All About Me, Myself And I

Yesterday, while beating myself up over all the things I didn't know about how to manage this challenge, it occurred to me that I can't know something until I've done something to learn about something. Is that called not knowing the unknowable? I doubt it, but that was what I said to myself when I began to get frustrated. Myself, of course, answered that statement by saying "Bullcrap! You are not stupid!" "Wait a minute." I said to Myself. "What has not being stupid got to do with not knowing something because it's all new material?" Myself, of course, had no answer to that.

It's one thing to catch Myself in negative self talk, quite another thing to figure out how to stop it from ever happening again. I have survived it for a good number of years, but if I continue to hang onto it, I won't benefit as much from the challenge since that may be the source of my constant backsliding and why despite the real changes I have made in how I eat over time, I am missing the being fully in health part.

I am acknowledging that I should have lost 3 times more weight than I have lost in the past 2 years. I believe the source of my failure is negative self talk and my failure to find something that works for stress reduction other than candy, cake, cookies, pie and ice cream. Something that I really hate admitting is that I haven't really tried that hard to change my habits. I'm really good at giving lip service to all the healthy ideas that have been made available to me, however after a day or two I simply don't keep them and then once I've wreaked havoc on myself, I start up again for 2 or 3 days.

I WANT CHOCOLATE!

I'm settling for 1/2 cup of grapes.

I am responsible for every one of the excess 46 pounds that I am still carrying on my bones. In the past 24 months I should have lost 48 pounds. It's not at all hard to lose 2 pounds a month at any age if we do the right things. In 2 years I have managed 14 pounds.

I keep trying to remind myself to celebrate that I lost weight at all instead of smacking myself around for not losing what I could have lost. I am responsible for the problem, I am also responsible for the actions I need to take to fix it. Excuse me, I have some work to do.

Teaching An Old Dog A New Trick Or Two

Day 1 of the 30 day challenge was yesterday. This challenge is a lot harder in areas I wasn't prepared for. I was planning on being hungry all day until I got used to it but the reality is I was too full to eat all of what I'm supposed to eat. Another concern I have is that after buying my fruits and vegetables yesterday I find I didn't have as much of a variety as I thought and the amounts I purchased could mean I end up with spoilage that I didn't think about. I'm going to try vacuum packaging smaller amounts of it to see if that won't retard the spoilage some. Some fruits I can dry and package that way.

It also took me twice as long to shop yesterday because I had to read the labels of everything I planned on buying. I did save money that way since a lot of what I normally buy got put back on the shelf. My husband doesn't have high blood pressure, he has Crohn's Disease so he can't eat many of the raw fruits and veggies I need to eat. He also enjoys snacks that I can't eat. I solved the snack issue by buying a melon which we both can eat, some extra sharp cheddar cheese which we both can eat and then in place of chips I bought him Cheese nip crackers that I don't like. He has this habit of wanting something and then having it become stale prior to consuming all of it so I will use ziploc baggies to repackage things once he opens them.

My fear of being deprived of bread was assuaged when I discovered Ezekiel 4:9 products. I can eat whole grains, just not things made with flour or added refined sugar. Ezekiel 4:9 products are made with sprouted whole grains. I bought the sesame Ezekiel which is made with sprouted wheat, barley, millet, lentils, soy and spelt. It isn't sold in the bread aisle in stores, it's found in the freezer section. In a way that helps me out. I seldom buy whole grain breads since they mold before I can eat them. I can pull out the loaf from the freezer, let it set for a couple of minutes, take out what I want and place the loaf back in the freezer.

While reading the requirements for the challenge I realized that I haven't been eating as many different veggies and fruits as I need to eat. For the past couple of years I have been eating healthier most of the time, but I've not used the variety the way I should. For the next 29 days I must eat 3 fruits and 6 vegetables a day. I can have 2 grain products, 2 dairy and 3 animal protein. In order to fulfill the requirements I'm going to have to do a better job meal planning, shopping and storing perishables.

I figured out that the lack of planning and the way I shop make it easier for me to backslide. I also began to understand, while reading labels on things I've bought for years, that foods I consider rewards for good behavior aren't really rewarding me. They may be shortening my life. Being kind to myself may not mean what I've always thought it means. Time for a change in habits and I feel possibly this challenge will teach me the tools I need to live a life that really is kinder to myself. I'm worth it.

