Grateful for Water, Health and People - Ep 26

Water is important.  We need it to live. Plain and simple.  It's easy to take things or people for granted, and then sometimes a little life lesson pops up that reminds us to slow down, appreciate and nurture what we have.  This episode is unscripted, speaking as thoughts come to my mind.   

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hi everyone, it's Lindy here. I'm kinda giggling here as I get started today because I can't tell you how many times I tried to start recording today and it wasn't working for me. Okay. Alright, so I'm gonna try it one more time, and today you're gonna get what you're gonna get because I'm sure as heck not restarting this again. Okay, so where do I get started? First of all, my name is Linda Leverman. I am the creator and host of this podcast series. I do this for fun, try to stay focused on positive things. You know, I like to focus on the smaller things in life that truly matter because you know what really does happen to us is quite often life gets busier in the race for happiness. We sometimes forget that there are smaller things or people who are doing silent actions, quiet actions, people that are doing things for us and we just take it for granted. I know I'm guilty of it. Who isn't? We're all human. We all sometimes take something for granted until we don't have it anymore. It's interesting because I live here in the beautiful Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, and typically in the winter we get a lot of rain, we have a lot of moisture, and having enough water is usually not an issue in the wintertime. In fact, sometimes it's a little bit too much. But right now, I'm in a dry part of the season. It's June 26th on the day that I am recording this. And uh we are under stage three water restrictions right now in the Col Mox Valley. And yeah, stage three water restrictions means I can't be watering a lawn or boulevard. I can't fill up a swimming pool, hot tub, or garden pond. I can't be operating a decorative fountain and filling it up, and I can't wash my vehicle in the driveway right now because we are on water restrictions. Okay, so I can drive my car to a commercial car wash and get it washed if I need to, but I can't be pulling out the garden hose at home and spraying my car top to bottom, sud, sud, sud, scrub, scrub, scrub. No, that can't happen. Bird craps on my car, leave the crap on the car, wipe it off or go to a car wash, but I can't do it in my driveway. And I'm not complaining about it because you know what? When I go to my kitchen sink and I turn on that tap, I've got drinking water. And I understand that if we've only got so much water to go around and if it's dry out there right now, yeah, we need to preserve those water sources. So we have water for firefighting. I do live in an area where the climate can be very hot and dry in the summer. So yes, we do need that water for firefighting, but absolutely we need drinking water. I was thinking about it the other day because there are a lot of things that I do on a regular basis, even year-round. I often think about water conservation and I think about me being one little pee in the pot. It still matters if what I do is to try to reduce the amount of water I'm using. So I don't know. And again, this is not a scripted podcast, so I'm just thinking of all the stuff as we go along here. But if you were to ask me, okay, well, what do you do to preserve water? I think, okay, well, at home I've got these toilets that have two little buttons on them. And one little button you press when it's just a little bit yellow, and then you press the other button if it's a little bit more. Yeah, remember the old saying, if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down. Well, when you're on a septic system, yeah, that's what you do. And so sorry, not TMI, not trying to give you too much info, but reality is yes, we are in a septic system at our house, so I do try to be more aware of that. But I also think of it when we buy a toilet that has those low flow flushing options on it, yes, you're helping to preserve water because you go through a lot of water every time you flush a toilet. And I think about all the times when I was a kid, it's like, okay, you're washing your face, or maybe you wipe your eyes with a you know a piece of toilet paper, then you put it in the toilet and you flush it down. Why? Why waste that water when you could just put that tissue in the receptacle beside it? It doesn't need to go in the toilet. There's nothing in that water that needs to be flushed in this very moment. I was thinking about water usage when we were kids, okay? So I grew up in the Yukon, and when we were kids, we got pretty mucky in the summertime. We lived behind a great big hill, there were clay cliffs on there, and as kids, we were always up and down that hill every day. Oh, we just got filthy, dirty when we were playing outside. But we would come in and guess what? You had to share the bath water. And if you talk