2013 ends and a New Year begins

New Year  Edgar Guest

2013 has been an overall good year to us, and yet we look back and wonder, where did that year go.  Our health is good, we are aging well and are comfortable financially.  Jerry was dismissed by the pulmonary specialist who had been monitoring a now three year mysterious spot on his lung detected by a doc-in-the-box in North Carolina on our travels when Jerry  got a severe cold bordering on pneumonia.  Despite the tests, scans and careful watching, it remains a mystery to Mayo but has not changed and definitely not cancer, always the fear; the MD speculates it may have been a life scar after Jerry's childhood pneumonia but we wonder why the Air Force never detected it his years on flying status.  Nevertheless, he was pleased to not have any further follow ups.  

I have triumphed over a potential health challenge by getting onto the right track and restoring my heretofore good health.  As I wrote on this blog, in July at my annual, the doc cautioned me that my fasting blood glucose levels were rising and  I was carrying around some extra weight from travels over winter and that spring.  I enrolled in the YMCA's Diabetes Prevention Program and began to monitor and limit  my daily fat gram intake to 33 grams, while writing down everything I eat and drink in a daily journal, and added more physical activity every single day so have achieved success.  I've shed 28 pounds just since September and learned that the healthy way I thought I was eating was not so healthy for me. The calculations were that I lose 15 pounds but I have been known as an over achiever often and did so on the weight.   I have maintained the loss so far and not gained  over this feasting season of holidays, a first in years.  I am committed to maintenance. 

My doctor's follow up and retest in December left me a good to go from a very pleased MD who called me skinny and wished he could bottle my dedication for his patients who live in denial about their health conditions. I have met some new friends at the Y and learned a lot about nutrition, but the biggest revelation was that my daily consumption of  nuts and  cheese (which I love) was too much for me.  I still mourn my inability to consume all the cheese I'd like at one setting along with those delicious Wisconsin deep fried (melted) cheese curds, or my own gooey mac and cheese, any melted cheese is my weakness, but it's a small price to pay for good health.  I am better off than many who crave and eat sweets all the time or just over eat as a way of life.  I could continue with my daily wine or vodka consumption, no fat grams there, only calories which we really do not count daily, just consider. 

 I have actually enjoyed the weekly program meetings and although the scale will never be my "friend" at least I have accepted daily weigh ins, so much that we are purchasing another scale to take along in the motor coach on our travels. This from a woman who would avoid the scale every and anyway possible and monitor how her clothes felt.  Oh, more good news, Jerry suggested I do some shopping for  new clothes especially shorts for the skinnier me as we prepare to head south.  I have already purchased some skinny jeans and courds.  If I have any advice, it is accept and take action--lose the weight, live healthier, shed the tobacco....get out of the land of denial. Otherwise you pay the consequences  in the long run and are fooling only yourself.   Denial or the land of DABDA (denial, acceptance, bargaining, depression and acceptance)  is all consuming  and becomes familiarly comfortable for many. 

We had some travel adventures in 2013 and I learned that tours are not for me after our Alaskan adventure.  I have written about that on this blog all year and not much more to be said.

We will be home this New Years Eve and Day  as the doctor had one last assignment for me before we flee for the south and warmer climates, time for my 10 year follow up colonoscopy. Yuk, it is scheduled for 10:00 AM January 2 and the preparation remains worse than the procedure. So New Years Day while I take down the tree and pack away decorations, I will be fasting--clear liquids only all day preceding the early evening consumption of that dreaded, "Go Lightly" a misnomer if ever there was one. Why in this age of scans, lasers and high tech medicine must we endure this process?  Still, I anticipate  no issues and then will have another 10 years to go until the next one.  

We gained a great grandson this year in July but have only seen him through photos and Facebook, no idea when we will ever see him.  

