Another Painting Class

During the summer, I signed up for a watercolor class at our local arts center. I have been missing the pleasure of painting, and I felt I'd like to brush up on some basics. Unfortunately, the regular instructor was unavailable, and the substitute she sent was under the mistaken impression we were all advanced students not needing any real instructions. In truth, the class was advertised as beginner to intermediate, and, indeed, about have of our 20 or so classmates had never done any watercolor at all. The instructor was forced to make some significant changes to her teaching plans.

I didn't learn a great deal in this class. But the upside is that it got me painting again. I got all my materials out and looked at what I had and got past that thinking of "it's just too much trouble -- I'll do it another time."

So, for my own benefit, here's a little of what I painted.

Some practice in perspective, light and shadows and creating 3D forms. I'm very bad at this. And it's hard to do in watercolor because sometimes you want a dry dark color and it runs away a bit.

The teacher wanted us to paint from our own photos and not violate any copyrights, so I did this one of a Black-headed Grosbeak in my yard. When viewed small, it looks pretty good. But it's about 6"x8" and is actually pretty rough. I worked on it a lot and finally called it done.

 Finally, I chose a scene from the Antelope Island causeway. I wanted to take on the difficult challenge of clouds. In watercolor, you leave white space as white--you don't paint it. In oils and acrylics, you can use white paint. Somehow, it's very hard for me to paint clouds in watercolor. So I spent the rest of the weeks of class working on this. I know I ruined some parts and maybe overworked it. But again, I finally had to say, done!

So there it is, my return to watercolor. I'm not really proud of the work I've done. But feel good to have begun again. I've chosen a few more subjects I want to paint. Once I have Thanksgiving dinner behind me, I will drag out the paints again and set up on my kitchen island.

Oops, almost forgot this one. On the first day of class, I was so disappointed at having no instruction and no direction, I went home determined to paint something anyway. The first thing I saw was a cute Mexican serving dish I keep on my kitchen island. It shows no skill or technique, but at least my grandkids recognized it right away.

Better Eyesight

Just an update on my eyes. I did finally have one last laser touch-up to correct a cloudy membrane covering the right eye lens. I could see distance better immediately after that. However, reading improvement has been occurring gradually over the four weeks since then. At my final followup visit to the eye doc, my vision was 20/20 in the left and 20/30 in the right. But 20/20 together. But most remarkable was my reading vision. I don't remember how small the text was I could read, but it was pretty tiny with both eyes together. Interestingly, neither eye alone was that good. But the eye doc explained that our brains do a thing when combining sight from both eyes, the effect is better than either eye alone. Well, all I know is I can now even read easily the tiny numbers on my phone that indicate remaining battery power. Even with contacts, I used to squint for those.

I am enjoying reading books again after a long sad period when reading had become really unpleasant. I will still wear reading glasses when the text is light in color or on a colored background. Also in dim lighting.  I keep some reading glasses in my purse, especially for reading packaging in the grocery store that is often either very small, or printed in white on a colored background.

In the final tally, it was definitely worth it to have the more expensive lenses. I am glasses-free now and really seeing well. And still my vision continues to improve.

Oh, I almost forgot about the PVD.  The flashes have gone away but I still have one large floater that insists on being front and center. The eye doc explained that floater might eventually just sink out of sight. But if it doesn't, there is laser surgery to correct it. I'm definitely waiting this one out. The floater is annoying, but I've had my fill of eye doctor visits for now (10 visits this year!) and will only consider the surgery after giving this a long time to resolve itself.

Summer of Cooking Lessons

It has taken me long enough to get around to writing about summer with the grandsons. It has been a strange year -- largely due to my vision issues. I pushed myself hard to make summer really memorable. This may very well be our last such summer as the boys are getting so much older now. We've had a great run with our themed summers for I don't know how many years now. All memorable. The kids like to talk about those special summers. I know we've made lifelong memories.

We covered an amazing amount of ground with our cooking activities. I think I'll mostly list what we made and not add a lot of details just in interest of length.

Yesterday, I finished printing all of our recipes and compiling them in a cool recipe book, one for each kid, with built-in stand and plastic page covers, so they can look at the recipes while cooking and keep them clean. I forgot to take pictures of the books before delivering them to the kids. Ah well, never mind, here's some of what we did this summer:

Basics: We learned about reading recipes, using knives safely (and which knives to use for various purposes), how to measure ingredients (how double or half ingredients and some substitutions), cooking organization beforehand and cleanup after. We learned about baking and broiling in the oven, and cooking on top of the stove. We learned how to use food processor and various kitchen tools and utensils. We learned saute skills and how to chop onions and garlic and herbs, which was the start of many of our recipes.