to a lot of people in my generation, and yeah, I'm turning 60 this summer, uh, a lot of us grew up in places and times when we had to share the bath water. One kid got to bath first, and then the kid who was maybe the least dirtiest would start first, and the next one, next one. If you were the dirtiest, you probably got the water last. Because if you put the dirtiest kid in first, then everybody else is bathing in really mucky water. Yeah, and that brought back memories for me today. I was thinking about that, going, yeah, we just took it for granted that you always had to share the bath water. It's always like, hey, whatever you do, don't pee in the tub. I got a bath in behind you. Please don't pee in the water. Funny how those things come back to remind you of that. When I was a kid though, we used to run sprinklers outside all day in the summertime. Yeah, back in the Yukon. If it was hot out, hey, invite all the neighborhood kids over, put the sprinkler out on the lawn. You'd be running it for three, four hours. Everybody's running through the sprinkler and you're cooling off and eating freezes and popsicles having a great time, and that water sprinkler is running the entire afternoon. That doesn't happen here. Even when I'm not on a stage three water restriction, I'm aware of how much water that I'm using. I try to only water at times when I know it's going to be most beneficial to my garden. I don't want to be watering when it's super hot outside because it's just going to absorb it and burn the plants. I try to water really early in the mornings so it has a chance to absorb it, or water late at night so it has all night for that moisture to absorb in the plants. But no, I'm not watering in the middle of the day when the heat's coming down. Full force on it. It's funny how this whole water thing can get us thinking because I know there's been headlines for many years about different communities who don't have clean drinking water, and people are having to fight hard to have clean drinking water, and really that's a fundamental human right. Everybody should have access to clean drinking water. You shouldn't really have to fight for it, but I think about this whole thing where we're on restrictions right now, and it's up to all of us really to make sure that we're doing the right thing so that everybody can enjoy it. Uh, it's funny because again, it got me thinking about how I've always taken things for granted. I mean, even now, I get up in the morning and you know, we go over to the sink, fill up our coffee pot with 11 cups of water, and then we go pour it into the little automatic coffee maker, press the button, and dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, and there we go. There's that cup of Joe that's gonna help us get started, clear our heads and get us going on our day. Uh, what if we didn't have water to make our coffee? I mean, human nature, a lot of us we complain that, hey, I never got my coffee this morning. Oh god, I only got one cup of coffee. How about when you can't even have a cup of coffee because you don't have any water to make it? I was thinking back when I took a trip to a a different country. It was a hot country. This was many, many years ago. And sometimes when you travel to an area that's geographically different from your own, sometimes you can get, I think they call it Montezuma's Revenger quite simply, you'll get the poops if you drink some kind of water because sometimes your system can't handle their water. Or sometimes there's different, I don't know what you'd say, organisms or something in the water that's just not going to agree with your tummy. Well, I was in this really hot country, and I remember I had forgotten to take my bottled water with me and gone downtown to a local marketplace. I remember that day I was just feeling nauseous. I was feeling dizzy and I was feeling hot and lightheaded. And the problem was I'd forgotten to bring my bottled water with me. I remember that day, you know, here I am in a different country, and I'm just thinking, oh my gosh, I'm gonna pass out here anytime if I don't get something to drink. So there was a guy and he was vending that day. He had a little cart, was filled up with lemonade, and it had big ice chunks in it. And I didn't even think that day about the ice chunks that were in there. Never occurred to me that they came from water that was not bottled water. I just thought, oh yeah, lemonade, great, this'll help. And I remember guzzling it back, and then I spent three days on the toilet after that. Yeah. And I also remember that feeling I had that day, where it was almost desperation when I drank that lemonade, because if I didn't get that lemonade to drink that day, I might have passed out. I was really dizzy and really nauseous, and I wasn't able to tolerate the heat. I was thinking about that today, and I was thinking how horrible it must be for people who are living in locations right now where they face those conditions every day, and they don't always have relief, or