September 17, 2026
Howdy. Well, today is my wife’s birthday—she’s 640 years old and sleeping in. I don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but happy birthday, kiddo.
Yesterday was my last day in cardiac rehab. I spent most of my summer there; it was a great team, and I let them know they were and that I’ll miss them very much. I do plan on stopping in to visit on occasion. I also wrote a letter with a personal thank you to each member of the team and gave it to the manager. Whether they really read it or not, I don’t know, but they’re still a great team. So anyway, the art piece that I have accompanying this blog post is the last set of notes from the nutrition class.
As many of you know, I don’t take conventional notes on a sheet of paper or anything like that—I take notes on 4×6 cards. My brain can remember and reference things easier by doing that. I used to do it back in my school years and a billion years ago. I don’t remember doing it much in college, but you know, I’m a dropout, so what does it matter? ha ha ha
So anyway, I’m just sitting in class, and I don’t know, I was quiet and let the nutritionist do her meal demo. It’s like being in front of a chef kind of, and she was making some really cool dishes out of ancient grains. I was already familiar with ancient grains, so I was kind of like that guy sitting there just wading through the class until it ended, but I did learn a few things that I didn’t know, and that’s what’s good for me.
I often find that if I just slow down and listen instead of thinking I already know things out in the real world, I will find one little piece of something I didn’t know about that I can add to it. To me, the world is a giant puzzle—it really is. It’s a giant work of art; everything from rhythm to patterns to even the golden ratio is in nature. If you don’t know what the golden ratio is, you’re welcome to Google it, because it’s hard for me to explain.
So anyway, today I have regular physical therapy. They were in my blog earlier and the last time I was there I scraped the side of my leg. Of course, you know, they have to make sure they follow all these procedures and incident reports and stuff, So, while I’m just sitting on a table with the team leader, I told her, “It’s just a scratch, man.” The team leader is cool, I like her a lot. The girl who doesn’t smile much happened to be the PT technician working with me when it happened, and I made sure everyone knew that it wasn’t her fault. There was an adjustment pin on the parallel bars sticking way too far out, and my leg hit it while I was exercising. I didn’t even realize it until another tech said, “He’s bleeding a lot.” So, I don’t know, man.
I go back today with a Band-Aid over the scratch on my right calf and continue on with this exercise journey thing I’m doing, along with artwork and art therapy.
On a totally different subject, I am thinking about entering three original pieces of my 4×6 works into an art show that I’m going to apply for. I’ve never really done that before, but there’s an internet friend who is going to enter her stuff. We don’t talk much; we just admire each other’s work from time to time, but I admire her work a lot! I’m going to try to put the 4×6 cards into 8×10 floater frames and see what that looks like. I have until the 27th to enter my stuff, so we’ll see. I mean, it’s a $100 prize, but I’m not really concerned about that. I’m just doing it for the exposure and to try to crawl out of my shell a little bit and show my face around people in general. It’s weird—I’m really nervous and I haven’t even filled out the entry form yet, hahaha.
Well, have a good one out there and we’ll talk to you later. Be good to each other, and I wish you peace and love forever.
Mark