Sunrise

           Let’s start with a sunrise picture this week. Wednesday morning, I was making the cats breakfast and saw the sun lighting up the sky through my kitchen window.

          I ducked down and saw there was a big blanket of dark blue clouds and in my mind’s eye, a memory flashed.

          A hundred years ago, my beautiful and much-adored older sister came to visit us in Kendallville, Indiana. Patti and I made a trip to the store and as soon as I pulled in the parking lot, the sky blazed all oranges and reds. It was absolutely stunning! We parked and reveled in its glory.

“You can’t have a sunset like that without clouds,” Patti told me and until that very moment, I hadn’t realized that.

This morning I just knew the sky would light up. I went out onto the kitchen patio and took a picture.

It doesn’t take long for the sky to change and I knew it would be gone before long. I also knew that this is the view you usually see when I take a sunrise picture. I still had to take food to the outside girls so I thought I’d give you a treat and take a picture from a different venue.

The sky went from this…

…to this in just two minutes— with no help from me. (That means I didn’t enhance it on my computer.)

I told you that I got established with the gal that takes care of Mike’s health.

Michelle isn’t a doctor, she’s a Physician’s Assistant and was the one to diagnose Mike’s anemia and find his cancer early. I trust her.

          Michelle ran a blood test on me.

          “It’s a fasting blood test so nothing for eight hours prior,” she told me.

          You are allowed to have creamer-less and sugarless coffee, thank goodness. That’s what I drink anyway.

          The morning of my blood test, I got in the car and did what I always do when I get in the car. I popped a Starlight Mint into my mouth. Two miles down the road, just as we’re crossing the bridge into town, I remembered what we were going for. I spit the rest of the mint out and called the doctor’s office. I told Missy what I’d done and asked if that meant I had to reschedule my blood test.

          “It shouldn’t affect it,” she said.

          We get to the office and I told the gal drawing my blood what I’d done.

          “It should be okay,” she said.

          I thought sugar passed into the blood stream pretty quickly and I was surprised when they said I could still have the test.

          The results are back and I’m not happy. My blood sugar was one point high. Surprise! Was it because of the mint or am I prediabetic?

My cholesterol is high too. Both the good and bad.

“You do not need any medication at this time although the use of omega-3 supplement daily would help to bring down your bad cholesterol.  Continue to avoid saturated fats, eggs and butter.  Routine exercise.  I would recommend repeating your cholesterol in 6 to 12 months,” Michelle advised.

Continue to avoid saturated fats, eggs, and butter, she says! Like I’ve been avoiding them all along! The only one of those things I avoid is butter. I love butter but butter doesn’t love me. I gave up eating it altogether three months ago. Cheese is high in saturated fat. I guess I’ll give up the quarter cup of mozzarella that I sprinkle over my popcorn every night — right after this bag is gone. But eggs? I read someplace that a study found the cholesterol in eggs didn’t cross over into blood cholesterol. Since I started my diet in October, I’ve been eating two hard boiled eggs for breakfast almost every morning! OY! I’ve switched to oatmeal with cinnamon and no milk! Not very exciting, I must say.

And exercise? Miss Rosie and I workout together two days a week. I simply have no motivation to go in and workout by myself. I always find something better to do.

The one finding that surprises me is my sodium is low.

“Of course she’s low on salt — she doesn’t eat any!” our old friend Margaret in Missouri said when Mike told her.

Mike’s never salted his food for as long as I’ve known him and I quit eating salt for a lot of years. It used to frustrate both Margaret and my mother. When they’d came to dinner at my house, they’d have to salt everything.

“It would taste better if you used salt when you cooked,” Momma said.

“Actually, food has a flavor without salt,” I told her. And I thought not eating salt was better for me.

Sodium is one of the major electrolytes your body requires. Others are potassium, chloride, magnesium, and calcium. When you sweat too much, you lose these electrolytes and end up with heat stroke. Most people are not low on sodium, in fact, most people consume too much salt!

Michelle wanted to put me on Omeprazole (generic Prilosec) to treat the reflux she thinks is causing my cough.

“I tried that,” I told her. “It makes me not feel well so I stopped taking it and just use Pepcid.”

“Not feel well how?” she asked.

“It makes me feel light-headed, kinda fuzzy, but not quite dizzy.”

“Pepcid will stop the acid but won’t heal the damage. Let’s try Nexium. Most people tolerate that really well.”

When I picked up the prescription, I did something I shouldn’t’ve done. I read the side effects. These kinds of medicines will make you low in potassium and you’ll experience symptoms much like what I experienced when I took Omeprazole. I’d’ve been okay with the weight loss one, but did I get that one? NO!

When I first experienced the light-headed fuzziness, I thought I was dehydrated and drank more water! That just exacerbated the symptoms. Now, with this blood test — 1I4444444444444444444444444

Sorry. Blackie was helping me. He obviously likes fours!