Sandwiches: We began with a week of all different types of sandwiches with different types of breads, fillings, toppings, sauces. We toasted in the toaster and under the broiler. Survival food for kids away at college, right?

Sauces: We made homemade spaghetti sauce and homemade teriyaki sauce. The spaghetti sauce was used both for spaghetti dinner, and leftovers were frozen and used for meatballs subs and pizza sauce later on.

Meats: We made homemade meatballs (used in both our spaghetti dinner and meatball subs). Also fried chicken, teriyaki chicken (with our homemade sauce), Sloppy Joes, and oven-baked bacon.

Eggs: We learned how to crack an egg without shells. By the end of summer, the boys were highly confident in egg cracking. We cooked eggs three ways: scrambled, over easy (served with toast soldiers), and perfect hard boiled (and we learned to peel hard-cooked eggs).

Potatoes: We cooked a variety of different types of potatoes. Boiled (parsleyed new potatoes with skins on), mashed, baked, fried. We even made a batch of potato chips.

Vegetables: In addition to potatoes, we learned how to wash, peel (or not) and cut up various types of veggies and a variety of ways of cooking; including steaming, frying, baking, boiling. We made perfect rice which was served with our teriyaki chicken. 

Breads: We made homemade bread, which was really fun for the boys and was a highlight of our activities. The guys produced some amazingly perfect loaves which we all enjoyed. With the same bread dough, we also made cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, hamburger buns, pigs in blankets (with smoky sausages), and even some cinnamon twists with leftover dough. We made honey butter for the hot bread right out of the oven. I almost forgot to mention banana bread, too.

I managed to get a good picture of the bread while distorting the kids. Oops!

 Desserts: We made Apple Betty, which was simple except for some extensive manual peeling of apples with paring knives. I didn't realize I had three paring knives. We also made a six-layer rainbow cake. We used a cake mix for our cake as we were focusing on the design, coloring, and assembly. It took two white cake mixes, each divided into thirds and colored before baking. We assembled with icing we had purchased. The one mistake we made was to try putting some raspberry filling between some of the layers, which caused the layers to slide due to the weight of layer above. But with some fast-thinking and chilling, we got it to stay. What a triumph!

Combo Foods: Under the category of breads, we also made pizza dough, and then added various toppings of the kids' choice to make dinner for their parents. We made shepherd's pie using our mashed potato and sloppy joe's recipes and adding veggies and baking.  We cooked perfect pastas incorporating some of the other items. We made mac and cheese, spaghetti, Afredo chicken, maybe others I don't recall.

Mac n Cheese

I think that covers it. I may have forgotten something. But clearly, our summer was very busy -- especially considering they were on vacation for a couple of weeks and I was out of commission for a few days for eye surgery. We all felt really satisfied with our efforts. I wish I had taken more pictures. But no matter, we made memories.

A few complications

Now seven weeks post surgery on the first eye, and I have a few complications, though nothing serious. At four and six weeks, I had followup appointments with my regular eye doctor, and it seems I wasn't seeing as well as immediately after the surgery. In fact, my vision was 20/40 -- barely enough to pass the driver test which I have to do later this year. He referred me back to the surgeon to see if some laser tweaking was called for. The surgeon discussed with me three issues I'm having:

PVD - Posterior Vitreous Detachment. This condition actually just occurred a few days before I was to see the surgeon. I googled the symptoms and correctly identified this. It helped that a good friend of mine just recently had a bout of this herself. It is when the vitreous material in the eye separates from the retina resulting in noticeable floaters and flashes of light in the peripheral vision. It is fairly common in older people, though I hadn't heard of it before my friend had it. It is more likely to occur in near-sighted people, and also post cataract surgery. As we age, the vitreous material shrinks and pulls away from the retina (this is different from detached retina). In most cases, including mine, the retina is not damaged and the condition will usually heal on its own in about four weeks or so.

Cloudy membrane. Sometimes, post cataract surgery, the membrane that contains the new lens can also become clouded. This has occurred with my right eye (the same one with PVD). The fix is a simple laser procedure in the office. However, as my eyes are still healing, I won't get this procedure until mid-September. Both this procedure and the healing up of the PVD should improve my vision in the right eye once again. At this time, the left eye doesn't appear to have this problem.

Astigmatism. I guess I don't have an ordinary astigmatism. I have an unusual shaped eye. The surgeon did caution me that because of this I may not have the perfect correction I desire. He did do some laser work on my eyes during the cataract surgery, but he is reluctant to do anything further now as it could actually harm my vision. So, we've gone as far as we can on that issue. I will wait to see how I am seeing after September. But it seems likely I will need readers for some reading (as I do now). And I may need driving glasses.

