The other night we went to the Songwriter’s Rounds at the Commodore Grill in Nashville. We have been going to these over the past 6 months while Craig was working through his nerves about getting up on stage again. He played a lot as a teen and young adult in front of audiences and then mainly with friends. He moved from Prescott AZ to Nashville because of opportunity to be around and play with great musicians.
Thursday night was the first night I heard someone perform at these venues that I was like I HAVE to hear her again – Valierie Ellis-Hawkins (her first name is not misspelled). She is native to Nashville. Her husband Joe Hawkins is also a singer songwriter. His performance was excellent but there was something about Valierie that “spoke” to me. Because of the unusual spelling of her name, I was unable to find her online so I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone and meet her. I spoke with a friend that was with her first as Valierie was speaking to someone else and she told me how to spell her name. I joined Instagram so I could follow her.
To be clear, I have been a groupie for over 20 years for Natalie and for over a year for my man Craig but this is a total stranger. A new experience. I hope to see her again soon in a venue where she plays more than 3 songs.
While I was a surgeon, I don’t think I ever cut myself in the OR, but I not infrequently cut myself in the kitchen. Generally not too bad and pressure and a well placed band aid or two are enough. With one cut, I should have gone to get it sutured (and knew it) but decided not to. I ended up with having to have it area cauterized (which is no fun). So I learned a “bit” of a lesson.
Monday night I was trying to clean up the kitchen after a long day of painting while preparing 3 different dishes on the stove and lost track of one of the knives. I generally, wash and rinse knives without leaving them in the sink to prevent exactly what happened. The sharp knife I use the most was laid in the rinse sink. I didn’t see it (as it was on end with sharp side up) until I had sliced my right index finger very near the nail. I knew it was a deep cut and I should go get stitches but….
After my last misadventure, I went to CVS to improve our first aid supplies and I saw this kit. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was but thought it might be worth the $18. Fortunately, after I cut myself Monday, I remembered this kit. Opening it and reading the instructions while keeping pressure on the finger tip was a bit tricky. Fortunately Craig was here to help. Between his big fingers on the little pieces for wound closure and the rapid bleeding it was almost comical. We got one to stick enough; the second in place (sort of) and then quickly wrapped it with paper tape to help keep it from bleeding. I tried not to wrap it tight enough to cut off blood supply to the finger. The tape seemed to stop the bleeding.
I then dished up dinner and we ate and watched football. There were no signs of bleeding and while I could feel pressure from the tape, I did not have pain. After going to bed, the finger started throbbing so I knew I needed to release some of the pressure. I took off the top layer of tape and was relieved when there was no bleeding.
The next morning, I knew I needed to see what was going on under the tape and likely get stitches so I went to a Vanderbilt Walk-In Clinic after I finished my work at Tools for Schools. They had be soak off the dressing and I told the nurse I was worried that it would really bleed when the dressing came off. After it soaked awhile, there was no indication that it was going to “soak off” so I gingerly started to unravel the tape.
As I got closer and closer, relieving all of the pressure, I noted there was no bleeding. When I took off the bandage the little things to secure the edges of the wound came off as well. Much to my amazement and the physician who came in, the wound was completely sealed and in fact it was a bit hard to see the actual cut. She soaked in antibiotic solution and but a liquid bandage on it.
This picture is 48 hours after the injury. Yesterday (4 days after the injury), I caulked and painted and used the finger as I normally would and the wound is almost not noticeable today.
I thought I would not be able to practice my bass guitar for a week or so, but I will get started tomorrow.
I highly recommend having one of these kits in every home.
We are now free of brown paint on walls and trim in the house. It has been an amazing transformation and like many small projects (“let’s pain the brown wall white”) it evolved into a much bigger project. All that is left is a second coat of white paint on the brown trim on the second floor (which is visible from the first floor).
The brown wall is white, the trim is all white, some trim boards along stairs and between living room ceiling and atrium (that were the same wood as the rails and different widths) are now the same width and white. The look is much cleaner. The front wall is now “aristocratic” blue. Craig and I disagreed on the color selection for this wall. I thought a shade of green framing the trees outside would look awesome but green is not a tolerable color for Craig (something to do with his years in the army). So we got rid of all of the brown for me and he has his blue wall. After we had the blue wall, he decided the door needed to be blue as well. I was less clear about how that would look but I like it. It is very nice to have our living space mostly cleaned up.
The 2 pictures above are what the space looked like for the past 3 weeks.
We have been discussing how to make better use of the space that is currently the kitchen, laundry room and unnecessary space wasting hallway and this morning, I finally visualized it and my visualization was pretty close to Craig’s thoughts after our multiple discussions over the past year. We will gain an entry (at numeral 1 – upper left) into a “mudroom” so when we are dirty we do not have to enter into the living room and a walk in pantry for kitchen and storage in the mudroom/laundry room for all of our outdoor coats and shoes. . I am so EXCITED Below is a rough drawing that will get more specific over next few weeks.
