This week I am experiencing a time slowdown. I believe that when life is moving fast you are in good shape. Better for time to appear to be moving at the speed of light than for it to be dragging like like a glacier moving down field. Of course time doesn’t change how it moves, it is a constant. What changes is one’s perspective. When we live in uninteresting times, time seems to stand still. Our minds are not being stimulated properly and the net effect is boredom.
Why have I been bored all week? Beats me, but I have to change my attitude if I want time to speed up again.
In the few nano-second analysis I performed since making the above statement I concluded that I need to review my goals. In the few nano-seconds since I realized I should review my goals, it occurred to me that maybe I should have some goals to review.
Problem solved.
When I have lots of goals the amount of time I can dedicate to each is less than normal. The result is that I tend to focus on accomplishment, and the activity conducted during that focused period is what makes time speed up. Make sense? Me neither, but it sounds good.
Life is a goal. Using it productively is another goal. When we abandon goals our lives seem not to matter as much. No matter what age we are the amount of time we have is fixed. It is up to us as individuals to decide how much we want to accomplish within our lifetime. If we do things right, time will speed by and leave us wanting more. Some people call this process time-management. What I have learned is that time management is merely a method we can use to break our goals into baby steps which we can schedule to accomplish more easily because they are smaller. The trick is to get the goal defined in such a manner that the micro-steps are readily recognized and scheduled for accomplishment.
One of the most crucial steps to setting goals is the simple act of writing them down. Too many of us ignore the one step that will allow our minds to keep focused on the target. The problem is that we are never religiously focused enough to stay on target. Having written goals allows us to review them frequently. The very act of committing a goal in writing sets it up in our brain as something important to us. Yet, this step is probably the most ignored step in the process of goal accomplishment.
Seven steps of goals:
What benefit will you derive by accomplishing this goal
Write the goal down
Make it measurable and specific
What obstacles are in the way of achieving the goal
List all the knowledge and help you will need to accomplish the goal
This evening I spent some time reading blogs of fellow bloggers. One in particular got my juices flowing. The Blog is NUTSROK. Author Mary Beth a retired nurse who writes amusing stories about her family and friends. What I didn’t realize immediately that the last post I read was from 2020. When I see gaps like that I am puzzled. I tried contacting her but it seems the blog is shut down. My greatest fear is that we have lost her. She amazed me with the stories she told about her family and friends. Each one was genuine and her writing told me that. They were poignant, reminiscent, and humorous, mostly humorous.
Then it occurred to me that I had visited my brother yesterday and I thought to myself how many more times will I be able to say that? Next week I will turn 83 and in two weeks he turns ninety. We can’t both be living much longer. Although neither of us thinks about dying, we are just as busy and active as we can be. He showed us around his facility and pointed out the tower of tomatoes that he planted with a group of ladies he went to the nursery with to shop for tomato plants. He wanted four, and planted twenty-four. Each of them wanted to plant, but he was the only one with a designated plot at the residence. From his room it looked like a six by six plot with a six foot high center point. The plants were all headed for the sky and the contest was to see who had the first fruit, who had the best fruit, etc. Then he walked us past his flower garden. Another small plot hidden behind a fence but he had it blooming in bold colors. What every square inch the maintenance crew spares him he keeps on planting, and successfully too.
On the way home I asked myself why do I not visit him more often? He is the only one I know who knows more about my parents than I do. He is the resident guru of the family history. We share the same stories about our mother and father, except his begin seven years sooner than mine. That means he can teach me a lot about my genealogy. Another thing I thought about today was what did he do for me as a kid growing up? At first, I thought, nothing. Then I began to remember the letters he sent me from Germany while he was stationed there and I was recovering from my polio. They were a Godsend. I wish I had them now to recall how positive he was and how encouraging he was to keep me going forward. I’ve also heard stories about how he was in charge of me in the buggy when Mom needed some time alone. He was charged with watching me and Sis.
Although that was sixty-eight years ago, I think it may be time to say thank you.
Exactly one week ago today, I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible pain that stretched across my abdomen. Generally, it emanated from the left side. My habit is to sleep on my side and then to roll over onto my back. That roll did it. What? I don’t know but it hurt like hell. My mind played a loop of organs in the abdomen; heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, appendix, pancreas, stomach, bladder and so on. What did I eat to stimulate this pain? All I know is that no amount of rolling side to side changed the outcome.
Early in the week, I decided to take a vacation from my KETO diet. At first, it felt strange to order things on the menu that were previously untouchable but highly desirable, like bread, potatoes, or ice cream. It only took two days for me to deliberately fall off the wagon. The plan was to go back to strict KETO again after the vacation ended.
