Monthly Archives: April 2018

by Ramona

Sherwood Forest Faire

The faire was a hit.

I should post photos, but it’s a pain to get them from the phone to the computer and I’m not really sure how to get them from the computer to the blog. So there are no photos.

But Eleanor’s dress was really lovely – green with puffy lace sleeves and a lace inset down the front. Looking, perhaps, an awful lot like this, in dark forest green and ivory.

We were going to do fully matching outfits, but with the ranch sale I didn’t get the fabric selections even started till super late, and Eleanor was resistant to trying on any dress that was not already lovely … so it was decided to just make a just-for-a-fitting dress a full dress (hers) and to make it out of things that we had at hand (dark green satin).

And as it turned out, speaking of things we had at hand, I have these simple green dresses that were the underdresses for my two more complicated outfits, and wonder and glory, they still fit. So I wore one of my green dresses, and then put all my chain mai`lle on because .. you know .. sparkly. But since I had jewelry, there was a raid to my costume jewelry box, and Eleanor picked out a wonderfully beautiful necklace too.

So we went. Rain, thunderstorms, cold and all that predicted weather aside.

We had a lovely time. Eleanor romped, she played in the dirt, she scuffed around in her lovely dress (sigh). We rented a wagon for her (good call!) and she sat in it and waved to the passers by as we went. She saw pirates and fairies and horses and goats and a mermaid and everyone was lovely to her. She played with lots of other kids, and they were all good kids too.

People complimented us both together, seemingly universally amused at the princess and her mother/lady-in-waiting trope.

People complimented my hair and my chain maille. One person, who worked at the chain maille shop, apparently (he talked to Joseph) recognized the style and knew who made it. That was cool.

The rain was tedious but not awful. The weather was a little cool, but we were all in layers and adequately prepared so that was no difficulty. The crowds were very light, possibly because of the promise of awful weather, so that worked out well.

And we picked up some fun stuff, had a delightful time, and Eleanor is still asleep.

Wooo!

by Nelia

Help!!!!

I am so blasted tired of being this fat.  Much as I appreciate being able to do so, I am so tired of scooting around the house in this chair.  Maybe a knee replacement surgery would help, but weighing this much, chances are good that it would only make things worse.   Have you looked at how massive my knees and thighs are?  No doctor, even a skilled one, would find it easy to work with that much flesh oozing around where he is working.  The more a person weighs the harder the surgery is and the more chance that it would be a miserable failure.  Also, the less time an artificial joint would last.  My insurance would pay for one surgery but they are not going to be so willing to pay for another one if the first one fails or if the joint wears out in 5 years.

 

I have always been so resistant to people lecturing me or telling me what to do that it can actually make matters worse, but here is what might help.  When you see me about to eat something I should not eat, just ask me, “Are you sure you want that?”  Don’t tell me not to.  Let that be my decision either way.  But remind me to think.  You could tell me you love me.  “Mom, I love you.  I don’t want you to do anything bad to yourself.  Is that really something you want to eat?”  Then if I decide to eat that cookie, let me.  It is, ultimately, my decision.

 

I am getting rid of those chocolate chips.  Luke thought that they were dark chocolate and would be ok, but they aren’t dark enough and I keep eating them anyway.  I put them away, and get them out again.  They aren’t too bad when eaten with more almonds than chips, but, still…  It was embarrassing for you to see them there on the desk.

 

So what am I NOT supposed to be eating?

Anything sweet, particularly if it is sweetened with sugar.

Anything made with wheat flour.

Anything that is pure carb – rice, corn, potatoes, most fruit – unless they are in a mix with a lot of something else.  Someday I will try to cut all the carbs, but for now, soup that includes potatoes and corn is still legal.  Cornbread made with almond flour instead of wheat flour is still legal.  Salad that includes dried cranberries is still legal.  Mashed potatoes and gravy, hash browns, polenta, a bag of dried fruit, breakfast cereal, or fried rice are not.

 

Fat is OK on this diet.  Butter or bacon is fine.  (Toast is not.)

