Where to go from here...

Met with Dr. M today. It's been two weeks since the last time I saw him, and my body was feeling it. Between the stress of Raini and a few other things, I've been in some pain. Waking up with some vicious headaches because my neck was out of alignment, ditto knees. Yeah, I was due.

The weight not moving was a topic for today. Kicking to a high protein diet evidently takes the body a while to realize what's going on. I need to give it at least two months for the body to detox, then the weight will start dropping. I know I'm detoxing, given how things are going on with my body. Probably should do a liver and kidney cleanse to help things move along.

My Gruve snapped in two yesterday. The plastic where the clip attaches to the body of the device snapped clean off. Emailed customer service, they are sending me a new one, no charge. They changed the clip to polycarbonate so it's twice as strong. For now, I've got it tucked in the terry cloth wrist band I've been wearing it on at night. The new one should be arriving sometime next week.

Stopped at Lakewinds Co-op in Minnetonka on the way home from Dr. M's. Much easier to get into than the Wedge, lots more parking. Got bee pollen and a few other things I needed. Now if I need something I can stop on the way home from Dr. M's to pick things up.

I am grateful for a three day weekend. I slept in until 5 this morning - usually I've been up between 3:30-4. Today I let be my Saturday in not getting much done. I'll make yogurt and a few other things tomorrow, do some work from home to get my 40 hours in. Sunday I may go for an extended ride, just to do something different and see someplace I haven't been through, even though I've lived in the cities for almost 15 years now.
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The house just seems strange without Raini in it. Hard to believe that a 4 pound cat could make such a difference. The place seems a bit quieter, a bit darker without her here.

Shadow seems to want to spend as much time on my lap as possible. She hisses and growls if I need to move, so her crabbiness has not abated one bit. I have to wonder if her crabbiness has to do with her limping when she does get down - how much pain is she in? She doesn't like me running energy to her, given the growls I get when I do.

Dunno what I'm gonna do with that one. One day at a time.

Shadow

I think Shadow is starting to realize Raini isn't coming home. All of a sudden she's turned klingon, finally coming to sit with me last night, this morning during breakfast and when I got home tonight.

She's also starting to learn to turn down her calls, volume wise, at least when I'm home.

Obviously, not a whole lot going on. I go to work, continue to plow through my spreadsheets seeing how many I can match up. Then I need to work on the policies and procedures for going forward.

If I can reel in some of the 1800 licenses purchased and return them, we'll have some money to do a few things. My boss told me that hiring me is one thing she wants to do. Paying for a developer to put the Access database into SQL would be another. Having a reserve fund for when we outgrown our folder space and need to have our own server. Maybe bringing in another contractor to help with the work. There's a lot we could do with 250-500k.

You would think with all the walking I do, at least 2.5 miles a day at work, would give me energy. It's not. See if the CoQ10 helps, now that I have it back in hand after my last VitaCost order.

I suspect I will be a woman of very few words over the next couple weeks. If I start to whine too much, I expect y'all to call me on it - at least I'll know you're reading.

Broken, shattered...

How many words can I come up with to describe the state of my heart and the emptiness of my soul?

Broken, shattered, splintered, mangled. Hollow, empty, void...

I could use adverbs and adjectives to expand the descriptors above. I suspect all of you know those same feelings in one capacity or another. No need to expound on them.

Even with as shattered as I feel, I do know there is a good side to this. I get to put my heart back together the way I want to, the way my soul wants me to. This time I get to chuck out the crap that no longer serves me. I can even patch in some pieces that are chosen specifically for their long term benefits.

Putting me back together will have to wait for just a little while. I'm tired, exhausted, and it is all catching up with me. Early to bed tonight and let myself sleep in as long as I can this weekend. Naps are OK, too. Rebuilding a strong foundation takes energy and clarity, neither of which I have in the abundance needed for that type of a project.

I keep going because I have to, not because I want to. Shadow still needs to be fed. There's still plenty of work to do. Bills need to be paid, house has to be cleaned. The world doesn't stop just because my life has. I wonder if there ever will be time to just shut out the world and just grieve.

R.I.P. Raini

That dreaded day is here. I had to put Raini to sleep about 11:30 this morning.

She was really listless this morning, wouldn't touch anything food wise. I wasn't feeling the greatest, so I decided to stay home. I'm glad I did.

She sat with me as I did some work, trying to stay ahead of what's going on at work. She couldn't get comfortable, she was weak, just not her usual self. About 10:30-11 she started breathing with her mouth open, and I knew. Called the vet and took her in.

She's been with me since September 1990. I picked her up from a shelter when she was just a tiny little thing. When she was really little, she would sleep curled around my head at night. After I was fired from that job, we moved home with Mom and Dad for a while. Then she would tuck her ribs right into my ear and purr me to sleep at night.

