Category: Personal Note

Season’s Greetings!

Well… we made it through another year; Yay! 2023 was awesome. Our health was great relatively speaking. We enjoyed adventures of many kinds, and we spent time with friends and family.

To complement all that positivity, we, as is the case for all of you, dealt with the ups and downs of the day-to-day. Our heart goes out to those people around the globe who are much less fortunate and who’s hardships are unimaginable to us. We are distressed by the horrible political polarization, prejudice and violence that appears to be plaguing our country. But at least both sides of this horrible polarization seem to be concerned about the preservation of democracy. With that said, I think we can all agree, “Long live democracy in the United States of America”.

We wish you all the best that life can offer during the holidays, for the upcoming year, and beyond! Thank you for visiting this blog.

And now here are some select highlights of 2023.

In the beginning…

The beginning of the year started with skiing our normal runs, but we mixed it up this year by taking a trip to Glenwood Springs to visit the slopes at Sunlight. Not only is this the beginning of the year in review, but Sunlight was also the beginning of my skiing in life; the very first skiing experience I ever had (with Jeff Reid, hello Jeff if you’re out there!) circa 1973-ish (a story for another time). In Glenwood Springs we stayed at Hotel Colorado and had some of the best Tomato Bisque I’ve ever had.

Mardi Gras

Matthew and I planned to do a weekend of travel together, so weeks in advance we arbitrarily decided to go to New Orleans since he hasn’t been there before. We randomly picked our dates and booked our trip. As we quickly discovered, WE WERE GOING ON MARDI GRAS WEEKEND!! That was soooo much fun!

We built a wall! (and Mexico didn’t pay for it)

Early Spring came with our tradition of updating the garden. It was a grueling month of several trips porting the wall rocks from the materials yard to our yard, putting the rocks in place, then shoveling three tons of dirt from the street to the back yard, and planting and irrigating.

I can’t wait to see and share what this will look like come Spring. Leslie did a phenomenal job planting the plants that will emerge when the cold weather turns warm.

Hail to Thee!

Somewhere in the middle of the night between May 9 and May 10 we were awakened by load noise. The hail ball above was a sample from the morning after, so it was even larger when it fell. The video tells it all, and I am pleased to say that we just finished getting our new roof installed last week.

Reunion in Wyoming

Leslie’s family held a reunion after many years without doing so. It was a great opportunity for me to meet all the great folks that came from parts of Oregon, North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming. There were several activities planned – hats off particularly to Wayne and Tammy for designing the day 1 golf tournament!

Leslie’s Art

This year Leslie entered a couple of her quilts in the Headwater’s Quilt Show in Wyoming. “Rainbow Moon” (the quilt on the left below) won second place, Yay!

Leslie Goes Boxing 

Leslie and members of her Book club, joined Corner Boxing in Boulder.  The Rusty Gloves class was designed for, but is not limited to, people with Parkinson’s.  They also have a class for “Old Broads”. In case you were wondering,  we don’t hit each other.  

Iceland

Bucket list item… check. I’ve pretty much said it in the blog entry here. This was an awesome trip, and I would be delighted to return and explore further this great island. Since we returned home, Iceland was in the news for volcanic activity that closed one of our favorite geothermal pools, the Blue Lagoon.

Dia de New Tradition

We hosted our first Dia de Los Muertos gathering this year. The turnout was great and I really enjoyed meeting some folks as well as gathering with friends and family that are near and dear. More details are shown here. I would like to make this a tradition for every year.

Giving Thanks

I’ve already shared the details of our Thanksgiving here, but I would be remiss to not at least include it in selected highlights since this is my favorite holiday.

There were many other great moments of the year. Various hikes including our annual Bear Peak jaunt. Paddleboarding. Porting our canoe to Gross Reservoir. Visiting Denver Botanic Gardens. The Eerie Erie 5k, Dining with friends, and more. Feel free to go to the top of this blog for a view of all the postings.

We filled another year with great memories, as we hope you and yours have done and will continue to do.

Season’s Greetings!

Thanksgiving – I give the chef a C-

I volunteered to be the chef this year. This is the first year ever that I took the lead on preparing this festive meal. I have contributed dishes from time to time – but never took the lead on the majority of dishes. I was very excited to organize all the prep and carry through with the meal development. Aside from dessert and squash casserole (both managed by Leslie) I took the lead on: Turkey, Stuffing, Gravy, Cranberry sauce, Cauliflower casserole, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Bean Casserole.

So that I can focus on continuous improvement moving forward, here is my rundown of these dishes.

