The Hip Is Not All The Issue

I knew when I went to bed at 4:30pm Wednesday I was following orders from my body telling me to. I had a lot of steps vacuuming and doing laundry. The first two days home I was close to 900 steps per day and when the dust settled Wednesday at midnight I had 2,286 for the day. I was glad that my plan was to cut back a little, rest and sleep more. I had pushed myself a little but that is okay in this process. Pushing yourself is getting up and out of bed when you think it might hurt. Mother Nature and the Hounds are a huge motivating factor pushing the limits.

I sleep very good between the periods I get up. Mostly for me and toward the end of the morning, for the  hounds. It is more stiffness than soreness than anything else. I have not had any kind of severe pain since my wreck on Saturday morning.

Stella woke me up at 4am with the nose nudge to my hand. Heidi was 'lights out' and probably didn't hear us the whole time we were up. She did her job I did mine but when she came back inside she had that smile that dogs get ... she thought she was back to normal routine of eating breakfast as soon as she woke up.

You can see by 7am she figured out that was not going to happen. She waited outside on the patio all morning before MJ would show up to feed them. She is very busy but very conscientious. She washes the dog dishes after each meal. She talks to them although her stay is short now that I am home and gives them a treat before she leaves. So it's good to know the hounds are taken care of from this point forward if something were to happen.

Heidi decided to sleep until the food was served .. her new bed does not arrive until September 16th ... Chewy had to go all the way to their warehouse in Indiana to find one.

Stella followed our routine as much as possible but boy has that changed. First she could not walk for two weeks, now I can't take her for a walk for who knows how long. MJ will take her for the walk if I add a few bucks to my discounted rate she is giving me.

Even though I could get up out of bed the first time they asked me to on Monday morning and all the times I have had to get up at all hours of the night here ... there is always a slight hesitation making that first move. Luckily my arms and my left (non surgical) leg are stronger. I can lift my butt up off the bed a little higher to make swing the bad leg to the left or edge of the bed a little easier. I have to keep it straight at all times and rotate slowly not to put any added stress on the hip joint as I turn.

I then sit on the side of the bed and slowly raise my lower leg to the level of my knee ... both legs. I've been doing the "ankle push" as they suggested for PT to not only strengthen the calf and hamstring but also for circulation to prevent blood clots.

When I stand if I can feel my left heel dig into the carpet that lets me know that I have all my weight on my good leg as I position myself within the walker in front of me. Then away we go, one foot in front of another slowly gliding down the hallway.  I keep telling myself how good it will feel five days from now, each time I am walking. I sit in hard straight back chairs slowly and can't wait until I can sit on the couch again ... but I sink back into that so much I would never be able to get back on my feet at this point in time.

I have three different places with gauze covering holes where they either took blood or put my two different IVs. I would like to take them off but I remember how fast and hard they bled with the nurse took them off. I have gauze but I don't have that brown wrap they use but almost bought a few weeks ago with my cut finger. Believe me, although I think and others do to, that I am doing great so far, there is still hesitation at times to make that first step or move ... there is fear at times.

As far as those past insertion points, they have classified me as a bleeder now. I'm not in the mood to be chasing blood all over the bathroom because I wanted to take off the 4 day old gauze pad. So they will stay until I find out what to do. all three bandages came off without blood shooting all over the monitor ... that's good.  LOL

I try not to dwell on much. It is what it is. Life is constantly in motion and this is what we are riding right now, only to get better. I was pissed off Saturday morning in the ER but got rid of that feeling soon after and thought about nothing but a plan to feel better and what I had to do. As much as I want to I am NOT going to rush this healing/rehab process. I am going to do what the doctors tell me and when to do them.

Different friends of mine and even the surgeon know of other bicyclists that have had a "total" hip replacement and are back in Spinning Class or riding on the road competitively. My friend that is a bicyclist and PT tells me I will have no problem getting back on the bike feeling good enough to ride.

But there's a big elephant sitting in the room with me and the hounds.

