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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| The past few days have been pretty unproductive, despite my muse, Menissa's return. Why? My nose! Not really just my nose, but it started there and spread quickly through my head. I'm talking about a tickle and some sneezing that soon became a running and irritated nose. Then it began to stuff up and build pressure in my sinuses. From the sinuses, it's moved into the ears a bit, mostly pressure to create a bit of vertigo. First Harley had it, all stuffed up and congested, then she was done and El had it. It's one of those colds that only hangs on until it's passed to another, it seems. El was plugged up for about three days before she started to get over it; I was starting to catch it. Now, I should be about over it; I'm going on day three of this. Will I pass it to Rhonda? I hope not. It's not a bad cold, nobody seems to get a fever with it, nor do they seem to have any other symptoms. El did have a touch of a sore throat, but only because of it being irritated by her sinuses draining. My only symptoms are stuffiness, sinus pressure, and being a bit tired. I tend to not get enough sleep, probably part of the reason I caught this. But this week, I"ve been getting to bed early as well as taking a morning nap after everyone's gone off to work and school. My muse is still hanging around. Menissa's eager to write a little something, but it's difficult to focus when my nose burns, I'm stuffed up, and I spend more time sleeping while everyone's gone. Maybe today, after my nap... |
| I did set up another journal for my Keto journey, so I will continue to use this one for whatever else strikes my fancy. What a strange phrase, "strike one's fancy". First off, what is one's fancy? Secondly, why would you want anyone or anything to strike it? But, that's not what I came in here to write about. There are many strange sayings and we could ponder them through the day. I think, by the time we discovered the origin and true meaning of one, there would be two more. No, today I wanted to write a little welcome back entry for my muse. She has been missing for a few years now, and no matter where I looked, she was no place to be found. I thought, "She's left me for a younger writer." But that was not the case. We are still intimately close, now that she's back. Seriously, can one get more intimate than sharing our innermost thoughts? She guides me into the mystical worlds of my mind sharing her thoughts and emotions as we travel these strange and often wonderful worlds. It's funny, in a non-humorous sort of way. We are so close yet I do not know her name. I reckon we will have to take care of that problem forth-with! Anyway, I was reading through the Newsfeed a few days back and saw a contest for writing one, the first, chapter. Now, without my muse, I would ponder the idea of writing to a prompt and possibly spend a few days trying to find something worthy of writing, only to come up blank and frustrated. That's how it works when my muse is gone. But when I look at the prompt and pondered what I could write this time, her sweet, soothing voice began whispering in my mind's ear some ideas. I had to open my word processor as we discussed ideas, plots, and where this could go. Of course, weekends are not a good time for me to write, so many interruptions and things going on, so I decided to wait until today to process these thoughts and ideas further. Even though she agreed, she continued to whisper her excitement and joy that we would once again be creating yet another story together... Yes, when I settled down from my excitement of having her back by my side, I asked her why she had left; was it something I had done? She smiled, in a musing sort of way, and said no, you did not do anything. I have missed you as greatly as you have missed me. She blushed, in my mind, and said, "This is pretty embarrassing, but I need to tell you." She paused for a moment, then continued, "I had some ideas for some poems I wanted to share with you, but I needed to go for a bit of a journey to see those places again. I didn't figure I would be gone for very long, maybe a day or two, then I would be home again and we could take my ideas and write some beautiful poetry." I was going to ask her about those poem ideas, but she put her hand up, gently touching my lips, and hushed me. "I looked, I thought, and I was heading back to you. But, well this is where it gets embarrassing. I forgot where we lived. I remembered the place in South Dakota, but I never pay much attention to things like moving, work, or any of that reality crap. You know me, I live in fantasy and fiction and only deal with reality in poetry." She looked about ready to cry and I longed to hold her close to me, to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay. But before I could, she rushed forwards to me, crashing into me and squeezing me in her embrace. Then she looked up into my eyes, her gold irises with the beautiful blue borders were big, shining, and wet with the tears she was no longer holding back. "I couldn't remember where to go, so I went to the house in South Dakota and waited for you to return. Then, I remembered, we don't live there anymore. In desperation, I searched in every direction but I could not find my way home. I had just about given up any hopes of us being together again. I sat down in a field of snow and cried out with my mind for you, and then, I heard your mind crying out to me. I locked on to your thoughts, your please for me to return, and they carried me over the miles of snow and ice, and then... And then we were together again." |