Mom and Dad weren't too pleased to have an indoor cat. Eventually they warmed up to her. We played fetch in the hallway. Yes, she would fetch a ball I threw down the hallway and bring it back to me. She loved playing fetch.

When we moved to Clarkfield, we first lived in an old house, then moved to an apartment above the post office. The stairs up were outside the building, so I would let Raini and Shad run up and down the stairs and chatter at the birds. They knew it was time to come in when I whistled for them.

We survived the Clarkfield tornado on June 16, 1992. I was almost killed twice that night. Raini I found under the bed, Shad somehow made it into a closed drawer that was maybe 2" deep (she was a kitten at the time, not the 15# furball she is now.)



We've moved from Clarkfield to Willmar to Crystal to Plymouth, where we've been for the last 12+ years. She's been with me every step of the way.

During my second suicide attempt, my only real concern was what would happen to Raini and Shadow. Who would take care of them, what would happen to them. That, and Andy's email, kept me here.

Raini has been more than a pet to me. She's been my companion, my friend, given me all the unconditional love she could. Now she's gone over the Rainbow Bridge.

I know she's with me in spirit. I know I'll see her spirit walking when I least expect it.

My heart is breaking. I know in time I'll heal, but I already miss her so much. Her purr, when she'd chatter at the birds

After my meeting this afternoon, I'll take her body down to Paws, Claws and Hooves to have her cremated. It's just ashes that are left, still, it's something of her.

Now I need to clean up her body, take care of things.

My furry angel has earned her wings.

Summer?

It's finally starting to act like summer outside, with temps in the 80's and humidity. Most of the spring has been cold and dry, so I'll take the heat, five days of rain and humidity.

Some days I swear Raini is a stubborn git/kit. The last couple nights she's had episodes of seizures, labored breathing, more peeing on the piddle pads. Yet she refuses to go peacefully into that good night.

I've been looking at the shelter websites, for a cat that resembles the one that came through a couple weeks ago. Right now going the shelter route is out of the budget. There won't be anyone new in the house anytime soon. Try explaining that to Raini...

I've enjoyed working from home the last couple days. I've gotten more work done than I would have at work. I've gotten a few things done around the house because I didn't have to waste 45 minutes in transit each way.

Heard back from the gal that does weight loss coaching. She agrees that there are at least two parts of me that are incongruent on weight loss, so that's what is stopping me. We set up a call for Monday night when I get home from work to see if her work is what will help me. Otherwise it's a trip to my teacher to help me with this one.

Maybe once the yogurt is done, I'll go start Chael up and see if he behaves in a short ride around the neighborhood. I haven't been on him since trying to go see Dr. M a week ago. See if he'll behave today. It's supposed to be in the upper 80's and 90's next week, so being on the bike would be a good thing.

Quick note

Or what I hope will be a quick note, anyway.

Raini is still alive, still peeing in the wrong places at times. Last night, if I had not made her stay on the piddle pad, she could have soaked my bed. Thankfully her butt was on the pad far enough that the pad caught it all. Whew!

She's still not eating and drinking to her previous levels. It's not worth forcing her, so I leave a cat food slurry in two places and hope she eats and drinks.

She's also managed to find a way, despite my best attempts to keep her out, to get under the bed. When I got home tonight, I was able to coax her out without having to physically haul her out. She's spent most of the evening on my lap, until she had to go pee. She did beeline it for the box and made it.

I am ever so grateful for a boss who understands and is willing to let me work from home. I've been loading the main spreadsheet onto my USB drive every night, just in case I need to work from home. The VPN is really slow to load documents, especially when they are 5 meg or larger, which all my spreadsheets are.

Taez is fixed. He's no longer dripping where he was. The radiator stop leak did the trick.
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Things I've been contemplating in between...

I noticed on the way home last night that there's a sign stating 'Dead End' where the road curves to come back to where I live. There is no way to get out, other than to take the loop at the cul de sac and come back out again. What got me is that in some ways, since I moved here more than 12 years ago, is how much of a dead end my life has been. What was once an aspiring career went off track after I moved in. I've seemed to make a mess of many things after moving here.

I would love to get out of here. At this point I need to hang tight until things pick up again, which my guess will be sometime next year at the earliest. I have no clue of where I'll end up after that, but it's got to be better than here.

The other thing bouncing through my head is that my weight seems to be stuck. I'm walking more than 2.25 miles a day, I've upped the protein, I'm eliminating as many carbs as I can, nothing's moving. I don't get it.

Maybe I need to eat more. Another protein shake at 2 pm would help with the mid-afternoon crashes. That would push my second snack to around 4-4:30, which would put supper around 6:30.

I'm also contemplating contacting someone that does weight loss hypnosis. She's the one I took the Photoreading class from. Email her, find out what her rates are, see if I can sneak it into the budget somehow.

Strange tastes

What can I say, I've got a strange cat with strange tastes.

