Take it out and bury it In the Garden

As a child at my grandma’s house, it would be my job to take waste to the garden. I would dutifully take the leftovers, coffee grounds, egg shells and other assorted items out to the garden and bury them for my grandma. She didn’t compost per se, but just buried, between neat rows of produce, what ever she could find, including occasional sheep poop and rabbit poop when the city ordinances didn’t catch up with her about keeping questionable livestock in her yard.

Grandma pronounced bury with a short “u.” With a whistle through her teeth.

This morning while driving down the road praying and meditating, God bought my “burying tasks” to mind with some other thoughts. Grandma, an early day settler who arrived in Wyoming via covered wagon, always had a wisdom of her own, often expressed with some down home Missouri Southern Baptist idioms, such as “Never stir in a turd, it just makes it smell worse.” Translation: Do not stir around in a scandal, gossip about a situation, continue a fight, and about anything else she wanted it to mean at the time.

I thought on the phrase standing out so strongly in my mind, “Take it out and bury it in the garden.” I felt my connection to the earth, the connection of pure labor (and pleasure) producing wholesome delicious food – and lessons from gardening with Grandma.

Sometimes in life there are events, feelings, things that happen to us leaving us crippled in some way or hurt, or resentful, or anything else that leaves us not feeling good – that leave us with something rotten or almost rotten in our hearts. I thought, “Oh, dear, God, what is it – what am I letting lay around inside to rot, what do you want me to take to the garden and bury?”

Maybe it is only my own self willfulness – I was thinking of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed about the events awaiting him, His destiny. Maybe it is resentment from some events in the past, maybe it is being judgmental towards someone, maybe it is a desire that is not in line with my destiny, maybe even bad health, or a heavy duty carried on my shoulders, or a relationship in ruins or a relationship neglected, or even lack of trust in Him.

Yes, I think there are a few things I need to take out to the garden and bury. I’ll work on that and then I’ll wait for the pure, clean produce that will be reaped when the process is complete and the result of that burial bears fruit. Maybe something life sustaining and delicious like fresh leaf lettuce with a dressing of bacon grease and vinegar and salt that surely will be served at the Wedding Supper!

Cell Therapy - Miracles for Modern Agers

Just received the news I have arthritis - which sounds minor, but its not. Suddenly everything makes sense - the deterioration of my back, the pain I fight, which seems to come in on waves of multi-level layers. At times I've been unable to hold a pen or pencil...weird disruptions in muscles - fire balls shooting through areas of body - traveling, nothing consistent.

The docs are once again passing me around because of other things - no one wants to take responsibility to treat, just in case some standard medication kills me I guess, haha. So I'm trying to make it work with Tylenol. So far, can't even get an anti-inflammatory, only offers of surgery.

I have come across one interesting treatment: Stem Cells! These cells are harvested from the illiac crest (the inside of the hip area) and then injected (not that simple, lots of steps in between) into the affected joints. No mention of embryos, hooray! This confirms what I've been reading about our own bodies being marvelous sources of stem cells to treat ourselves, should they be needed.

This would explain why the back surgeon was going to pack the area of my back he wanted to fix with the bone marrow & bone from the illiac crest. How cool is that! "H" is incredibly bored when I regale him with facts I glean from medical research and is irritated when I'm right.

It's because men's brains are arranged like tidy boxes and ours (women) run amok like a Machiavellian subway system all at once, criss-crossing, and constantly moving. Eh eh.

Soooo - I feel peace - conquered worse - just a nuisance, a bump in the trail of life. I'm still going to boogy, paint, and garden and probably irritate a few more people! I've become a student of chronic pain, and sometimes conquer it for a few weeks here and there and then I begin bragging about feeling so well. So, I tell IT, so what! So damn what!!! And so there!

I know what to do - all the alternative to medicine things.

I've been studying anti-aging medicine. I would highly recommend Suzanne Somers book, "Breakthrough." She postulates that since the medical world can keep us alive into a ripe old age, well, then, why not feel good till we die? Why get sick, crippled, and debilitated when there are so many ways to prevent it such as hormone treatment (which is quite controversial since some of the hormones are considered "performance enhancing" - well, ya, living is sort of a performance, isn't it?) and supplementation, radical diet changes and exercise.

It is beyond me why attempting to maintain an organic, toxin free, diet and water supply, and supplementation is considered extreme? Anti-aging medicine is still considered extreme, while slowly dying of preventable disease is not extreme. The very wealthy, all very quietly are able to obtain all the treatment they need IF they are so inclined to stay healthy and active until death. Maybe the fight against the "performance enhancing" medications is really a form of euthanasia? Sick, demented? Aw, just stick em in an old age warehouse, who needs 'em?

