Blather

Last April, I didn't pass the medical part of the deployment requirements. My blood sugar was too high. The A1C test was 8.5, or a daily average of 200. I began to eat much better, to work physically. Since then, at about one-month intervals, I've had three more A1C lab tests. Each time, I had a Bayer Home A1C test before the lab one. The last time, my home test showed a very good 6.1, but the lab test afterwards still showed 7.5. The discrepancy is unfathomable. But it's not my lack of comprehension that's the issue, it's the score. With 7.5, I can't deploy. Deploying would be a good thing for me. I like the work, and the money would come in very handy for a lot of things, from paying off my credit cards to renting a tractor and plowing a lot of my yard. I've learned to accept divorce, loss, disappointment and things beyond my control. I am disappointed, but I will continue to do what I can around here. I'm still working on the botched job someone did on enclosing the porch. I'll climb into the attic and run some wires for an overhead light in the new closet, plus some sconces above where I want to put my bed. I've been spending some effort in the yard, digging new plots of garden areas and expanding some plots. About an hour per day go into making the yard better. Out near the road, there was a huge clump of weeds which are now history. I planted some flowers there, plus some mint and rosemary. Yesterday, I put in a couple more flowers, transplants from Hayward. I also dug up some feral trees, sprouting from thick roots that I dug and chopped out. The strange part is, I don't see a tree nearby. The nearest tree is 50 feet away, and its canopy is maybe 15 feet across. There's a redwood tree about 30 feet away, but the trees aren't redwood. I dug a patch of ground about five feet by ten, and planted three larger flowers from Hayward there. Last April, I was looking forward to deploying. Two days after the Fourth of July, I'm not sure I'll ever deploy, so I'll try to do what I can with what I've got.