She still won't touch her cat food. She will eat cheese, yogurt and hot dogs. She's not been real good about drinking water, no matter how salty the hot dogs are, so I've taken to giving her water by a plastic syringe. It's small enough to go in her mouth no matter how tight she tries to shut it, and she'll suck down a few CC's at a time.

I've discovered she has been peeing behind the TV. I caught her at it and promptly hauled her butt to the litter box in the bathroom and closed the door until she used the box. Trying to clean up back there will be a treat...

When I haven't been working, I've been reading 'When Everything Changes, Change Everything.' It's a different take on some of the things I learned in therapeutic coaching. I've already had occasion to put it to use.

When I was on my way to see Dr. M yesterday afternoon, I heard something happen in Taez's engine. When I got back out, I noticed a puddle under the front left part of the engine. Wasn't oil, smelled a bit like anti-freeze. Stopped at the Cub right there and got a couple of gallons of distilled water, just in case. Dumped a gallon in and carefully made my way to the O'Reilly's a couple miles from home. Got some radiator stop leak and a gallon of the proper anti-freeze - the orange stuff - to put into him this morning after the engine cooled.

We made it home in one piece. I've already been out to suck out some of the water in the overflow tank and add in more anti-freeze. I checked all the other fluid levels while I had the hood up. Put in the stop leak, now I need to take him for a drive for at least 15-30 minutes for the stop leak to start working.

I also need to check Chael. I originally started out on Chael yesterday. Went to the gas station to put on gas, and when I started him up, something didn't sound right. His engine and tranny weren't shifting to his normal, so we came home, I threw my helmet and jacket in Taez's back seat and away we went. I'll check his engine oil and tranny fluid, see if I can figure out what's going on.

While I was limping Taez home, at first I panicked. I can't afford right now to have both vehicles go down on me. I'm trying to catch up on back association dues, I have to keep some cash handy for when Raini goes so I can pay for her cremation (more in a bit), etc, etc, etc. Finally stopped that train of thought by realizing that I will get through this, some how, some way, I will get through this. Somehow I'll come up with the money to pay for all of this. I'll make it through.

As for Raini's cremation, I did some calling around yesterday. I found a place out in Chanhassen called Paws, Claws and Hooves that does both pet boarding and individual pet cremation. For a cat of Raini's size, it's $150 plus tax. Other places I checked wanted $300 or more. They are open 7 days a week, so when the time comes, I can bring her down there, then go back a couple days later to pick up her remains. That's a huge weight off my mind.

A couple things I've come to realize in the last 24 hours. I need to start the fountain in the wealth corner again, to get things flowing. I need to re-start writing down the things I'm grateful for every night before bed. I've gotten myself into this mess because I stopped doing these kinds of things when I got the job I'm currently in. I didn't plan for the things I wanted next, to maintain what I had gained.

Suppose I better go find Raini, see how she's doing. I need to get groceries and do all the usual weekend stuff I wish I could skip. The gremlins aren't being real helpful right now, so I better get to it.

gifts

Given that Raini barely ate Wednesday night, and wouldn't touch her food yesterday, I asked my boss if I could work from home today, so I could have time to be with Raini. She understands how much Raini means to me and gave me permission. I've got the laptop here, so I'll turn on the wireless, go plunk my butt on my bed, find Raini and spend the day working from there.

Working from home today also allows me to call and start the arrangements for her cremation when the day comes. I don't have to worry about the boys overhearing me, wondering what's going on.

Rain has taken to try and find dark hiding places. I was a mean mommy and put two comforters around the perimeter of the bed so she can't get underneath it. She tried hiding under one of the end tables in the living room. I pulled up the cloth that's on the table so I can see her, but it's still kind of dark. She finally retreated to a two tier hammock I bought for them a couple years ago. As long as I can see her and find her, I'm OK with her semi-hiding.

I understand her retreating. It's a way of giving yourself and people around you distance so when we know what's going to happen, happens, it doesn't hurt so much. I did that when Mom was dying, after her cancer diagnosis. Hell, I'd been pulling away for years before that.

Pulling away doesn't change the grief levels in those who are still living. It may slow down and even twist the grief process. In grieving for Raini, I'll be grieving for Mom and Dad as well, doing all the steps in the right way this time. It's no use skipping the steps, they come back to bite you one way or another.

So, it's that time of the morning. Plug in the wireless, haul the laptop to my room, set up everything else. Then go find Raini and enjoy our workday together. She can't be any more distracting 'in person' then she has been all week.

Time and timing

We talked to the animal communicator tonight (not the one I'm speaking for in July).

We're at a matter of days, possibly a couple weeks before Raini's body gives out. She knows the end is near, just not quite sure what to do when she gets to that point. We'll both know when it's time.

Raini's spirit is still that of when she was 4-5 years old, yet she speaks of her body in past tense. She can't see as well, which bothers her. Her tummy is queasy, which is why she hasn't eaten much the last couple days, except when I hand/spoon feed her, and it has to be soft and soupy.

She's at peace with herself, grateful that we had a chance to clear the air. J had a hard time putting into words all the love, gratitude and devotion Raini feels for me, and she knows how much I love her as well. She wants me to remember the fun we had, the cuddle times we've had, to remember the good stuff and not so much what we're going through right now.

And she does understand when I tell her to go out her heart. She showed J a scene of her on her back, her spirit connected to a parachute coming out of her heart and going up. Funny and sad at the same time. That's my Raini.

Part of what Raini is waiting for is the next cat to come into my life. It's like she wants that one already here before she goes, so I don't have to put up with just Shadow.

Shad's a whole 'nother ball game. If she was human, she might have a split personality, definitely issues with brain chemistry. She's sweet and cuddly one minute, pitching a hissy fit the next. She knows something isn't right, but doesn't know what to do about it. Hence, the frustrating howling at all hours.
If she was human, I could do some coaching with her to help her. As it is... just run energy to her.

My heart is a whole lot lighter right now. I know that she knows how much I love her, and I know how grateful she is for me bringing her home all these years ago. She's not suffering, just dealing with the aches of age, wanting places that are soft and cushy for old bones.

I'll make her as comfortable as I can in the time she has left. That's all I can do.

Life continues

Raini's does, for now. Thankfully June 2nd came and went without her passing.

I'm working on keeping her social. She's taken to sleeping in my office, in a space between a cabinet and the closet door. The last couple nights I've hauled her out to sit with me for a while, first in the office, then out in the living room. When she wanted down, she went to her crate to snooze for a while. When she cried out this morning at 1am, I hauled her into bed with Shadow and me. Took her a while to settle down, she did stay for a couple hours. Meditation this morning was all about Raini - she was on my lap and wanted attention, so she got it. Now I'm typing this with my left hand because my right hand is keeping her steady on my right leg.

I'll take slow and unusual typing if it keeps her happy. It must, she's being a purr monster.
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Spent some time with P today. We worked on some tight muscles, trying to figure out what was causing them to not let go. In between we talked about Good Calories, Bad Calories and how it applies to our lives and food intake.

I am coming to realize how carb sensitive I am, and how sugar addicted I am. When I was grocery shopping yesterday, I bought a package of sugar wafers. One part of me knew that was a bad thing to do on two fronts: wheat and sugar, both of which make the blood sugar spike and insulin spike. Yet another part of me, that I chose to honor, put the package in my cart and proceeded in less than 24 hours to down the whole package.

That was after I read and know to be true that insulin spikes are the root of all metabolic evil in the body. Guess what causes insulin spikes? Carbs, and even the thought of eating can cause insulin spikes. How to control insulin spikes? Lots of protein and fat, little to no carbs. No carbs in the diet, no blood sugar spikes, no insulin spikes.

I'm not going to try to summarize GC, BC here, because my head is still working through the details. I will in the next couple days, because I think it's really important.
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After I finished GC, BC, I picked up 'When Everything Changes, Change Everything' by Neale Donald Walsh. I'm not that far into it, only a couple pages. One of his first things to change is to stop going it alone. He points out that we share our wins and hide our losses. When we most need help, we turn away from it.

Yep, I'll own up to that one. Done it before, several times. I've even bounced people out of my life to not have to deal with their brand of 'help-full-ness'. Logical levels - you can't solve a problem on the same level it was created on. It's hard to get new answers and new perspective from the same old source. You need other people's perspectives and insight to point out new things. That was really evident in our conversation today, and how one piece of info sparked another piece of insight.
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I need to do two things tomorrow, or yet tonight. I need to talk to the animal communicator I worked with previously for Raini and Shad, and find out what's going on in Raini's head and heart. Then I need to find the number for the Echo crematorium and see if they do pet cremations directly, and how much they are.

I really don't want to make the decision to put Raini down. My heart breaks the way it is, when she misses a jump or cries when I pick her up because she's either frightened or in pain. I want her to go out her heart when she's ready, not because she thinks she needs to stay for me.

Losing the furry body that is Raini will be one of the worst heartaches I've experienced, moreso than losing my parents or anyone else in my life. She's been the one source of unconditional love in my life for 19 years, and there is no way to replace that. I'm grateful for everyday she is here, every time I look to make sure she's still breathing, because I want to be holding her when she does go. I want her to know how much I love her and that I was with her at the end.

In some ways, it was easier dealing with Mom's death because I knew what she wanted. It was easy to pull the plug because I knew when I got to her bedside her spirit was already long gone from her body. When her body gave up 12 hours later, it was easy to shut the machines off and help the nurses take the monitors and other equipment off. It was easy to walk away from her body, because her spirit already walked beside me.
Dad was easy, because at the time I still hated him and didn't care what happened. He went relatively quickly, one heart attack on June 16, the second that killed him on September 7.

Raini's not so easy. I don't know what she wants, what she's thinking, how she's feeling. I've told her she can go home at any time, just to go out of her heart so it's quick. It's the lingering that makes it hard.

Pre-cogs and such

Once in a while my precognative abilities will kick in and work, usually in the form of a dream that seems to be too real. While I'm in it, I know it's a pre-cog. Only rarely do I ever get audio pre-cogs, with a date. Those I don't always trust, because the dates have come and gone with nothing happening.

I'm hoping the latest audio is a non-event as well. A couple days ago while I was holding Raini, I got a very clear 'June second' in response to a not-even-fully-formed thought about Raini's passing. I blew it off then, however her behavior the last 48 hours has me wondering, and trying not to create a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Raini has gotten very skittish, that she even runs away from me, and howls to get down if I pick her up. That's not my girl, even with her hyperthyroidism in gear. I'm just about out of her ResThyro meds, so at this point I'm hesitant to order any until after Tuesday.

The other thing that has me wondering is the appearance of a stray in my backyard.

This pretty little girl showed up yesterday afternoon twice. She's affectionate and friendly, and her front paws are declawed. She was yowling and kept looking around, which made me wonder if she was left behind when someone moved out. That was the impression I got, or that she's in heat.

She showed up again tonight, that's when I got the photo of her. I posted it here in my building, see if anyone knows about her.

The timing of her showing up... I have to wonder if the Universe is trying to tell me something.
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Still plowing through Good Calories, Bad Calories. It's a dense read, given all the science - or lack thereof - he's writing about. I'm just getting into his arguments about why high protein and high fat diets help people lose weight and not be hungry while they are at it.

The more I read, the more it makes sense to me. The sugar cravings are my body's out of whack need to maintain what it thinks is a good balance. The more I read, the more I know it's not. For me, I need to up the protein and fats. Looks like I need to add coconut oil to protein shakes as well as the coconut milk and the whole milk. Another protein shake may be necessary in the afternoon as well.

A better summary when I finish and have a chance to let the book perk through my brain.
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I'll let you know how things go with Raini. This time feels different, from previous times when I wasn't sure if she'd make it or not. All I can do is support her and ask the archangels to make her transition an easy one.

Yeah...

The weeks blend together, not much difference between them, even if this one was shorter than the rest.

I'm finally getting near to being done with transferring the SMS data into my licensing spreadsheet. Given how Excel numbers things, it started with 100,000, worked its way through the 300k, then dropped back to 50,000. Argh.

Once I'm done with that, then I can go through and de-dupe, do the v-lookup against the SMS report so we know who gets it removed no questions, then we can do the other stuff.

My walks continue. I took the time to re-count the carpet squares, cause I realized at one point it couldn't be just 500 feet around the perimeter when it's over 700 feet just around the inner core. Turns out the building is 390' x 114', at least on the inside. That makes my laps 1,000 feet, so 12 laps comes up to just over 2.25 miles a work day that I'm walking. That doesn't include my mini-laps around the core when my Gruve goes off every 40 minutes.

Now I just need to conquer the sugar cravings.

My books finally came in, so I'm reading through Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. His premise, given how far I've gotten in the book, is that the whole low-fat, high-carb diet was based on really shoddy science and never backed up by the standard scientific method of testing the hypothesis. His reference list is pretty much the back 1/4 of the book. It's been interesting so far. I want to get into his recommendations going forward. If I keep reading at the rate I am, I'll have most of it wrapped up by tomorrow night.

Cleaning the garage, etc.

I'm really glad this is a three day weekend. I need another day to sleep and catch up.

The new diet is already starting to pay off. I dropped three pounds from the last time I weighed myself, which was the last time I donated platelets. I've also let go of two inches on my waist. I'm on the right track.

Now I just need to overcome the carb cravings. It really hit this weekend, since I now can't have potatoes that's all I want. Go figure. Keep eating and drinking the protein, keep the carbs low, take the digestive enzyme I found to help it all work through, and I'll be fine.

It also helps when I get my butt out and moving. I started on the garage today, so here are the before pictures.



As you can see in the bottom picture, that's the side where the former resident used to have his auto repair business. He took most of it with him, but left me the bench and some other crap behind. I put the bench on a cart I have from the D clan and piled it up with stuff to haul to the garbage. Swept up as good as I could.

Then I started going through my side of the garage. One of the bins was from when I had my Blazer, which held my emergency supplies, like oil, biodegradable degreaser, clevis hitch, tow strap, etc. All stuff I can still use in Taez (if I can ever get his hitch out of the receiver). I got about eight feet into my side of things before my back started hollering at me to stop. I'll pick up where I left off tomorrow, see how far I get.
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I do need to still be careful with my back. Turns out the pain from the drive out to see my cousins was the muscles that run next to the spine going into spasm. It kicked up again on Friday, and riding Chael to see Dr. R didn't help any. Soon as Dr. R touched my back, he told me it was in spasm and went for the stim pads.