Turkey: C

After a bit of reading dissertations on dry-brining and wet-brining, I opted to dry-brine the turkey. I was hoping to at least equal the excellent, juicy turkey Leslie baked last year. Well… the turkey was OK, but it was slightly salty, dark meat even more so. It also had to sit after cooking for over 2 hours because I did not time it very well – the turkey was done cooking an hour earlier than expected, and most of the guests arrived at the latter part of the time window we communicated.

Stuffing: C

I made corn bread stuffing with bacon, and white bread stuffing without meat for any vegetarians in the crowd. While I thought the bacon would add a lot of value, for whatever reason, it didn’t really enhance the flavor – just made it more salty. The white bread stuffing wasn’t too bad, but no one seemed to eat it.

Gravy: F

I had a full 4 cups of au jus in the roasting pan (I started by adding a little water in the pan, since the narrative on dry brining indicated some extra liquid in the pan will keep the drippings from drying up). I thought this was my lucky day – I will just use the au jus, add some corn starch (rather than flour to accommodate the gluten sensitive guests), and go with that. Which I did – without even tasting it. If I tasted it before sitting at the dining table I would have realized the au jus was heavily influenced by the dry brine salt – Yuck! It was REALLY salty. Effectively worthless to all. I didn’t react quickly enough to go make a new batch based on some other broth I had – so I completely blew it on the gravy.

Cranberry Sauce: B+

I’ve made this many times. Aside from being a little on the sweet side, it was very good.

Cauliflower Leek Casserole: C-

I have made this dish many times before to very pleased crowds – I thought this would be a guarantee. Not! I still haven’t really figured out what went wrong, but my prevailing theory is I tried to bake it at the 350 degrees consistent with all the other dishes, while I usually bake this at 425 degrees. So, I don’t think the cheese thinned enough to penetrate the casserole and it therefore stayed bunched at the top of the dish and didn’t properly integrate with the rest of the dish.

Mashed Potatoes: C

The recipe seemed like a real winner – but the result was too lumpy and too dry. The recipe explicitly directed to not use an electric mixer – which I agree with, but I needed to do a better job hand mashing. I also should have added more liquid to the mix. Seems pretty easy to improve – but didn’t get it right this time.

Green Bean Casserole: A

Thank goodness for old standards. I’ve also made this one many times in the past, and nothing really went wrong with this – so the guests seemed to really like this one.

Next Year

With these learnings in mind, I am very excited to volunteer again next year, and leverage this year’s experience to raise the bar.

In Closing

The guests (family) were kind and forgiving (and fortunately, most had an earlier meal as well), so we all had a great time together – the thing I really am thankful for.

COVID Again!

Summary (as of June 1): 7 days in and I am ready to declare I am generally done with COVID for now. Some lingering sniffles and occasional congestion – but when don’t I have that? With that said my plan is to stop with the updates unless I encounter some sort of setback, in which case this post will be updated. Thanks for caring.

Yep – tested positive on Saturday (May 27) after returning from a business trip to Boston. I am chronicling my experience again, as I did here because I am finding it informative to reflect on my previous experience to better manage my expectations. As an example, I feel pretty good – so far it’s been mild. A few hours here and there of feeling run down interspersed with feeling pretty normal. So, I am hoping this will be a mild experience and things will be normal in a week or less. However! (yes, a dramatic however)… if you look at my previous post (see link above) you will see that my first week then was pretty mild as well. But from there I had some weeks that were pretty crappy. Perhaps I pushed it too hard before (I will be more cautious this time); or perhaps my body will just deal with this variety better than last time (only time will tell).

Day 1 (Friday, May 26): Hmmm, is this the onset of a cold?

I flew back from Boston on Thursday. On Friday (at some point – I don’t recall when) I noticed an irritated swelling somewhere in the rear part of my nasal passage. The sort of thing that makes you think you’re partner will deal with a lot of snoring during the night – so I warned Leslie.

Day 2: Darn, it might be spreading.

The irritated feeling moved slightly down further to what I think is the trachea, and at times I needed to keep clearing my throat of whatever gunk was collecting there making me feel like my breathing was getting somewhat restricted (I do have asthma so perhaps I feel things a little differently than others). I told Leslie I will test for COVID tomorrow (Sunday) if I’m not feeling better.

At bedtime I crawled into bed and and Leslie voiced an alarm, “oh my, you have quite a rash on your back!” She then consulted Google to see what might cause such a rash of this appearance; two causes were identified: Scarlet Fever (STREP) and COVID-19. With that said, I decided to do the home test: a solid positive.

Day 3: Symptoms are Mild, Gotta Work in the Yard as Planned

Feeling pretty good on day 3, so I worked hard in the yard as planned for this weekend – about 5 hours or so. Then I got tired, so quit for the day. A little congestion, a little coughing, but not much more.

