Healing

Posted on October 19, 2026 by Kelsey

Monday morning. The pay week closed last night, and I have a workday ahead of me. That part of my schedule for the week is kind of weird. It leaves me feeling a bit less ambitious for today, the last day of my week, and the first day of a new pay week. I kind of go for whatever, where yesterday was the day I pushed to bring the total up. I don’t have it in me at the end of the week, and the beginning, to push it today. I am tired from yesterday, and fed up, frankly. I take a day off on Tuesdays. I didn’t last week. I really feel that I am going to this. But what’s really frustrating is that I worked a seven-day week last, and I only earned on average of $96 a day. I mean, what the hell is that? Now I get to take out the fuel expense from that and see what I get to live on. Talk about a bullshit job in 2026! That was a 42-hour week, with me optimizing for the best times I could work each day. About $16 an hour. You know? A day or two off each week would sure be nice, rather than worrying about getting in which is 50 miles round trip by itself! Then I could, you know, have a life of my own!

Okay, now I am really frustrated. I know the seven-day week worked over 42 hours is not that much per day, but the 50-mile commute, and the days spent away from my home and family, are just not worth it for piss-poor money. Before my time off for surgery, I was struggling to get ahead because DoorDash frankly messed with the algorithm and cut what they were paying, and now after I am trying like hell to catch up, and still can’t get ahead a little. I am trying to be positive as yesterday was the first time I had to start to rely on credit to get through the day, and that’s not bad considering how we have been stretching it to make it work surrounding my time off for recovery. I get paid into the bank tomorrow.

None of this would feel as challenging if I was not listening while I drive to the read wheel bearing which is completely shot, and the tire wearing on the inside back there. I need to get it replaced, which is to say, I need to order one and do it myself, because there is no way I can afford to pay prone for someone else to do it, which is laying prone, nonetheless. I cannot afford to be lazy. Anyway, I discovered yesterday how badly that tire is wearing. I need to keep an eye on it. I don’t think it has much time left. The wear is on the inside of the rear-left, where I cannot conveniently see it. But I can reach it. I can certainly hear the bearing! It is louder than ever right now. But my ears have never been able to distinguish which side it has been on. Also, I am never quite sure what is worth fixing on this car as the transmission whined like mad and is obviously not long for this world. Once that goes, I doubt I will afford to fix it. I need to sort out another car. I need to fix the Honda, too. But its fuel economy is so low that it would likely not be worth working in at all. And never mind the fact it has twice the miles on it that the car I am driving does. This is a tragic tale of cars sacrificed to earn pennies for their driver.

Surgical recovery is going well. The lump of scar tissue around the cut is smaller than ever. Still there, and still numb to the touch, but it no longer feels the size of a sausage link. I’d say more like a pencil. There seems to be more below the surface. But the lump at the surface is what interfered with me putting my chin down while lying in bed looking at my tablet, and things like that. As for how I feel after the op, I still feel a lot better than before! My body needs to stabilize and not be scarfing calcium from my bones and putting it into my blood supply, interfering with kidney function, and my heart. It feels like it is doing that. I have been doing okay on stairs, not showing up at the top feeling like I Am going to die of a heart attack right there on the spot. That sure gives me hope! I was thinking I had the heart disease that killed my paternal grandfather. Now, maybe not. I have not pushed it too hard. I need to get my heart into better shape before doing that. I don’t want to be the guy that killed himself pushing too hard to get into shape!

Eating is a bit safer feeling. Another symptom I am meant to have come by with this operation is lowered insulin resistance. I do better with sugar, though I still don’t care for much of it at all. I don’t feel like passing out for a little. I feel like my metabolism has changed, though I cannot really identify in what way, other than to think my blood sugar does not go as extreme as before. I feel like it is more manageable when I have not quite eaten enough, and I feel more satiated when I have eaten a little, which is what leads me to believe things are better, and will be better for weight loss.

The season is changing. I have a thermometer next to my bed that measures from out in the yard, and it is showing me 32.2 at a quarter till six in the morning. I think the stove is going to want a fire in it. Times are changing. Two weeks from today I will be waking up with my milk-carton kid in the house. After 25 years of not seeing her, I am pretty excited! I have feelings all a jumble that I cannot really express coherently. I am also in that stage of disbelief that I tend to go into when something big is on the schedule and can still go wrong. I guess that is my natural skepticism that is built to protect my emotions from things that can go wrong. But still, the anticipation is building! I think it will be a lot easier to just talk with her, too, rather than relying on communications devices and keyboards. I really look forward to that.

Missus is painting the kitchen and redoing it ready for the two big holidays to come. She also needs it feeling fresher because she rightfully hates working in it now and feeling like it cannot come clean after. The biggest change so far is the brick at the wall the oven is in. That has gone from white to red. Painted, of course. But that has changed the whole kitchen. She has also been refreshing the cupboard doors with the same shade of blue, so they don’t look so worn. She has laminate flooring she intends to put down, too. That’ll make a big difference. I will need to make her some thresholds that will stop shit going under it at the doors, and quarter rounds for the edges. My time off is planned! Things are looking very good in there! Let’s push for finished!

Alright. Time is getting close to getting dressed and on with the day, time. As I indicated above, it is generally a relaxed last day of the workweek. I’ll just go in and go along with it from the time I drop the girls off for school till the time I pick them up. Eager to get to my home life, I will probably try to stop early. It would be nice to make $100 today. Mondays tend to bring the week down in earnings because I get fed up with it because of it being my Fridays. And of course, my Friday is really more like Saturday because my stupid work week is six days long. This is way too much effort for way too little money! Great! Now I am pissed off again!

Posted in Delivery Jobs, Family Activities, Family Time, Journal Entry, Regular Update, Weather | Leave a comment

Running Out of Speed

Posted on October 17, 2026 by Kelsey

I woke up at 5AM this to answer the call. It’s no time to get up and stay up a it is Saturday, and I will be working through lunch and dinner rushes, trying to get $200, but given the rate of earning yesterday, I expect I will be struggling to make it to $100. Anyway, I went back to sleep without my CPAP on and woke up again tingly and a bit tired. Well, we know not to do that again, don’t we?

Two weeks from today ends a 25 year saga, almost to the day, of not seeing my child from my first marriage, as she is coming out to stay with us for a spell. There is so much to catch up on, and I am really excited for it! Obviously. I am busy trying to catch up with work, and get something settled as the car is falling apart. But I have no idea how to pay a monthly payment, in order to keep going at this. Shame, too, because overall I like the work, and it is about as stressful as I can take.

So, if anyone needs a portrait photographer, I am your guy. That I can do, and do well. It won’t be cheap, because it shouldn’t be, but I will get you some good work done. My coming to stay offspring is really good at photography, too! I’d love to put a business together with her, but her stay is not planned to be long enough to endevour on such a thing. Shame, too. I think we could really support eachother on that. But I need to do it form myself anyway. I need to stop on the hampster wheel I am on now, as it is just wearing me out.

Now the hard part! I am needed at home for several projects going on at the moment, and I need cash money in hand to pay the bills and buy the animal feed. There is my time gone. Well, expect for what I am spending blogging, obviously. So, I guess away I go! Better get me some breakfast and get going on my website, at least. Just a little to get me going in the right direction, and let’s see what happens.

I should add before I go, I feel so much better today than I did three weeks ago. So far, so good, and I really need to use this while I can, before age catches me up again!

Posted in Delivery Jobs, Journal Entry, Photo Business, Photography | Leave a comment

Pyroclastic Dreams

Posted on October 16, 2026 by Kelsey

Most of my dreaming is done when I am awake. I have had some memorable dreams in my nocturns, but they were not in any way mystical or guiding. Just strange amalgamations of the things going on at the time in my life, usually. I have daydreamed a good deal, not unlike Ralphie in A Christmas Story. But like Ralphie, that was in my youth. As an adult, I have spent my time daydreaming the things that I had planned for the farm, which is how I made them manifest. Everything I have built here has been through that uniquely human power. Nowadays, it seems that the unique powers of humanity I possess are turned more towards the ability I have to write a memoir. I suppose that is a form of daydreaming too, in the form of reliving memories. But that form is hampered by years, and the need to accurately recall things that have gone long into the past. I worry about that slipping away as it is a lot of what defines me. I wonder if there is anything else in the universe that is so defined by the events of its life, and aware of them? Or are we unique in the whole of it as entities aware of their existence for so much of their lives? It could be that there are billions of other planets or other bodies where creatures of some sort or another have evolved, and none with any latency to their memories that gives them as great of a perspective on their own lives. Or everything on our own planet could remember its own lives better than I do, and I am not even aware of that. I could be the worst of them! Only with language! Making me the only one of the species that can say ‘I forgot!’ What an idiot I am!

Some daydreaming is speculating, and it amounts to nothing useful at all. And now through another of our unique talents as a species, I have shared my stupidity with you! And through the power of the Internet, once this is written and published, it will never be forgotten

So, it’s 3:30AM, and I am awake. How nice. How lucky I am to have myself here with my thoughts, and no melatonin to help me knock off back to sleep. I’ll try to be there again by 5AM. I have to remember to get the rubbish out of the house and the bins out to the curb. I need to go down for early voting, too, before I start my workday.

I have another memory, and memory type. It’s one I cannot forget, though I was told as a young lad that it did not exist. I was told I could not remember pain. I was told that by the woman who bore me, so I thought for sure she would know what she was talking about in issues of pain. It has been my experience that I do remember it, whether it is physical or emotional. But that void of where it was cannot be refilled and experienced as it was at the time it originated. My shoulders are a little sore right now, and it honestly scares me a bit. It is triggering a memory of the pain that always was in me. I am reminded of how just sitting up hurt, or holding my arms in a position like this to type was done at the expense of great effort, overcoming the want to just let things drop because the pain all the way down to my bones was so exhausting. But what I am experiencing now is only a slight drag, a little distress, and not to the core. Not like it was. Not like I remember. Perhaps that is what makes it so hard to just roll off back to sleep right now? I feel so much better, and I worry that the feeling is going to go away, so I want to be awake and enjoying it!