While the stim pads were on, I had another emotional release. Couldn't tell you what it was about, just that I was panting heavily - laying down - while it moved out of me.

The spasms were bad enough that they were messing with my right hip and my feet. Fascia is such a wonderful thing - yank one area out of whack and the whole goes out of whack.

I knew last Thursday, when I went to see Dr. M, that I would need to see Dr. R this time. Good thing I did, cause I know Dr. M would not have thought to put me on the stim. I have to trust my gut when it comes to who to see when.
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Got an interesting call yesterday. One of the area's most well known animal communicators (she advertises the most), called me. She knows my Quantum Touch instructor, and had asked her to give a 40 minute talk on QT and how it relates to animals. My instructor isn't available that weekend, but recommended giving me a call to see if I was available.

The animal communicator got on the QT website and read my bio. She recognized my photo from the Meta Institute, where I got my Certified Therapeutic Coaching certificate. She called me, we chatted for about 15 minutes, and I have a speaking engagement to prepare for on July 12. Sweet!

I've had some ideas already floating through my head, so I'll start putting things down and go from there. Who knows, I may even have a couple classes come together from this. That would be nice.

Integrative medicine

At the medical device company I'm working for, they have their own scientific conferences and what they call a technical forum. The forum is a series of groups that works on various things that pique their interest.

The technical forum recently started a chapter on integrative medicine, and had their first open meeting on Tuesday. It was in my building, so I went to see the presentation. They had a psychologist who treats chronic pain as their guest, explaining what integrative medicine is and why the company should be thinking about it.

I knew the doctor got it when I saw a quote from "What the Bleep."

When I got back to my desk, I signed up to join the chapter. Given that I do integrative health practices by combining massage, therapeutic coaching and energy work, I'm already a step ahead of them. It will be interesting to see how open they are to my viewpoint.

Life continues with the same old, same old. I'm looking forward to this being a three day weekend. I need to clean out the garage so it can be shared starting July 1 (grrrrr). Clean up the oil spill, figure out what to do with all the stuff that's out there, haul out the work bench the former occupant so nicely left behind. Joy. It will give me a good shot at hitting my green goal for the Gruve.

Perhaps I'll post some before and after pictures as I work on the garage. Like I did last fall as I was cleaning up the house.

Body is getting used to the new diet. I need to look for a digestive enzyme that is for high protein diets. I think I may have found one, need to look at it closer. Perhaps a trip to Whole Foods is in order, or one of the other co-ops in the area.

The new shoes are such a difference from my New Balance. Lighter, cushier. If my back is behaving, I can walk faster. Going down stairs - such a difference between thud and squish. Easier on the knees, too.

Now if they just made a difference going up the stairs...

Saturday

So, I went to see my nutritionist yesterday. What she told me seems counter intuitive, yet given what I know does make sense.

She told me to add some more fat to my diet.

What???

In the past two years since I saw her last, more and more research has come out about the various kinds of fat and how our body best works with food. One of the books she pointed me at is Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. He's a science journalist by training, so he documented everything he could find on nutrition. Given that I am carb sensitive, it makes sense to add more fat to my diet, in the form of coconut milk and oil and move up to whole milk.

If this isn't making sense to you, stop and think about the Eskimos. Until recently, all they survived on was seals and whales, their meat and blubber. There were NO carbs in their diets, since it's a little hard to grow plants when you live in the Arctic Circle. They survived just fine for centuries with just those food sources.

Go back in time to our early ancestors, the hunter-gatherers. They survived primarily on animal protein and did just fine - we're still here.

So, given that thinking, I need to change some things around. Breakfast will continue to be my breakfast shake, with roughly 40 grams of whey and milk protein, whole milk, blueberries, coconut oil, XPC, flax seed and cinnamon. Morning snack will be chocolate whey protein with either whole milk or water and coconut oil. Lunch can continue to be my soup with beans, but add an ounce or two of animal protein like meat or hard boiled eggs to help the body assimilate the beans. Mid afternoon snack will be yogurt with my walnuts. Supper can be a salad with slow cooked meat or a bean salad with eggs.

She also gave me more recipes and ideas as well. Time to start incorporating what she's taught me from before into this new knowledge and see where it takes me.

You may also be questioning the coconut oil, since it's a saturated fat. The key is that it's a medium chain triglyceride, which means the body uses it as an energy source and doesn't store it as fat. It's also an anti-viral and anti-fungal, so if there's anything lurking in my body, that will help clean it out.

I suspect the pounds will start dropping quite easily now. I've got the book on order, along with Neale Donald Walsh's 'When Everything Changes, Change Everything'. Once I get both and PhotoRead them, I'll give you a review of each.