Oh well, at least I'm not blind.

I can see clearly now

The second cataract surgery was completed earlier this week, and I am the proud owner of some pretty wonderful, powerful eyesight. My distance vision really could not be better. My reading vision is good and improving every day. I knew there was a caveat with the reading vision due to a deformity in eye shape, but the doctor did a bid of laser surgery along with the cataract procedure to make the most of the multifocal lenses. And here I am, reading and writing without glasses. I still have a little difficulty with thin letters like i, l, t -- especially double letters -- and some punctuation. But I'm delighted to be reading well for the most part, able to see my phone and computer, and to read fairly small text without much difficulty. I may still wear reading glasses for long episodes of reading -- like a book or news articles. We'll see.

The whole experience was truly interesting. I accepted the Valium they offered, but no other calming medication. The eye area is totally numbed and I was awake and aware for the entire procedure. At a few points patient feedback is needed. It sounds awful, but really is not. Even having your eyelids held open is not weird. You feel like you are blinking normally and it doesn't bother you at all. The entire process takes only about 10 minutes, although you do spend additional time for a physical and numbing process beforehand. Really, the longest appointment was the preliminary one a few weeks before surgery, where they do many tests and measurements. My overall impression was that it was a really interesting experience to have and to "watch". It was more fascinating than anything. No pain at all, and only tiny moments of discomfort.

Perhaps the hardest part is arranging rides to and from the clinic on three different days. My kids all have work and other things happening in their lives. I know it wasn't easy for them to arrange. But they all came through and helped me out. I noticed other patients in the office struggling to arrange rides. It's not easy for anyone, I think.

I came out of the first surgery with amazing clear distance vision immediately but blurry reading vision. That reading vision has now improved to 20/20 but with a slight "smeariness" to the text. I could actually read the 20/10 line as well. The second eye remained blurry for both distance and reading the whole first day, and I was worried there was some problem. However, by my followup visit the next morning, I was seeing very well and able to drive myself. The reading level was only at about 20/40 and that was a reach. But that has improved a great deal and reading in both eyes continues to improve.

One thing I am learning is that I look through these implanted lenses in a different way than I did multifocal contacts. With contacts, I tended to narrow my eyelids to sort of hold the lens in place while I looked through the bifocal part of the lens. It's a habit I need to unlearn. The implanted lens is not floating on the surface of the eye; and holding my eyelids like that has no benefit at all. It's better to hold my eyes open and simply tilt my eyes and head as needed to access the reading part of the lenses. Just relearning this and retraining my brain is bringing about better and better results.

It is amazing to have perfect distance vision without glasses or contacts. I keep feeling like I need to put my glasses on or take out my contacts. Just habit.

I have been following doctor's orders to a "t" following the surgery: no heavy lifting, no yard work for a few weeks, eye drops on a specified schedule for four weeks, etc. The hardest part is refraining from yard work. But I care too much about having good outcomes from the surgery to do anything that might diminish the good results. I did what I could before the surgery. I got some yard help before the surgery. And now the yard projects will just have to wait for a little while.

So, all is well in the vision department. I'm definitely glad I opted for the multifocal lenses as I do have pretty remarkable reading capability without glasses so far. It was worth it to me.

This was just one of the turning points in my 2019. More to come.

A Turning Point

Well, look who's back. Yep, I haven't posted in five months, But, here I am at last with an update. I ended last year on a down note, so there was nowhere to go but up. And in many ways things are looking up. And I am approaching something of a turning point in my life. I'll break it down into tidbits.

First, I am finally having the much needed and much anticipated cataract surgery. First eye is next week, and the second eye the week after that. I had put off the doctor visit until after the holidays. Then I learned the bad news that I had to wait three to four months while wearing glasses and no contacts because I had worn hard or gas-permeable lenses for over 50 years. I followed orders and wore only glasses. But it was tougher than I thought it would be. In the bad eye, I now see only light shapes and dim colors -- glasses offer no help. With the remaining good eye, glasses definitely help, but as the shape of the cornea changes, so does my vision. I am left with pretty poor vision at this point. I'm okay to drive, but I stick to short trips on back roads. Any fears I may have had early on about the surgery are far outweighed now by my desire to see well once again. The other bad news is that I am not an ideal candidate for the multifocal lenses due to a slight malformation in my eyes. This means they may not be able to correct perfectly for reading and I may sometimes need reading glasses. The doctor seems to believe, however, that in good light and with rested, hydrated eyes, I won't need the glasses. The cost of the multifocal lenses is thousands of dollars more than the single focal lenses. But after much thought and a bit of angst, I decided to go with multifocal anyway. It's a gamble and I may end up disappointed. But I had set aside the money for this long ago, and with some hope of success, I am willing to take the chance. I will update more after the surgeries.