We had a delightful day browsing antique malls and stopped at Clementine’s in South Haven for a late lunch. I had a turkey club sandwich with curly fries. For desert, I was disappointed to learn that the Sherman’s Ice Cream shop that was previously across the street from Clementine’s was not there. I rationalized that the high fat content in the ice cream made it KETO (WRONG!!!). I Instead of walking across the street for an ice cream cone I drove a mile and a half down the street to the original Sherman’s. Believe it or not there was a line of people standing six feet apart wrapped around the building. COVID hit Sherman’s as it hit everything. Sherman’s wasn’t about to concede to the virus and they remodeled their store completely. Originally, they were an inside ice cream shop, Now, they were an outside window shop like a Dairy Queen, place your order at the window and pay, they give you a ticket and call you when your order is scooped. They had a bunch of old-fashioned picnic tables scattered around the building spaced six feet apart to handle the crowd. They also provided an awning over the line so people would not have to bear the hot July sun while waiting to place an order.
It only took a few minutes before our order was called which we happily picked up and headed for the car. There, we sat with the windows down enjoying the late afternoon sun drop, and spooning ice cream, it was good, but not KETO. Neither of us spoke while enjoying this rich creamy delicacy known as ice cream. We saved the spoken words for later when we drove to our cabin in the woods.
Our evening was somewhat uneventful, and I spent it reading a novel, while my partner read her celebrity gossip magazines. Eventually, I tired of reading and turned to my computer to stream a favorite program episode before going to bed. I never used my pc to watch TV before, so it took a bit to get the computer set up for wi-fi. Thankfully, I found a little black box that provided the wireless link, and also the password. A testament to the fact that miracles do happen.
The program I watch is called Cruising the Cut. It is a self-made reality series by a young man who has sold everything he owns to buy an antique long-boat which he uses to travel about England’s vast network of canals. The canals were built before railroads were invented as a way to transport goods from sea ports into the interior towns all across the country. It is a very relaxing way to travel at a couple miles per hour through some of the world’s prettiest countryside. A very simple way to lull one to sleep.
On a scale of 0-10 with zero being absolutely no feeling what so ever to a ten which is excruciating can’t bear it a for a second pain I ranked myself at eight. I rolled out of bed and found a nice easy chair to plop myself in. That’s when I envisioned the theory of what was happening to me. Here is my version: I switched from KETO to a normal diet too quickly and over loaded my pancreas. I am already a type two diabetic which pretty much means my own insulin is limited in what it can process. Like a fool I had a huge sandwich with three slices of very good white bread, loaded with strips of bacon and turkey accompanied by a pile of freshly made curly fries and topped with two scoops of Sherman’s extra creamy ice cream, and put the poor pancreas into dire stress. Add to that that I have heard that pancreatitis is extremely painful I self-diagnosed myself with self-induced pancreatic cancer with six months to live. It was not an easy night waiting for the sun to rise. I slept very little, and in the morning, I woke my sleeping beauty to announce that I needed her help to pack so we could leave for the emergency room. There are emergency rooms located all around Michigan, but I was determined to drive to the one by my house in Frankfort. That began one of the longest drives of my life.
I have never driven in traffic as heavy as that which I did last Saturday. Add the volume of traffic to the construction projects going on between Covert and Frankfort, and the drive time went from 90 minutes to 140. Thankfully, I have seat cooling on the Death Star so I set it on max to cool my hot pancreas. It seemed to work a little.
I can painfully prolong this painful story of where I am on the pain scale, but have opted to cut it short and to save it for another post on how Emergency Medicine works in an Illinois hospital considered state of the art on its ability to cope with emergencies and to move people through at record rates.
Oh, yes, the two words. Each one by itself does not evoke grimacing pain, but when put together the entire world changes, kidney-stone.
1 – Eleven teens die each day because of texting while driving. Maybe it’s time to raise the age of Smart Phone ownership to 21.
2 – If gun control laws actually worked, Chicago would be Mayberry , USA .
3 – The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement.
4 – Legal gun owners have 300 million guns and probably a trillion rounds of ammo. Seriously, folks, if we were the problem, you’d know it.
5 – When JFK was killed, nobody blamed the rifle.
6 – The NRA (National Rifle Association) murders 0 people and receives ($$$$ 0) nothing in government funds. Planned Parenthood kills 350,000 babies every year and receives $500,000,000 in tax dollars annually.
7 – I have no problem with vigorous background checks when it comes to firearms. While we’re at it, let’s do the same when it comes to immigration, Voter ID., and candidates running for office.
8 – Folks keep talking about another Civil War. One side knows how to shoot and probably has a trillion rounds The other side has crying closets and is confused about which bathroom to use. Now tell me, how do you think that would end?
Don’t be afraid to share this. There’s more logic and common sense expressed here than probably anything you have seen on the news today.
