It was a busy morning, not in the way of animals since we’ve had few in the past two days, but in the household. Tom is finishing off the last of the blueberry muffins (not low carb) since he’s decided to give them up for a while when they cause him acid reflux, a sure sign that eating sugar and flour is not suitable for him.

I had avocado toast using the keto bread I’d purchased online from local keto bakers with salad for breakfast, a weird combination but a delicious and nutritious way to start the day. I am full and won’t eat another morsel until dinner tonight.  Tom will have bacon-wrapped filet mignon with rice and salad, and I’ll have seasoned garlic prawns with green beans and salad. I don’t mind making two separate dinners a few nights a week.

I’ve already prepped everything for tonight’s dinner except cooking the steak and the prawns, which we’ll prepare at the last minute. The salad is made, the green beans cleaned, and Tom’s seasoned pan of purified water for his rice is ready. Since I make rice for him every other day (two batches at a time), I’ve got it down to a science. I can get everything ready in about 30 seconds, other than later, boiling the water, adding the rice with the lid, and cooking it for 20 minutes at a low temp. So far, he’s not tired of rice with dinner since we don’t eat potatoes, bread, or other starches.

After breakfast and some work online, we both got busy making our favorite breakfast, a crustless quiche with cheesy Russian sausages, mushrooms, onions, and hand-grated mozzarella cheese topped with parmesan cheese. The two big pans are baking in the oven now.

Once cooked and cooled, I’ll cut the quiche into single serving squares and freeze them to take out one at a time to reheat in the microwave. There should be enough to last Tom for a month since I’m on this avocado and keto toast kick right now. Once I find something I love, I tend to eat it day after day until I’m sick of it and then switch to something new.

Right now, while I am not feeling well, I am focusing on good food, good sleep and rest, and a degree of exercise via steps in the house. I am taking the meds Doc Theo prescribed, but it could be weeks before I see any improvement. From time to time, the headache and facial pain are gone for an hour, and I get hopeful. But a short time passes, and even a single hair brushing my face hurts like an electrical shock, typical symptoms for trigeminal neuralgia, in this case, triggered from having Omicron in April.

With the increased dose of meds, my blood pressure is back to normal, which is a huge relief. Regardless of how I feel, we continue to live as we would, socializing, cooking, and spending time with the animals. Oddly, we haven’t seen Norman and his family since Monday.

It’s been cold and windy, and the animals tend to stay in the bush when the wind blows. Finally, this morning the wind stopped, so hopefully, they’ll all return soon. Of course, Lollie, several kudus, our favorite bushbucks, and some impalas have stopped by. Now we wait for the rest.

We don’t have big social plans over the next few days except for Jabula on Friday night, a visit to friends Sindee and Bruce’s home on Sunday, and a group get-together again at Jabula on Monday evening. It will be the last time we’ll see Rita, Gerhard, Lee, Marylin, and Gary for a while when they are all moving on to other adventures or back to their homes in the US.

The time we’ve all spent together has been fantastic, and we’ll miss them all. Soon, in a little over two weeks, friends Connie and Jeff will arrive to spend two weeks with us. We’ll undoubtedly be busy with game drives, bush dinners, drives through Marloth Park, dinners in and out, and enjoying time together in the bush. We are looking forward to their arrival. I will not let this pain in my head and face impact our time together while sharing this magical place with them.

Yesterday afternoon, I started receiving messages from many of our readers that they are now receiving the auto email with our daily posts again. I hope this problem is resolved once and for all. However, if you have an issue, please let us know, and we’ll try to figure it out. Thank you for your continued patience through this tricky situation.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, August 31, 2021:

This morning, I focused on getting lots of vegetables washed and cut to make Peanut Chicken Stir Fry for tonight’s dinner. I am making a huge batch and freezing the leftovers, so when we return from Zambia/Botswana, we’ll have dinner for the first few evenings and won’t have to shop right away.

We still have a few items in the chest freezer so that we may be good for the first week back. We return on Sunday, August 27th. It’s ironic that in our old life, before we began traveling, returning home was disappointing when we went on holiday for a week or more. There were piles of mail, bills to be paid, shopping to do, unpacking with piles of laundry and house cleaning.

When we return from a trip,  we look forward to returning as much as we looked forward to going away. Our animals will be waiting for us, our human friends, and our delightful bush house will be clean and ready for us. While we’re away, Vusi and Zef will do a “spring clean” of the home, clearing out all of the dust in tucked away places that accumulate from animals in the garden as well as the general nature of the bush. We’ll return to a spotless dust-free environment

All we’ll have to do now when we return is unpack and laundry, with a new washing machine installed while we were away and ready to be used. How wonderful it will be not to run back and forth to the outdoor laundry area several times, resetting the washer, to get through one load. Louise did all of our laundry which is neatly folded and ready to pack.

Ah, the little things matter so much. I realize that we often write about the little nuances of our daily lives, and I hope it doesn’t bore our readers/friends worldwide. I’d also enjoy reading about the activities and challenges of another’s everyday life. It’s natural for you to compare your lives to ours, including the ups and downs, the illnesses, the unexpected events, and the excitement of world travel.

It’s especially interesting to hear how others living in Marloth Park spend their days and nights. We often wonder if other retirees spend their days outdoors on the veranda as we do and how they spend their free time. We’d love for any of you, our readers, to send us input on how you spend your days and nights, wherever you live.

All I recall from living in the US after retirement was that I was so busy each day with tasks, appointments, household chores, shopping, and financial responsibilities.  Sure we have some of that now, but once a month, I pay the credit card online (10 minutes), which we use for all of our expenses, and since we don’t have a checkbook, we never write a check. Is that so peculiar in today’s world of technology? Probably not.

Often we went to Home Depot and the local hardware store for items we needed for household repairs and maintenance. We shopped for plants and flowers for our garden a few times a year. I spent hours in Target each month with a long list of items we somehow needed. Every so often, I went to the local mall or discount store to shop for clothes, shoes, and cosmetics.

Often, we had many activities centering around the family, which we thoroughly enjoyed, and we managed to make time for every possible event. The last few years, before we left, Tom often worked 12 hours days and was often exhausted. But that didn’t impede our desire to entertain, often making elaborate gourmet-type meals or in summer barbecues in the yard by the lake.

With only dinner to make for tonight with leftovers for when we return and packing, using a comprehensive list on an app on my phone to ensure we don’t forget a thing takes little time, especially when we have so few clothes and shoes.

I have to go now and cut up the chicken, and later on, I will stir fry the Asian spiced dish. There’s no more cooking for the next ten days since tomorrow night, 11 of us are going to Jabula for dinner. The following day, Saturday, we head to Nelspruit for our quick and easy flight.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, August 18, 2021: