My Hippy Husband

 You probably think Hippy should be spelled Hippie? Well, he's that too. We were both hippies in the 60s-70s, but now hippy takes on a new meaning so I figured I'd spell it differently. Jim's hip has been bothering him for several months now. He traces it back to about fall of 2022. He doesn't remember it hurting when we were in Italy in May, it wasn't even bad when we were in the UK in August, but when we were home in December and January, doing our walks around the neighborhood, he started telling me to slow down. It's usually me telling him to slow down, so something was wrong. It got to the point that he just wouldn't walk at all, it hurt too bad.

He got a referral to a hip doctor and the doctor told him he had 3 choices:

1. continue taking Aleve, like he had been doing
2. get an injection that may or may not help. If he did this, he would have to wait several months for it to work it's way thru his system before he'd be eligible for #3
3. have hip replacement surgery - FIX it!

Jim opted for #3. We're on medicare plus an expensive, good, supplemental insurance - so it wouldn't cost us anything. He's a good candidate and it's no problem to stay home for a few months. Surgery was scheduled for June 5.

I drove him to the hospital and we got there at 6:30am, he was home by 2:30 and walking. He had the required walker, but after a few hours he decided it was more awkward than helpful. He took it easy and just stayed home. He used the wall bed in his office downstairs.

Less than a month and he was cleared for activity. He'd been climbing stairs at home after about 2 weeks, driving in 3. At one month, we stayed at a hotel on the beach for July 4 and he went swimming in the ocean and walking over a mile to dinner.

Here's a before and after xray - after is on the left.

He's doing great AND walking without any pain now.

Magic Health Elixir

Water! 

What a difference drinking makes. 

Ever since I got my apple watch, and Jim got his oura ring, we've been tracking our sleep stats. I especially look at the stats called Sleep Fuel and Readiness. When those are high I know I'm going to have a good day. We've been learning the things to do in order to get a good night's sleep. 

Stop eating, drinking at least 2 hours before bed

Get some exercise during the day, preferably later

Wind down time-do nothing for an hour before bed -meditation. TV works for me. 

So, we've been home, with nothing but a few zoom or YouTube appointments. I've been following those 3 rules above and most of my sleep stats have been good. Heart rate 68, SPO2 95-100, overall sleep rating 90-96. But my Readiness and fuel are in the caution zone. And, I'm feeling extra stiff. That first trek down the stairs is painful. (think of the cockroach man in men in black)

What am I missing?

Oh yes ... Water. So yesterday I made sure to drink plenty of water. I still had my wine, just had water as well. My stats are better this morning - 98 overall. Sleep fuel is in the green, heart rate dip is 17% (20 is really good). And I'm not as stiff/sore. 

My Readiness is still in the yellow/caution zone but it's almost to the green. I attribute that to no exercise yesterday. Readiness had something to to with recovery rate and you need to have something to recover from! 

Water is the Elixir of life!

Serendipity while Road-Tripping

We planned the Georgia RV Rally with plenty of time to enjoy ourselves on the drive back. When we originally planned this, we expected to visit alex in Melrose for a couple days, then go to Disney to see Sallie and play.  As it turned out Alex was out visiting at that time, so we just studied the map and our Allstays app to decide how to spend 3 nights. 

We could go to Sanford and visit with Chris and Cherie, haven't done that in a couple years.  Oooops, they're not there.  They're out cruising in their yacht rather than at dock. Next choice was Gamble Rogers state park on the beach.  No sites available,  so I signed up with WanderingLabs.com. that's a service that will watch for cancelations and let you know if a desired site becomes available. Unfortunately, a lot of people use it. I got notified twice and each time someone else snagged the site within one minute.

Other state parks? All full.  Next choice,  Elks Lodge. Hey Green Cove Springs is right on our route. Haven't been there in a while. There's no hookups at the Elks Lodge there, but it's a beautiful spot right on the st John's river. Let's go.

Our overnight parking spot at the Elks Lodge in Green Cove Springs

The view out our camper door!