From there I headed to Marathon Sports to get new shoes. They confirmed I have a high, rigid arch, so I need shoes that cushion and flex with my step. I tried on 10 pairs of shoes, finally settling on a pair of Nikes. With my company discount, they came to $104. I will be keeping my eyes open for sales and discount locations, so I can get another pair or two. This pair will stay at work - I'll change into them when I get to work so I don't have to think about it, then change before I come home.

So that was my day yesterday. Today I've got a cheap roast in the crock pot with some salsa for my nightly protein. Beans are soaking to be cooked later. I'll soon get the clothes sorted and ready to wash, and then I'll start on doing some work to make up for my hours on Friday.

Saturday

Don't know about the rest of you, but this week flew for me. Despite the boredom, it went quickly.

Bored I have been at work. Same routine day in, day out. I'm getting predictable, and that's not a good thing. Magnatune has been helping me keep my senses somewhat in tact with different music.

I did break the routine a bit yesterday. Some of the cousins on the Swennes and Myhre side got together out in Spicer, so I took a half day off and went. I haven't seen some of these people since I was little, like 30 some years ago. A couple of my closer cousins I saw a year ago at one of their daughter's wedding.

It was interesting to be with people who know at least one side of the family's roots. Most of the conversations revolved around health issues, as most of the cousins are in their late 50's and 60's. Diabetes, Alzheimer's, other things that weren't diagnosed between 1930-1980 that make a difference now. Foreshadows to our own mortality.

Then again, when you've walked up to Death's door and begged to be let in twice, it doesn't scare you anymore.
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The company I'm working for sponsors a local marathon, and a couple hundred people run the 10 mile and full marathons each year. As such, one of the local running shops gives those of us who have badges a 20% discount at their store.

I learned this watching an internal broadcast about running shoes and apparel. They also understand walkers, which is a good thing for me. The new shoes I bought two months ago have already supinated (rolled out) to the point I need new walking shoes. After I visit my nutritionist to get some ideas on how to get more veggie protein into my diet, I'll go to the running store to get new shoes.

Once I get home, I need to do some work. Since I took the afternoon off yesterday, I need to do some work from home to make up for it. I did remember to download the spreadsheets to my USB drive, so I don't have to try and download those over the VPN. I'll put the spreadsheets on the Mac, connect the VPN to the laptop so I can get to the two internal websites, and put in 5-6 hours tomorrow.
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I'm noticing I'm not as tired lately. I'm thinking the CoQ10 and another supplement I got are starting to work. I know CoQ10 helps with the ATP and Krebs energy cycles. Anything to not be falling flat on my face over the weekend.

So, soon time to head out the door. Got a few things to pull together and away I go.

Brain run amok

Brain's a bit scattered today, trying to think some things through in between being busy.

Busy as in doing four loads of laundry, hitting the farmers market for grass fed hamburger and salad greens, Target, the grocery store, making yogurt, doing umpteen sink fulls of dishes and more. That was just yesterday. Today I cleaned some carpet spots, diced yams and beets for roasting, fried down hamburger for me and chicken for Raini, donated platelets and found the electrical adapter for my CD player. The day's not over yet, either.

Been having some strange dreams lately. There was a guy in high school, Tim, that I had a big crush on. Compared to some of the others, he treated me pretty gently. This was the second time in the last couple weeks I've dreamed about him. Not sure what's up with that, if my non-conscious mind is working through some stuff or if it's bleedthrough from a parallel universe. Or if it's because someone I've been flirting with is named Tim and that's enough resonance to surface the first one.

Tim the first I haven't seen or heard anything of since our 15th class reunion in 2000. At that point he was married with a little girl that was 3-4 years old. He didn't seem happy or comfortable that night. Not many of us were.

As for the Tim that I'm now flirting with, that's all I can do. He's the phlebotomist that gets to stick me with needles when I donate platelets, like I did today. I'm sure the Red Cross has ethics guidelines like my therapeutic coaching and massage certificates do - at least two years after I stop being a client before anything else can happen. So I give him crap about stuff, he makes cracks about my motorcycle, we chat about different stuff, and I get to sit still and watch and listen until the machine has pulled out the platelets it needs. Then I'm off until another three weeks passes.

As I was meditating this morning, the thought passed through my head - does love have to be hard work? You hear the various relationship experts stating that love is hard work, you've got to constantly work at it.

According to whom does it have to be hard? What causes me to need to follow that paradigm that being in a relationship can be hard work?

I choose to change that paradigm, that being in a loving relationship can be easy, joy-full, fun, play-full, open, easy and simple to communicate. The circumstances and situations around us might be difficult, what's between us can be easy.

Yes, I realize, I'm not in a relationship, and it's been decades since I've been in one. I get the sense that by setting that as an intention, it's something to set up from the beginning. Time will tell if anyone will have the guts to play with me and find out.
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As for me being tired, Dr. M thinks it has to do in part with the frequency of my platelet donations. He thinks it's taking too much out of me to be donating every three weeks. Makes my bone marrow work too hard to pump out that many platelets and plasma in such a short time. See what happens, if I'm as tired this round as I have been previously.

