Letting go

[honeybera]

Y'know, sometimes when I really see what's going on in and with the world, I am amazed at just how lucky I am. Here I was wailing about how horrible it was to have NO REFRIGERATOR right in the middle of a PANDEMIC! Then I saw the people who lost their homes in the Southern USA due to horrendous storms and tornadoes, standing in their yards and crying with their pandemic masks still on, viewing the destruction. I saw a few of their refrigerators that had been tossed around and crashed through walls and car windows. It was chaos and heartbreaking to see. I also thought of those who'd lost their loved ones. Some had lost them in the storms and some through the COVID-19 virus. I also heard about women who were due to give birth being refused from hospital care. And then I thought of my minuscule problems/worries, and the two didn't even compare!

The appliance repairman came to my home today (surgical mask on) and said it's the compressor and needs to be replaced to the tune of $917.00. I will be made whole on Thursday, I can easily afford that price, and I also got my PPP check from the gov't. today. How lucky am I?! I remember being so broke when living on welfare (many years ago) that a flat tire on my $300 car (that I let go to a "may-pop" so I could get every last little bit of use from it) was a HUGE catastrophe! No free AAA roadside service for me. No way to correct the problem. NO MONEY! Just living was one catastrophe after another.

MD (I called her "Mommy Got Rocks" back then due to her lavish diamonds which she wore every day around the house, even doing housework) was not only unconcerned, but absolutely reveled at my dilemmas and confusion and desperation in barely masked glee. I was SO much "less than" her, and she liked it that way. I lived like that for well over 31 yrs. (1969-2001) until I bought my current house. I remember once just after we moved in to the "projects" into a freshly renovated apartment, bending down and kissing the carpet one night in abject gratitude, relief, and bitter tears. It was in my then 2 yr. old daughter's room in March and she'd left the window open. When I opened the door and that icy cold hit me in the face, it reminded me of what we'd just come from: homelessness in winter weather with 2 kids. We were finally "safe". What a story that whole thing is! We almost didn't get the apartment because the manager, who liked us and had promised us a 3 bedroom "with a den", had developed pneumonia and was out of the office just as they began assigning all these freshly upgraded apartments to people. I wasn't supposed to get an apartment. But I'm a fighter and was assigned the last one available. We lived there, in the projects (literally! Section 8 housing), for the next 21 years. What a life I've had!! How did I ever make it to the life I have now, the one with sufficient money and doable answers to all my problems??

AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE!!! And daily prayers for all those other folks I see on TV attempting to live in those horrific conditions. This is really putting things in perspective for me. How did I survive all that? Abusive, narcissistic mother, decades of abject poverty, single parenting of all my kids while getting a college degree with honors and/or working, completing my job as a transit bus driver (more decades) with a nice retirement package, becoming a homeowner...how the heck did I manage to do all this? As I reflect, I'm quite the honeybera!!

Tonight I used my BREVILLE (MONSTER OF A...) food processor for the first time! I threw in a BIG fully cooked poached (nuked) boneless/skinless chicken breast, mayo, celery, onion, smoked salt, and a liberal sprinkling of sweet curry powder, and 3 pulses later = KETO CURRY CHICKEN SALAD. OMG! SO GOOD! Then I put the resulting sandwich spread into the kitchen fridge (which is still working...blessedly!!) and now I'm going to whip up some creamed spinach (defrosted spinach, cream cheese, butter, HWC, smoked salt, and Parmesan + various spices), topped with more Parmesan (it gets crusty...YUM!) and baked at 350ºF til bubbly, around 30 min. I need to bake some bread tonight, too, but with the bread machines that is incredibly easy. It's all about assembling the ingredients in the bread pans, setting them into the machines, and starting them. They do most of the work and timing, and in the morning = fresh bread! I may try to do the Artichoke Hearts soup, too, but the artichoke hearts are in the freezer, so no time constraints. But NO BREAD?!! These aren't even standard Keto recipes. These are my own creation (except the yeast bread - that's Keto King's recipe).

I'd better get moving. I am so happy to have you guys to write to!!

Honeybera ♥♥

[coconuts]

Perspective right. We forget what it is to truly want. Still its okay to be concerned with current troubles. I just try to send out hope and help to those who struggle in so many ways.

Glad you fought for your place of security in life now. Harris earned and valuable. Glad you saw your worth above md. And glad fridge is set for repair.

