The Thing Post (June, 2025)

THING ONE

I saw this quote online and fell in love with it.

Your name has been spoken out loud by people who aren’t here anymore.
In conversations. In laughter. In love.
And in rooms that still remember the echo.                                    –the tiny joy project (Instagram)

 THING TWO

Two weeks ago, Nathan and his family had the joy of spending three days with the Hawley Clan–all 18 of them. When you don’t get to see the people you love very often, each reunion is extra precious.

THING THREE

I love the next two photos; you can hardly tell where Tinker stops and Belle begins.

Telling secrets in black and white

THING FOUR

For a few months now, Steve’s been working on refurbishing our deck.  We got the idea for him to put up gates on either side of the deck so the dogs can go outside and get some doggie suntans.

Steve has never really built anything like this before, but that has never stopped him before.

THING FIVE

Every once in a while, I like to take a look at my stats and see where my readers come from.  This is a summation of some of the countries represented over the past few years.  (There were twice as many countries as what’s listed here, but I didn’t want to take up  the space to list them all.) Even though I can’t travel to all the places I want to, at least my words can still go there.

THING SIX

You probably don’t remember this, but when we were at the end of the process of selling our house in Manteo, the septic tank failed.  Since buyers normally prefer to have their homes equipped with working toilets, we paid a good bit of money to have it replaced.

And now? Only 2 ½ years later? The septic tank at our Charlotte house is on its last leg. There oughta be a law that says no one should have to deal with two septic tanks in less than three years.  Our current tank is over 60 years old, so I guess we can’t expect it to last forever.

This time around, we are paying extra and foregoing a septic tank to hook into the city sewer, which is a whole ordeal of its own.  Some concrete in the basement will have to be broken up, and then a long trench dug down near the creek where the sewer line is.

Fun times ahead at the Smith House.

THING SEVEN

I’ve mentioned that I am the oldest person at my job, and I sometimes have to remind myself that things familiar to me might be strange to someone younger.  Here are three examples.

• One young man was dealing with some allergies, and his voice was kind of low and gravelly.  I said, “You’re starting to sound like Johnny Cash.”  His response was, “Who?”
• I was about to jokingly tell someone, “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday,” but stopped myself just in time because they would have had no clue what I was saying.
• There’s been an ongoing project at work that has taken much longer than anticipated. I thought to myself one day, “They are going to be working on this until the cows come home.”  But I didn’t say it out loud, because I figured it wasn’t a phrase most people knew.

THING EIGHT

For his 68th birthday, Steve asked for something special: a driving cap made in Scotland from the Smith tartan.  Isn’t he a handsome fella?

Although the cap wasn’t much of a surprise, there was still one surprise element: I got to choose a 25-character line to be embroidered inside the hat.

Since I love words so much, I mistakenly thought that coming up with a line would be an easy task.  But whenever I thought of something that summed up what I wanted to say, it was always a few characters over the limit.  I spent a good while thinking about this and wondering if I would ever come up with the right thing.

Finally, I went to the internet for inspiration and Googled lines from love poems.  I came across the famous words, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.” As soon as I saw the words, “Grow old along with me, ” I started to tear up. That was the line I wanted. And happily, it fit within my character limit.

THING NINE

Last week, I had an internal ultrasound and a cervical biopsy due to an abnormal pap smear.  (I had the same tests last year for the same reason.)

May I just say that a cervical biopsy is not fun. And to make things even less fun, there are always those medical euphemisms doctors use, like “It’ll just be a pinch. Or there will be a little cramping. Or you’ll feel a little pressure.”

Listen, folks. I am a wordsmith, and I pay close attention to the precise meaning of all the words that cross my path.  And may I say that a doctor’s definitions of pinch, cramping, and pressure are quite a bit different from my own definitions.

I did ask for some extra pharmaceutical help this year and was given 800 mg of Motrin, an anti-anxiety muscle relaxer, and an opioid pain killer. I was pretty mellow by the time it was all over.  Steve made a quick dinner when we got home, and while I was sitting at the table waiting for him to bring the food over, I actually dozed off.

Although the process wasn’t fun, the good news is that the biopsy came back negative.

Between my back x-ray and MRI,  the cervical ultrasound and biopsy, I’ve spent a lot of time with doctors this past month. Tomorrow, I will go for my pulmonary function tests, and then the following week, I will drive to UNC-Chapel Hill to see my pulmonologist, who will let me know the test results.

I’m also starting Physical Therapy soon and have a dentist and eye appointment coming up.  After all of that, I hope I will be done for a while.

That’s it for this month’s Thing Post. Have a great week!

What about you?

Are you a reader from a less represented country? (Other than the U.S. or Canada) Where are you?

What are some phrases or sayings that you grew up with that people nowadays might not be familiar with?

Do you have tips for getting through difficult medical procedures?

How do you think you would do coming up with a phrase for a loved one under 25 characters?

Have you ever ordered a special item of clothing for a special someone?