End of August 2023

Today, is the last day of August 2023...  this month, like all other months before, once ended we will never see again, except for maybe in photographs.

If you are like me, the photos that you take, you very seldom go back and look at them...  and, when you do, it is difficult to remember why you took them.

But, it is not so much the end of a month as it is the passage of time.  It has been over a YEAR since I had my back fused.  It was not a small surgery as L2-L3-L4-L5, and S1 were all fused together.  While there was no pain after the surgery which most people around me thought there would be, my biggest challenge was learning to walk comfortably again.  A process that I am sure all these months later, I have successfully accomplished.

If I walk with a cane or pushing a grocery cart, I am fine but if I walk unaided, then there is still a bit of a struggle, although I no longer limp.

The passage of time is a wonderful thing because BAD DAYS fly by just as quickly as GOOD DAYS when you are in your 70s.  On the other side of the coin, because time passes by quickly, one feels like one day one woke up as 70 years of age, and the next day one woke up at 75 years of age.

It is difficult to understand this concept when one is under fifty years of age...  even though turning 40 is a big milestone in most people's lives.

Regardless of what is happening around me, the end of August will ALWAYS represent the END OF SUMMER.  

September, October, November, and parts of December will ALWAYS be FALL.  January, February, and March, will ALWAYS be WINTER.  April and May will ALWAYS be SPRING and June, July and August will ALWAYS be SUMMER.

Since I am a traditionalist and see four distinct seasons that are almost equally occurring within the span of three months, AUGUST ends summer...

With that said, there will be unusually warm weather between now and the end of December, even though there will be periods of cool fall weather.

And, I will probably have to continue mowing the lawn and weed eating until the middle of October...

I am sure that weather in the Tennessee Valley is different than other parts of TN, North Carolina, Kentucky, and South Carolina but we are fortunate.  While this is a great place to live, we don't really need anymore people to move into this area...  THANK YOU VERY MUCH.