Happy?

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I’m not too happy. I was working on my websites behinds the scenes since Frank is out for the day and I have his laptop to work on fulltime. I had to do stuff to find some passwords that I’d forgotten and drag stuff off of my old laptop harddrive connected via USB external box enclosure we got for it after my laptop died. So I was engrossed and disconnected to physicalness in a way that I hadn’t been in a long while now, not having 100% available computer access, until today.

So it goes on in the story that Asa started causing trouble with a watergun downstairs, and I went down to referee, and decided then to also go out and check the hens. I determined then that no one had given the hens their feed, nor watered them, just that Victoria had given them the leftover Au Gratin Scalloped Potatoes I made last night (from scratch, of course.) They’d been forgotten on the table overnight, not put away, so to the hens the taters went.

It was late morning, maybe after Noon already. I opened the back door and called for Russell to help me, to water them. I went out, the sun was so bright mixed with hazy clouds, everything was super bright, and the next moment I was falling, falling, falling thinking I’d twisted or broken my ankle. Not sure which, but one seemed a surety. The step down is from the house with no step to intercede with the ground grade being quite low right there. We’ve planned all along to put a patio there and never have done anything about it. We had the deck access to the yard up to the point this year when we took those deck French Doors out of the kitchen, so our only access to the backyard from the house has since been the downstairs slab access, which is higher than 1 whole step, maybe more like 2, and I just lazy-daisy went out and fell instantly. My right foot hurt so bad, but me being a high-pain-threshold-type-person, I can’t tell you how it felt compared to anyone elses ankle twisting event. In any case I drug myself in and had Russell help me up and open the door, etc. I felt my ankle first, and couldn’t tell if it was broken or not, so stood on it and held my weight OK. It was the walking on it that sends the splintery pain shooting up. Still does. It aches, aches, gently and deeply, it isn’t puffing up though. It’s not been that long, an hour or half-an-hour more than that. I can feel it sort of hot-to-trott as I sit, and upon standing and moving, then it gets going. Going down steps is alright, up the steps is another thing. I had to go to the bathroom a bit ago, was downstairs and the pain thoughts had me use the basement bathroom, which I never use. :rolleyes:

I had to go upstairs after that though, that’s two flights of stairs that are about 8 steps or so each. The first flight hurt a bit, the second I ended up sitting down and scooting up backwards. I know that if it’s slightly hurt it’ll just get worse by using my foot. I don’t relish it getting worse. I have three younsters that’ll get away with murder possibly if so, they are super-duper-crazy children, of course, being my children. 😉

So after my twisting event UPS showed up with a box for me. It was my BIOS chip that I’d ordered. I limped down to install it, and had to struggle with the old chip a bit and standing on my twisted foot wasn’t so bad, but after awhile it started aching more and all that. So it’s up and down, it hurts more then not as much, but I can say I have never, ever had a twist that was bad, and only once maybe a sort-of-twist, and this is way worse feeling than that one.

In Gatlinburg over the 4th of July I trip upwards on a step that interceded with the sidewalk, I wasn’t looking down and smacked it hard with the top of my left foot, and that left a deep bruise that really hurt, but it didn’t inhibit my walking ability, just made me wince to put on shoes that brushed it. It’s mostly better now, but now I have a painful issue, not emergency, just bad enough to make me really mad it happened and have to deal with it not knowing for sure how bad it is, maybe something is cracked, maybe just lightly twisted, but so well done that my foot is not LOOKING different, to me, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad news.

All I know is that Frank will be home, later more so than earlier, he has a Client dude in town today and tomorrow, and won’t be able to help me though. I had something planned for dinner, but the details of it needed me to do something earlier, and this foot twist thing has me offline from my plans, so now I have to figure out a secondary thing and still finish off the soaking beans that should have been cooked already.

