My Body is Broken (Not Really)

 I like the Lord of the Rings movies from a couple of decades ago. In the second movie, the Two Towers, a king named Theoden gets beaten up by baddies and expires dramatically in the arms of his niece, Eowen. Before he dies, he says, "My body is broken" which is a far more elegant way of saying "I'm dying" than it could be.

Anyway.

I have kidney stones. Joy! I had a CT scan yesterday and kidney stones! Three!

I am not in pain from the stones I don't think. I do have massive lower back pain but I am pretty sure it is from not stretching and sitting strangely a lot.

I went to chiropractor this morning and got adjusted and I think it helped some. My body is fractious about me sitting strangely and not stretching. So I need to work on that.

Re the stones, maybe they will pass normally. Best guess is that I have had them off and on for more than six months now. 

I watched not one but two Titan submersible documentaries in the last week or so. Fascinating and crazy making. The guy in charge, Stockton Rush, was arrogant and stupid. He was also rich and well connected and had an authorative tone AND had a degree in engineering so he should have been smarter.

He wasn't a materials engineer. Not that you had to be to know that they were headed for complete collapse of the carbon fiber hull, which did of course happen, killing Rush and four other people. Carbon fiber is NOT a good material for the ocean depths! It is light and cheap, though.

Wow, the stupidity! The arrogance, the hubris!

For some reason I am noticing "people dying in stupid ways" the last couple of weeks. The news is full of info about three men who jumped over a waterfall in ... California, I think... and didn't come up. Rattlesnake Falls. I mean, they drowned.

The waterfall was pushing the water down and so they couldn't get to the surface. Some crazy gifted diver managed to retrieve all three bodies which was noble of him.

Last but not least, a 24 year old wing jumper died in the last few days. Wing jumping is insanely dangerous.

Stockton Rush was quoted as saying that all of life is risky and if you don't want to take any risks you might as well just stay home and never leave the house.

But that is a false argument, I think. There are risks and there are RISKS. Jumping off 50 foot waterfalls is super risky. Wingsuiting is risky. Ignoring signs that your carbon hull is failing is suicidal.

Life is definitely not entirely safe, ever. Riding in a car can result in a crash and death. But car riding or driving (when one is in charge of one's faculties) is way safer than diving 13000 feet to Titanic, or wingsuiting, or leaping off of waterfalls.

Speaking of cars, our Angela is learning how to drive. She drove me to and from the chiropractor today and did a good job.

Late June

 Finally getting ridiculously hot, starting tomorrow. Temps in the 90s! Our pool has been struggling to maintain 80 degrees or so, but after a few days in the mid 90s, should be far warmer still. Hooray!

Me and Rose, obviously!

She turned 11 this month. I will have Bday pics at some point, maybe. They are on Kevin's camera and don't get downloaded all that often because we are busy :-).

So yes, our baby is 11!

Miriam and Joseph had Juneteenth off, and today they are working from home, so we have had more people bumping around then usual, which is fun and a little weird. Usually it is "just" the four youngest kids during the day as Isaac and Joseph and Miriam are at work during the weekdays.

Speaking of Angela, age 17, she and Kevin have gone out most days this week to practice driving. Yes, it is that time, for Kevin to teach a kid to drive.

I am currently watching a documentary called: Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster. Very fascinating along with being very sad. People were stupid. The guy who owned the Sub, who died in the implosion, was stupid.

He was reckless and made big engineering mistakes and five people died, including an eighteen year old boy. Heartbreaking.

Not much else. I continue to write. I am enjoying a break from homeschooling the kids.

Oh, Lydia has taken a second part time job so is working quite a few hours now (like 50+) a week. She was sick and off work last year for awhile and needs to build up her savings. I am proud of her for being willing to work so hard. Part of me feels sad that this is necessary, but this is also life. When I was her age, I was putting in incredibly long work weeks in graduate school. I was young and strong, and so is she.

So yeah, summer is nice, pool is nice, I am grateful.

Pool open and other stuff

 

May was relatively cool, and we only opened the pool this week. It is now a blistering 73 degrees in the water. That is too cold for my blood. Rose and Daniel are full of vim and vigor, though, and have gone swimming three times. The first time the water was 65!

I always watch them, even though they are excellent swimmers. But they are young and not always as careful as they could be so yes, I think they need a parent keeping an eye out.

I took Daniel to his well teen checkup last week. He is a chunk and the pediatrician said something about how maybe we needed to keep an eye on his weight.

If he was my first son I might be nervous, but given that his older two brothers grew like crazy during puberty, and were far too thin, I am very happy Daniel has some stored calories to fuel his growth. He is fine.

I also had a doctor appointment. My latest A1c was 6.1. I am up to 2000 mg of metformin a day.

Sometimes I get really whiny and tired of my eating limitations. And then I pull myself up by my metaphorical bootstraps and remember how blessed I am that there are a bunch of things I CAN eat.

Maybe if I reach 95 years of age I will just start eating lots of carbs. At that point, maybe it won't matter?

That's a long way off.

Anyway, it was a good week and I am thankful the pool is open. Our latest book is doing well, in spite of Amazon having some issues with the ranking. Every Kindle book that has ever sold a copy, or is in KU and had at least one page read, has a ranking from Amazon. This changes over time, of course; new books in the P and P variation niche usually rise to at least #5000 quickly. When we released this latest book 9 days ago, it sat at #30,000 for several days. That ... is not right. Amazon sometimes has trouble with things getting hung up, and it does matter because Best Seller Banners in various catagories help drive sales.

Anyway, finally Amazon pulled together and the book rose to about #1100. That isn't bad, but usually our books hit at least #500. So yes, still not quite right.

Whatever. We are selling quite a bit and people like the book so I am going to be happy with that!