Hi Baby!
FINALLY got my knee surgery, yay! Slept later since I could, then after chores Jeff and I headed down to Coral Springs. He dropped me off and went off and kept busy for the day, while I went through all the paperwork and procedures until they put me under. Of course I don’t remember anything that happened in the operating room, I don’t even remember the operating room! They put me out then woke me up in recovery, which looked exactly the same until I noticed a different piece of art hanging on the wall. Got all my instructions, though I was still a little groggy, but they wheeled me out to the truck and I managed to pull myself in. We got back to the house and Jeff helped me into the house, which I needed. My knee feels like rubbery Jello, can’t support anything. He bought me some lunch from Turtle Tavern and heated it up for me, fetched all my essentials from the trailer, and helped me get settled into the guest bedroom. The nurse advised that I be near someone for at least the first 24 hours, just in case. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow to see if I can get back into the trailer tomorrow night, but I don’t want to rush things. I took one fall on my way back from the bathroom, hoping I didn’t do any damage to my new knee, Jeff had to help me get back up to my walker and into bed. I’ve got a load of pills to take tonight, which I’m about to do, and I’m hoping that Lola will behave, she’s curled up in her dog bed next to the bed, but you know her, she’s likely to try to sneak up on the bed during the night, though hopefully not. I’m not in any pain yet, the nerve block is supposed to last for awhile, but the nurse said I should probably take a pain pill at bedtime to make sure I don’t wake up in pain. Anyway, that’s the plan, and I’m starting right now. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Darlin’,
With my knee surgery tomorrow (at last!), I spent time today doing the things that I would have to do to get ready to leave, only early because I don’t know how long my recovery is going to take. I put the satellite dish away and cancelled the service (I managed to record nearly 170 movies, so I don’t think I’ll be running out of anything to watch for awhile!) and put the sewer tank back up top as well. I did a little housekeeping, did a bunch of loads of laundry, tried to finalize what parts I need to order, though that’s still not completely done because I’m waiting for other people to get back to me, went to PT in the afternoon, shopped for a couple of things at Walmart, picked up some hay at Town and Country, shopped for a couple more things in Publix that Walmart didn’t have, got home and put everything away, fed the critters with James, and settled down for the evening. My surgery tomorrow was originally set for 9:30, but then it was pushed out to 11:30, so there’s no need to get up at the crack of dawn. I’m hoping I’ll get the order in before I leave in the morning, since it seems like it’s going to be a long day. Really glad I got the dash lights working, it may be close to dark by the time we get home. I already had my shower this afternoon, so now I just need to make my bed and get in it! That’s coming up shortly! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Had a little pit of pain along my arm last night so I took a generic Tylenol PM and it knocked me right out, and made me sleep in a bit later than usual. Didn’t like the groggy feeling in the morning, but felt better having gotten a good night sleep. After chores and breakfast I did my monthly bookkeeping, then headed out to the drugstore for yet another Covid test, my fourth in about two weeks, crazy! I stopped at the UPS store to ship out that dimmer switch, but the line was out the door so I decided to come back later. I went down to the mechanic where I took my truck last week because he hadn’t called me with his estimate yet, but he’s waiting for one more quote on the leaf springs before he’ll have it all put together, says it will be tomorrow. Then I went off to PT and worked with a new girl, she’s English from outside London. I told her the story about how when you performed Henry VIII for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee at Windsor Castle, Prince Philip asked you afterward what it felt like to be king and she laughed. I think you have to be English or an avid royal watcher to get that, but she certainly did. Did you know he was born on the same day we got married, June 10? I certainly think this PT is helping my shoulder, though I only have one session left, because they won’t let me work on more than one body part at a time, and next week it will be my knee. Hopefully I can continue the exercises at home and it will keep getting better. Afterwards I went back to the UPS store and the line was completely gone, so I got that done in short order, then a trip to Walmart to stock up on some stuff again, then home in time to feed the horses and settle down for the evening. Another hot day, too, we’ve been having a real heat wave down here. Won’t be long before I’ll be craving to head north! Well, time for shower and bed, so good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Darlin’,
Lola was restless all night last night, so my sleep schedule was intermittent at best. Don’t know what got into her, maybe not enough exercise, or it could have just been the full moon keeping all the critters out and about, but she was scratching at the bedroom partition and walking around all night. I let her out once at 12:30, but I wasn’t about to keep doing that all night. Anyway, I got up and did my chores, then after breakfast and some computer work I started checking all the fuses on the truck hoping to find the culprit that’s keeping my dash lights in the dark when I drive at night. I finally found one, generically called Body Control Module A (or was it B?), nothing about dash or illumination or anything in the description, but I changed it out. It was too bright outside to know if it worked or not, so I had to wait until it got dark. Did some reading, then finally decided to float in the pool for