The good thing about this is I have been prompting Russell and Victoria to help me more in the kitchen. I actually have spent the last week or so, when home, having them look for things, bring me things, do parts of things as independently as I can get them to, and they have done well. So now I do find myself in need of their help, and hopefully they’ll do what I need. I don’t need much, just help getting things together and fixing it up, so that I don’t have to stand up and walk around, just stand some, let them do all the moving about. 🙂

The secondary cause of my unhappiness is my desktop. The BIOS chip that came is installed, but still there is nothing but lights on and fans on, no beeps, no post, no video. Urggh. We’ll get a new battery. Maybe that’s the whole problem? I may be naive, but thought it’d post, just not save BIOS settings, if the battery was dead, so then every time restarting would mean resetting. In any case, it won’t hurt to get a new battery. After that I don’t know. Maybe I’ll return the motherboard. I sure don’t have all the tools I’d need to test it. I can still take it all apart and test it out of the case to see if it runs or not, or does anything different, take off the processor, everthing. Just it’s so bothersome to do with out a good work space, and the system is dependant on a big monitor CRT type, so it’s not easily moved around. Not at all with my foot as it is now either.

Lighter note: I have a LP-Record player now too, so at least I can spin the records I hadn’t heard in so very long. Huey Lewis, for example, SPORTS. One of my old favorite albums. 🙂

Maisy

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7 responses to “Happy?”

  1. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    Marysue,
    I’m sorry about your ankle. Even if it isn’t broken, sprains can be bad and sometimes worse than breaks. Don’t overuse it till it heals. Put ice on it and prop it up. Doing too much on a sprain can make it worse. And of course if it is a break, it could get worse too. Sometimes things hurt bad at first and turn out to be minor though, so if you are ok, I am just over doing it 🙂
    I have had a sore right shoulder for months and it causes muscle pain and stiffness in my neck and back. I have no idea what is causing it and with us now living in a new area, I have not signed up with our local health care place, so I don’t have a doctor. The pain has been extra bad yesterday and a little better today. My shoulder joint is the underlying problem, but I don’t know what is wrong with it. I think that moving and lifting things has agravated it, but it hurt long before we started that. Well, I hope you feel better.

    Reply
  2. Marysue (Maisy) Avatar
    Marysue (Maisy)

    Becky, I thanks for the info. I’m not sure about it still, the little part of the foot right above the ankle on the front, it’s a bit of a puff out naturally, it feels a tad bigger than normal on that foot, but visibly I can’t see it, only feel it, and my whole ankle and foot have sort of a burning ringing feeling going on. I’ve been sitting for over an hour now, and it’s not had any weight on it. So we’ll see.

    About your shoulder, have you consider arthitic sorts of things? I know that when I was in my mid teens I used to get horrid aching in one of my upper arms, it seemed so deep and horrible. I read up on anything about anything and it seemed to be “arthritis” and responded well to such home remedies as warmth and heat and such, and faded away after a few days. I had it more than once.

    I’ve done “Eat Right 4 your type” reading and being an “O” that info does relate to O’s being more arthritic prone, but not just O’s, and I know you are not an O, just mentioning it from my perspective as I remember it, that nightshade relatives of veggies can cause reaction … and the primary ones that I love are potatoes and cauliflower.

    So I knew that info for a long while, a few years at the least. Last September I awoke with my right wrist really sore, stiff, painful if I tried to do anything with it, ah, that old “arthritic” feeling again, but in my wrist. It hurt for days, I didn’t know at first if I’d injured it somehow, but thinking on it couldn’t determine that I had. Then the Blood Type info popped into my head and I experimented and dropped pototoes from our diet entirely. I had been making them for breakfast as fried pototatoes, hash browns, etc., and mashed pototoes often for Sunday dinner or other days of the week too. The symptoms went away, but then suddenly appeared in my LEFT wrist. It was bizarre, for when I first had it in my right wrist I had determined that I’d have to use my left hand more than I had, and learn to do some things that only my right hand was good at.

    So this October when the left one started to hurt, and my right one was all better then.

    Since then we have potatoes off and on, and I sort of do see a correlation with potatoes and pain. I get it in either wrist sometimes, and sometimes it’s heavy lifting induced it seems, but dietary-wise it does seem to be something that is making me prone.