[honeybera]

Hey Coconuts! I hope you're holding up well. Amazingly I am holding up really well during this pandemic. As a tried and true hermit before this happened, I'm finding this appears to me like watching a made up story that the news is putting out like a Netflix mini-series. I stay in normally, but now I've tried having my groceries delivered. And since I never go outside my front door that much anyhow and get most everything in packages delivered (Amazon, etc.) now anyway, nothing much has really changed in my life as a hermit.

I'm really getting into my gardening and housecleaning lately. I was wondering today if I could get a delivery of a few bales of straw for mulch. That straw that I laid down last year was really helpful to keep weeds suppressed. Funny, all last winter and into the first of the Springtime, I have just been SITTING AROUND. Then this pandemic hit and for some reason, I got busier than ever, but have found that I had weakened myself considerably with WAY too much sitting. So I've determined to do something physically taxing at least once every day, out in the yard for a couple or few hours in the early morning to avoid the midday heat, and inside for the rest of the day because there's always plenty to do inside, too! And no shock, everything is looking better and better. Been weedeating my backyard and picking up various trash and trimming up my Red Hot Mama Salvia bush this morning. It'll be somewhat cooler in the late afternoon, so I'm planting my bareroot strawberries and the SunGold grape tomatoes. I do need to add LOTS of fertilizer and potting soil and water them nicely + add the EZ straw chopped mulch (WAY different from the bales of straw I spread all over the yard). We've had a VERY dry year so far and we don't get any rain from May-Nov. except on rare occasions, but I've been watering again in the past few days and getting astounding results. My Bay Leaf Tree (currently a "towering" 6 INCHES high with about a dozen leaves on it) has now sprouted new growth!! YAY!!

AH! A hummingbird!! I left a few bright red salvia blossoms to tempt the hummers until this whole bush grows back and we have them fighting over this nectar laden territory again. I've never pruned these (or anything) before, but I managed to overcome my urgent need to "save" them and "do no harm". A really big deal for me!! However I also found out that they NEED to be pruned back. When I pruned back my precious Black and Blue Salvias earlier this year, I find that they are growing back rapidly now. I finally took pity on the ratty looking Red Hot Mama and gave her a mighty trim up this morning, leaving one branch of the last and best top most blossoms on a graceful 5' tall limb for the hummers. I'll cut that back later, too, after the other limbs grow back. Later on today, I'm going to fertilize everything. How to do it properly for every plant/tree has been painstakingly stored in my computer for review.

OMG!! I JUST ORDERED 5 BALES OF STRAW - DELIVERED!! HALLELUJAH!!! I didn't know that I could DO that!! I hope that DS will drag them into the backyard for me, but if not, I've got my handy-dandy Garden Glides. EXCELLENT exercise for me to put that straw down all over the place. YAY!! My backyard will look so nice! AND no more goat heads after a while! No sun can get to them. HA HA!! They said that they'd deliver them after 6pm today, put them on the barren front yard, ring the bell, and that's that! Piece of cake!

One bad thing though: last night I was flossing and my crown popped right off! I called the dentist and he gave me an appointment for Monday. It does make me nervous to go in, but what else can I do? I'll go, have it put back on and cemented down, come home, and throw my clothes in the washer and take a nice shower/wash my hair!!! Then I'll wait for the 5-14 days to see if I get the COVID-19. I seriously doubt that I will, but I am unfortunately susceptible by every standard out there!! Oh, except I'm not a man, but ALLLLLL of the other things, right down to my age, my weight, my diabetes, you name it, I've got it!! Wish me luck!

============================================== (6pm)

ALL 5 bales of straw delivered (plopped down) in my front yard and DEAREST SON got the gloves and the hay hooks, went out to the front yard and toted ALL of those 5 heavy bales into my backyard and stacked them up nicely where I can now pull them down and "plop" them onto my Garden Glide and move them all around my backyard myself. Bless my DS for doing that!!!! BYE BYE WEEDS!! This should keep me busy for a while. Out of the Bingo parlors, so to speak!

I believe that I'll get out the shovel so I can get my strawberry planters ready in the morning: remove the remaining weeds, add potting soil, fertilizers, and see if my bare root strawberries are still ok after sitting in my 37ºF fridge! I'm trying to make them think that we're in Maine and it's still winter in the garden. I have 50 plants and only 30 spots for them, so if I lose a few, it's still ok.

I'm also MOVING the boxes around that are in the way for my FREEZE DRYER!! It's on a cart with all the things that go with it (oil-free pump, etc.) still in their packing boxes and it's SITTING IN MY FOYER at my front door!! So I'm going to just MOVE the boxes away from the area that it will go into, clean it very well, and wheel the freeze dryer into place in the family room, just off the kitchen. It's where it belongs.

I think that the reason I'm getting much more done these days is because MD's voice is My Inner Critic's voice, and the longer it's been since hearing her ACTUAL voice, the better off I am. Her HIGHLY critical voice is fading away. She has convinced my DB that she has lost her mind to senility, but I STRONGLY doubt that! However, she is in a nursing home at the age of 91 AND during a pandemic, so who knows (or cares) what has become of her. My DB has put her with the Hospice doctors instead of her regular doctors so that she doesn't have to be carted to the doctor's office for every little thing (at her request). She is thereby seen by them as being at death's door and can be given preferential treatment not available to others. DB can go see her regularly and yet she is still in the Alzheimer's wing of the grounds and not in the actual Hospice. He said, "You can go see her, too." and I said, "No thanks. Just give her my regards." The entire situation is VERY ODD!! All I want to do is work in my garden, build my strength back up, watch my birds, pet my dogs, plant my plants, cook some keto, freeze dry something, and BE HAPPY!!!

================================(MORE time has passed! It's now Wed. night 5/6)

I forgot to send this. I skipped my dentist appt. Monday due to just plain FEAR of going out of here and into the dreaded OUTSIDE and all that pandemic. (I think I watch the news too much, to be honest!) I have another appt. with the dentist for May 19. Fine by me! I'll just be careful with that exposed tooth in the meantime.

I just re-read the description of MD's fate (above) over at the nursing home. It is really how I feel about that situation, especially the part about me and what I want to do. Dr. Phil says that you can only control yourself and not others. I honestly rather like that. I want that happy life I described above. And to have it, all I need to do is DO IT. And I'm finding that as I DO do it, the more happy I am. I don't actually HATE MD. In fact, I wish her the best. But after putting my entire painful life down on this thread, I absolutely REFUSE to allow ANYTHING to dissuade me from pursuing my own life's dreams. My home (which I am VERY grateful for!!) has appreciated as of this date by nearly a quarter of a million dollars since I bought it in desperation for a shelter for my then 14 yr. old son...about 20 years ago. That price quote is according to the Zillow app on my phone. And I am relatively safe and happy here. Tonight I've been looking at new iPhones for DS and I. We have/own everything else. But we need new phones and picked out exactly what we wanted/needed. Why on earth should I FEEL BAD or guilty or ashamed??? Answer is, I SHOULDN'T!! And I have EARNED this all that I gratefully have, against all odds!

As MD put it long ago, "I was trying to break your spirit!", but she never could. Damaged it a bit, I must admit, but she NEVER BROKE ME!! I'm still standing! And she's still sitting in the nursing home in her Jazzy, falling asleep in the elevator and sometimes the lobby, and has been for the last 7 years! There's only 17 yrs. between us. She was a mere starry-eyed teenager of 17 when she had me, believing in the flimsy plots of 1940's movies she'd seen in the theaters downtown as fact, married my father at 16 (right after WWII), both of them with big dreams, and had me 13 months later while still living in her parent's house with my father!! Sadly, I was a disappointment to her (wrong sex, cried too much, etc, etc!), but her cruel upbringing of me did serve to make me tougher than nails. I SURVIVED!! And for that I'm grateful. I thought for a while that I was crazy as a loon, but it wasn't me that was crazy. It was her treatment of me that was insane, from infancy to adulthood. Slowly, slowly, the veil fell from my eyes...until I could see her starkly, stripped of the facade of motherly love that I craved, but that just wasn't there! And now I just want to AVOID her current snarky and devious and mean girl ways. It's so much better this way...THANK YOU, JESUS!!

OY!! Time for bed!! (Past time, really!) I've got those bare root strawberries that need to go into the already readied planters tomorrow, and plus plant the "wild" SunGold tomato plant (FINALLY!) that is curling itself into knots under the grow lights. I'll plant it DEEP into a 30 gallon pot outside. Tomatoes will grow roots on their stems if planted deeply enough (amazing!) and I'll plant it near the Window on the World (my sliding glass door in my room) so I don't forget to water it as it gets hotter out there in the glaring summertime sunlight.