My Electrocardiogram Saturday showed that I have a heart murmur. From what friends have told me  the past few days, everyone seems to have one or knows someone that does. But ....... In my case ...

My heart murmur is caused by a genetic deficiency and something called Aortic Valve Stenosis. The aorta valve that opens and closes for blood to leave the heart is not working smoothly and is partially blocked. The valve will not open and close all the way. With a family history of heart disease I always thought I'd have by-pass surgery first not this.

From what the doctor told me again on Monday before I left, my physical condition is a big factor in my fast recovery from the hip surgery and also makes the treatment options for the valve much less severe. Of course I will not know the recommendation until I talk to a cardiologist and I can't see one until a General Practitioner recommends one. In the meantime the doctor says I need to see one fairly soon but with my active life and diet that I eat ... things should be fine until then.

Those last few paragraphs should be a sign that this blog is going to get more truthful or giving out more information than I want to give. I wasn't going to say anything about the heart situation but after a few emails and a comment or two here, I agreed with them. The more honest I am with what is going on with my health might help someone else or others that have the same situations.

Al at BayfieldBunch.com said from the first of his health issues he was going to lay it out for all to see in case it helped someone else. I agree now that I am sitting in a similar lobby that he is. That is hard for someone that has lived alone for decades by choice ... I like it. I like the freedom. I like being single. So now instead of "me me me" my life is heading towards spilling my guts with hopes of not only improving my own health but maybe helping someone else that has similar issues.

Or cannot seem to get a straight answer from a doctor.

So stay tuned I guess.

The hounds have slept most of the morning and I can hear the small voice in my head telling me it's time for a siesta ... so that's what I'll do.

Never fear ... it's great living in the Wild West.

The Urge To Blog Is Gone

Just like the change in weather, things change in life, in daily activities or thoughts. That is the case here in June 2019. I am practically forcing myself to sit in front of my computer to write even this post. Words are not there and as I scrolled though photos to post on this blog, I couldn't decide what to post.

Blogging about the hounds and I in a public format is over.

Yes, I have done it before a couple of times since I started in October 2011. For various reasons I came back but those reasons have also disappeared. At this point in this post I am not sure I can finish this ... the words are just not there.


I will say that I really got tired of this type of weather this spring and into the early summer months. I have emailed a few readers, ones I have kept in touch with over the years via emails, what the current situation is. For those wondering, I am fine and the hounds are even better. None of us have any crisis going on in our lives. So that's not the reason for the lack of blog posts.

I no longer want to stand down by the highway passing out current updates to our lives with photos to every car that passes the house, whether I know them or not. That is how I described blogging years ago. Sure, friends are made and have been made through blogging but the "privacy thing" as always been big with me. It's always lingered in the background of my thoughts.

I found out this spring that the more time I spent away from the computer the more I enjoyed life. Even when I was doing things I didn't want to do, it was still better than spending time in front of my computer. I found it harder and harder to grasp that hour or two it takes to put a post together with 12-25 photos in the post.

An ex-friend told me once some of the best photos you will ever take, will be those you don't.

Whether you want it to or not and other bloggers may feel the same way ... blogging gets into your thought process, your photo taking process and your daily life ... if you blog that often. You find yourself taking your camera not to capture possibly the best photo of the hounds but to get photos for the blog post that day.

That is no way to take photos.

I could be sitting outside battling the bugs, the gnats or mosquitoes and enjoy watching the day come to an end but battled within myself to get up, go inside and post something on the blog when I had not blogged in days. A feeling of 'obligation' sneaks into my daily routine ... and I've never wanted any kind of obligations.

It brings back that time I had an ex-girlfriend screaming at me "you have made a commitment ... not to make any" ... for the first time in our relationship we had agreed on something. LOL

I will say that my life and daily routine has changed drastically from what you have read on this blog and my old blog over on Blogger. I am back to bicycling again. I am back to loading the hounds into the car for local drives and exploring new interests. I no longer sit my first cup of coffee down in front of my computer in the morning and spend the first 2-3 hours of the day in front of my iMac. I'm outside enjoying the sights and sounds of another day getting it's start.

