gfrancie | round up

Hey, let's have a state of the shingles update.
The pain is minimal, and as I suspected would be the case, it is much like my bout of chicken pox as a child: it's quite mild. Varicella zoster viruses and me treat each other well. I am still suspicious of my body (as one should be.) so I am not saying, "wooohoo I am out of the woods!" just yet. I hope I don't have to repeat this again in the future. A cousin of mine has had shingles a few times. But she is in her sixties, so her situation is likely different.

I had a good chat with my sister tonight. We were talking books. I suggested a couple to her, as she said she wasn't finding anything all that interesting at the moment. I like those conversations. We also talked about Christmas presents for our brothers. They are getting hankies.

As for the BIG excitement in these parts, my in laws woke up this morning and found some cows in their garden. They were from a couple fields away. About fifty cows had escaped, and it was total madness. There were tracks all through the gardens outside the kitchen, through to the front lawn, onto the drive, one of the side gardens, a field, into the vegetable gardens, and the orchard. Some vegetation was trampled, there were cow-pats all over. Other neighbors had more cows in their fields. It took a bit of work but all were rounded up and put back in the correct field. We went into the orchard and could see them in their field. I wouldn't say they looked sheepish, but they certainly looked ready to escape again. My Mother in law said it was lucky that it happened now that most things have been harvested or fallow. If it had been Spring she would have been livid.