And now … 2014
December 31, 2013 § 1 Comment
Forgive me, but I must begin this first blog of the New Year with a retrospective. (All those retrospectives on the news shows have had more influence on me in this regard than I thought!) Besides, I only blogged three times in 2012 (or four, but who’s counting), and perhaps twice in 2013. I think I owe my readers an explanation … or reasonable facsimile thereof.
I’ve been sick.
Or I should say, Tom and I’ve been sick … and that’s no joke! We began 2012 with good news … Tom’s follow-ups from his prostate cancer treatments were good. Relief! Happy New Year to us!
Then, a bomb dropped … sort of, anyway. I received a diagnosis I didn’t want to hear … and yet I did. For several months I’d been experiencing shortness of breath, chest pains, and utter exhaustion, and feared a heart attack lurking. Turned out NOT to be a heart attack but severe anemia … my blood looked like pink ink … watery pink ink! Yikes!
“Your iron is out for the count,” my doctor told me. “First you get a two-pint blood infusion, and then we work on building your iron stores back to normal. And while we are at it, we’ll do some tests to find out where you are losing all of this blood!”
I received the blood in a four-hour session with a needle in my arm. Then the testing began. Three months later we still didn’t know where the leak was, but my iron count had climbed back to normal and I was slowly gaining back my energy.
Then, Tom was diagnosed with bladder cancer and we’ve been dealing with that … still are. But he is responding well to the treatments.
As you can imagine, some activities had to take a sabbatical during this time of health-tending—golf, blogging, travel (only made one trip in 2012), my own writing. I did manage to finish most of the editing jobs I had contracted to do, though some were late.
2013 dawned with good intentions, better health, and more energy. But I’d lost the blogging habit and again let other activities and demands fill my calendar.
I did, however, store away in my memory lots of subjects to blog about for 2014. So I hope you will stay tuned for tales of the annual Flower & Garden Festival and the Food and Wine Festival at EPCOT; cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house in Texas (that took three trips!); publishing my three books … hurray! [see links below]; and finally, musings on birthday # 70, Dec. 23rd.
BTW, do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I don’t as a rule. But this year I have made several …
– Eat lots of raisins, more broccoli, and take my iron pill every morning.
– Keep to my exercise and diet routine [lost 40 pounds this year … on purpose!]
– Complete and publish Book 2 of my middle-grade series: Virginia Patriot, a Timothy Michael O’Hara Adventure!
– Blog regularly!
– Get back to golfing and water exercises.
– Clean my garage … well … maybe!
Happy New Year, everyone, and let’s all have a healthy 2014!
PS – here are the links to my two new websites (New Year’s Resolutions 3 & 4 from 2013!): http://MaryLoisSandersauthor.net & http://courtjesterpublications.net.
my other zone 
Mary Lois, you and Tom have have quite some year. Congratulations on your books and on your return to health! All best for a great 2014!