    I find that heat works to make it feel better, like in the shower, and also massage helps to relax it and make it less stiff and painful.

    I know though it’s not something I have all the time, just that it comes and goes in my wrists now. I am trying to get better veggie habits going and that will change things, or some other supplemental change in diet will. As we get more money I can implement more.

    That’s just some blah blah blah from me about my painful arthritic-feeling wrists, not that it is arthritis, but is arthritic-ish at least. I seem to recall that Sharon had arthric hands, that I heard that she did, many years back but when she was in New York and decorating cakes, I don’t know what happened with her and that situation.

    That makes me think on things and I realize that I’m in better contact with you lately than anyone else in our family.

    For me this blog has become my main communication device. It’s tough though with no computer to work on but Frank’s laptop now, I don’t really have access to email but online, and no access to the laptop most of the time.

    Oh, about your neck and back, I wanted to let you know I get really tight muscles in my back and that extends into my neck too. It hurts bad when it gets really really tight, I live with it sort of tight most of the time.

    Frank rubs it out some on occasion, but not as often as I need. I could use a deep massage every single day. But just wondered about you if you have anyone to massage your stiff areas and if that might help. I know for me it hurts, but it’s a terrible good hurt, it’s intense, but is relief to get those muscles pushed on, it’s counter weight for release, I guess. I don’t know the type of massage, what it’s called, if I have a preference, but it’s one of those deep intense methods. Press and hold on different spots is delightful too. In case that helps you at all to know.

    Reply
  3. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    Marysue,
    I know that when Sharon had arthritic hands she said she stopped drinking some kind of soda, coke or pepsi I think, and it went away. She also had rheumatic fever as a child and is very prone to rheumatoid arthritis, I would think. Anyway, I have the book eat 4 your type and since I am A, I don’t remember what exact foods they said, I didn’t agree with the book at all for me. I know some foods do certain things to me, like I retain water about 3 pound gain overnight after eating tomato sauce, and I think the book said something about A’s should eat tomato products. Like I said, I don’t remember, but I will dig it out and see what they say. I think anything is worth a try. I am more inclined to think it is a functional thing. I have slept on my stomach or right side all my life. I could never fall asleep on my back, and I can’t breath well on my left, my nose is crooked and the right passage gets blocked. I used to sleep with my right arm stretched up under my pillow, under my head. About two years ago my right shoulder joint began hurting, especially when I lay directly on my side on that shoulder. Well, I also hurt when reaching up for things, and being short, that is a lot of times. So Rick made me a step to stand on when hanging laundry on a high rod in the laundry room, that was the highest thing I did regularly. But the pain went on for months. I think it eventually went away, but in the past year, it has come back in a different way. I can’t stretch my arm over my head at night at all without pain. And most mornings, I wake up with my right neck and shoulder sore, stiff, like the muscle that runs up the side of my neck and down accross the top of my shoulder is tight. This kind of thing is what happens most of the time, and other times, I have pain that stretches down my scapula area of my right shoulder/back. This time I must have done something that agravated it, and I have the neck stiffness/pain, shoulder pain, and back pain on my scapula. It was so bad yesterday that I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Today, I had to take JC the cat to the vet and it hurt when I had to turn to look at traffic, both ways. I think that maybe I injured it from long term sleeping on it, and maybe I have re injured it over and over when reaching, but I can’t just stop reaching. I have been doing a lot of reaching lifting and carrying lately from moving in and all, and I probably injured it again. I guess it is possible that arthritis is part of it. I think that it is osteo arthritis that causes foot and toe pain and swelling from time to time, but that is another thing that I can’t just figure out why it gets inflamed sometimes and not others. Maybe there is a food connection. I will try that book, and start keeping track of my diet and try some varyations and see what happens. I think eating high carbohydrates tends to make me gain water weight, and those are also times I am more prone to inflamation. What do you think about that?