Memory is what tells me that things are changing. This world is changing. I remember a weird little thing just now, which is a cinderblock wall that ran parallel to my great-grandparent’s garage. It held up an awning type covering over their carport. It is gone now, but it defined a space that was under it, and a space that was outside of it. Under it was significant because they kept their trailer there. Along that was enough room to walk, and we would come through the gate there where the trailer was put in from the side road that went past their corner lot. It meant that once we entered and closed the gate behind us, we were in their space, and that space was shaded from the California sun. It was welcoming, and always filled with anticipation, because I loved those people. I would have to walk along past that cinderblock wall, which only went up three feet, and then I could get to the steps up to the back porch, which was wooden, and topped with one and a half 4×8 foot pieces of plywood, making it 6×8 feet in size. That’s where great grandpa would come out to smoke. But that little pink wall was also what separated the driveway under the carport from the side yard of the house. The rest of the boundary that kept strangers out was a white picket fence and rose bushes of all different colors. There was a narrow strip of grass, and the side of the house extending forward to the front. That little yard was as close as it would come to an outdoor space where a kid could play. It was small. It was narrow and long. But it was enough for my little six-year-old self. The little pink cinderblock wall was a backdrop for photos of family that came to visit, with its trellis covered in vine, and little plywood figure cut out, painted to look like an 18-inch-tall woman bent over to pick the weeds from what ultimately was a bed of pyroclastic rocks that my great grandparents used to collect when they went out travelling to places where rockhounding is forbidden now. A quick look at the old house on Google Maps Street View reveals that that wall is gone now, and once a person walks through that side gate, they are free to just kind of fall into the yard. The pyroclastic rocks, like great grandma’s collection of late 1800’s Vegas Silver Dollars, are gone now. Some are lost in our own backyard here in Idaho. I have no idea where the others went.

Memory. I remember that atop the trellis there was a thermometer, where a person could accurately read the temperature. In that California sun so close to the coast, it never strained itself in either direction. About a block west of the house was a mountain that shaded it from the very early sun, only allowing it to peak into the breakfast nook window around 9AM, and only if the fog was not overcasting the area. That mountain had a pumice mine. It was also a source of fear for my great grandmother. I could tell because of how she would speak of it in the years it caught fire. But there is so much more to remember there. There is so much detail, and there are so many things I know I have missed because I was too young, and just unaware.

Right. I am going to try to get back to sleep. This little journey through my memories has been brought to you by insomnia. Ask your doctor if insomnia is right for you. May cause drowsiness, and everything else bad you can imagine. But it sure is entertaining!

Posted in Journal Entry, Memories | Leave a comment

A Fortnight Gone By

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Kelsey

Last night I got a call from someone claiming to be fraud prevention and nearly gave away a code over the phone to authorize a new device. When done, I reset my password and thanked my wife for helping to be very suspicious of the call. It scares me that I even came close to falling for this scam. I don’t know if that is 55-year-old me in action, or if it is post-operative me in action, or just plain exhausted from a workday in action! But it was definitely someone’s brain-inaction! I am not happy about it.

Now, amid all this, I need my family aware that they may need to step up and offer a hand against me from time to time. It definitely was the oldest thing I have ever done. I was up the same yesterday as I am right now, way too early! It is just coming to 4:30, and I have just answered nature’s call, and now I am here thinking, ‘well, I could just sit a write a bit. It’s okay! Actually, I could also go move my laundry into the dryer!’

Okay, that’s done! Glad I remembered that before getting up to a pile of wet clothes! See? First thing int he morning I can remember a thing. Of course, that was my second time downstairs past the bathroom door, and only just noticed my daughter sleeping on the settee right in front of it.

Oh! That’s right! She is there because of the two kittens she brought in last night. One has died, and she was staying close to take care of the other one.

Wait! To be fair, I did go to the other bathroom the first time. So I did not go directly past my daughter then. So, it’s okay that I did not see her, though it is not okay that I just remembered that. Maybe that’s just 4:30 in the morning me talking.

Okay, coming back to serious headed me. I have put a line under that above to really focus on this, and this is that things have most definitely been different these past two weeks since surgery. And two weeks ago, it is, today! I am lay here awake with no pain whatsoever again. My head feels a little close, and in fact the entire world feels closed in at the moment. I feel like there is just me, the computer’s glowing screen, the keyboard’s softly light letters and numbers, and the darkness.

I am thinking of my daughter who is coming out here soon to stay a spell. I am thinking of my oldest friend’s, Robin and Rusty. I sent a message to Robin the other day and have had nothing in reply. I texted Russ for a bit yesterday. I have never felt so distant from him. These things pain me so deeply. I am excited to see my daughter! First time in something like 25 years. But she is coming to an environment that she may find hostile, and that is cause to worry. My oldest friends are two guys who I have always planned to be friends with till the day we die. They don’t talk to each other anymore. They stop talking to me too, and you have basically seen the end of the Three Musketeers. I can’t bear that. That is loneliness. That is darkness for me.

Two weeks, and my body feels so much better. Of course I am waiting for the penny to drop. Russ has had many of the same problems. We pondered the possibility that it is something we shared for having grown up so close to Rocky Flats when we were kids. That was a government run facility where they manufactured triggers for hydrogen bombs. Those are triggered by atomic explosions. So, basically, they were building atom bombs out there. Can you say Superfund Site? And our thyroid problems could most certainly be caused by radioactivity. But then, I think there would be others who suffered it, too. But yeah, we lived in this quiet, neat, and well-planned little community that sprung up in the 1950’s around a government facility in charge of nuclear material. What could go wrong?

