Becoming a Hypochondriac

 Little known fact. The excellent advertising by the drug manufacturers has turned me into a hypochondriac. Believe it or not, despite our busy work schedule, I do find time to watch a little TV. Barb, not so much. She is too wired to sit down for more than a few minutes and is usually in the kitchen doing something while I watch TV. This usually occurs in the morning before we get active, again at lunch and something to end the day as we wind down. 

My venue of choice is usually YouTube where I catch up on the news of the day or find out what the latest "have to have" bourbon is. Of course, this means I have to sit through in-video ads. Threequarters of the ads seem to be of some new medication. As I am watching the ad, I will shout, "Barb, can you come here"? When she walks into the room, I will turn to her and say, "I think I have Vitiligo", or "I think I have psoriasis", or whatever the ailment of the day is on YouTube. Other times I will just yell out, "Barb, I need Rinvoq!" Barb, I need Mounjaro!" Sometimes when I am in the deer blind I will randomly text her I think I have (fill in the blank).

Of course, when you become of a certain age (60 I think) you have to add the word "The" in front of the main word you are going to say. So instead of saying, " I think I have eczema", I say, "I think I have THE eczema".  Half the time I don't even know what the ailment or medication is, Barb is just roll her eyes and say something like "No, honey, you do not need The Numlivia". She has agreed with me twice however, once when I told her I needed The Cialis, and again when I said that I think I have cognitive decline. For some reason Barb she agreed with me on both of those! 

The side effects might scare some away, but I am a fan of high blood sugar, weight gain, high cholesterol, comas, strokes, suicidal thoughts, diarrhea, tremors, uncontrolled body movements. sleepiness, vomiting, indigestion, nausea and even death. Sadly, I am not sure if I am pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant, so I better just stay away from some of these medications. 

Such is the life of a hypochondriac. It was actually a pretty slow week on the J-B. After leaving the farm, we stopped in Dickenson and spent the night at Phat Fish Brewery again. 

We stopped outside of Rapid the next day where we met friends and former neighbors, Doug and Lisa for lunch at JR's BBQ in Summerset. Little did we know we would be seeing them in just a few days!

The first 24-hours after getting back from the farm we did not do too much. It was cold and windy with sustained winds at 20+ and temps ranging from 28-48F. No one wants to be outside in that. So instead, we worked in the garage and processing room. I organized and put away my duck hunting stuff, cleaned my shotguns and worked on the generator in the camper. 

If you recall, we bought a new generator a few weeks ago to replace the one that is not working in the camper. What a pain! You have to drop the old one down through the bottom of the camper, disconnecting all the wiring and each of the mounting bolts then dropping it to the ground. "Dropping" it being the key word as this thing weighs over 100lbs. While I did not drop it, it was not a gentle lowering of the generator either. It's still a work in progress as I needed a wire splice kit which went on our list for the next trip to Rapid. 

Meanwhile, Barb worked inside the camper where she tore out the carpet around the toilet. Who puts carpet around a toilet?!?!  She said it was absolutely disgusting. She had to remove the toilet itself as the carpet was actually underneath it. Once that was done, she set about replacing the carpet with vinyl planking as she did the rest of the floor. A little while later, when I went inside, I found her on her knees at the dog wash scrubbing the toilet while making gagging noises. 

As fun as that sounds, the next day it was time for some real fun when we went up to visit our niece Alana up in Spearfish to watch a few football games. One game led to two, which led to three which led to us spending the night before sneaking out at 5am the next morning and heading home. We had kind of planned on it and had packed accordingly. 

What a good time! This was our first football get together in their new home with their new tv room. Talk about a big screen TV! To give you an idea on just how big the TV is, we had Alana stand next to it for perspective. 

It was actually dizzying at first until your brain adjusted to it. But what a great place to watch The Sports Ball! We spent the day watching the Vikings lose, Denver win and the 49'er win the night game. Alana and Ryan actually had a bet riding on the 9'ers game and since they won, Alana now has to wear 49'ers gear every day they play through the rest of the season. 

The dogs played and played and played. Well, Zoey, Sophie and Loki. Dakota just laid on her bed and watched. 

When they were not playing, Zoey was tormenting their cat, Ollie. She was just obsessed with it! I am not sure if she wanted to play with it or kill it. 

They have a pet door built into their slider (to the right of Zoey in the picture above). Each of the pets, would come and go through that door throughout the day, except Zoey, she just could not figure that thing out. So anytime Ollie wanted to get away from Zoey he would just run out that door, all Zoey could do was stare through the window. 

The dogs eventually settled down and just chilled on the bed, blankets and couch. 

Of course, the floors were lava to Dakota so the only way to get her into the bedroom was to use two dog beds and have her play leapfrog on alternating beds until she was finally in the bedroom. Same thing on the way out in the morning, she just would not walk across those floors!

Tuesday it was back to work. This time for Kevin who was pouring concrete for a new project. He was pouring the slab for Doug and Lisa's son, Sam just north of Rapid City! 

4 hours and 4 trucks later, we had it all laid out. Barb picked me up and we headed home while Kevin spent the next 5 hours doing the finishing work. 

On the deer front I have been out hunting a few times, one night having 5 different bucks in front of me, but I have my eye on one guy who has yet to make an appearance in person. Here are a few shots I got this week with either my trail camera or handheld. 

It's almost like these guys posed for the trail camera!

Then there was this one who looks like she is standing up looking for someone.

These are three of the 5 bucks I saw while out the other day....

I took these with my Lumix

A few more trail cam pictures.

A bluejay dive-bombing the water tank

Playing follow the leader

A squirrel greeting a fawn!

This fawn was standing in the empty water tank while we were at the farm

I filled it when we got back

A coyote strolled by one morning

I saw this guy hanging out on our bathroom window!

I gotta go as I think I have a UTI, early on set dementia or maybe early menopause, I need to look it up on The Google to know for sure!