Illinois ladies facing bc
Comments
-
(((Red)))
Last very warm day here for awhile—tonight we go back to having San Diego’s summer, with warmish days and cool nights. Last night it rained, but they’ve taken the rain out of the forecast until next Thurs., followed by another dry spell. So I have to water every day, lest any new tomatoes get blossom-end rot again. The tomatoes are ripening fast & furious, but I wish I could let them fully ripen on the vine. Instead, I’ve sort of been playing chicken with the squirrels and snatching them once they turn mostly red or even orange. Got three ripe ones on the vine and about 25 or so in varying stages of green-ness and size. The green ones that got shaken off the plant in the storm are resolutely refusing to ripen on the sill, so I put them in a paper bag with a ripe banana…or so I thought…turns out it’s a plantain that somebody put back with the conventional bananas at WF (so I paid only 37 cents for it). One of the green ones in the bag seems to have shown the tiniest hint of blush, so it’s back on the sill—along with 7 fully-ripe and one almost-ripe ones.
Slowly eating my way through the gigantic zucchini Bob brought home from one of his patients. Grilled a couple of slices that were left over after spiralizing a chunk of it, and cooked the zoodles with some marinara sauce & Parm-Regg. Also sliced and grilled a small eggplant. “Umami,” my @$$--I’m jonesing for meat. Red meat.
Really, really sore from yesterday’s workout—and have another training session tomorrow. Trying to somewhat reverse my kyphosis and keep it from becoming hyperkyphosis (hunchback). Sitting and standing up straight is torture on my neck & shoulders, but that’s what both my PCP and trainer want me to do. Ugh.
0 -
If the things of this world neither delight nor threaten us they are often dismissed,
ignored, or simply missed. The tree outside our window, made familiar by time,
no longer appears to offer anything to attract our attention. We fail to notice the
texture of its leaves, its changing colors, its growing and aging, the way the sun
reflects on its leaves. We believe we need something more stimulating and exciting
for it to be worthy of our attention. In learning to stay in the present, we discover
that it is the power of our attention that makes all things worthy.
Christina Feldman0 -
Redheaded, your hands are so full right now --- so many issues and details of life -- your own and that of your family. While I'm sure it could sound somewhat glib, it all tends to work out. The trick seems not to let any one thing exert so much pressure we lose touch with ourselves and become frazzled to the point of being in-effective. Sounds like you have taken a good attitude -- face it all, do what you can, and knowing that you have, resolve to be satisfied. It all feels like so much ( and it is ) but it will change. I always fall back on knowing that we are here in this world ( at least in my humble opinion ) to learn a certain amt. through different adverse situations and we learn best by going through those adversities in the ways that seem best to us. If all were perfect -- what would be learn about ourselves and our abilities. So, it is not easy, but at some point you will get to see how you expanded yourself to meet your adversities and hopefully see that you did just fine. I'm thinking of you and hoping lots of positive energies ( I'm trying to send some ) come to you to lighten your load.
Sandy, I get sort of tickled ( since Dh and I have done it so often ) listening to you about the constant struggle with your squirrels. We have too much shade for a garden where we live now, but at our other house we had a really nice sized garden. Seemed to always be trying to keep critters large and small away. Lots of deer in the area as well as a woods full of squirrels, possums, wild rabbits, all sorts of birds and insects. All of them hungry. Had a neighbor who had a bird's eye view of our garden ( and could get anything they desired out of it ) who would help to keep to much feasting of wildlife at bay. We tied tin pans on the plants, got artificial owls -- always had a highly decorated garden.
Dh doesn't always stand up too straight either. He has one of those gizmo's that you get on and flip yourself upside down and hang for a bit --- swears by it, but to me, I'd like to see him do some stretching exercises and make sure his muscles get a proper work-out. Then he can get on that contraption. So far, exercise 0, contraption - almost daily. Hmmm, so I hope it gets easier for you.
0 -
Found out why the fig tree isn't bearing: first, it's too young; second, most of it is already in shade. As to the tomatoes, I went outside to check a ripe one for firmness, and it actually fell from the vine and developed a small split. So it'll be dinner. As to the green ones on the sill, for all except the smallest one the banana-and-paper-bag trick seems to have worked. All but the “runt" developed some blush, so they're back on the sill. Running out of room there.
Had a temporary setback this a.m. Leaned over to face-cuddle my cat and I felt my lower back catch sharply on the right. Uh-oh. So I immediately began kneading it and kept moving. Slathered it with Voltaren gel, then Bio-Freeze and later, lidocaine roll-on. Figured that just this once, an NSAID was in order, so I popped two Aleve & a baclofen. Sat with a heating pad as I typed. (Gentle heat seems to work better than ice for me, so long as there's no swelling). By the time I had to leave for the gym I was much better. My trainer warned me not to try to stretch that muscle but instead to mobilize the surrounding structures. So we got a decent workout in. When I started out on the “standing row" resistance machine, I was doing 20 lbs. with both hands. Today, we did it single-armed, and I managed 27 lbs. My posture is better too. I still can't stand on one leg w/o support and raise the other w/o touching it back down, but at least I didn't keel over. And tried again to use the elliptical, but gave up after one minute because my quads were on fire. Wish the gym had a recumbent one like the PT clinics do. So it was back to the treadmill. (No rowing machine till my back is healed). Maybe next time I'll bring my little folding classical-guitar footstool to help me get up on to one of the spin bikes.
Jackie, I thought about trying one of those inversion thingies (Teeter Hang-Ups), but my PCP said definitely not with a hiatal hernia.
0 -
Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.
Hillel, in the Talmud. Shabbat 31A
0 -
Yup, the original Golden Rule.
0 -
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see.
You have to believe what you feel.
Morrie Schwartz0 -
A friend is one to whom we may pour out the contents of our hearts, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. -Arabian saying
0 -
Jackie, you okay today? Hope you got good results.
I was going to slice the split tomato but it had disappeared off the sill. Hadn’t fallen on the floor, and Gordy hates tomatoes (except as sauce on pizza or pasta). Drove me nuts until Bob admitted he had eaten it, out of hand, like an apple. Most of our tomatoes seem to be ripening all at once—we have a dozen inside on the sill and in the “eat now” basket (all but one tiny green one began ripening when placed in a paper bag with what I thought was a ripe banana but turned out to be a plantain), and about five more in various shades of orange on the vine. Very few green ones left on the plants, and no new blossoms. No early-bearing plants this year (nursery and WF out of “Early Girl”), but most of the plants weren’t supposed to be spent till at least Labor Day. (Last year we had some ripening on the sill through November). Next year I will have to stagger different gestation-lengths to assure a consistent supply from mid-July on. Surprised that as recently as Aug. 5 (our block party) I had only one tomato ripe enough to put in the Caprese salad and actually bought three heirlooms to supplement it. All the rest of the tomatoes (except the blossom-end-rot one, of which I ate the top 2/3) on the sill were green and hard. Next year, I will also put only one green tomato at a time into the "ripening bag."
0 -
The smallest actual good is better than the most magnificent promises of impossibilities. -Thomas B. Macauley0 -
I'm not due for results until Friday on my biopsy. When I started with the V.A. they were so good at keeping me informed and setting appts. This last round of yearly tests etc. were so much different. I thought it might be due to the fact that I took advantage of Choice Care and had all my appts. here at home. I've begun to wonder about that. Even the hospital doing the tests had to call the V.A. several times.
Due to that -- one of the nurses from the hospital ( registered ) has kindly offered to hand over the results to me rather than making me wait and pry it out of the V.A. who knows when. Not sure what has changed at the V.A. but some buck passing while waiting for paycheck seems to be happening. I'll just have to figure how to get things done on my own I guess.
It has rained a bit this a.m. Funny thing -- my car is parked behind Dh's about 15 feet. It is so wet compared to his truck that is showing hardly a drop. It can happen strangely here. We might drive into town and find huge puddles while we have nothing here --- and town is only 2 miles away. Our little portion of southern ( just barely in there ) Illinois is strange that way as we often get way less of what everyone around us is getting. I do think we will get more rain. Temps. aren't really improving though, nor do they sound like they will much no matter what the weather.
Hope you all have a stunning day. I'm enjoying gifted tomatoes from my cousin's garden. They always have so many and are willing to share.