I love to write. It's therapy!!

Honeybera ♥♥

[EasyStreet]

Hi Honeybera!

I've written here before but it's been a while.

I want to say thank you!

Your voice has inspired me in so many ways. I admire your garden work. Your hustle is impressive and helps me to get going! Plants in the ground, sunshine, and rain. There we go.

Thanks!

Be well.

[honeybera]

What you are is your parent's fault,
But if you stay that way, it's your fault.

I was in my 20's and already in therapy when I first read this. It left me ice cold at the time. It seemed to me to allow MD to "get away with it", that she could do whatever horrid abuse she wanted to do to me and skate off scot-free. That has always been my biggest fear! It would be cataclysmically UNFAIR for her to escape harsh accountability for what she did.

But no, looking back on it, that's not what it said at all. I was watching good ol' Dr. Phil today and I could almost hear this saying being repeated in my head. I fired up my computer to share this with you all. What it says to me now is that this early abuse shaped me, molded me, and created the person that I am, and when viewed with the low self-esteem that was me at the time, it felt like it was ME being blamed and shamed! That would bring on instant and vehement rebellion, rejection of the saying, and a distinct desire to ignore the entire thing!

Reflecting on this saying now, I can see that it merely called me to responsibility over my OWN life, and that has NOTHING at all to do with MD!!! Eventually, I finally responded to this clarion call to action, responsibility, and a good honest day's work! Over 25 years, I worked as a bus driver, became a homeowner of a custom-built home (which irritated MD to no end!!), and have now honorably retired with a nice little pension. MD was nothing but a saboteur in each of these endeavors!! But the main point here is that she DELIBERATELY tried to mess me up at every turn in my life...BUT I WON! I not only survived, but THRIVED, despite the abuse, despite the cruelty, despite the shunning/isolation!!! As time goes on, I'm actually feeling really good about how well I've turned out. Not to sound pompous, but I am thinking lately just how, against all odds, I managed to come to this point in my life!

And another thing...( ) oooh, I'm all fired up now!! SHE HASN'T WON - AND SHE NEVER WILL!!! She has "gotten away with" NOTHING!!! At 91, she sits ALONE in a nursing home with DB coming to see her (over her substantial $$$$ balance that sits in her checkbook!!) on rare occasions (so as to not upset his harpy of a wife, just like my father did!). He has arranged with the on-site Hospice people to "cover her medical care" even though she isn't dying! (DB shares with me that he finds that situation quite "tricky" of himself to have arranged and very amusing!) She hasn't had a single visit from me in the last several years, and thereby no protection (like I did with my father when he was in there unnecessarily and raised hell until they released him, although DB was fine with him staying and dying - we took him home as my father wished and he lived happily in his own home for the next several years). In my final decision to cease going to see her, I remember how difficult it was to simply ignore her, to let her go, almost like recovering from smoking, a real addiction. Just as the overwhelming urge to smoke hit me and then lessened when I quit smoking back in 1990, the desire, the craving, for a mother's love slowly went away, and it has been a gradual process. But as DS reminds me:

The opposite of love is not hate.
It's indifference.

SO TRUE! I'm still waiting for the "I-don't-give-a damn" feeling to take over COMPLETELY, but I'm not quite there yet. I will say that doing chores is getting easier for me to do. I'm also able to "feel" enough where MD is concerned that I do NOT wish her ill. I CHOOSE not to be within speaking distance of her due to her own verbal toxicity whenever I'm around to target. I've always been her favorite prey. She knows where each and every one of my "buttons" (triggers) are, so I've chosen to NOT be there, and I'm quite comfortable with that decision. If I'm not there, she can't hurt me.

I have also been slowly turning to my kind of "exercise", not on a stationary bike or weight bench, but on DAILY chores of gardening, any kind of housework or organizing, currently like cutting up those boxes in the living room or garage work...something that qualifies as "work" of some kind. I'm seeing results! And everything is slowly taking shape here! YAY!!