Well, anyway! I was saying. Two weeks post operative, and I feel like there is a definite change in my metabolism. My bones feel so much better. Again, I find myself lay here with nothing at all. I walked the yard in my coat, with my camera and lens on me, and my heavy camera in hand, and it did not feel like I was dragged down by the pain of just lifting the gear or the pain of just wearing the coat, like I have always felt. I could feel a slight strain in my back muscle because of the weight against it on the opposite side of me, but it was only slight, and nothing I could not have reasonably expected. Before, it would have been a sound amount of pain from the top of my spine all the way down both arms, and my spine, my hips, and legs to my ankles. I do think this will help my photography just for being able to bear the burden of the gear that I need to carry for it!

I feel like my gut has softened a little. I am sincerely hoping to finally bust that, and I am trying to eat accordingly. There is no cause to become some sugar monster, eating terrible things and changing where I am at now with a daily salad, and one to two other meals. I don’t know if I could get away with eating breads again. I have always been able to eat some. Two sausage-egg McMuffins in the morning hold me well, except if I chew gum and eat Life-Savers for my teeth and breath after. Then the apatite begins to arise sooner after. I need to figure out a better way of cleaning my teeth. I’d like to go till after lunch rush to have to fill the gap with my salad. Supper could be a yes or no thing. If Missus has gone through the trouble to make it, I will happily eat it. But if she has not, then I could pass okay, too. I think her for her trouble. She is certainly free not to do it. But I get by with a little. or a lot, of help from my friend!

I need to call Russ soon. I feel like I have dodged a bullet in life but then looked over next to me in the trench, and my best friend is lay there hit and bleeding to death. It sounds like he is suffering, and maybe even gasping for air at the moment. I don’t like that for him. I know I have suffered with my pain. But it sounds like he is going through it, or worse. That is no happy thing.

Okay, so today is Thursday. I have the kids in school today. Then I have work till it is time to pick them up. So that’s a definite plan for today. Then I have the evening free. I need to figure out how I am going to spend it.

I brought in some wood yesterday from the back yard that I need to prepare as stock for some quarter rounds and base boards for the house. There’s a couple of big, nasty knots in them that will have to be worked with, or around. They are wet from the recent rains, and they are moist from being outside. So, I will have to leave them to acclimate in the shop for a couple of weeks, at least. I may want to put a fire in the woodstove a couple of times to help it along, too. I’ll give them a straight edge with the jointer, then scrub plane them to relatively flat, then probably try the electric planer to get them all uniform fairly quickly, if it is sharp enough. Otherwise, it is to be the hand plane. Either way, I intend to finish them with a hand plane, as I cannot bear machine marks these days.

Missus has started to redecorate in the kitchen. She is painting the oven wall now and needs the quarter-round to join the beadboard to the ceiling above the cabinets. I need to see if I can get enough from the wood to do any of the trim on the front porch, where a lot of it is needed. There are holes that need covering in the wood below the windows, there are gaps at the ends of the big windows where wind blows cold right through. And there is missing quarter round where the proper beadboard meets the tops of the walls. I also need baseboards all around. Get all that done, and it is only lacking a floor in there, and it is fine, except for all the work needed to make the door look like it is properly installed and weather proofed. Uh, yeah. That really wants a lot of wood!

As for what Missus needs, it is mostly for me to net her some quarter inch square linear stock, that can be shaped to quarter. She needs probably around 60 feet of it. Knowing my sophisticated means of calculation, I will be best to plan on 100 and need 110. Maybe double that. There are the flooring edges, too. Shit!

I can hear my daughter up and moving about downstairs. I expect I will get up and drink a coffee and enjoy her company a bit, if that is her. It could be Missus. It is exciting to hear someone else moving about in the morning like this when I am also already awake and up. I’ll find me a shirt and go down and brew! It is good to feel good, and I am here to enjoy it today because I don’t trust it to be here tomorrow!

Posted in Catastrophe & Disaster, Delivery Jobs, Family Time, Journal Entry, Memories, Philosophical, Photography, Woodshop | Leave a comment

Optimism for a Fuller Life

Posted on October 14, 2026 by Kelsey

I don’t feel as good this morning as I did yesterday, but I am pretty sure it is something to do with popcorn lathered in butter and covered with salt that I ate before bed last night. Again with the no bone pain, which is astounding. THis genuinely feels life changing. One of my daughters looked up the condition I had before surgery, and she read out some of the symptoms, and one section included the statement “slowly sucking the joy out of your life.” I have apparently had this for a long time, and the joy has been gone for as long. I cannot remember not feeling a deep abiding pain that I could not shake, and that always slowed me down. To feel ‘normal’ is to feel like I spent 55 years of my life being robbed, and shorted on everything. But to really confirm this, I need to do some things, and experience some things that would have slowed me before, and that I should have been able to do all these years. One in particular is my photography.

