Month: December 2024

Posted on

From Cold Mornings to Warm Reflections: Navigating Life After a Brain Stroke

Written November 16, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

It was one of the days that I felt like I just wanted to stay in bed. Ever since I got my brain stroke, I cannot stand cold at all. Before I had my brain stroke, I had a much higher heartbeat and blood pressure, and I always felt hot. We used to live in Canada; my wife complained because I would open our bedroom window while sleeping. Ever since I can remember, my wife has kept her temperature around 65F or 18C during the winter. So our house would always be cool in the winter. I was hot all the time. Now, I feel cold.

I had difficulty forcing myself from bed this morning. I initially woke 45 minutes before my alarm. During the summer months, I would start my run early. But it’s so chilly. I hesitated. I crawled back to bed after using the restroom and fell back asleep. When my alarm sounded, I turned it off and snuggled back under the warm covers, staying awake but in bed and warm for a half hour. Despite the early morning, my wife was already out of bed a few hours before me. She wakes up much earlier every day.

Eventually, I forced myself to throw back the blankets and start my day. When I woke up, my wife was already done running, studying Geman, and writing something in the notebook in the dining room. She has more things to do in her morning routine, as she will create the menu for the upcoming week and create a grocery list. Somehow, we bought four limes that became bad after ten days, which she was upset about. She does not like wasting food ingredients since we should be able to control that with proper planning. Also, she thinks it is sinful to waste food. I know she lists why we wasted the food on the lists.  Then, she would write about how to avoid such an event again. The year is almost over, but we don’t have one page of wasted food. 

Observing my wife also made me question whether I had wasted time today. I’ve been delaying my run in my office, allowing it to warm up further, but I think I’ve wasted enough time now and will start my run shortly. I still need to do weekly house vacuuming chores and clean leaves outside. 

Later, I talked to my wife about this morning, and she said she would put on the space heater before she goes running going forward. She also understands that my body condition is different. I hope it will work better. 

Posted on

Chilly Days, Leaves, and Adjusting to Nature’s Rhythm

Written November 12, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

It’s so darn chilly today, but I must push myself to clean the leaves. The windy and rainy days made our front yard cluttered with leaves. This is what happens when I skip working on collecting leaves.

The hurricane gave Nashville a couple of chilly days. It has been so cold today that I almost wanted to stay inside the house. I waited a bit longer, hoping the temperature would be more tolerable. After I had a brain stroke, I lost control of my inner thermoregulation system. My skin feels the heat or chills more profoundly than before my brain stroke. I will adjust my schedule for outside chores since external conditions impact me more. If I didn’t have to finish the task today, I would instead want to complete the task in a better condition. 

Just like I hoped, a few hours improved the temperature. It seemed much warmer after a few hours. The lovely sunlight dried up the leaves enough to vacuum easily when I got outside. The wet leaves could be nasty sometimes; they get clogged in our leaf vacuum cleaner in the middle of the cleaning. 

On a day like this, I tweaked my schedule. I can still do the other chores in the house before doing any outside chores. I still have several tasks I need to complete besides the leaf vacuuming today. 

The several consecutive warm and humid rainy days confused our lawn with the season. They seemed much longer than a few weeks ago. It needs to be longer to mow the lawn, but I need to see how long it gets. 

I plan to do one more round of leave vacuuming this Thursday. I’ve checked the weather forecast. It will likely be another chilling morning. Luckily, no rain is predicted between now and then. The trees in front of our house lost a substantial amount of trees, hinting that my leaf vacuuming task will end soon.

Posted on

Celebrating My Wife’s Journey to U.S. Citizenship

Written November 13, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

Today is a very exciting day.  It is the culmination of my wife’s journey to become a US citizen.  In less than an hour, we’ll depart for the federal building in downtown Nashville, and eventually, she’ll go through the citizenship oath swearing ceremony. She’s been excited about this final step for quite a while now. 

My wife is uneasy about losing her immigration cards, both current and expired, which must be surrendered after being awarded citizenship. She told me that it is pretty expensive to get a new card. 

Since coming to the United States, she planned to get citizenship. She made sure not to leave the Country, as she said she would add more documents to submit to the immigration office. She wanted to make sure she could apply for citizenship without any sponsorship to satisfy all the requirements.

A few years after we moved to the United States, I got a brain stroke. We talked about many things, and we decided to move to Tennessee. She wanted the same job and exact address for 5 years to make the process easier. So she delayed the process. She thought it would be ideal to wait for 3 years and did not see any big problems. She decided to get another professional designation and a graduate degree while working full-time. She wanted to ensure she could contribute something of value to the United States.

