Tag: Health

All things medical, including subjects of nutrition, exercise, pain, self-care, and caretaking

Talking about My Brothers

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The interesting thing that happened today, in addition to getting my 10,000 steps

was a phone conversation with my cousin who loves to study and talk with others about relationships. I had to think about how to express what she loves to do, and I’m not sure I’ve got it just right. She wants to learn what it takes to have good relationships with other people in order to love well. She and her husband have helped others through Marriage Encounter workshops, and she is also the person who comes to any family event armed with questions to spark discussions. She likes hearing what others have to say. And don’t we all feel good when someone wants to hear us?

Today’s question worth thinking about was “what does it mean to be a good sibling?” I have four brothers, and I would call all of them good. It was an interesting exercise to define and talk about what “good” meant.

We are not above wearing cheesy reunion T-shirts for the sake of family togetherness.

Although we Smiths grew up together, we have gone our separate ways, lived our very different lives, in different parts of the country. We all have families of our own. Because we are talking about siblings, not friends or business associates or any other connection, making family of origin a priority has to be part of the definition. I love that my brothers, from time to time, have all taken the initiative to connect with each other, with parents and with me. We visit each other and make it a priority to be at family reunions and landmark events. We don’t stalk each other. We don’t demand to know every detail of each other’s lives, but when there is something to talk about, we are pretty sure we can find a family member who will take the time to be a good listener. We want to help each other when there is a crisis.

My Dad died a few years ago, and I love the way my brothers have taken care of Mom since then, each in their own special way. My youngest brother’s wife died this year and there we all were, wanting to share the loss and grieve together. One of my daughters had a pandemic wedding this fall and once again, family showed up to help and witness the special event.

Because we have met often over the years, our children know each other and have a special regard for family as well. They try to make sure that no one gets left out of the “cousin club”. I am so proud of all my nieces and nephews for their efforts to stay connected even as they have started their own families and gotten very busy.

Proud of the way the next generation of cousins has stepped up to honor family.

My brothers and their families are all interesting people and we have a common history. Those things should be more than enough reasons to want to know each other, to initiate and pursue connection. We aren’t doing it perfectly but we are learning as we go. It’s fun.

I would wish that everyone could have the blessing of good relationships between siblings, or other family members. I know sometimes it isn’t the case because living as family is a complex, and often messy business. I am glad today that I took time to think about how I can be a good sibling to my brothers. It is a topic worth much thought, just sayin’.

The Next Steps

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Yesterday was a different kind of exercise day. None of my steps were expressly for the purpose of getting exercise. They were all “on the job”, and included upper body and balance work.

I didn’t get an exact count but I carried 30 plus boxes of various sizes and weights down 15 steep stairs, through the house and garage and deposited them in a trailer. Stairs can be tricky, and these did not have a very wide tread and I tried a couple different methods, depending on the size of the box and whether I could see over it. I really didn’t mind the work, knowing that I was working on two different goals at the same time.

Six out of the last seven, yay me!

Yesterday wasn’t a 10,000 step day, it was 5,000, but that is fine. The thing that I love about being the age that I am, is that I can be flexible, and I can give myself grace when I don’t meet my own benchmarks. Today, December 12th, I am back on track with 10,000. Overall this month, I’ve exercised some every day, and made my goal for six days. There were a few days at the beginning before I started using the phone app to track progress, so it might have been more than six days. I am good with that.

As the month wears on I’m becoming more aware of exercise as just one part of life. It’s important and it takes effort to plan it into my schedule. Some days are full of appointments, responsibilities, and the demands of living a balanced life. There are other activities necessary to a happy life that get postponed when I’m on an exercise kick. Early in the day, I have to think about where to fit in that walk. Because it’s dark so much of the time, that walk might have to be on the treadmill at some weary time of night. Adopting this level of activity as a permanent lifestyle is going to be a challenge. It will probably be altered from time to time – thus my philosophy about giving grace. I like being kind, to myself as well as others.

Even this moving stream ices over on the edges.

I walked early this morning around the wetlands and it was cold. Most of the wetland trail is on open land around the edges of an extensive marsh. There aren’t many windbreaks and today the breeze was from the north, off an iceberg up there somewhere. I was warm enough under my coat but it wasn’t a long coat and my upper legs got tingly and then numb. I kept my hat pulled down and my collar pulled up and didn’t lift my head to look around very often. All of that and the steady cadence of walking does something to fire up my creative neurons (all half dozen of them). I get all kinds of ideas to be excited about. Walking does that and it is one of the best reasons to walk.

