Missing my friends.

The past six months have really brought out memories both good and bad. Starting in the fall, I lost a good friend and ex-brother-in-law to diabetes and general neglect to his personal health. Then, late in he year, I lost a sister to Alzheimer's, which is a terrible way to go because of the stress and strain it places on family and patient alike. Recently, I lost another ex-brother-in-law and good friend to years of neglecting his own health and denial. This last week we lost another friend, the mother of our daughter-in-law to emphysema and COPD. Now, admittedly, some of these people were older than we are by quite a bit, but the fact is, in all but one instance, we lost them due to the denial that their personal habits were killing them and it got me to thinking that we humans are really not all that bright. I mean, we know that what we are doing is going to kill us, and yet we think we it only affects others. Duh! We have one more relative in late stage Alzheimer's and, unfortunately, no one has found an effective treatment or cure for that. I can only hope and pray that this is not setting a pattern for the rest of the year.

Winter in Michiana

I just looked out my window and noticed that there is a snowplow working at the corner and it is snowing so hard that I would never have seen him were it not for his brake lights flashing at times. We have at least twenty five or thirty inches of snow and it shows no sign of stopping. Where my wife cleared a spot for the dog, it has gotten deep enough that the dog won't venture away from the house. I imagine it is about five inches deep and it has only been a few hours since she shoveled it. our snow plow operator won't even venture out to plow us out. It's a good thing we anticipated problems and as I write this, there is a corned beef brisket in the slow cooker. Yummy. I am so glad we are retired as it minimizes the problems the rest of the world faces with this weather. Although Carol does have to baby sit on Monday. the baby comes here.so it's no until Tuesday that we actually do have to venture out. So, I'm attempting to do some writing so far without success. I really do need to be with other writers more but life just hasn't allowed that for quite some time. Oh well, back to the grindstone.

Failure to communicate

I am amazed every day by the way one's health impacts their everyday capabilities. For example, when sinus infection hit late last fall, I found that I lost my ability to focus. I could stare at the computer screenj for hours and not accomplish a single thing and what I did manage to write was absolutely terrible. To this date, I have not written a single thing worth talking about. Now, I'm wondering if I ever will again, since the spinal stenosis is gaining ground on me. Is it just the constant pain that does this to me? I could better understand this if I was taking the type of medication one would associate my problem with, but I'm not. I avoid pain medication since it impacts the effectiveness of other medications I am taking, none of which would explain it.

I have made a comittment to myself to do some writing every day, even if it is less than stellar in quality, in an effort to force mjy mind back into the writing mode. I'm doing some extra reading as well in the hope that this will trigger the writing instinct, so wish me luck.