Cabin Crafted

Category: Meandering of my mind

  • Memories

    Today’s news had throwback photos of October 10, 1979.

    On that day, a surpise early snowstorm dumped up to 10 inches of snow on parts of the Shenandoah Valley. When I saw the article, I asked my hubby if it had any significance to him but he said it didn’t until I reminded him of where we were and what we were doing.

    We had taken a weekend backpacking trip along the Skyline Drive. On Friday night, we tent camped at the Big Meadows Campground rather than walking in a trail we were unfamiliar with in the dark. I was an avid backpacker at that time, trail Supervisor for the Appalachian Trail Club in Tidewater area of Virginia. They came out monthly to clear a section of the AT from Maupin’s Field to Three Ridges, but this weekend it was just the two of us. Being Autumn, we figured it would be a nice, mild weekend to go see the fall leaf colors, so we borrowed a fairly thin sleeping bag for hubby. That Friday night ended up being very cold and I exchanged sleeping bags with him so he could have the down bag as I had a down jacket I could wear in the thinner bag. Saturday was gorgeous. It probably got up in the mid 70’s and we had a great hike down the trail and a signifant elevation loss to a hollow where we planned to spend the night. Camp was set up, dinner prepared and enjoyed, and a lovely evening as it got dark, looking at the stars. The night stayed relatively warm, a surpise after the prior night.

    On Sunday we woke and were about to prepare breakfast when I looked in the distance to see a very ominous black cloud. The decision was made to pack up, grab something we could eat on the move and start the hike back up the hill to where our car was parked. We hadn’t even begun to walk out until it started to rain, then hail. The temperature began to plummet and the hail turned to sleet, then snow. By this point, we were hustling to get up the slope and back to the car, a few miles away. Packs tossed in the hatchback and we set out to get off the Skyline Drive when we saw a young man, improperly clad, hiking up the road. We stopped and asked his if he needed help and he asked if we could drop him off at the site where his group would be or would gather. We did, and slowly through accumulating ice and snow made our way to Afton Pass where we got off the Drive and stopped to finally get food at Howard Johnsons. While we ate, we heard a report that the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway were being shut down. We hoped the young man found his group and a safe place to stay. The Drive and Parkway were shut down for 3 days due to the storm.

    That was a trip we remember in detail 46 years later. I don’t remember ever seeing snow in Virginia in October, prior to or since.

  • A Weekly Missive

    I have been a lax blogger of late. We have had another round of doctors and imaging, and most of it has been at least in the right direction. More to come in the following week.

    My physical trainer and I decided that since I wanted to continue working with her, the best thing to do was come up with 4 workouts to add to the walks. Two whole body, 1 upper body, and 1 lower body. We finished the series this week and will now work to increase reps and weights as tolerated by my shoulder and other achy joints. My strength and flexibility have improved, even in the shoulder with bursitis and torn bicep. On nice days (above 50, not too windy, and dry), we walk a local trail. On cooler days, rainy days, we have been walking a small indoor mall, 6 laps to a mile. Yesterday and today, we both went back to the gym. While hubby walks the indoor track, 9 laps to a mile, I hop on a treadmill. I have been working on increasing my speed while still keeping my heart rate in a “safe” for a 76 year old zone. Today I did 2 miles at 4 mph, then walked a few laps of the track with hubby to cool down some and did my lower body workout. Per Nietzsche, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

    It has been too cool to do much in the garden. We even had 3 days of snow flurries this week. And the wind for the past couple of weeks has been brutal. The peas are up, except a 2 foot strip where two of the hens got in the garden and decided to dig there. The asparagus are beginning to show. Soon there will be plenty to enjoy and share with daughter. On one of the only warm sunny days last week, something got in the bin of tomato and pepper starts and took off with a pepper plant. I guess I will have to figure out how to protect them when they are on the deck and replant that pot (again).

    Two of my houseplants that summer on the front porch were looking ragged in the corner they occupy during the winter. One is a Dracena fragrans, the other a large Jade plant. Today, the Dracena was cut back and repotted in fresh soil and the Jade was pruned. I purchased a fig that can grow in a container and it came yesterday. It was potted up as well and all three of the pots on floor protecting rolling trays were put in a sunnier location on the south side of the house until they can be put outdoors.