Help Me Be Determined

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So what exactly does that mean, helping someone (me) to be determined? I guess it’s another way of describing the call for accountability. I am at my top weight ever, and I am determined it will not go higher. Having some watchful eyes on my efforts might just help.

There is something about the start of a new month that inspires me. A month is a long enough time to establish a habit and really make a difference. December is a new month, or at least it was five days ago. I dusted off the treadmill and took a walk, and it felt okay. I did the same thing at the same time on December 2 and 3. I want to do this at least five days each week, and maybe get in a pleasure walk outside a couple of times too. Outside = pleasure, treadmill = not pleasure, for me. But I can make it work. I have to make it work. When I’m at my top weight, my blood pressure starts to go up and since there is a family history of hypertension, I am being scared into action.

December is a great month to do something for health’s sake. I know, it’s a holiday month and for many that means holiday food is everywhere, but this year might be different. Pandemic December is not ordinary December. Why wait until New Years Day to start a project that could eventually save my life?

Is anyone else doing something different this year, something that is good for you? Getting more sleep, eating more vegetables, intentionally pursuing good humor, daily brain stimulation, learning something new, doing good deeds? Not everything, just one thing. That’s what I want to do, and I’d love to be held accountable through the month of December, as I share progress here. Help me.

I promise to faithfully share this screen (Samsung health app) no matter how much it embarrasses me. Goal talk coming tomorrow.

Vitamins

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This was written February 18, 2011 but surprisingly, not much has changed. Our vitamin experiment is in its eighth year. So far, we have both gotten older and are wearing out. This will have to go into the book about the husband…

Have you taken your vitamins today? I haven’t. I’m having a morning cup of coffee. I’m so thankful they’ve discovered some antioxidants in it along with the caffeine. I have probably survived this long because there are antioxidants in my coffee. I can taste them and they are good.

There is an experiment going on at my house. It’s the Grand Vitamin Survival Experiment.

Both Dennis, my husband, and I have read a lot of books about nutrition and have some newsletter subscriptions to Mayo Clinic and several vitamin companies and as a result we do think there are some marvelous discoveries out there – magical things in our foods that were designed to make our bodies function at their peak of performance. I don’t doubt this at all and the evidence of malnutrition is out there for anyone to see. The questionable part is this – are we really capturing that magical element and transferring it unharmed into a pill? And, assuming that, if we’ve already ruined our bodies, will taking the pill help us?

There are so many untrustworthy types out there and 98% of them have a vitamin company… The good thing is, we don’t really have to know if vitamins will help us, we just have to be able to afford them, eat them, and hope they don’t kill us. If we’ve covered enough bases, they might help. This brings me to the experiment.

One of us at my house is covering ALL the bases. The other one of us can’t remember to take vitamins two days in a row. Which one of us will die first?

Okay, I’m the one who can’t remember to take the vitamins. It’s a fear/hate thing.  I “fear” macular degeneration, heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, blah, blah… so I think of the bottles of lutein and zeaxanthin up in the cupboard and take them, sporadically. 

On the days when my hands HURT (not just hurt) I get out the arthritis support and pain relief magical elements and take them – also sporadic. Is it merely a memory problem? No, I remember my coffee without any trouble.

 It’s the non-foodishness of them that I can’t get past. If you wanted people to eat something you were selling, would you make it like a small rock, with sharp edges? We spit out cherry pits and watermelon seeds. Why do they think we would swallow these things that leave furrows down our throats, get stuck halfway down and dissolve for the next three hours on the delicate lining of our esophagus? You don’t have to tell me all the tricks either. I’m a nurse – I’ve ground up every pill there is and polluted good applesauce with the powder. That’s the “hate” part when my applesauce gets ruined.

So back to the experiment – Dennis has a supplement/vitamin for every part of his body and every function possible. We have a three shelf cupboard in the kitchen devoted entirely to bottles of pills. New ones arrive by UPS on a regular basis.  It takes a good five minutes to dish them out which he does faithfully a couple times a day. He has to have a special bowl to contain them and I have no idea how he eats them all and still has room for a meal.

