This might be lengthy...

" All in favor, say EYE!"

A little more than a week ago I had an event. I was watching TV and on the screen, a car went very fast. Suddenly my eyes started giving me a super fast slideshow. I sat on the edge of my chair and looked off in another direction, closed my eyes keeping them closed for a while. When I next opened them I looked to the side, away from the screen and I still experienced a little jumpiness in my vision. As you might imagine this was quite unsettling. I called the doctor and found out that she wasn't in for a few days. When I could get in, I told her about the event. She said the first thing that we should do is a visual test to find out if it's my eyes, ears, or brain. I called Wolfe Clinic right away and told them that my medical doctor wanted me to be seen and they got me in that day. I had been struggling with some dizziness, very minor dizziness for a couple of years. In fact, I gave up riding a bicycle because of it. When they started doing the exam I discovered I had very little clear vision in my left eye. It was as if I were looking at a foggy day. After the exam, they tell me my vision is very good in both eyes. He said he found a little bit of scar tissue in my left eye along the edge and didn't think it was that bad! However, he did say that it has been his experience that what may not look bad to him can look very bad to the patient. He suggested we do some lasering and see if it helps. It only takes about 5 minutes and that is when I fully realized how terrible my vision had been for a couple of years! The last time I had an exam was in Texas and I knew at that time that my vision was not good on the left side. I told the doctor that but he said it wasn't bad enough to do anything about yet but maybe in a year. Well, it was bad and he had no idea!. My vision is now so clear it is as startling as it was when I first had the cataracts removed! Everything is crystal clear. And even better, the mild dizziness has gone away. It was more of an uneasiness than dizziness. I was not aware of the many ways it was affecting me until it was gone. Everything is easier now. I can walk when it is dark without feeling I need to hold on to something. Before, no matter the task, I needed more light. I have a new lease on life! What a surprise.

When I had the “event” I wanted to google it and could not decide what to call it. I landed on “visual dizziness”. 

This is what I found; Visual vertigo differs slightly from conventional vertigo. Instead of being associated with inner ear problems, it is closely associated with a condition called Binocular Vision Dysfunction, or BVD for short. Visual vertigo occurs when there is too much visual stimulation for your brain to cope.

Now I can cope!

Worried about your sleep pattern?

Maybe you shouldn't!

by Jeremy D. Johnson on August 25, 2013 in stories

8 hour sleeping is a modern invention.

Imagine you are a denizen of the 18th century. It’s just past 8:30 P.M., you’ve got your night-cap on. You blow out your candles and fall asleep to the smell of the wax and the wick, which gently fills the air around your bed. Some hours pass. 2:30 AM. You awaken, grab your coat, and visit the neighbors because they, too, are up. Doing quiet reading, prayer, or even having sex. Well, apparently before the age of electricity, sleeping twice a night was completely ubiquitous.

Back in those times, we slept twice a night, getting up for an hour or two for recreation before heading back to bed until dawn.

From Slumberwise.com:

The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech.

His research found that we didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.

References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep.

“It’s not just the number of references – it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge,” Ekirch says.

An English doctor wrote, for example, that the ideal time for study and contemplation was between “first sleep” and “second sleep.” Chaucer tells of a character in the Canterbury Tales that goes to bed following her “firste sleep.” And, explaining the reason why working class conceived more children, a doctor from the 1500s reported that they typically had sex after their first sleep.

Ekirch’s book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past is replete with such examples.

But just what did people do with these extra twilight hours? Pretty much what you might expect.

Most stayed in their beds and bedrooms, sometimes reading, and often they would use the time to pray. Religious manuals included special prayers to be said in the mid-sleep hours.

Others might smoke, talk with co-sleepers, or have sex. Some were more active and would leave to visit with neighbours.

As we know, this practice eventually died out. Ekirch attributes the change to the advent of street lighting and eventually electric indoor light, as well as the popularity of coffee houses. Author Craig Koslofsky offers a further theory in his book Evening’s Empire. With the rise of more street lighting, night stopped being the domain of criminals and sub-classes and became a time for work or socializing. Two sleeps were eventually considered a wasteful way to spend these hours.