Beans are still OK, even though they are carby, because they balance the carb with lots of good fiber.

If you aren’t sure, ask me the question.  I will tell you if it’s OK.

 

I need to be reminded that I am doing this for a reason.

 

Saw a motivational sign the other day.  It said, “Don’t give up what you want most for what you want now.”  It spoke to me.

 

Sugar and wheat flour mess with the brain.  They are proven to be physically addictive.  Sugar, they say, is more addictive than cocaine.

 

I hate being fat.  I hate being a massive blob in this chair.  I want to go outside without it being an ordeal.  I don’t want to die early.  I have so much to love for.  I want to see my grandchildren grow up.

 

(yeah, that’s a typo…  love instead of live…..   but I like it)

 

 

by Nelia

I am an addict

So we have a refrigerator out in the shop (thank you Ramona and Joseph).  The reason was so Luke could have his cokes and other things that I have a real weakness for and they could be kept where it would be difficult enough for me to get to them that I would not do it.  We have a second refrigerator in the house whose purpose was partly to keep things out of my sight and, thus, out of my mind.  But I do not have to see the cokes to know they are there.  Luke could keep his Mountain Dew in there and there are probably a few other soft drinks that I could resist because I don’t like them, but Cokes, I crave so blasted much that I will give in and get one.

I could ask Luke to take the soft drinks out but I haven’t because when I am not driven crazy with cravings I can resist them and I feel like I should always be able to resist them and I feel like it is silly to make Luke keep them out there.  And when I am driven crazy with cravings, I need to ask him to get rid of them for me, but I do not want to.  I want to give in to my craving.  I don’t want to put them out of my reach.

It isn’t just Cokes of course.  It is crackers, dry cereal, cream of wheat, pastas, bread, jams, rice, so many carbs it isn’t even funny.  Should I keep all of those things out there?  It would be possible, but is it practical?  If it was just me, I could strip my house of everything I should not have.  But it isn’t just me.

I am doing better than I was before I started writing here.  But I am not doing well.  I gave in and had a bowl of cereal tonight.  I didn’t need the carbs and I didn’t need the milk.  (Calcium is a rant I will do some other time.)  I did remember that one of the reasons I never ever want to eat cereal again is because almost all of them are fortified with iron shavings.  I saved a little of it to let get soggy, squash, and run a magnet around in so I could check to see if Wheat Chex (not what I wanted, but what I could reach) has iron shavings.  I found 1 shaving, possibly 2.  They are very tiny.  I am sure there were more but I was impatient and probably didn’t get it mushed enough to find all of them.  Still, if there is 1, then they are there.

I am going to make a list of reasons I do not want cereal and other things.  One reason I had forgotten, which might have stopped me tonight, is the iron shavings.  Maybe reading a list of reasons will remind me of things I do not really think about when I am mad with craving.  Maybe….

by Nelia

Iron

I have been watching videos about health and nutrition and learning so much that I did not know before.  Sadly, after a few weeks I forget almost every detail, retaining only that I need more of this or less of that.

Tonight I watched a video about Iron.  It was interesting.  I am sure you have all seen them put Total in a blender and then pull out iron shavings with a magnet.  What I did not know is that iron shavings are the most common way to enrich our food with iron.  He showed us that he pulled what looked like a quarter of a teaspoon of iron shavings out of one of those little individual flavored packets of oatmeal.  He said that there are iron shavings in baby cereal.

They refer to these iron shavings as food grade iron.

We cannot metabolize metallic iron.  Our bodies can only use iron that comes from plants.  Iron shavings are not only adding nothing to our nutrition, they are destructive to the digestive system and cause damage which is leaky gut syndrome.  I want to pull things out of my cabinet put them in the blender with water and run my magnet around to see if I can pull out iron shavings.  If I do, I will add what products gave me what result.

And the other thing I learned is that even when they do not use actual iron shavings to enrich our food they are using metallic iron.  Plant derived iron is more expensive.

