Thursday Thirteen

Yesterday I wrote some advice to my younger self. I receive my master's degree on Sunday, so I am feeling rather nostalgic and excited all at the same time.

Today I think I will give my future self a nod.

Advice to My Future Self

1. Do not regret or forget your past, but do not live there, either. Yesterday is over and done, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. But you have today. Grasp it, shake it, and take whatever falls out.

2. Be kind to yourself in deed and in thought. No one will take better care of you than you.

3. Stand up for the things you believe in. You have a strong moral code and a tremendous sense of right and wrong. The things you value are good and true. Do not doubt this.

4. Acknowledge your talents, and use them.

5. Be positive. The glass is half full, the water tastes good, and the air on the other side is clean and breathable. There is nothing wrong with getting wet.

6. Be proud of your accomplishments but do not rest on those laurels. You have more to do.

7. Be patient with others. Everyone, including you, still has much to learn.

8. Take risks. You don't need to go hang gliding, but do broaden your world and open your arms to take in those who are hovering on your circumference. You might be surprised.

9. Dance, damn it! I don't care if your feet hurt and your back aches. Dance like there is no tomorrow. For all you know, there isn't.

10. Love. Love those who hate you, and those who have hurt you. Love the bad until it turns into good, and love the good until it becomes better.

11. Make your home your own. If you want to paint, paint. If you want to renovate, renovate. You live there. Make it yours. Who cares if no one else likes that color?

12. Learn something new every day. You love to learn - so learn more. Take more classes, investigate a new hobby.

13. Be creative. Invent, paint, write, figure out a new way to use a wheel. Turn old things into new, rediscover old uses and make them more than they were.

And some extras:

Be adventurous!
Be brave.
Practice kindness.
Be mindful.
Contemplate the spiritual.



What advice would you give to yourself, I wonder? What advice would you give me as I embark on this last half of my life?












Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 242nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Advice to My Younger Self

In a few days, I will have another advanced degree. I will be able to put "M.A." after my name. It seems like every 20 years I make an educational advancement.

My degree will come from Hollins University at the 170th commencement exercise this Sunday at 10 a.m. The ceremony is on the Front Quad, and as long as it doesn't rain, it will be outside and the guest list is unlimited.

The upcoming ceremonial rite has left me with mixed emotions. I am nostalgic and eager for the future all at the same time. Nineteen years ago I received my BA, something that took me eight years to obtain. Education is something I have always craved and I am pleased and proud that I have managed to make it happen.

I don't know if in another 20 years I will have another degree, but I strongly suspect I will continue taking classes of some kind.

Anyway, I thought I might take a look back today and write a note to that 29-year-old who received her first advanced diploma in 1993. Some of these are things I have done. Some are things I wish I had done. Those who know me well will probably know the difference.

Advice to My Younger Self

Don't be a stranger to your own feelings. Get out of your head and listen to your heart.

Breathe.

For God's sake, watch what you eat and take note of your weight.

Learn to love your body.

Take up yoga as soon as you can.

Meditate.

Read everything you can get your hands on.

Embrace technology, but not so much that you lose yourself in it. Unplug frequently.

Take long walks in the woods.

Trust yourself and your husband. All others are suspect, but give them the benefit of the doubt.

Fruits and vegetables are your friends.

Go back to school sooner rather than later. While it is never too late to learn, it does get harder with age.

Dance in the kitchen. Every day.

Do not stop playing the guitar.

Make lots of friends.

Join organizations that do things for others. Be active in your community.

Love with your heart as well as your head. Love yourself, first.

Write about everything. Put it all down.

Don't be afraid of your own thoughts.

Learn something new every day.

Face your fears.

Wear different shoes every day.

Don't let the bastards get to you. You are better than they are; don't forget it!

With a Flower

Words by Emily Dickinson

I hide myself within my flower,

 

That wearing on your breast,

You, unsuspecting, wear me too --

And angels know the rest.

 

I hide myself within my flower,

 

That, fading from your vase,

You, unsuspecting, feel for me

Almost a loneliness.

No Rhyme or Reason

 

Mother's Day



Mom

My mother's hair never fell out when she was taking cancer treatments for the pancreatic cancer that killed her.

