I abused my body for many years…eating poorly, yo-yo dieting, abusing substances, over-exercising. It’s coming home to roost, I’m afraid. I don’t know what triggered the hyperparathyroidism…genetics, lifestyle, environmental factors? Add that to simply aging and I have a few more difficult days than I used to.

Anyone over the age of say…60 knows things don’t work exactly like they used to. There are aches and pains in places where they never were before. It can be really frustrating when things don’t work like they did before. My friend Diane shared a picture of the two of us at our 45th High School Reunion that was held five years ago this weekend. She looks exactly the same. I have aged like crazy. 

I’ve turned back the hands of time before through diet and exercise. I’m not sure if I can do it again, but I’m bound and determined to try. I remember heading into that reunion, I was in great shape. I was on my “clean and green” diet. I was walking nearly every day. I recorded my progress here on the blog. And, I was absolutely sure I would never let myself go again. I was sure I would keep the weight off.

The first thing that happened is, I got happy. Early this winter it will be five years since Mr. FixIt called me and asked me out to lunch. It didn’t take too many dates till we decided this was worth putting some time into and we soon became inseparable. And happy. And got married. And I put on weight that winter. I was tickled to death to sit in the house by the fire and knit and write and before I knew it, the jeans were replaced by leggings. 

Then, Mr. FixIt had a stroke…with another one a couple months later. Then…the pandemic hit hard and we were in the house again…not by choice. Like so many others, I turned to my kitchen for comfort. I thought myself how to bake sourdough bread. I baked and baked and we ate and ate. I canned. I dehydrated. And ate and ate and ate some more. Now I weigh as much as I did when I delivered my children. My body is talking to me. It’s telling me to take better care of it…NOW!

Now, I know you can be a bigger girl and still be healthy, but I’m not. I’m slipping here and I don’t like it. I don’t think diet and exercise can reverse hyperparathyroidism, but I’m going to do my best to try to at least improve my health. It’s just so easy to put it on and not as easy to take off. Especially as you get older. 

We ate light yesterday, and our evening snack was watermelon. I bought another one of those “cannonball” melons, but this one wasn’t quite as sweet as the one I bought last week. I think I’ll go back to the original produce stand (Witten’s) and get another of the really good ones and save it for our trip. I thought I’d show you an easy way to cut watermelon and get evenly sized pieces. I cut the stem and blossom ends off to create a flat surface. Then quarter the melon, and slice each quarter into one inch slices. It’s so much easier to handle that way.

I woke up yesterday at 4:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep because of a heavy thunderstorm. I was sleeping in the camper and…wow! If you’ve never experienced a West Virginia thunder and lightning show in a tin box, you really should. It’s pretty darned impressive. The day was hot in the afternoon…85 degrees for a little while. But, the rains broke that terrible heat and humidity we had last week and as I was writing this in the camper at 9:00 last night, the temperature was a very comfortable 74. 

I took my evening walkabout and snapped some pictures. I caught a picture of a praying mantis near the camper. There was a bee enjoying a passion flower. And the flower on our Star of Bethlehem (or bush lily) is opening more blossoms. As I headed out to the camper to write in my “happy place”, the sunset was a beautiful, bright salmon color so I dropped everything to catch the loveliness before it was gone.

God paints landscape portraits every day of the year and then dims the lights on the exhibit every evening. How much of it do we take for granted without even looking? How much do we really “see”? How often to we stop and thank God for all the beauty around us? It is so easy to get sucked into every ugly news cycle and miss living the lives God wants for us. I’m making a commitment to engage more with relationships and nature and less the technology and distractions. I know I’ll be a happier camper!

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“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV