Tamara Unleashed

July was a busy month. We traveled to Minnesota and Iowa. July has become the month for my families “Christmas gathering”. We gather for Thanksgiving and then a summer picnic. It is always a bit tricky when parents die to see if the next generation can carry the extended family forward. It helps that everyone is Iowa except for James and I and one niece. Two of my mother’s sisters are still alive, one in memory care and one in assisted living. Half of my nieces and nephews are married with kids and half are not so we still have growing to do. We are blessed.

We curtailed much of our outdoor activities due to heat and the need to rest our bodies after the big terrace build. The driveway made it through 3 modest rains and then a big rain washed it out enough that we needed to do some work again. Much of the water that is behind the terrace was routed back into the pasture but some was just diverted into our yard further down. During a daytime downpour we were able to be out and see that much of what is washing away the driveway is coming from the Magic Forest at the south end of the property. This is where I had so much fun clearing up fallen branches last fall – learning my chain saw technique and improving our view but with unintended consequence of clearing the way for water to run even faster downhill on to the top of the driveway. Next area of focus is diverting water from the Magic Forest away from the top of the driveway with long telephone poles and then planing some vegetation that absorbs water and stabilizes the soil.

We moved some furniture from the condo to The Garden and prepared both places for my brother and sister-in-laws visit. It was a GREAT opportunity to get a lot of stuff done that was on the To Do list but never quite got to the top. As a part of the 3rd floor organizing process, Craig found these two models from his old collection. He had no previous connection to Iowa and does not recall where they came from. The black and gold one is now it Iowa and we have kept the white one that is similar to his old panel truck we have in the shop. How random.

During their visit it was fun to have a small dinner party using my “new” dining room furniture that I acquired from my aunt when she downsized last fall in my renovated condo. During their visit, we went to Broadway for some day drinking; saw the Time Jumpers at 3rd and Lindsey (a must see for anyone that visits); saw Runaway June perform at the Grand Ole Opry and had some downtime watching the Olympics at The Garden. It was a great visit.

In July, I also started volunteering for Alive Hospice – a great not for profit organization out of Nashville. Craig has been volunteering for a while and he is able to use his musician skills to bring joy. So far, I have 2 patients with dementia. One is at home with her son providing most of her care and the other gentleman is in a facility. I can bake and bring treats for patient and family.

Two years ago, my friend Danny asked me if I wanted to go sky diving (tandem) with he and Brent. It was my year of “yes” so I said YES. Hang gliding was something I thought I wanted to do, but sky diving, not so much. For a variety of reasons it did not work out two years ago but it came around again about a month ago. Of course I couldn’t back out now. Craig had skydived in the military so tandem skydiving did not interest him. If he is going to sky dive, he wants to do a solo. The military jumps he did were at much lower altitude so this would be a much different experience – no back pack and weapon.

Two weeks ago, we set out to sky dive but the weather didi not cooperate. After waiting 4 plus hours for the clouds to lift we abandoned our attempt.. NO REFUNDS – just the opportunity to reschedule. We went Saturday. It happened fairly quickly so I didn’t really give it much thought beyond the weather looked good. I just prepared the way I had two weeks ago.

At no time during the entire process did I feel particularly nervous. Rationally, the instructor I was attached to with a very strong harness was very experienced. I knew they didn’t fly in potentially unsafe weather and while there is risk in any plane ride, I had accepted those risks a long time ago.

I gotI about 5 minutes of instructions as the harness was put on: once you get in the plane you sit on a bench backwards between your instructor’s legs. When we are near altitude, he attaches my harness to his. When it is our turn we slide up the bench, stand (in a crouch) and I slide my feet until they reach the edge, The instructor leans forward and you fall out of the plane. Once in the air, you hold the harness at the chest, raise chin and tilt pelvis forward and legs back (banana position). After a few seconds, instructor taps you on the shoulder and you can let arms out to sides and you simply free fall until parachute is deployed. We do a seated landing so my fears about impact on my knees went away. OK – sounded easy enough.

It was exactly that easy. While I was crouch waddling to the edge focusing on making sure my feet were at the edge (they apparently were) because the next thing I knew I was falling through the air from 12,500 feet. It was pretty cold in my T shirt but exhilarating and not at all scary. After what seemed like a long time I felt a jolt up as the parachute was deployed and we floated to a seated landing just like was described.

Getting ready

During and after

As we were free falling the instructor kept looking for me to give him a “thumbs up” so he would know I was OK. Once the parachute was deployed, we could chat. He let me steer it a bit. He asked me if I would do it again and I said I would with my partner. I found out that with Craig’s military experience, he would just have to do 2 tandem jumps and if all went well he would be cleared to do a solo without the usual weekend course.

I would do one more tandem with Craig but next I would prefer to try hang gliding.

My advice – if sky diving is on your bucket list, DO a tandem dive. NO FEAR is necessary.