I thought of this just this morning, thinking about it being Mother's Day. My husband had a movie on TV, something about dying young, with a young man with a bald head covered by a smart cap. I saw the image as I walked through the living room.

And I remembered how my grandmother told me she knew that the cancer treatments weren't helping my mother, because she did not go bald.

My mother passed away in 2000. She was 56 years old. Just seven years older than I am today.  It hardly seems possible, both that she died so young and I am so old.

As the years have passed I think of her in different ways. As I am of a certain age, I see better and understand better the things she said and did. When I was young, I misinterpreted many things, but other things I did not. I feel wiser about my relationship as I grow older. More settled with it.

She will remain rather timeless, having died while she was still relatively beautiful, with few wrinkles and having not yet worn out her body, sick as it was. I think of her as being like a princess in a Snow White sort of way. Only of course there is no kiss to bring her back.

When I was a child, I brought my mother dandelions for flowers on Mother's Day because I loved the weed and thought she should, too. I remember her exasperation as she told me it was not a flower to love, and my sadness as she tossed the blossoms into the trash.

To this day, I still love dandelions.

I have long hated Mother's Day, mostly because I was not able to become a mother. It's an annual reminder of that great let-down in my life, a yearly stab in the heart. I daresay few people think about that, how the day might affect those of us who were unable to procreate.

But today is a pleasant Sunday, in spite of the pending rain and the whirling sound of cicadas. The cows are calling softly to their babies; they are good mothers.

The memory of my mother this morning is bittersweet. The cancer treatments did not work. She kept her hair. The suffering was for nothing.

I guess you have to try.

Happy Mother's Day.

Flower Power

Red Roses for a Blue Lady

Yellow Pansy

Purple Pansy

Columbine dancing in the wind

Marigolds reachign for the sky

Thursday Thirteen

*A note to other Thursday Thirteen players*

I try to comment on everyone's blog, particularly if they visit me here. However, some of you have comment forms that psych me out completely. Some wordpress forms no longer work for me. Sometimes I can't figure out the captcha codes. Sometimes I leave a comment and it vanishes into thin air.

Please, please check your comment forms and make it easier! - added after several unsuccessful comment attempts this morning.

**************

Today I offer up 13 home remedies. I am taking these from two books: Home Remedies from a Country Doctor, by Jay Heinrichs, et al, and The People's Pharmacy Quick and Handy Home Remedies, by Joe and Terry Graedon.

Some of these I have tried, some not.

1. Drunken raisins. I wrote about how I make gin-soaked raisins earlier this week. I use it for arthritis.

2. Ice. Ice helps a lot of things, but mainly inflammation. It helps with arthritis, too. Ice helps these things: migraines, stiff neck, aches and pains. Don't crunch ice; it will break your teeth.

3. Certo and grape juice. Mixing these two together and drinking it is also supposed to help arthritis, according to the Graedons. Some people mix it with pomegranate juice instead of grape juice.

4. Cherries or cherry juice also lowers inflammation and helps with gout.

5. Vinegar is supposed to help with everything from weight loss to hair care. You can use it for dandruff, foot odor, head lice, heartburn, muscle cramps, nail fungus, poison oak rash, and swimmer's ear, too.

6. For indigestion or other stomach upset, drink chamomile tea. Aloe vera is also good the stomach.

7. Witch hazel is used to cure pimples and acne.

8. Avon's Skin-So-Soft is a good bug repellent. Here's a homemade ointment: melt 1 pound of petroleum jelly in the microwave. Stir in 1 ounce of citronella. Rub it on. Vitamin B1 is also supposed to keep bugs away. Apparently it makes your skin taste bad.

9. If you are having trouble sleeping, have a turkey sandwich and a glass of milk before bedtime.

10. Probiotics are good for yeast problems and diverticulitis. They also help with colds and flu, diarrhea, eczema, gas, and irritable bowel syndrome.

11. Honey helps with coughs, can help cure a wound, and may be useful for constipation, joint pain, and arthritis.

12. Listerine can be used for bug bites, blemishes, body odor, dandruff, lice, nail fungus, psoriasis, shingles, skin fungus, stinky feet, sunburn, and warts.

13. Speaking of warts, you can remove them by using bacon fat, banana peels, duct tape, garlic, aspirin (topically, not internally), and warm bath soaks.

