Mired In Deep Winter Again

It would be an understatement to say that my new year started off not so great. Not that I like complaining about it, but it has to get better, trust me.

First of all, I hate winter tremendously. I tend to become a hermit of sorts, preferring not to get out in the inclement weather and cold winds of January. I don't like snow, I hate sleet and freezing rain, and I miss the sunshine which seems to evade us a lot during the winter.

This winter, however, I have been saddled with probably the second worst ear infection of my life. Not only has it been extremely painful and slow in healing, it has temporarily cost me most of the hearing out of my left ear.

My devoted wife and myself tried to doctor it on our own, but after a couple of weeks of no improvement, it took a trip to the family doctor and his prescribing antibiotics and steroids to get things on the road to improvement.

We also discovered during my visit to the doc that my ear canal is mostly blocked with ear wax, which sounds disgusting, but is actually not all that uncommon. The bad thing about it is that it has robbed me of a lot of my hearing, even without an infection. The infection just compounded the problem somewhat.

Anyway, now that the infection is pretty much gone, phase two will begin as we start softening up the wax blockage and prepare to flush it out, hopefully here at home and not at the doc's office.

Maybe then I'll start hearing better and start feeling like doing more outside the home. I can only imagine how much of a drag I have been to be around.

In two weeks we celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary with a trip away for a few days, and I'm looking forward to being with my wife, reading a couple of books or so, walking and sight seeing and of course the snuggling that goes along with any trip away from home.

Our suite we have reserved overlooks the Ohio River and the food at the restaurant at the inn is excellent. Five days away should be just what the doctor ordered to get out of the deep winter funk I've fallen into once again this year.

Hopefully within the next two weeks I can have all of my hearing back once again.

And one final note: In my humble opinion, winter SUCKS!!!

Thirty Years And Counting

Amazingly enough, yesterday, January 2nd, I completed thirty years of employment with the US Postal Service. I always said when that day arrived, I would hang it up, retire, and move on to something else.

However, now that the time has arrived and that day has passed, I'm still at my job, still going to work each and everyday, and at present, I can't seem to think of what date I might eventually hang it up.

I love my job, my customers are very important to me, and I know as sure as I'm sitting here, that when the day does come and I do decide to retire, there's a lot of those customers, who over the years are more than customers to me, I know that I'll probably never see a lot of them ever again.

I'm not ready for that to happen.

At least not yet.

Someone once told me that my life was pretty much a Mayberry sort of existence, and even though that was meant as a put down, I considered it one of the greatest compliments I have ever received. I think we all need a little bit of Mayberry in our lives, each and everyday. If that is what my life has been perceived to be by someone, so be it.

I'm happy here, I'm content here, and I don't ever plan on being anywhere else.

So for now, I'm staying with my job, I'm going to continue to try and give my customers the best service I possibly can each and everyday, and I'm going to continue to love clocking in and doing what I've been doing for the past three decades.

I'm going to continue being right here in Mayberry.