I'm now beginning to understand the things that used to irritate me with my grandma, whom I dearly loved. Her fading sight, short temper, (although it was rumoured to always being that way), complaints of pain she could barely stand, weakness of body - she really should have moved in with us so she could have had regular meals. It got so I had two houses to clean, two laundry duties, two yard duties, for many years - but it was ok. Now, I'm grateful I was able to do it. Ya never know till ya walk a mile in their shoes - so they say.

Beach Mardi Gras

Despite cold and windy weather, a low key party took place down on the "Key." Folks are looking up to the Jelly Fish Bar where most of the beads, moon pies, and cups are being tossed to the crowd below. The band was very, very good and we had tons of fun despite the chilly air. It was a cool, laid back crowd.

My beads are hanging on the dresser, giving the bedroom a bit of an exotic, old time movie flair - well at least I like to think so. Grandson is taking his beads apart and thinking of a million crafts projects.

Now, if we can navigate March, it will soon be beach going time - swimming, fishing, and tanning. That's the life. Pura Vida.

The Sasquatch in My Bathroom

There are just some days where you get out of bed - and things - well, "things" just run a bit askew...ever had one of those?

Yesterday I mopped our bathroom with a new mop that the advertisers PROMISED would pick up all the dirt. This morning I prepared for my shower and my feet felt like they were sticking to - "stuff." Drives me crazy. Ok, I'm weird. So, naked, I get on my hands and knees and start scrubbing - OH MY GOSH - where did all this hair come from - pushed up on baseboards, behind the toilet, all over the floors - ????

I peered over the countertop into the mirror - yep, my hair was still on. Last I looked the cats were not bald, and "H" still has most of his hair. This hair was black, not salt n pepper nor identifiable with any kitty kat in residence. Hmmmm. Judging from the copious amount and the state of all furred creatures in the house, I could only come to the conclusion that "Big Foot" aka Sasquatch has taken residence in the Panhandle and waits for me to leave the house so he can shower and groom where the floors are not often cleaned and he figures no one will ever notice.

Another product goes to the garage to be placed in the "Someday Garage Sale." Will I ever learn? I have a box of travel mixers that promptly broke and did not have a return address, a Rhumba vacuum "H" bought and no one knows how to program, various pieces of exercises equipment bought at garage sales that need repair and will never be repaired, and the list goes on and the garage gets more full.

I need to clean. Sort. Throw. In the meantime, I blog.

Building Life

Wasn't going to post, decided to do a short one though. I've been busy working on building that business, marriage, new life, new body, - still - ongoing - not having built a business before and forging a new thing, trying this and that, etc., is a bit trying and I'm finding that I really have to set my mind. I also want to build that garden, build relationship, build, build, build in so many areas of my life.

So what is stopping me? I think back to when I was doing websites for folks, and think "Well, that was a business, I just didn't call it that." I didn't give my whole heart to it, so I didn't think it was a business. I just did it. I wonder now, if maybe I have a subconscious time line - ok, girl, time is running out, you gotta make it or not - no in between.

One drawback I have is analyzing so much I never get anything done. I'm buying nails, counting them, holding the hammer, tapping here and there, but nothing is happening it seems!

This time of life I am faced with all my self-destructive tendencies and a need to weed them from my life. A seed planted in the ground has to be watered and fertilized and protected from storms. Us too. So why do we do the self destructive things we do, why? It's an ancient problem; The Apostle Paul, thousands of years ago wrote wondering why we do the things we really know we shouldn't do. Sometimes the whys don't matter either, only that we find a way to stop doing self-destructive behaviors and do only those (hopefully) that build ourselves and others up. For me those behaviors include procrastination, living in other places besides now, negative thinking, neglecting relationships and self-care for "busyness" that leads nowhere.

I hope when I get it together so to speak (that shift into the next life phase) that I will fall into the routine I had in my 40's, accepting it, flowing in it, fitting into it. (Then it will be time to shift to another!) There is the thought too, that this upheaval is not necessarily a change to another life stage, but a whole new "being" paradigm.

There isn't much discussion about having to change to accomodate life stages. When one reaches 55 or so, then, and from listening to the few older friends who will talk about aging, (mostly my mother) to me it feels like the beginning of a fade from society and life as we knew it. I've always believed in integrated generations. Somehow our society has categorized and divided age groups up. Our churches are the best at that! It doesn't make sense - each generation has something to give the other. I am privileged to have friends from age 3 to 93! What richness I have because of it! I think I would like to, like explorers of old, leave a trail blazed for those who are coming this way.

Anyway, approaching the second "middle age", I think there are two choices in front of us. We can either get in the rocker and continue to fade or you can re-invent yourself and your life along with it. Oh, I so want to gracefully transit and not go screaching into a gray haired ghetto.