they're depending on relief agencies to bring them the water that they need to be able to live. And where we sit here, and I say we, meaning me, living here in Canada, where I'm so blessed to have drinking water where I live, and I recognize that not everybody has it. It's funny that these things that come out because you start watching online, you see the social media posts, people talking about it, and suddenly it reminds me of when we went back to the pandemic, and people are wanting to rat each other out for what they're doing. Some people are calling other people out for their behavior, it becomes very contentious. And then true colors do come out sometimes with different people on there. And of course, I know you shouldn't watch everything that people are posting on social media. It's like a dark hole that you can go down sometimes. But I was watching it the other day, and people are going, hey, we're on this stage of water restriction now, and I saw so-and-so watering their lawn. Somebody else is going, well, report them. And someone else is going, well, they don't do anything anyways. And someone else is writing, well, who cares? Everyone's going to do it anyway. Why would I let my lawn go brown? I spent this much money on it. I'm watering my lawn, whether they tell me to or not. And somebody else is going, I'm not talking to them anymore because it picks me off that they're doing that. And it goes on and on and on. I go, oh my goodness. You know, it's it's such a simple concept. You know, we've got so much water to drink, we have so many people that rely on it. It's almost like you got a cookie jar that's full of cookies. You got 12 cookies and you have 12 people. Well, if one person eats all the cookies, the other 11 people aren't going to get a chance to get a cookie. So I guess maybe it's not a great comparison because you don't need cookies, but you do need water. But if you think of it that way, if you have anything and you're trying to divide it between the number of people who need it, if somebody's hogging it, someone's gonna miss out. So to me it's a pretty simple concept. If they're telling us to reduce, I gotta reduce. And sometimes I realize how I can get a little oxidaisical sometimes. Sometimes I kind of don't pay attention, then I catch myself. It's almost like I gotta go, what are you doing? Like I'm standing at the sink and I'm brushing my teeth and the water's running. Why do I need to run the water when I'm brushing my teeth? Why can't I turn the water on? Wet my toothbrush, turn it off. Do your scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub, spit it out, turn the water on, rinse your toothbrush, turn it off. Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub. Why does that water have to be trickling the entire time? Silly me. And then I look at my shower habits. A few years back we bought ourselves these shower heads for in our house. And I love them because they have a little dial that's up on the top, and I can turn down the water pressure. It can be really light, almost turned off altogether, or it can come down hard, blasting. I use mostly the lower setting. Um, that's what I do, but when it's time to rinse my hair, I do have shoulder length long hair, then yes, I do turn up the water pressure because then I'm faster to get in and out of the shower because I have more pressure and I can get that shampoo and conditioner rinsed out faster. But there's no need for me to be standing in the shower, you know, rubber ducky, doo doo doo, you know, taking my time and scrubbing away and having it on full blast shower water the entire time. Nah, no need for that. And I found one day I actually put a plug in the bottom of the tub while I was having a shower. And there was two reasons for it. I bought this really good foot bath stuff that you can get. It's this really nice smelling eucalyptus foot bath salts. I thought, oh, I'll just have my shower and I'll put these salts in the bottom, and as the tub's filling up, I can kind of have like a little foot soak at the same time. And then I started thinking about going, well, I can also monitor how much water I'm using when I do this. So I've done that a few times and looked down and went, okay. When I shower with the pressure on this level, I only have maybe an inch or two of water in the bottom of the tub. And when I turn the water pressure up, now it doubles, and I have this much water in the tub. And you don't really think of it, but if you compare it and say, okay, what if I do this every day, if I shower every day and I do this 365 days of the year, and I multiply how much water I can save by not running it full force all the time, and then if we multiply this by all the people that had those shower habits, imagine how much water we could be saving. So yeah, I just find myself having to think, yeah, I just need to not be so, I don't know, just so accept expecting that that water is always going to be there. It doesn't hurt me to adjust my own habits and to think about everybody outside of