It’s my 49th birthday and I’ve decided to start a new blog. It’s really a companion to my old blog on Tumblr, hence the same name. This will be the Dave’s Word blog in long form while the Dave’s Word Tumblr blog will continue to share photos , ideas, articles, life stuff in the format Tumblr is best at – quick hits. My hope to slow things down here and have a place for more – more. Plus, I’ve always wanted to try a real blog – WordPress style – so here we go! Hope you follow along…
Like I said earlier, today is my 49th birthday. 49. Not the most fun of years. Actually, the late 40’s has not been the most fun of years. Lot’s of changes and feelings and thoughts – and the need for more of this:
I’ve got a lot going on in my last year of my 40’s head:
- Work and career issues – am I happy doing what I’m doing? Should I make a change? Making a change is so hard. In so many ways I have it really good in my current job. But I don’t feel challenged. Things are happening at my company that have me concerned. This would be a good time for a career change – maybe the last one before retirement. But do I cut off my nose to spite my face – or would I instead be growing and living and taking chances that could have unlimited benefits…
- My daughter is growing up – and that is frightening! I understand, everybody has gone through this since the beginning of time. But now it’s my turn – and how did all those people survive this?!? Here’s what I have to look forward to over the next 5 years – high school, boys, driving, college – ugh. But she is a great kid. All musical and geeky. She plays violin in multiple orchestras, is first chair in her school orchestra, and has been taking piano lessons since she was 5. All smart and helpful – getting mostly A’s in school, volunteering at the local animal shelter, and playing volleyball two seasons a year.So obviously, the plan is for her to be so busy that there isn’t time for boys or driving and then we just have to worry about college…
Our house is getting to that age where there is a lot of big upkeep items that need to be done. The problem is that we spend most of our extra money on traveling. So to get all these things done we need to not travel as much – which is depressing to the whole family. At this moment we need most of our windows replaced, we need a new roof, need to put in new floors, could use a new countertop in the kitchen, and a bunch of painting. A lot of our windows have gotten condensation between the panes and are growing mold, so this is our first priority. The roof is old and a lot of people in the neighborhood are replacing theirs, but it doesn’t seem to be leaking, so it can wait for now. We would really like to pull up our carpet and vinyl floors and put in a mix of tiles, wood, and new carpet throughout the downstairs. I started this longterm project last year by putting in ceramic tile in our master bath, and I need to do the same soon in our small downstairs bathroom. Tiling the kitchen would be too big a job for me, as would wood floors. We had a dog for 15 years that died last year, so our carpets are old and used up – but $$ for floors or $$ for vacation. The age old question dating back to caveman days…
- Now for my biggest current worry. Health issues. Actually, I’m in really decent shape. My weight is down. I workout all the time. My cholesterol and blood pressure numbers are as good as they’ve ever been. I’m eating pretty good. Probably drink too much at times, but other than that – mostly everything is good. I do struggle with stomach problems a lot and allergies and stress and anxieties. Common stuff. The big thing right now is really an unknown. It could be nothing or it could be a big life changing thing on the horizon. I’ve gotten some bad test scores in the prostate cancer area recently. I’ve been dealing with prostatitis for a while and that can give you elevated psa numbers. My doctor gave me a new non psa test recently that came back high – which means I have a higher likelihood of having prostate cancer. The test gives the chances at 1 in 3, so the chances are still greater that I don’t, but my dad had prostate cancer at 59 and had his removed. Anyway, because of this test my doctor is sending me to Richmond to have an Advanced Prostate MRI, where they can determine from a detailed, cross section MRI picture whether I have anything going on in there. If they see anything suspicious, then they will do a targeted biopsy based on the MRI. It’s the newest thing and a lot better than the blind biopsies they used to do and probably still do today. So while I’m not happy that this is happening and I’m worried about the outcome, I do feel pretty lucky that this is available now. If they don’t see anything in the MRI, then no biopsy – and either way I’ll have a pretty good idea what is going on. I don’t know yet when this is happening, but it will probably be in the next couple weeks. So this is kind of dominating everything right now – just in time for my birthday and spring and summer and all the fun stuff coming up. But as the great philosopher Dory once said – Just keep swimming…
Well – that’s it for now. My first blog post. I’m going to to out and enjoy the beginning of the last year of my 40’s. I think we are going to the zoo and a brewery and to get some food. Sounds like a good day…
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