What was your day like?

[mystic]

Having flue again Had to stay home. I guess I did not recover completely and now it's affecting my throat too. I hate when I will not be able to sing for many months

[crisipicada]

Having flue again Had to stay home. I guess I did not recover completely and now it's affecting my throat too. I hate when I will not be able to sing for many months

Drink a lot of liquid, more fruit juices, need some rest and make sure eat nutritious food.

[mystic]

I need to drink more, indeed. This evening, despite I didn't use my voice too much, I lost it

It's a very strange feeling. I always saw the others losing their voice, but it never happened to me. In all my flues, it became just altered a little, but never having that feeling of trying to vibrate the vocal chords and nothing coming out.

Well, maybe tomorrow my voice will work again I notice I am getting worse every night, and during the day it seems better.

[Edwin]

I heard someone say as a joke, at least I think it was a joke. The guy said that his wife had the flu and couldn't talk, and that was the first peace he had in many years! When I was substitute teaching, I taught for teachers who lost their voices. When you are teaching, you have to have your voice, or the kids will rule the class!

We worked until about 3 a.m., then I slept until about 7 a.m., then I went to work shoveling dirt, and other odd jobs on my project. I am trying to safeguard the water system from freezing. I am behind in the things I need to do, but I will catch up with all of it in a short time, and then I will rest!

[mystic]

My voice is starting to come baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!! I'm feeling happy Next week I can go back to work. And in the meantime... I am working on the second time of my symphony. Yesterday I completed the first printed score. Soon a recording will be ready.

[Edwin]

My ex sister-in-law was known for her talking! My Dad used to say if you wanted something told all over you don't need to put it in the paper, you just need to tell Karen, and she will tell everyone! During my growing up years on this Reservation they used to have what they called the Duley Lake News. Duley Lake is one of the main lakes between my Mom's brother's place, and a neighbor, and they often refer to this area as the Duley Lake area, although we drive up Cameron Lake loop to get to our place, and we live off from Timentwa Road, not far from Long Lake which was between another of her brother's places and another neighbor. The Long Lake School house was here, and the Assembly of God church used to hold meetings on this property, and that is where we live. A lot of interesting history. Most of my Mom's brothers and sisters attended school on this property as well as other people of that age, who are mostly all dead by now, with only a few exceptions.

Anyway I got side tracked! There were various people who wrote for that Duley Lake news over the years. One was a close neighbor of ours who is now blind. But in her day, she would call my sister-in-law, Karen, and ask her what the news was, and Karen would always tell her who had birthday parties, who was traveling, and who had company. It was a little innocent revealing of personal information for all of Okanogan County to read, and I know that at times it made very interesting reading. I love my sister-in-law, and I am not putting her down, but she does love to talk, and in the process I don't think she ever hurts anyone, it is just all fun gossip!

[Smiley]

We used to have a woman nearby that lived for gossip.
We used to joke that the most efficient means of spreading news were 1) Telephone
2)Telegraph
3)Tell Robin
I used to make stuff up and tell it to her only on her promise to keep it a secret.It was fun to see how many people would hear this "news" and repeat it.

[Smiley]

I need to drink more, indeed. This evening, despite I didn't use my voice too much, I lost it

It's a very strange feeling. I always saw the others losing their voice, but it never happened to me. In all my flues, it became just altered a little, but never having that feeling of trying to vibrate the vocal chords and nothing coming out.

Well, maybe tomorrow my voice will work again I notice I am getting worse every night, and during the day it seems better.

I lost my voice about 6 years ago and it never did come totally back.Every year ,by the end of the Bluesfest my voice would be shot but over a few days it would come back.Until one time it didn`t. Now my voice is always kind of hoarse or raspy.It`s ok for day to day talking but a lot of people have a hard time hearing me on the phone.
Such is life.

[Edwin]

Yes, Smiley, some of those things make us feel badly and we feel like our lives are devalued, but we find value in what we are, who we are, and what we do. I know your voice condition bothers you, but I hope it doesn't make you feel too badly. I have a tendency to feel badly about a few things. One is that my Mom and Dad wanted badly for me to play the piano. I didn't learn to play the piano until many years after they were dead, and I know they would have loved to have heard me play the piano! But I am happy that I can play it now, as well as playing my trombones, but I have been neglecting them in favor of the piano. I love to sing, and I have sung with many various musical singing groups over the years. I have a very fine quality voice, and if you would give me a voice test you would be amazed, but I don't have strength in my voice. It is beautiful for the first verse of the song, it is still fairly strong for the second, it is going on the third, and it is gone on the fourth to where I am gasping for breath and trying to make the high notes be heard. But, I still love to sing!

I feel badly that I got into a horse accident when I was 21 years old. I badly broke my wrist, and it has not been the same since. I have fairly good strength in it by now, and I can do most anything with it. If I use a shovel, an axe, a pick, a rock bar, turn screws by hand, and basically anything that I grip with my hand and do work, if I do that repeatedly for a few days, then toward morning I lose sensation in it, and I have to get out of bed to get the feeling back; otherwise it hurts. I can play the piano hour after hour all day long without any exhaustion unless I have been doing some of the above activities, and then I can only play 3 or 4 songs, and my hand loses feeling so that I have to quit for 15 minutes or so, and then I can go back to playing the piano again.

The horse accident was really a stupid thing that happened. My ex brother-in-law before he was married to my sister thought he would have some fun with us so he brought a small one ton truck full of horses up to our place to play with us. The horse that I was riding had the main shaved off/trimmed closely, so I had nothing to hang on to except the reins. I was riding bare back, and was I ever having fun. The horse jumped a ditch, and I hollared "Whoa," not I wanted the horse to stop, but it was an expression of pleasure. The horse was trained to stop on command and I shot off over the horse's head and hit the ground/baked manure hard, as the horse was in a gallop. Each bone was completely severed, and you can't belive the pain, that is until they pulled my bones out and set them in place, and after that I was okay.

The only problem I have from that is what I have described above. Many times I wished I had not gotten on that horse, but it is about 46 years too late for that! I do have a lot to be thankful for. I am now two years older than my Dad was when he died, and in most ways I am in very good health, and take no medications for anything. I am capable of working harder than most any adult, and I love to work, but I just don't like the pressure of feeling like I am not getting enough accomplished, or that I am not meeting deadline! I am my own worst enemy!

[crisipicada]

I have a great weekend and been cooking and planting flowers and coconut.