| I started the Keto diet on New Year's Day. Since I need to log calories and macro-nutrients, I also started using a fitness site to track my daily intakes. The site provides a blog for whatever I want to blog about, but since it's a diet/fitness site and I'm doing Keto for the first time, I decided it would be a great place to blog about my Keto adventure. No, a few hours later, I have to figure out where I left off and what I was going to say... Weekends! I tell you, it's almost impossible to do anything that requires concentration and no interruptions. If it's not the kids, it's my wife! So, as I was saying, I started a blog on the diet/fitness site to post my updates as well as to share with my friends and family who are also on that site. But, there is no way to share it with them unless they find it shortly after I post. There are no links on my profile for them to follow, and even when I try to post the link in my feed, it won't allow any links. The only way anyone can access my post is to look for recent forum posts and try and find mine. So, I decided it would be easier to blog about my journey here, in WdC, and let them know in my feed over there when I have updated it. Sure, they will have to save the link since they are not member's here, but that's easy enough to do after I send it to them. In fact, my wife often visits my port and has it saved in her browser. So, my question was, "Do I blog about my Keto journey here, in my blog, or do I start a separate journal just for Keto and my fitness journey?" With the interruptions this morning as soon as I settled in to write, and since I sometimes blog here to vent, the answer is clear, start a new journal just for that. Thanks for the help... |
| This is a continuation of the previous entry. I called the clinic, again. I talked to the same person who told me again that I couldn't get the prescription refilled until I scheduled an appointment. I told her I had one for next Monday. She then told me that the psychologist would call in a refill after the meeting. I explained that my granddaughter was out and needed it filled right away. She let out a loud sigh and explained in a frustrated voice that she cannot prescribe medications, only the doctor can, and that I needed to see him to get the prescriptions refilled. I asked how soon I could set up an appointment. She looked and replied she could get me in today. "What time?" I asked. "He's open right now, would you like to set up an appointment?" "Yes." "Okay, would you prefer to meet with him through Zoom or over the phone?" "Over the phone, please." "One minute and I'll transfer you." It was a couple of minutes, and he wanted to speak to my granddaughter. I explained she wasn't home, but I needed to get her medications refilled. I explained what had taken place and he checked his appointments. "So, you canceled the meeting next month and rescheduled it for Monday?" "Yes, but I need to get her medications refilled right away, she's out." He said he would get them sent in right away and see us next week for our appointment. He apologized for the confusion and asked if there was anything else. I couldn't resist asking him if the front office was staffed by morons. "Some days it seems like it. Let me know if you have any other problems getting the medications refilled." I bid him good day and hung up. I didn't even have my phone set down when the clinic called and told me that I needed to call my pharmacy and have them contact them to get these prescriptions refilled. I didn't even try to explain anything. I called the pharmacy, again. Explained that I had talked to the doctor and he was going to have the medications refilled. I explained that the receptionist had called me right after meeting with the doctor and informed me to have you (the pharmacist) call them to get the refills. I also explained that they were currently staffed by morons, so if there're any more problems, I apologize in advance. I have not heard anything back, so I'm hopeful that the refills were finally approved. |
| Yes, today's topic is morons. Sorry, this is kind of a rant, but I need to vent before I get back on the phone. A short history of the situation may be needed. We adopted our granddaughters and are trying to provide a stable and healthy home for them. One is on medication for anxiety, ADD, and sleep problems. Everything seems to be working well so there is no current need to change or alter her medications, which are prescribed through a psychologist who she meets with through Zoom. A few months ago she met with him, he asked how she was doing, if she needed anything changed, and a few other basic questions. Since everything was alright, he sent in her prescriptions and that was it. The whole meeting took about five minutes and she was done. The last thing he told us was that she should see him again in about three months unless anything changed. The pharmacy filled the prescriptions, and when they ran out, we had them refilled. Now she needs them refiled again, but the psychologist only set up two months. The pharmacy called the clinic and was told no refills until she meets with the doctor. Today I called the clinic and explained that she was out of medication and needed a refill and that she has an