Saturday, August 1, 2009

What has been going on the last month...

So, what have I been up to for the last month and few days since the last post? Well, the answer will be the rest of this post. Sit down, buckle up, maybe grab a cup of coffee, cause this is gonna be one long post.

Well, in my last post, I said that I was sick but maybe feeling a little better, and was going to be going to TFY the following Monday. Well, I left for TFY. I was feeling a little better for a little while. Then, things started going downhill. There was a cold and a GI bug floating around in the middle of everyone, and unfortunately I managed to get both of them. As well, whatever I had been sick with was still going on a bit, and also the antibiotics I was on were giving me some side effects. Put all these together, and I was one miserable guy. Despite that, however, I was having a great time when able to participate. Normally I couldn't do anything in the mornings, since I was having to sleep something like 10+ hours a day to keep moving any. I'd kind of struggle downstairs (4 stories of stairs) for lunch, and then not go back upstairs until bedtime. However, in the meantime, I was often able to make it to classes and such. So, that was how I lived until Friday.

On Friday, I went up, with 4 other kids from the group, to Rose Point PA. We were to stay there until a week from the next Monday. That night, I actually stayed with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Patty, since I wasn't in any shape really to be participating with the rest of the group. So, I stayed there until mid-afternoon the next day, at which time I rejoined the group. I was starting to feel better, or so I thought. The next couple days went downhill again, and I ended up having to go home on Monday. It half killed me (well, not literally, but you know what I mean) to have to leave those other 4 kids. Will and Scott and I had bonded together so quickly, to the point that we were insulting each other right and left, half-attacking each other, and otherwise being generally disagreeable the entire time, and absolutely LOVING it. :D I obviously wasn't behaving that way to Kim and Melanie, but we were still having fun together a lot too.

So, it was a huge disappointment to have to leave on Monday, but my parents and I thought it was the best thing to do. So, that Tuesday, I went to the doctor. He talked with me for 10 minutes or so during/after the exam, to try and maybe narrow down what this could be. I then had a couple of tubes of blood drawn, mostly to eliminate a bunch of things, including cancer. (By the way, the nurse half eliminated my arm too. When she pulled out the needle, her hand twitched. It hurt a ton) That (cancer) was eliminated. So were most of the other things, including mono, which is what the doctor thought was possibly what had knocked me out so bad. However, he also said that the test gives a bunch of false negatives, and, based on the symptoms, he's thinking that's what I've had. No idea if that is indeed the case, but we'll see.

Whatever happened, I'm actually mostly over it now. But more on that later. Since the time that I came home from TFY, I've been doing lots of stuff. Among other things, the weekend after coming home, I went back to PA with the rest of my family. A cousin of mine got married that Saturday. So, we went out for the wedding. It was a great chance to see some of Mom's side of the family that we don't get to see too often. Uncle Jack and Aunt Carol live in Baton Rouge, LA, and her daughter Liz, her husband Shawn, and their two kids live in Kansas... so, yeah, we don't get to see them terribly often. It was nice getting to. I also was able to hang out with Kim, Melanie, Scott, and Will again. That was great. Spent a lot of the Lord's Day talking with them. :) It was great.

So, since that weekend, what have I been up to? Well, besides recovering, I've mowed, practiced driving stuff, flown, and done lots of other things.

Mowing is pretty much the same. Thankfully, we've started having enough rain to keep the grass growing nicely. So, we haven't had any week yet without income from mowing. Had a few where we only mowed a couple or three yards, but still. :P Now, we're back to doing most all of them every week as usual. One mower's in the shop right now, since the self-propelled control cable snapped. A while back, the cable had snapped at one end, so I got some cable clamps and tightened it up. However, that didn't hold long, since that wasn't what it was designed for, so it happened again. Eventually, we ran out of cable. That's why it's in the shop.

As far as the driving, there hasn't been much of anything unusual except today. I did end spending about a half hour with Dad practicing for the Maneuverability test for the driver's license exam. Basically... well, it would be easier to show than explain. Lemme find a picture. Maneuverability Test Image

So there ya go. That's what I was doing. Each of the course markers is 20' away from each other on the sides of the box, and the distance between them on the ends is 9'. The "point" is 20' from the side of the box. So, yeah. I was doing that. I also washed the car and put Windex on all the glass surfaces. :D

As far as flying, I've done it twice since I came back. One time was just local and having some fun. A man right outside town finished restoring a 1943 aircraft, and he has his own grass strip out back of his house. So, I decided to buzz him. :D I didn't go too low, and was still legal the entire time. It was definitely fun though. :D

The other time was when I went north and took Mortons flying. The entire trip was incredibly fun. It would have been better if the runway hadn't had workers alongside it most of the time (delaying my arrival by at least 1 hour), and if the mixture control wire hadn't readjusted itself (delaying my departure by at least 1 hour.) Oh well. Small price to pay. It was great. The only thing that I wasn't expecting was having some amazing screams from the seat next to me at a couple different points (you know who you are.. :D both of you). So, that's that for flying.

As for lots of other things, well, I've been doing lots of other things. There's no way I could remember all of them. I can tell you that today, I walked to the post office and library; mowed a yard; washed a car and did some driving maneuvering stuff; ate a powdered sugar donut, a bunch of peanut butter and cheese crackers, saltines with cheddar cheese, a hot dog, some taco salad, ham slices, corn on the cob, rice-a-roni; played around on the computer, taken a shower, talked with friends on instant messenger, poked around on Facebook a little, and written a blog post. So, that's today. However, I'm sure I missed some things. Oh well. I could post something like that every day... or not. I'm hoping to get back into a posting habit again, especially before I leave for college. I'm leaving on the 25th of August. Seeya!

2 comments:

Charles and Debbie said...

Glad to know you will be OK. Keep us informed of your condition.

Bugsbee said...

Glad to hear someone else was able to insult you during the time I was unable to do so. :D