My time in front of a computer has decreased drastically and I like that ... a lot.

The hounds have had a slight change to their routines but all for the better. They still eat twice per day. Heidi still goes right back to sleep after her breakfast but a HUGE DIFFERENCE, she now goes to the door every morning around 10am expecting me to take her for 'her' walk.

Stella is now whining to go on her morning walk, if we are not outside by 6am. She is not only walking further than we use to but breaks into a fast trot and shows more activity than she has in many months.

Both hounds are looking better than they ever have and have done more activity than before. They are good.

The words reluctance and privacy seem to go hand in hand anymore when it comes to me being open on a blog. I gave it a gallant effort of being more open on the blog back in December. I cannot say I liked it but I did it anyway. Then I caught myself falling back into that privacy mode of mine of writing less about my thoughts and more about what the hounds were doing.

The urge to blog was disappearing even while I posted the past few times.

So where does the word reluctance come into play?

If I were to post like I did every day for a few years or many months, the possibility of unexpected visitors would be more possible than ever before. If I were to post current photos of the hounds, there would be a few keen readers that could figure out what was going on and might even go as far as knocking on my door to see the hounds.

Just like the strange lady I found one day a few years ago ... looking into the back bedroom window because she wanted to see the hounds. It didn't matter that I wasn't home at the time, she was there to see the hounds no matter what. I had been too open in my blog posts and the photos I took ... she figured out where I lived.

Over the years I have read more times than I wanted to, about blog readers showing up on the doorstep or knocking on an RV door of people that blogged, to see the people and dogs they were reading about. I don't want that to ever happen to me and the hounds.

Some might think that would never happen here but I have always leaned more toward preventing that one in a million chance.

I was careless before in my photo taking and blogging and thus the strange crazy lady looking in my windows, for the hounds. I'll not make that mistake again.

So combined with the the lack of words to type, the lack of interest for sharing my life and the hounds to the world, and the big reluctance to post photos that would blow our cover ... I cannot see anyway I can continue blogging in a public platform.

For some, this announcement might bother them or as in the past, in a few it will anger them. I'll hear from them since I have not changed my email address nor do I plan to. Some readers are bloggers and will understand what I have spoken about and others that don't blog will think that I am selfish, possibly crazy or even lazy ... I mean it can't take that much time to put a blog post together.

After all it only takes a few minutes to read one of my posts and only seconds to scroll through the photos. So it can't take that much time to blog.

To those readers I suggest you start your own blog and write about every little thing in your life and what you are doing. Take a million photos per day, download them, edit them and post the ones you like and open your door to any blog reader that wishes to stop by to visit you or see your dog, cat, reptile or plants.

For those readers that stopped by my blogs to take a look at the photos over the years, made comments or sent emails ... thank you for taking your time to stop by the blog. I found an enjoyment in taking photos and blogging then ... I don't now.

As each hound passed, things changed. The blog changed, I changed. I know that is just part of life but as I get older I find it harder to lose a hound. Sometimes those walks through the field were not as enjoyable as they once were because past memories overtook the walk Stella and I were on.

When she started losing interest in taking the 2 walks per day through the field, I did too. The window of finding things to blog about and to take photos of got smaller and smaller. Activities outside called life ... became more important than blogging. I cannot even find time to blog privately in my journal and the urge to do so is also evaporating.

So there it is ... it's the best I can do in trying to explain ... still a poor job of doing so.

Add me to the list of other bloggers that have stopped blogging for one reason or another. Some made an announcement and others just drifted out into the black space called the internet.

The hounds and I are more than happy with the change in our lives.

More Changes In Store ??

For the new readers I will warn you, I ALWAYS change my mind on things. ALWAYS. Some changes are good, others are out of curiosity or possible boredom and some have been quite expensive financially. Sometimes the changes are diet related, internet browsers, NEVER computer brand names, and sleep times. I know, not really interesting most likely. Late last night I was wondering if my latest diet change was going to work ... or last.