appointment with the psychologist next month, as he requested. I was told to have the pharmacy call them and they would refill our granddaughter's prescriptions. I did earlier this morning. About an hour ago, the pharmacy called me and informed me that the prescriptions cannot be refilled until I schedule an appointment. Since they don't have anything to do with any of it, I thanked them and told them I would try and get things straightened out. I called the clinic again, talked to the same person, who said I needed to schedule an appointment. I told her I have one set up. I explained that I had them set it up after our grandaughter had met with the doctor and that she would see him next month, as he requested. She said she would talk to the doctor and get back to me. About twenty minutes ago, the clinic called back and had me cancel the appointment for next month and set one up for next week. I did. I explained again that I needed refills on her prescriptions and was told that I should have seen on the bottles that there was only one refill and set up an appointment for the doctor before that ran out. I asked her if I was supposed to schedule by the refills or by the doctor's request. "Well, you should do what the doctor told you." I explained it all again, told her I have an appointment for next Monday and asked if they could please refill the prescriptions. She asked if my granddaughter was out. "Yes." "You need to call your pharmacy and have them call in the prescription so it can get filled right away." That was the reply. I have recalled the pharmacy, tried to explain the madness, and asked them if they could try and call it in again. The lady said that she would do that right away. Right before I started this post, she called me back and said that the clinic will refill the prescriptions as soon as I set up an appointment. Again, I explained it and told her I would call the psychologist again and try and get it figured out. |
| I updated my "handle" and found an interesting picture to adorn my port and go along with my new journey in Keto. If you're not familiar with the Keto diet, it's basically another low carb diet but it includes a higher fat intake. I know, how can you lose weight by eating more fat? It's kind of a difficult thing to explain in a short blog post, but there is a lot of information available online. My reasoning was a bit simpler, I have been having some problems with eating carbs. Simple carbs seem to upset my stomach, leave me feeling tired and run down, interfere with sleeping all night, inflammation, aching joints, and worsen an old back injury. It took quite a bit of time and food logging to find the problem, but after a few weeks on the Keto diet plan, I know now for sure it was the carbs. Of course, I could all but eliminate simple carbs and still eat healthier ones, but with six pounds down in just over two weeks, I have to say it's working. Also, I don't find myself hungry all the time, and I seldom have any cravings; what little craving I do experience is minimal and short-lived. I have tried off and on for years to take weight off, but instead, I have slowly gotten heavier. Quite some years back, my wife and I wanted to lose some excess weight. At that time I was looking to remove about twenty-five pounds, I was getting there with increased exercise and cutting back on how much I ate, but it was taking a long time. So, we decided to do the diet thing and speed it up. Of course, sweets had to go, except on our cheat day and then only in moderation. The biggest thing we did was to cut back on our fat intake as all the sources told us we needed to do to lose weight. Looking back, that's when we started to struggle with our weight loss and started having trouble sticking to our diets. The more we struggled, the leaner our cuts of meat, lower and no-fat foods replaced the ones we had been eating, and over the years our weight increased as our energy and feelings of well-being declined. In short, why blame the butter for what the bread did! That's what we were doing and it did not work, so now we are trying Keto. So far, six pounds down, I'm sleeping better, feeling better, and I have a lot more energy. I'm curious to see how things progress, but I'm hopeful and will continue to post my progress as the weeks go by. |
| "How's it going?" You ask. Well, it's been a lot nicer most of the week. We've had bitter cold with very little relief since Christmas; it would warm up a little above zero just to snow, then back down again. But, this week has seen us above zero until today; it snowed yesterday and is cold today, but sunny, calm, and it should be warmer again by tomorrow. With it being so cold, I've been seeking refuge in the garage to smoke, but it's too cold out there to do any of the projects I'd like to be working on. I do have a torpedo heater out there that warms it up, but it takes a while, it's noisy, and when too cold, it won't run. I'm talking 20 degrees is about it, anything colder and the heater won't work unless I warm it up. Yes, that's funny; I need a heater on my heater. Well, it's funny, but at the same time, it's a pain in my backside. See, when it's below zero and I need to warm up the garage, I have to set up a propane heater to warm up the torpedo heater to warm up the garage. It's a lot of fuss and not very efficient. So, I purchased a bigger torpedo heater that will warm the garage up faster, better, and it's a lot less noisy. I just unboxed it yesterday, put on the handles and wheels, and tried it out. In about ten minutes, maybe fifteen it was over 70 degrees in the garage! With the old heater that needed a heater, I would be lucky to get it up to 50. And, that was by letting it run for about an hour. Since it's below zero today, I'm going to head out to the garage pretty soon to see it start up without having to heat it up first, and I want to see how well it heats when it's this cold. Then, I have to shovel a bit more snow and do a bit of shopping. So, that's how it's going for me. "How are you doing?" |
