So I invested in 10 lbs of locally grown, organic blueberries! Not only do blueberries contain nutrients that may shrink Breast Cancer tumors, but Triple Negative Cancers to boot!
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14939840
I don't have a tumor to shrink, but why not eat things that attack cancer cells? I have been trying to go as organic as I possibly can (being in Flatlandia, it AIN'T easy), and these blueberries are DECADENT! It was wonderful having the 10 lb box next to me in the car, because I just munched on handful after handful as I drove around town doing my errands.
I find it so frustrating that here we live in one of the most productive agricultural regions of the US, and all you see for miles and miles is corn and soybeans, grown for animal feed and oils. And those two oils are major components of all of the prepackaged crap food that is plaguing this country. Those two oils are SO not good for you! Yet, these are the crops that are subsidized to be grown. Here we are in some of the most fertile soils in this country, and it is almost impossible to find organic produce, and once you do find it, you pay through the nose for it, because well, it is the only thing to be had, and there is no real competition.
What we here in Flatlandia would do for a Trader Joe's or Whole Food's!
So the new thing going on around here is that our appliances are dropping dead left and right. We have been fighting the washer for 2 months now ... the thing has been eating capacitors like candy. It was only a matter of time before the transmission blew. AND that happened the other night WHILE MY CLOTHES WERE WASHING. Everyone in this house BUT me, gets nice clean clothes on a regular basis ... but my clothes, just pile up until I have a free moment to do them -- which means once in a blue moon. Well, that blue moon rose last weekend, and I will be damned if that was not the night that Mister Wash-a-lot decided to up and die. I am not tied to this washer, as it is only 6 years old ... but that is my problem with this whole ordeal ... THE WASHER JUST TURNED SIX YEARS OLD! I think that over the past 6 years, we have fixed it at least 6 times ... and you know what? I am sick of it. Perhaps I would be less annoyed if this would not have happened right before we were to go on vacation ...
So tonight, hubby is staying home with the boys so I can go hang out in Laundromat Heaven for several hours .... Because of the dead washer, I will be sitting in a laundromat tonight, washing our FIVE GARBAGE BAGS OF CLOTHES ... Two are wet and starting to mildew ... and as I sit there I will be thinking about my girlfriends maxin' and relaxin' at a girl's night dinner! :-( At first I thought I was going to have SIX bags of laundry, but I decided that I could cram the contents of that sixth bag into two other bags and call that "an extra large load" for one of those huge front loaders to do.
Tomorrow, the "fixit dude" is supposed to come to DIAGNOSE the problem (and not FIX it, because well, you know, that would just make sense to fix it at the same time....!), and if what he sees to fix is over $25 (we think the transmission is blown this time), we (hubby) is going to have to run out and go buy a washer that we saw that was marked down over 50%. It is one of those top of the line front loaders, and it was originally about $1000, they have it marked down to like, $400! I never thought that we would EVER have the chance nor money to get a really nice front loader, and it is not like we have $400 bucks just laying around to spend ... but there are only so many weeks that I am willing to go to the laundromat, and there are just so many times that we are going to pour money into a P.O.S. (piece of SHIT) washing machine to fix it.
SO not only do I miss a night out with my girls, I get to sit for several hours with Flatlandia's Finest Residents, AND we get to drop about $500 the night before we leave for vacation! I guess the positive way to look at the is that same wind that blew the transmission up in the old machine, also blew open the door of a new front loader....
Important Side note: I have no bias what-so-ever towards people who have to use laundromats. In fact, I grew up not having a washer and dryer in my home, and my mom and I went to the laundromat every week. Just smelling the intermingled soap smells, and sounds of the washers and dryers in different cycles sends me to a very happy, relaxed place of my childhood. All I am saying is that the particular user clientele of a 24-hour laundromat varies dramatically during the day -- the people you find between the hours of 8am and 3 pm are completely different than those you find using the facilities between the hours of 8 and 11 pm. I'm just sayin'.
I will be sure to take my camera and cell phone.