my box here. Not just my home, not just my house, but everybody who's got to rely on this water source. And, you know, even as we take this for granted, things that we put in our systems make a big difference. And I think perhaps um a lot of this is hitting more home for me now because I do live in an area that's close to a sensitive Hammond salmon, Hammond, a sensitive salmon habitat area. And so I am definitely more aware of what I'm throwing down my kitchen sink. I try to buy more plant-based uh products for washing my dishes, things like that. I don't dump bleach down my drains anymore. I'm on a septic system. It's not a good thing. So there's a lot of things that I've changed my habits over the years. Uh, even what I put on my lawn, okay. I'm not out there with a bunch of commercial weed killers and stuff like that. I can't do that because if I put that on my lawn, then that water's gonna run into the area that feeds into the stream where the fish run, and those fish are actually running into our oceans. So there's a whole thought process on it for me, and I have to be really careful. And it's hard sometimes, sure. Sometimes I'm looking at the old dishcloths and going, oh my gosh, I just wish I could run them through a washing machine full of bleach. I really wish I could, because they look nasty right now. But guess what? It's not the end of the world if they're not perfectly white. And I'm not saying I'm perfect, okay, I'm like everybody else. We all do things, we try to do our best, but I just try to be mindful of it. And I don't know, are you the kind of person that thinks about that? Like if you're on a septic system, you probably do, but if you're not on a septic system, do you think about how many times you flush the toilet? Do you think about what you're putting in the drains? Uh have you ever read any of the reports from your municipal areas where they're testing the water at some of their facilities to find out what is in the water? Sometimes they get medications in the water, sometimes there's oils, sometimes there's chemicals. When they're testing and they're trying to purify that water, what kinds of things are going into those water systems? And yeah, we just take so many things for granted. Thinking back to when I was a kid, took my mum for granted. Yeah, that's kind of crazy. I mean there was only one mom and four kids in the house, and I can't imagine what it must have been like for her, you know, going to work day in and day out, and you come home and there's four hungry kids sitting around the table waiting for dinner. And you know, we took it for granted. We knew she worked hard, we knew that money was tight, but we also knew that whenever we opened up our fridge, there would be food to eat, and we took it for granted when we were kids. Sometimes we complained about the kind of milk we had to drink. And it's funny because today I was just looking at a social media post and people were talking about our generation, those of us who had to drink powdered milk, or we drank milk from a mix where you added one part water or two parts water to one part some thickened powdered milk met with a little bit of evaporated milk or something like that. Anyways, they were milk mixes. We used to complain so much when we were kids that we had to drink the stuff, we hated it. But at the bottom of all of it, not only was it the chemical milk we were drinking, it was also the water that supplied it. We took that for granted. We took it for granted. We could open our cupboard, there'd be cookies, there'd be crackers, open the fridge, there would be cheese. Five o'clock would roll around and chances our mum would have something on the table for us to eat. We took so much of that for granted when we were growing up, and now I look at it and I think, oh my gosh, I shouldn't be taking anything for granted. And you hear lots of stories about back in the war times, back in World War II, when people were going on food rations, you know, they'd go and get their food stamps or whatever to get their food rations. Uh well, it's like that for some people around the world right now, depending where you live or what your situation is. Some people are living on food rations, and some people are taking it for granted. They go to a place and they didn't like the flavor of this or they didn't like the flavor of that, so they're throwing it all out, even when it's still good. And there are other people out there who really could use it. I belong to a couple sites that are online here, local resource sites through social media where people are able to post on there if they need a little bit of help. And it's not uncommon to see posts from parents with young kids right now who are saying, Oh my gosh, you know, we're three days away from payday, and is there anyone who can just spare me some sandwich meat or a loaf of bread, or I just need some milk and yogurt for a couple days, or I just need some snacks for my kids' lunches. Can anybody help me out? And sometimes if we're in a position