improve my health

I’m putting this link here so I can find it later. I seem to have ended my daily gratitude goal.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-14/features/ct-tribu-weigel-thank-yous-20110214_1_notes-gratitude-downward-spiral

I came down with a horrible something this week. I didn’t run a fever so I’m pretty sure its seasonal allergies. I’ve been laying on the couch watching disasters all week. There is a little cough left and some sore glands in my neck.

Every morning I’ve gotten up thinking I’d get back on track, but haven’t yet. I’m not sure about today yet. Its finally warm outside and the plants need water. Thats about all I’ve managed to do so far each day, water seedlings and shower and nap on the couch.

We were out of creamer and milk yesterday morning and it ended up being a small miracle. Refused to drive to the store because I knew it wasn’t freezing outside. The closest store didn’t open until 9am, the CVS also 9am, and I wasn’t sure about the little mom and pop fake 7-ll down the other way but thats where I headed.

One thing that I miss the most about Hawaii is the morning bird songs. I used to wake up early just to listed to them all talking to each other. When it gets to light or warm or who knows why, they all get quiet. I never heard it before when I lived in California so I assumed it was a Hawaii thing and since I lived in a neighborhood named “house of birds” it just seemed like I was right. But yesterday was a special morning.

As I started out the door I heard the woodpeckers. Then there is another that I don’t know its name yet that I’d recorded the morning song. Funny that I hadn’t stepped out of the house that early in so long. But walking along it was like I was in a new special world of birds talking.

I walked down and the store wasn’t open yet. Got distracted by a yard sale sign and walked a few more blocks but it was too early for them even.

Ended up walking back past my house and another half mile in the other direction to a persian grocery. They had all sorts of yoguerts that seemed inviting but I just got milk, grapes, a loaf of Challah bread and a couple of unripe nectarines.

By the time I got home all the singing was done.

Today I set off to get some seeds for my seedlinging and got lost in the neighborhood behind the hardware store. Spent all sorts of energy looking at the trees of course.

It turned out that I really couldn’t cut through the neighborhood to circle back to our house. I finally ran into a sign that said “not a through street”. A woman was there weeding her rose garden. She told me all about her early gigantic yellow roses that she claimed would just burst out one day every spring. It was true, the whole bush was covered in huge sunflower colored roses that matched all the calendula having its own party there.

She said,”see, all the other roses are just showing a little bud color”.

She was right. She explained to me that all the neighbors had banded together to keep any through streets in their neighborhood so I had to loop back the way I had come to get home. Her husband drove up with a really hug hungry 5 year old grandson as I walked away.

Almost back home I passed a homeless guy who commented on my garden seed stuff. He said he used to grow all sorts of plants and things he wanted most were a backyard and a barbeque.

So there were really useful things today and yesterday during the walks. Useful healthy for my brain, my soul and my body.

I got all my seed orders and today I was actually able to put potting soil in the the pots and things that I plan to use to start everything.

I got the kids herbal plant kit for my daughter and grandaughter. The problem is that I wanted to make it easy for her to get it started and I’d been planning to go buy pots to send her. Since I have a whole closet of hoarded plastic and jars I didn’t have to. It turned out that there were 14 saved Folgers containers all ready to be used. I tried to get some seedling containers at the hydroponics store but they didn’t have the right size. Lucky I had also hoarded some plastic peanut butter jars and other various plastics that I drilled drain holes into.

I’m going to send her the seeds and a couple of books and a gift card to get some potting soil and a little shovel so she can get started. I put it all in a tray so she can move it in case the kids or weather don’t cooperate.

I decided to order seeds for herbal tea plants this year. Found a couple of sites and ordered more seeds than I should have. Will grow and grow and share. https://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=307 This is a really cute Kidzherb seed kit for kids from Horizon Herbs. I want to send it to my grandkids but its got non-natives in it so thats just wrong. Also ordered their Native American Plains Collection (5 seed packets): Compass Plant; Echinacea purpurea; Gravel Root; Pleurisy Root; Rattlesnake Master. Not the right climate here but it will probably grow. Everything tends to grow here.

I’m trying to slowly move from coffee to herbal teas but most of the teas on the shelf are boring or they involve green tea. I just don’t like green tea. We are lucky to have some great small tea stores and asian markets nearby so I can find interesting things to try.

Its suppose to be warm today. I hope I can go outside for a while and not sit at my computer all day. Not sure if any of the giant sunflower seeds from last year will volunteer to come up or whether the birds and squirrels ate them all. My goal was to leave them so they’d spread to the neighbors yards magically.

Found this 10 minute guided meditation on grief and I thought I’d do it later when I have time. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/encountering-grief-guided-meditation/4983

Found these two videos about health on my FB page in the last day.

The first is about how we get that cheap meat in the big box stores. Its all about industrialization of eating. Peoples behavior is industrialized too. Horrible. http://www.downvids.net/holocaust-on-a-conveyor-belt-assembly-line-of-death-330237.html

The other is a workout video from a guy that was disabled with back and knee injuries who started doing yoga and lost 140lbs and went from not being able to walk independently to running.
http://www.downvids.net/words-cannot-express-how-amazing-this-video-is-for-anyone-doubti-283253.html

My boyfriends brother got him a microbullet super blender for his birthday. We put in under the kitchen table an promised and promised ourselves to eventually let it out of its box. It haunted us with its promises of health and weightloss. The brother asked us what we’d pulverized and eatten for several weeks after it arrived. Then he gave up on us.

Today was super Saturday. I donated blood, rescued feeder goldfish from PetSmart, refilled the hummingbird and wild bird feeders, and got a foam puzzle for one of the students with autism that is at the school we are working with. Since I was out in the yard I picked some of our abundant crop of non-freeze-damaged kale, and some oranges.

Broke out the nutribullet finally. It was yummy but not filling. At least now its out of the box.

So my take away lesson from this is to use that super power when inspired to add in something that you are just neglecting. Especially if its something you kinda sorta wanta do.

My knee is hurting from a triple stair accident a couple of weeks ago. It was an accident that we went up an extra level in the parking structure and then had to come down.
I’m still suffering from the extra loop.
Today is sunny and we’ve been locked in the house for days together. The SO is on the couch, buzzed on flexerall. He coughed and threw his back out. I told him we could share the cane. We have a cane.
We should walk because being in the house together is wearing on me. Like, when you have some jeans and there is a kneecap sized wear hole in the knee. Except all my unresolved issues with my mother are showing through like a kneecap that needs a good mid winter shave.
I’m not happy about hurting. He keeps asking if it still hurts. A few days ago I decided to start keeping track of the number of times a day he asked me if my knee was hurting. Then I felt stupid for wanting to do it. Then yesterday I finally started listing them on a little secret list next to my keyboard. Partly I wanted to have the list to show him and partly I wanted to have the list to prove to myself that I was imagining that he was doing it and he really wasn’t. He asked twice. Each time made me madder than a cat dipped in a river but I kept it all inside except a little dripped out onto the paper through my pen.
Other things hurt. Maybe this will be the year that I get health insurance again. I’m anticipating the advice the doctor will have for me on that first visit. I know it will be similar to what any good friend would tell me over coffee; lose weight, exercise more, eat better, drink water(blech). It helps me know that not going to the doctor is probably OK. I’ve been living with my hypochondira for all my life. No booze, no bacon, no barbecue. dreadful.
Maybe the rain will return before we figure out the perfect place to walk.

Don’t know if you have seen this on the internet. Its a woman tv anchor that is reacting to a viewer that sent her an email about her weight. It was on my Facebook page a couple of times and I had to finally watch it. When she read what the guy wrote to her I was surprised. I expected that it would be mean but it was that sort of “motivating” tone that people try to use to get someone to lose weight. It didn’t sound like bullying to me but it felt like bullying. That was really interesting for me to see how people can use kind words to be mean. “Don’t you think you are community model? Shouldn’t you be healthy for the sake of our kids?”

I would have taken that email at word value and taken the bullying as my own problem, my reaction. It would have been hurtful but I would have thought that it was my problem for feeling hurt since they were trying to “help” me.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/334084

I’ve spent a lot of time this morning reacting to this. I have someone in my life doing this to me and it was great to have a community model of how to stand up for yourself.