At 9:44pm I had a craving for a fast food cheeseburger so strong I considered driving 12 miles away to get one. Then I had doubt about the plant-based diet, adding grain back to my diet because I felt just a little indigestion after eating a slice of multi-grain wheat bread with natural peanut butter. A commenter reminded me by what he said ... no matter what diet you follow, death is the end result.

Like him, I also knew vegans, workout addicts that died young. I knew of old people that started smoking cigarettes in their teens and lived to their late 90's. There are heart attacks every day, some fat people, some skinny, younger or older. So it made me think for a short time about what I was doing but it did not take long for me to confirm what I was doing was the right thing to do. At least for me.

I may have misled some readers with the linked article about the study that showed reversing the amount of plaque in arteries. My commenter had a "widow maker" heart attack a couple of years ago. He knows about arteries and I am sure his surgeon updated him quickly on recommended eating methods. I remember in 1987 when a heart surgeon told my dad the same information after his quadruple by-pass surgery.

So let's say that medical study I linked was bogus and there is no way to reverse plaque build up in arteries ... diets can still make a difference in what happens from this day forward. Do I want to add to that arterial plaque build up by what I eat or do I want o minimize it by changing the food I eat?

I've read other cardiac doctors talk of tests they have proved reversal can be done. So who knows? Who do you believe?

I still wanted that cheeseburger.

I'll go back to what I said in yesterday's post ... bottom line ... a plant based diet will not hurt you, where a Keto or Paleo Diet could hurt you. Medical studies prove that. I just can't get over that paradigm that fat is not good for you.

So I am giving my latest food changes three weeks, until April 7th, before I even consider changing my eating habits. I might decide to put dairy, meat, seafood and chicken back on my daily menu. Then again, I don't plan to make drastic changes like that anymore. I know there will be challenges up ahead as I make this change.

I had my first night in many months last night, where I slept without getting up or waking up. The sleep app on my Apple Watch will even record if I sit up in bed or if I wake up while laying down, right down to the minute. I also had over 50% of my sleep noted as "restful" and positive sleep rhyme and heart rate dip. Those are different than my past sleeping habits. It was my second day of eating no dairy.

I had a bowl of oatmeal this morning. That in itself is a big 'test' because I will find out if I am going to have any kind of indigestion or not. I use to, sometimes quite intense. I will also be adding grains again today for the second day in a row and will find out if I have any negative responses to that.

POSSIBLE CHANGE ... the time of day that I publish my daily post.

I use to do that a few years ago. It seemed like the right time to do it. Posting them after my morning walk and before lunch seems to eliminate a lot of Heidi photos or afternoon photos because I rarely post twice per day. I know this spring and summer while I work on my 'to do' list, I will not have time to post twice per day and some days will not post at all.

Like I have said before, when I post once per day I have too many photos in that post. Even now as I am writing this I feel like posting it as soon as I am finished and probably will ... LOL As you see I did post right after I was finished.

It's good to see my 10-day forecast showing a lot of days with high temps in the 60s and the overnight low temps in the 40's. So this heavy frost and freezing this morning may be our last time for really cold weather for the year.

I hope so. I'm more than ready for spring

Will it take my body three weeks to get used to grains being back in my diet? There is a reason I asked that. I feel very slight irritation after having oatmeal two hours ago.

Not a cloud in the sky this morning.

I don't know why my neighbors tv antenna caught my eye this morning. That's an electrical rotor about four feet below the antenna, used to change the direction of the antenna with a controller inside that use to sit on a tv. Young readers will not have a clue about what I am talking about, older readers will.

Even today with HD signals ... that antenna pointed that direction will pull in CBS, NBC and FOX perfect on an older tv with an analog signal. The ABC affiliate is SW where the antenna is pointed NW. Mine worked perfect for years until they replaced the analog signal with HD. That changed the screen on my large Sony tv I had at the time.

The banner showing the scores of any ballgame in any sport was being cut off my screen, where I couldn't see the score or I would see only part of the score. I was forced to buy an HD tv if I wanted to continue watching games.

