Ethan’s Journey

 I needed to take a mental break from work and decided to scroll social media. I stumbled across a heated debate. The question posed was “when you get in the shower, what part of your body do you wash first?” It’s funny, I never thought about it before, but apparently I have a routine.  There were many different answers that people have. One person said her neck. Someone said hands and face. One answer was armpits. Someone else said they started from their feet and worked their way up. People were debating and arguing over which is the right way. Sooooo….what is the right way? Well, there was never a “right way” stated. Isn’t it all the “right way” if we walk out fresh and clean? I did get curious about what other people do. It didn’t even dawn on me that people may have a different routine than I do.  The first thing I wash is my hair. I asked Ethan and he also answered with he washes his hair first. I asked Avery, the answer was hair. Is this because I taught them? ...

 Today I worked A LOT! 11 interviews plus going through endless resumes. Such a glamorous life I lead. I took a break to eat dinner and spent the evening going through résumé’s and sending outreach. My calendar is booked tomorrow as well. We had some activity with the barndominium project. We had equipment show up. There were men staking things and there were materials dropped off. Moe was not a big fan of strangers on his field. He put himself between me and them. His guarding was a sweet gesture but he was not left unattended. I don’t trust him to make good choices. Before dinner the dogs and I worked on our fitness. We did two laps around the field. Moe’s activity tracker had his top speed measured at 19 mph. Yikes! He sure had fun running his brains out. Look how happy he is. All the dogs did two laps. Even little old man Ferguson did two laps happily. I put a cop show on in the background while I was combing resumes this evening. Ethan and I both like this show. It is called “...

 Paul and I were productive today. I did meal prep this morning, swapped out the dog bedding, my normal Sunday chores. Boring!m I did find a stick bug which was cool. It is very delicate and elegant at the same time. It was a very neat discovery. Ethan and I watched it move in awe for about 20 minutes. Paul and Ethan have a project they were working on together in the garage this morning. It wiped Ethan out. I came inside after mowing and found Ethan fast asleep on the couch.  His bloodwork came back that he is a little anemic but not overly concerning. Anemia goes hand in hand with kidney disease. Kidneys are responsible so ke for releasing a hormone called erythropoietin. That is a mouth full. Erythropoietin is like a cattle prod to the bone marrow saying “ok time to make more red blood cells”. When the kidneys are damaged, they don’t always do their best at this task….and the body becomes anemic. I am glad Ethan listens to his body and takes these rests. I went to our frien...

 Sometimes I have difficulty reading. It’s not that I don’t know how to read. It is just that my brain rearranges words and numbers on me. I was reading a number out loud to Ethan. We both could see the number.  “$2809.00” I said confidently “Want to check that again?” He asked I paused and looked at the number “$2809.00” I said again. That is what I was seeing. “Look again” he said “Oh….$2103.89” I said. The numbers were clear as day. How did I screw that up? At least the kids and Paul have seen this occur enough to double check things.  I went over to Avery’s place today. She needed a hug and a little push of encouragement. I offered to do some laundry for her. She has to pay to do her laundry at the apartment complex.  The plan was I was going to take it home, wash it, dry it and then bring it back to her with a few other things from home that she has been missing. I completed all the tasks except bringing one of the loads of laundry back. Darn it. I told them I w...

My drive home was peaceful. The Jeep I drove was comfortable and I enjoyed the drive. The fall colors were blending together to make a picturesque back drop. It was quite stunning. Park of my drive I can see the lake. The colors were framing the lake and made it look like a picture from a magazine. When I arrived home immediately my dogs started bothering me. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all but Moe was acting like a bulldozer, Ferguson was barking, Jiminy was licking any piece of skin he could find exposed and Penny was licking her lips CONSTANTLY. Ugh! Everyone just go away for a minute. Ethan was home when I walked in and we chatted a little bit. Tomorrow he goes for bloodwork, so we have to set an alarm. It’s a timed test and if we don’t get there at the right time, we risk the results being a little off. In the morning I will take Ethan for his blood draw and I promised his I would get those yummy apple fritters. I will likely get some donuts and cider as well. Mmm…..then it wi...

 I was sitting on the couch this morning… and then I stood up. A shockwave of searing pain went through my back and radiated through my hips. Awesome.  How do I incapacitate myself going from sitting to standing?  Thank god for muscle relaxers. They helped me get though. Luckily it was muscle pain and not nerve pain, so I should heal quickly. I rode to camp with my Aunt and Uncle. I am driving their car home and they are bringing home their RV. We went to dinner and bumped into our shoreline friends. They ended up chatting with us and then joined us after we were done eating.  It will be my last time at camp for the year so we said our goodbyes. “See you next year” felt really weird to say. We got back to camp and started watching TV. I suddenly became tired and my back had had enough. Time to lay down.

 The older I get, the more I think about how easy it is to die. That’s morbid right? All of the car crashes I read about lately are devastating. It just seems like any activity I drive to, could result in an accident. It isn’t something that will keep me from traveling by car, it just makes me respect defensive driving.  I don’t mind letting people in front of me. I don’t mind waiting my turn or even being overly cautious. I may have a potty mouth for other drivers in my own car, but would never take to road rage because people may not be mentally stable and retaliate in an unfavorable way. It’s just not how I want to go.  Years ago we (mostly me) started collecting quotes from people we love. I started writing things down with the intention of making a compilation of sayings from people our family loves. It is actually great fun. When someone says something off color or what we think is funny, I will hear “add it to the quotes”. We have had many times when we were sittin...