A Smattering of Stuff....................

I am quite sure that "smattering" is not a word, but it seemed like the appropriate word for my blog today. Just a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

The updating project is almost finished. Glory! Glory! The new sofa, club chair and ottoman for the den arrived on Tuesday. The recliners are still to come, but should be here the first of the coming week. The Entertainment Center/Gun Cabinet is to arrive and be installed at any moment. I am so pleased with the way the upstairs loft area has turned out. It is so cozy and comfortable and I think will be a real enjoyment for guests and grandchildren in the years to come. I am glad "the project" is about to come to an end, but it has been a most enjoyable experience for me. Probably because I can make decisions rather quickly and not labor over them. I will post some photos shortly of a few of the updates.

We also having some outside projects done as well, but Tommy is the overseer of that. We have had issues with the brick fence going down beside our house for several years and it has gotten so bad, that something had to be done. So, workers have been here for over a week, pouring reinforcement and that meant tearing a portion of the fence down. Once it is reinforced, they will rebuild the fence and it will be straight once again. We're also having the portion of the driveway nearest the garage enlarged. This will give Tommy a place to park the boat and get it out of the way. He is pondering having a covered area constructed as well. I've decided that as long as you own a home, there is always a project to work on. I think a condo might sound inviting in a few years. :)

I won't go into all the details of this, but back in January I was diagnosed with stroke level high blood pressure. I knew I didn't feel right, but I certainly had no idea that I had high blood pressure. ( I've had low blood pressure my whole life.) It was so scary! Certainly the weeks prior to that had been the most stressful of my life. Our first grandchild born, Mom's untimely death and then Christmas with a houseful of guests. Two of those being stresses I had never experienced before. Anyway, I was put on two different type of medications and soon got the bp under control and began to feel normal again. I ended up with a Cardiologist who did many, many tests and could not find a cause for the rapid onset of high bp. Shortly after beginning the medication I began having some issues that I felt were related to the bp medication. I ignored it for quite a while and a couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to check into it. I called and spoke with the Drs. nurse and decided after talking to her that I would just quit the medication all together and keep a close eye on my bp by monitoring it. That was 2 weeks ago and my bp has been fine. I have an appointment with the Cardiologist tomorrow to discuss the situtation and it's going to be interesting to hear what he has to say. He had told me from the "get go" that I would most likely be in bp medication the rest of my life. Of course, I am hopeful that I will not have to take anything. The whole ordeal caused me to think about stress and how I might learn to handle it differently so as to avoid another such episode. I certainly think that I was justified in the stress I had related to Mom's death and Clancy's birth, but hopefully it was a short lived "attack" and I will not have bp issues the rest of my life. I will keep you posted. And, last but MOST importantly, I have prayed and prayed about this and perhaps the Lord has delivered me from this. He is certainly capable and I will give Him all the praise for it.

A big thanks to those of you who are reading my blog and sharing in some of the more intimate details of my life. I am honored.