where we can help and we walk away, you think, oh my gosh, what happens to that person if nobody helps out? What happens if all the resources they've gone to aren't available that day? Again, for many of us we take it for granted. You're hungry, you get a snack. You're thirsty, you get a drink of water. For some people, those things just don't happen. And I don't know, I just think maybe I'm I'm facing a bit of realization right now that I've got to be a little bit spoilt some days when I take so many things for granted. And I know we caught ourselves the other night, and I'm trying to think of what it was we were eating it. It was not one of my best cooking experiences. Okay, I've had a lot of cooking experiences where I've come up with some funky dinners, but I think it was one of the ones that, yeah, it really wasn't very good. I remember Randy and I were sitting down at the table and going, Oh, I'm sorry, this really isn't very good. And he says, Hey, we're just lucky to be having a meal right now. And just the way he said it, I mean, yeah, he probably wasn't really thrilled with what I cooked either, but he was being polite and reminding me that it's not about complaining that we didn't have the perfect meal, it's about gratitude for what's placed on the table in front of us. And just like me, he grew up in a family with lots of kids, and he recognizes just how hard it can be for some parents to put food on the table. Uh, so yeah, and sometimes you'll see little kids and they're fussing and they're crying and complaining because they didn't get the right burger, they didn't get the right sauce, they didn't get the right this, they didn't get the right that. And I remember if we pulled that off when we were kids, mom would always say, Think about all the kids in such and such country, and she'd name a country, think about all the kids over there. And as kids, we didn't really absorb what she was trying to tell us. And I think it's not until you've been in a position that touches on it or is similar to it that you can even really comprehend what somebody's going through. I think back to that time when I was traveling and I took the lemonade, knowing that maybe it would be the only thing I'd be able to drink, because if I didn't have that lemonade, I was going to pass out. Yet deep down inside, I knew that ice in the lemonade would probably make me sick. So I just think about people in other areas. What if they're in that position where they have to drink water that maybe isn't good for them, but they're stuck because they have no other options. That's horrible. Uh so yeah, I just think all these things are kind of making me think about how lucky we are to have what we have. And I even remember during the pandemic, I mean, yeah, nobody wants to talk about it anymore, but it was such an eye-opener for us. We had all these restrictions. We took it for granted that we always had freedom and we could go to a restaurant anytime we want. And all of a sudden, you can't sit down in restaurants. All of a sudden, a way of life that had helped develop a social culture for a lot of people was not accessible because of the pandemic. And I remember the very first day we were allowed to go back in a restaurant again after lockdown. And we went in with another couple, the four of us went out and we got burgers at one of our favorite burger joints. And I remember we were sitting there across from each other. There's a side of me that was nervous, going, Oh gosh, I hope I'm not going to get sick because I came out here. And the other side is going, oh my gosh, I never thought I'd be this happy to have a cheeseburger in front of me. I am so grateful for this cheeseburger. And by not having that for a number of months, it really did make us realize how lucky we were when we had that privilege back. I remember during the lockdown, there was a lot of chat about families staying to their own houses. And at that point, I was really stressed out because we were hitting Christmas time. I wanted my son to not be by himself and to be able to come and have Christmas with us. And there was a lot of concern around that time about houses being able to mingle with other houses. And I remember at the time saying, Well, if you have to move in with us, just to be able to have Christmas with us, do it. There's got to be A way to do this. And it worked out that it wasn't a problem. He was able to have Christmas with us. But at that time it also reminded me, what about all these people who live in places where they don't just get to see their family whenever they want to see their family? And I'm so lucky right now. I mean, I don't live close to most of my family. They're still 2,500 kilometers away, but I can talk to them every day if I want to. I've got technology that gives me that opportunity. And I have the ability to travel and go and see them. So I'm lucky that I have those things. But what about people who don't have those opportunities? And so often we just take things for granted until we don't have