What's the Hurry?

All week people long for the weekend. I love my weekends too. It's my time to do some of the things I don't have time to do during the week, and it's my time to do some of the things I enjoy doing. The problem with the "I can't wait until the weekend" way of thinking is that we tend to forget how awesome today is. We are in such a hurry to get to the weekend, that anything less than the weekend just isn't good enough.

I try not to do that any more. I do look forward to the weekend like everyone else, but I try to look at each and every day as a gift. Every day I find something to be grateful for. I try to make each day special and I always try to do something nice for myself.

So let's stop rushing through our lives...there are seven days in every week.....let's enjoy them all!

Shop Talk

I am making some major changes in my etsy shop, FourDogDay! I am really excited about it too. Part of the reason is that I am going to be selling my clocks and cake stands in the consignment shop in Chicago. I don't want to be selling the same thing in my shop.

As things in my shop have expired I have not been renewing them, unless it is something I plan to keep making. That means my shop is getting smaller, and smaller and smaller. The neat thing is that now my shop is going to have a "look". It's going to be mostly fabric items and you know how much I love fabric!

I'll be taking some things to Chicago on the 24th when we go downtown for our next family get together. Tresa only lives about 20 minutes from the consignment shop. I thought that would be a great time to meet the owners and drop off what I hope are the first of many, many items.

So, as FourDogDay gets smaller in preparation for growth, I am throwing around ideas of what else I will be adding to the shop and I have some awesome ideas. As soon as I have some of them completed, I will show you. I also have some neat ideas for the consignment shop, but I am still hunting for some of the materials I need.

Spring is just such a wonderful time of renewal and growth, not only outside, but in my shop and in my heart as well. I just love spring.

Topic change: Our grandchild to be....according to yesterday's e-mail update is now 4.5 inches from head to butt....about the size of an avocado. He/she is growing toenails and his/her little heart is pumping 25 quarts of blood a day. Is that not amazing? Tresa can feel the little guy/girl moving every day now. That was the most awesome part of being pregnant for me. Next month we might just know if it is a boy or a girl and that's pretty exciting too.

Be sure to do something really nice for yourself today....like take a walk! Chat with you soon!

Physical Therapy

I had my first visit with my new Physical Therapist today. She was awesome! How lucky can I be? We sat and talked and went over my health history. We talked about osteoporosis and about exercise.

Then I learned a number of very simple exercises that will eventually be part of an exercise "routine" of sorts. The exercises take moves from Pilates and breathing from yoga to create a workout that is safe and affective for someone with osteoporosis or osteopenia. The routine will loosen areas where my muscles are tight, and tighten areas that are not.....all in an effort to get all of my muscles working equally no matter what I am doing. I will be seeing her once a week for now so she can watch my progress and add new exercises each week. She might even put me on some of the pilates equipment at some point. That would be cool.

It was a wonderful visit with lots of education. The PT is about my age and she has osteopenia. This is a physical fitness expert....and she has bone loss. It just goes to show you that it can happen to anyone. It isn't a problem for only tall, thin women, or older women, or people that don't get enough calcium, or people that don't exercise.....it happens to men and women, people that are young and people that are older, people that take calcium and those that don't, active people and couch potatoes....it doesn't matter....anyone can suffer bone loss. It has more to do with how your body is functioning and how it is or isn't absorbing calcium.

So now I have all of the parts of my program and I am on my way. I will be eating the right foods, taking the supplements my body needs and exercising safely and in a way that will help my bones. I will also be going for a bone density test on Monday. That way I will know what my scores are right now as I start my bone building program.

Thanks so much for all of your wonderful and supportive comments. I'll let you know my test results when I get them....but that's it for the osteo talk for a while. Make it a great day and do something really, really nice for yourself today!

What Would You Do?

I had my last bone density screening done a year ago. The report says Osteopenia, but I do have one vertebra that is in the Osteoporosis range. My gynecologist gave me a prescription to go have a follow up one done now.

Here is my dilemma. I am just starting a program to increase my bone density. Up until now I have done nothing to correct the situation. If it were you, would you skip having it done now, wait a year and then have it done to see what it is....or would you go have another one now before you started the program?

Up until this week, I had decided that I would NOT have another one done at this time. My reasoning was that since I haven't done anything to make it better, it is going to be worse. If it's a lot worse, it might actually frighten me and I'm feeling pretty good and pretty peaceful about the whole situation right now. So, do I just wait until next year and see where I'm at after a year on the program or......

do I go have a new screening done so I know exactly what my numbers are right now before I start the full program? If I don't get it done now, next year when I do, I really won't know how much my numbers have improved on the new program because I won't know my starting point. Am I making sense?