Being In Health

My doctor is somewhat happy with the improvements in my general condition but there are things that she is not happy with. I have a tendency to slip up far too often so she is kicking my butt with a program she's designed for slackers. Program starts tomorrow and lasts for 30 days. I signed an actual contract to participate and follow orders exactly so I have no excuse. This was not a suggestion, this is something of an order. She's figured out that if I give my word on something I will follow through unless physically incapable of doing so.

For the next 30 days I have to give up eating bread, biscuits, rolls, pasta, rice, white potatoes, cake, cookies, pie, cereals with sugar in them, ice cream and candy. No honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, or any artificial sweeteners of any kind. I can eat oatmeal as long as it's not instant and doesn't contain any fruits unless I add them myself from fresh or frozen. If I buy frozen I have to look for no sugar added. No sausage, bacon, hot dogs or any lunch meats. If that's not punishment enough, I now must participate in a 20 minute yoga session daily plus a 30 minute walk. The walk must contain two 5 minute intervals of brisk movement but otherwise can be moderately paced. Aaaand there needs to be weight lifting 3 days a week. HELP!

There are 10 of us participating and we all volunteered for this. She got us to volunteer before we found out the scope of the deprivation involved. There were 12 of her patients that expressed an interest but the email for today reminding us the program starts tomorrow stated 2 will not be joining us. I don't have to join the others on Saturday at the gym. A decision she made, due to my various types of arthritis and the diagnosis of Reiters Disease. The condition of my right hip prevents me from using a treadmill, elliptical, or any machine that determines the pace of my movement. I have to work with the pace my hip sets and some days that's slow. Hence the moderate pace for walking with the two brisk intervals not longer than 5 minutes each.

She talked me into this program because my blood pressure has been creeping up and neither of us wishes to increase my medications so I have to try this in order to get it back down again. Day 30 happens on May 23 and I have an appointment on May 24. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and tomorrow I'm heading out to the grocery store to drop a bundle on fruits and veggies. I should have gone today but decided I wanted to spend my last day before the torture begins just being lazy.

Another task we need to do is journal our thoughts as this program advances. I'm planning on using this blog for that because I don't really want to listen to some at my other blog site who seem to feel they know more than my medical professional about what I should and shouldn't be doing. They mean well, some of them anyway, I just don't trust myself to remain calm with them while undergoing a sugar deprivation. That could get tricky and elevate my blood pressure which I really don't need.

Life Is Like A Song And Someone Needs To Change The Channel.

We bought land. The septic system is there, the well, the electricity and the mobile home on it is a junk. So, we need to find a newer one without going 40K into debt on a new one, put in a concrete pad with tie downs to put one on and move in. We also will have to tear down the existing one plus the one I'm living in now unless someone offers me money for it which I doubt. It's old and not quite a junk but getting there. How old is it? Let me put it this way. In 1993 my furnace serviceman exclaimed that the furnace was old enough to go out drinking in NYS where the age is 21.

I want a new one with more rooms in it so I have space to hide my husband's business mess. I have found 2 mobiles that I wouldn't mind having. Unfortunately we couldn't meet the sellers price on the first one and it appears we won't get the second one either. We know how much we have saved and we don't want to borrow if we don't have to. If we do have to borrow I want a small enough loan that I can pay off in 2 or 3 years.

I was looking at the calendar and noting that next Tuesday the 26th I will have been an online blogger for a decade. It seems to me that I should feel more of a sense of accomplishment than I do. Maybe it's because I've spent 20% of that time blogging in a day care center for cranky old adults. Some people call it an asylum but the truly insane only comprise maybe 10% of the population there so I'm not quite sure asylum is the word, however some of those bloggers there are strange.

It's almost like they're characters out of a Pink Floyd song. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" or maybe "Wish You Were Here". I'm pretty sure some of them are "Comfortably Numb". Between the paranoid and the Bipolar there are a few peaceful bloggers that make the stay worthwhile. And too, people actually comment on our blogs although there are some I wish wouldn't.

Sometimes I really wish I'd never started blogging. Other times I'm glad I did because I've had exposure to people I would have never met otherwise including those I suspect might just be crazy. It's all good, even when it's bad, it's good.

Nothing But The Ugly Side

I sit silently biting my tongue because I am no longer willing to fight with people. It's hard when you subject yourself to so much of the harm people do by reading the half truths and in many cases lies that spread like wildfire on the internet.