    Today was moving day for the chicks. The Calico Princesses are huge, the Buff Orpington, and the little black pullet catching up in size, were moved to the coop. After our walk, workout, and grocery run, the coop was divided in half with a baby gate and pieces of plastic erosion fencing with the hens having their food on the pop door side and access to 3 nesting boxes. The chicks having their food and water on the door side with 3 nesting boxes and perching room. A few weeks of cohabitation safely divided and a little more size on the pullets, they will be set free in the coop with the divider down. There will be some settling of pecking order, but that is inevitable.

    When I went out to snap this photo, there was a dog I have never seen before nosing around the chicken run. The hens had the sense to go in the coop as you can see through the barricade. When I ran it off, it took off not toward known neighbors. I hope I don’t have another predator to have to deal with.

    We loaned our scaffolding to a young couple to build their house. Most of it was returned a very long time ago, but we let them hold on to a few sections for additional tasks they had. They volunteered their help on anything I needed in exchange. Once I figure out the configuration and make a materials list, they are going to help me rebuild the chicken run, well made, and covered with chicken wire, hopefully tall enough or nearly tall enough for me to work inside and to keep the hawks out from above and the dogs and coyotes out from the sides. The gate will need to be secured better than the rock that leans up against the outside of it now.

    On the craft front, I purchased some fabric, mostly Kaffe Fassett prints, made strips of 4 patterns sewn together with a layer of flannel between the top and the back and I’m making a Kantha quilt lap blanket to use on my new recliner on cool nights. In a week, I have managed about 1/4 of the running stitches that hold the layers together.

    It isn’t quite as large as I hoped, but large enough for a first attempt. The fiber hubby gave me for Christmas and spun on my spindles is being knit into a Reyna scarf for me. There is a little bit of spinning going on, but it is not a current priority.

    The week is supposed to warm back up, so the peas will be replanted, any additional weeding needed will be done. And Wednesday will be the first of 4 class sessions at the Museum over the next 3 weeks. I do enjoy doing them, most are 4th and 6th graders, but one group will be 2nd graders. I’m going to have to think about how to present to them. I need to make sure my costume is clean and pressed.

  • Olio – 2/25/2024

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things (thoughts)

    It has been almost a week since hubby was released from the hospital for the second time in 3 weeks. Diagnosis has been all over the map, from Covid related, to pneumonia, to autoimmune disease. The tests mostly ruled out pneumonia and tilt toward autoimmune issues likely caused by immunotherapy treatments. We see our primary tomorrow with lots of questions as the various test results come in.

    The hospitalization required me to miss a week of personal trainer, but a return this week to a serious kick butt lower body workout. I found muscles that walking and stair climbing miss, but hide in the thighs and hips.

    The stress is causing the shoulder with bursitis and a torn bicep tendon to tighten up. This happened last year at the fiber retreat and my yoga teaching friend did a Vulcan Death grip on that area and it magically released. I will have to ask Megan, my PT for a stretch that isn’t already in my workouts that might help with it as my friend lives more than 3 hours away.

    The sit and wait times last weekend and this week sent me back to a Sashiko panel I started over a year ago. Some time ago, I had the idea to make the panel into a Turkish Spindle case. Night before last, the stitching was finished and yesterday, a case was made using pre-quilted white fabric as the interior. Pockets were stitched and each shaft for a spindle has the thin end protected by a length of rigid soda straw.

    Often, I am dissatisfied with project like this, but this time, I am very pleased.

    Also while sitting in the hospital room with hubby, and in my spare time at home, I finished spinning the wool blend he gave me for Christmas. The entire amount was spun on the tiny Jenkins Finch spindle he gave me for our 45th anniversary last year.

    The finished skein with the tiny spindle now working on a different fiber. The spindle lives in my bag with some wool. In the spindle photos, you can see the soda straw that protect the fragile end of the shaft when it is removed for travel. There are other spindles that get pulled out for use, but I seem to migrate to this one most often.

    I have one more 6 block Sashiko panel that I finished long ago and plenty of the white quilted fabric, I need to figure out a project to use them, maybe a case for my fixed circular knitting needles or crochet hooks. And the skein of yarn to be knit into something requiring about 400 yards of lace weight yarn.