it anymore. And I think people are like that. And I mentioned in my last podcast, I was having a chat about being the chatty podcaster. And in my last podcast, I was talking about, well, if somebody says, what do you like about hearing the voice of somebody you love or you care for, I always say it reminds me that they're alive and I have that opportunity. And that's big for me. There's somebody who's really close to me right now who's going through some very serious health challenges. And it was shortly after I had recorded that podcast and talked about how important it was to uh listen to the voice of people you love because you know they're still alive. And then I find out somebody that I'm really close to is really having some health issues. And that really hit home base to me. And I'm like, you know, if I get on the phone, I'm not gonna be like, I got 15 minutes and I got to go and do this. Unless I really have something to do, I'm gonna take that extra time and I'm gonna chat to that person because right now, every moment I can hear that person's voice is valuable. And sometimes we don't need to have that reminder in front of us to cherish the time that we have with people that we care about. And I'm just thinking about this more and more now, especially as I'm getting older. And okay, I'm not old. Yeah, I'm turning 60 soon. In another month, I'm gonna be 60. But that's okay. But what I'm actually realizing now is as I get older and I'm entering that age group, more and more people my age are running into health issues or things are starting to happen in their lives. And there's more chance that in 10 years from now, some of those friends may not be here. And it's just so important to not take it for granted to just say, Yeah, I'll get a hold of them later. I'll get them, yeah, it's been two months since I chatted to them. Yeah, whatever, we'll catch up someday. And then suddenly someday comes along and you don't have that opportunity because you just took it for granted that that person was always going to be there. And I know I did that a lot with my mom when I was single, yeah, she'll always be there, she'll always be there. And then one day her health changed and she wasn't there anymore. So, yeah, all these things just have me thinking about it this week. And I don't mean this to be negative in any way. In fact, I mean it to be positive because there's so many things out there that we can celebrate. And if we focus on the smaller things, the things that really matter, uh, it really can bring a lot of happiness to us. And you don't have to do a lot of fancy things and spend a lot of money to enjoy time with people around you. You really don't. And sometimes when you just look around, there's little things that you take for granted that you go, oh my gosh, why didn't I pay attention to that before? Like the birds in my backyard. And I probably talked about this before. I've got an app on my phone called Merlin. And with the Merlin app, I can go out there, hit record, and it uh it brings up a little screen, it records the birds that are chirping in my backyard, and as long as those birds are in the database of that app, I can find out what the birds are. So I mean I've got a whole little forest of birds in the back behind my house, and I didn't know about all these birds that were out there. You know, the little dark-eyed junko and the different American robin and all this stuff. There's all these different types of birds that are out there in the backyard, and without that app, I wouldn't know who was out there. A couple of years ago, I ended up wearing an air cast for a couple weeks. I was having a problem with one of my feet, and I ended up getting specialized orthotics and I had to get off my feet for a bit, and I wasn't able to walk around like I usually did. And I realized at that time how hard it is just to get up and get a cup of coffee when you're trying to navigate crutches. It was really hard for me to do because I could use the crutches to walk across the room, but how the heck was I supposed to carry coffee in an open cup holding onto my crutches and not spill that coffee all over my leg? And I realized at that time how my ability to get up and just go and get a cup of coffee had been something that I had taken for granted. So another thing that kind of got me thinking about this is my thumb. Yeah, it's not just a green thumb for the garden, it's a thumb that's been giving me a bit of grief for a while. Yeah. So this thumb on my right hand uh is also the thumb that helps control a mouse on my computer, like today. When I'm recording my podcast episode, I need to use a mouse on the computer. I have all kinds of computer projects that I've been working on, and without the use of that hand controlling the mouse, I can't do them. I'm a writer. Uh yes, I could get programs that could record what I'm saying, but I'm also now dabbling in screenwriting, and I need to be able to tab and do the things that are going to line up the text in the right spots. So