Getting Old and Blogging again: Can I Remember What I Did Yesterday?

Good morning. Just a little blog post here. Seeing what it feels like blogging again in the morning, regarding the day yesterday. I was reading some yesterday morning on previous blog posts from 3 to 5 years ago. They look so different from a blog post now. It’s not just the YouTube that has taken me away from it but I can see the shift in my brain activity. I saw the detail in each blog post and was amazed that I could bullet point and write with such clarity. It was a little painful actually to realize that my thoughts were minimized so much in just a few short years.

It’s true I’ve had a one track mind for such a long time ok well, a 4-track…Mom, YouTube, my To Do List, and well the fourth being just flat “Keeping it all Together”. Apparently the last few years have taken more years off my life.

God knew it was time for me to retire and I’m so thankful that George allowed me to do it. This year together has truly been a blessing and some of the best times of our lives. Not to diminish having Katy and all the things we did when she was growing up and buying our house number 1 and then house number 2. So many memories and happy joys in each. All of it far surpassing any bad times, which at the time, were definitely really really bad. We almost didn’t make it, but we pushed through. But this is taking me down a side tangent as a blog/vlog can do, or I should say, as I do when doing those things. And that is ok as a side tangent is just me checking in on myself and revealing things I’ve been thinking about. That is what writing can do for you.

But as I reflected back on the old blogs I wondered, can I do that again? Can my brain think like that again? Maybe. I asked myself, Can you even remember what you DID yesterday. How did I used to do it? Can I remember the details of yesterday? It used to be so vivid. Every detail. Now, not so much. Is it just I’m not using those memory muscles, or is old age setting in, or worse, the dreaded Alzheimer’s?

I see it in us both, George and I. Things we forget. We tell each other things we just told each other not remembering that we did. And it shocks us both, “oh yeah”. We start to test each other sometimes. He tests me more than I test him. “Do you remember this or that?” – usually relating to something we said, or someone else said, what we planned for this week, or even what we ate yesterday. Often we guess and we are wrong or forgot. We are not as sharp as we used to be. We look out after each other. We usually remember our meds, lol. But did we turn the stove off? Shut the sun room windows? Lock the door? And more recently, this week, George forgot to feed the dogs one night, maybe two. So I will need to watch that. He remembered by bedtime but I’m not sure about of the nights. The half can of dog food was still in the fridge. He said he must have opened a new can instead of getting that one out of the fridge but I am not sure. It was the night I asked if he fed the dogs and he said yes but I didn’t see evidence of it so I was not sure. So it’s not just me with the memory decay, it’s both of us.

So I’m sitting here and I’m going to vlog about my day yesterday. I’m pretty sure it will be short. But let’s see how I do. I’m testing myself. lol. But just like the old days, let’s give it a try.

Every morning we have coffee and after feeding the dogs, easy to remember in the mornings, lol, we sit and do our devo’s together and I do World Bible School – each of us on our ends of the couch. Maddie in my lap and Dexter sitting between us. We each love on Dexter because he, by default is independent and enjoys his alone time, away from the chihuahua, lol. So while he is between us we love on him before he jumps down and takes his morning nap on the leather sofa in the living room.

George and I peruse our lists for the day as we sip coffee. We often share thoughts we are thinking, things we are planning, revisiting grandkids pics sent from Katy the day before. Sometimes we are just quiet and in our own thoughts and plans. Yesterday though we did all of the above and spent probably 45 min to an hour just talking about a few things financially, and also a few plans that we needed to discuss about the future and how to handle certain things when/if they happen.

Rain began to softly pour. Leaves began to gently fall here and there, mostly the ones having turned brown due to lack of rain. The temps however held steady, up to 80 and muggy. So it was a tropical rain. But the scene was enough to spark some energy in us. We didn’t know it at the time. But we realized it later in the day.

The moods were good. I was productive, had energy, and began doing things in my day as I wanted to, while still trying to be responsible. I did the laundry, did the ironing, edited the allotted 30 minutes of video (trying to spread it out of the course of the days I have, so I don’t spend too much time at once doing it). I paid Mom’s bills, I sent out some greeting cards for encouragement to a couple of people, I cleaned the bathroom.

I vlogged a bit on two separate vlogs. I started vlogging this week on “Having a Productive Week: Catching up on Things I’m Behind”. Ironing was one and also picking up the old bug traps and putting out the new ones.

During the bug trap pick up, I asked George if he wanted to have an Easter egg hunt. I think he thought I’d lost my mind for real. I told him instead of Easter eggs it’s finding the 12 traps about the house. lol. He said he’d thrown a few away. What???? So I think we found about eight or nine of them. But I put 12 of them back out for the year. We caught about as many brown recluses. George’s bedroom was the worst. No we don’t usually see them. They like to be out of our way and in dark spaces. It’s not a problem with them in our house, but it’s a Southern thing I guess. Every house is likely to see a few here and there if you look deep and hard, and especially at the change of seasons from fall to winter. Or a period of extremely heavy rainfall. You might turn the lamp on in the middle of the night and see one and he runs to his hiding spot. I don’t like spiders so I don’t even want one in my house. So these do very well to catch them under furniture, behind doors, etc. They have to be kept away from the dogs reach. So I got all that done yesterday.