And on the other extreme I sit with my cup of coffee and whatever I can eat in the car while I’m driving back and forth to work. Who will survive longest? 

Unfortunately, it’s the cumulative effect over long, long periods of time in which vitamins produce the most difference. WHAT KIND OF EXPERIMENT IS THAT!? I want to know now, or at least in five or ten years.

I’m just glad it’s the weekend and I get to have a second cup of coffee.

He has managed to cut down – most of them fit into this very full box… most of them.

Countdown to Monday 10-14-2019

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It’s evening and I’ve just finished watching a video of a surgery that I’m going to have next Monday. If you faint at the sight of cutting and bleeding, don’t click this link Basilar Thumb Joint Arthroplasty with LRTI, but know that it is a good surgery with a high success rate. It’s also probably the most common surgery done worldwide. It is called CMC arthroplasty and ligament reconstruction. Simply put, if all goes well, they are fixing my painful thumb joint.

I’ve encountered a number of people who have arthritis in the basal thumb joint so I know it is common, especially among women. I want to do a few posts on this experience, mostly to inform, but also to work out the pain of the recovery period. Writing is helpful to me when I’m in pain or stressed because it ascribes purpose to what I’m going through. I hadn’t heard of or considered this surgery until a couple of months ago and there might be others, in the same situation, who will find my account helpful.

It’s not known why some people get this problem and others don’t. My thumb pain started several years ago. I have treated it with NSAIDs, with cortisone injection, and with platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections (a precursor in the stem cell therapy family). Of all these, the thing that has been most helpful is the thumb brace recommended by the PRP therapist.

A large part of my problem has been the loosening of ligaments that normally stabilize the thumb. Loose ligaments have allowed more movement and that causes more pain. The Push thumb brace holds my thumb firmly in place and keeps that joint stable – it’s been protecting me from the most unbearable pain for two years now. I have recommended it to others and they have also loved it.

Unfortunately, the pain is now more constant and not only the result of movement. It is time for a more permanent fix. The surgery is outpatient, but it will be with general anesthesia. I’m not allowed to drive myself home so my youngest daughter has generously arranged to come and help with the day of surgery and the first week. I’m hoping the fun of her visit will greatly distract me from what my poor hand will be feeling.

Check back tomorrow and I’ll describe what medical science has come up with in this remarkably successful procedure.

Being Your Own Health Advocate: Food

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I can see a series of posts taking form on this subject, since I don’t want any of them to be overly long. I’m going to keep coming back to the subject because my passion is growing…

It’s fuel.

Food is fuel.

I don’t cook for fun. I cook because people have to eat. It’s more about fuel for life than what it used to be – for me anyway.

I didn’t used to think about food very much at all in my younger years. If it tasted good, I ate it. I knew about the rudiments of nutrition and ate what I thought was good for me, along with other things that I knew probably weren’t. My philosophy was that happiness was like a medicine, and if a food made me happy, it was probably canceling out any poor nutritional qualities. I had the benefit of growing up on a farm where my family grew/raised a lot of unprocessed food too. I was seldom sick and never had a problem with weight control.

For a few years in the early 2000’s I worked for the FNP, Food and Nutrition Program, of the University Extension Service of the University of Florida. I started taking the Food Pyramid, dictated by the government food police (kidding) into elementary schools and teaching it to youngsters. I taught Nutrition and Food Preparation to young mothers in a Head Start program. I started becoming aware of the problems Americans were having with food. Obesity at young ages, hyperactivity and ADHD were prevalent in so many schoolrooms.  Even when presented with a decent school lunch, children were turning up their noses and throwing away the most nutritious foods. Often families in trouble with Social Services were being court ordered to learn how to prepare meals to feed their children properly.

By default, people were eating the Standard American Diet, acronym SAD, and it was sad. When I started having health problems that I could relate to diet and lifestyle, I started getting a bit more serious about what I fed myself.  The overweight husband also developed problems with blood pressure and needed medicines which were hard to regulate. Friends and family members started getting diagnoses of GERD and cancer and diabetes. Time started wearing out our natural defenses. I began to hear more about food as therapy. I also began hearing about how many times nutritional advice was influenced by factors other than benefits to health – like, who decides what the Food Pyramid looks like and funny how it keeps changing…

I guess what I think now can be illustrated with the example of a machine, say a really nice new car.  If I take it in on schedule to be serviced I’m doing good. But, the thing that I do most often, and that will make the most difference, is to put fuel in it. Different cars have different fuel requirements that are important to follow. If I put in a grade of gasoline other than what is recommended for clean burning, I’m going to see problems after a while. Waste products build up in the engine.  The car gets sick.

