing and using lots of different things to be able to breath and sleep.  I am getting better but it is a slow process.  With this process is frustration and gratitude also.  Frustration that I cannot go to exercise at the YMCA or go lots of places because I am tired.  Gratitude because I am getting better.  I am also getting better with my plans for simplifying my life again.  I get out of balance sometimes and this setback has made me think about it.  I have been going too much, three times a week to exercise.  I don't like being away from home, my country life, my dogs, and my many hobbies an activities I enjoy.  In  fact, I recall telling my daughter that I need to find balance again.  

It was put to me in health issues.  But now, just today I made many decisions.   I again got out my yoga things in the corner of the basement where I used to have a yoga area.  I also cleared off some of the storage shelves with excess items, boxed and in the jeep to go to thrift shop for donation.  I talked to my dogs, especially Hemingway, and told them I would be home with them more.  I can exercise at home, and I can stop paying the YMCA monthly and running three times a week.  When I don't feel well, I can slow down my workout, I can walk more and do more yoga when I am doing well.  Little by little it will balance out while I enjoy my country home more and more.  

Today I brought my quilt up to my sewing area and am ready to machine quilt it.  I actually felt better physically with decisions and actions made.  I feel like I can finish projects, be home, and more true to myself with what I want....Simplify....Simplify....and enjoy this country home and country living.  Gratitude for being sick to slow me down so I can find a better and straighter path for being ME.

Country Rest Time

Winter is a restful time for country people like me.  It means more time in the house, not all the wonderful yard work and growing season, berry picking, etc.  Which I always enjoy of course.  But it is time to do other inside things that sometimes get set aside for spring/summer/fall things.

Quilting is on my list and I have a nice quilt on the table downstairs to pin together front, bat and backing and then machine quilt.  Knitting is a daily thing (however, I knit for therapy, and love doing it all year some each day).  I enjoy other crafts and readings and college classes, etc.  also that I just don't find the time for in the summer months.

However, winters in Missouri go faster then some other areas of the country I used to live.  It seems I always run out of time before the growing season starts.  However, also, my asthma has become more of an issue to my life.  Since I moved to Missouri some years ago, my teenage asthma came back and now at age, almost 70, and having had a very severe cold, my asthma has become a more severe issue.  Today a doctor told me that I should stay out of the damp weather......really.....it is humid in Missouri, summer and winter, fall and spring.  Does this keep me in the house all year?  I hope not, but if it is, then I will still enjoy my life with all my hobbies.  I do hope things get better so I can walk and play with my dogs outside and swim in my pool.  It is good to be able to breath, of course.  The other solution may be to move.  Really, I would like to see that happen.  My husband is a Missouri person.  I, on the other hand, just live here, but am from Wisconsin.  Wisconsin is not an answer for me either, as it is humid.  I did live in Colorado and like it.  Well, life can get interesting at any age.  We will see how this new issue is to be resolved.  Saying that, I am off to do some breathing treatments, take some new meds, and head to bed.  

And tomorrow, well, I am going to bake bread and quilt. 

MY COUNTRY DOGS....

After I had to say goodbye to my dear Daisy Mae Foxhound in 2015, my heart was broken.  Life does go on, and one heals.  I still miss her sweet smiling eyes.  Friends that run the Humane Society in my area were wonderful.  They rescued a little special dog, yorkie mix and nursed him to health and well being.  Then Kirk intruded me to him, telling me that he would steal my heart.  I, of course, said no, but just looked at him.  The next time I went, I said I would hold him.  The next time, just a few days later, I held him again and watched him play a little with other dogs.  Then I told Kirk that he was right, this little tough guy was stealing my heart, and mending it also.  I adopted him or as they say, rescued him.  He actually rescued me.  As he sleeps next to me on the couch tonight, I could not love him any more, and I admire him also.  He is 2.5 years old now.  Such a wonderful dog.  He needed playmates so we adopted a little Italian Greyhound which we named Mr. Molesley, and later Vincent vG from a person who could not deal with a 4 month old maltese puppy.  My three country dogs are little, and busy and strong and healthy and happy.  I have been rescued times three and am grateful.

 My sweet sweet sweet Hemingway, yes named after Ernest.

 Mr. Molesley, small and fragile, named after character on Downton Abbey.

Little Vincent vG named after Vincent van Gogh.

FIRE.....

Fire in the country can be a game changer for any family.  We rely on help from neighbors and ourselves until the rural volunteer department arrives.  A few weeks ago our neighbor down the road pulled in the driveway, and got out of her van, shaking.  I thought, "Oh, Michelle needs my help", ad raced out the door to help her when she said there was a fire coming our way FAST.  As I looked down the road past our pond and fence row area of wooded area, the fire was part way across the field and high flames, moving fast due to the windy day.  Roy, my husband, got one hose connected from the back of the house and I did the other, then he finished as I made sure the dogs were in the house so if I had to grab them and leave they were handy.  We watched as the flames grew higher and faster coming our way.  It got to the fence row of trees on our land and into the woods a ways also.  But our volunteer fire department got there and pushed it back and then put it out, working fast and hard.  They said it sure could have been bad, but they got there in time, but after two other fires in the last 20 minutes.  The deputy said they were thinking someone was setting fires of long grass fields so they would catch and move fast, maybe causing people's houses harm because there were several fires.  Thanks to the little towns all having a volunteer department, and then helping each other also, all fires were put out.  I do not begin to understand someone who does things like this.  I do understand my neighbor coming fast to tell me, and the volunteers coming as fast as they can also.