    Reply
  4. Marysue (Maisy) Avatar
    Marysue (Maisy)

    Becky, I have to dig out my Eat Right 4 Your Type book and refresh some ideas I have. I remember the O stuff best because that’s what my whole family here is, we are all O’s. 🙂

    I hedge this next thing I’m saying with a “I’m not sure”, alright? I think I recall that if you are an “A” it’s dominant over “O”, well that I do know is certain, but this is the not certain part: You have to be an “AO” so does that mean you can have some “O” issues at times …?

    I am not saying I’m 100% or even 80% in agreement with the Eat Right 4 Your Type info, but overall it’s dead-on seemingly so for the O’s that I know 😉 and part of it is that I know I love this and that food that he says is bad for me … it just may well be and that is just going to be a problem then. 🙂

    At any rate, it was a long time ago that I read that book, and I’ve re-looked at it several times. I have many other books on food I’ve read since then so it all sort of jumbles together at times.

    All in all, I do know that carbohydrates eaten should be high quality, and whole grain should be eaten, not processed and it should be freshly ground whole grain (do it yourself, or get value-added products that were made with fresh ground grain … like at Whole Foods Market …)

    Grains should be lesser in the diet than other things as well.

    I like Nourishing Traditions, which is the name of a book, you can find it in stores (special order if they don’t have a copy) and online.

    It’s a different way to approach eating, from a traditional whole foods way, old-time fermenting and just eating differently.

    It would seem overwhelming to anyone, so it’s just something to read a bit of and try a few things and take baby steps. Don’t think you have to implement anything fuller than you can. You do what you can do.

    Basically it’s a common sense approach: Eat organic veggies and fruits, don’t eat it if it makes you feel bad.

    Eat good meat and poultry and fish, get it from reputable dealers and know that it should be from farms that don’t use hormones, antibiotics, etc. Uncured bacon, and sausages are available and are so much better than cured things, IMO. Beef and chicken is better if they are grass grazed and have no junk added to them alive or dead. Coleman is the name of one alright producer of beef (or find a local farm!) Bell & Evans is the chicken producer that’s mainstream and better than the others out there (or find a local farm!)

    Anyhow, I’ll see if I can find my ER4YT book and look up A and O and see what jogs my brain, and I’ll answer more. 🙂

    Reply
  5. Marysue (Maisy) Avatar
    Marysue (Maisy)

    Oh, one thing to add: Good stuff is natural. Like sugar, the better of them is Honey, Maple Syrup, a whole sugar cane sugar like “Rapadura” brand which is the best but a dark flavor and very alive.

    Corn is not a friend in every format:

    MASA is limed and a good thing to use if it’s fresh.

    Corn Syrup is something to avoid. Cane Sugar is better.

    Corn Starch is something to avoid. Arrowroot Powder is better and works great to thicken.

    Corn and Veggy Oils and Shortening … avoid.

    Use Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive for many things.
    Other versions of Olive Oil for some things.
    Safflower and Sunflower are good oils. Always look for Expeller Pressed oils in those good ones.

    People disgree on it, but there are those that view Canola as bad. I do. No need to use it anyhow. Olive and the others above are better, and applicable to any use you have for oil.

    I didn’t always like Extra Virgin Olive Oil, it was strong flavored, but now I love it. I use it in anything. It’s fruity and so aromatically loverly! 🙂

    Cereal we rarely get, but get organic types of rice and wheat and Kamut and Spelt varieties.

    Read labels. Frank hates that about me. 😉 I discount 80% of what he shows me.

    Here’s the ingredients list to an OK cereal:
    —————–
    Enviro Kidz Organic Koala Crisp

    Organic brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane juice, organic cocoa, chocolate flavor, sea salt, organic molasses, and rice bran extract.
    ————–

    Nourishing Traditions is not in favor of dry cereals, and I am not either. I don’t think they are the healthiest things, and the above type is one to add to a breakfast “just because” and it isn’t full of corn, corn syrup and such other bad things.