We went in to the bar to check in and have a drink and a woman came up to us and said "I know you" we said I don't think so, we're not from around here.  

She said I definitely know you, and she thought for a moment and mentioned Lewis and Sallie Carlock. OK, yes we know them and often stay over in Melrose where they live.  We shared our names and she said yes,  we're even friends in face book... Christine Borchers. Small world. She is very active in Elks and her boyfriend was getting initiated that night.  

Catching up on Facebook I noticed that Chris and Cherie were cruising up the st John's river,  they could be nearby so I sent a "HI There" email to tell them where we were.  Next thing we know, they're at Anchor in Green Cove Springs and running their dinghy in to the dock to visit!

Chris and Cherie's yacht Y-Not, anchored at Green Cove Springs

Our mailing address! and theirs.

Green Cove springs is actually a delightful little town ... I could live there.

We both use st Brendan's isle for mail forwarding which also meant our home address when we were fulltimers. The four of us went home for a photo op.

Is always fun to get together and speak geek.  They are Tech Nomads and are still building their business by adding employees. We have similar business models,  using a membership website to "monetize' our content. But they're lots younger and willing to do the work of building a business. We've 'been there, done that' with Computer Savvy back in the 80s and 90s. That's a whole other story that I need to write!

Anyway, it was fun to see them and share our love of serendipity.

I sooo like one on one teaching

During the SKP ACRE Rally, I announce that people could sign up for one-on-ones with me and I'd help them with whatever questions thay may have about their iPhone or Android phone. 

I had 4 one on one smartphone help desk appointments. It makes me happy to have people let me teach them ... I always learn something in the process and that's my real goal! 

1. Husband and wife came together, he had questions about Android notifications, she thought she knew more than both of us and just confused him, on her phone, she could shake for flashlight, his didn't have that feature.

2. The next couple came separately, she had and iphone and was thrilled to learn how Live Photos of waterfalls can be turned into a soft long-exposure. I also showed her how to search for all of her waterfall photos

3. Her husband had a Samsung phone and wanted to learn about google photos, editing, crop to rule of thirds, pop, also how to scan documents with Google Drive.

4. Next was a Samsung phone, and an old iPad. Google assistant on the Samsung. On the iPad, he wanted to get FaceTime to work. It would not accept password. Went thru forgot password, all worked again. And, I showed him how to add an Android user to a Facetime call.

I'm going to pat my own back here and tell you how good I am. There are definitely people who have more depth of knowledge in given topics than me, but I challenge you to find anyone who has the breadth of knowledge about personal use of smartphones and technology as I do. Even if there is someone else with that knowledge, I doubt that they are the natural born teacher that I am. I don't grab their phone and start pushing buttons. I make them do the things I tell them to do. I also do much more listening than I do talking. I'm not telling them about all the right and wrong ways of doing things , I'm listening to what they want to do and then just telling them what to try. As they tap the buttons I try to explain why I'm having them do those things. If it doesn't work, I teach them that this is the way it works. You try one thing, if that doesn't work you try something else. You also search for answers using google. 

How can I do this when we're not going to rallies? Online is ok, but it's not as good. 

StarLink and live streaming to youtube

From April 15-19 we were at the SKP ACRE RV Rally in Brunswick, GA. We always enjoy a reason to get out in our little RV. This was home for the week.

How cool that Jim got to play with a Starlink fish and connection for our youtube show. We're at an rv rally and doing our live streaming youtube show. The parks wifi is pretty dismal. Our cell phones are giving us pretty good connectivity but when another rver offered Jim the use of his StarLink dish, he said Thank You! 

The dish itself was just sitting on the roof of John's RV. He climbed up a ladder and grabbed it down. They placed it on the grass outside of the room we were using, and put the router in the room. There was something they had to do with the phone in order to point the dish correctly, then it was just a matter of connecting our computers to the wifi signal that was coming from the router. The speed was quite good, the show went well except for one 5 minute stretch where we muted ourselves. 

We've cut that portion out on the youtube recording and about 700 people have watched it so far. It was fun to have a live audience.