| Yes, teased! In my opinion, it's not very nice to tease someone like this and then not follow through. I'm talking about the weather, just in case you're wondering. We have been plunged into an arctic deep freeze since Christmas. But, we do see the thermometer (Fahrenheit) read positive numbers once in a while. I mean, it will, for about one day, rise into the single digits above zero, but only to snow and blow, and hit us with yet another winter storm. But, the weatherman told us that by this weekend we would actually get a nice break from the cold. Yes, he told us that. He said in the forecast that it would be in the twenties on Saturday and then stay about that warm most of this week... He lied! But, he did tease us first, before we discovered he was lying. See, yesterday was just as he said it would be. The sun was out, the temp was up, and it was a beautiful day. So nice that we, my family, drove over to my elderly mother-in-law's to take down holiday decorations and clean ut her driveway from all the snow. By mid-afternoon, the wind had come up and the sun had receded into a sky of gray. Then, even as I was finishing up the big job of shoveling all the snow from her rather large drive, it began to lightly snow. After a nice break inside, I went out to move vehicles; I had moved them to shovel more snow. It was still snowing, but just lightly. However, the air was now very cold and the wind was blowing rather hard. By the time we drove home early yesterday evening, it was very cold, just below zero, windy, and blowing snow. The weatherman had changed the forecast, I found out, now it was supposed to drop to about eight below and barely get above zero today. However, it didn't get down to eight below, it dropped to eighteen below and our high for today is maybe going to hit eight below. Then back down tonight; we may see thirty below, and maybe a high of ten below tomorrow. But, the weatherman says it should get warmer on Tuesday, up into the twenties with lots of sunshine, and he says, it should stay that way for the rest of the week. But, I've heard these lies before... |
| The weekend is here, I finally feel like I've had a full night's sleep, the sun is shining, and it's twenty degrees above zero; it's a beautiful day. I should be out shoveling snow and cleaning up from our last snow storm since it dropped to bitterly cold temperatures and I haven't done any of it yet, but instead of getting all the things done here that need doing, I'm getting ready to head over to my elderly mother-in-law's and shoveling out her snow while my wife and the kids take down her holiday decorations and put them back in the garage. Tomorrow it's back down below zero, so today is the best day to work outside, but unfortunately, I won't have time to do any of my outdoor work since I'll be over there. I also need to get a new torpedo heater for the garage, and since my wife is home today we could take the car over and get one, but it's over thirty miles in the opposite direction from my mother-in-law's. Also, with the arctic cold we have had for two weeks now, most places are out of stock on heaters, so by the time I can go get one, they likely won't have one. I know, I should just do what needs to be done here, but at the same time, none of the lady's other children or grandchildren that live close by, seem to be able to help her out, so I'll drive for an hour to go over there and help her out. |
| Yes, we are still having frigid weather. In my last post, I explained how cold and it hasn't changed much. It did climb above zero for about twenty-four hours, not a lot above, but still above. Of course, we also had another winter storm pass over at the same time, and then it's back down. It's forecast to drop to a shivering -27 degrees by morning with winds in the teens. That means the wind chill factor, or as it's called no, the feel like temperature is close to -40. I'm talking degrees Fahrenheit here! It's going to be like this until the weekend, then it's forecast to warm up into the teens and twenties. After this arctic freeze, that's going to feel almost tropical. Seriously; I'm talking about close to a 50-degree temperature change. Two days ago, before the wind picked up and the snow started dropping, I was standing outside in my t-shirt while I smoked -- today I'm hunkered down in the garage with a torpedo heater going and dressed like an Arctic explorer. Other than being cold, not a lot is going on right now. Of course, Christmas break is over and the kids are back in school, even though it was two hours late starting today because of the snow. Oh, and my older daughter joined WdC and has a poem in her port that she needed to write for school. Of course, I'm going to be biased, but in all honesty, I think she did pretty damn well. Who knows, maybe she will motivate me to start writing again... |
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