I haven’t been off the land to town in over 44 days now! Thank the goddess for internet as it seems to be my main social contact. I try to phone someone every few days, but talking on the phone is just not my thing. And my throat / voice has been stressed and strained and talking just makes me cough more.

I am now on day 3 of antibiotics (AGAIN) for the tickle – wake – me – up all night cough – all day cough, that developed as I was finally getting rid of the ‘end of summer colds’. I obviously have something going on that is causing this, (bacterial infection?) but no diagnosis.

I want to wax eloquently about how great a garden we had this year, we actually made tomato sauce to can last week end. I picked off 4 large flats of green and pink tomatoes to ripen off the vine. We dug some red potatoes a couple days ago that were just sooo goood. (carrots too) and peppers. I have 10 good sized butternut squash to store for the winter, and several acorns to eat up. I love being able to go into the garden to determine what’s for dinner, but those days are over for this season.

November is just around the corner. Russel’s Aikido school, Mateel Aikido will be celebrating 25 years this month. There is a big retreat planned for the weekend of Nov 19 – 21, with Sensei Frank Doran headlining. There is a Mateel Aikido facebook page that one of the students put up, that you can check out.

I have been dreaming of a warm sunny relaxing massage filled sauna taking swimming several times a day eating only good food retreat with mountain views. Just a few days (maybe more!) to detox, relax, and rejuvenate. Maybe southern California, as I need to get my passport redone before I can go to Mexico. But this is just a dream at this point.

Election in few days.. will be interesting to see where the ‘collective we’ end up with regards to Prop 19, CA governor, and some local issues.

I managed to keep feeling good until Sunday, the 18th, when a cough started and by Monday I was full on into a head cold as well.. and still today. All the usual aliments, stuffy nose, running like a faucet, sinus head ache, coughing, sneezing and feeling miserable.

This is just a bit much to take on heels of just getting over by 70 day bout with coughing. We also had a brief weather change in there a few days of gray cloudy weather and rain on Monday.

Today if was foggy all morning and now the sun has appeared, seems we are in the middle of Indian Summer .. with the full Harvest Moon just yesterday along with the Fall Equinox… changes coming. I just wish I felt better as there is soooo much to do.

OH and by the way Facebook is down today! My connection to the world, at least I can keep talking here, but really don’t know how many of my friends actually check this site out?? So if you do come by, please drop me a note, ok?

So now, August 15, I am 2 days off the antibiotics and have just a light cough occasionally.. has me a bit worried that I will fall back into what ever it was, but I am trying to get stuff done while I have some energy.
And no spring cleaning was done this year.. and if it didn’t have to happen for the last several months, it didn’t .. so I have a ton of stuff to do to catch up.

Speaking of getting stuff done. I tried my first pickle-canning July 26, using zucchini instead of cucumbers. We just opened a jar a few days ago and they are quite tasty!

So in early May, Russel’s sister Carol, came to visit, (May 5-9) and Russel was running back and forth into town to bring Carol out here.

It was a nice visit and the weather was good, sunny and warm, but the evening we were to go to Shelter Cove, my 4 Runner wouldn’t start. I had had some problems with it the day before in town, and we figured out the alarm system, that we never used, decided to say a door was open and wouldn’t let us start it up.. quite the drag. I stayed home and Russel took Carol out to the cove for dinner.

Then it rained again.

I took the 4 Runner to be fixed by Leo’s. Sunny breezy day after a good rain in May. I need to focus on the rest of the garden planting.
And returning to the Bruce bubble .. where life is just sublime.
I spent the next week working on www.cockburnproject.net, and staying in that Bruce bubble.

I was feeling pretty good for me, and starting to plan out all the projects I wanted to accomplish this spring, before Russel leaves for Aikido Summer Camp on June 13.

On Friday, May 14 – I went into the Farmers Market. How fun! So many happy smiling faces, and lots of good connection. Feels good to be out and seeing people on a sunny bright day! And preparing for the Russel’s upcoming Mateel Aikido workshop at Beginnings this week end and potluck on Saturday. I prepared a non-bean enchilada dip and a pesto, pasta and pine nut salad for the potluck. It was a warm and sunny day on Saturday too, and as always the Mateel Aikido potluck was a blast with good friends and lots more socializing.

2 days of socializing had taken its toll on my, throat hurts from talking so much, my life in general is so isolated that 2 very social days in a row wipe me out! Which is how I felt on Sunday.

Then it rained — again.

By Monday the May 16, I definitely had a throat pain (not a sore throat) and a dry light cough…. fast forward for 3 whole weeks… still with the cough. I figured it was a viral bug, threw every herbal remedy I knew at it. Many nights sitting up in recliner so i could fall asleep with the antihistamines and cough syrup. Mostly just doing what I had to.

I finally went to clinic on June 8th, they say not whooping cough, pneumonia, flu…but some kind of seasonal allergy..which I have never had before. Mind you I do not have a lot of congestion or mucus or anything else but a mostly dry unproductive cough that until the last few nights, has keep me awake a lot at night. No rest, no sleep for me means zombie land during the day.

I hadn’t been to town in 3 weeks until yesterday to the clinic. Thankfully I work at home so at least the paying jobs that came in could be done. I haven’t had the brain power to continue working in WordPress backend on this blog or future sites.

The clinic say to take ‘this type of antihistamine’ and you may need to take it every day for months! I don’t usually use that type of stuff, to be told this is going to be an ongoing state of being is very disheartening. Still digesting that info, and will start looking for alternatives to the still undiagnosed cough. I did try it, but seemed to just make me feel uncomfortable.

So that is why I haven’t been here. I have been keeping Facebook up to date, and today was looking for a good way to back FB up. I need to go back through the last year and half and pull some of the content from there to here, as this blog is still a journal of my life, even if it does go in other directions at times. So I may be adding more old post dated content here to try and fill in some gaps.

As of today, June 14, I feel better today than I have for several days. I hope this is the end of this thing whatever it was. Russel is at Summer Camp and I want to spend the alone time making headway into this blog, other websites I run, and household chores and to do lists.

Once 2009 is done, I will need to set up spam blocking for comments and turn them on, test a new gallery short code page and wait till WP 3.0 is done beta testing and ready for prime time before I change this theme, which I am not liking much.

Spring is upon us here, as well as a Bruce Cockburn tour, anad some health issues that I truly hope are resolved quickly and painlessly.

I use Facebook every day..but I am looking forward to longer postings here, and hopefully turn this into more than a personal journal.

Dad is done with treatments, and getting weaker all the time. He still is eating and walking slowly, but having a hard time getting up from a chair. He is clear headed and we talk every couple of days. But how long he will stay in this place is anyone’s guess.

They don’t know if the last round of radiation helped shrink the brain tumors, and won’t even do a scan for another month. Meanwhile the spots on his lungs have grown. The writing is on the wall I guess.

Home Health are coming in now 4x a week for a few hours
in the morning to help with bathing and such. Sue is handling most everything else.

My being there will mostly help me I think.. they are fine and family is abundant, but I only have one Dad, and I would like to see him at least one more time while he still can laugh and be with me.

So I leave April 25 – May 9 unless I need to stay longer. Sue keeps saying he isn’t dying yet, but I am not so sure.

I wanted to book this general time in February, but at that point Dad was improving fast and really thought he would be out planting his garden and mowing the lawn this year.

So I wish I had (booked then) as I wanted to catch a Bruce Cockburn show in Ann Arbor at the Ark on the 20th. But trying to book so late I couldn’t get a flight that met my needs until the 25..oh well. I do hope he makes it to California sometime this year.