I hit the other day where I was having a hard time holding a mouse, and I was trying to edit a script for some people that I'm working with, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can hardly hold the mouse right now. This is killing me. And I was thinking, what's going to happen if this hand doesn't get better? What's going to happen if I can't use the mouse anymore? And I realized how much I had been taking all of that for granted for such a long time. And I'm not saying that I'm losing mobility in my hand. I got some trigger thumb, I've had some trigger fingers, I've got some arthritic issues, mobility changes, and again, I'm turning 60, crap happens. But it made me realize how much I've I've just relied on having that thumb. I mean, another thing happened. Okay, I was in these acting classes, and quite often when we're recording, we're we're actually practicing for screen editions, and there was a costume that I was making that involved sewing some patches on a shirt. And so here I am, I make these, I get these little patches that I need to just take them and just put one little um sewing thing around the side of each of them, and I just want to get them on the shirt. And I'm holding the needle and I'm trying to push the needle through the fabric, through the patch, and I can't do it. Because my finger couldn't grasp the needle that I was holding. I didn't have the strength or ability in my hand at that moment to push the needle and thread through because my thumb was hurting so bad I couldn't do it. And I suddenly went, oh my gosh, my entire life holding a needle and thread was never an issue for me. Now I can't do it. And then around that same time, I was out in the backyard and my shoelace came untied, and I went to bend down and do it. My shoelace and dog gone, I couldn't grip it with my hand that day. It's like, oh my gosh. And I knew around that time, okay, I got to go see the doctor. I'm probably gonna have to get a shot in my hand again. I've already had a couple, and now I'm gonna have to go get another shot because I got to get this thumb to open up and get this hand working. And just again, things that we just took for granted for so many times. I just took it for granted that my thumb was always gonna work. And suddenly all these things that I depend on or I want to be able to do are now becoming a challenge because of one little body part that was acting up on me. So again, you know, don't take your health for granted. I remember a motivational speaker that I saw many years ago. This was back in Kelowna, way back in the 90s. Um, and I I really loved the teachings of Jim Rohn. Um, I think he was, I don't know what when he passed on. It was a number of years ago, but he was a really good motivational speaker. And I think he said something once to the effect of um you had to look after your body because it was the only place you had to live. I I don't know if it's a perfect quote or not, but that was something that he had said. And he's so right, you gotta look after your body. You can't take it for granted. It is the only place that you do have to live. And sometimes, you know, as you're getting to be my age, you think about a car, right? He said you got a car, and after you've driven so many kilometers on that car, eventually you're gonna have to replace the windshield wipers, eventually you're gonna need new tires, eventually you're gonna have to change the brake fluid, eventually you're gonna need an oil change, and eventually some parts are gonna break down and need replacement on them, and you have to get new parts. And then at some point that car is gonna be ready for the landfill. Well, I guess that kind of happens to us too, right? Sometimes we get parts in our body, they act up a little bit. We try to fix them. If we can't fix them, sometimes we're able to replace them, sometimes not. And sometimes we just run them to the very end, and then when the very end comes, it is the very end. But how we're going to live our life is probably going to be affected a lot by how we look after it. No different than a car. If you take your car and you never do any maintenance on it, you never do an oil change on it, and you let the gas run dry and you let the filters plug up, you're not gonna have a car that runs good. Well, I guess our bodies are probably the same. And if we take it for granted and we just abuse them and don't look after what we're doing with them, yeah, at some point it's gonna kick us in the butt and we're gonna wish we'd done otherwise. Because having your health is really, uh I don't know how to put it, having your health is such a privilege. I know people who have not had that privilege. I know people who did not get to live very long. They maybe didn't get to live past the age of 40 or even younger because of health challenges. And they would do anything to be in our shoes. You know, if they had that opportunity to have what we're living with, they would be so grateful. I mean, I even think back to when my brother-in-law, and