I also vlogged the first video of vlogmas- well not the entire video but just the first clip. I will be filming us getting ready for Christmas and all things Christmas related from now through about Dec 13. The videos will appear daily Dec 1 through Dec 15, I believe is what I planned during that time and then no videos during the rest of the month, as I take somewhat of a break. The idea being that hopefully Vlogmas will be sufficient for all for the month. As everyone is so busy most of the month. The daily videos will be short! And people can catch up as they can if they miss them daily. I love vlogmas myself. I love watching other creators. I’ve always wanted to do vlogmas and this year I’m in! But it took some planning to prep for it. And it’ll be very busy in December but keeping the videos short is the only way it can happen as videoing, editing, uploading will be happening every day through Dec 15th. Viewers need them to be short too.

George worked on dehydrating peppers and parsley yesterday. It will be a few weeks of harvesting herbs here and there before the first frost. And we are gone part of the time so he’ll be working on that. It made him happy to do that yesterday.

He also fixed awesome pork chops yesterday and fixed us a turkey sandwich for lunch. I bought turkey and Swiss cheese at BJ’s last week and it was a LOT so we are trying to eat that up but I’m kinda tired of it at the moment. However it’s sooo good when you aren’t tired of it.

I read some yesterday in my 1,000 Days in Venice book, and I read extra in my devo book 100 days of Less Hustle More Jesus, so I can go ahead and finish it. The last 20 days or so have been less thought provoking so I have been doing several devos a day to knock it out and do something else for a devo. The next book picked out is Audacious by Beth Moore. I couldn’t figure out if was a devo book or just a book she wrote about herself but in looking through it, it was God-centered and had scripture quoted throughout it so that’s similar to a devo book so we’ll do that.

I watched some YouTube shows late in the day when I got tired. After that I remembered that another episode of Sister Wives was out. George has been using the TV a lot to watch baseball lately and so I allowed myself some afternoon TV time as it might not come later, lol.

Before I knew it the bulk of the day was over. And once again it amazed me how fast it went. Not mentioned was that we actually spend a lot of time taking the dogs out each day. Sometimes at the 11:00 hour George will do it as I’m still in my PJ’s. We go when we get up in the mornings – usually anywhere from 6 to 7. Again around 10:30 to 11:00 and again around 2:00 and often again around 5:30 and again at bedtime around 9:00. Also taking time is showering and putting on make up and getting dressed which is the better part of an hour. Plus 3 meals. So when you think of dogs out, cooking and eating, doing chores, doing hobbies, the day is just gone quickly.

George fixed pork chops, spinach souffle (Stauffers, because I love that stuff, and like it slightly undercooked, lol), and we had pasta salad.

Bed felt good. I had to lower my sleep number recently from 55 and 60 to 50 because it was too firm. It feels good going to bed with it firm for my spine but then after sleeping on my side it doesn’t give as much and then it hurts my shoulders so having it a little softer and less firm is helping that.

Well, I’ve been typing for about an hour and I’m ready to go do some other things.

On tap for today?

Laundry, vlogging more things I’m catching up on, video editing the remaining part of the video and possibly doing the upload but we’ll see. It’s early yet. I need to change my sheets, want to start a puzzle, want to clean my office, want to watch some videos on Venice (because I want to see it after reading my book). We’ll see what project time we have left. It’s usually not much.

I need to do Mom’s monthly financial analysis which does a couple of things. 1) It makes me see that everything is paid and in order 2) If anything is amiss here is where I might catch it – if something didn’t come in from her interest payments, if I did not pay something (that never happens, but if it did I’d catch it here. 3) I can let her know what was spend on groceries, shopping online, and shopping retail in person (not as much anymore). One time she wanted to see what her average water bill was and another time she asked where’d the money go, lol. When she felt better and could get out more and shop, she spent a lot more and she also spent more on groceries. Both of those categories lessening has helped her to not spend more than was coming in. But usually on average she was spending about 150 to 500 over each month. Selling her car helped get a cushion in her savings but before she curtailed retail shopping, eating out (she was buying ours a lot as we were taking her places and spending our time, and we had to tell her to quit it as she needed it), and curtailed groceries (she’s not got the appetite she once had), she was really spending more. Now she is usually a $100 to $200 under. So now that Oct is here, I need to recap Sept and close that out in my spreadsheet.

Well, off to do other things ya’ll. Thanks for reading, if you did. If you made it to the end, let me know, lol. I have no idea if anyone is really reading my blabber. Have a great Tuesday. George is at the weekly mens prayer breakfast. So it’s quiet around here this morning. He showed me a pic of all of them last week and they were enjoying their breakfast and talking. I’m so glad he feels comfortable and accepted to join them. What a blessing.

Ok off to get things done.