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My cataract operation is scheduled for next Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock. If you think I have a casual attitude toward getting my eye cut open, even at minimal risk, then you don't know me. "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song... I'm worried now... but, I won't be worried long."
It seems like the operation may actually happen this time. It's been scheduled before, not with the VA, but here at the local hospital, and it didn't happen because I was led to believe Medicare wouldn't pay for it to happen. I'm too poor to afford to have the operation done without some more money. With the VA doing it, money is not the problem.
One of the things I worry about is that something might happen to my brother so that he can't take me to the hospital. They won't do the procedure if I don't have a driver with me to bring me back home afterwards. Anything could pop up that might prevent him from taking me over there. I need a backup driver in order to get this particular worry off my mind.
When Ben and I remodeled part of my house I decided to put a roof over an area on the second floor that was originally designed to be a balcony. This balcony was to occupy about one/quarter of the upstairs portion of my house. It was a lousy design, and leaked like a sieve.
There wasn't much I could do to fix the leaks without deeper pockets. It was obviously much less expensive and quicker to repair by just putting a roof over it with overhanging eaves. The eaves would eliminate the need for the missing flashing, but it didn't leave much room for a regular ceiling.
On the south side of this "new" room that was created by covering the previous balcony space, the new roof was barely high enough to stand up straight under. That meant the asphalt shingles on the roof were only about a foot (30.48 cm) above my head. It is like an oven in that room.
When I was talking about how I needed to insulate the roof in this newly-created room to my brother, he suggested I use some fairly thin foam insulation that has a shiny aluminum coating on one side of it. He figured to put the shiny side up to reflect the heat back up through the asphalt shingles before I insulated with the fiberglass stuff.
That seemed like a good idea to me. At least I could get some insulation in the ceiling of the room without getting itchy fiberglass all over my body. A couple of days ago I bought a couple of 4' X 8' sheets of the foam stuff, and I'm installing it a little at a time while it's still cool in the morning.
It's hard on my old body to work above my head anymore, so it could take a while. That's okay. If I don't croak in the meantime, I got weeks, even months, to finish a two-hour job. If I don't yell at myself for being slack, then I don't get yelled at. I live alone, "There ain't nobody hyah, but us chickens."
I still haven't finished boxing in the new air-conditioner. It's mostly done. There is only an 8" (20.3 cm) open space to fill in. I'm waiting until I finish installing the ceiling insulation in the new room to see what sort of scraps of the foam insulation I'll have left over to use. Most of my house, except for the flooring, siding, studs, and rafters is second-hand building material. It's not pretty, but it keeps me out of the weather.
It seems like I'm learning a little more about making kefir. It's become important to me to only fix as much as I need on a daily basis. This resolves to making pints of it instead of quarts. The lesson is an old one. Less is more.
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