Making That Turn For The June Cardiologist Appt

 A joy to be back in choir for our Sunday service. Our director has been out for a couple of months recovering from a fall. We met Wednesday for the first time. I don't think they planned on us returning so soon, but rehearsal went well even with a few of our members playing with the Asheville Band at the Biltmore. We sang the condensed version of Behold Our God, one of my favs. Our pastor is wrapping up the Psalms and soon we will be in the book of John. 

I think in every church and in every choir of churches  I've attended there seems to be a Sunday where the feelings fill up at how much I love being at that church. Happened at First Baptist Houston and when Newfound Baptist had a choir.  Sunday morning I looked across the congregation and experienced those feelings. So many answered prayers, especially this morning as friends returned from surgery, or being with family having surgery and answered prayer for Debbie's return. Our hymns lifted up the Name of Jesus and we rejoiced being a child of His. 

May 22nd was the one year anniversary of an eventful cardiologist visit. That visit prompted the next few months of health concerns and changes that needed to be made. My BP was through the roof, stroke level, and after monitor wearing and dobutamine stress echocardiogram, atrial flutter determined a cardioversion was in order. The flutter with no break into a regular rhythm? No wonder I remained in the state of constant exhaustion and the worst case of brain fog. Believe me, brain fog has been my companion for many years before these senior adult years. 

During that time last year something I read caught my attention and resonated deeply, Steve Bezner, a dynamic pastor in Houston was resigning his pastorship to become a professor at Truett Seminary at Baylor University. What spoke to me was his story, his heart and health story. His cardiologist told him he needed to make some changes in his life or suffer the consequences. My doctors had said, this is a second chance. You have a window of opportunity, take advantage. One day, you won't be able to fight back. That's what I have been doing and changes are coming about slower than I like. Getting my hip on the right track was huge for the progress to begin. Just last week, he wrote these words in the next paragraph and just like last year, this year his thoughts and observations resonated within me. I mean really, how much slower of a pace could I get but it was the stress I was heaping upon myself and it was affecting my health. Yes, there were other things weighing in, but our concern was to restore a good heart beat and walk in good health. I did what a lot of people do now, research to determine what will work and impact. Steve Bezner is on Substack and everything he writes is worth the time.

1. Slower pace has been good for our health and souls. As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, we made this transition because of my health. It has paid enormous dividends. My blood pressure is down thirty points. My weight is down. My bloodwork is the best it has been in a decade. My cardiologist was…happy??…at my last visit. It’s a different pace of life, and it appears I needed it. When I sat on my back patio in Houston, I could hear a highway, a train, and an airport while speaking directly to both of my neighbors. From my Waco back patio? When we sit in our chairs we can hear…nothing. We can see the stars. I miss Houston. I miss HNW. And I miss pastoring. But this has been a welcome and needed shift.

Rain, Yay!

 Looking back at FB memories it seems we plant on this day in years gone by. We have held to that tradition by working in the flowerbeds this afternoon. We have spent two fruitless trips to Canton. Mustang Sam is on his last legs and the cost of repair is just too much for what needs to be done. While driving back to Canton to pick Sam up, my right hearing aid just stopped working. Frustrated beyond words trying to solve the issue. Well, Monday morning holds an appointment to see what the heck is wrong. 

Afternoons filled with construction noise is the norm around here now but today is was just farm equipment. No rain expected for days so hay is fluffed and drying out to soon be put into bales. They are still able to do that across the road but a few more houses look to be built and that will cause that delightful scene to cease. The baling began in earnest in the early evening and as we transplanted tomato plants and pepper plants we moved to the sound of hay baling. Oh the sweet fragrance of that is just about one of my all time favorite fragrances. 