It gets harder when you see the unfortunate being verbally trashed. Even harder still when you witness the plight of our veterans used as a rallying cry against refugees, but no one bothers to address that plight in any substantial way. No one bothers to inform themselves beyond Facebook or Twitter memes supporting our troops and I'm left with a sense that my entire world is filled with shallow people spewing their ignorance in my path.

Nearly half a million veterans find themselves homeless on any given day. There are 1.4 million more living on the edge of poverty and in need of help in the form of food stamps, rent and heat assistance and medical care. Why do they not have that? Why do people who scream that welfare is too costly not understand that among those welfare bums, that they claim are fraudulent, are the very troops they claim to support?

Why isn't it fraud that the Walton family can be worth 50 billion dollars plus by employing people at wages which require their employees to apply for welfare in order to feed their families? If those are entry level jobs and they can get better ones elsewhere, according to those who complain loudest, where do they think the money to educate themselves sufficiently to qualify for a better job is supposed to come from? They're employed in jobs that are now considered temporary and they must sign a contract agreeing to that in order to be hired.

I'm watching small businesses locally struggle to survive and they won't make it without a miracle because people shop at Walmart for cheaper prices. They're even telling crafters at the fairs the same thing.

When stores close because people shop more online, why is it that the newly unemployed get the blame when they can't get another job and need to use public assistance to eat?

How is it supporting our troops when we kiss the asses of the very corporations that are creating veteran unemployment and then condemning those veterans for applying for public assistance?

How many single mothers has your war created? How many veterans commit suicide each day leaving their families behind? How many able bodied veterans are among those you denounce as cheats? How is this supporting anything but ignorance?

How many self absorbed idiots are there on the internet anyway? How do I keep them out of my real life these days? They've gone forth and multiplied and it's ugly.

Instead Of Complaining, I Just Did It

When you're retired you truly don't pay much attention to time. For instance, if it wasn't for the uploading of pictures taken with my camera I wouldn't know I had acquired it towards the beginning of August. The uploading creates folders that have dates on them and the first two pictures taken were these.

The date on the folder they were stored in is 8-9-15 which was the first day I took pictures with my then new camera. The full woodshed and the amount of wood we still had to stack. 

The weather was hot and humid and we're in our later 60s so we just didn't have the energy to do that much work. We decided to wait for cooler Fall temperatures which usually start happening about the middle of September, but this year they were a lot later arriving. Towards the end of September we were reaching the high 80s every day. 

Once the weather cooled off my not retired husband's business picked up due to people wanting to get their septic tanks pumped out before winter so they wouldn't have to deal with a back up when it's below freezing outside. When he comes home, he's tired since dragging hoses, shoveling dirt to get to the cleanout covers is hard physical labor and he is not as young as he once was. Needless to say, he wasn't getting to the wood pile the way he normally does. 

I decided this week that I'd do some of it for him. I am sadly, seriously out of shape. However, I plugged away at it until the pain in my joints and muscles would call a halt to my activity. I didn't do too badly, it took me most of 4 days but this is how it looks out there now. 

It's going to rain for the next few days and possibly snow this weekend. However I am out of pallets and plywood to stack the wood on. A neighbor said he'd stack the rest on my deck for me once we get the table and chairs put away for the season. I will take care of that in a day or two and this snowfall, if we get one, won't last so he'll have plenty of time to do it in. I know I can't. My joints are so swollen today I can barely move. I feel a very satisfying sense of accomplishment though. 

A little Tylenol and an application of Arnica gel to the complaining joints and I'll be puttering around the house in no time at all. And tomorrow when I see the doctor, I'm going to find out what kind of regular exercise will keep the muscles I built doing the wood stacking in shape. I'm going to need them to get all that stacked wood into the woodstove for warmth. 

Happy Fall Y'all

Current pictures of Mother Nature's artistry as she paints in my little corner of these not always so United States.

These pictures are all from the hayfield across the road from me. We're about 30% color and the next bunch I'll take next week should begin to be awesome. I'm also planning on seeing if I can find the time for a drive to the back side of the lake to see what I can find of interest there. 

And yes, that is an ice cream truck in the bush in the first picture. No, it's not an accident. The rear tire needs changing and with the weight of all the refrigeration equipment the driver is uncertain that the front wheel chocks will hold, So, he pulled it up into the bush to keep it from rolling forward and off the jack. It was jacked up right after I took the picture. I should have waited a few more seconds before pushing the button.