0 -
Jackie, you going to watch the eclipse? I had planned to go down to Sparta (w/in the totality belt) and combine it with a recording session, but every room in town is sold out (my engineer’s B&B is chock-full too).
0 -
Don't have glasses for the eclipse. Had some but don't know where they are grrrr.
0 -
It is not true that nice guys finish last.
Nice guys are winners before the game ever starts.
Addison Walker0 -
Jackie,
I loved the quote from your August 15 post. I have shared it with my 3 closest friends. They loved it, too.
Thanks for keeping this thread going.
Navymom
0 -
((( NavyMom ))) Your so welcome.
0 -
We have shaped ourselves into new people, and we have done so by our decisions.There's no going back, of course, and I guess most of us wouldn't want to if we could, even though we're acutely conscious of mistakes we've made.We have to remember that each of us is new at this business of living and content ourselves with the fact that most of us have plenty of time to make good decisions in the future. -Earl Nightingale
0 -
Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish what can and cannot be helped; acceptance makes the distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens. -Arthur Gordon
0 -
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known
defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found
their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a
sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions,
gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross
0 -
Freedom comes only to those who will set all others free.The first step to take is to declare the absolute freedom of all with whom we associate to think and act for themselves.Break down the barrier for others, and walk through the opening ourselves.Freedom means the individuals' right to live their own lives, coupled with a care to aid one's neighbors to live their own lives, without infringement upon the others' lives. -Cora Morse
0 -
So didja get to see any of the eclipse? I woke up stiff & sore and had to cancel my 10:30 am training session, but I figured I could salvage the day by seeing as much of it as I could, both to peak (87.6%) here and totality across the country. Watched the end of the Madras, OR portion on my iPad via NASA’s livestream cam. Came downstairs to make my paper plate pinhole rig…and there on the coffee table was a pair of eclipse glasses! Turns out Gordy had ordered a pair two weeks ago (wish I’d known, or I’d have asked him to order me one two). So I sort of “rode herd” on it till he came downstairs about 12:30 pm. By then it was about 50%. There were two spots on my deck where I could peer through the trees and see it, but clouds kept rolling in. (Almost considered taking the paper plates and binoculars out to Broadway, where there was an unobstructed sky, but I’m in my housedress and braless, the sight of which would cause more impressionable eyes to go blind than would have staring at the sun without proper glasses). I kept darting inside to catch each totality on TV in the den.
The less obstructed spot on the deck provided me a great view—clouds permitting, because it was intermittently overcast without a speck of blue in the sky. At one point (about 70%), I held the pinhole plate “just so,” and it and the lattice of locust and elm tree leaves projected about a dozen identical little crescents on the plate. Unfortunately, I have only two hands, and the clouds and trees were too mercurial for me to have set up a tripod, so no pix for you. Gordy had come downstairs by then, and we were passing the glasses back and forth. Just as it hit almost 80%, a thick gray cloud rolled smack dab over it, and that was all she wrote. It got a bit darker, as if very late afternoon before the start of sunset, the wind kicked up, and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees, just below 80F—despite the humidity, it felt downright comfortable. (BTW, the binoculars, no matter how sharply focused for max distance, were too diffuse to project anything).
I’m pretty happy—this was the greatest extent of a solar eclipse I’d ever seen with my own eyes; and the first time was able to track the totality via TV and the NASA-cam. Back when I was a kid in Brooklyn, in the early 60s (or was it late 50s, I forget—I just remember my dad talking about “smoked glasses” and we made shoebox viewers), we could barely see a bite taken out of the sun; and in 1979, from the courtyard of our apt. building, not much more.
But I feel for the folks in Carbondale & Nashville (TN, not IL—though the latter got about the same view as Carbondale). Carbondale was supposed to be the “total eclipse capital of the world,” because it had the longest period of totality on any landmass. People filled Saluki stadium on the SIU campus, many paying north of $10K for skyboxes. But despite mostly sunny (and hot—95F—at one point, sending dozens of people in the stands to the infirmary) skies, there was a huge dark gray cloud that obstructed the run-up to and all but the last 3 seconds of totality. Glad I hadn’t decided to drive down to Sparta.