I've also been reading about tell tale signs in creative or just plain oh communicative writing. There are so many styles and ways. A common example is how people treat animals or the stories they tell about animals. Some people just are cruel and heartless and their "humorous" stories or even in the forming of the first few sentences tells me more than I really want to know. It seems like the same can be said about those who love cars and trucks, collect them, working and non-working. Vintage or new but the backseat of their vehicles are filled with trash including unfinished meals of fast food. I know that we don't keep up with washing or vacuuming the inside of our vehicles but we also don't leave snacks or meals in them either. Artists, creative people who sometimes work in chaos which seems opposite of what we are told about our brains, the chaos tells us their approach or maybe more about their brain It would seem writers could be classified in that arena as well. The will to create or communicate how is the story, hobby or art is displayed but behind the scenes is interesting. 

*****

Well, a little bit of time, like maybe a week or so has gone by. Reading about creative writing and then, just like that, two books have my attention. Small Towns Girls, Jayne Anne Phillips and The Calamity Club. Small Towns Girls is the author's memoir of growing up in West Virginia interspersed with history of systems of the area. I do not want this book to end. I took The Calamity Club, huge book, with me to read while waiting for Roy at the gastro office. A bit of overkill, I know. I had not taken into account some good waiting room people watching. I'm enjoying Calamity but the character buildups are taking a little too long for me. Since dealing with all the side effects and such from the C o^!d era, a couple keep hanging around and one of them is attention span. I did not have a very long attention span before the era. If you have to have a pleasant experience at a gastro place, Roy had one. The people are so nice and he received excellent care. We have prayed over this appointment quite a bit and this one is his best ever. Our doctor likes this group in Hendersonville, so that's where we went. We also got around all the backup on 26 with the lane being closed for the connector for 26. 

It seems all of WNC is happy for rain. We've had so little yet the word on the road is, the peach crop is fabulous this year. We had our first peaches of the season and they were sweet and delicious. Usually, peaches don't start out that well in the first pick of the season. With the rain, we opted out of the Lowe's trip and instead focused on grocery shopping. Got that taken care of, came home and debated whether to go to Windy Hill Farms or go to Mars Hill for lunch. We took lunch in Mars Hill for a thousand Aleck. Stopped at the store, got a few things and came back out. I saw something shine for a brief moment in the tire. Dang, a nail but it was in the tire in such a way that we were not in imminent danger of air loss. Ironic cause we had dropped off the Mustang for a second opinion that morning and now this. Got home and Roy headed over to the tire shop. Second opinion confirmed the first one from last week on the Mustang. We will begin in earnest this week searching for a car. 

May has held a lot of appointments and beginning the middle of June, we will get a brief reprieve till August, when it starts up again. 

What Doesn't Define You

 I wrote a long time ago about the time when Roy was in his last two years of law school. He had study group on Sunday mornings, which meant I went to church by myself. Now that in itself is nothing cause due to circumstances, I have done that many, many times. What I did back then and it wasn't a conscious thought but became a habit. I would begin from childhood through teenage years, college years, continue into young married and conclude the thoughts to the present (at that time) of all the hard, difficult, not knowing or understanding things that had happened in life. After a full morning of all those thoughts which were hard and heavy, I was just in the best of moods to worship the Lord and go to church. At that time in the early 90s, I did not have the answers or even understand the questions of it all. It would have been bad for me to stay in that state of mind. Not wholeheartedly, but little by little I began to research, talk with a therapist and do the work that needed to be done. It was a long process but in 2017, after the death of my father, I stumbled upon the motherload of help and answers to all the junk that wanted to stay apart of my life. Ugh!

One thing I figured out first on the adventure was, the different stages of telling the story. Early on it was a cry for help, someone rescue me from all of this. Later, it became the cry of seeking answers and having someone pat me on the back and say, "there, there." That led to thinking someone needed to walk along side me while processing and healing. Then the story became a work in progress in that I was in the middle part of the journey. Now, I feel like I look at it as, it happened, it affected me, I have learned from it and these hard, mean and uncertain meaning of things does not define me. 