    Just to let you know how I feel when I eat cereal, most make me feel bloated fast. I have pinned that to Corn, and Oats, and something else that isn’t cereal that does that is Potatoes. But decent Potato Chip doesn’t do that to me.

    I also use Sea Salt for everything. Kosher Salt is OK to use as well.

    Potato Chips are available done in Olive Oil with Sea Salt now … sometimes another of the good oils, even Lay’s makes one! They have a whole line of more natural snacks now.

    The big thing to remember is serving size. It’s easy to go overboard on chips, cereal, and anything else you like. 🙂

    — To tack on my foot … my right foot is definitely a tad swollen, it’s like it would feel if I was retaining water, pre-m-ish, but it’s just my foot, so it’s not that 😉 Anyhow, it’s the outside part of my ankle, right below the bone a whole half-circle sort of area that goes up to the inside part of the ankle … it’s basically the action of bending the foot that causes pain. I can walk on my heel and shuffle around that way, but that hurts a bit, but with no other way to get around that isn’t bad. I can’t walk normal, that hurts too much, and to turn a corner I have to walk sideways as straight as I can so that my foot doesn’t bend. I can’t put it up, it’s impossible in a house with three children and hubby out. I slept with it up on a pillow in bed, and that was hard, a painful night. I usually sleep on my left side or my back, but though this seems best for a right foot injury, even that wasn’t satisfactory for resting. So I wasn’t that comfy in my sleep at all.

    It’s not that it hurts that bad, it’s just achy and hurts some and wincy pain comes and goes if it’s touched or moved wrong. It’s not been 24-hours yet, so we’ll see how it goes. When Frank gets home I will get him to cut down a broom for me to use as a walking stick. That will aide me superbly. 🙂 I have awhile to wait for that. He was home last night, but after dinner. I had Russell help me make spaghetti, and I was able to stay sitting for a lot of it. Anyway it’s nice for Russell, to have to help me more it’s good training. 🙂

    Reply
  6. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    Marysue,
    Thanks for all the tips. I have known about the processed forms of things being bad for a few years now, and rarely buy processed, except for Daniel and sometimes Rick. I have never been much of a bread eater and I just don’t eat it. Since starting low carb style eating in 2003, I have not been eating any cereal either. I ate a bowl of cereal with milk every day of my life till then. I have been eating eggs, scrambled, nothing added, except butter to cook them in. I know that butter is not great either, but I just don’t like the taste of eggs cooked in oil. I use olive oil for most things, but I do have canola oil to use for things that don’t taste good with olive oil, but I go through olive oil many times before going through the canola. In fact I can’t remember when I bought the last one, I was going to through the bottle away when we moved but the movers taped up the cap so it wouldn’t spill and shipped it. Anyway, I know my diet is not perfect or I would be a normal weight. My biggest problem has been chocolate, but since leaving my last job, my weight has dropped about 10 so far, just from not eating chocolate. I found my eat 4 your type book and the advise I don’t like is that I should eat like a vegetarian. I don’t think I can ever do that. I mainly eat beef, pork, chicken, and salmon along with a vegetable, like broccoli, cauliflower, or green beans. I have stayed away from corn for the most part, although I have broke down from time to time and got corn on the cob when in season, but I know it is such a starchy vegetable. My diet is lacking in fruits, I have never been much of a fruit eater. I can eat blueberries, strawberries, and red grapes, but I absolutely hate melons. I have bought apples, bananas, and other fruits in the past and no one ate them and they went bad, so I just don’t get them anymore. Rick has been asking me to make at least one “meatless” meal per week lately. He wants mainly pasta dishes then. I don’t make pasta to eat for myself anymore, since a meal with mainly carbs means that I will be hungry later, and will puff up from retaining water.

    Reply
  7. Marysue (Maisy) Avatar
    Marysue (Maisy)

    Becky, BUTTER IS GOOD!

    I suggest you find a better butter though, one made a European way, which is cultured.

    Butter is phenomenal in the flavour it imparts and it is healthy, it does seem to bring overall bad cholesterol levels down in people studied with high cholesterol, I know I’ve read.

