So it goes...

So as a few of my last posts allude to, I am powering through this winter trying with all my might to make it through to ice-out so I can get my kayak back in the water and find my zen. It is a grueling stretch of winter for me and my better half. We have each other to laugh through the looming "Winter Storm Warning." so that counts for something. On Tuesday we got another 8-10 inches or so. I woke up early as I often do the night after a storm and set to work on the driveway and walk. About 3/4 of the way through the process, I twisted wrong and blew out my oblique muscle. It is right below my rib cage on the back side and I knew it was bad when I did it. I treated it with ice, Naproxen and an Epsom salt bath. It seems slightly better today, but I suspect the healing will take a while. But the untold benefit of it was that even in my pain, I realize how good my life is and how lucky I am. My wife was nice enough to finish up the shoveling and followed up a time or two ...

Feeling the weight of the world lately and I hope it's a feeling that doesn't stick around very long. Of course there was the terrorism in Brussels yesterday, as if that isn't enough to make a person want to crawl in a hole. Who wants to live in a world where you have to worry about people blowing themselves (and others) up? Every time you think things are clicking along and are peaceful, some extremist group messes it all up. Then I had a couple of friends who lost a sister/sister in-law. She was only 53 and died of cancer. I'd met this woman a couple of times about 30 years ago, so didn't really know her. But still, this kind of death always hits close to home, for obvious reasons. And when it's a relative of a friend, it's too close. Add to that a friend of my step-sisters passed away after a battle with bone cancer. He too was in his fifties and while I never knew him, the fact that I have a sister who's grieving his passing, grieves me. I saw ...