I stumbled upon a person on FB, Farmer Girl. This morning she gave a description of how she approaches scripture and the like. Her description is very close to how I have done. So much that she writes resonates. The other day her post on Jabez was not the obvious take that took hold many years ago. Expanding your territory, more like a prosperity message that people loved cause it was a veiled message. Farmer Girl wrote of what Jabez bore throughout his life. His name meant pain. So, as she wrote, when he came near just saying his name was saying, oh hello pain. Go to her FB page and she is on Instagram too. God redeemed him and as Farmer Girl writes, your beginning doesn't have to be the definition of who you are. May I insert, Praise God! This is what prompted this blog post. In a baby book that parents began writing down the highlights of shots, first word, first five birthday type things, a secondary book that both my mom and father wrote in, the first words of the doctor to them, well you didn't get the boy you wanted. Wow! And as I have written before around the age of five my father started his journey of hating me because I was more interested in friends and school than him. As an adult I once asked him if he had wanted children and did he want to start a family as soon as my mom did. He said, he really never wanted children and I was a reminder of every early celebration or accomplishment, he could never truly enjoy them cause he had a family to think about. He said your mother wanted a baby, I did not. I can't believe I said to him. "well, you could have taken care of that yourself." Yes, we live the legacy of lack of condom use to deter having a baby. That is his story as well. His mother didn't want a second child. 

If you want to read her post, worth it, on FB, go to her page. The picture of mushrooms in the forest is your go to cause there isn't a title. 

In reading several things about this it dawned on me recently, this freedom from all of that has fallen fresh upon me. It occurred to me that there seemed to be a lightness in my steps and I was interested in things around here that pretty much lost me. The Co^id shot did a world of hurt and last year I finally felt like I was recovering from all of that. Something that got my attention is how much peace and rest our brains need and that is what I have been doing this past year. Since last summer with the heart issues and such I knew life needed to change for me. Now, I have been given a few challenges from my new doctor and I have focused on those to be able to meet a desired result in August. So this peace and rest is what I have needed. In that I discovered a renewed interest in our home. We had been looking at houses but decided to stop that for now. We have great neighbors and a great yard and a great house. Man, there were several houses that were tempting but as wonderful as they are, it is not for us now. Yes, we have six cats and yes it is a full time job to stay ahead of things cleaning wise. We are blessed to live in the mountains and blessed to be near such beauty and yet have it right here in our own front yard. We don't have much of a back yard. 

Well, I must close up but had other things to write about.

Just Living Life

 Today, the first day of May. My goodness this year is going by quickly. We enter this month with cool temps. In fact, in the early evening last night it felt rather cool and made watering go quickly. I had put out seeds in the side flowerbed because rain had been forecasted. It went south, literally, So, with that delay I was out in the cool of the evening or should that be the cold of the evening. We worked efficiently because Roy had his last CBS class of this season. They finished up the Psalms but he is thinking of changing to a Wednesday night class because it works better with our schedule. 

We just returned inside after pulling the horrible vine from hell out of the remaining shrubs. Well, Roy did. I was busy but on level ground, the little that we have. He took out the remains of a rotting stump and we have plans to cut back a bush that is growing rapidly in spite of very little rain. We emergency planted one of the poppy plants in the hole remaining from the stump. It needed to go in the ground as it was the more sickly of the bunch and just by doing that, it helps everything around the top of the steps. With the chance of frost this weekend, I haven't wanted to plant anything in a flowerbed or stump hole. 

Roy is keeping up his water gun, super soaker that shoots water thirty feet, skills by chasing away Dead Beat Dad, the orange cat. He hasn't been around but made appearances lately. The alpha cat of the Feral Fam knows what Roy is doing so he doesn't run away when the water starts flying. He holds position on one of the big rocks. It is exciting to see Blazey back for a visit. He looks good and healthy. Coco is back and she let me pet her the other day. Wow! Something I didn't think would happen. 