    In any case, it’s natural and I didn’t mean to leave it out, it’s such an every day thing with me I didn’t think of it.

    I’ve used butter ever since I had my own money. I knew when I was a child that I would do that. 🙂

    Since knowning more about dairy, as I have since researching raw milk, I have used “cultured butter”.

    Currently to buy it in the store it’s priced here at $5.69 or so a pound. We get it on sale when we can.

    Cultured or European Cultured are butters that are … cultured. 🙂 Very super tasty.

    Other butter is either salted or unsalted, that’s mainstream butter and is disgusting compared to cultured butter, or even sweet milk raw butter.

    The best butter is cultured cream, or raw cream made into a culture if it’s not already cultured, then churned until butter comes. No salt is added.

    Sweet Cream Salted Butter is usually “salted” to hide rancidity … and you never really know how old it is … so it has a longer shelf life. Unsalted Butter shows rancidity faster.

    Culturing makes products last longer. And taste better, and are better for you.

    So for us it’s that we buy a decent butter since we can’t make one econmically ourselves. I have done so one time, and it ended up the best butter I’d ever had, but pricey … over $16 a pound. Cream is overpriced on the dairy market, and even the raw milk dairies that sell milk to customers like our family do not sell us cream for any reasonable price. It’s crazy. Milk has cream in it and it weighs the same as the milk. It rises after sitting. I can skim it off to save for butter, but I have to get a lot of cream to make the butter I use. Jersey cows are what give good milk, and that’s the sort of dairy we buy milk from in SC. The milk can be skimmed and still have more cream in it than “whole milk” in the store, it’s that creamy. I like it totally whole though, not skimmed at all, it’s so much better than 3% milk!

    Look for Brown Cow Whole Milk Yogurt with Cream on Top if you want to try a good yogurt, it’s very rich and full of good stuff. Use it to make a fruit smoothie.

    We are currently getting butter made by the california dairy “Straus Family Creamery”. You probably have some very good resources for things on that side of the continent where you are.

    I know that ER4YT says that O’s shouldn’t eat dairy hardly ever. Get a life, I say to him about that. I love raw stuff, and there is plenty of info through the Westin A Price foundation that proves out traditional old fashioned “raw” dairy is healthy and cultured products are healthy, and many modern day processed things are modernized cultured products, so just get the base ingredients and make it yourself, or get the real old fashioned product from some company that does make it the old way.

    According to ER4YT I should eat a decent amount of fish. That’s not wrong, per se, but it’s anti-me, I am not fishy. I am supposed to eat beef as beneficial to me. Chicken is not beneficial not harmful. I can say I get a satisfaction from beef, amen. 🙂 I can live without chicken meat.

    Eggs, I like them alright. I should seeing as I have laying hens. 🙂 I haven’t always tolerated them well, and found that having them in my backyard has allowed me to have a better egg and that is tolerated better.

    I have a very sensitive system, and also figure into it vaccinations that can possibly have messed me up to have problems with eggs … the more time that goes on the possibilities to be release from that problem, I’m guessing, are higher.

    Scrambled eggs in butter, lots of it, cooked gently, ah… a smidgen of sea salt, and even a dash or two of Tabasco sauce sometimes. 🙂

    About Pasta, try to find Spelt Pasta, or Kamut Pasta, see if you can tolerate that better. They are older cousins of modern wheat and I find them nourishing and not like other pastas.

    My Whisper Mill broke and the company disappeared with our unit there for repair. So I’m without a grain grinder since last Autumn. 🙁 I used to make bread that was nourishing and not bloaty feeling, it made me feel better and not get so hungry. I made Kamut Pasta and it’s nearly heavenly. Sigh. I miss it. I need a grinder.

    I have found the only pastas in the store that I like which don’t make me feel too icky are whole grain, or a premium italian brand that you could find in a gourmet store. For whatever reason.

    That’s enough chatter for now. I haven’t gotten to looking for that book yet.

    Reply

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