I doubt that he uses that antenna anymore, which has been up for over 30 years. I see a DishNetwork satellite dish in his yard so he probably found the same thing I did and was forced to change years ago.

Does anyone know how well a satellite tv signal works with streaming tv online? Maybe I need to make a call to HughGen 5 today and see what my options are again. I still have one year to go on my DishNetwork contract and I am not sure I want to pay the fee to break it with 12 months to go but I am really curious about streaming tv games through my internet signal.

I did this same research I last spring or winter.

As you see Stella still needs to walk as close to the house as possible ONLY AFTER the morning walk. In the afternoon she will walk down the center of the backyard to end her walk. How weird is that?

By Wednesday I'll be watching "March Madness" starting at noon. Those games will go nonstop over four channels late into the night. Back to those changes ... one might be a short intro paragraph and 25-30 photos for my blog posts this week. I guess we will see soon enough.

Mind is active, lots of thoughts, but things are okay this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

It's Life - So What ?

Well it's Friday and it even feels like a Friday if you know what I mean. I don't get that kind of feeling too much since I'm retired, but today just feels a little different I guess. That puts me in the 'rambling' mood. Not so much because it's Friday but I recognize my brain cells are going through one of those periods where they are highly active. I have a lot on my mind, lots of questions and few answers today. So we will see where this goes.

As you can see that prediction of 2" - 3" of snow last night turned into ground cover and not much more. Stella and I waited about an hour to see if it was going to rain or snow since it couldn't make up its mind from the time we woke up at 6:35am. The highway sounds said it's drizzling, the ground said snow. It didn't matter to Stella because it felt much warmer again this morning and I had to agree with her. It didn't feel like 32°.

A few of the long-time readers know that I have been known to change my mind. Some feel I change it a lot, possibly more than normal. I have no idea since I don't know how often other people change their mind nor do I know what the national average is. I guess I could search on the internet to get some idea on that. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. Just like life constantly changing, my mind seems to constantly change.

In today's world with so much information just a few keystrokes away, it's like information overload. How do you sort through that information and find the right answer, the right way, the right diet or the right camera .. or the right anything ???

I do see a trend where I start analyzing what I am eating, which way or which diet, when I don't feel good. It might only be caused by something I have eaten, which I find it's an isolated situation more than a diet decision over time. It happened during last night where I woke up feeling really sick. I thought back to what I had for dinner, which was nothing more than a snack of cheese, some raw carrots, a couple of spoons of yogurt, a pear and some olives. I really wasn't hungry for a full meal.

Of the food listed I suspect it was the yogurt, even in a small amount the caused my issue.  A few weeks ago I went back to low carbs, more fat and more protein. I had good results with that way of eating in the past and by the way I was feeling a few weeks ago, I made the change. I remember a few years ago when I tried the Paleo diet, which got rid of all my indigestion almost immediately ... it still bothered me eating all of that fat, red meat, bacon etc.

When I was younger I spent 8 years as a vegetarian and I still remember today why I went to that type of diet. I still remember talking with the heart surgeon after he preformed a quadruple by-pass on my dad who was 58 years old at the time. I remember just a few months ago where medical journals were announcing they had made a mistake 30 years ago and now they find that real butter, whole milk, more fat and more protein is good for you and not the other way around.

A panel of medical experts on US News and World Report comes out every year with their rankings of all the different diets and Keto nor Paleo are ranked high, in the 40 different diets they examine. My friend, a colon cancer survivor, says moderation is the best diet. Just like anything else everyone seems to feel their way is the best way. Who do you believe?

It doesn't matter if it is diets, cameras, computers, cars, trucks, lifestyles or sports teams, they all have different opinions. Different opinions are good, they are healthy but how do you choose?

Two topics ... This morning I have doubts about my diet decision from a few weeks ago. I also have been thinking about the news and my announcement I'd never pay attention to it again. Like Stella shows in this photo ... If you don't stick your nose in it how are you going to know what it is, what to choose or what to listen to. You can't hide from life, good or bad. Not all decisions are correct, mistakes are made or analyzed. Everything changes because that is how life operates.