I see photos of gray haired people doing their thing - basking on a pier as the sunlight fades - no, uh-uh, no way. That is as deceiving as the Cinderella story perpetuated on the very young!

This was supposed to be a short post, I am signing off!

Be My (Low-Cal) Valentine

Early Valentine's Day Flowers


My Valentine Day Dinner - a low low cal version of stuffed peppers - I made "H" jambalya.


When I am very serious about dumping pounds, this is what I use - pretty tasty and they work!!!


I also make 4 to 6 shakes a day and wore a blender and a Magic Bullet out - so "H" bought me a super duper commercial blender for Valentine's Day - it makes the most wonderful creamy shake!

Who says I can't have candy on Valentine's Day? I made these little fellows out of diet shake mix by using less water. I ate all eight of them - and even felt guilty so I know they were good! Didn't share, either! One hundred forty calories for the total mess!

Valentine fare around town included a dinner at a "Cajun Asian Restaurant" - that sounds pretty interesting - ! Also several "Anti-Valentine's Day" parties - well, there were times I would have celebrated that too! We won't go out - and the past few years - that's ok, don't need to. We had a great time cooking together and....

We watched "Nights in Rodanthe" and cried. And I wondered maybe if love never fully realized is not the best love? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe there are several kinds of the "best love." (Just seems that way sometimes.) But back here on Planet Earth - it was really a nice Valentine's (Early) Day! And I had to smile when "H" said, "I hope you don't think I'm weird, but that Gere is a good looking man." I said the right thing - "Well, if you break his features down, his eyes are too close together - his nose rather strange.....mmmmm, maybe."

How To?

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition - Joseph C. Jenkins


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Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 1): Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life And Landscape - Brad Lancaster

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All New Square Foot Gardening - Mel Bartholomew - This book will show you how to grow enough food for one person in a space of 5' x 12" - for a year!
Where do we get the water if we have no power and no water systems? Check out the above book!

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These are some of the books that the emergency management person recommended. I'm ordering off of Amazon tonight. The gardening and the rainwater thing I can start - not too sure about novel ways of recycling poop, although I've thought about that subject before. I've always wanted to read "The Toilet Water Papers" because it does seem to me its pretty crazy to poop into our waterways, then extract that water, put it full of chemicals, and then drink it. Figured there had to be a better way.

Oh yeh. Some folks are now looking at me askance and saying "She's off on another trip again!"

Life as We Know It

I attended a presentation the other night that, if I let it, would scare me, a lot.

Imagine a "crash" - oft predicted nowadays. Where the monetary system collapses, then the governments collapse. No sewage systems, no water, no gasoline, no grocery stores. How does one survive?

The presenter had some pretty impressive credentials, before he quit his career ten years ago to begin the development of a self-sustained community not too many miles from here. The community will not be dependent on anything but itself for utilities, food, jobs. A new economy will be developed. I'm waiting for this man to write a book, but he thinks he will not have time for the book or the finishing of the community. He thinks possibly this crash will come within a year's time. Maybe. Maybe not.

At any rate, we are ordering the list of books he recommended - on how to grow food in small areas with little water, how to recycle rain water, (our neighbors with the cute kids are working on this), how to compost and properly and santitarily dispose of human waste, how to take care of your own private sewer system when lift stations collapse (you don't want it draining back into your own home, along with everyone's elses' waste), and other pertinent information for survival. He believes we can form neighborhood coops. He describes the shock many will be in if they don't at least think about this possibility before it happens.

No one wants to hear this. I surely don't. But my common sense tells me that all the signs are there, at least in the U.S., of pending collapse. We have sent most of our jobs overseas...many people are desperate NOW with no jobs to be had,, homelessness is higher than it has been since the "Great Depression." Even "H" has decided we need to get the books and begin the gardens and the composting and learn how to gather our rain water. We live close to the water, but salinized water isn't good to drink.

I also think perhaps a rifle and a shotgun and a guard dog would also be some good items to add to the list of survival "musts." (Although wildlife here of any size is limited to alligators - the deer are little dog-like creatures.) There is lots beautiful, but contaminated water bodies that produce beautiful and contaminated fish, however.

He didn't mention guns - the soaring crime rate here as the economy worsens doesn't indicate that ALL people would come together in a cooperative effort to sustain life.

I imagined an "end of the world" scenario, but I thought, no, it would only be an end of the world as we know it in this affluential country. Other people groups live exactly as I mention above - no proper sewage disposal, desperate for water, no jobs, thus no income...

So, all these thoughts go through my mind. Then I wonder - why did God put us here? Is it to prepare for an eternal life on a different level? There has to be a purpose - I don't believe in accidental existance or accidental anything for that matter. And I wonder, have I fallen down in my responsibility to my fellow man in not helping more with the resources I have and learning to live more simply myself? Again, its the question of purpose. I refuse to just exist, there has to be reason.