On July 3rd, we went to Minneapolis to visit friends. It was a lovely day when we arrived. Warm for Minneapolis but perfect for us. We went out for walk with the dog with the goal of going downtown which was across the river from where we were. Melissa was leading the way and when we came to a bridge, she said I have always wanted to take this short cut across the river. It was a rail bridge with one track down the middle and lots of space on either side.. Melissa’s husband (a wise man) had always declined to do this with her.

It was a perfect day and we said why not. We were on Nicollet Island so the bride was not that wide. We got across easily. On the other side we were right next to the bike/walk trail which I had ridden a few times. The problem was that there was a tall chain link fence on either side of the tracks. Melissa thought there was an entrance to the tracks from the street or trail a block our two up. There wasn’t. In retrospect, it would have made no sense to have access to rail tracks in downtown Minneapolis except at a station.

So we had a choice to walk back across the rail bridge or figure out a way around the fence.

Thank goodness we found this gate with enough clearance to get underneath. Not exactly comfortable but the dust brushed right off and we went on with our walk. We did take the longer route back over the regular bridge.

With the completion of the big terrace, our stock of old wood diminished greatly. There are still some telephone poles and railroad ties but most are not in very good condition. When we picked up the 3 telephone poles needed for the terrace posts, the owner also showed us the wood from an old wooden bridge that had been replaced. Craig thought about it for a week and went back to buy all of the bridge wood and some various other pieces. We now have plenty of wood for our rustic terracing, landscaping and other needs that may come up OR just to create something interesting for fun.

The truck was unloaded and this is what we had

After a year, I have learned to ask Craig if his hearing aids are in and working before starting an important conversation. I try not to say things when my back is turned (at the sink) or when he is way across the room and we have far fewer miscommunication. I try not to say important things in passing assuming he will hear as he listens to a lot of things from his phone directly into his hearing aids and needs time to shut that off in order to hear me. For the most part it works pretty well.

Yesterday he was across the living room in the area that has a 3 story atrium when this exchange occurred.

What I said: “We have 2 social things we need to talk about.”

What he heard: “We have Truth Social things to talk about.”

His response: “if you want to talk about Truth Social you can lock yourself in the bathroom and talk to yourself.”

It helps to have random things to laugh about right now.

We started out the terrace project with 2 tomping sticks. One small diameter and one larger. The smaller one had a bit of weight in the bottom but not much. The larger one had more weight which was great for tomping in holes that it could fit which was not that many. On June 17th, we were at a point in the project where we both needed the small tomping stick. Craig disappeared to the shop and came back 20 minutes later with what he called the ‘perfect” tomping stick. It was metal and had more weight in the bottom than the PVC one. This meant it could facilitate packing just by dropping it. I didn’t have to grip it so tightly to pound it down. Craig personalized. the stick

I didn’t really notice much hand soreness until the last day of tomping. A few days earlier I had started crocheting a blanket in the evening. I am guessing the two activities requiring gripping of the right hand contributed to the right hand aching and mild swelling I have been experiencing for the past 5 days. Ibuprofen helps but I avoided practicing the bass guitar because I don’t want to further inflame the joints and tissues.

The blanket is almost finished so once its done I will try to rest my hand for the next couple of weeks and come back to the guitar when I do not have pain. While I am making progress on the guitar, it is slow and I don’t need any negative associations (pain) with practice. I was able to play a couple of songs with Craig pretty well until I started to learn appropriate technique. As I focus on getting the technique right, I have trouble keeping up with the song. Now I spend my practice time doing exercises. Not a lot of fun, but necessary.

One thing is for sure, older joints are not as resilient as younger joints and I am just going to have to be patient . I do not want chronic pain in my hands. I was wearing padded gloves and using wrist braces but with the combined activities, I irritated the joints anyway. Moving forward I will just have to be more careful. We may have a few more post-holes to dig and fill but the need will be spread over time – nothing like what we just did.

Craig took a bit of an issue with me calling myself and excellent “tomper” after one day of tomping and I do have to admit that I learned nuances to the technique throughout the process.

I am now very comfortable stating that I am an excellent tomper who needs to take better care of my hands. When my hands are better, I will prioritize bass guitar practice over crocheting to minimize the repetitive stress injury..

As we were getting to know each other, Craig was clear that he did not cook. I shared that I could cook but because I still had impaired taste and smell I had a limited menu. For myself, it wasn’t worth spending much time preparing what I couldn’t enjoy. Also I told him I ate fish and dairy but I did not eat or cook meat.

By the time we had our first in person meeting on July 16th, we were well acquainted and way beyond a “first date”. I prepared an apple pie, a quiche and some pecan mini pies and off I went.

My food passed the test and as we spent more time together I gradually expanded my repertoire beyond air-fried vegetable medley, pan fried fish and packaged salads. Craig liked a lot of flavor – particularly picked jalapeños in about everything which was fine with me, He was very appreciated of every meal I prepared for him.