Friends, readers, we are that complex, finely designed machine. Our computer, our emissions systems, our energy production equipment, our whole body is affected by every little thing we put in our mouth.

We are designed to take a lot of nutritional abuse – there are buffering systems, safeguards of all kinds in place – but sooner or later those back-up systems will have taken all the abuse that they can. If we don’t want to be sick or prematurely dead, we must study what’s happening in our “machine” with the fuels we use.

This was the beginning of my journey into food research and the resulting health trends. I don’t have to spend hours at it. I don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it. I don’t have to wait until I’m sick with a serious problem. I don’t have to ask my doctor for every new pill I see advertised in the media.  I eat every day, and that is where the changes should, and can, start.

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I’m not necessarily recommending any of these older books – some of the best and newest information is free on the internet, or at the library.

I started by saying that I don’t cook for fun, when I actually do have fun doing it sometimes. But fun is not the main point anymore. Getting the best fuel possible has become the point, just sayin’…

 

 

Today

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wp-1475351906555.jpgToday I got back on my bike, avoiding falling down, and traveled 10.5 miles through 5 different trailer parks. I ride with heightened awareness, of course, because that’s what an accident/mishap should do for you if you survive it. I did this for my physical health and my mental health, which brings me to the topic I’m interested in today.

Some things appear on the radar in a way that warrants more attention – like maybe they appear from a couple different directions within a short time period. I always pay attention when this happens because I’m a person who prays for God’s direction, any way he cares to give it. I think if I ask for help, I’d better be looking out for it, duh?

Here it was, the first thing, an appointment with my doctor that was made so long ago I couldn’t remember why it was made. But I went. It was part of my “welcome to Medicare” physical. Several months ago I had the first part where you answer a lot of questions, get lectured on how you should be keeping healthy, and have $700 worth of tests ordered (that figure is low and doesn’t count the bone density test and mammogram…). The last part is when your doctor goes over the results of the tests with you and gives recommendations. My doctor was so booked up that I didn’t get the second part until 6 months after the first part.

So far in my aging process, I’ve been able to avoid medications except for a few supplements that I take sporadically. But I have been concerned about my blood pressure gradually creeping up and my cholesterol numbers as well. I am doing some lifestyle alterations to deal with the blood pressure but the cholesterol is a bit more complicated of an issue. There is a group of medications called “statins” that I am pretty convinced are not good for people and that I do not want to take. Is my supposedly bad LDL cholesterol sticking to the insides of my coronary arteries? Not necessarily, and I am going to find out for sure in a week.

Do you get check ups? Do you know your cholesterol numbers? If you have high LDL levels, you might be interested in the test called Coronary Calcium Scan. It is an x-ray that shows whether there are calcium deposits or plaque building up in the arteries of your heart. In some people high LDL cholesterol leads to plaque, which leads to blockage and a heart attack eventually. In other people the LDL’s just slip on through and don’t stick to the insides of the arteries – because it’s complicated and involves a lot of other factors (that you don’t want to hear now). It is very helpful to know which kind of person you are for obvious reasons. Insurance doesn’t always cover this test, but for some reason a couple labs in my area are running sales – $50.  There is almost nothing available in health care that only costs $50, so I am springing for it out of pocket. As I said, that’s the first thing.

The second thing that popped on the radar was brain health. The husband and I were watching PBS last night and they were fundraising. But their fundraising is less tortuous than some. Here is the question that struck me as we watched this special. We expect to be told to have a baseline EKG (heart health). We expect to be told to have a colonoscopy after the age of 50 (gut health), we expect to be looked over for skin cancer, and we expect mammograms and bone density. So what is missing from this picture, something important to every one of the aforementioned systems? Your brain! We don’t hear much about checking our brain and attending to its health – and the good news is, there are ways to do it and ways to help your brain be healthy.

I am truly excited to know this. Today I got some exercise so my brain would have a healthier body in which to live. I’ll share a little more next post – I have an aversion to writing anything over 700 words. Just sayin’…

Don’t Say Diet, Please

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Yes, I caved. There are times when advertising actually works.