    The two beautiful roosters no longer reside at this address. Between their noise, and the fact that one was aggressive toward me and the other young rooster encouraged me to send them on their way. A Craigslist ad brought a Ukranian refugee living with his daughter and her sons to pick them up. Whether they became part of a flock or part of a meal worries me not at all. The hens seem happier not to be ganged up on and eggs are back in good supply even though the youngest Marans was recently killed by some predator. The remaining 6 provide 2 to 5 eggs daily, enough for us and for daughter’s household.

    Four of the hens are now 3 years old, I guess they will have to be replaced soon. Only one of them is providing more than 1 or 2 eggs a week. The carton for daughter has many more blue and green eggs than brown, though there are as many brown layers as colored layers. I don’t want 6 more chicks, only about 4, but you are required to purchase at least 6 chicks at a time. If I can find a local that wants a couple of pullets, I will buy 6 and raise them to coop introduction size and give away the extras. I guess if a hen goes broody on me this summer, I can let her sit false eggs for 3 weeks and introduce day old chicks under her and let her raise them for me. She will protect them and teach them if she thinks they are her own.

    Yesterday, they predicted snow after a week of spring like temperatures. We got mostly rain with a little slushy bit added in, but nothing on the ground. The temperatures are again climbing to spring like weather after a night in the low 20’s. Another 3 or 4 weeks, it will be time to start the tomatoes and peppers seedlings. The Aerogarden was planted this week with mixed Romaine lettuces and a window seed starter has deer tongue lettuce and spinach starts. Soon they will go in pots to be nurtured until I can plant them out under some sort of cover. Since my little garden green house blew off and was destroyed by the wind, I need to improvise. I keep seeing an idea on social media to use plastic milk cartons, but I don’t buy milk in plastic, so maybe a mini hoop house can be created with plastic sheeting and later row cover.

    Enough meanderings of my mind. Have a great week.

  • Winter Life

    My love gave me 4 sessions with a Physical Trainer for Christmas. My first session was last Thursday and I was very pleased with the trainer assigned to me. My second session was scheduled for this morning, but as she has a 2nd grader and a 4 year old, with the 2 hour school delay, we had to reschedule. It turned out, she found an alternate for the 4 year old, whose preschool is just 3 hours, so the 2 hour delay eliminated a place for her to go. We met at 11:30 and she is an awesome trainer. I wanted to work on upper body strength and flexibility as the left shoulder bursitis and ruptured left bicep tendon, had really taken a toll on what I could do. This gal believes in slow, repetitive, and stretching with weights no more than 15 pounds, and everything she has taught me can be done at home with our 5, 10, and 15 pound free weights, plus a 30 pound resistance band that I did have to purchase. She also believes in using the whole body, so squats with weight, and Romanian deadlifts, along with certain floor exercises are working my lower body as well. This has allowed me to work out at home. Today’s session offered some different exercises and stretches so the first two plans can be rotated. I have two more sessions with her with the option of continuing with more afterward. If an exercise causes pain in my shoulder, she modifies or switches it to a different one. So far, so good as far as not exacerbating the bursitis, though there are two exercises we had to modify or eliminate.

    Today was supposed to be warmer, reaching the low 40’s, so on my way to meet her at the gym, I stopped for chicken supplies and pine shavings to clean the coop. The weather prognosticator got it wrong again. It is only at freezing and the litter in the floor of the coop was a solid mass. Much scraping with a flat hoe, hay rake, and square nosed shovel got most of the litter out. There is an area in the center of the floor that nothing would remove it. It is better than it was and an entire bale of fine pine shavings was added to the coop. Since they have changed our forecast to now predict 3-4″ of snow over night with 1/10″ of ice on top, the birds will at least have a dry coop. The water was removed and the black tub in the run was filled, so they can’t dump a partial bucket of water onto the floor again.

    When I started the chores in the coop, my entire body was cold, even with the barn coat, boots, and gloves. By the time I finished, only my toes were cold. Rubber barn boots just aren’t warm in the snow. But I did get quite a workout added to my prescribed workout earlier.