Yes, even my photography feels like it ihas suffered. Why? Because I like good cameras, and good cameras are often very heavy. Be it my Hassalblad 503CW, or my Nikon D850, those camersa have weighed a lot. But both are able ot capture detail in the images that none of my other cameras throughout the years have been able to. I remember my first shots with the Hasselblad. I took a picture of a girl and when I got the negatives back and scanned them at high resolution, I looked at her eyes, and in them I could see the building behind me when I took the image, and the car parked in front of it, and the oulines of the grass, and a fence. They all appeared in such detail in someone who’s waist up portrait took up less than a third of the image space on the negative. Then there is the D850. A full frame sensor at 45MP, mounted behind some of the best glass in the world, and it does essentially the same.

Well, these cameras are both made with a metal chassis, and in particular the case of the Nikon, it is fully loaded with electronics and both weigh a hell of a lot, especially with their massive lenses with superior elements. I have always begun to hurt from the moment I have lifted either of these cameras. I mean this from a guy who begins to hurt when he is wearing more than just one shirt, such as GAP style layering, or a even jacket. As things have been clearing up for me in that realm, I have to wonder if I can now carry the camera more easily to go out shooting with it? Will it be okay to try to haul a second lens?

It has hurt to just lift the camera, making even shooting portraits difficult, and carrying to s shoot or hiking to a location with a camera has been all but impossible. Go back to 2006, when I first started this blog, and you will see I was shooting from rail journeys and on bike rides. Well, that is because I hated carrying the camera, and needed to mount it on my bike rack just to be able to have it with me. I mean, to really illustrate my level of pain in all this, I have not even been able to put my cellphone in the front pocket of my shirt without it weighing down and hurting my spine.

I’m going to recover from this buttery popcorn by eating some decent food today, then maybe this evening or this weekend I will try hauling my camera around a bit here at the house, and see how it goes. I’ll know. It really has always been that bad.

So the question is, am I going to stay where I am at in life now? Or do I take this new found lease on life and get after my dreams? Of course I do!

Brain fog has been another issue symptom of my issue, and I cannot say I have lived life without it. I have always hurt for memory. There is a reason I know history in generalities, and cannot remember specific dates, and why my own expertise in anything has always been limited to the same kind of generalities. I don’t feel like I have ever been a complex thinker. Then again, there are some levels of complexity to which I think it is a waste of time going into the weeds after, or down the rabbit hole chasing. But I am still waiting to see if the brain fog clears and anything changes, or if I am just stupid. Probably that. Be it whatever on that score, I will not be distracted by the constant low level hurt anymore, so even if there is no difference on by brain fog and thinking, there will be less distraction, and that is extremely promising.

To say this moment in life has been nothing short of miraclous is short of how it feels. I keep expecting my shoulders to start hurting, my spine to radiate pain, arms to want to fall into a resting position and feel like they are pulling me down. But instead, I keep feeling nothing. Not even a twinge in my internal organs! Has life really been taking this much from me?

When Jordan was here yesterday I took a short turn on the log splitter, and nothing of it bothered me, or left me feeling wanting. Instead it was lift the log, split the log, throw the pieces, and lift the next one without any of the drag of sore knees, hurting joints in my elbows, shoulders, and wrists, or my hips and back making me feel like everyting wieghs twice as much as it does.

So, where do I go from here? The house needs work. The photography wants love. Wood wants working. My world needs cleaning up, and the idea of keeping up with it should not be so damned challenging. I also need to lose weight, and I need to be more fit. I need to eat well! Better than I did last night! Generally, that’s not hard, and I even feel motivated for it as I feel better. I don’t know to what extent I should try to exercise some, or just rely on increased activity?

But yeah, I genuinely feel that much better these past few days. My body is probably still adapting to the lower calcium in my blood. In a couple of more weeks, I should know. I’ll need to do some more blood tests to see where I am on things like my cholesterol.

Anyway, here I am. Things are different. The joy does not feel like it is being slowly sucked out of my life anymore. But I don’t just want to be bouyant. I want to lift off, and fly. I need to be cautious to not think I can do more than I really can, and I need to adjust slowly. Adapting to new capabilities must be cautious, so I don’t harm myself trying to do more than I can.

Yeah, I want to change just about everything, including posting in my blogs and such, and photgraphing and working my wood hobby into some kind of business, too. But the first thing I need to do is get myself into the condition to do all of this, so a little more activity in my life.

Sorry, this is all about me, me, me. I have a family, too. One of whome will be out here with us soon. And I am excited about that!

I feel so optimistic! It has been hard for me to feel that way for years now. How could I when everything has felt so hard to do? I suppose i fI had felt like this from a young age, I would have taken it for granted. Not taking it for granted is why I am gushing about it now. On the other hand, I think I could have done so much more with my life had I not been constantly fighting the obstacle all these years. If I had not been bound with a millstone, I may have done better in my career, with my education, with building the wealth I needed to care for my family better. I hate that this has come so late in life, but I am so glad it has come. I never knew there was a problem that was curable. I fell for the propaganda that I was a lesser person because I could not keep up with the pack.

I don’t want to jump the gun, and I hope what I am feeling is real, and it is permanant. It feels it. I hope I don’t screw it up by injuring myself trying to do something a 55 year old just can’t. I hope I can quickly pace myself into a new life. Well, not a new life, but the one I am living, only fuller. Much fuller.

