New Year

Well, it's not exactly New Year, but it's reminiscent of New year, so close enough.
Actually, it was about 1 year ago that I started the kitchen remodeling project, which I was putting paint on when people started arriving for Liz's Mom's funeral, which launched us into the master bedroom remodel, and moving into our restored master bedroom launched an upstairs bedrooms re-arrangingl, and then I finally put up the last piece of crown molding on the kitchen remodel that started it all. So it has been a busy year in that respect.

But, what really has me thinking is all the personal changes I've made this last year. Most of them are good, but they are really just life moving along. So here they are:

1. I had a seriously Africanized beehive out at the Hubers, which scared me enough that I moved the bees I've kept at our house for the past 10 year or so out to a remote part of the Texas hinterland, along with all my other bees. Now I have all of them out there - 8 hives. I re-queened the Africanized one and hopefully that will settle them down for a year or so.
2. About that same time I finally put too much strain on my achilles tendon and it partially ruptured. I spent 3 months in a boot for it to heal. It did heal, mostly, but then in a careless moment I re-injured it and it was worse than the first time. So, in the next couple of weeks, I will have a procedure down to break apart all the scar tissue in it, after which I will be on crutches for a month to 6 weeks, and then I should get better. Meanwhile, the other achilles tendon is taking a beating from the extra strain on it. "Oh, the humanity!"
   
3. I have always loved candy, and I have had the habit of having some almost every night while watching TV or whatnot. Late last year I decided it wasn't good for me, so I gave it up. Cold Turkey! I just quit. It wasn't a big decision, I still have a bag of lifesavers I bought last year. I still have jaw breakers I bought last year when we went to Branson.
   
4. Recently, I gave up Pepsi. I know, I've done that before and slid back into it. I didn't really decide to give up Pepsi this time, but I didn't drink it one day and after the headache started I thought I might as well quit. The difference this time is that I was less determined to do it, but now I don't seem to crave it like I've done before. I've been drinking lots of water, and that seems to help, too. By the way, quitting a caffeine habit gives you a few days of headaches. This time it was about 4 days, and it wasn't very fun. I think I'm not going to do that again.
5. I stopped overeating so much. Again, no big decision, I just decided I didn't have to clean everything off my plate - it's OK to stop eating when I've had enough. I've lost some weight over this, but not much yet. But I feel better.
   
6. I have stopped staying up late every night. I go to bed with my dear one at about 10:30 and I get up when she does. It has been nice and we both enjoy being on the same schedule. Side note: I still watch movies.
7. We decided that cable TV was just too expensive, so we discontinued it. The hard part of it was that giving it up also meant giving up football, and that was HARD! I love watching football. But I haven't actually found it to be all that difficult, after all. The real driving point on this whole thing was that one day WOOT.com had Roku devices on sale for about $40. Roku is a little black box that receives wireless internet and streams movies and stuff to your TV. Once you have the box and wireless internet, you can watch movies and live streaming TV. So we can get BYU TV for conference and religious stuff, and we signed up for Netflix for movies. And that's it. By the way, I still watch movies.
   
8. I have been buying flowers for Liz every once in awhile. I don't know why it took me 40 years to figure this out, but Liz really seems to think it's neat to have flowers show up occasionally. Go figure!
   

So, I feel like my life has changed quite a bit this year, and mostly it has been positive. I'd like to say that I've had some big revelation or life-changing experience, but it has just been a year of little changes and it occurred to me the other day that there have been quite a few of them.
It scares me a little bit, because sometimes you feel like if you get everything going just right, something has to break or God will call you home, or something. I hope not, because I am enjoying life right now and I'd like it to stay this way.

Now if I could just get us moved to Utah where I can plant an orchard and harvest fruit in my old age.