For our church's ladies tea I am going to have to switch totally what I planned to wear. Going with something less tea-ish and going with something warmer. My goodness what an up and down spring this has been. After seeing so many ads for those that have poetry in their hearts and it seems to me all you can do in these various wispy, lacey and romantic looks is stand around with those day dream kind of eyes, no smile except that little turn of the lips saying I know so much and I will share with the right one. One model looks like Megan M of Harry fame. Turn and look, turn and gaze...I don't have the look for this seasonal wear but I do like poetry. Back to our tea, I considered buying a hat but so glad I talked myself out of that. I would rather spend my money on flannel shirts from Angry Minnow Vintage. 

I tried Rowe Casa Electrolyte mix and it is tasty. I figure it is a morning drink but maybe with the magnesium glycate it could be more afternoonish.  

****Sunday morning.

After I got home from the ladies tea at church, before going into the house, Roy and I put all the container tender vegetation on the front porch and used the decorative pillows to shield any cold air. I don't think we had any frost by just looking out the window nor did it get as cold as forecasted. No 33 degrees just 37. 

I had the most delightful time at the tea. Ladies from First Baptist and Weaverville Methodist  came as well. Before Covid the three churches did things like this three times a year, one at each church. The decor was vintage aprons. We heard some funny as well as poignant stories of grandmother's aprons. This was not a pretentious event and I so enjoyed it. Usually, teas are not my thing cause somehow and somewhere there is a person in the planning who just wants to show off, not share an enjoyable experience. I had told those people oh yes, I will wear gloves and a hat...thinking of wearing gardening bib overalls, sun hat and gardening gloves. Wasn't even tempted to do something like that yesterday, but I did bring a hat in case you needed one for entrance. Haha! 

Monday morning****

Our pastor was on vacation last week so our guest preacher was the college pastor for PCA at App State. He was so good and with an unlikely subject of death from Ecc 7. We are an older congregation but the twist of how we look at life was surprising and in a way, refreshing. Roy is not a fan of Ecc and so I thought he would fidget all through the service but as usual he took copious notes. He liked it. Probably bad memories of our former church pastor deciding Ecc was the best book to cover after Helene hit our area. Vanity, vanity. People needed to hold onto some hope and although gifted in many areas, bringing hope was not his best thing. Again, it was just a bad match especially after Covid with him, his family and the powers that be at that church. 

We had our Circle JOY meeting and it was so good! Trusting God, what does that look like and the Holy Spirit and His ministry to and in us. Great discussion and encouragement. I love the insights shared in the meeting. I left with such JOY in my heart and as I was leaving, I was invited to go shopping with three friends but I told Roy I was stopping at Reems Creek for more flowers and he was willing to help me with them when I got home. He is always willing but it worked well with his schedule. So they promised to invite me again. 

I am still intrigued with people all over social media that are fighting somewhat invisible fights. It is not that the fights aren't real, they are, some good causes. It seems like us sports fans that when we say our team, but it is owned and managed without our help. We aren't really supporting our team unless we have tickets to all the games, help clean up afterwards and invest copious amounts of money. It might be call vicarious identification. Opposing theologians, political debates real and unreal, best sports person of all time and what is the best color for kitchens. Sometimes I wonder if the people who are fighting this great fight from their basements will be happy if everything they want happens and those opposing conform. Probably not thus I will keep the kitchen in those dated colors cause it doesn't bother me when I am only going in there to grab a snack or a drink. Meh....

Yesterday, a friend's name came up on FB because it was her birthday. I hadn't seen her on FB much and she is hardly ever on FB. So, I felt like I should look at her timeline and the news shocked me. She and her husband were killed, or as they say now unalived in a head on collision in Wyoming July of 2025. We were childhood acquaintances at church. We were both nerds but ran in different nerd circles. 

Roy has made sure we have enough dirt for our spring planting season ahead. Our roses are just popping with color and blooms. We are so blessed to live here.