Even as a young child, pre-ten years old, I was hurting, and unable to play as hard as the other kids did. So much has been robbed from me.

Posted in Catastrophe & Disaster, Cycling, Philosophical, Photography, Special Update | Leave a comment

Day 12 – Feeling…

Posted on October 13, 2026 by Kelsey

Good! I think this morning was so strange. I woke up at 4:30 to asnwer nature’s call, and then woke up again at 5:45, and decided to just lay there and wait for the 6:15 alarm. During that time, I observed that there was nothing at all that hurt or was sore anywhere in my body. No muscle pains, no bone pains, no organs anywhere hurtning for some unknown reason. I’ve no idea how long this is going to last, so my goal for today is to live it and enjoy it! I cannot remember a time in my whole life that I have ever felt this good. I hate that I have gone 55 years till I have felt this, and yet am so grateful to feel it! And I am obviously suspicious of it, like it is going to all be taken back in a minute, which is why I feel such an urgent need to enjoy this!

Even when I was a young child of seven or so, I had leg cramps all the time. As I got older, there was a pain I could not identify that just made me feel as though living just hurt, and I could not do anything with vigor. Running in gym class was impossible. I tried a job in a factory when I was 21, and I lasted all of four days. Besides the work being inane, it was cold and painful, and I could not keep the pace or work accurately. There has never been work I have been involved in where I did not suffer from the pains within. Especially on my feet because of deep hip pain, leg pain, foot pain, and especially lower back pain. And added all up, it has been absolutely exhausting!

It is strange that I feel none of it. I did not know how it felt to feel like this. My hobbies, woodworking, photography, and my personal life, especially shopping, have all been done with reservation because of pain. I worked in the shop yesterday. I did the day before, too. Yet this morning I feel none of it! It is so strange!

This morning our oldest is already down to the house, visiting with his mom and waiting for a clearing in the weather, or maybe already outside splitting firewood. I wish I was at home helping him

Early evening has come and I went home after I made $95 by 2PM. The app tried to get me to do an 11+ mile trip for less than $5. Well, that’s my que to skidaddle.

I found our Jordan working with his wife at the log splitter in the Service Yard. After catching up with Missus, I helped them load the truck and split more wood. They got in about 3/4 of a cord, and their little one picked her pumpkins for Halloween. They only took two, a medium and a relatively small one. Perfect for their little one. They did not want to save seeds for next year, but I reminded them they can always roast the seeds for a snack, too. Jordan kind of liked that idea a little better, but I doubt they will. They have busy lives.

We have a small fire in the woodstove. Jordan left us with quite a lot more wood than we had started with on the split pile. We still have a lot out in the woodyard, and a lot in the trailer. So he thinks we may already have enough for both houses. I remain skeptical, but I also really cannot afford to run out. And if this winter turns out to be very cold, then we will really need the wood! So I am cautious. What’s more, the wood is old and very dry, but also a little rotten, so it will burn faster. I’d really love to get fresher wood and season it myself after it is split, but one has to account that such wood would be much heavier and harder to handle.

I got the girls from their bus stop just after the Warners left, and we got our outside chores done. Now everyone is preparing a DIY supper. I am not particularly hungry, so I will wait.

I am still not in any kind of pain. I am still in shock. I did not expect this kind of day. If this keeps up, I need to really get in the habit of living more fully! That is not something I am accustomed to.

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Nine – October Tenth

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Kelsey

Yesterday was pretty good. My neck is still sore on the scar. It almost feels like there is a sausage under my skin where the scar material is at. That part feels numb when I touch it. Otherwise, I really cannot tell I had surgery. Well, I can tell. I felt so much better yesterday than I have my whole life, I think. I went through the day with no bone pains at all of any kind. I mean, even after working around the house with my family, then after working from afternoon to evening. If this is what ‘normal’ feels like to others, then they are operating with an unfair advantage over me. I felt better after removing bread from my diet, in the sense that most of the pain was gone, but there always lingered a sort of limit to how long I could tolerate being on my feet, in the form of more of a tiredness than a pain. Yesterday I felt as good at the end of the day as I did the beginning.

I have definitely felt a change in my metabolism. I am giving an effort to not eat out of habit, but to operate on what I am hungry for. Removing the Parathyroid glands is meant to reduce insulin resistance, and I am trying to stick with what my body needs, and hopefully lose a bit of visceral fat, and weight. That can only be healthier for me. I am tired of carrying around a belly.

Between the stupid gland removal and the CPAP, I am at the moment feeling better than I have ever in my adult life. I’d love to have spent all my years feeling like this! I think I would have accomplished much more my whole life. That’s depressing. But I am just going to take as much as I can out of every day. Take more while I can have more.

I finished the chimney cleaning yesterday. Lit the woodstove of all the old mail that was piled into it over the summer and then cleared out all of the ash. Today I need to clean the glass and clean up the cast iron shelves next to the firebox. I am thinking I am going to do something about the wood that is the floor of the firewood bunk. I don’t have enough boiled linseed oil to totally plane it down and refinish it. Well, maybe I do, just. I guess I will find out. I am just reluctant because that bottle I have cost me something like $35 back when I bought it. It is useful! I hate to run out when I cannot really afford to replace it. But replace it I must! It is a need. Everything I make in the woodshop gets it on it.