None of these remedies are guaranteed to work. Try at your own risk and always consult a doctor if you have a concern.






Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 241st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl

Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl
By Susan McCorkindale
Copyright 2008
349 pages

I wanted to like this book. I dislike giving bad reviews.

But I hated this book. I could not even finish it. I made it to page 115 and gave up.

I wanted my money back, actually.

There are people, I am sure, who would love this book. This book makes fun of southerners, finds people who are different stupid, and thinks the worst in people is good for a laugh. I know there are people who like that sort of thing.

I am not one of them.

I bought the book because it is a memoir about living on a cattle farm in Virginia. I live on a cattle farm in Virginia, and when I made the purchase back in January, I was finishing up my thesis, which is about living on a farm in Virginia.

You can see why I was interested.

After I bought the book, but before I read it, I checked out the author's website and learned her husband had passed way of pancreatic cancer. My mother died of that, too, so I thought, wow. I really want to read this book now.

I even subscribed to the author's Facebook feed. Which I quickly had to switch to "important only" because so much BS was coming across my newsfeed that I couldn't stand it. That should have warned me, I suppose. (I have since unsubscribed completely.)

In the book, the author uses a lot of foot notes - apparently she has many semi-related thoughts that she doesn't place within the text. The footnotes are annoying.

She used to be a marketing director at for a women's magazine; she lived in New Jersey, she is wealthy. Her husband's family lives in Virginia in a mansion. Money is not an issue.

But in the book she complains about everything. She complains about her job, and gloats (really!) about how she managed to screw over those who worked for her (I was glad I wasn't in that company). The family moves to Virginia, and she has to endure living in the mansion while their house on 500 acres is renovated. She has to endure a bad hairdresser. She can't figure out the dress code for the south. She has to put up with people who ride horses. These damn backwards southerners. Yuck yuck. A laugh a minute.

Not.

And heaven help us, there is no Starbucks close and she is apparently helpless without her latte. I think she mentions on every page that there is no Starbucks within 20 miles of her.

That's about as far as I got. For me not to finish a book says a lot. I usually can wade through the worst of them, but not this one.

What's really sad is there was a sequel to this book.

I won't be buying it.

Drunk Raisins

You may have heard of a remedy for arthritis that involves gin-soaked raisins.

The People's Pharmacy, a health-care column that runs in our local paper, has written about the folk remedy for a long time.

When I had my foot x-rayed in November to show a stress fracture, the doctor also noted some serious arthritis in my toe. However, nothing to treat the arthritis was offered. So I decided to try the drunken raisin remedy.

To be sure, I have noticed a decrease in pain in my big toe. But improvement has been most noticeable in my knees, which used to hurt much more than they do now.

So I have kept up the routine of eating a spoonful of gin-soaked raisins one time each day.

Here is how I make them:

First, you need golden raisins and gin. I have read that there are different types of gin, some of which is really vodka. You need the real gin. I always ask at the liquor store, and they generally recommend Seagram's. They say that is what most people use for gin-soaked raisins. I have tried a couple other brands and so far I haven't really noticed a difference.

The raisin on the left is a sober raisin. The one on the right is plump from soaking in gin. I imagine it is pretty high.

I pour gin into a dish until the raisins are covered. Then I cover it with a dish towel or paper towels. I let it sit until the liquid evaporates, and I stir it once or twice day. The evaporation usually takes about three days, give or take a little humidity.

The raisins are fatter after they have soaked in the gin. I store the drunk raisins in an air-tight container.

Do not soak the raisins in the air-tight container as the gin will not evaporate. If you can taste the gin, then the evaporation process has not been going on long enough.

I would not advise eating gin-soaked raisins if one has alcoholic tendencies or problems with addiction.

Also consult with your doctor if you are taking medications of any kind.

Irises

My Nephew Goes to the Prom

My brother's son, Trey, went to the prom for James River High School last night. I was asked to come over and shoot photos, which I gladly did. It was wonderful to see my nephew in his spiffy clothes, looking so grown up and young all at the same time. What a handsome young fellow he has turned out to be.

My niece, Zoe, learning photography tricks!

My father helping Trey with his jacket.



My brother with his children.



My brother, Trey, and my father.