Maxwell John Morrison 5 months

Maxwell John Morrison born to grandson Brian and wife Jackie appears to be happy and healthy and looks like his mom, especially in the face and chin.  They live in and are committed Californians, just like Brian's parents and tribe, they know no better having lived nowhere else just like that old saying, "mediocrity knows nothing above itself." We have no travel planned that direction. In fact for me, the longer I am away from California the happier I am. That part of my life was fun while it lasted but it is the past.  We thought we would always stay there but CA changed, became too crowded, hours long commutes, hours to wait in lines to eat out, hectic,crowds and crime, even in the northern part, just not how we want to live, so here in the Midwest, despite frigid arctic winter this year, we enjoy a high quality of life.  We can afford to keep our home warm and our house is built well for four seasons.  Where else do folks leave their cars running outside when they run into the grocery stores and the cars are still then when they come back out?  Where else can UPS deliveries sit on a doorstep for weeks and not be stolen when the folks are gone for  months?  That really happened here with our next door neighbors who were in Arizona, we thought their son would set them into the house but he never did the few times he came by their home to check on things. We had no way to contact him and considered picking up the package but watched instead.  

Some souls departed this earth this year beginning in April with Jerry's 96 year old mother who died a rough death as I blogged here.  December was a triple hit with a long time 98 year old father of a California friend, Carol--another friend suddenly without warning in California, and a contemporary a Pennsylvania classmate, Bev, who suffered ill health ravages for years.  May they all rest in peace.  

We are planning our January departure south, Florida and the Alabama gulf coast call; perhaps a reunion in Mississippi at the Bay St. Louis RV park where we spent last year.  Jerry is watching the roads and weather conditions because the mid part of the country seems to be experiencing far worse weather than here where we have only frigid cold, colder than any winter so far.  Sub zero temperatures a few times like last night.  Snow has been minimal and we are shielded from ice by the river bluffs.   

A Happy New Year ahead to one and all.  If I have any resolution it is to decrease my Facebook time and blog more.   Lord Alfred Tennyson sums it in his well known poem,  "In Memoriam"                                Ring out the old, ring in the new,
                         Ring happy bells across the snow:
                         The year is going, let him go;
                          Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Sepia Christmas week 208 Dec 21--27, 2013

A very Merry Christmas and  Happy blessed New Year to all Sepian colleagues wherever you are in the world this season..finally a prompt that I just could not allow to go unanswered....

Every year with the postage increases, now at 46 cents, I consider "this year fewer Christmas cards to send out."  All the old folks who most enjoyed them are all gone now and today the people who keep in contact with us do so by text, email, Facebook or by cell phone. Sure the total number is down, yet annually, there are some with whom I  am compelled to exchange cards and this year a total 59 recipients indicates the number is growing again adding folks we meet on our travels and well, we live across the country from our many friends who have also moved around.  We are mobile in retirement. 

I have fully realized this year that our treasured friends are really our family.  This year we had a photo card pulled together to commemorate our Alaska adventure and our 46th year of marriage; really could not have done it without the expertise and software of a local friend, Ann who was able to crop out, edit and fix our photos to display just the two of us.  In every photo we took in Alaska, no matter how hard we tried to avoid it,  someone would be there, I suppose that happens on tours.  Fortunately, Ann has professional skills and software so she performed magic making our 2013 card just the two of us.  Because we only bought 40 of these at 90 cents each, some received another annual greeting card.  But here, Sepians is our 2013 greeting, which I share with you.   

Left to right starting on top, first  Jerry next to an Alaskan moose carved and assembled from trees, the two of us at the sign entering Alaska after a trip deep into the Yukon (Ann cropped 30+ others out of this), bottom it was raining in Anchorage when we arrived, middle is somewhere near Fairbanks (again Ann deleted all the extra people) and last is in Syracuse New York in May at the Good Sam Rally on our way to the rehitching ceremony where despite the thousands of couples renewing vows in a mass ceremony, we did not beat the Guinness records...ah well, this was 46 years for us and time to renew vows.  Here's my little secret, at our 1967 ceremony I was so fraught that I never said "I do"  and here in May, a potty call which was far from the seating was uppermost in my mind, so I did not say "I do" again..Jerry laughs and reminds me that the third time is the charm..

But there you have it a Very happy holiday season however  and whatever you do or don't celebrate, warm wishes....until 2014 Sepians.  The following is the link to our community of Sepians....warmest wishes, bloggers all.  http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/12/sepia-saturday-208-christmas-new-year.html