OH, and Big Boy had a 102 fever last night.
seriously, we are totally ROCKING this week in style, aren't we?
And all I wanted was one of those goat cheese tapas with the girls tonight!
As for my continued treatments, I am still on the hook to start Radiation ... they just have not called me to tell me when yet.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
How funky is your Chicken?
It has been a very VERY long time since I last posted. On one hand, it seems as though my world has kind of halted in it's tracks ... but in reality, it hasn't. Life does go on, but it will NOT allow it to go on without me. The past few months have been an intensive cocooning kind of phase for me. LOTS of introspection ... lots and lots of it. I go into these "cocoons" each time a life changing events happens to me.
During this cocoon time, I have been reading and researching, and listening to others, and I have learned a lot. A LOT. For the past 2 months I have been re-learning how to look at food, and nutrients, and exercise. I say "re-learning" because dude, I was pretty damned healthy before all of this happened. Lived a fairly vegetarian lifestyle, exercised, kept active, and this shit still caught up with me. Since I have already been through the months of "why me", I decided to think "why not me" and started taking apart my lifestyle bit by bit. What I learned was this...
1) toxins -- toxic people and toxic foods, out of my life. I have endured and ignored a certain constant toxicity level for many years. I may have ignored it in my mind, but my physical being, my body, and my brain were still subject to it. Stress, and negativity do a lot of damage to a body. Couple that with the toxins in the food I was inadvertently consuming ... ugh ... Organic meats, and severing all toxic relationships ... I will be holding no more toxic relationships with either anymore
2) balance -- balance in my emotional life, and nutritional life. I now plan what I eat every single day to keep my omega 3s and 6's in balance. I read somewhere that the typical American diet is WAY unbalanced when it comes to the types (qualities) of fats we consume. The omega 3's are sometimes 40 times lower than the omega 6's, and this leads to and perpetuates inflammation. Chronic inflammation leads to a host of diseases, including cancer. I am also thinking about taking up meditation. I need to quell the sore spots left by the toxic burns.
3) sugars -- the body can make the sugars it needs from the break down of the fats and etc we consume. When we constantly consume too much sugar (from refined flours, sugars etc) we spike our insulin, and push our bodies toward insulin resistance -- when cancer is active and growing rapidly, it feeds on these excess sugars in our bloodstream. Contrasts used in MRI's etc. are sugar (sucrose based) because areas of increased cellular activity take up the sugar more readily than the slower growing surrounding tissue. I now keep track of my daily Glycemic Load and keep it under 100.
4) Fats -- a recent study showed that people with my kind of cancer (the perfect trifecta, triple negative (borrowed from Jennifer)) showed that people who keep their total fat intake to 20% of their daily calories reduced recurrence by 40% or so. Additional exercise reduced it a further 45% ... 20% is NOT easy. Matter of fact, I have to aim for 15%, and then realistically, I will hit 20%.
These are changes that I can easily adapt to my life that will not only make my body a healthier body, but it all will make my life better for the future. I will on a daily basis be a healthier, happier, more balanced person after all of this.
As for knitting ...
At some point during all of this, by beautiful boxes of roving arrived from the Mill. I have not yet had the energy or inspiration to touch it. That makes me sad. I cannot wait to be back to my old self again. Knitting kind of fell to the way-side as well. I did finish my grandmothers sweater, and it was gorgeous. My Etsy shop has been doing well, and I need to sit down and make up some new markers, and earrings ... but once again, I have been feeling totally uninspired. I know a lot of this comes from the toll that the chemo is taking on my brain and body. Since I have only one more treatment, I will let this blah feeling sit here for one more week, but after that, I will be throwing open the windows and letting this chemical fog blow out!
Friday will be my last Taxol treatment. Then, a few weeks after that, my port will be removed possibly along with my ovaries. Then, a few weeks after that, radiation will start. The only thing out of that gory list I am looking forward to is removal of my port. I am so thankful to have had it, but I am even MORE grateful to see it go.
