We’re having the coldest, wettest Memorial Day Weekend here in the Northwest that I can remember. It hasn’t made it up to 60 degrees in days. Yesterday hubby and I participated in a Rally for the Cure golf tournament. It was so cold! It rained off and on the whole time, too. Our team didn’t make fools of ourselves, luckily. We didn’t win any prizes, either. Came in at about the middle of the pack. There were moments of great fun, despite the cold and rain.

I must say, that since my naturopath gave me that dose of homeopathic Platina the other day, my head has been amazingly clear. I knew I was a bit fuzzy most of the days, and it would clear up mid-afternoon, but didn’t realize how chronic it was until it was gone. She said to be really careful with it and not take it very often. It’s pretty potent stuff.

Today’s plan is for daughter and me to get the dog groomed. He’s pretty scruffy and stinky. It will be pretty easy to eat compliantly over this holiday weekend. We don’t have any plans to eat out with friends. Should be pretty low-key.

Jim's song lyrics are getting to me, I've gotta do it, too.

Well, I went to the dreaded Dr appointment to get the bad news about my blood tests…NOT!! What a surprise, things have been working! Total cholesterol dropped from 248 to 197. HDL up from 57 to 61, LDL down to 119 from 166. Triglycerides were down to 59 from 125. The whole heart risk ratio went from 4.2 down to 3.1 – which translates into practically no heart risk at all. Glucose dropped from 113 to 96. A1C was pretty steady at 5.6. Anyway, this really has had me pumped all day. So, the plan for the next 3 or 4 months is to stop the Red Rice Yeast to see if the cholesterol goes back up, or if the dietary and stress level changes are effective enough in keeping it down. I’m also cutting the blood pressure remedy in half. Talk about an incentive to keep on going in the right direction. I’m ready to take the straight and narrow path! The Doc also gave me a homeopathic dose of something called Platina. It is supposed to help me with these feelings of apathy and malaise I’ve been experiencing lately.

We bought a new refrigerator, and it was delivered today. Hubby and I decided that if daughter was going to be living in the house for any length of time, then she has to keep her food separate from ours. So, we moved the old fridge into the utility room and she can keep all the junk foods and carbohydrates she wants to in there. Just so they are out of our sight. There’s only so much we can do with will power. And sometimes, late at night, just before bedtime, my guard weakens, and I’ve stuffed something sweet or bready of hers into my mouth. (YUM!)

Okay, then .. upward and onward!

I feel like some kind of whiner. I have had a glitch in my right hip for over a week now, and can’t pinpoint how, when or where it happened. The chiropractor has jumped on it; the massage therapist has dug down deep to fix it. And lots of stretching exercises in between. The pain keeps moving around. It’s in a different place every day. I got a new pain today. It’s a tendon in my right ankle that sometimes acts up from overuse. And I have not been overusing at all. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I have been letting too many avoids creep into my diet. It has been really difficult to be on track all the time this winter and spring. Thursday is my appointment with destiny. Or, I mean with my naturopath. Had the blood test last Friday to see if the old cholesterol has made a tumble or not. I have been keeping a blood pressure log for her. That has really stabilized. In fact, sometimes I think it has gotten a little too low. Maybe we will tweak the supplements at the appointment.

So, anyway I played a really lousy game of golf today. Now I’m off to a music staff meeting then three-hour rehearsal. Why do both my hobbies happen on the same day?

If I keep going, I’m going to start whining even louder.

I was a little bit disgruntled last night. We had tickets to the show Rent. And we’ve had them for a long time. Hubby has said all theater season that he wanted to go. So, the show was last night, and I had printed a synopsis of the show for him off of the Rent website so that he could know the story before we went. Well, about three hours before the show, he decides he doesn’t like the story and he doesn’t want to go. Too late for me to find anyone to replace him as company. I should have just gone by myself, but that would have wasted a ticket, so I turned both of the tickets back in as a donation to the theater. They always sell remaining tickets to students for very cheap. So, anyway, a couple people got to see the show for a good price and in excellent seats. I don’t think hubby realizes that I really would have liked to see the show. I rationalize it by thinking he would have been miserable, and that would have spoiled my enjoyment of the show, too.