this was many years ago, was diagnosed with ALS. If you're not familiar with ALS, you could look it up, or it's also known as Lou Garrick's disease. And there was a point in which he lost all of his mobility and he was in a wheelchair 100% reliant on people to help move him around, people to help him uh feed himself, people to feed him, people to help him drink. It was a really difficult spot to be in. He was losing the mobility in his hands, his muscles. It was just a really, really difficult thing to go through. And I remember one day somebody was complaining about having to go to work that day, and he just kind of looked up and said, you know, people shouldn't complain about going to work because I would do anything right now to be able to go to work. And uh I cried pretty hard that day when he said that. And he was a man that had worked hard his entire life. He'd always worked hard. Um, and suddenly he wasn't able to do that anymore. And it was just a reminder for me, yeah, sometimes we get complacent, or sometimes we, and I keep saying we meaning me, uh sometimes it's easy to get complacent about having a job, and I don't like how this is done or that is done until suddenly you don't have that job anymore. And if there's not another job on the horizon, oh my gosh, that old job that wasn't so good suddenly looks good. So it's just again in life, so many things that we can take for granted, or sometimes we can nurture them and do our best to make it last and to make the best of it. And as far as this water thing and the water restrictions on my end, hey, I got no problem following the rules on that. No problem at all. Because again, I use the analysis of the cookie jar. 20 cookies and 20 people that need a cookie. If one person eats all 20 cookies, there's no cookies for everybody. So we have so much water to go around. If somebody's being a hog and taking all the water and using it for the wrong reasons, some people who really rely on it aren't going to have it. So it's better just kind of everybody pitch in together and make the resources last a little bit. Yeah, we can we can't be too complacent about it, and I think we have to appreciate what we have in front of us. Yeah, we use water for so many things. And even going back to showering and bathing, you think about how many times if you've gone camping or gone away and said, Oh my gosh, I was away from home for three days. I can't wait to get in and have a hot shower. What if you never have access to a hot shower? That'd be really crappy. So I'm going to catch myself now and moving forward, I'm going to start trying to be more grateful for the simpler things in life, more grateful for what's around me, more grateful for who is around me. And I've often said I don't get myself sometimes because I'm the biggest advocate for keeping in touch with people you're close to because I know from experience life can change in an instant. And then every now and then it's like I catch myself just needing that reminder again because I'm getting kind of lazy about contacting somebody when I should be, or spending too much time with a group and forgetting about another group that's really important to me. And it's just so important to catch ourselves and and yeah, not take advantage of people and not take advantage of things and not take it for granted. And yes, I need to work on it. Old dogs can always learn new tricks. Uh, anyway, that's it. I really do have to go. Um, just a quick note here before we head out. If you're listening to my podcast and you happen to notice in the short notes, there's a little spot there that you can click on that says share your comments or send your feedback. Please, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to get your comments on the podcast. Um, if you're listening on an app and that link does not work, just scroll down to the bottom of the text and I've hand-typed out a link to where you can uh get in touch with me. You can send a voicemail message to me. Sorry, it's not a two-way link right now, it's just the way it's set up through my podcast provider, but it's definitely a way where you can send in your thoughts. And of course, if you enjoyed the episode and you're on an app, if you'd like to give a positive review or a thumbs up on the podcast episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. And I'm not in this for accolades and I'm not in it to get rich and famous, although, hey, that would be nice. But anyway, seriously, I'm I'm just in this for a little bit of fun and creativity, but it always makes my day if I get some positive feedback. I I think most people are like that when you're preparing a big buffet for a group. If everybody shows up and says something nice about the dinner, you kind of want to do it again. But if everybody wrinkles their nose, you're not gonna want to keep going. Alright, I've done enough rambling for one day. Have a great week, everyone, and just a reminder before I head out smiles come in all languages and in all colors. Take care. Bye bye.