I am particularly fond of the ease packaged salads. I add fresh spinach or mixed greens and sometimes other veggies to the what is in the package. I never really paid much attention to what the ingredients actually were as I like pretty much all veggies and Craig seemed fine.with the salads.

About 2 months ago, Craig mentioned that he did not like raw cabbage in green salads. As I never added cabbage I didn’t think that much about it. He mentioned It again a couple of weeks later and I started looking at the packages and realized that most of the packages have cabbage as the main ingredient – OOPS. So I started looking for packages that have no or minimal cabbage (not that many of these exist).

Two weeks ago, Craig indicated that while he likes almost all vegetables, he detests radishes and he was tasting something in the salad that he thought was radishes. So I checked the package label again and while there were no radishes, the last ingredient was radicchio. While radicchio is a type of cabbage and unrelated to a radish, it definitely has a strong and bitter taste that even I can appreciate..

When I was preparing dinner last night I realized the salad mix had radicchio. I was not in a hurry so I plucked it out of the salad. When Craig came in I asked him if he wanted to know how much I loved him after one year.

I told him “an 1/8th of a cup of radicchio.”

While eating things he did not really enjoy, raw cabbage in green salad and radicchio for nearly a year did not harm Craig in any way, I am glad he finally shared his preferences with me.

Just before Memorial Day, Craig took his trailer to Nashville to deliver finished pieces furniture to schools for Nashville Tools for Schools. When they dropped this unstained picnic table off, the principal wanted to know if they would haul away the one they were replacing (below).

Craig thought it would be a great project for me and brought it home. I did a previous blog about the renovation process. I thought the old table had been stained so I wanted to stain it again. When it was done, we took it back to Tools for Schools. The guys were quite impressed with my (our) work. They contacted the school to see if they wanted it back and they did.

I wasn’t able to go with them when it was delivered. The principal was very impressed and wanted to know why this one was so much nicer looking than the new one that had been delivered in May..AWKWARD.

I still have lots to learn. It turns out what we renovated had not been stained. it was just discolored, weathered wood.

Sunday when we finished working on the terrace we had compacted several layers of gravel between the pasture fence and the poles knowing we wanted to add gravel to near the top of the poles. When Monday rolled around we were exhausted and our hands were aching so we thought we would not come back to the terrace until Thursday. as there was no rain predicted until the end of the week. We went to see live music in Nashville Monday night and massages in Nashville on Tuesday. Wednesday was one year from our first communication and we planned a quiet day..

We had planned to take Wednesday off to celebrate and reflect on our relationship’s first year. Around 11 AM Craig checked the weather and saw that a thunderstorm with 2″ of rain was predicted that evening. We did not think the terrace was ready for much rain so we went out and compacted at least 7 more layers of gravel. We finished about a half hour before the rain was predicted. While it is unclear how high the gravel needs to be, we decided it was good enough for the night. Once the rain started we went out to watch the terrace. It was a little hard to know compare to previous rains because the ground on this side of terrace is so distorted from all of the work, but there did not appear to be any flow of water over the terrace. The rain soaked the soil not protected by the trees and eventually pooled enough to start running down hill but it was much less than what I had observed previously. Craig thought he saw some water tracking under the terrace and he ended the evening thinking all of the work may not have helped that much. I couldn’t quite “see” what he was concerned about and was optimistic.

This morning, after confirming we had gotten over 2 inches of rain between 6 PM and midnight with 2 episodes of really hard rain, I cautiously looked at the driveway. To my delight, it was in MUCH better shape than it had been after the 4 previous storms. It seems that all of the work we put into the terrace made a significant difference.

I was not expecting it to make so much of a difference and Craig who is naturally more of a pessimist than I am, is not sure one storm is enough of a test. Time will tell.

I am excited to continue with our terracing work so we can move on to adding top soil and planting grass and flowers to protect it.

Fingers crossed.

My newly discovered enjoyment of gardening (speciifically weeding) came to an abrupt halt with the big downpour on May 26 that washed out the driveway for the 4th time this spring. Our attention turned to starting the terrace project that we had talked about needing to do. We had planned pm expanding our deck and adding a hot tub as our project for early summer because it would be entirely in the shade and the hot tub would be therapy for our sore muscles as we engage in all of our big projects.

My research for what to plant around the house, trees and yard was put on hold as well. It is way more complicated than I thought and until we have the terracing done around the house, plants are premature. My enjoyment of weeding is not diminished. There are a few weeds popping up through the mulch at the base of the trees so I still have an opportunity to go after a few. But, as expected, it is much less enjoyable in the heat and humidity and dry soil than it was in April and May.

One of my favorite days of weeding was on April 26. I was listening to the tbook Remarkably Bright Creatures and blissfully weeding under a tree when I found a metal wire that turned out to be a metal heart. I cleaned it up and Craig hung it at the edge of the deck. It goes perfectly with the “enlightened hillbilly” rustic motif of The Garden. As we were admiring it, we realized it was our 10 month anniversary.