Me and My Mug

I got a text yesterday from Matt, my youngest son that is a teacher out in Telluride, Colorado. He said that his town is considering banning plastic bags. I thought that sounded like a great idea. I guess not for the people that work for the companies that make them, but definitely for our environment. Perhaps they could come up with a bag that breaks down quickly in the landfills....just a thought. Anyway he asked if Irv and I use plastic bags when we shop or if we have reusable bags.

I proudly replied that we bring our own bags to the grocery store. I added that I never think to bring one in though when we go to places like Menards or Target....and we really should.

Then he asked if I use the throw away cups when I get coffee or if I bring my own. Uh............he got me on that one. I never bring my own. I am lazy. I use the drive through and I don't get coffee, I get a latte, and I wasn't sure if they would do that with a specialty drink, and I really only get one now every couple of weeks. In other words I made lots of excuses.

He politely informed me that I probably still threw away 30 cups a year, and that he won't even get coffee "to go" unless he has a mug with him.

Hmmmmmm......guilt.....guilt.....guilt......

So today when I went to get a special Friday treat at Starbucks, I brought my mug.

I parked my car, grabbed my camera to document the event and entered the store. I asked the lady if they were able to put a latte in my mug and she said sure. I asked if I could take a couple of pictures because I had to prove to my son that I did it.

You would have thought I asked her to do something really, really illegal. She quickly put her hand over the Starbucks logo on her apron and said....."This isn't a Starbucks cup". Uh, no it is not.....it's from The Coffee Cowboy in Telluride, Colorado.

"What are you going to do with the pictures?" I had already told her that, but I tried to reassure her......I told her I wouldn't put her apron or her face in the picture, and that I just wanted to show them to my son so I could prove I was using the mug he bought me.

This could have been so much fun. There was no one in the place. I could have posed with my cup and I could have taken pictures of them making my drink and pouring it into my cup.....but nope that wasn't going to happen. The photos you see are the best I could do.


My drink fit just fine and I did not throw a cup into the landfill today.....and I will not throw one in the landfill again. I really am trying to pay attention to how much unnecessary waste I create, but sometimes I just forget.

How many cups do you throw in the landfill each year?

I Graduated!

"Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out." ---Robert Collier

That quote appears on the back of the t-shirt my Physical Therapist gave me today when I graduated. I am all done with physical therapy. The quote is so appropriate...not only for people in Physical Therapy, but for anything we want to accomplish in our lives.

I am not quite sure how I feel about being done. I really enjoyed going and learning new exercises, but I've learned them all and now it's time for me to go it alone. I started going to Physical Therapy to learn the proper exercises to do for Osteopenia. I learned them and I do them five times a week. I learned how to increase my strength and flexibility without hurting my back.

Now I just need to keep doing what I'm doing and I have every intention of doing that....day in and day out.

! ! ! ! !

Do you like !!!!!? I happen to love !!!!! If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably already knew that, didn't you?

For a very long time I didn't realize that I used a lot of !!!!! Then one day I reread one of my blog posts and I saw all of the !!!!! I had used. I started to pay more attention to how often I used !!!!! I found that I used !!!!! in my blogging. I used !!!!! in my e-mails. I used !!!!! in my texts. Holy crap I used a ton of !!!!!.

I started to cut back on my use of !!!!!. It was painful at first. I would be writing and I would catch myself hitting the !, so I would backspace and hit the . instead.

I really am pretty cool and calm, buy when I write something, I want to be sure that people hear me....therefore I use !!!!! because they are louder than .....

I listen to The Mix radio station most of the time now. There is Eric the DJ, his sidekick, Kathy, their traffic girl, Melissa and their news guy, Mark. Not a morning goes by that the four of them don't have me laughing out loud over something they said.

Melissa is pregnant and she just started a baby blog. The other day they were talking about her first blog post when it was revealed that there was a slight problem with her writing. They tried to be really nice, as they told her with a great deal of drama and humor that every sentence in her two paragraph post, except ONE, ended in a ! Then they sat there and explained what her blog would sound like if you read it out loud. You can only imagine how funny it was with them shouting and being overly exuberant in their reading. I almost wet my pants.

Then I realized that's what the people that read my blog, my e-mails and my texts must be thinking, and I started laughing again.