Now, with this blood test, I realize I need to eat more salt!

Something clicked in my head. About a hundred years ago, Momma was visiting us. I’d been outside on a summer day and when I came in, I didn’t feel well, much the same way I felt after taking the meds.

“You need salt,” my wise and beautiful mother said. “Eat some potato chips.”

And she was right. I ate some chips and felt better almost right away.

After my blood results came back, I called Patti. “Mom was like that, too. She had dry mouth and drank a lot. She always tested low on sodium.”

Dry mouth? I’ve always had to have something to drink all the time, but I never considered that it was dry mouth. I can be such an idiot sometimes.

And I know that my oldest son is the same way. Years ago, like a hundred, his girlfriend at the time, told me, “Chris has to have something to drink all the time!”

Is dry mouth hereditary?

I can replace the sodium in my body easily enough. Salt my oatmeal, salt my apple, salt my carrots. But what about the other minerals?

I’m going to have to start taking Centrum again, I thought. It’s not like I don’t have multivitamins, I do. They’re sitting on the shelf. I hate taking pills all the time so I go in fits and spurts where I’ll take it for a while, then quit. Time to start taking it again. I pulled the bottle down and saw there were only a few left.

Mike had me put Centrum Silver for Men on the grocery list a week or so ago, so he needed some, too.

I got online and found a coupon to save two dollars on one bottle of any Centrum vitamin. I printed two.

We went shopping this week. I took a few pictures.

We had to run past the Ford dealership and see how the new building was progressing. 

We got behind a truck that had his injector pump turned up and spewed out black exhaust when he hit his gas hard. After the smoke cleared, I saw he’d passed up this old Chevy. Looks like he just got new tires. The stickers are still visible.

The next time we got behind Old Smokey was at a stoplight. I knew he’d gas it.

We get to Walmart and Mike stayed in the car with Bondi while I ran in for the few things we needed. The hardest thing for me to do is pick out dog food. They didn’t have the Naked Essentials that Bondi seems to like so I had to get something else. I bet I spent ten minutes walking up and down the aisle before deciding on Bella.

Our Walmart has added a bunch of self-checkout stations. I hardly ever have to wait in line for a cashier unless I want to. I scanned all my items and started looking for a button to push to add my coupons. When I couldn’t find it, I called the attendant over.

“How do I do coupons?” I asked and held them out to her.

She took them and looked at them. “Just scan ‘em.” She waved the first one over the ‘eye’ and it beeped, showing a two-dollar deduction. She scanned the second one, it beeped and showed two dollars off, too. “Then just put them right in the slot.” She folded them in half and shoved ‘em through the slot into the bin below the register.

“Thank you!” I told her and finished checking out.

Normally I don’t pay too much attention to receipts but this time I looked for my deductions. There was only one. I called the gal back over. “I bought two Centrums; I should be able to use two coupons.”

She took my receipt and looked it over. “I don’t understand it. It showed it took both of them.” She scanned the receipt a little closer. “I can’t do anything now because the transaction is completed. If you go to Service, they may be able to open the bin and get your coupon back for you.”

I’m walking away, looking at the receipt, when I see there’s only one Centrum listed. I scanned them both, I know I did.

I can walk out that door right now with a free bottle of Centrum and they can keep the two-dollar coupon.

I guess I’m as susceptible to sin as the next guy.

I didn’t go in the store with an expectation of getting a ‘free’ bottle of vitamins, I reminded myself. I fully expected to pay for it, pay for it I will. I was fourth in line at Customer Service. While I waited, I dug out both bottles and laid them on top of my purse. Then I read my receipt. Pork skins, pork loin, butter (so I can bake for Christmas), popcorn. EQ FAB 100CT gave me pause. Oh, yeah. Equate Fabric bandaids. I was working with my stained glass again this week and got a small cut. It’s amazing how those tiny little cuts can bleed the most. When I went for a bandaid, I saw we were getting low.

I didn’t recognize the next item. NM OMEGA 3,

What is that? I wondered. It cost me fourteen ninety-seven, seems like I’d remember. I dug through all the items in my bag and didn’t see anything with that name on it. I picked up the vitamin boxes and started checking the UPC number thinking they had it in the computer wrong. I turned the box of men’s vitamins over and see a sticker. There it was. NM OMEGA MINI 120CT. I don’t know how the sticker got on the box and you can clearly see there are only 65 tablets in the box. When I scanned it, I just ran it across the scanner, listened for the beep, and never saw what it charged.

When it was my turn at the counter, I had a hard time getting her to understand what my problem was. “I scanned this sticker and not the code on the box,” I told her. “It’s supposed to be six something and not fourteen something. And I had a coupon for two dollars off, too, but it didn’t take it and I already put it in the bin.”