So really...who "won" the game? I'm able to self-isolate easily during this pandemic, as does my DS. She sits locked up in a ward of a nursing home, waiting to die. UGH! I'm able to walk out the door of my room into my garden (which I should get to today) instead of being helped into the bathroom and showered while someone watches me and "helps". I'm also paying WAY less (¼ of the cost!) for the privilege of heavenly privacy (paying for her tiny room and paying for my mortgage)! So really. WHO WON? I'm planting my strawberries today while she eats herself to death with candy. No, I'm surely the winner here!

Better get to the weedeating and planting today! I'm ever grateful to have this website to immortalize what happened to me and to DUMP!

{{{{{ALL OF YOU!}}}}}

Honeybera

PS- I reread this post. I can see clearly what keeps me tied to her: Extremely OLD AND HURTFUL ANGER. I need to work on that...and LET IT GO!!! I still harbor the "how could she?!" thoughts. I still have my fists up and at the ready. I still flare up at her, but not REALLY her, not the 91 yr. old her! I'm fist-fighting with my own memories. I need to think and observe this more. LOTS more!!!! Maybe read C-PTSD from Pete Walker. Great book!! If it helps me to LET GO, it'll be even better!!

[coconuts]

Such great realizations about your not just surviving but thriving despite all that was thrown at you. Not letting it be an excuse to mistreat others or throw your own life away but seeking true healing and independence.

Coconuts

[honeybera]

Hi Honeybera!

I've written here before but it's been a while.

I want to say thank you!

Your voice has inspired me in so many ways. I admire your garden work. Your hustle is impressive and helps me to get going! Plants in the ground, sunshine, and rain. There we go.

Thanks!

Be well.

Hey EasyStreet!!! And here I thought I was alone! Bless you for your post! I tried to check and see if there was anyone reading all this (my life story and healing thereafter), but your post apparently didn't register before I began writing this time.

I am SO GLAD that any of this healing I'm doing and writing about has inspired you.

=========================================(an hour later)

OH JOY, OH JOY!!!! MY STRAWBERRIES HAVE SURVIVED!! When they arrived from Burpee's (online) at least a month or two ago (oh my! ) I stuck them up in my French Door fridge (which is set for a mere 37ºF!!) still in the box! I didn't know what to expect, to be honest! I figured that they'd assume that it was still winter in the fridge.

=========================================(a few hours later)

I set the box on my bed, slit it open, and WOW! There they were! Little pale green shoots are forming!! I AM DELIGHTED!! There are two kinds: Albion and Eversweet! I can have strawberries on Keto, too! YUM! And I'd nearly forgotten my other purchase sent to me: a VERY dried out, but still VERY MUCH alive Yellow Alpine strawberry! One little healthy plant with nice green leaves in its own separate 4" pot - OMG! IT'S SO CUTE!! It should do very well out there! All strawberries will have to be planted tomorrow, though, because my older DS (53 yo) called me TONIGHT to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. (A little late, right??) We talked and talked for hours until the sun slowly went down out there in my garden...but there's always tomorrow.

Everything has had a good drink of water in my bathroom sink, so all the little bare root strawberry plants should root right away and grow! I left them bundled still and loosely covered with their plastic wraps. I have 7 planters available for them (including those 2 not yet weeded and 2 with gardening stuff in them that can be put into the garage), so tomorrow is planting day! I need to work in some fertilizer first, plant the bare roots, and cover them lovingly with chopped straw mulch. It will look so nice out there! Both of the bare root varieties of strawberry are specifically suited for the coming intense heat of the summer PLUS I will be planting them on the east side of the house so they only get the morning sun and then shade after noon. Then it's onto the SunGold tomato plant!! Since all my pepper plants bought the farm for some reason, I may also just give up and plant assorted pepper plants from the nursery.

===================================(days and days and days later!)

My iPhone D-I-E-D!! (Or so I thought...) So I had to buy new ones (2 new iPhone 11 Pro Max...yes, TWO! One for me and one for DS.) Paid cash, which totally confused AT&T, so I guess we're weird. (I already know that though.) Shortly thereafter my computer wouldn't load, but I'm fixing that. It seems that my hoarding tendencies have affected my computer use as well as my house. I had the habit of never closing a tab. I justified it by thinking that I'd "do it tomorrow". "Saved" were tabs with those keto recipes that I'd make into pages for my recipe books. Some tabs were simply left up after a web search for one thing or another, many for medical questions that I had regarding one subject or another. Some were just things that I really did want to keep for later browsing, like Dr. Les Carter (excellent psychologist online re: Narcissism), but I now know that I need to bookmark those things and put them away AT THAT MOMENT for later. My lacksadasical attitude towards my little laptop combined with the mess I had left on my taskbar was just too much for it...and it slowed, and slowed, and slowed...and STOPPED.