Stella and Heidi are pretty good teachers if I pay attention to what they are telling me or showing me. They adapt with ease when changes are made. They have no stress because they don't have a reason to stress out. The outside world doesn't affect them, they go with the flow. Their routines change, sometimes every few weeks sometimes longer than a month. It's not a big deal to them. Life is what it is to them, even with both having bad experiences before I got them.

Diets ??? Doesn't matter to either of them. They like all food, mine and theirs.

So I woke up early this morning with doubts about my recent eating style. Questions from two or three years ago about different diets were back in the forefront of my brain. Such as, where does all of that fat go, where it use to plug your arteries, forming plaque and leading you to by-pass surgery? What changed inside the body to make that higher fat intake or eating red meat move in a different direction, away from causing damage and health issues, as proponents of the Paleo and Keto Diets claim?

I've always wondered, what happens 15-20 years from now if they find out the uptick in health issues, heart surgeries and cancer was caused by the two fads, Keto and Paleo? Then on the flip side that also confuses me, I've known personally strict vegetarians that even ran many miles or biked many miles for exercise, have early deaths ... not making it out of their 40's or 50's. Was it their strict veggie diets, or something else like hereditary that caused them to die?

I still think cancer is more DNA related than diet related. I know old neighbors that lived all their life in this area, lived into their late 90's and probably were not vegetarians nor did they care if they were drinking water from the water system from town. They never exercised, some smoked non-filtered cigarettes starting in their teens. Bottle or filtered water was never an option for them.

Those kind of thoughts raise questions. Thus finding that right answer even harder.

I decided years ago I would eat what I call 'my diet' ... the medical experts call it the Flexitarian Diet I added in my friend's advice of 'moderation' and added a touch of my old lacto-vegetarian eating style. The problem with the 'my diet' and all of these modification I made,I would gain weight not lose it.

Well this morning as I turned on my computer I had a ton of emails from the blog. One reader had their first comment that needed to be approved. I read all comments and try to reply to all comments so it wasn't like I wasn't going to read her comment. Especially since it was right on topic ... the same topic I woke up thinking about.

She had valid points about meat based diets vs plant-based diets. It wasn't nothing new, I've known it for decades ... but it was a great reminder. It scrambled my brain cells just like that. I started pulling up old bookmarks that I had made when investigating all diet and what was the best way in 2018 or 2019. Her comment also made me go into the analysis mode about how I should eat, "Sure, you might look good on the outside, but what is going on, on the inside?"

So that story about eating, dieting, etc will be continued as I sort out what I am really going to do. I'd prefer not to be in constant change when it comes to my menus.

I spent all day during my waking hours yesterday fighting the urge to take a peek at the online news. I still had no desire to hear any kind of news commentary last night as I watched my ballgame. I never once checked a news channel during the game's commercial breaks .... but ... this morning I did click on CNN, FoxNews and Breitbart websites to take a look. I saw I hadn't missed anything.

So while Stella and I did our morning walk in warm tempers (32°) I thought a little about the decision I announced only a couple of days ago of boycotting the news. With each head turn, or pushing her nose under the snow, along with her leisurely pace ... I thought "what's the big deal if I look at the news or not" ... it's life. It is what it is, good or bad.

The strongest thought I had though was about me ... it was words I remember growing up when my mom would explain to me that I could NOT have everything my way all of the time. Funny how something said 50 some years ago is clear as ever today.

I thought about that and she was right. No matter how much I want things a certain way, that does not mean I get them that way no matter how much I bitch and complain. Especially things outside my control. For 16 minutes this morning Stella was showing me for the millionth time ... relax, take it as it comes, and quit complaining about things you have no control over.

Now since I have admitted that I do and have changed my mind a lot since I started this blog in 2011 over on Blogger I will take a peek at the news headlines again and since I have been accused more than once in my life of being opinionated ... I will on occasion blog about my opinions on the news and politics.

Before my news boycott the other day I either read it somewhere or heard it on tv, that news channels are no longer just news stations but news AND entertainment. Different reporters for each, where some reporters are not reporters at all, but just providing entertainment in a news format. It might be good for me to remember that in the future when tv news pisses me off over the limit.