She scanned both bar codes and saw that what I said was true. “I can return these but I can’t give you two dollars or my drawer will be short.”

“Can’t you get the coupon from the bin? Your gal helped me scan them.” I didn’t want her to think I was lying about the coupon. “That drawer will be two-dollars over.”

She turned to the other gal, who was half-listening while she waited on someone else. “Can we do that?”

“She’s in the middle of an audit. It’ll be a while.”

My gal was in the process of returning the fourteen ninety-seven to me and I was sorta steamed about my two dollars. which is kinda funny. Just a couple of days before, I’d been at the post office mailing a package. It wasn’t very heavy so I took an extra box with me thinking it might be cheaper than a flat-rate box.

I handed the box to Terry. “It’ll be sixteen twenty-five” she said.

“Did they have a price increase?” I asked.

“They raised it for the holidays. It’ll go back down after.”

I think that sucks. “How much will it be if I put it in my own box?” I asked.

She weighed it. “Right around fourteen.”

For two bucks I wasn’t going to take the time to repack it. What’s two bucks? I thought.

I handed the women’s formula Centrum Silver across to the gal. “I want to return these, too.”

“You want to return these, too?”

“Yep. I’ll get another coupon and buy ‘em later.”

She did as I asked and looked at me expectantly. “Oh. I want the men’s vitamins.” I guess she didn’t understand that I wanted them, but I wanted them for the right price.

She looked totally flustered. She rang them up, I paid, and left.

What’s two bucks indeed! I didn’t mind spending it, but I didn’t like giving it to Walmart!

On the way home I took a picture of this Christmassy yard. Lots of blow ups. Lots of Christmas spirit. But TRUMP in lights? I don’t get it.

“Peg, what are you doing in your glass shop?” you wanna know.

I’m making elves for Christmas. This is the first one and I’m not all that happy with it.

“Having the first draft makes it more valuable. Like the first edition of a book, or the lower the number on a print,” my beautiful friend Jody says.

She loves me.

I just hope the recipient feels the same way.

I’ve tweaked the pattern but haven’t finished a second one yet. Do you think I could make the elf’s hat different colors or should I stick with red and green? And what if I gave him a colored face, like, say, blue or green or yellow or brown?

Tiger found Smudge’s old spot on the kitchen window shelf. He can sit there and dream of his lost days of freedom. He could watch the birds at the feeder — if I had any birds at my feeders!

I’ve had the feeders out for over a month and haven’t seen any birds. Even my neighbor Sally told me on the phone a couple of weeks ago that she’s not had any birds at her feeders either.

“Maybe there’s enough seeds out there for them yet,” she mused.

Mid-week, as I got to the kitchen window, I startled a blue streak from the feeder to the fence. I quickly grabbed my camera, put the big lens on, and prayed he’d still be there when I got back.

It’s probably just a Blue Jay, I thought. I was delighted to see it was a Bluebird!

“It’s kind of late for a Bluebird to still be here,” my feisty, red-headed, beautiful Miss Rosie said. A few days later she called and told me Lamar had seen a Robin. It’s late for them, too!

I saw a couple of other birds at the feeder that day but since then, none.

Our township put the pipe under our road this week. Mike spent time down there sidewalk supervising and talking with the guys.

They reworked the ditch the whole way to the township line, which is right where the tractor is sitting. 

I want to end this week with an update on last week’s letter blog.

I talked about the Swartz family and since Larry Hill played a big part in my being able to write that story and show you those old pictures, I sent him a link to the blog, along with a note.

“If I had to do it over, I would've mentioned how hard you worked on the photos. Under pressure of my deadline, I forget things.” Blogging isn’t a job in that I get paid for it but I do like to have it done by Sunday night.

Larry’s been helping the Milton Historical Society organize and file their extensive collection of artifacts. In return they allow him to borrow and scan the old pictures. He’s spent hundreds of hours restoring and improving their quality and has done a fantastic job. I so enjoyed looking at the pictures of the town in days gone by.

I didn’t know if Larry would check out my blog or not and I didn’t really expect him to reply, but he did.

Hi Peg - took a look at your blog and can answer one of your questions. German families often used the mother's maiden name as the middle name for a child. You can see that in many places in the Milton Families section of the web site. Even in my own family I see it. Also have a g-g-g-grandfather who went by John K. Hill. We believe his given name was Johannes Kohler Hill, Kohler being his mother's maiden name. BTW, there are German Hills and UK Hills. Ours came from Scotland to Switzerland to Germany centuries ago. All of the wives' maiden names are German. They came here about 300 years ago and settled in Berks County, PA, which became too crowded by the early 1800s, forcing the younger generations to move west. Many of the German families in Milton came from Berks County or Northampton County. 

It'll be Christmastime when I write again. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

And with that, let’s call this one done!