And the saddest thing is that we don’t even need that much iron.  The speaker said that almost everyone has too much iron in their bodies and the level that most people think of as normal is actually too much because it is based on what is average instead of what is ideal.  Labcorp lists normal iron as 30 – 400 ng/ml.  The actual healthy range is from 15 to 25 ng/ml.   (Do you remember your levels, Ramona?)

Too much iron is destructive to other nutrients because it is an oxygen hog and robs them of the oxygen they need.  (Actually, I think I got that last bit from a video I watched earlier about minerals in general.)

The speaker said to stop using anything packaged because almost everything that comes in a box is enriched with unusable iron, usually in the form of shavings.  He said that even if it doesn’t say it is enriched with iron, if it has the word enriched or fortified, it has iron.

Think leaky gut.

by Nelia

The diet is not going well

The diet has been going pretty well till last night.  Last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up needing to take the pills I had forgotten to take earlier, and needing to eat something for the pills.  There was nothing easy in the refrigerator and in a moment of not caring, I picked up the last piece of apple pie which was still fine even though it was old enough that I expected to find mold,  I ate it.  It was good.  I didn’t care.  I felt rebellious.

Today I have had 2 cheese sandwiches (bread is the no no) with coke.  COKE!  One of the biggest no nos there is.  Then we had cream of wheat for supper.  Then, later, I had another blasted Coke.

I must get back on track tomorrow.  I can feel my blood sugar.

 

Today was an odd day.  I have occasional days like this, days when I just cannot bring myself to care about much of anything.  I have no idea what causes them.

by Ramona

The liberation of age

So last week I wore sandals to work.

Ten years ago I never would have done this. My toenails were not something enough, my feet were not something else enough (or too much something), my sandals were not another something. Who knows.

But, laundry day came and went and went some more and it was sandals or .. I don’t know. Maybe snow boots.

And instead of agonizing over it, there was a shrug and ah well, I will wear sandals and whatever it is that is or isn’t something enough is just everyone else’s problem. At which point you think smugly to yourself about how wise and beyond all that you have become.

But then, later that afternoon, I was sitting in a coworkers very well-lit office, and I had my foot crossed up over my knee, and I looked down and it was just the right focal length and the right amount of light and … and ew. Dry skin, some cracking, all kind of whitish and terrible looking. So I put my foot back down on the ground where it belongs and looked at it again and … eh. Just a foot.

So I wonder .. just how much of this wise ‘I am no longer bothered by appearances’ is simply that my eyesight has slipped just enough to be kind about these fine details?

And yet .. I did wear sandals. The people who might care about such things said merely, ah, those older women who no longer care about such things. Nothing particularly bad happened.

Though I was very happy to come home and see that Joseph had already tackled the laundry. Because otherwise I would have had to.

by Ramona

Easter garden(ing)

It’s been a while.

Finished class, you know. One would think that would give me all this time to write. But instead, once freed, I’ve run away from all things computer.

So. Class was so intense. It’s odd – it’s like as soon as I was officially in a class, the intensity meter jammed onto full. And the very hour I was out of class, that same meter just snapped back off. Very odd sensation.

We are ~still~ not finished with this ranch business. Though the back & forth has led us to all kinds of interesting byways. Just discovered this resource – http://gisweb.glo.texas.gov/glomapjs/index.html. You can look at the original land grants all across Texas. We’ve found some from before Texas statehood. It is all very interesting.

We had a perfect, lovely Easter. We ran errands, did gardening, put an Easter basket together (without discovery!), found eggs – and went on a crazy sugar high that somehow never turned into a raging sugar crash. Not sure how that worked. But it was just a lovely weekend.

And I am very excited about the yardwork we got started. We’ve been making all these flower bed plans. We’ll think of something, do it, learn from it, do something else – over and over. Well, there’s some threshold with this one where we had a plan, knew what materials we needed and how to construct it, had the tools and the necessary parts and all that kind of stuff. So it seems like a big step up from our previous plans. Like all the other things we’ve done to date are done knowing beforehand that they’ll need to be re-done as we figure out what we’re doing. But although we’re making plenty of mistakes, this (probably) won’t need to be redone. This one will stay.