Here's my excuse

Oh, my! How the time goes by. I hadn't realized how long it has been since my last post. We had a call this morning from our financial advisor to go over some planning for the coming year. He asked how I am doing, to which I replied, "I'm doing great; and you?"

Well, he wasn't buying it. He said, he is doing well, but he questioned the veracity of my claim to be doing "great." Wayne was one of three people who came to the hospital to pray with and for us when I was first diagnosed. The other two were our pastor and a dear friend from dental school days, who is also the owner of the condo where Jill stayed for most of the days that I was hospitalized for consolidation chemotherapy. 

But really, at the moment, I am doing great. My last lab report showed all my blood counts "within normal limits" (WNL), except for my red blood cells and hemoglobin, which are essentially the same issue. Even my hemoglobin was at 95% of the low end of being WNL. I feel good, and I have been able to take on a few home projects. We have been walking two miles daily, as well. 

Because the Omicron variant of Covid19 has been raging, we have stayed mostly in quarantine. We have made a couple of visits to our local Grocery Outlet, which seems to be the only place we can get salad kits. While my immunity is WNL, we are enjoying a return to our longstanding practice of eating a hearty salad for lunch each day, while we watch Perry Mason. After all these years, we still can't remember "whodunit" in most of the episodes. 

So, all of that was simply a lead in to my explanation (excuse?) for not having written a post sooner. Now that I am feeling well and can concentrate on something other than taking pills and monitoring vital signs, I have been reveling in "doing life." Well, doing life while mostly quarantined. 

Just before I wound up in the hospital, a dear friend, a building contractor who focuses on remodeling and restoration projects, gave me some old 2X12 boards that he salvaged from a project. I had asked him to keep an eye out for such a board so that I could use it to make a rustic table for my home brew pub. I have been working on that table. It will be finished in another week or so. 

Another doing life project has been to get back to making music. When I was 16, and after much begging on my part, my parents gave me a guitar for my birthday. I learned to play by hanging out with some other guys who knew how. I have a pretty good ear for music, although I can't read sheet music, so between my friends and lots of records, I taught myself to play mostly folk music. 

Remember the Peter, Paul and Mary song "Puff the Magic Dragon?" One of the lines is about Little Jackie Paper, who was Puff's best friend: 

"A dragon lives forever, But not so little boys. Painted rings and dragons' wings make way for other toys." 

Just like Jackie, I moved on to other things and only picked up my guitar occasionally. After a while, I found that I couldn't remember some of the songs that I used to sing almost daily. And as my fingers aged, I found they were not able to finger the chords or the picking. 

If you are a guitar player, you know that failure to play regularly results in the loss of callouses on the left hand fingers that press the strings on the fret board. That makes playing even more difficult and discourages me from trying. So, that is where I have been for a few years. 

While I have been home, feeling less than great, and in quarantine, I decided to buy myself a classical guitar. Classical guitars have strings made of nylon, instead of wire. They are more pliable and larger in diameter, so they don't tend to make my fingers so sore. In addition, the fret board is wider than on a steel stringed guitar, so there is more room for my aging finger tips. Now that I AM feeling great, I have been trying to learn some new things on my new guitar. I have to admit that neither my fingers nor my mind are as nimble and pliable as they were 60 years ago, so the learning is slow, but I am determined that I will learn to play some bossa nova tunes or bust. It is satisfying when my fingers finally find a way to go where they are supposed to and a snippet of recognizable melody emanates from the guitar. Maybe Jackie Paper can hang out with Puff again for a while!

It always amazes me when I realize that life has made a loop and brought me back to a place I have been before. Making music, making objects, preparing meals; these are activities I enjoy immensely. God Himself, who created all that there is, must smile when his kids get involved in creating things. He even reminds us of that fact in Scripture:

Proverbs 31:13

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.

 

Ephesians 4:28

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

 

1 Thessalonians 4:11

...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you... 

 

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

²⁴  There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

 

I have been creating and finding enjoyment in my toil, working with my hands. Unfortunately, I have also been doing the eating and drinking part a bit better than I should! Remember those 15 pounds I lost while undergoing chemotherapy? Well, in order to gain it back, I began eating with what might be called reckless abandon... and success. I have gained back 20 pounds. Ah, what the heck, I think I'll blame the whole thing on the holidays!!

 

So, I rest my case. 

OK. Go create something. It'll do your heart good!