I should give deliberate thought and action to taking care of my body. Even though I figure God will leave me here as long as he sees fit, I have a choice about some things. Do I want to be old AND miserable, with conditions I could have avoided? Not really. But staying healthy is not as effortless as it seemed to be back a couple of decades ago.

Knowing I was about to have a couple of weeks with only myself to feed (well, except for my daughter’s cats, dog and horses) I decided it would be a good time to try out a new eating plan. I prefer to say eating plan, rather than diet. It sounds more necessary. So I picked an eating plan that sounded a lot like the way I already eat (ensuring success, or nearly so). Appropriately it was called “Beyond Diet”. When my skinny friends on Facebook recommend a plan, I listen. But mostly, it didn’t cost very much and it promised two weeks of not thinking of what to have for dinner.  I’m in.

I went to the store to get food for week 1.  I guess that part went pretty well, and I actually like hanging out in Publix as long as I have a jacket with me. They had almost everything on the rather extensive list, except halibut and unsalted pumpkin seeds.  The food only cost $150 and I was thankful because it would have cost a lot more if I’d gotten everything organic like the list said.

My first big problem was getting it all in the refrigerator at my daughter’s house. Her fridg is full, but there is almost no food in it. She watches a lot of cooking shows and contests so she has weird stuff like coddled cream and Da Nuong and siracha sauce and different colored olives. No food. The bottom shelf has her veterinary vaccines and the cooler where she keeps specimens of stuff I don’t want to think about in connection with eating. I had to get rid of a few things to make room, sorry Jules.

The second big problem, as I forged ahead into day 1, was that I was getting behind in the schedule almost immediately. I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast and it was time for the snack, and then time for lunch.  No kidding, there is something to eat every two hours all day. It’s kind of like being tied up in the kitchen and for a while I considered looking for a plan called “Beyond Eating” so I could get something else done.  Good thing I know how to modify.

And the third thing, not really a problem but different for me, is that there is some kind of meat for protein almost every time I eat. Buffalo, turkey, chicken sausage, halibut – I almost never get these things. Did you know that meat is never sold in actual serving size quantities?  I’m supposed to prepare 4 ounces of ground turkey but it’s only sold in 10 ounce packages. Who decides that 10 ounces is better than 8, or 12 and why? But I can modify.

This morning, day 2, I did great for breakfast but then I went outside and lost track of time until afternoon snack – oops. And I’ve been invited out for dinner but my “free day”, so called, isn’t until day 7.  I can modify, good thing, huh?

Check in again in two weeks to see if I’ve experienced remarkable “Beyond Diet” results.  Just sayin’, as usual…

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Yeah, it’s the makings of turkey chili. It was pretty good.

On Riding a Bike

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When do I really get serious about taking care of my body?  I’m asking the question because I really don’t know.  So many years have gone by when other things came first on my list.  There was only so much time and other things were urgent.  And didn’t I get enough activity in the course of daily living? I wasn’t a couch potato.  I lifted, pushed and pulled, walked and ran and stood up most of the time.  I had a young body and it took care of itself (because it had to).

Time has changed a few things.  Specifically, my blood pressure is higher and I think it’s having effects on other systems, like my vision.  I don’t want to start medication and deal with all those side effects, and of course, there’s the problem of my hating to swallow pills which I avoid by never remembering to take them. But I can exercise. Walking would have been my first choice but after feeling a few twinges of pain in my right knee, I’ve switched to riding my cheapo bike.

Because I am on the way to being more serious about exercise (I’m not totally there yet…) I give the bike ride a priority place in my “somewhat retired” daily schedule.  Morning, right after the gate to the nearby mobile home park opens for the day, I strap on my fanny pack, turn on the health app on my phone and get going.  It’s a fairly safe place to bike a large loop and not surprisingly, I am one of the fastest things moving on the road.

Biking in the mobile home park reinforces my desire to take care of myself seriously.  There are lots of people there who are trying to be active.  Many of them have been “not serious” longer than I have judging by the fact that their exercise consists of riding to get coffee and donuts at the clubhouse in their golf carts. The other bikers I see are usually stationary, talking to their neighbors.  Lots of people are walking but it’s the kind of walking where you can hold hands with your walking partner and take long looks at scenery.  And today I saw an elderly woman, probably the most serious exerciser I’ve seen there in a long time, who could barely stand upright and had a decided list to the right.  But she was moving as best she could.  Every time I think, “get serious now or this is the next version of you”.