So, instead we went to a restaurant for dinner with the daughter. Stayed pretty compliant with grilled marlin, string beans and jasmine rice. I did have a piece of grilled bread drizzled with olive oil. That was my only transgression. And I took two bites of daughter’s dessert. My tummy woke me up in the middle of the night. Boy, I can’t get away with anything!

And, now, today we are moving daughter back home. She didn’t stay away very long at all! I don’t even think it has been a month since we moved her out. Things just didn’t work out trying to live with her girlfriend. She is a very manipulative and demanding person. So, anyway, now daughter’s plan is to finally go back to school. She has been out of high school for four years now. She never showed any interest in going to college until now. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that she will continue on this path. She needs a real life. Not just living with Mom and Dad and working for them, too!

I’ve sung my medley. Eat well.

I’m trying not to let the annoying irritations in life cause stress in my body. It is hard. This has been a frustrating week. We are trying to convert and merge our database in our two stores and it has turned into a bigger nightmare than I care to elaborate upon. Every time I try to talk about it, I get more and more tense. Monday and Tuesday each seemed like a week long. But, today I took a break from stress. Had a private session at the Pilates studio, and we worked on a lot of things, like form and working out some lazy habits that I have fallen in to.

Later in the afternoon I had a hot-rock massage. A hot-rock massage is like heaven. My massage person always plays Mozart for me, instead of the New Age stuff that is supposed to be soothing and relaxing. That kind of music puts me on edge for some reason. So, I’m feeling pretty good right now. I’ll try to keep it going for as long as I can.

This hasn’t been a relaxing Sunday at all! After a hefty session in the exercise room, I have been cleaning house all afternoon. I’m ready to collapse now, but there are a few piles of laundry to wash, dry, hang and fold yet. I spent the last two days having fun, so I do deserve a day of work. Played golf both Friday and Saturday mornings. It is very unusual for me to get up for a 9:00 am tee time, but they were ladies tournaments and they always start early. On Friday we invited ladies from other clubs to come play, so I met some new people. And Saturday was our regular monthly tournament day. I can’t say as I played all that well, but my legs are slowly getting in shape to manage the uneven terrain of the course. I do have a chiropractor appointment Tuesday to get the kinks taken out of my lower back and shoulder.

Food has been difficult. I haven’t eaten many meals at home for the past few days. And even though I have tried to choose compliant foods, I know there have been some avoids creeping in. We were invited for cocktails last night at a friend’s house. I ate some shrimp tempura that was an avoid. I also ingested some wheat. There were dark circles under my eyes this morning from the indiscretions. But today I’ve had eggs and pineapple juice and a handful of nuts, so far. Hubby is making a turkey sausage casserole for dinner. All the ingredients are beneficial or neutral for me. I do seem to have a problem with some of the spices in the turkey sausage, but for some reason he never hears me when I tell him that I react badly to it. And he tries so hard to cook for me! So, I will try to eat around the sausage. There will be mozzarella cheese in it for protein.

Someone commented that being a B, my cholesterol problems are more likely to be from stress than from food. That could be encouraging. I have had much less stress these past few months. I am working less, so probably any real stresses I have are from my own imagination. It just reminds me that I must get back to convincing myself to learn meditation. I have tried to do it on my own, but lose interest fast. I will have to keep on the lookout for a class. Does yoga count as meditation? I’ve never studied yoga. What do you think?

It’s been really difficult to find time to sit and blog this week. I don’t like to let so many days pass. But I’m here now, so will get on with things.

I’ve done something that makes me very nervous. I made an appointment with my naturopath. It is time for me to see her for a six-month follow-up visit. She started me on red yeast rice in December for my cholesterol, and she also wanted me to cut out some of the saturated fats I was eating. I have made the appointment for Thursday May 27th. And I have to take the blood tests no later than May 21st. That gives me just about a week to get my blood levels perfect. See why I’m nervous? I’m so afraid I haven’t been eating perfectly enough to get my levels where they should be. I have cut my egg consumption from two every day, down to the LYFYT recommended portions of 5-6 per week. Instead of half&half in my morning cup of java, I am using 1% milk. I judiciously cut every visible piece of fat off of my beef and lamb. And I remove the skin from turkey. We use very little butter in our cooking, so I don’t think that has ever been a problem. Will this be enough? I would like to think so and will keep my fingers crossed.