    It is good that I have added this structure to my winter days as dealing with feeding and watering the chickens, dog, and wild birds, just doesn’t provide enough workout that I get during garden season. The garden needs some time, but it is going to have to warm up some to allow me to finish cutting down the asparagus fronds, and moving a garden box over them with some additional soil. The compost pile is under several inches of snow and probably frozen, so adding it to the asparagus bed won’t happen until the snow melts and the temperatures warm some. I haven’t even started looking at seeds or thinking about what is to be planted this spring. Since last year was such a failure and being able to get so much good locally grown food at the Farmer’s Market, my incentive to garden has waned some. I do want to grow tomatoes, beans, peas, and peppers, but beyond that, I have no plan. I guess soon the seed catalogs will fill the mailbox and I can dream of flowers and vegetables.

    Stay warm.

  • Living local

    As I re-read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable Miracle, a book I reread every couple of years, it re-dedicates me to live locally. We have the best Farmer’s Market I have ever shopped. They are open April through October on Wednesday afternoon and on Saturday mornings year round with more vendors. During winter, there are fewer vendors, but still some products are available including storage vegetables, eggs, meat, breads, and cheese. Each spring, I plant a garden and we have an orchard with 4 kinds of fruit trees and 3 kinds of cultivated berries, but other than tomato sauces, peppers canned and dried, tomatillos for salsas, and cucumbers for pickles, I don’t grow enough variety or quantity to supply us year round. This year, in support of the vendors, I decided to buy extras of items that can be blanched and frozen for winter use. This week was the first week of making these extra purchases and I came home with extra Sugar Snap Peas, celery, and carrots. The peas have been getting added to the freezer for a few weeks as I had extras and are coming to an end. The celery sliced for Mirepoix, the carrots sliced for soups and stews. Herbs are grown here in the garden to be dried and others in the Aerogarden for fresh use. Meats and poultry are available year round so don’t have to be stockpiled. One farm, in addition to beef and eggs, grows corn for meal, oats for oatmeal, and wheat for flour. Being able to watch my flour ground and bagged, unbromated whole wheat with bran is wonderful.

    A bag was brought home, a loaf of artisan bread started last evening that was baked this morning. What doesn’t get used immediately will be frozen so there will be flour for bread this winter as well.

    The finished bread is a little more dense than I had hoped, it was a new recipe that I will tweak in the future.

    After putting the produce away and some frozen, dinner prepared using plenty of fresh vegetables from market and garden to make a salad, a little garden time was enjoyed. This week has been so wet, it was nice to be able to get in there, weed a little, pick berries, and pull the 34 heads of garlic to cure in today’s sun.

    All but two are large and full and this should be enough to last us the year. The fall garlic seed needs to be ordered.

    Soon there will be peas from our garden to enjoy and freeze. And the beans are beginning to have blossoms, the first zucchini is forming, tiny peppers and tomatoes are developing. The apple and Asian pear trees are heavy with fruit to be enjoyed raw or made into sauces later in the fall.

    There was cheese purchased, Garlic Chive Chevre that was enjoyed on the salad, and a weekly treat of a bouquet of flowers from our friend’s farm.

    Keep it close to home if you can, better for the environment, better for your health.

  • 16 years ago

    In June, I will have lived here 17 years. Coming out of my first retirement to re-enter the education field for an additional 3 1/2 years. The first autumn I was here, just a few short months after arriving, there was a shooting by a young man who escaped from a guard at a local hospital, went on the run and ended up killing a law enforcement officer on one of the trails we walk each week. Then 16 years ago this week, the shooting by a student at Virginia Tech, killing 32 students and faculty occurred. I wondered what kind of community we were moving into. The news media were relentless for weeks, every counselor in the region helping with first responders, faculty and students. My temporary apartment was very near the building in which it happened.

    It turns out, it is a very close, supportive community. One that we have grown to love with the activity of so much youth, culture, and still a small town vibe with local businesses and restaurants.

    Yesterday, the University held it’s 15th 3.2 mile run for the 32. This was on top of the football team’s spring game, and other on campus activities. The town was bustling.

    Sixteen years ago, I resented the media attention not allowing healing, but over the years, I have witnessed the healing, the memorials, the activities that are reminders, but also letting the families of those affected by the two events know they are remembered and that their hurt has not been forgotten.

    This is not a political statement, as we live rurally and guns are a part of the life here for hunting and for protection from animals that destroy livestock and crops. But the wonton gun violence in this country is heartbreaking. The two events 16 years ago were my first encounter with it, but it now seems to be a daily news occurrence. It needs to end, there are other solutions besides gun violence to solve problems.

