Let There Be Light

You all know Miss Terry is a fabulous cook, and she likes having a bigger kitchen here at the house than she did in the motorhome so she can whip up all of her tasty creations. However, even though the kitchen is bigger, it’s not perfect. Not yet, anyway.

One thing that really bothered Terry was the old 18 inch long florescent light fixture above the sink. It was ugly, and it really didn’t put out enough light for her. So she started looking for options to upgrade.

She came up with a pair of Kobi LED fixtures, one of which is 42 inches long, and the other 22 inches long. And the neat thing about them is that they can be paired together with a little plug in connection between them so she can use one or the other fixture, or both, depending on how much light she needs at any given time.

Yesterday we decided to swap out the old light fixture for the new ones. It wasn’t a major chore, and since I do have a little bit of a background in electricity (after all, I wired our MCI bus conversion, and it didn’t burn down), it went pretty smoothly. The biggest problem I had is that my stiff arthritic fingers didn’t want to cooperate all the time, and our friend Jim Lewis had to help me out connecting the wires on the new fixture to our existing house wiring.

My job was strictly the electric end of things, we are a union shop around here. Terry did the job of actually attaching the fixtures over the sink. I think the finished project looks pretty good! The new fixtures  also puts out a tremendous amount of light compared to what she had been working with before.

Last week I mentioned that the nice folks at Coastal Integrative Healthcare have been trying a new procedure to help alleviate my chronic back pain. It’s called cold laser therapy and is applied with a small hand held device directly on the skin. The laser emits a light energy that penetrates the skin between 2 to 5 cm deep. It is absorbed at a cellular level and stimulates a bio cellular response comparable to photosynthesis in plants. The cells that are stimulated lessen inflammation and stimulate regeneration of damaged tissue. I’m not sure what all that means, to be honest with you, but I have had a laser procedure called a YAG done to my eyes to correct secondary cataracts and it worked very well.

I had the cold laser therapy three times last week, and I am absolutely amazed at the improvement! I can’t remember a day of my adult life when I didn’t feel some level of back pain. Most often it was just a nagging ache that wouldn’t go away, but every now and then it would flare up to become severe, which is what brought me to Coastal Integrative Healthcare in the first place.

About six hours after the first cold laser treatment I suddenly realized that my back did not hurt any longer. Not even a little bit. I could not believe it. They told me that it can take three, or up to five treatment sometimes for lasting results. After about 48 hours I started to feel a few little twinges in my back again. I couldn’t even describe it as pain, just twinges. So I went back for a second treatment, and that lasted another 48 hours or so before I began to feel a few little twinges again. Now, those twinges were nothing like the discomfort I have lived with for so long. The third treatment was midday on Friday, and as I write this, about 1 AM on Monday morning, I have not felt any pain, or even the twinges I mentioned above, since then. Folks if you have chronic back pain, this is something to look into. You can find more information, and links to further study, at this link.

Today is your last opportunity to take advantage of our special offer for digital back issues of the Gypsy Journal for the years 2003 through 2017. They are in PDF format on a USB thumb drive and will provide you with weeks of great reading about places to visit from coast to coast and our adventures as fulltime RVers. The normal cost of the back issue collection is $75, but we are running a special that ends today for just $65, which includes shipping. Don’t miss out on this great deal. If interested, you can log onto www.paypal.com and make payment to editor@gypsyjournal.net. Be sure to include your mailing address for fast delivery.

Congratulations Bob Jae, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon,the seventh book in my Big Lake mystery series. We had 70 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.

Thought For The Day – If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in?