Hmmm.....

Went to the doctor today for my yearly physical. He looked at my chest xray and said I have a "shadow" that looks like scar tissue at the bottom of my left lung. He asked if I had been sick, and I I told him other than a bout with asthma a month or two ago, I've been fine. So he wanted to do a cat scan. I told him I'm going to Florida but will do it when I get back. So I have to do that on Monday. I'm not really worried about it. I don't cough, don't smoke, and haven't felt bad at all. I once had a blood clot in my leg that went to my lungs, and I asked if that could have caused it and he said that was several years ago, and my last chest xray last year didn't show this. So hmm...
I got the contract from the editor on my second story. So I guess I've sold TWO for sure now. I submitted a story to two other books on Sunday.
A friend got me a signed copy of Homer Hickam's book. I loved that movie October Sky, based on his book Rocket Boys. I guess a lot of my interest comes from growing up in Huntsville, the Rocket City, home of Space Camp. My dad and stepdad both worked for aviation firms testing rocket engines. I remember my Dad brought home a piece of solid rocket fuel once when I was little. It looked like a large piece of rubber. He put in on a fencepost and lit it and it burned so bright it hurt your eyes to look at it. It burned a LONG time. It was neat to watch.
Oprah had some woman on there who had lost over three hundred pounds. You can imagine how her body sagged. Made me with my almost fifty year old body feel a LOT better. (smile)
My birthday is Saturday. I'm actually happy to be having this one. It's like I've reached a landmark. This is the last year I'll ever be in my forties. Next year, I'll be fifty. My mom said turning thirty didn't bother her, and neither did forty, but the year she turned fifty, that bugged her because it sounded so OLD. Well I'm ok with it, because I like myself much much better now than I did at twenty or thirty or forty. If I could go back to twenty, and have the body I had then but still be an naive as I was, I'd say no I don't want to. I'd much better be who I am now and know what I know than have a better body. Maybe that's the true meaning of maturity. Being happy just being who you are with what you have.
I've not a very materialistic person at this age. I enjoy new technology, like IPods and computers, but as far as accumulating a lot of stuff, I don't really care about that. We have talked about getting a larger home, because we only have 1800 sq ft and 750 of it is upstairs where my son lives. That means hubby and I combined our two households in less than 1100 sq ft. But we've purged a lot of stuff and I would rather be here than in debt on a larger home. I've been lucky to get this one paid off, and I sleep better at night knowing I don't have a mortgage. I think I'd probably love a new house until the first mortgage bill arrived.
I'm looking forward to retirement. I'm looking forward to being able to travel more. We've talked about getting an RV and going cross country. I think I'd love that. I'd like to say I'd visited every state. So far, I've been to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and California. And of course I'm from Alabama. So I have only thirty five more to go!