  • Seasonal change

    Halloween is done, jack-0-lanterns and ghosts packed away til next year. The wreath on the door was a grapevine wreath with fall ribbon and ceramic turkey and pumpkins shapes so it stayed up until yesterday. Our friends, the wonderful flower growers that come to the Farmer’s Market, Stonecrop Farms moves on from fresh flowers to dried flowers and wreaths this time of year. Hubby suggested that since I had expressed an interest in purchasing one, that I pick out one for my birthday still more than a week away. When we got to the market, there were still several to choose from and though I was attracted to two, decided this one called me the loudest.

    It is beautifully full with fresh greens and bright dried flowers. As soon as it arrived home, the skimpy grapevine one was packed away and this beauty hung to grace the door until it fades and the Christmas one is pulled out for a few weeks.

    Yesterday was above normal fall weather, following the extreme rain from the late hurricane remnants on Friday, and this morning we awoke to below freezing temperatures, light snow falling, but only accumulating in crevices on the coop, deck, and corners.

    It continued with light snow showers throughout most of the day. We managed our walk in spite of the freezing temperatures, wind, and snow showers.

    While we were out, a birthday card was needed as one had been missed earlier in the week. It’s purchase, caused me a head shaking pause. The clerk rang it up, told me the total. I handed her cash, she messed with the register, paused and said, “I owe you (long pause)…” I responded, 95 cents, having quickly done the subtraction in my head. She counted out the change and as I was walking out, she called out to me and said, I owe you more money. No, I responded, the purchase was x, I gave you y, the change was 95 cents which you gave me. “But the receipt says z” she says. No, you gave me the correct change, you rang it in wrong, your register is right, my change is correct. She looks confused and heads toward the manage stocking shelves in the back. Poor girl can’t even make change. I fear for her future in that job.

    After arriving home, some dried Amaranth and Eucalyptus that I had purchased fresh many weeks ago from Stonecrop and hung to dry with the idea of making a couple of decorations to sell at the last Christmas Bazaar, the last hurrah for the cottage business, was pulled out. The two tobacco baskets that had been display pieces for yarn and hats at events were decorated with the dried plants and dried Baptisia seed pods from my shrub were bunched and tied with Christmas plaid ribbons and floral wire hangers on the back. Hopefully they will sell and grace someone’s home for the holidays.

    At the conclusion of that event, all of my display pieces that can’t be repurposed here will be gone. Hopefully, the stock of hats, mitts, mittens, scarves, soap, salves, and lip balm will be reduced to only what can be used as gifts or for personal use. It will be bittersweet to end CabinCraftedshop, but also a relief to not have to deal with the website, taxes, and deadlines.

  • Everyone is an Expert

    And all of their expertise is conflicted by another “expert.” In doing some research recently on several topics, one article or website or person will tell you it should be done this way, but the next gives just the opposite advice/instruction. It is no wonder that people are conflicted on important topics.

    As a retired school counselor with a science background, I try to seek out the science on topics, but even that can product conflict. Should you take your probiotic first thing in the morning or last thing at night? Should you allow 3 square feet in your coop for your hens or 4? Is this method better than that? Should you wear a mask and get vaccinated or let natural immunity win (if you survive)? And everyone who weighs in thinks their way is the only way and they are the only one right.

    Sometimes even those with science backgrounds give opposing advice. As we were discussing with the pharmacist yesterday about needed vaccines, one in question was Shingrex vaccine for shingles. We both had the single vaccine many years ago, but hubby still developed a mild case limited to his side and part of his back. The dermatologist immediately prescribed an antiviral medication and told hubby that having shingles was like a super vaccine. The pharmacist on the other hand indicated that having had it increased the viral load and the likelihood of a recurrence was greater. I got the first dose of the vaccine yesterday, but hubby has to wait because of the other vaccine he got, but to use a COVID coined over used phrase, “out of an abundance of caution,” he will follow up and get it also. BTW, it is an expensive vaccine, hope you have good insurance.

    Years ago, we were told not to eat real butter, use margarine instead. Don’t eat eggs or at least not the yolks. Both of those dietary advices have been disputed. Use this diet to lose weight, no, use this program or this diet. Or better yet, eat whole food and exercise.