awhile, reading and chucking the ball for Lola to fetch, hoping to tire her out so we’ll both sleep better tonight. Jeff’s boarder and her friend came by and took her horse and Apollo out, and by the time they got back it was twilight. Instead of waiting around to feed them and getting bit by mosquitoes, I went back to the truck to see if the lights were working, and lo and behold, even with the old dimmer switch in, they worked just fine! Yay! I’ll send the new dimmer back since I don’t need it, and I didn’t really like the matte finish on it anyway, it looked a bit odd with the rest of the dashboard. I hope it’s just the fuse and not that the fuse blowing is indicative of another problem, but I guess I’ll wait and see. I can always get another dimmer. I love Amazon Prime, with their free shipping and return policy! I also ordered a new bathing suit online, I’ve never ordered clothes that way before, but I’ve been having the hardest time trying to find a style I like in the stores. The one I ordered isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it was close enough to give it a try, and I needed something. I think I’ve been wearing the same two bathing suits for over thirty years, it’s high time I got a new one! Eventually we got the critters fed and I was able to settle down for the evening, later than usual but not too bad. Of course, the days are getting a lot longer, which is nice. Time for shower and bed now, though! So good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Hon,
Had a good night sleep, felt a bit lazy this morning, almost decided to relax by the pool, but then I decided I had some things to do, and once I got started, there was no stopping me! First I made a big batch of chaney root tea, then I began outside by washing the small horse trailer, it was filthy and covered with algae in a lot of places. I figured if I wanted to fix the rust holes in it, it should at least be clean to start with. After that, I decided to fix the screen door. Lola did a great job of tearing up both the top and the bottom, and I bought some replacement screen the other day. The old screen was aluminum, which held up pretty well, but the new screen is apparently a tough nylon made especially for pets, so hopefully that will do even better. But before I could start, I had to find my screen roller tool, and it was nowhere to be found. Then I couldn’t get one of the drawers open in the tool box, so I had to work on that for a bit, finally discovering that somehow a screwdriver got stuck in a hole in the back of a drawer which prevented it from opening. I managed to hammer out the screwdriver, but couldn’t figure out how to take the whole drawer out to retrieve it, and some other things I could see that had fallen out the back of a drawer to the bottom. After working on that for a while, I finally got online and found a couple of videos on Youtube that offered a couple of choices, the most sensible was one that required a thin piece of metal about 8 or 10 inches long, so I stepped around to the back of the trailer and started walking, and within 15 yards I found the perfect thing laying right on the ground. I guess that’s one advantage to have a yard full of scrap metal! It worked great and I had the drawer out in short order, but not before having to empty all the other drawers. Well, no sense putting all that stuff away without doing some cleaning, so I spent some time wiping everything down and reorganizing, which was really overdue. It’s always amazing how much space you can gain just be rearranging things! Of course, once I got the drawer pulled out, I found several tools in the bottom, including the screen roller tool that set this whole thing in motion. So after finishing that and taking a quick break, I tackled the screen replacement job. I’ve done that so many times now it didn’t take me too long. By the time that job was finished, Amazon had delivered a couple of packages to me, one was a new dimmer switch for the truck, which, according to several different sources online, should hopefully solve my dash illumination problem, though I’m sorry to say that it didn’t once I installed it. Tomorrow’s job is going to be going through each and every fuse to see if I missed it last time I looked. You remember that cool jar opener we had, the one that squeezed together with several different size hole grips, that we think fell under the slide and eventually disappeared? Well, I’ve been looking for one in stores and haven’t found any, so I finally went online and found some exactly like we had. One was about $7, and then there was a package of two for $10, so I got that latter and gave Jeff the second one. Thought he might find it useful, if not now, maybe in the future. I know my hands aren’t always strong enough to open tight jars, and with arthritis in the family, he’s bound to have trouble at some point, too. Anyway, by then it was feeding time, and then I checked that dimmer switch again in the dark just to make sure it still wasn’t working (it wasn’t), had my shower early, watched a few Heartlands, now I’m ready for bed! Whew! Busy day! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Woke up early this morning, just before the time I had set my alarm, because now that I have a letter from my doctor saying I should get the covid vaccine, I thought I’d try to get an appointment at Publix. What a chaotic mess that was! They open up the appointments just after 7:00, and it took over an hour to just to the point where I could book it, and the nearest was Broward County, and every time I signed up for a time, by the time I finished filling out all the questions, that time was gone. The worst part was I had to practically start from scratch every time one application timed out. I moved it to two or three different stores, getting further and further south until I finally nabbed one in N. Lauderdale. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, I got a call saying they wouldn’t honor it because I wasn’t 65 yet, even with a doctor’s letter. I tried to get it switched over the Jeff, but they wouldn’t even let me do that! What a system! I’ll try again on Monday to get one for him, but I guess I’m stuck until they open it up for a wider audience. This is getting really scary, I’m getting close to losing my health insurance just because I can’t get the dang covid vaccine, because the union where I get my insurance won’t let me just pay for it myself. It’s a crazy system. Anyway, I did a few odd chores during the day, applying some new rust inhibitor on the little horse trailer, and hunting chaney root along the neighbor’s fence line, collecting a nice bunch. Jeff swears that James’ cholesterol plummeted when he started drinking it, and since mine was a bit high on my last bloodwork, I thought I’d give it a try. I’ve dramatically changed my diet, so that will certainly help, but it would be great if this Jamaican root tea actually has some value. It tastes pretty good, too! I planted a few of the bulbs in an extra planter that I had, thought maybe it would keep me supplied after I leave here, though I do intend to stock up before I leave. I have enough for a few weeks now, at least. Hope it works! Die a load of laundry today, too, but now I’m settled down for the evening, heading to shower and bed shortly. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Was woken up in the middle of the night with the sound of a horse munching outside my window, looked out to discover Frost was wandering around. A couple of times when someone else has put him away they’ve forgotten to put up the fence, but I’ve always caught it in time to pen him in, though Jeff did it yesterday and he doesn’t usually forget, but evidently he did last night. Rosie woke me up barking a couple of times, no doubt because Frost wasn’t supposed to be out there, but I left it until I got up in the morning before putting Frost away. No worries, he deserves to be out and about a bit more than he has been. Left around noon to pick up some rust neutralizing stuff at Ace Hardware in Tequesta that Karl had recommended, then stopped for fuel, a quick stop at Publix for some veggies to munch on, then another day of PT for my shoulder. I’m beginning to believe that it might just be possible to finally get it back where it belongs, my therapist, Allie, seems to know exactly what she’s doing, so fingers crossed, eventually it will get back to normal, after ten long years of not being right. We’ll see, it’s still early days, but I’m hopeful. Got home by 5:00, did the chores fairly early (Jeff’s been making a good effort lately to feed earlier, thank goodness), and then settled down for the evening. Guess that’s all the news that’s fit to print! Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Babe,
A good night sleep started the day off right, getting my chores done in short order. I made some phone calls, one of which was to the clinic where I’ll be getting my physical therapy, to see if I can start up my shoulder sessions while I wait for my knee surgery, the other to the auto repair place to set up an appointment for them to inspect the suspension on the truck just to see if I need new shocks (which I’m sure I do since we’ve never changed them), or maybe a new leaf under the bed, just to make sure I don’t have any problems on the road, considering how over-weighted I am (the trailer, that is!). I set both appointments for tomorrow, then I got a call back from the clinic to ask if I wanted to come in today, and since I figured the sooner the better, I said yes! When I got there in the afternoon, I was thrilled to get the sense that this girl really knew her stuff, she listened carefully, took copious notes, then physically seemed to pinpoint exactly where my problem is, so I’m hoping that by the end of this, my shoulder will FINALLY, after ten years, get back into place! She’s also the one I’ll be working with on my recovery from knee surgery, so I’m really glad for that, too. Afterwards, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up a few supplies for some upcoming repairs I want to make. There’s a rusty hole forming in the roof of the small trailer, and a few other rust spots starting to bleed through the paint, so I sprayed it this morning with some rust neutralizer, then bought some spray paint and sandpaper so I can finish off those sections. I’m going to find a piece of scrap metal and JB weld it over the hole to keep it from leaking any more. Fortunately it’s in the tack room section and not the back area where all the hay is being stored, but it will only get worse if I don’t fix it now. I also bought a new screen for the door to the trailer, Lola’s been running roughshod over it for the past few weeks and there are a lot of holes in the old one, so that’s another chore I’ll try to do this weekend or at least before my knee surgery. I’ve made three more appointments for physical therapy before then, I’m really optimistic that this is going to work, at last! I hope I won’t be disappointed again! Anyway, finally settled down for the evening, off to bed soon! Cheers, my love! Good night!

Hi Sweetie,
After a long drive to Weston just west of Ft. Lauderdale this morning, and hours of prepping and waiting, and what seemed like just two or three minutes into my cardiac cath procedure, the doctor declared the stress test was wrong and that there’s nothing wrong with my heart. No excessive plaque or buildup, nothing that impinges on my progress towards knee surgery. That’s especially good news, because I was told for the first time that if they HAD had to put in a stint, it would have delayed my knee surgery by SIX MONTH!! That would have been a disaster! Glad it was a good report, but sorry this has all delayed my knee surgery by almost three weeks. Sigh… Stopped at Turtle Tavern on the way back, as it was peirogi night, got back by 5:30 just as James was in the process of feeding the horses. Jeff and I finished it off, then I settled down for the night. Guess some progress was made, good to have a medical baseline for myself, now I only have my knee surgery to look forward to! Can’t wait! No shower tonight because of the wrist bandage, so now I’m off to bed. Good night, darlin’! Love you!