Just like having all of these thoughts racing through my brain this morning, I am having recent problems with motivation. I mean my days are always open, with little scheduled. Plus I always have the option to be flexible, so it would seem motivation would never be a problem for me.

Just like habits are hard to break, so is my lifelong issue of procrastination. I always put things off until the last minute or until I have no choice but to do it or I'm in trouble. Again ... those are just part of life and I am not the only person in the world that struggles with either of them.

If you are older, do you remember January 1977 when the government announced that we as a country had a fuel shortage and everyone needed to turn their thermostats down to 55°, no matter what the weather was outside? Luckily I only had a few conversations in the living room while wearing my winter coats and gloves back then ... I was moving to the beach in Carlsbad California that month.

Well this year I decided instead of saving as much energy as possible, leaving a smaller footprint in the atmosphere by turning off my heat at different times of day or night ... that I would set my room thermostats to 65° and leave them there, 24/7. In my old house, each room has its own thermostat for the baseboard electric heat system. No furnace here.

My spreadsheet shows I just passed 2018 total kilowatts used for the year and I have two months left on my billing cycle. I use the budget plan where I pay the same amount every month and at the end of April the electric company and I balance the bill. They either give me a refund for overpayments for the year or I pay them what is needed to zero out the account.

Since I am in the mode to question everything I asked myself yesterday was it worth it? Is it worth paying a couple of hundred dollars more at the end of the year to stay warm 24/7? My brain and body screamed "YES" ... my conservative, accounting background, cheapskate said "NO". Just another decision I need to make. Nothing important ... it's just life and something that all people decide as a normal activity.

Before I bought the Canon G9 X Mark II in January I spent months doing research on all different kinds of cameras. Like I mentioned before, everyone has their own ideas which is best. Whether it's an individual opinion, a blog review with affiliate links, or a real camera dealer website that is giving their review ... every list "best of" or recommendation was different.

So in my Flipboard account this morning I receive a new article "The 5 Best Digital Cameras" ... my Cannon was not listed of course, like other lists showed last fall. No, this list made in January had 3 of 5 cameras listed, cameras that I either have or thought about buying. Go figure.

You can tell that Stella was positive she was on a deer scent and knew for sure they had been in our area just minutes before us. She did turn my direction though when I told her "let's go home" then passed me on a trot heading home.

I analyze things too much. I always have as far back as I can remember. I had to get to the bottom of everything and find the perfect answer or the best way of doing things. That drives me crazy just like it does or would do to you. I'm sure. How do I change that after being that way most of my life? Another lesson from Stella is to take things as they come.

She can tell it's getting warmer. For the 2nd day in a row she was running fast.

Maybe I'll feel better and not so confused after the time change this weekend. Not really confused but just having a lot of questions where I want some definite answers. Maybe if I know that Spring is right around the corner with that time change, my brain cells will throttle back, line up in the correct formation and I can get back to a more relaxed life. Really, I am relaxed ... it's just my brain that is overactive.

Stella cannot collect accurate data unless she has her nose below the snow. Otherwise she would just be guessing who or what had been there, what day or how long ago. She wasn't into eating frozen dirt today ... strictly data collection.

Another morning walk in the books. Temps aren't bad and it will be close to 55° tomorrow afternoon. She's content.

As you can see, Heidi moved just a little from the time we started our walk (top photo) and when we got back. She is the most sane living creature around here.

By noon the snow was gone and it was above 40° ... heat wave !!!

I've lost my train of thought after all of this verbiage I typed this morning. No worries, I'll get it all figured out, hopefully sooner than later. I have a lot of reading to do today because I want to stabilize my eating habits once and for all. I have a gut feeling that "Flexitarian" is the way to go. It matches my mental makeup, giving me options with many choices to choose from. Yet, Vegetarian is probably the healthiest, unless I believe that medical panel on US News & World Report.  :)

Strict and regimented things or schedules have never worked well with me.

Good times here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana this morning.