Fire is scary in any housing situation, but on a windy day, moving fast, it was very scary.  Country life is wonderful and even when fire comes and it takes some time for help, it is good.

Purses and other objects......

Today while shopping (looking), I spied a nice leather purse and could not help but have to touch it.  I like leather and I like wood, and it seems I often have to feel these things.  However, this purse, an expensive brand, was way to expensive for what I would pay...almost $400.00, but it was a ...... says the clerk.  She was very nice and proceeded to tell me that if I purchased the purse I could then purchase a matching wallet for 50% off so it would only be $100.00 today for the wallet.  What a deal!  But then she was a good sales clerk and told me that she purchased her first ......purse last week and every time she looks at it, it makes her smile.   I should not have, but I could not seem to help myself.....I said, "Well, I have three little dogs at home that make me smile and laugh and hug many times everyday."  She did not make a sale, and I smiles as I thought of my dogs and went home, holding on to my $29.00 purse from T. J. Max and my wallet, well, I got it online from Wish.com. for $1.00 and shipping.   Plus in that wallet was money not spent and also credit card not used for an object that, I am glad made this woman smile, but I think it would make me cry when I thought what I spent on it.  So glad I have my little dogs, because they are surrounding me right now as I type and I am smiling.

A New Day, again

As life takes over at times in my life, as it does yours I am sure, I regret not keeping up with my blog.  I know I can do better and will say again that I am going to try.  

Since my last post so much as gone one, sickness for both my husband and it, and he even being in the hospital.  Then I was diagnosed with skin cancer, beta cell carcanomia which is the best one to get because of it's treatment success.  As I still am recovering with the scar tissue and some stitches still in my eye area, I am grateful for the cancer being gone and a clear bill of health after a total body check just the other day.  Our medical advances for so many diseases and sicknesses continues to amaze me.  I am hoping that we can continue to have funding and strive toward even better.

When one has cancer, and I have had it twice now, breast and now skin cancer, it causes, at least speaking for myself, me to reflect on things in my life.  I often find myself looking at years past and hears ahead which are much less as I turn 70 in April.  I have so much to still do and challenge myself to do and improve in so many areas.  I some days am tired and (take a nap), but go forward.  I am still learning FRENCH with Rosetta Stone, I read more all the time, I knit and try new patterns.  I bake and cook new things.  And I always am thinking and planning short and longer trips.  My newest thing is to go back to the YMCA.  I have belonged to it several times in several places I have lived, and always enjoy the swimming laps, and yoga.  This time around, I was able to have six weeks of two times a week with a personal trainer and learning to think about activity level, health, diet, etc. which I have addressed during my life.  For 70, I am strong.  But I have been introduced to the Wellness Center with all the different equipment and machines.  They are interesting and a great challenge.  With my FITBIT and a plan, I have to say I am enjoying my workouts and go three to four times a week for a couple of hours each time.  I also have started BARRE classes, which include yoga and ballet exercises.  It is fun, and challenging, and works up a sweat, but you come away feeling relaxed, well-worked, and limber.  I also admit I feel a bit like an older form of a ballet student.  Just simple fun.  

My encouragement to you is that you also have a new day and a new beginning , again.  After all, each day given us is a new start.   You can start tomorrow, or the next day.   Just get up and enjoy.

GUILTY AGAIN

Yes, again guilty of slipping with my emails and my pinterest and blogging.  I do better with my snail mail to people as I send out postcards and notes about places I have been.  And facebook is a daily thing as is my yoga and meditations and devotions plus knitting.  Oh, put my wanderings and gardening and dogs and many other things I keep going with....taking care to get in walking, swimming and canning some during this season and it seems, may I use these excuses....guilty again of lapsing on what I always say is good for me to do.

My thoughts have been taken aback with all the political things and hatred things going on in our country also.  As I am a northern person who is dislocated I believe to the south, I do find going to town and seeing many confederate flags a bother to me.  I love my country and these things make me sad.  So I pray, I voice my opinion kindly and listen to the other side, but will never understand why people hate and want to go backwards.  Troubling because it has hit my family and some friends, who have actually decided to not be my friends any longer because I don't agree with them.

I revert back to my home, my dogs and my hobbies which I am so blessed to have.  I paint lovely pictures of birds and do photography of blessed sunrises and sunsets as our world turns each day to give me joy...in hummingbirds, leaves of trees, blooms of flowers, and ripe tomatoes.  My part of the world is good and I desire that for others.

A reprieve is to head to my home state more often and just chill out, enjoy and breath the air, visit the waters and beaches and forests and art people and authors and musicians I have come to know and enjoy.  Climb a well known childhood and adult mountain I relish good memories of.

Life goes past all of this and I wish that some would see that their daily lives need some reprieve as they fight the bigger picture but it can not be all about what they call the bigger picture.  Actually for me the bigger picture are the hummingbirds, the leaves of trees, the blooms of flowers, and ripe tomatoes and never leaving out my three special little guys.....Hemingway (yorkie), Vincent (maltese), and Mr. Molesley (Italian Greyhound).  I am blessed.