On a more serious note, I'm afraid I've gotten a real wake-up call medically. I've always had bad health. so I'm sort of just used to it and accept it, but after my physical last week I discovered:
I've had a tendency to have high cholesterol for about 15 years now, but it usually never goes over about 260 and my HDL (good) is usually pretty high. I'm adopted so new health problems are always a surprise to me, my mom has been battling high cholesterol and hypertension for most of her adult life and I don't want to have to do the same thing. The only time I've ever been able to get my number below 200 was when I had been seriously following the Atkins diet for several months. I'm supposed to still be on it, but I've fallen way off the wagon the last six months or so, eating way too much bread and sugar. I was on a low fat diet for years and my cholesterol kept going up, so I'm going to have to try the low carb route again. Apparently I'm insulin resistant. My husband is proportionately as or more overweight than I am, and his reading is 169. He's lucky to have great genetics. At least my blood pressure is still lower than normal.
Having MS, it's hard for me to exercise regularly, actually it was hard before also, I've never had any aerobic endurance at all. The only thing I've found I'm good at, like and work well for me is anaerobic exercise, i.e. weightlifting. I've always wanted my own big multi-station home gym, and would have one right now if it were up to me, but Sparky is maniacally opposed to it. When I got my results in the mail today, though, I told him I've got to do something and soon. So he at least agreed to bring my weight bench back in from the nasty outside storage room he stashed it in against my will, and to let me bring some of my free weights back into the house. Now all I have to do is actually use them.
I've been promising myself I'm going to make a serious try at doing yoga regularly also, I've got enough videos to open my own studio. We have a 24 hour gym a few miles away from us, but the damned thing is booked solid every time I've ever driven by it, even in the middle of the night. Years ago we hopefully bought a Health Rider, which I think I used a dozen times and it sits in our garage taking up space and reminding me daily what a failure I am and Sparky of the $700 bucks he spent on it. Hmm, I wonder if he'd let me bring it back in the house...
The fibroids are sort of scary, I had a lot of female problems in my 20's and have always been much more worried about getting cancer down there than up top. I did a lot of research on the internet and found some great sites that made me feel a little better about having them. But now whenever my abdomen hurts, I know why and it really bugs me. When the doctor was examining me I felt them, they hurt like hell! Fortunately I'm not planning on having children, but I still don't want to start having problems. I've been on birth control pills for 21 years now, and just had her change me to new ones (Loestrin, which I start next week) that are supposed to be better for 40+ year olds, because I seriously believe I'm well into perimenopause now, I feel like crap when I'm off my BC pills. But I don't smoke so I'm going to keep taking them as long as I can. When I'm on them I have hardly any period to speak of, and the last few months I haven't had any at all, which is fine with me.
For info on uterine fibroids check out:
Sex, Lies and Uterine Fibroids (awesome site!)
National Uterine Fibroids Foundation
Medline's Page on Uterine Fibroids
Lots going on around here but before this gets too old, I wanted to put it up online...
I don't watch reality TV with the exception of Cops and the Osbournes, but when I heard about the Sci Fi Channel's Mad Mad House I thought, it's got real witches, pagans, and vampires, why not? At first I thought the Alts (alternative lifestyle role models) were going to be actors, but then I recognized a few of them and realized this might actually be interesting.
Their early contests seemed pretty silly, but the more I watched the more respect I had for the Alts and (some) of the house guests. I'm still sad to have seen Bonnie go, she was my pick, but she came into the situation with an open mind (she had called for her son to participate, but he was too young so they asked her "Would you like to?") and a less greedy soul than the other participants and was such an inspiration and stabilizing element I understand why they had to let her go.
A few weeks into watching the series (when I still thought it was sort of silly) I received an email from the producers of the show wanting to interview me about Season Two of the show, from the standpoint of my being part of the Alternative lifestyle crowd. I have turned lots of people down for interviews, I only will do them in writing or by email, but now as the series has progressed into a more serious and introspective trial, I sort of wish I had accepted their offer. I'm a very private, shy person who is not particularly eloquent at speaking and not at all photogenic, but I do like to write, as you can tell. I gave the producers some info on what I considered more hardcore Wiccans and Goths to contact, I don't really feel I'm knowledgeable enough to provide really in depth information to them, I just know my own experience, which has been pretty solitary. But it was nice to be asked anyway, and I received a very nice email reply and was thanked for the contacts I was able to provide them with. I'm looking forward to season two, one of the alternative lifestyle themes they asked about was particularly dark and I sent them to the only authority I knew on the subject. You'll have to wait till next season to see what the subject is, though ;-)
Last night's episode was really incredible. I know people in reality shows are known for their plotting and backstabbing of each other, and I hate to see the guests trying to manipulate the emotions of the Alts, but last night the Alts turned all that energy back upon the guests and next week should be really intense as they face the consequences of their own treachery (he he). Don's energy sucking ritual was interesting, I do believe in energy vampires, I've known some people who actually have that effect on people without even knowing they're doing it, and, being an empath, I try to avoid them at all costs. The Goth on Goth bloodletting was interesting, I wondered how they were legally going to do that. Next week it looks like the guests are going to be drinking blood for themselves, I'm guessing it will probably be from a pig, though, not another human.
I've always considered myself to be really open minded, but I have to say after watching this show for the last month or so, I feel even more open minded towards people with piercings and multiple tattoos. Art is such a sweetheart, how could you not love him? Actually tattoos never bothered me really, but as I said in an earlier post, I'm very much a piercing wussy. Unlike Sparky, I do understand why people want to decorate their bodies in such personal, permanant ways, it's just not for me. It took me till my mid-twenties to get my ears pierced. I had traumatic experiences in grade school with a friend who had pierced ears and was constantly accidentally ripping her earrings out through her earlobes when she was brushing her hair, etc. But, the back of my car has lots of bumper stickers (including a Dean for President that I haven't taken off yet) so I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve also.
Yea! Friday Five is back, I was getting a little worried...
1. What do you do for a living? I work at home selling things on eBay.
2. What do you like most about your job? I can work all night and sleeip all day, and I don't have to leave the house or deal with the public daily.
3. What do you like least about your job? I never stop working, I don't have set start and stop times.
4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because ... Someone is being particularly rude or stupid abut something, but at least it's by email.
5. What other career(s) are you interested in? I'd like to write a book.
Omigawd, I was playing with the URL of my error message and tried typing in one different number and the damned thing worked! I just went in and put my form back in and changed the value from 4 to 1, and now it's working, go figure. After over a year I still don't understand how everything works on MT, but at least now I can sleep tonight, err.. today ;-)
Dammit! I'm so close to getting my search form to work I could scream, but I'm afraid it's bedtime now... I've gotten it to go from an internal 500 error to "Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at lib/MT/App/Search.pm line 173.", and, after fixing the permissions on the mt-search.cgi file, I can actually get the search page to open and work (link top right), I just can't get the form to work.... grrr....
I think I just need to upgrade the whole thing, but I keep hearing about bugs in the latest release, oh well, that will be my project for tomorrow.