During this cocoon time, I have been reading and researching, and listening to others, and I have learned a lot. A LOT. For the past 2 months I have been re-learning how to look at food, and nutrients, and exercise. I say "re-learning" because dude, I was pretty damned healthy before all of this happened. Lived a fairly vegetarian lifestyle, exercised, kept active, and this shit still caught up with me. Since I have already been through the months of "why me", I decided to think "why not me" and started taking apart my lifestyle bit by bit. What I learned was this...
1) toxins -- toxic people and toxic foods, out of my life. I have endured and ignored a certain constant toxicity level for many years. I may have ignored it in my mind, but my physical being, my body, and my brain were still subject to it. Stress, and negativity do a lot of damage to a body. Couple that with the toxins in the food I was inadvertently consuming ... ugh ... Organic meats, and severing all toxic relationships ... I will be holding no more toxic relationships with either anymore
2) balance -- balance in my emotional life, and nutritional life. I now plan what I eat every single day to keep my omega 3s and 6's in balance. I read somewhere that the typical American diet is WAY unbalanced when it comes to the types (qualities) of fats we consume. The omega 3's are sometimes 40 times lower than the omega 6's, and this leads to and perpetuates inflammation. Chronic inflammation leads to a host of diseases, including cancer. I am also thinking about taking up meditation. I need to quell the sore spots left by the toxic burns.
3) sugars -- the body can make the sugars it needs from the break down of the fats and etc we consume. When we constantly consume too much sugar (from refined flours, sugars etc) we spike our insulin, and push our bodies toward insulin resistance -- when cancer is active and growing rapidly, it feeds on these excess sugars in our bloodstream. Contrasts used in MRI's etc. are sugar (sucrose based) because areas of increased cellular activity take up the sugar more readily than the slower growing surrounding tissue. I now keep track of my daily Glycemic Load and keep it under 100.
4) Fats -- a recent study showed that people with my kind of cancer (the perfect trifecta, triple negative (borrowed from Jennifer)) showed that people who keep their total fat intake to 20% of their daily calories reduced recurrence by 40% or so. Additional exercise reduced it a further 45% ... 20% is NOT easy. Matter of fact, I have to aim for 15%, and then realistically, I will hit 20%.
These are changes that I can easily adapt to my life that will not only make my body a healthier body, but it all will make my life better for the future. I will on a daily basis be a healthier, happier, more balanced person after all of this.
As for knitting ...
At some point during all of this, by beautiful boxes of roving arrived from the Mill. I have not yet had the energy or inspiration to touch it. That makes me sad. I cannot wait to be back to my old self again. Knitting kind of fell to the way-side as well. I did finish my grandmothers sweater, and it was gorgeous. My Etsy shop has been doing well, and I need to sit down and make up some new markers, and earrings ... but once again, I have been feeling totally uninspired. I know a lot of this comes from the toll that the chemo is taking on my brain and body. Since I have only one more treatment, I will let this blah feeling sit here for one more week, but after that, I will be throwing open the windows and letting this chemical fog blow out!
Friday will be my last Taxol treatment. Then, a few weeks after that, my port will be removed possibly along with my ovaries. Then, a few weeks after that, radiation will start. The only thing out of that gory list I am looking forward to is removal of my port. I am so thankful to have had it, but I am even MORE grateful to see it go.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
3 years ago today ...
you were born, my sweet baby boy. You came so fast, and effortlessly .... I never thought of you as my last baby. In light of current events, you are, and always will maintain your rank as "the baby" of the family. You were such a "hold me" baby. You would just sleep so soundly as people held you .. but put you down :-) and you'd get SO upset. Oh you were so cuddly. And you had the most beautiful head! Must have been the fast delivery ;-) You have grown up so much in the past year ... you are still so cuddly and sweet, and you get sweeter every single day. You are going to be such a neat person as you grow up!
I love you so much, my sweet boy. Thank you for choosing me to be your mommy!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
CRTL+Z
Please follow this link after reading the following events of this morning ....
The hubby and I had a similar thing happen this morning ...
Except OURS revolved around him standing in the driveway, with a bogged down snow blower and a partially shredded bag of trash (diapers included) that had been tossed off-offhandedly into the driveway, rather than carried the additional 8 feet to the garbage can ....