Everything she does is part of a long-term plan. While her goals may span several decades, she reevaluates them weekly. I initially thought she acted quickly and impulsively when I didn’t know her well. Then, I realized many unscheduled items were on her list, and she inserted them into the schedule like a puzzle piece whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

I know she has been preparing for a long time. Our entire citizenship process was much shorter than we thought. She already had an interview a few days over six months ago and received a letter for the ceremony less than seven days after the interview. Unfortunately, it was scheduled in the middle of her interim audit. She had to work around her schedule to make time for the ceremony. She looked swamped, trying to get things done in time.

She looks delighted. She has been dutifully carrying her immigration documents as instructed for several years. It will take some time for her to grow accustomed to being unencumbered by documentation, as she soon will be. She’ll need to acquire a US passport and then have travel rights again.

Posted on

Running Through the Seasons: A Humid Morning in Tennessee

Written November 6, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

It felt almost like the early morning of early summer in Tennessee when I woke up. When I woke, it was raining a little, and that, combined with the unseasonably warm weather, led to an uncomfortably humid run. After my post-run shower, I checked my weather app and learned it was near 80% relative humidity. We have had hurricane after hurricane the last couple of weeks. We don’t get direct hurricanes like the southern coastal states of the United States, but we still get some secondary hurricane effects such as excess rain and wind.

We thought the temperature had been getting chilly in October, but it started warming up again. Compared to the dry August this year, we have had a lot of rain these days. It’s been pretty warm and humid. My wife told me that it felt like early summer morning when she ran this morning. 

It feels like there are more rainy days than last year. Rain can make leaves gain weight. I am planning to clear some of my leaves tomorrow. Hopefully, the rain will stop, making it easier for me to clean them. However, I am afraid we will have rain tomorrow. I hear there will be another hurricane approaching Texas. It is nothing new. The hurricane season usually lasts until the end of November. We will use up all the alphabet for hurricane names. Unlike the weather in Oregon, we do not have many rainy days in the winter. 

I love running in this season, though. The holiday season is approaching. We have Thanksgiving at the end of November. Some houses still have Halloween decorations. Some houses have autumn decorations for Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving Day is a big holiday for Americans. My wife said she felt odd because Canadian Thanksgiving Day is on Columbus Day. It makes sense since Canada is much colder than the United States. Once Thanksgiving Day is over, we will have Christmas and New Year. However by the time Christmas is near, the temperature will have dropped significantly. I wonder if I would enjoy any decorations while I was running.

It is beautiful outside despite the rain. One downside of a day like this is that it is inconvenient to collect leaves. However, it’s not as bad as it sounds. The leaves around our house still change color and look beautiful, and I enjoy the comfortable temperature. It’s more humid than I like, but at least with this humidity level, my skin is unlikely to feel dry while running. I should cherish the temperature and enjoy my running.

Posted on

Fall Maintenance Chronicles: Tackling Leaves, Hurricanes, and a Leaf-Vacation in Nashville

Written November 7, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

Near Thanksgiving day, our trees start to lose their dry clothing. They dropped so many leaves that there were so many to vacuum today. There were more leaves this year. A recent Hurricane brought a few windy days, and the wind carried the leaves from our neighbors. Due to our garbage bin being full of leaves from Tuesday’s collection session, I elected to skip today’s session as there’s nowhere to put them.  

Since October, we have had hurricane after hurricane. Hurricanes don’t hit Nashville directly, but our weather seems to sing along with them. We get the rain and wind. There is rain forecasted for this weekend, which may make leaf collection next week a bit more difficult, but I’ll do what I can.

In the future, we may want to get an extra garbage bin to hold a bag to dump leaves into.  We have some bags I could use, but throwing the leaves into an unsupported bag would be a lot of trouble.  So, today will be my vacation from leaf gathering, and I may have to pay for it next week.  Maybe I’ll be lucky, and the wind will magically blow all our leaves away without blowing new ones in to replace them.

Leaf vacuuming is one necessary maintenance task. When old leaves turn into soil, it creates unwanted deposits between concrete. Despite my work, there were weeds on the driveway. We had to weed them and clear them out with a power washer before damaging our driveway further. Besides, these dry trees make our front yard messy, so I want to keep them as neat as possible. 

Fortunately, leaf vacuuming is not as hard as lawn mowing, and the weather is more tolerable now than in summer. The days have gotten shooter, and winter will show up quickly. The trees in the backyard have lost most of their tree already. There will be 2-3 weeks of leaf vacuuming. Of course, we may get a rare snowstorm, which hit us every year for all 6 years we lived in Nashville. For now, I will enjoy this leaf vacation.