I covered the hay ready for the wind and the rain and gave the goats and llamas enough from the old bale to keep them in hay all day yesterday and today. (It’s 4:30AM as I write this.) I’ll probably put them in some corn stalks later.

Tomorrow is going to be very rainy! If i am going to work, I will NEED to replace that bad wiper on the right side of the car. We are in for a deluge. I may not even go to work. It is promising to be very bad. I am not sure how this much rain is going to be processed in our mountains, and how that will all pour down into the valley.

It is amazing to see how Hurricane Isaias just hit Florida, and is moving inland, Tropical Storm Rachel is moving north towards California now, and what’s that cyclonic action down there at Mexico? Three storms after North America all at once! And that hat up there in Canada is the Jet Stream, which Rachel is expected to collide with around where we live, making who knows what? But there’s that, and cold temperatures with it.

I am expecting to lose power. Ours is really reliable. But this is potentially too much for it, so it is best to prepare. That is one of the good things about having the woodstove ready to operate. Still have cooking available to us. I have two Jackery batteries that still need to have a top up charge. Just in case. So we are at that, some cleaning, some bringing in of firewood, and covering some outside where possible. I’d probably do well to put all the wood on its side outside where the rounds are, to keep them from soaking in water on the end grain. I asked the kids to stack the firewood that got split by Jordan when he was down last. I don’t think they are going to get to that. I’d like to clean up the tools out the front door, so they are not getting poured on, and the little bit of wood there, alleviating the trip hazards. The tractor has fuel. It needs an oil change. Money, money, money.

There is a lot of preparing in preparing. I never did find that can of tar to go around the chimney in the pantry. That’s a bummer. I don’t know where it went. I have looked in every outbuilding. Running out of time now! Going to have to just catch the water as it pours into the house. That’s not good. Not good at all. At least it is real wood up there at the ceiling and will hold up better than any of the stupid synthetic materials or drywall they use now-a-days.

I need to go pick up $80 for the hay man today when I go into work. He sure does us a favor by keeping us in hay and handling it at his, so we don’t have to store it. The bale he delivered yesterday was light. The tractor lifted it with ease. I think that’s why it cost us less. Grassy. The animals might not like it as much as they do their alfalfa, but a couple of those goats could do with the diet.

I accepted a ‘Friend Request’ from my first wife’s niece, Noelle, a bit ago this morning. She was just a kid last I saw her. But she is also the one that made the difference in my child contacting me. I’d like to thank her for that. She told mine that she remembered me taking her aside as she was starting middle school and talking to her about how she is going to be okay, and that everyone is starting with her and feeling the same feelings of fear and insecurity. I remember that conversation. I hated seeing her terrified of her first day and wanted her to be okay. Turns out she remember is too, and it countered the narrative my Autumn had been fed all her life that I hated children. So, Autumn got in touch. We have been talking daily since, for what? Three months now? That’s been fantastic! And I owe it all to Noelle for breaking that brick out of the wall.

Well, it is just after 5AM now. Guess I better put me on some Heather Cox Richardson, and get me some shuteye, hopefully after I hear at least most of the broadcast. Not like last night when I fell right to sleep after putting her on.

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Storm’s A Coming

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Kelsey

There is a tropical storm lingering south of California, out to sea basically even at the moment with the southern tip of Baja California. It is moving northward, and the weather service has created a cone of uncertainty that takes the storm track right over Utah, with the storm spilling out of it right onto us. Utah is preparing for a lot of flooding to come this weekend, and is especially concerned about burn scar regions, and the damage that will bring. Rightfully so.

I hear western North Carolina is still cleaning up from hurricane Helene.

I don’t know what flooding could bring here. We sit on a sort of shelf that at last rests high in the valley. The only thing I can really identify as being above us is the up valley, which gets sort of divided from us as a path by the little top of the sand hill, and seems to want to carry down the Bear River, rather than so much across our place. However, our little shelf has an old pool behind us on the way to the top of that sand hill. It was once drained, but still remained a collection point, and though it has been a very dry season, and the frogs cannot be heard there, the amount of rain forecast could fill it up fast. I am not confident that any of the drainage works properly at this point.

This will be a good time to take notes. I am not sure how the ground swell will affect the basement. I do know how the raising of the water table will. Will there be flooding outside? Is there anything that can be done for our animals to improve their situation? Our ten-day forecast shows the rain falling from Saturday night till Wednesday Night. The most is expected Sunday through Tuesday. But no day expects more than a third of an inch, except Sunday, which calls for 1.32 inches. That is the day to really hunker down. That’s the finger of God Day for us. The rest is normal rain event, compounding the Sunday issues. Wow! Reading that, looking at it on the forecast, it looks really scary.

Will it even be safe to try to work on that day, not knowing how things will go across the valley with water flow? Should I be at home to reinforce the house? Will there be wind and lightning with this event? Too many unanswered questions! What should I be doing today to prepare for this? Will the power stay on?