Off to my post donation nap.

Education...

It doth appear that I've got me some educating to do with our remote sites at work.

Why? My boss and I talked to one of our island sites today. As far as they were aware of, if a piece of software had been packaged for delivery by SMS, they had a site license and anyone could use it without buying a license.

It took everything I had not to groan out loud when I heard that statement. It seems that very few of the remote sites outside the US have ANY type of licensing procedures or track them. They don't seem to have read the current policy and procedures on how to buy software, so they're just getting quotes locally.

I fired off an email to our software vendor and asked them to get me the names and contact info for their sales staff at all our remote locations. I want to know if they've tried to make contact, if there have been problems in the past, the whole nine yards. See what the vendor comes up with, then start making introductions and making sure the remote sites are aware they need to buy software only from this vendor.

I'm about a third of the way through my 15k+ line licensing spreadsheet. I'm comparing it to a record from the purchasing application to see if I can match up more licenses to names. I also got my hands on an inactive directory list, so I know who's left the company and what their last cost center was, so open licensed can go in the right cost center.

I will admit that there are days when this job does get boring. Same stuff, different day, at least I think it's a different day. Not sure anymore, cause the days blend together.

Finally bought an exercise ball to use as a chair for work. Inflated it most of the way Tuesday night, finished it at lunch. The boys couldn't figure out what the pump sound was, so I had a chance to explain why I was using the ball as a chair.

Good thing, too, because my green goal jumped up to 1,265 calories yesterday. The 20 minutes I spent on the ball today showed up in the minute by minute summary. My wiggling around spent between .4 and 1 calorie a minute. Not so easy on the back, which is still complaining about it, but good for the burn.

Think I'll go to bed early tonight. I'm tired - gotta talk to Dr. M about that tomorrow night. I thought exercising was supposed to give you more energy, not make you more tired.

When you get a chance, go here and take a listen - I think you'll like it. Thanks for the link, P.

Ahh...

It's nice to be able to breath through my nose again. The phytogen is working.

I'm thinking I'm going to contact the nutritionist I was working with a couple years ago. See what she has for ideas on getting complete protein into me veggie wise. I know I could really up the protein with whey powder and meat, both of which are not budget friendly. I'm thinking I need to boost to at least 200 grams a day, possibly 300-400, depending on where the tipping point is that my body starts letting the weight go.

If that seems like a lot of protein, it is. On a 2500 calorie diet, 200 grams is 800 calories, which is a third of the day's calories, 300 would be 1200, or about half. If that's what I need to do to drop the weight, I'm willing to go there.
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The critters have been put up on the shelf. I did that during a short break last Thursday as I was trying to download stuff over the VPN so I could work from home. The dresser is cleaned off, just the red cloth over the mirror. Above my bed are two rose quartz angels and two small rose quartz hearts, along with some pink tulle and ribbon. That's about as romantic as I can be at the moment. I could move my romance vision board to that shelf as well.
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I have to come up with some type of sleeve for the mane when I'm riding Chael. I'm tired of my hair being a tangled mess after being tucked in the jacket, whether it's braided or just in a ponytail. I may have to butcher up some bandanas to see what I can come up with. Or a modified do-rag that has an extra long tail and ties that I can cover and wrap the ponytail with. More patterns to go searching for.

Sniff...

To say that I am not fond of spring allergies would be a major understatement.

Since Tuesday I have fought with a stuffed up nose that backs up into my eyes and ears. I feel miserable and so far nothing much is making a difference. I tried the neti pot to wash out the pollen - doesn't work so well when the water can't get through. I gave up on drugs because they quit working years ago. Last night Dr. M put me on phytogen, so we'll see if that dries things up.

Thinking of fun, try a flat back tire on Taez. Somewhere Wednesday night he picked up a nail that flattened the tire, so I'm taking him in at noon to get the tire fixed. While we're at it, finally fix the flippin' power steering high pressure line as well. Then I can start cleaning up the garage, which we have to start sharing on July 1.

While I was seeing Dr. M last night, I asked him about what's not causing me to drop the weight. I'm up to 1200 calories a day above resting metabolic rate, so the weight should be dropping. Yet I continue to bounce back and forth 5 pounds. He tested me and came back that I'm carb sensitive. That means my body doesn't know what to do with carbs, especially fruit sugars, rice, pasta, bread, etc. I already don't eat much pasta, no bread, rice it's been a while on. My body does know how to use protein, so I need to up that.

So the next research project is to figure out how to get more protein in my body without breaking the bank. That means figuring out veggie protein, which combinations of beans, rice, amaranth, quinoa, etc will get me the biggest protein bang for the buck. There will still be beef, bison and chicken in the diet as well, cause I don't do well without meat.

Good news is, the farmers market opens next Saturday, so I'll be making a trip.