He actually told me that he stood there, and was angry for a moment because he did not know who to blame ...
hmmmm, let's see ....
Really? Blame? Really? Could blame be justly applied here? Maybe I am being unfair?
Let's be fair, shall we?
Let's think....
Maybe it was because of ....
ME -- because I asked him "hon, can you please take out the garbage and the compost bin?"
or well, maybe, it was because of ....
HIM -- because it was waaaay too much expectation to assume that TWO things could get done simultaneously ... let's see ... let's "man think" for a moment shall we? ... "I cannot believe that she asked me to do TWO things. Not ONE ... but TWO. (Insert various groans, whines, and squeaks) ... Well, I could dump the compost bin right here by the back door because it is so hard to walk out back and dump it in the pile ... but drat, she might notice it if I dumped it all right here in the driveway. Oh! OH! But OH! I can take the compost out back and dump it, and I can throw the bag over there and get it some other time because it would SAVE SO MUCH TIME if I did not have to walk the bag over to the can!" Picture garbage bag being dropped in the driveway, 6 feet from back door, and 8 feet from the garbage can. Because it was dropped in the driveway, this erases it's need to be dealt with at all, right? Right?
Next ... picture it snowing all night long.
hmmmm, had it only had not snowed, covering up his thus-ly erased from the universe, full garbage bag.
So obviously, in the end, it was all my fault, because I asked him to do TWO things instead of, hmmm, ZERO?
The hubby and I had a similar thing happen this morning ...
Except OURS revolved around him standing in the driveway, with a bogged down snow blower and a partially shredded bag of trash (diapers included) that had been tossed off-offhandedly into the driveway, rather than carried the additional 8 feet to the garbage can ....
He actually told me that he stood there, and was angry for a moment because he did not know who to blame ...
hmmmm, let's see ....
Really? Blame? Really? Could blame be justly applied here? Maybe I am being unfair?
Let's be fair, shall we?
Let's think....
Maybe it was because of ....
ME -- because I asked him "hon, can you please take out the garbage and the compost bin?"
or well, maybe, it was because of ....
HIM -- because it was waaaay too much expectation to assume that TWO things could get done simultaneously ... let's see ... let's "man think" for a moment shall we? ... "I cannot believe that she asked me to do TWO things. Not ONE ... but TWO. (Insert various groans, whines, and squeaks) ... Well, I could dump the compost bin right here by the back door because it is so hard to walk out back and dump it in the pile ... but drat, she might notice it if I dumped it all right here in the driveway. Oh! OH! But OH! I can take the compost out back and dump it, and I can throw the bag over there and get it some other time because it would SAVE SO MUCH TIME if I did not have to walk the bag over to the can!" Picture garbage bag being dropped in the driveway, 6 feet from back door, and 8 feet from the garbage can. Because it was dropped in the driveway, this erases it's need to be dealt with at all, right? Right?
Next ... picture it snowing all night long.
hmmmm, had it only had not snowed, covering up his thus-ly erased from the universe, full garbage bag.
So obviously, in the end, it was all my fault, because I asked him to do TWO things instead of, hmmm, ZERO?
Poor sweet child
Okay ... I just have to say it. I don't know what is going on in Decatur, but it seems as though a large percentage of the folks smoke Crack while generating their baby names ...
Deonee Dayquowun Angel. Good lord.
If I hear KLG, or Hoda (or anyone for that matter) say "Who dat" one more time ....
Deonee Dayquowun Angel. Good lord.
If I hear KLG, or Hoda (or anyone for that matter) say "Who dat" one more time ....
Winter Again. Can't say I really mind it really.
:: okay, so the weather dude is hyperventilating about the "almost 4 inches of snow we got", and now EVERYTHING is closed down here today. Then he pops up the snow total graphic, and it shows 2.8 inches of snow for here and surrounding areas. You know, I am all for rounding ... but when did rounding 2.8 to 4.0 become an acceptable part of data collection?
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