I’ve had people (the husband) say “well, you’re not getting much exercise riding a bike here in Florida where it’s flat”.  But they are wrong.  First of all, it’s not flat.  I know there must be some kind of incline when I ride east.  I imagine there might be one riding north as well (because north is “up” on the map). And then there is wind resistance.  Pushing air is exercise and don’t let anyone tell you differently.  It’s true that wheels make moving easier but they don’t move by themselves – as evidenced by the husband’s bike which has not moved an inch in months.  I push hard and go fast and I feel the burn.

Which brings me to the part where I challenge myself, to keep it interesting.  My health app SHealth, Shea for short, is my co-conspirator in getting serious about my health.  In fact, she nags me to the point of irritation.  I’m always being asked if I want to record my sleep, or add a meal.  And she gets downright bossy when it comes to exercise.

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Yeah, just be more active yourself!

Shea gets on the job when I’m biking and talks me through the whole painful process, starting with a little five second countdown.  At each mile she announces my progress and tells me how long I have to keep going to reach my goal, which is five miles, at my present speed.  Behind the scenes she is mapping where I’ve gone and the places where I’ve gone the fastest.  And in a world where I will take any little bit of encouragement I can get, I love hearing her sweet voice at the start of the last half mile “Almost there – you can do it.”

Today I broke a speed record with my fastest ever average of 10.6 mph.  I found out that several of my gears actually work and I really booked it (going west, remember the incline) which brought it up, along with the fact that I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes to cross the highway before getting to the gate. If I get much faster I’ll have to leave the park where the limit is 15 mph.

I sweat when I bike so don’t tell me it’s not a workout, and do encourage me to keep it up.  It only takes half an hour and I’m breathing hard the whole time.  It’s better than a pill for my blood pressure – certainly doesn’t have as long a list of adverse effects – and it does make me feel a little more serious about taking care of myself.  (But it doesn’t mean I’m not looking for a used golf cart. Those things are handy.)

 

How to Get Over Your Winter Cold

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and by that I mean, your upper respiratory infection, your virus, your bacteria gone wild in your body with all the gruesomeness that goes with it. I know I’m leaving out a lot of details.  Be grateful.

The husband and I got our winter colds together, more or less, this year which actually makes things convenient in a way.  We get quarantined together and only for half as long.  And exciting because it is so rare, we share the same interests, which are mainly, tissues, Airborne, and cough meds.

I hold certain over the counter cold medicines in high esteem. King of the bunch is the red mixture of acetaminophen, dextromethorphan HBr, and doxylamine succinate known as NyQuil.  It has to be red flavored.  I always keep this on hand as well as a good supply of DayQuil for days when sleeping is not a good idea.  In spite of all my admiration of meds I’m really kind of a natural remedy girl, and my most desired natural remedy is sleep.  Sleep always helps me feel better, and NyQuil always helps me sleep.  That is the connection.

We ran out.

The husband was at the big box pharmacy yesterday and decided to help out by seeing if I needed anything.  Should he get some cough medicine, he wanted to know.  Yes, yes, good idea.  Get some more NyQuil. Make sure it is Nyquil.  We have DayQuil.  We have everything except NyQuil and I like the red kind.  Did I say all this?  I’m not going to swear that I did because it would only cause disagreement, but I think I did.  And he certainly knew what  we had before.

We are now well supplied with cold and flu remedies.  We have NyQuil (green), two kinds of Robitussin, plus all the non-sleep cough medicine I had before and a new box of DayQuil.  At the rate of one bottle per cold season we are set for the next six years.  And the husband will get to drink all three big bottles of NyQuil because that green flavor (licorice?) won’t go down my throat.  The red kind is bad enough.

Live and learn.  We are both getting better, sleeping better, drinking lots of water and thanking God for bodies that heal, eventually.  Hoping everyone else is getting through the cold/flu season too and just a hint… your might want to do your own shopping for cough syrup if you’re as fussy as I am.  Just sayin’.

Ok, it's my own fault. I should have gone myself. This is only part of the stash...
Ok, it’s my own fault. I should have gone myself. This is only part of the stash…