    Every day I see an “expert” weigh in on a topic on social media and start an all out argument with the OP, if the OP choses to engage. I have removed a number of social media contacts and left a number of groups as I choose not to engage in such behaviors and don’t need the stress of reading them.

    Who is a person to believe? Back to my research on a couple of topics.

  • The Hermit on the Mountain

    As Covid continues into it’s third year, my hermit tendencies have grown stronger. When hubby had to travel to a funeral a few weeks ago, I basically stayed home, ate soup, read, knitted, and spun. I had to leave the house once but not for long. Already an introvert, being isolated has just encouraged more isolation. Glad to have hubby here, daughter and her kids nearby, and Sons that pass through, to keep me connected to humanity. I started back to the local spinning group before Christmas, then the Rec Center where we meet was closed for two Thursdays and I haven’t managed to get myself out and back to the group since. Now there is another new variant loose and this being a University region with a new Governor who feels masks and mandatory vaccines shouldn’t be required, I am again fearful of joining in person groups. This in part has influenced a decision to not attend a fiber retreat that I have attended for years prior to covid. The people with whom I visit at that event are comfortable to be with and in the past, those that I did not know well were in a different area. Due to renovations at the venue, we would all be in the same room, which along with covid concerns add to my discomfort.

    Though hubby also has introvert tendencies, he often puts things I say in context of my being an introvert. The cheese lady at the local natural foods store is an extrovert and once, I asked for a particular cheese without first greeting her by name, which I know. She gently chastised me for not greeting first. He reminded me that extroverts talk for social reasons, introverts for purpose. I now remember to greet her when I see her whether I am buying cheese or not.

    When daughter and Son 1 were both here, they taught me to use Zoom. My Jenkins Spindle group online has a Zoom session every Saturday afternoon and for the past two weeks, I have joined them. It is fun to join them, “meet” people that I have interacted with by written posts for the past couple of years. I am glad I don’t have to work every day using online meetings, but it is great for an hour or two of socially distanced time with real people. I don’t interact a lot, but it is so much more comfortable than being in a group where I am uncomfortable and my hearing loss makes following group conversations difficult.

    I am struggling at being social and not truely becoming a hermit.

  • Mindfulness

    Last spring, Son 1 was working at the house and was listening to an audio book. As I popped in and out assisting or providing water, I was intrigued with what I heard and asked him what the book title was and who was the author. The book was Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Late August, as I was preparing to travel southwest to the mountains of North Carolina for a fiber retreat, I attempted to get the book from our public library as an audio book to listen to as I travelled about 7 hours round trip, but I was so far down on the list that I purchased a paperback copy instead. This followed having read Overstory by Richard Powers based on another of Son 1’s recommendations. For Christmas, he gave me a copy of Gathering Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s first book which I have read a chapter at a time savoring her wisdom.

    Several varieties of mosses growing just off the mowed area in a wooded rocky part of the farm.
    Several varieties that grow on rocks in the same area.

    These three books have caused me to pause and even more strongly recognize what we are doing to our environment. Like Kimmerer, I love a sheet of white paper on my wood desk with the grain of the wood as a background, but at what cost were they provided. I love wood tools, live in a log home cut from a monoculture tree farm and again at what cost to the environment were they provided. We have planted dozens of trees on our farm to create windbreaks and in areas where haying is impossible. We have avoided weed killers, have woods on three sides of us, but see the effect of some of the non native invaders both vegetative and insects that wipe out entire species of trees. Years ago, these mountains were covered with Chestnut trees, all killed off by blight. All of the mature Hemlocks die off from the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid. Now the Ash trees are dying because of Emerald Ash borer. We are invaded by Tree of Heaven and Autumn Olive, plants that were introduced as ornamentals that have become invasive. As we drive up the mountain we see several areas that have been logged and I recognize the value of the timber but also the destruction of habitat for native vegetation and wildlife.

    To add to my mindfulness thought process of late, as I was returning home from taking Son 1 to the bus Sunday morning, I listened to a program on NPR where the speaker discussed how we couldn’t provide for others if we didn’t take care of ourselves. We have to give ourselves permission to be kind to our own person to fill our cup enough to share. We need to be thankful for what we have, not want for what we lack, not complain about our ills, but be thankful for the health we have at whatever level.

    These books and this program have reminded me to be more mindful. I suggest we should all be.