It’s been a while since I have written a blog. You all may have noticed and wondered. No I did not die. And I have not really been sick. But things seemed different and it took me awhile to figure it out. I was struggle last sping to keep up with my writing. It seemed to take more and more time for me to write each blog. I was writing this blog, Tombstone Tuesday and less frequently my “Needles in a Haystack” blog. I really did not understand why but my labor of love was becoming more of a another chore. And I already had plenty of chores. So I took a pause. My husband planned lots of camping last year which meant time away from internet connections and my data. Can’t write blogs with out internet and data. 

After being away from home for about 6 weeks, life was very busy playing catchup. I had always thought that I could leave home for weeks on end traveling but I am now questioning that. I guess I like “home” pretty well.

I have two very time consuming hobbies, Quilting and Genealogy. When I finally got back on track, I started sewing first. As I was cutting fabric, my tools appeared damaged. Rulers which were previously straight seemed jagged. I would feel them with my finger and they felt straight but when looking at them they looked like they had divets in them. I spent the next month of so trying to figure out whether this was my imagination or not. I kept thinking that maybe it would get better somehow but nothing seemed to change. I also tried to write a couple of blogs and found that my eyes tired very easily and my eye lids would spasm which made it difficult to read. Writing became more and more laborious, I could not concentrate and I became more and more frustrated as the weeks went by. 

In September, we had a very unexpect visit from some really close friends from Wisconsin, Pete and Diane Melman. They called and told us that they would be in our neighborhood and asked if we were up for a visit. Of course we were. So they spent one night with us. While catching up on each others lives, I learned that Pete could no longer drive. Pete has Macular Degeneration. I told Diane that I had early stage AMD also. I told her that I was having some odd visual changes this summer. Diane is a retired Nurse and she implored me to go see my Eye Doctor. ”Dont Wait !” she said, “Go now!”

Sure enough my AMD has changed. While we were camping my schedule changed daily and there were many days that I would forget to take my vitamins including my Areds vitamins. It caught up with me. The years of sitting in front of a computer at work and at home doing genealogy research has taken it’s toll. And not getting my vitamins regularly created the perfect storm. I really think that not sewing for 5 weeks was now a good thing. I may not have noticed the difference so much or so soon.

I got into my Eye Doctor and he sent me to a Specialist and I am taking the vitamins daily! I am not spending hours at a time on my PC as I used to. We will do bi-annual visits going forward. I have noticed that I am not as confident with my night vision so I won’t be driving much (or far) at night. I have had access to an Accuquilt fabric cutter for my quilting projects but I just had not used it much. That has changed. I am learning to use it because I have a lot of sewing I want to do yet.

While I do not have alot of followers of my blog, I know that there are a few out there and they probably wondered what happened. My friend from church told me the other day that she missed my blogs! I have missed them too. So I’ll give it another try. They may not be weekly …we will see..

Best wished in the New year!

Jan Smith