So, I ask that you bear with me as I attempt to return to my pre-!!!!! days. There will be times when I will use !!!!!, but I will try to be sure that it is truly the proper place for a !!!!!. Man this is going to be tough!

Can You See My Smile?

I went to the doctor today for the follow up on my D & C. First of all, the news was all as good as it can get. The reason the uterus lining looked thick on the Ultra Sound is because I had three polyps. She said they could have been there for years. She removed them and got a good tissue sampling and all of the pathology came back benign. The pictures were so interesting.

When I spoke with the nurse a few weeks ago, she said that the tissue was benign, but she also made it sound as though I still had a thickened uterine wall and that would need to be addressed. Not so. The wall looked thick from the polyps and since I have no symptoms of any kind, I don't need to do anything else. I can't even begin to tell you how relieved I am. I get to keep all of my body parts for a while yet. I come from a family where women don't keep their parts, so for me to still have all of mine is pretty unusual.

I've been worried about this appointment for a few days now. I checked my blood pressure when I got home from work and it was really high. (I have been off of my blood pressure medicine for 5 weeks and I check my pressure a lot.....actually way too much......honestly, I am obsessed with it.) Anyway, I told myself to knock off the worrying crap and I sat quietly and did some nice deep breathing. Then I went and laid on my bed for 15 minutes trying to think about......nothing.

I got to the doctor's office only to find out that she was running late because of a delayed surgery, but I kept calm. When I did get in the room and the nurse took my pressure.....it was.....BELOW NORMAL! How awesome is that?

So my friends...the journey continues. I will keep doing my Physical Therapy, I will keep eating healthy, I will keep walking on that stupid treadmill and I will keep a positive outlook on life.

If you leave a comment today, how about adding something positive that has happened to you in the past day or two? Let's share some good vibes today! If this goes well, I might make it a regular feature.

STOP The Insanity.....Please!

I almost SCREAMED at the TV a few minutes ago. I was watching the news while walking on my treadmill. The reporter said that some doctors are suggesting cholesterol screenings for children. Right now only kids with a family history of high cholesterol are screened. At first I thought wow that is a fabulous idea. Maybe parents will see what the shitty food they feed their kids is doing to them at such a young age. Then they can change their diets and get them on the right path for a lifetime of good health.

But......OH NO....that isn't the idea at all. They think that children with high cholesterol would benefit from cholesterol lowering DRUGS!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I could feel my heart start pounding and my blood pressure rising. When will this insanity end?

Yes, I am sure there are children that come from families where high cholesterol runs rampant despite healthy eating habits and exercise.....but come on....I would venture to guess....looking at the American diet these days, that most of the children that have high cholesterol DON'T have to have it!

Researchers say treating children with cholesterol lowering drugs might help prevent them from developing heart problems in middle age. So would healthy eating and getting some exercise in a lot of cases!

Thank goodness not all scientists agree. Some say there is not enough evidence cholesterol lowering medication for children is safe or effective....so at least there are still some sane scientists out there! What are they going to do....take Lipitor for their entire lives?

Sorry for the rant, but I feel like the drug companies are running low on adults to drug, so now they are going after our children. I remember seeing some unbelievable number a couple of years ago about how many new drugs are being developed every year that target children.

Now don't yell at me. I know there are a ton of illnesses for adults and children that benefit from medication....I really do get it......HOWEVER.....let's take a good look at what we all eat, drink and breathe and how many hours we spend in front of the TV or on the computer and try to correct that problem before we drug ourselves into oblivion.

End of rant....hope everyone had a super day today. :)

How Was Your Weekend?

What a great weekend it was! My sister Karen is here visiting from Tennessee and we met up for breakfast yesterday. We were joined by my nephew and his darling kids.

This is Gabriel. He is just a riot. He sat there while we chatted and entertained himself with a straw and a toothpick!

This is Alivia. She's going to be in first grade this fall and she's really excited that she is going to have her own desk at school.

This is my nephew Jason. He's a police officer. I really enjoyed watching him with his kids. He's a great Dad.

Last but not least.....yours truly and my sister Karen. It was so good to see her. We don't see each other often enough and it was great to just sit and chat for a couple of hours.