This week is the last week of school for the grandkids and the last week of elementary school for the youngest grandson. This means I will no longer be needed to help get him off to school in the mornings. Next year in junior high, he and his mother will leave the house at about the same time. And the boys are old enough now they don't need supervision in the afternoon for the hour till their dad gets home. Frankie and I will miss many aspects of being so involved in the grandkids' lives. But I won't miss needing to wake up at 4:30 every day. Or needing to shovel snow before I leave the house in those early hours. And possibly most of all, I won't miss the school parking lot and drop off circle -- one of the nightmares of modern America. I could write a whole post on this (but I won't), but 95% of parents are considerate, thoughtful, careful drivers. The other 5%? Just be on your toes every second.

Yesterday I had a party at my house to celebrate my oldest granddaughter's graduation from Salt Lake Community College. And incidentally, I'm quite proud of her for doing it all on her own and working and paying her tuition and costs as she went. As I was talking with the grandsons, I commented that I didn't imagine they would want to spend as much time at my house this summer. On the contrary, they said they loved to come to my house and looked forward to those summer days. I was surprised, since they are getting older and I don't have the fun games and electronics they have at home. But I think they like that we have great lunches and talks together and then we DO things. We read, we do music, we go on field trips. Following on last year's successful year of music, we will continue to play our instruments every day, and I will give the boys a piano lesson once a week. But this year they want to make it the year of cooking lessons. So that's what it will be. And even Brittany, the new graduate will join us on the cooking days. So this will be fun! I will modify the schedule this year a bit, however. I will spend a couple of hours at home in the mornings taking care of things in the yard and house while the boys get their own breakfasts at home, get ready for the day, and do things they need to do. I will show up at 11 a.m. and we'll go from there. It will be very good for me as I continue to take more of the maintenance responsibility in my yard.

And that brings me to THE YARD. Some of my friends keep telling me it's time to sell the house if the yard has become so difficult for me. But, when I see a new sunset, or I watch the little birds that always return to the feeders, including the little chickadee family that produces a new brood every year from the little blue birdhouse, I know I'm not ready yet. I have worked hard in my yard this spring and got a lot of cleanup done myself. With my son's help, I tested the sprinklers. I replaced a couple of spray heads and tweaked some drip lines. There is a certain Zen-ness in working in the yard. Even pulling weeds. But this week, the guy who mowed my lawn last year stopped by and asked if I needed help to finish the cleanup. Since I had the party coming up, I hired his crew for a day. And since I had done so much already, the cost to me was not so much. It allowed me time to get some of my patio pots planted. This crew, honestly, did not do as great a job as the old Alberto crowd, but they at least did not pull up any perennials. And such nice, personable guys, too. I will not need to do as much planting this year, but will continue to tweak here and there. I have plants that need to be moved. I want to add some more ornamental grasses. I'll continue tweaking the drip irrigation to make it even more efficient. Octavio's guys will mow and trim every other week for me. I will mow the in between week. With my electric mower, it's pretty easy for me now, and I'd like to stay in practice. I honestly feel I can manage the yard now with just that much assistance. And I feel so much better having such micro control over everything in the yard.

A new sunset, very like the others, but always just as wonderful

At the end of summer when the kids go back to school, it will be the first time since long before I retired that I didn't have some regular responsibilities. It will be a true turning point. A chance to rethink how I spend my time. A chance to finish those projects that have languished. A chance to renew my efforts at music, painting, birding, photography. It will be the first time I will actually feel retired. However, that's not to say I will stop helping my kids in whatever ways I can. As long as I'm capable, I want to help them and be an extension of their efforts in maintaining home and families. Plus, Frankie needs to see his humans often and we need to make sure of that. But the real change is that there will be no regular schedule. AND I will be able to sleep longer in the morning and get up at a half-decent hour. Who knows what will come after that. It will be a new phase of life and I'll wait till it gets here to make any plans.

So, that's the big stuff. I'm still alive and kicking, though less inclined to blog at the moment (partly due to vision issues). Life holds many challenges big and small and I can't write about them all. But despite the difficulties with my eyes this year, I feel far more upbeat about things and feel more on top of my responsibilities than I did last year. And that's progress of sorts.