The science seems to back up our history books. In a 4-week study with 15 men living with restricted daylight hours, something strange started to happen. After catching up on their “sleep debt” – a common state of affairs for most of us – the participants began to wake up in the middle of the night:

They began to have two sleeps.

Over a twelve hour period, the participants would typically sleep for about four or five hours initially, then wake for several hours, then sleep again until morning. They slept not more than eight hours total.

The middle hours of the night, between two sleeps, was characterized by unusual calmness, likened to meditation. This was not the middle-of-the-night toss-and-turn that many of us experienced. The individuals did not stress about falling back asleep, but used the time to relax.

Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford, points out that even with standard sleep patterns, this night waking isn’t always cause for concern. “Many people wake up at night and panic,” he says. “I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.”

Although the article mentions there are no benefits for sleeping twice a night, it’s difficult to imagine there wouldn’t be some major effects on our daily consciousness. How much would we benefit from a few hours of “unusual calmness, likened to meditation”? Seriously. I haven’t tried “bi-modal” sleep, but I think many of us, including myself, have stumbled into it. Our maddeningly busy digital schedules prevent us from considering the possibility, and benefits, of interloping with the sidereal realms of consciousness for more than an 8-hour “sleep debt” crash.

But we can’t go back to a pre-electric lifestyle of early-to-bed, early-to-rise. Yet, maybe we can utilize this knowledge to enhance our quality of life, and open us up to alternative modes of mind and time.

The Years After...

What does one do in the years after you sell your RV? Pretty much what you did before you sold it! Butch golfs, we both play pool and I have about 3 craft things I can turn to if I can find the time. 

I have kept all my craft supplies from all three crafts, Swedish weaving, beading, and Diamond Art and the plan has always been to pick them up again. I am currently working on a Diamond Art project of coasters and am seriously considering starting a Swedish weaving project, especially since the Farmers Almanac says South Texas is going to have a cold winter. Doing a Swedish weaving project in hot weather is not all that pleasant, depending on the size of it.

A pair of our RVing friends have recently had a snafu with their RV and it is going to take some months to get it repaired so they have moved into an apartment. I enjoyed reading about Jeanie and Eldo's adventures. You might like to follow them as well.https://whereseldo.blogspot.com/.../august-in-elkhart.html  Jeannie and I met very briefly when we were in Michigan. I mean very brief...like 15 minutes or so. You know how sometimes you click with a person and feel like you have known them for years. Well, Jeannie is one of those. Butch and I had no idea how wide our circle of friends would become when we took up RVing. It has become one of the sweetest parts of it.

Classmates Book

 Butch's classmate, Clair Tomlinson, wrote a book available on Amazon Books. He has been telling us about it for a long time and now here it is.

"Raspberry Ridge Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of a true story that remained untold for 54 years. The author is Jefferson High School graduate Clair Tomlinson, now in his 80s and living in Arizona. Clair writes vividly about an event at his job site in California in 1969. Photographs, 38 pages. Available at Amazon Books, searched by title. An unforgettable story."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF48TZZ6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2P4E4CZ3LY4BC&keywords=the+death+of+willie+quinn&qid=1691597369&rnid=2941120011&s=books&sprefix=%2Caps%2C99&sr=1-1

OK wise woman!

 What are you going to chat about today? In the old time days, I would post pictures, new and old, when I hit a writer's block. So excuse me while I go take a look...

Look what I found. And the time of year is perfect for it. I love this recipe.

To be continued...

Marlene(Butch's sister) is on the beach in South Padre.

Mickey and I were in Denver. I have always loved this picture of both of us. The year would have been in the mid '90's.

Butterfly on the bike trail. I did not take my camera all the time on the trail because it is heavy for one and I usually had reasons I wanted to get back home. Every now and then I would take my camera and shoot photos of whatever might catch my eye.

And that takes care of this time. Butch is golfing with Jason. I just finished vacuuming a half our ago...see you next time!