Six Things Making Me Smile Today

Valentine's Day is a good time to feel happy and I am.  Here's six things that have made me smile recently. 

1.  Another journal quilt done!  On Friday I hope to tell you about this one and another one I recently finished.   

2.  Ben and I did a killer hike today, a 3.5 mile loop up to Saddle Rock and back.  See the rock formation to the right of Ben?  Not the one way up on top, but the lower one?  Getting up there involved trekking up many (many!) wooden stair steps, now covered with snow.  Not much ice, thankfully, but still an adventure.  

Once we got up all those snow covered steps and were on the back side of the rock formation we looped around through the woods which was beautiful and very peaceful in the snow.  Those poles I have aren't for skiing or snowshoeing, they are just hiking poles.  I was happy and excited that I not only could do this hike but could really enjoy it.  Switzerland, here we come!  

3.  I sure do love having crampons in the snow and ice.  Here's my red ones; you can see how once you pull them on there are chains on the bottom of you foot, giving you tons of traction.  Getting them on takes a bit of work, but it's worth it.

Here's Ben's brand new pair.  He doesn't have to pull his on.  His pair just strap onto his shoes.  And he doesn't have chains, but rather screws, which oddly enough, give him equally good traction. No matter how they are made, crampons are a necessity for hiking in the foothills during the winters here and I love them.

4.  The local newspaper ran a great article about our good friend Ray and his cocktail bitters company.  It was a treat to read this morning.  Paul works for Ray part time, helping bottle up the product and ship it out to bars, restaurants, and liquor stores across the country.   Ben has also been a big help the past couple of years, though he's phasing out now that Paul is working the line.   

Daily Camera photograph 

Click here to read the article

5.  I'm enjoying watching Paul tackle a big project.  He decided to replace the various pieces of furniture that hold his two computers and three screens with one streamlined, long desk.  Of course, he couldn't afford to buy this new, improved setup, so he's making it.  He got some metal table legs from someone getting rid of some tables, brought them home and sanded and painted them a nice metallic black.  Now he's making the table top, nine feet of boards "bread boarded" together into one solid top.  When I last looked he was drilling "kreg" holes so he could screw the boards together.  I asked him how he learned to do that and he said "by watching videos."  Of course, Dad's been a help, too.  You go, kid. 

6.  But the big thing making me smile is the "no problem found" report I got this past week after being tested for "silent GERD," a type of acid reflux.  I saw an ENT doctor who gently and without any pain to me threaded a flexible tube with a camera on the end of it down my nose and into my throat to see what was going on down there.  And a few days later the GI doctor put another tube and camera into my mouth and down, down, down all the way to my stomach (I was blissfully in dreamland for that little excursion.)  And neither saw any evidence of acid reflux, much less damage from it.  Hooray!  Nothing bad going on in those body parts. Having reflux is no picnic, with nasty dietary restrictions (no wine, chocolate, coffee or citrus for a while!) and medicines and the threat of esophageal or throat cancer, so not having it sure is a relief 

Still, there's the question of why I've been clearing my throat and coughing so much the past two years.  Of course, I've been working with the allergist on this matter as well, and the ENT doctor decided that the steroid inhaler the allergist prescribed might be aggravating my cough, so he took me off of it.  Hip, hip, hooray!  I really haven't like that medicine at all, so I'm glad to see it go.  He did give me a prescription for a cough suppressant and another one for acid reflux, just in case I have a mild case which isn't showing anything on the tests I took.  The cough suppressant is already helping,  for which not only I but my family and friends will surely be grateful.  Next step, get a swallow test to see if some kind of swallowing issue is involved.   As they say, "It's a process."  

Wishing you a fun Valentine's Day.  We're having dinner here with friends and I not only got Ben a card but I also found a gift I'm sure he'll like, as well!  

Linking to my friend, Lee Anna's, "I Like Thursday" blog, celebrating the small but important joyful aspects of daily life as a counterpart to the constant drumroll of news and politics.