My glucose level was a tad over 100 at my visit in December, but we couldn’t really determine from my food diary what was causing this. A1C level was just fine. The only suggestion was to cut down on my alcohol intake. I haven’t done very well with that. I’m also three pounds heavier now than I was at the December visit. That is a result of my love of “good times”. Avoidance foods and lots of any kind of food always seem to turn up at “good times”. I also was tasked at that time to rev up my aerobic exercise. That has been hit and miss, too.

Okay, I ‘ve voiced my fears. And I know what I should have been doing. I’m afraid I haven’t done enough. At least going to see the good Dr. will give me another push toward better compliance and better health.

It has not been the best week for BTD here. To begin with, on Tuesday, I took my daughter to lunch. I don’t normally eat lunch in a restaurant. I usually just eat a yogurt or some low-fat cottage cheese in the afternoons. So, it was a bigger meal than usual. A salmon, rice and vegetable bowl. I’m afraid there was quite a bit of sesame oil in the dressing, and that is a big avoid for me. Then, Tuesday evening the chorus had its annual Installation Dinner. It was a buffet, and for some reason I decided I wanted to taste things like potato salad, macaroni salad and garlic bread. They weren’t even that tasty. I really should have had more will power. So, that gave me two big meals in one day. Way too many calories along with too many avoids.

On Thursday, we got impulsive and took a road trip to visit a college my daughter is interested in. The college is located on the opposite side of the state. It took a little over five hours to drive there. After looking around for a couple of hours, we drove all the way back on the same day. It was really exhausting! For food…..well, I really don’t hang around fast food places, but we stopped at an Arby’s and had one of their low-carb wraps. I guess the only neutral foods in it were the turkey and vegetables. I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. But it was food. It was after 9:00 PM when we hit town, and we went to a local restaurant that was still serving. Ack! Had a martini, Calamari (neutral, but high in cholesterol) and an Italian sausage salad. I’m not sure of the ingredients in all that, but I was too tired to care. So, needless to say, the three pounds I lost while feeling ill have attached themselves back to my midsection.

Tonight won’t be much better. We have been invited up to my niece’s in Seattle for her 30th birthday. My sister and husband are visiting, and it will be a good family time. I will eat what is served. So, beginning SUNDAY, I will reach down into my gut and pull myself out of the bad eating and no aerobics rut I’ve gotten myself in to, and I will GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!

Well, Friday’s golf game wasn’t anything to write home about. I was still feeling a little punk from the cold, so only walked the first half, and hitched a ride with one of my playing partners for the second nine holes. Still, made it through without making a complete fool of myself. Managed to eat compliantly all day, too. As long as I bring plenty of backup Boomibars, I don’t get tempted to stray into Avoidland. Even if I only eat one bar along the way, as long as I have a bunch with me, I feel safe.

Had to get up early Saturday. Our Small Chorus (just twelve of us from the big chorus) had a sing-out in the morning. We earn money for the chorus by getting hired out to sing. So, we went to the director’s house early to rehearse. The rehearsals are always longer than the actual performance, of course. Then we had to drive about 35 minutes to the church where we were singing. We did a great job, if I say so myself. We hadn’t sung as a group since the Holidays, so it was a surprise we hung together as well as we did.

I was home by 1:00 PM, and was wiped out already! Ate a couple of eggs, and went in to the store to check on how the day was going over there. Then hubby took me for a motorcycle ride. The afternoon was so gorgeous we had to get out and enjoy it. It was a leisurely Saturday evening at home. Lamb steak and broccoli for dinner. Norman didn’t rear his ugly head all day long!

Today, I feel like I’ve been trying to slog through quicksand all day. The energy level feels like it’s at about 30 percent. After reading the Sunday papers, Hubby and I went out to the golf course to play nine holes. I just couldn’t hold anything together out there. Swinging the driver was like trying to maneuver a sledgehammer. It was pretty darn ugly. I’m ready to forget about it now. Looks like fresh salmon and salad for dinner tonight. Norman was slinking around the freshly crafted breads at the grocery store, but I ignored him.

I’m going to have to look up some kind of Spring Tonic in my juicing book. I’m tired of dragging myself around. I know I’m still recovering from the virus. But, I’ve let the juicing fall by the wayside AGAIN. I must get back to it. It always makes me feel better.