Well, it’s been a very long time since I have contributed to my blog, which I started way back in 2014. My last post was in December 2018 so it’s actually been over a year.
I had a habit of regular posting, emphasizing the music that I love so much. But the break was longer than I expected because I have been very busy, and this had to take a back seat for a while. Of course, once I wasn’t thinking about the blog all the time with what I might post next, which artists, albums, playlists, etc, it slipped from my top priority and it became hard to just get started again.
Anyway, I think the time is right now to resume my posting, and I will be sharing more music with you. Of course, I have continued listening to music all the time, identified some artists and albums, and even created some playlists in the meantime that will be coming your way.
As I mentioned, it’s been a very busy year for me, so I thought I would share a little of that so you know what I have been doing while I was silent. First, I have been learning iOS, Swift, and related technologies over the past few years, and I have been totally preoccupied developing my iOS apps for diabetes. I also realized that I had a lot to learn, and needed to read books and articles and watch videos.
Initially I focused on reading Apple Health data captured by my One Drop Mobile app, which includes my blood glucose, insulin, food, and exercise. I wanted to provide a more structured way to view and analyze my diabetes data than a simple log with basic analysis. I applied additional statistical analysis with summaries for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly periods, with the ability to expand into more granular detail. I added graph and calendar views, as well as reports.
That was actually looking pretty good, but I decided to explore what I could do for more focus on my food, so right now I’m working on My Diabetes Meals. It also incorporates Health data for glucose before and after meals, as well as insulin and exercise, but shows how they relate to each meal. Since I capture a photo for each meal, I match those images in the Photos library with their associated meal. This allows you to see what you ate, along with its carbs and calories, any insulin, and its impact on your glucose.
I’m a member of Diabetes Meal Plans, and find their weekly meal plans, recipes, and information enable me to focus more on low-carb food to treat my type 2 diabetes. So I wanted to incorporate their weekly plans and recipes into my app. This was quite a challenge, but the effort has been worthwhile. It will benefit other DMP members, and perhaps encourage others to become members too.
My younger son (now 46) has been living with us for over a year. He broke his ankle in March (overweight and skateboarding!), and was helpless for 3 months. Then in September, my older son (49) broke his ankle too, which set him back during his recovery but at least he could work from home.
My mother died in May just short of her 99th birthday with all my siblings there (except my younger sister who’s teaching at a NJ university in China). My father had died back in 2013, and we recently had inurnment burial & graveside service in January for both my parents. It was nice to have the whole family gather and spend time together all weekend, with all my siblings, their children, and some grandchildren.
In November, I had prostate “vaporization” surgery to remove the middle of my enlarged prostate and recovery took several months. Then I’ve had an upper respiratory infection with significant cough that just wouldn’t go away for more than 6 weeks, but I feel that’s now under control and getting better.
So, here we are, and I will give this another go. Hope you are all doing well.