I called my insurance company and they will pay for it so I'm thinking I need to go have it done. I want to know next year if my program is working and if it is....how well is it working. If I don't go.....I won't know.

Would you go or would you rather not know? I'm going.

What's In That Water?

I LOVE water! I LOVE lakes and streams and oceans and ponds and rivers. I could sit on the shore of any body of water and just watch the water for hours. I am actually writing this during my lunch on Monday. I drove into one of the neighborhoods near work that has a pond, and I am sitting in my car with the windows open, looking out at the water. It's so pretty. It's so peaceful.

Yes, I LOVE water....just don't ask me to go in it! Oh, I love pools and I'm a pretty fair swimmer, but I can't swim in any natural body of water. I can wade in clear water where I can see the bottom, but I would never swim in it. I don't like wading in river or lake water where I can't see what might be lurking. Swim in a lake or river......oh my heavens NO!!

I am fine in a boat on the river where I can see the shore, but not so cool in a boat on a lake, and I doubt I will ever go on a cruise. Yep....really!

No, I didn't have a near drowning experience. I was in lakes and rivers all of the time when I was a kid and I loved it. I'm not sure what happened. Now just the thought of that makes me hyperventilate!

The ocean is awesome, and I could watch it and listen to it all day long....but the thought of sharing that water with sharks and other "things" with big teeth...terrifies me.

My dream is to live on a body of water one day, because I love to look at it. I just don't want to be IN it.

The only thing that would get me in a boat on a big body of water is if I ever had an opportunity to go on a whale watching boat. Then I would have to find a way to put my fear aside, because that is something I absolutely have to do. I am just in awe of those animals.

Is there anything you fear? Oh come on....is there? How do you feel about water? Spiders? Snakes? Flying? Heights? Anything give you that creepy little feeling in your gut?

Beating Osteoporosis.....Day 1

Today is the first day of my new diet and supplement plan. I am so ready. I spent so much time this weekend figuring out things I can eat and what supplements I take when and when I want to drink this shake thing and so on and so on....

I spent a lot of time in the Osteoporosis forums chatting with people that have been doing this for years. I have learned a lot. One of the things I've learned is that just like with every other "hot" topic......you will get lots of different advice from people with lots of differing opinions.

I read many times....no yoga forward bends and no yoga twisting. Then my new doctor said....it's fine. Then some very knowledgeable people in the forums said....don't do it. Then someone else in the forums said.....I've been doing them for nine years. What it boils down to is that I have to do what is right for me. That yoga DVD has made me stronger, more flexible and improved my posture. I think I will keep doing it. The moves in yoga are slow and thought out. I don't think about it when I bend over to pick up something off the floor or twist to back my car out of the drive way. If my back is going to fracture....it's going to fracture.

I am going to see if I can make an appointment with a Physical Therapist that is trained in osteoporosis. I would like some professional help with my exercise program. I really need someone to tell me exactly what I should be doing each day. If I'm going to spend 30-60 minutes every day working out, I want to be sure that what I am doing is going to help. I'm not qualified to do that.

The hardest part of the new diet is the no sugar, no dairy and no gluten. That's a whole lot of no-no's. The no sugar means no Starbucks Chai Lattes. The no dairy means no pizza. The no gluten means no bread. I've done this before, I can do it again.

I just have to think about how awesome I am going to feel when I am not putting things into my body that it doesn't need or want....and when I am putting good things into my body that are going to help it function the way it should. It's all a matter of mind over matter and a good positive attitude.

Make it a great day and be sure to do something really nice for yourself today!

Happy Bunny Day

Happy Easter to everyone that celebrates. We are meeting Michael and Bernadette for breakfast this morning. They will have dinner with Bernadette's family and we will be having dinner with Tresa and Chris at his parent's house. It should be a wonderful day.

I was thinking about what Easter morning was like when our kids were little. Lanyard Lady had posted an Easter picture of her kids when they were little. It was so cute. I was telling her that my favorite Easter memory is when my boys would hurry up and find Tresa's Easter Basket before she got up, and then hide it again in a place where we would never ever hide one of their baskets. Then they would find theirs, sit back and watch Tresa look all over the place for hers. Oh my gosh the fun they had!

My least favorite Easter memory came when I was probably about 8 years old. I was riding my little sister Kay on my bike. We were going down a hill and I was swerving from side to side. Well we hit some loose stones on the road and down we went. No broken bones....but talk about skinned knees and elbows and .......faces. We looked just lovely a few days later all dressed up for Easter with scabs all over the place!

Have a wonderful day today....and make some special memories!