The best part of today is that Craig now has his practice area set up again so he can start preparing to play at a songwriters round in the very near future. We have been preparing for this for past 6 months and I am thrilled that he is gradually getting over his reluctance. From what I have seen he is far better than many of those that routinely play at the songwriters rounds. I might be a little biased but not that much.
I was aware of Hurricane Helene. I wondered what its path would be across land. Thursday morning I decided to look at the prediction. S___T! The path was predicted to go directly across this area – with us in the center of the path. We were NOT ready for heavy rain.
After completion of the big terrace the end of June, we had been putting off further work on rain water diversion until it got cooler instead focusing on painting over the brown wall and trim in the main living area. We were psyched to complete it on Thursday as we were tired of the painting clutter/chaos.
However, we changed gears and went into full water diversion mode. Since we built the terrace we had a couple of heavy rains that suggested that we needed to divert water flowing through the magic forest and down the top of the driveway. To attack this we needed LONG straight pieces of wood. We looked for 20-25 foot telephone poles but there were none within 100 miles. As there were several down cedar trees in the magic forest, Craig decided we should just repurpose those instead of using telephone poles.
Craig started doing measurements, deciding which trees we should use where and removing branches. in the meantime I was digging 4 inch trenches where we wanted to lay the logs. Two of the logs needed to be on our side of the fence which meant maneuvering the trucks through the gate. It could’have been easy if we could use Katie to lift them over the fence but there were trees along the fence preventing the easy way.
While I was digging trenches and breaking up roots, I kept wondering how Craig was planning on getting the long trucks through the hole in the fence. By mid afternoon, Craig turned over the branch removal on the last trunk to me while he got ready to move the trunks. It was around 5 when we were ready to move the trunks. Fortunately the rain originally predicted for 5 held off until 8 PM. It is amazing what Craig can do with a small tractor, a hook and a lot of ingenuity. We used Katie to position the trunks through the gate at just the right angle and maneuvered it forward (from behind) as far as he could. He then moved Katie and pulled it into place.
It was dark as we were getting last trunk in place and the ground was too low in the center so water could go underneath. There was no time to fix it as it was dark and the rain was almost here so I laid some smaller limbs in the low area hoping they would combine to help divert/slow down the water. I stopped at 730 PM while Craig worked another 30 minutes to get a better “fit” on the main trunk inside the gate.
While I thought I was keeping up on fluids during the day, I was not. I was so sore I could barely go up and down the steps. I forced fluids, gatorade and took Motrin and was not all that stiff on Friday but we were both really WIPED OUT. It rained steady for about 40 hours – most was moderately heavy. We did not have that much wind. From what we could see from indoors yesterday, it looked like there was much less water running down the top of the driveway. We were hopeful there would be less washout of the driveway.
Late this morning, after the rain had stopped, I went out to explore and was so excited to see that the area that in the past would have been a canyon was just a gully. The driveway was intact. We were lucky that the path of the storm was more to the east so we were at the edge rather than in the center of the path.
We still have two more logs to move in place one at the top of the driveway and one just below where we built the terrace and then we can start bringing in some soil to replace what has been lost and use berms, retaining walls and plants to help retain our soil.
We will repair the driveway again – with much more confidence that it will not wash out in a major way again.
After my last post Craig versus Gilda, he spent another full day “under the hood” so to speak with extra maintenance work making sure he was selling the best version of a 1957 tractor. He said he was done for the day and went out to close up the shop. The next thing I knew I heard Gilda and I went out to enjoy his farewell to Gilda ride.
Three days later, Craig had one more ride – driving her onto Patrick’s trailer. He was thrilled with Gilda and assured us that she would continue to be known as Gilda.
Now we have been able to move on to other projects. In order to expand our deck for the hot tub, some of the adjacent land on full of tree roots needed to be removed. A part to the project is creating better drainage for the rain spouts away from the house. This will involve building a retaining wall and we will likely continue our telephone pole motif. Thankfully, this will be way less complicated that the one we built the end of June.
After doing some digging for repair work on the foundation, Craig decided to see if Katie the Kioti could be of assistance in clearing the dirt/roots for the deck. Much to his surprise, she worked beautifully. So a many day activity of manually breaking through tree roots turned into an afternoon.
We can almost visualize the hot tub. While the outdoor work was proceeding I was working indoors to brighten up the living room which had a very brown wall. Ten years ago Craig did the painstaking work of cutting the brown against the white ceilings and adjacent walls. He carefully selected the shade of brown to match his brown leather furniture so I think it was bitter sweet to see it painted over. I expanded by spackling, caulking and painting skills. Below is just the base layer of white to cover the brown. While I am visiting family in Iowa, the final white coat is going on, including the wall that is 3 stories high in the entry atrium. I am kind of glad I was not there to watch him go up and down the ladder for the high areas. At least this time the wall and ceiling are the same color. It is highly unlikely these walls will need to be painted again.