Patch the roof

Charge the Jackery batteries

Clean the bottom of the chimney pipe and clear the woodstove

Bring in firewood

Cover firewood

Have hay delivered. Cover it. (Have sent a request)

Check the lanterns are all ready.

Windows closed and sealed shut

Tractor outfitted to be useful, box blade on. Bucket on.

I’ll think about this all some more and get help from the rest of the family when everyone is up. Not going to race into work early this morning. Instead, going to get to work on this stuff. Sheesh! We are in for it!

What am I missing? A lot, I know!

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Seven – Evening

Posted on October 8, 2026 by Kelsey

I went to work today for a few hours after dropping the girls off for their bus, till about 2PM. After that, I was pretty much done. I did not feel horrible, but I felt tired. So, I cut off and got milk and half and half and went home. Missus and I did some work that she wanted, then looked for a tool that we did not find, and then I took a rest.

I got pretty excited this evening when Missus said she wanted to build some shelves over her bathtub and she needed some wood pieces. I checked the shop and found four pieces that would glue up to the two shelves she needs. So, I got to work with the hand planes and got them together. I have decided that the best purpose of a fore plane, which everyone on YouTube describes as something like either a universal plane, or a subdued scrub plane, is really to be a roughing plane for the edges. See, the extra with of a 5 1/2, is enough to plane two 3/4 inch boards side by side. Perfect for preparing the crazy roughness into something ready for a proper jointer like the number 8. My 8 is so sharp that the plane cut the wood like butter. But the rough cut on the wood wanted a thicker cut by the fore plane before getting to that buttery smooth cut of the 8.

Tomorrow or the next day when I get to them again, I will scrub plane the faces, then do a number 5, followed by the smoother. I plan to cut an edge off each, then use it for a lip, if missus approves, to keep things from falling off the shelves onto her when she is in the bath.

Resting a little early tonight, then one of my daughters is coming to work with me tomorrow.

Remember, you are never too old to fall over your dreams.

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Seven – Back To Work

Posted on October 8, 2026 by Kelsey

I went to the doctor’s appointment yesterday, and got me post-op evaluation, and consultation. I was told that of the parathyroid glands, two were slightly enlarged, and he removed those, and that my interoperative calcium level dropped to something in the low 9 range. I’d be tested that day, and again in three months. I asked what happens if the calcium levels do not continue downward, and he started to answer, then abruptly said, well, at that point we would go in a different direction. It hardly takes any work at all to see that other causes could be at play, such as kidney, lung, or pituitary cancers. I had the blood test done yesterday and the result was 10.6 in a range that tops out at 10.8, so “mildly elevated.”

My goal is to live my best life now. No matter what the longer prognosis is, I need to live as well as possible, just because, for example, today is my last Thursday, October 8th, 2026. I won’t get another one. And one never knows when it is their last October 8th, or their last Thursday, anyway,

No, I don’t trust this. I just don’t. I want to. I want to so badly. I want this to be a moment of permanent improvement on my way to my 103rd birthday. I feel good. My bone pain is gone today. I feel good all over, apart from a sense of doom, and concern that my calcium levels should be lower, rather than higher a few days after surgery. 10% of patients will have a bump, so I need to see how this goes. But my logical mind does not accept that things are just great yet.

Alright, so after the doctor’s appointment and a nap, and some really good time just hanging about with my wife, and helping her with some things where I can, I got down into the cellar and finally got a firsthand look at the place. It was not as bad as I expected it to be. It is a real Hellhole, but I honestly expected it to be in worse shape than it was. I changed a lightbulb down there and then got to work on the clogged pipe from the kitchen drain.

There is a rubber boot connecting a plastic drainpipe to a metal one, and at that point, it is a change in size. It also is a slight low point, as a proper continuous drop is not possible there. I took the hose clamps off both ends and fairly easily slide it down the metal, smaller pipe. Right away I could see the whole pipe was blocked there with hard grease and such. The kitchen sink is two basins that were half full of water, and nothing was coming at first. I hit it with the end of the snake, which pushed into and through the clog, then pulled it out with when I pulled it back, and it and all that water came pouring out rapidly. Did not smell great, and I got hit with a bit before I was fully out of the way. Then I went in the other direction, as that one was obviously cleaned out now. The smaller pipe took a little more work as I pushed the snake end all the way into it and to the point where it reaches the main pipe that goes then into the septic system. Pulled it out and some little bit of debris and put the pipes back together. Missus then poured some boiling water down the drain to wash it fully clear.

Next steps include actually doing what I have a monthly alarm set for, which is to pour boiling water down the drain in a large quantity, and push any built up grease along and into the septic system. In a perfect world, there would be no grease, but come on. We cook. No matter how hard I have tried, some has gone down. So that chore is mandatory. I believe the grease goes down loose, but hardens in the pipe as it cools, and tends to stick to the top and build up, till eventually a bit of food comes down the pipe at the bottom and catches under that build up and clogs the pipe abruptly.

I honestly think I can smell that dirty kitchen sink water, even though I have showered and done all my laundry. It is that bad of a smell. Maybe I don’t smell it, and maybe my calcium levels are not something I should be worrying about!

I will be in work today after I drop the girls off for their school bus. Let’s see how this goes!

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