My Haphazard Journal

looks like crappie season is on its way out here. Well, it never actually came on Lake Oconee this year. The catfish really do seem to keep the crappie off the beds. I don't know where they are laying their eggs these days. I'm not at all sure they can lay in deep water the way some people seem to think they're doing in order to get away from the cats.

Crappie are still on the bed in the shallows of Lake Sinclair, I understand. Maybe Ken and I will take a little trip there before it's all said and done, but I doubt it. I think we'll just stick to catching our cats in Oconee and be happy. We both like the cats best anyway. Still, it's nice to have a change once in awhile.

We intended to get out to horse camp this week for a couple of days but it looks like the rain is going to put the lid on that. That's fine. Rain is good. Maybe it will give my new blueberry bushes a good start along with the tomatoes, peppers and flowers we planted last week. Maybe also it will give me time to get caught up on some other things as well.

Like this forum, for example.

A pic of myself and one of Ken crappie fishing last week.





And oneof son Michael after pulling in two cats at once.



Images do get larger if you click on them.

 

Ken and I spent pretty much all of today between his doctor's office and the hospital after his doctor sent us to the emergency room. He woke me early this morning saying he couldn't sleep because the room was spinning. Neither could he walk without help. He said he ended up crawling to the bathroom before he woke me.

At any rate, we got out of here early and returned late. Nothing tires me out more than waiting around in a hospital and being concerned while multiple tests are run, and I'm really surprised I'm still up. I'm a little wired still, I guess.

All is well though. It appears that Ken has vertigo. Not fun, but not life threatening so long as he doesn't try to do anything dangerous while he's having an episode. And hopefully he won't have them often.

 

Yvonne, I know it would be the polite thing to let people know when I'm not going to be around, but so often I don't know when I'm not going to be around. Sometimes we plan our excursions but most times we just get up and decide to go wherever it is that we go and then I'm busy getting ready until we get out the door. Usually I'm still thinking about what I might have forgotten as we pull out of the driveway.

And they did give Ken something for his vertigo. It's called antivert and is actually an antihistamine developed first for relief of the effects of motion sickness. They told him to take it as needed up to three times a day. Basically just when he feels the dizziness coming on. I was hoping he wouldn't be dizzy today. It hasn't been as bad as yesterday, but he did end up taking one of the pills this morning and then he said he thought the pill just made him a different kind of dizzy and that it seemed worse to him than the dizziness he was experiencing before taking it.

I would have thought dizzy was dizzy any way you looked at it with the only real difference being either more or less so.

At any rate he seems ok right now. It's been unseasonably cold outside today so we've spent most of it indoors, which means he's had a far more restful day than normal. That's probably been good for him.

The doctor said it's usually a build-up of fluid in the ears as in from a cold or allergies that triggers vertigo and that it can happen to anyone but that some people are more inclined to get it at some point in their lives than others. Ken has always had inner ear problems and so is a prime candidate for it, which means he is likely to continue to get it now that he's had it once as opposed to some people who only get it once and then never again.

Plus, since it's positional vertigo that it's worse when the affected ear is pointed towards the floor. Which is why he seems even more dizzy lying down than sitting up.

 

QUOTE="Allie Seay, post: 4181, member: 4"]Wow. So busy this past week that I haven't even made it here once. I had a farm sitting job all week, which is something I used to do quite a bit of but not so much in the last few years. The woman I was sitting for is someone I used to sit for and so I knew all of her horses quite well. Even so, I was unprepared for how a couple of them had aged since I'd seen them last.

That's the way it usually is when you see an old friend you haven't seen in a long time, though.

Anyway, there was that and then Ken and I were spending just about every spare minute getting a car ready for our granddaughter, Audrey. We'd bought it before Christmas and intended to give it to her then, but decided that it needed a paint job first. Ken and a friend of his spent hours painting that car and getting it right in weather that was really too cold for painting.

On top of the cold, it seemed like that paint job was just cursed. Everything that could go wrong with the equipment did and they ended up redoing (and redoing) things so many times. This week, though, Ken and I spent time working on the interior and the exterior, just getting it all waxed and cleaned up very nicely.

Poor Ken was so sick of looking at that car that I also had encouragement detail. I was really pleased with the way the car came out, too; and Audrey was thrilled when she picked it up yesterday. I don't think I've ever seen her so emotional.

So today, Ken and I both woke up tired and feeling washed out. Needless to say, we did as little as we could get away with, not even making it outside the gate to go to church.

Hopefully tomorrow we will both be back to our normal active selves.

Audrey and her daughter, Gracie-bug, beside her new car.


View attachment 122 [/QUOTE]
The car looks beautiful! Brand new

 

The car looks beautiful! Brand new [/QUOTE]

I thought it looked great too. Ken and Terry just got too close to it while they were working on it. Of course, it was really close work. You know how it is. Sometimes you have to back away from something you're spending a lot of time on before you can start to see it like everyone else does.

You know, that project did more good than just getting Audrey a car. Ken's friend, Terry, had been really in a deep depression for quite awhile. His only son had been killed in a motorcycle crash about two years before and Terry had taken to mostly just sitting and drinking his days away. He seems to be waking up from that ever since he agreed to work on that car with Ken.

Terry has been retired from GM for six or seven years now. I guess that made it even easier for him to slip off into never never land, but that little burst of activity and doing something with an old friend made him decide that he needed to get out again. He's taken a part time job as a chauffeur and also bought a new Harley which he just made a trip to Florida on with some other guys.

So Terry is coming around and Audrey has a car. That's a pretty good two-fer if you ask me.

 

Well, it's a busy time here. This is the year for painting and staining everything out of doors. Everything indoors needs a bit of paint as well but will have to wait. Right now is outdoor time. We've gotten my pool deck stained so far. And the pool is up and filled with water. The pump is cycling salt at the moment and I will start the chlorinator in the morning.

Also in the morning we're heading back to camp for an overnight. That's at least a weekly thing right now. So far we're just doing one nighters until we catch up on a few things around here.

We'll be staining on the back porch next. And then the barn. After that we start the painting.

 

Hello Allie, I thought I would tell you of a book called "Horse Heaven" by Jane Smiley. I have not read it, but thought of you when I read the review.
https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/reviews/000402.002barict.html

 

Thanks, Joe. That book looks interesting, but I can't imagine why you'd think of me when you saw it. (Yeah. Right.)

Well, since I last wrote anything on here I have seen the fourth Triple Crown winner that has been n my lifetime. I feel blessed. Such a beautiful horse is American Pharoah. And so many years since the last Triple Crown Winner.

I swear, I saw my first three before I was twenty. I was twelve when Secretariat won and was lucky enough to have gotten to see him run the derby in person. That was such a thrill and it became even more special when he took the Triple Crown. Then a mere four years later there was Seattle Slew. When Affirmed took it the very next year I started thinking it wasn't such a big deal after all.

And then, thirty-seven years later I sat with friends at horse camp and we all cheered and yelled as American Pharoah brought the dream back to life. It sure felt good.