If I make it to 2024, here in Chicago we will get nearly 93% at peak, and Carbondale will once again be ground zero. So beginning in 2022 I will start making reservations for either a hotel room or campsite. (Sparta will be too far NW to be in the totality belt).
0 -
I was mainly working today, but did run home for a bite to eat and cup of coffee right before the eclipse. As we live in a heavily wooded area ( I never got equipment to watch with ) it was interesting. The house inside got quite dark. On the outside it looked like moonlight -- only brighter. I found it I think, almost as interesting as I might have if I had actually been able to see the eclipse.
Though I think I didn't mention it here -- I got the results back from my recent biopsy. Ned for any cancer. There was just a solid lump of fibrous tissue only. I felt that it would be the case, yet said nothing as had there been something --- I'd have spent so much time chastising myself for my denial in being unrealistic of possibilities. My relief knows no bounds. In fact, it is wonderful to be released from the cloud that was hovering just a bit the last couple of weeks as I went through a second mammogram with spot compression, then a short while later the biopsy. So, I feel quite free. The last thing I'm waiting for is the results of a Dexa scan ( my second one since my original dx. in Sept. 2007. It was done on June 16th. and no idea where the results have landed because they told me it would be ready the next afternoon. I've kept calling -- and will continue. Happy Eclipse Day
Jackie
0 -
Whew! Yay for the benign result! My BS' NP told me early on not to panic if I felt any lumps in the area of the tumor cavity or incisions—they were likely to be scar tissue. So I was prepared just in case. Three mammos later, so far so good—back on an annual screening schedule again.
Jackie, the map I saw put Mt. Vernon almost to the northern edge of totality—you got in the high 90%s of coverage. So while you might not have been able to look at the eclipse itself, you got the darkness that we didn't. (At 1:20 pm here, the peak in Chicago, it got only a tad bit dimmer than it is now, about 70 minutes before sundown). Ancient peoples considered the darkness and cooling to be as momentous as the corona and other direct phenomena—in fact, it was the main thing that spooked them.
We're considering for 2024, rather than Carbondale, looking for a spot near the winery in Makanda. It'll have the longest duration…and there will be (duh) wine. I hadn't realized till now that had I driven down to Sparta, I could have parked at the lot of its Wal-Mart (Wal-Marts allow overnight camping), put the seats down, and slept overnight. Sparta will have less coverage in 2024 than it did today. And Chicago will have >92%, so we will be likely to get more darkness than we did today. But there's also Cleveland, which has the advantage of hotels and stuff to do in the days before & after. Bloomington, IN will also be in the path.
No harm in planning as far in advance as possible. Worst comes to worst, if I'm not on this earth (or if I'm indisposed due to recurrence treatment) by 2024, that means someone else will get the chance of a lifetime.
0 -
People are saying that I am the enemy of just laws, of family ties and old tradition. These people are telling the truth. I do not love man-made laws . . . I love the sacred and spiritual kindness which should be the source of every law upon the earth, for kindness is the shadow of God in humans. -Khalil Gibran
0 -
I agree....the quotes are wonderful! Thank you Jackie for your inspiration and for keeping this board active. Redhead, I am sorry to hear of your struggles and those of your friend. I'm adding you both to my prayer list. I don't get on nearly as much as I used to but since I have found this board I have made it a frequent stop. Hope everyone is doing well cyber hugs!
0 -
Through the countless small actions we engage in, the loving hand
we reach out to another, the wants we let go of, the time
we give to those who most need it, we change our world.
A single step taken with mindfulness may mean the difference
between the life and death of another living creature. A single
thought of loving kindness may mean the difference between
loneliness or a sense of being loved for the person before us.
A single act of compassion may save another
person from feelings of abandonment.0 -
Imkopy2
A great honor and total enjoyment for me. Looking for a daily quote ( even on bad days ) gives me reason to experience joy and inspiration. Something I always hope to be successful in passing on to others.0 -
I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite, which is yes.
- e. e. cummings0 -
Never let a day go by without seeing something good in the people who surround you. And tell them! Tell them so. Maybe it's going to be difficult that day, you've got to really search. But find something good, and say, "That was really wonderful.That was beautiful." -Leo Buscaglia
0 -
Self respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; and knowing the truth, we have spoken it.
Whitney Griswold
0
