Here’s an update for our new readers or those who haven’t read our posts in the past week or two:
Yesterday was two weeks ago; we went to Mediclinic Hospital in Nelspruit, where I needed a cardioversion procedure to get my heart rate and blood pressure back to normal. Spending three days in ICU to immediately be released didn’t give me ample time to recover. Feeling a little better each day, I can stay busier than in the past few weeks.
Only four days later, we embarked on the 35-hour journey to the US, where on the 17-hour red-eye flight, I had another bout of Afib. (The cardiologist had said it was safe to travel). It took six hours for it to resolve on its own. I was terrified I’d have a heart attack or stroke on the long flight. Thank God, it stopped on its own and gradually began returning to normal after the six-hour episode.
One of our dear readers, Thelma May, wrote and said I am being too hard on myself in a comment at the end of yesterday’s post. Once again, after the frightening event, I felt exhausted for days. It’s been a week since that second event, and now I am finally sleeping well and starting to regain my strength. Thelma May, thank you for reminding me to avoid stressing over not feeling 100% at this point. I imagine I’ll be back to normal in a week or so.
We’d hoped to come to The Villages and immediately start socializing. That doesn’t begin until tomorrow when our first visitors, Tom’s nephew Kevin and his wife, Kristi, will arrive around noon. We plan to go out for a late lunch or early dinner, whatever works for them since they have a long drive back to their home in Florida.
This morning, we walked around the block before breakfast and returned to the house in time to watch CBS Sunday Morning, a show we often watched in our old lives. It had been years since we watched that informational series. Afterward, I made breakfast, bacon, cheesy eggs for Tom, and for me, plain scrambled eggs topped with Wholly Guacamole, a product I used in our old lives.
With the washer going with the bedding, which we’ll do once a week now that we don’t have daily housekeeping by Vusi and Zef, we busied ourselves elsewhere around the house. When everything was dry, we made the bed with a wooden frame, inviting shins to bang into it.
It’s odd doing our own housework after a 2½ year hiatus with the help of Vusi and Zef, five days a week. All we had to do in Marloth Park were our laundry (which they would have done, but we preferred to do) and cleaning up after cooking and eating (which they would have done, but again, we preferred to do it ourselves).
This holiday home has a housecleaner included one day a month. At first, I thought that we’d need someone once a week or maybe every other week. But after being here a week and being meticulous about cleaning up after ourselves, we will do a weekly general cleaning of the floors, bedding, bathrooms, and dusting.
Each time we use the kitchen, we clean up our mess, including washing dishes, pots, pans (there is a dishwasher), the glass stovetop, the granite counters, and the kitchen sink, and take out the trash. With that attention to detail, we decided we won’t need a cleaner other than the once-a-month deep clean supplied by the owner.
Once in a while, I make a more time-consuming meal but right now, the easier, the better. Again, tonight, we’ll cook on the Weber grill, steak for Tom, chicken breast for me, salad for both of us and rice for Tom. He’s found his digestive tract does better with rice than potatoes or other starchy side dishes.
In the past few days, I signed up for Kroger’s monthly delivery service, Boost. This service allows us to place orders over $35 without a delivery fee. The first month is free, and it’s $7.95 a month thereafter. l did a huge order this first time, but it was enough to last for over two weeks.
Groceries are much more expensive here than in South Africa, so this ample food supply was over $400. We budgeted $1000 a month for groceries here and originally planned to eat out twice a week. But after checking prices, we may dine out once a week and order takeaway on another night. We both enjoyed the Asian food we ordered a few nights ago.
Tomorrow, when we go out with Kristi and Kevin, we’ll take photos and share details of our first dinner in The Villages.
Thanks again to all of our readers for all the thoughtful messages and well wishes.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, May 7, 2013:
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