Gilda is Craig’s 57 International Harvester tractor that was replaced with Katie Kiota last December. Getting Gilda ready for a new home has been on the “to do” list since March. Craig brought Gilda back to life after it have been sitting unused for 20 years. It has taken A LOT of work over the past decade to keep her going – including fabricating pieces that could no longer be replaced at a reasonable price. For the past 3 days he has been working to get her in tip-top running order. Sunday, it appeared that Gilda got the best of him when he came in.
I finally got my chance to give Gilda a “spin” on Sunday. The hardest part was getting up into the seat. Craig had it in first gear so all I had to do was slowly release the clutch, steer and brake. Nothing to it. While I am sure with enough time I could learn to use the front loader, I am glad we now have Katie. Hopefully we can find Gilda a new home while the stars are aligned and she is working well mechanically.
Craig and I just passed 14 months of partnership. It has been an amazing 14 months. It has been fun to look back through our photos and see how much life we have experienced together. Last night, after he got out of the shower, he asked me where my flip flops were. I put them on as he invited me to go outside to swing. It was sunset and rather than giving into the voice in my head that was going “don’t do it, the mosquitos will eat you alive” I accepted the invitation.
It was spontaneous, it was fun and it was joyful remembering our early swinging experiences as children. Unbelievably, there were NO bugs out and I did not get one bite. I hope we remember to swing more often.
The terrace we built the end of June looks like it has always been there. I love looking at it and knowing we created it. Fortunately, we have had dry weather the past month and have not lost more soil. Our current plan is to locate some long (20 foot) phone polls and put them along 2 edges of the pasture where the water runs on to our sloping yard and divert it back into the pasture or into a gully along the other edge of the property and AWAY from the driveway. Then we can make plans landscaping and plantings of various sorts to stabilize the slope/soil and hopefully the driveway. There are SOOO many options to consider it is overwhelming.
After the sprint to complete the terrace, we both had some repetitive stress injuries in our hands and wrists so it worked well to minimize strenuous activities outdoors during July and August. That was good for the body but when combined with too much time for politics, not so good for mental health. After visiting friends at Lake Towaway, NC last week, it is time to get back to work.
I was so excited to get my work clothes on and help unload all of the old bridge wood from the trailer. Some of the word will be used for structural needs (hot tub enclosure) and much will be used for landscaping soil erosion prevention. Either way, we do not want nails sticking out of the pieces of wood so before we unloaded each piece, it was inspected for nails and most nails were removed. If they couldn’t be removed, they were pounded in so we shouldn’t injure ourselves.
While the temperature was in the 90’s, the humidity was pretty low so working in the shade was pretty comfortable.
Next I am going to tackle painting the brown living room wall antique white while it is still hot outside and then be ready for deck sanding and staining, deck expansion and landscaping as it starts to cool off.
I have been going to blog for a few weeks but I have so many swirling thoughts and feelings that I haven’t been able to. Since I left clinical practice in 2002, I have followed politics more than ever before. After retirement, I stopped cable in part to separate myself from MSNBC. I stayed adequately informed through online news sources, friends, etc. Craig spent a lot more time monitoring the news than I did until the first presidential debate and then I got drawn in BIG TIME. It has been an exhausting 2 months from the dread that Trump would win the election to the elation of last week’s DNC where Kamala demonstrated she has what it takes to be President. Now we face 2 plus months of hope and fear.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling sad and as I tried to figure out why I came to the conclusion that I was jealous of the relationship that Kamala Harris and Michele Obama had with their mothers. I was so enthralled with both of their speeches. The content and the delivery. OMG.
I was sad because I couldn’t really think of anything my mother said that represented wisdom or guidance. She was a hardworking woman – teaching Kindergarten, going to school for her 4 year degree in the evenings, attending year round sporting events for 3 sons while raising 5 kids. There really wasn’t much time for conversation. I was a astute observer and didn’t really require much direction. I didn’t like getting into trouble so I stayed out of it. We didn’t. I really fight. There wouldn’t have been much to fight about. I didn’t want anything unrealistic and I helped her keep the house clean and family fed. My relationship with my mom seemed pretty similar to what I observed of my friends except for perhaps one or two who seemed to have a fondness for their mothers and shared things with them.
Our relationship changed and perhaps got closer after I had James. I could not have made it through residency without her willingness to be provide as much child care as we needed. One time when James was sick, she took time off from teaching to take care of him, because I certainly was not going to take time off from residency for a sick child. She became a wonderful grandmother at the same time she became an empty nester. While James gave us a comfortable topic of conversation but I don’t think our relationship deepened in any meaningful way. My mother’s mother died when she was in her mid twenties with 3 little kids. From what I understand, her mother was not a warm person. I can only guess that she treated me much as she was treated by her mother.
I am still processing all of the emotions stirred by the convention. We want to take action, but Tennessee is not a place with much of a chance of making a difference. I fantasize that if enough women come out Gloria Johnson can defeat Marsha Blackburn, but Craig assures me THAT is a fantasy. In early October Craig and I will put together a plan of action for supporting the election. We will likely go to a swing state where are efforts will have more of an impact.
In the meantime, I will keep busy with projects at The Garden and try not to spend TOO much on the political roller coaster.
Tamara Unleashed 