Happily for me, my computer has a very forgiving spirit and my DS has a great knowledge of all things "I.T." and computing. He ----> eventually took mercy on me after blowing away enough on my WAY overloaded taskbar to allow it to pick up a bit of speed in operation again. So...I have a TON of work left to do on it, but it's good practice for me to discipline myself to NOT run after that YUMMY Keto recipe or let my mind wander off chasing a YouTube video of how to prune a tree. I honestly wasn't even aware of the damage I was doing! But now I have to organize my computer so it will continue to work. And that means "LETTING GO" of things, and that seems to be this BIG late life lesson that I need to understand.

But again happily, the next few days will be relatively mild, HOWEVER for four days after that, LOOK OUT, NELLIE!!! Temps WAY over 100ºF!! So, in reverence to my "bare root" strawberries GROWING in my bathroom sink, still in their plastic bags, dampened and covered with a washcloth to keep the dampness in, I will be planting out there in the next few days. Six of them are already planted out there. Anything in the house can/will be taken care of when it gets like the surface of the sun outside, but outside needs care, too, and that means NOW. Planting my squash (no, not yet I haven't) is relatively easy, just clear an old used pot of old weeds, freshen it up (fertilizer, azomite, more/less soil in it), loosen and mix the ingredients nicely, and push in the seeds/water. That's it.

But to make room for some of the leftover strawberries (which don't like growing where the tomatoes, peppers, and squash have formerly grown within the last 4-5 years), I have to FILL a whole lot of 30 gallon pots (which I already have out there, along with the potting soil)! Plus I have to drag and tote around BIG bags of all sorts of things, but with my GardenGlide (google it) it's EASY-PEASY. Bags that I can barely lift, once on the GardenGlide, I'm fine! I can get them to their next destination without any strain at all!

BUT I also need help with (don't laugh) holding these HUGE 30 gallon SmartPots open to fill them! They want to continually collapse on themselves! I can either hold them open or pour in the potting soil (or whatever), but not both. It's like a Lily Tomlin sketch or a silent movie comedy or a cartoon! I gingerly unfold the Smartpot and try to keep it open, pick up the bag of stuff to be dumped in, and the Smartpot slowly folds in on itself! So I set the HEAVY bag down, unfold the empty SmartPot AGAIN, steady, steady...pick up the bag, move closer to the Smartpot, ready...AND THE POT REFOLDS ONTO ITSELF!! AAARRRGGGHHH!!! ---> ----> If my DS will help me by either holding open or pouring, GREAT! It can be done in a flash! Let's hope he can help me do this!! It's got to be done before that heat wave hits! Pressure...!

I'd better get to bed already. Perhaps I should ponder time management next!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Such great realizations about your not just surviving but thriving despite all that was thrown at you. Not letting it be an excuse to mistreat others or throw your own life away but seeking true healing and independence.

Coconuts

I'm living proof that that can happen.

Honeybera

[coconuts]

Yay for success with all the gardening. Sounds wonderful. Hopefully you can get her done before that heat wave hits. Maybe you can use a smaller pot to scoop soil from bag into smart pot. Ideally your son would help, but if that doesnt happen seems like the smaller pot might work In place of the sketch comedy you were trying out

Sounds like a bit of learning around the computer happened. Sometimes I get redirected in life by similar things. I like to leave tabs open but the computer doesnt necessarily enjoy that. Glad your son rescued it and its functioning for you.

Wishing you all the best with your gardening adventures.

Coconuts

[EasyStreet]

Hi Honeybera, thanks for your response!

We all have our good days and bad days, i suppose, but I am intimately acquainted with my bad days, and tend to forget the good ones. I love hearing about your good days., they remind me that I can have them too. And your bad days/reflections? They remind me that you and I have burned in some of the same furnaces (mine was more of a toaster/oven) and are still here to tell the tale. At a fairly advanced age, in both of our cases, I believe.

So even though I might not read your every post, I have read enough to be thankful for you. I'll keep reading.

Be well.