Day 4 (Happy Memorial Day): Slept Well (after a Benadryl); Still Feeling Pretty Good

Feeling OK. Did a little more work in the yard for about an hour. A little more tired than usual – think I’ll take a nap.

Day 5 (Tuesday): Back to Work

I don’t want to get ahead of things, but aside from a little light-headedness I am feeling pretty good. I was starting to get a deep cough yesterday evening which concerned me – thinking this was going to move into my lungs, but that has not materialized and I am very happy about that! Hopefully today will continue as is.

Day 6: Getting Optimistic

Yesterday did continue as I hoped – no real down turns aside from getting tired and some minor coughing here and there. And this morning I am feeling decent; a little groggy and lightheaded perhaps, but that’s almost normal. I still feel the presence of the virus in my sinuses and my lungs but I feel like things are going better than they were last August. As I was yesterday – hoping it continues as is (or, dare I wish, even better).

Six Weeks of COVID

Fifteen Days Six Weeks of Covid

If you read my post on Portugal you may already know that Leslie and I brought a guest home with us – the COVID virus. I am writing this post to be informative for those curious to gather anecdotal evidence about what it’s like to get COVID. Here’s the timeline of my experience to date.

UPDATE at 6 Weeks: The information below was written in real time for the first 15 days, when, near the end I felt I was better enough to consider myself near done. However, now at the 6 week mark, I will tell you that weeks 3-5 were more difficult for this asthmatic blogger than the first couple weeks were. While I kept active throughout, when I felt up to it, I was struggling with the dizzies and difficulty breathing for more than half the time during those latter weeks. As of today – the six-week point (9/11/22) – this was the second day my breathing was somewhat normal, and my light-headedness was almost non-existent. I truly hope this is my last update on the subject. Be well.

Day 1: Woke up feeling dryness in my throat. Thought it was perhaps a result of sleeping with my mouth open, or perhaps some bad air quality from a nearby fire. The dryness was very mild and I could notice it when I thought about it, but it was mostly off my mind.

Day 2: (Walking around Porto) Just like day 1, but the dryness was slightly more than it was the previous day.

Day 3: (Train ride to Lisbon) More of the same, but on this day I took measures to stay indoors incase the outside air was really the problem.

Day 4: (Flight home) Feels more like a cold that got progressively more so as the flight progressed. Seemed to enter my lungs more and irritated my nasal passage more. Started to suspect a cold or COVID for the first time. Took a COVID test as soon as I got home: Positive.

Day 5: Woke up feeling some energy, so took a morning bike ride. Feeling like COVID was going to be super mild and go away quickly. Was able to work with good energy until about 3pm – then felt like crap for the rest of the day.

Day 6: Feeling like a real cold – no energy. Worked some, but didn’t feel good most of the day.

Day 7: More like Day 5 – took a morning bike ride and felt some real strength toward the end of the ride, but good feelings dwindled quickly and was dragging the rest of the day. Felt pretty bad that evening.

Day 8: (Saturday) – woke up feeling horrible. Was it the Benadryl? Was it COVID making me feel that way? Need to get the yard work done, so did that, but otherwise lots of nasal dripping and dry (unproductive) coughing.

Day 9: (The day I started to author this post) Slept pretty well. Woke up feeling better than the day before. Took a nice hour-long walk. Will see how the day goes. 5:50PM… kept somewhat active today, though energy level was pretty low most of the day. Nothing too serious, more nasal congestion dripping into the bronchial ways – clearing my throat all day. Nevertheless, I thought I would do a home test to see if I can get some indication that I am free and clear of the virus.

No such luck. Think I’ll sip some Johnny Walker Black.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Day 10: Woke up this morning feeling pretty normal. A little nasal congestion. Almost no coughing. PulseOx reading was 95. I haven’t mentioned PulseOx yet, mostly because I am not very knowledgeable on the topic. I will say that yesterday my average was in the low 90’s and on day 8 it was consistently at or slightly below 90. I am glad to see some improvement on that today.

Day 15: Days 11-14 were will filled with congestion, coughing, breathing tightness, low blood-oxygen, and a little bit of feeling OK in between. On day 13 I called the doctor to see if I should get attention, but the advice was to keep doing what I’m doing (symptoms described are common, and add some Zyrtec to the mix. On day 14 I nearly killed myself with a 28 mile bike ride – all good except I was ready to pass-out during the last mile or so – I think mostly heat exhaustion. I call it an exorcism. Well, it may have worked – today (day 15) I woke up feeling 95%, and stayed at that level for most of the day (it’s late afternoon as I write this). With that said, I am ready to call this the last entry for this Covid-19 experience. I prefer not to do that again, and count my blessings that it could have been worse.