I started taking Melatonin so I would quit waking up four hours after I went to bed and I find at least the thoughts stop at night, except for dreams. Last night I dreamed we were at some beautiful highrise condos on the beach. Everyone was playing in the water, boats and yachts were pulled up to the docks - people were even jumping from the condo into the water to play. I was afraid that grandson would try to jump. It was extraordinarily beautiful. But it wasn't mine.

In some ways I can see advantages to a crash sceanario - we would not have to worry about drinking pure water - any water would be appreciated, or being poisoned by industrial waste - no industry, or contaminated food - we would be glad to be able to eat food. No worry about anti-aging - when we got older and slower and sicker we'd just die. Our current system, especialy employment, has indicated it doesn't want our wisdom and experience anyway. A crash would soon leave the young to survive and rebuild, if rebuilding would be possible.

I just happened to read what was on the label of a tube of toothpaste - the words, "if swallowed, call medical help or your poison center." Companies are purposefully sending out poisoned food to old folks' homes and school lunches with impunity. The company here that knowingly sent contaminated peanut butter out should be closed and all the executives and testers jailed, along with others that knew about it. What about moral responsibility? Perhaps it has only existed for the few.

Frayed

My inner peace is much too loud.

Week in Photos

The home of "throwed rolls." This place makes dinner rolls like Grandma used to as well as the best apple butter you ever tasted. I stopped for carry out rolls for grandson and put them in the trunk so I wouldn't be overwhelmed with the scent and eat them all on my trip.


Looking for inspiration and found it - now I just need to paint!



"H's" store - always like to drive down along the beach and shop there - amazing how friendly an employee owned store is compared to a corporation owned store.



Beware that last sip of Grand Marnier!


LOVE this painting - only this friend could pull it off so wonderfully.

Eclectic Mix

I don't know where the time is going! In the last three days I have become an Ebay merchandiser, watched more of Chelsea Lately and Chewie than I ever want to see again, taken care of grandson, made a trip to Mobile to see daughter and granddaughter, picked up prescriptions, received a letter from Met Life telling me that I was NOT a candidate for life insurance (awww, what's a little fibromyalgia - what? No doctor has EVER told me I had the fibro...what's that all about).

Gee, I can't wait until we get a nationalized database system listing all our medical records for these guys and who else. And since when did fibromyalgia become a fatal disease anyway - and chronic back pain - and, well, they did put COPD down - that's not a good one, but my health is so blasted good, perfect blood tests - dang, I guess I should investigate, would not want all that going into the national database, might make it a little hard to get employed. Especially since a pulmonary doctor told me his patients would only wish for lungs as good as mine. I almost feel like a victim of identity theft. Who me?

(By the way I see advantages to such a database, but really Americans are used to FREEDOM - it is scary the way our freedoms are decreasing, bit by bit - this to me seems a huge privacy issue.) I did sign a release - but not to send information I had never been informed of such as certain medical conditions.

So Met Life goes on to list several maladys reported to them by doctors that doctors have never told me I owned. Did they get someone else's records? Have doctors hidden diagnoses from me? If so, why? Is this a mystery that will end in material for a medical mystery novel?

What else. Church. Facebook, I am becoming a Facebook junkie. Oh yeh, and trying to clean "H's" spilled coffee out of the pale silver carpet. Exercising. Trimming bushes. (still).

I love my get up at a 6 a.m. routine and go to bed at 10:00 p.m. "H's" hours are killing me. My whole family seems to have days mixed up with nights and I feel as if I am being chased by a night vortex that wants to swallow me whole and turn my hormones upside down.

Ah, whine. I am thankful he is employed. I am thankful I can get out of bed by myself, I am thankful for a full life, full of people, and humming, thrumming life.

Ebay merchandising - oh my gosh - I have two emails wanting to know what a size 24W chest size would be and how long is such and such portion of the garment. Well, I google it and find out that it is like 50" of breast material and back. No wonder my cleavage never would end.

I wore a really low cut blouse to church today and lo, and behold, breast bone - no cleavage - ahhhhhhh - I LOVE it!!!! It is hard to be six foot two inches and do the church hug thing since most people's heads are perpendicular to my chest. I learned when men head for me, put my hand out quickly to shake hands - no boob squishing to their face, nope, none. I have always been way too suspcious of shorter men who ask me to dance. Ooops sorry, no squishy squishy now. "H" turned me on to why short men liked to dance with tall women, LOL!

Sorry, I'm in a weird mood. Maybe tired. Now that I know Met Life doesn't expect me to live very long, ah feeeeels weak. Just kidding. Getting ready for art party - need to find source material and art material and papers. Bye!