How quickly 2022 passed. . . at least that’s how it feels looking at the year in the rear view mirror.
Mark and I are doing well. We’ve made it through the last couple of years without catching covid. It helps that we are both fully vaccinated against the disease, but being cautious when venturing out into the world again has also helped.
You may know that Mark retired in September 2021. At the time I wondered how he’d fill his days after he retired, but he’s kept himself busy with gardening-related activities. Over the last year, he studied for and passed the Master Gardener’s exam and now he’s a Master Gardener. He spends two mornings a week working at the Master Gardeners’ greenhouse.
In February, Mark’s dad had a stroke. His dad spent several days in a hospital in Asheville, NC and recovered well enough to be discharged to extended care in his neighborhood. Mark’s retirement turned out to be a blessing since he had a great deal of flexibility to help his brother get his dad settled and he’s been able to devote time to sorting out the financial and logistical issues of moving his father into extended care.
Mark worked hard to get our yard ready for the Hydrangea Festival’s tour of gardens in June. This involved laying sod in several spots in the yard where thin, sad grass hardly grew. Almost immediately after laying the new sod a critter started rooting around the sod, messing it up. Mark thought armadillos were the culprits so he set out his trap but didn’t trap anything. So he set up a couple of webcams to figure out what was tearing up the yard. Turns out it was a racoon! He wound up laying netting over the newly sodded areas and this eventually discouraged the racoon enough to allow the sod to take root.
I’m still working for the biomedical company I joined almost 6 years ago where I spend my days pouring over large healthcare databases. Over the years my research has focused on diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) and the impacts the use of my company’s products have had on the treatment of DFUs. It’s been a rewarding time for me.
The data mining and analysis I’ve developed over the last couple of years came to fruition in the form of three peer-reviewed articles that are published in The Journal of Wound Care. If you feel so inclined you can click this link to view and download the articles. I am now performing similar analysis on the impact of using our products in the treatment of venous leg ulcers.
I’ve sung with the Douglas County Chamber Singers for more than 20 years, and we were finally able to resume rehearsals after almost two years (covid shut us down right before our 2021 Spring concert). We held our first concert under our new Director in December. The concert was well attended and turned out to be quite an emotional experience for me. After the past two years I had begun to think that covid had silenced the choir permanently since during the many months of covid we lost so many members, including our conductor who decided to retire. It was wonderful for the choir to find its voice again after all the months of silence and I look forward to our Spring 2023 singing season.
I hope you’ve all had a lovely holiday season and offer my very best wishes to you in the coming year.