Helping with the tie. That's my sister-in-law in the background.

The Monarch

Columbine

I think it is sad that the name of such a lovely flower tends to evoke memories of a terrible event in our country's history.

These grow next to my deck. I've had a hard time getting them to bloom this year because the deer keep eating the them.



The flowers originally came from Ikenberry Orchards. They have a great greenhouse. Columbines are perennials so they come back year after year. They also spread well, so be aware. They will choke out other plants.

Thursday Thirteen #240

May is National Asthma Awareness Month in the United States and May 1 was World Asthma Day. I have asthma, so I thought I'd share some facts.

Asthma is a disease of the respiratory system, thought to be chronic inflammation. It is often associated with allergies. Symptoms include wheezing, difficulty breathing, coughing, and chest tightness. Severe asthma can lead to death.

Untreated asthma or asthma that does not respond well to treatment can severely limit functioning.


1. More than 25 million Americans have asthma. That figure includes 7 million children.

2. Medical expenses associated with asthma are estimated at $50 billion annually.

3. Death rates for asthma is highest in those over the age of 65.

4. Asthma appears to be on the increase. The prevalence rose from 7.3 percent of the population in 2001 to 8.4 percent in 2010.

5. So far, doctors have been unable to find either a cure or cause for asthma.

6. Asthma can be controlled and treated. Treatments range from nebulizers to steroid inhalers, along with the use of drugs for allergies, allergy shots, and other methods.

7. Most people with asthma also have allergies.

8. Lung function tests are used to determine if a person has asthma. The most common of these is called spirometry. It measures the amount of air a person can blow in and out.

9. Asthma triggers include allergens (dust, pet hair, pollen), environmental irritants (cigarette smoke, perfume), medications, sulfites in food (wine, cheeses), respiratory infections, and physical activity.

10. Stress, poor health, and sleep apnea can also cause asthma sufferers to have attacks.

11. Current asthma treatment involves controller medications (such as inhaled corticosteroids) and emergency inhalers, such as albuterol. Additionally, trigger avoidance is very important. Doctors create asthma action plans for their patients. You can download a free action plan here.

12. Asthma sufferers should learn to use a peak flow meter so that they can keep track of their breathing and know when to seek help.

13. A new thought on asthma is that, in some instances, it is actually a case of a smoldering infection that can be cleared up with long-term antibiotics. You can read about that here, here, and here (more links below). The theory is that these people are actually suffering from a form of pneumonia that lingers and causes inflammation.

After I learned about this possible link in February, I contacted my primary care doctor and asked her to look into it. I explained to her that I wanted to consider the long-term antibiotics if she thought it was viable. I always had felt I could breathe better after I have been on antibiotics.

I had also run into problems using the inhaled corticosteroids; they made me break out in a severe rash.

After she researched the issues (she's a good doctor), she agreed it was worth trying.

I was on an antibiotic called azithromycin for 24 days. During that time, my peak flow meter numbers rose from 360 to 460 - unheard of on the other medications I was taking at the time. After the second day on the antibiotic, I no longer experienced chest pain and tightness.

I have been off the antibiotic for a month now and my peak flow numbers are still good. Not 460 good but 440 good and I'm not complaining about that! I am able to exercise, walk up hills, and climb steps without getting out of breath. I haven't had chest pain since I took the antibiotics.

Cured? I don't know. Better? You bet. Will I take antibiotics again if my asthma becomes a problem? Yes indeed.

I have read some reports that the asthma symptoms will return if the antibiotic wasn't continued long enough. Apparently this particular pneumonia is hard to eradicate completely. So I am monitoring my breathing carefully still.

This has been my experience. I do not know if it is typical. But if you are an asthma sufferer, I hope you research the issue before you dismiss it out of hand.

Again, this might not help everyone. People should consult with their doctors.


Here are some additional links about asthma:

Statement by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Asthma Awareness Month

Asthma Increases to Record Levels, Deaths Among Baby Boomers Highest

Information from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

Asthma: Searching for a Cure (antibiotics)

Antibiotics Cure for Severe Asthma

Antibiotics Could Treat Asthma

Asthma Story: How One Man Cured His Asthma


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 240th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Hangin' Around

I'm going to let go! I am! Wait for it . . .

Ta Da!