"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the first word you thought of." - Burt Bacharach

The first in a series I'm calling "Slams and Retorts."

Don't have sciatic trouble. It's no fun! Ouch.

I talked to Pam twice yesterday, morning and evening. I was worried about leaving her there for a week right after she'd spent three days in the hospital with what the dr.s thought was a heart attack. Yes, we're both very thankful it turned out to be something called micro-vascular angina, something that doesn't pose the same risks as a full-blown heart attack. But its symptoms are the same (i.e. very painful) and frightening.
So I was more than a little bothered to hear she'd had another episode right after dropping me off at the airport Monday morning. Thankfully (!) this one was far less intense and yielded to the four baby aspirin she took immediately.
Now I'm busy all day each day reminding myself that she's in his perfect care. And I'm very eager for her to get into see a cardiologist after she gets home so we can get some answers.

We had our mail held at the P.O. while we were both in AZ. I picked it up yesterday, including our electric bill for the last month. It's the only utility bill we have because our water comes from a well, we have a septic tank, and I now take our trash to the transfer station at less than half of what we were paying for garbage pickup.

Our electric bill was a few pennies over $100. Rates have gone up so even though we used significantly less electricity than the same month a year ago the bill was about the same. Part of the drop in usage was because I turn off the water heater when we leave town for more than a day. We spent a week on our camping trip so the water heater used 25% less power. And that got me thinking.

It's just the two of us and we use very little hot water. Showers and washing the dishes once a day are the majority of our usage most days. A tiny amount gets used for washing hands and the odd chore, but that's about it. For that we're heating 40 gallons of water 24 hours a day which doesn't make sense.

I need to look into options. I've read that the "instant hot" water heaters are expensive and that it takes a long time to recover up-front costs. I wonder if that would be true in our case. Or if we could save by moving to a much smaller traditional water heater. It's hard to know if it makes sense to spend money to save money because none of us knows the future. How long will we live in MoHo on Baker Rd.?

After a conversation with Josh I'm going to make some modifications to the way I eat. For example, for b'fast I normally rotate between eggs and BACON, oatmeal out of a single serving package, and the waffles Pam makes me. The oatmeal has brown sugar and the waffles - well, add up the carbs and the sugar in the syrup and it's not the best way to start the day. But I can't eat the same thing every day (except for the BACON) without going crazy. So yesterday I got a yellow and red pepper and some sausage patties. Pam says I don't like green peppers so I skipped that one. (I didn't know that.)
This morning I had the sausage with a scrambled egg that included some of the minced peppers and grated cheese.
Took F O R E V E R to fix. But it will go faster next time because I minced all of the two peppers and that was most of the time spent in prep.
I'm going to get some plain oatmeal and learn how to fix that in a way that tastes good. Add in some fruit and I should be able to make it to lunch without a bowl of cereal for second b'fast. Or maybe second b'fast is an apple.
Speaking of apples, I may give up my pies. Josh says I can allow myself one cheat per week. I asked him if an apple pie counted as one cheat and he said no.
The point of all this is to reduce the amount of processed sugar.

The other half of the diet and exercise equation is on hold until this sciatica issue is gone. Running is obviously impossible and most of what I do at the gym involves the lower body in some way.
The lack of daily exercise is irritating.

White Castle is making news because they now sell a veggie burger. I had their sliders once. That was once too many. Totally gross in every way.

OK, it's already 9:15 and all I've done is wash dishes, make b'fast, and do morning animal chores. The rain is supposed to start about noon so I need to get to work on the trailer.
I'll be back. (sorry)