Besides the nice breakfast, I finished painting our bedroom! It's a small room, but still a lot of work. On Sunday I ran errands and then started to put the room back together again. We decided to switch out dressers and move a book shelf and paint a dresser. I also opted to take sandpaper to a vanity and chair rather than paint it again. The distressed look turned out great.

As soon as I have the room finished, I'll take some pictures to show you. I love the new look. I also started cleaning out my workshop. Right after the showers I will be back to creating things for my etsy shop, FourDogDay. I have some wonderful patterns for aprons and tote bags, and I also want to try my hand at some other ideas....so it should be a busy fall!

Off topic.....I made an appointment to get my hair cut really short on the 18th and I can't wait. This is too much hair for me. Also, I see the doctor Tuesday to see what my treatment options are for my not so happy uterus. I'll let you know what she says.

I hope your weekend was a good one. Have a wonderful day tomorrow and do something nice for yourself and for someone else too!

Controlling High Blood Pressure....Naturally....The Journey

I asked my doctor how to get off my blood pressure medication. I didn't ask if it was okay. I said I was doing it and wanted to know how. He told me and I followed his instructions. After a month of weaning off the drugs, I finally took my last little piece of a pill a few weeks ago.

My body told me it didn't like what I was doing about three weeks into the month long process. I got worried that it wasn't going to work and maybe I really did need to be on the meds....but I continued.

At first my pressure was all over the place with a lot of high readings and very few normal readings. I was concerned.

Then slowly it started to turn around and I was getting more good readings.....not 120/80....but better than it was. I was encouraged.

Then the news came about my bad Ultra Sound and my pressure went up again. I was frustrated.

I got the benign biopsy results the day before we left on vacation. The first day of vacation, my blood pressure was BELOW normal! I was shocked.

When we got back from vacation, it went right back up again. I was so confused.

I thought that perhaps it was time to throw in the towel and just go back on the drugs.

Then I sat down and really thought about it. It was so obvious to me that my mental state had a lot to do with my pressure. How on earth could I change who I am in order to control my pressure? I thought about how I hustle from place to place....I never just walk. I'm always in a hurry...even when I don't need to be.

I thought about how I am always thinking about "what's next" instead of enjoying "what's now".

I thought about how fast I breathe all of the time. Never ever taking a nice deep breath to calm my mind and soothe my soul.

I thought about how I rarely take time to "smell the roses" even though I mean to.

I thought about my diet...I thought it was okay....what was I not seeing?

I thought about my lack of enthusiasm about my physical therapy program and walking on the treadmill. I was doing it, but I wasn't "into" it.

It was all pretty overwhelming, but what I realized was that even though I thought I was doing everything I could to bring my pressure down....I really wasn't.

Not taking the meds was really, really important to me. If I didn't need them, then I didn't want to take them. So......after reading a lot more about high blood pressure...this is what I did.

I took a good look at my diet. I found lots of hidden salt in many of the foods I was eating. I increased my potassium and my fish oil supplements. I started walking further and faster on my treadmill. I walked like someone with a purpose. When I started to hustle down the hall at work, or to my car in the parking lot or through the grocery store.....I stopped....and I reminded myself to slow down. I wasn't in a race. I posted a note above my computer at home that says "120/80". I drew a smiley face in one corner and a heart in the other. I posted a note on my bulletin board at work that says, "Slow down" and "Breathe". I started doing some deep breathing a number of times a day, especially if I felt my old habits creeping in. I purchased some wonderful herbal hibiscus tea from etsy shop, Tea For All Reasons, because I read that it's good for high blood pressure. I stopped to smell the roses.

Guess what? Slowly my blood pressure came down. I started getting more and more good AND normal readings. I still get a high reading now and then, but most of my readings are very respectable. While my pressure isn't where I want it to be all of the time just yet....I honestly believe I am on the right path. Whether it will continue to improve, I don't know. We will see.

I can't say what one thing is making the difference, or if it is all of the things thrown together. It doesn't matter to me. I thought I knew myself really well, and I found out we never stop learning about ourselves. The more I learn...the healthier I become.

Our bodies and minds are amazing. I think a lot of the time we reach for what we think is the quick and easy solution to a health problem, rather than putting forth the effort to find a natural solution.....and trust me....it's hard work. Sometimes drugs are very necessary, but sometimes it's just a matter of giving our bodies what they need to function the way they are made to function.

My journey continues.....I'll keep you posted.