Jude Stringfellow's Blog, page 88

Juice Diet Day 2 (November 15, 2021)

 So, I know I said I wasn't going to weigh myself today, but I ended up weighing myself today. I was going to be really pissed if I had juiced all day (the day before) and hadn't lost a single ounce. I know that when you do lose weight up front its typically water weight, but I don't care. It's weight, and it's on me, and it needs to come off of me!  I stood on the scale half way expecting it to be sad, and half way clinching my fist as if I was going to punch its little digital lights out if didn't show a difference from yesterday.  IT DID!!  I actually lost 2.6 pounds in one day from just juicing, so now I'm thinking maybe it will be OK to weigh myself every day and either know I'm achieving my goal, or I can get tougher with myself and add more exercise.

    I'm purposely not exercising during this juice fast so that I'm not over doing anything, but I will admit to standing around and doing squats, lifting my little dumbbells while wearing 2.5 pound wrist weights, and I do dance. I'm not going to ever stop dancing. It's what it is, it is not going to happen, so why lie? Why expect myself to stop moving when I move. It's who I am. I was always the fidgety kid who got in trouble at school for dancing in my seat. I think they called that "Ants in the pants" back in the day, but you know, we just call it what it is now, I dance.

    OK, this morning's juice was a good one. I went with what I had in the house before going to the store and purchasing oh so many veggies and fruits.  I made a carrot, apple, cinnamon, ginger root juice and called it done. I think I added a squirt of honey too. Why not?  Lunch was just amazing because I had been to the store and had purchased about $50.00 worth of fruits and veggies. I purposely bought the food items separately so I can sort of have an estimate of what it costs me to do the right thing for myself. People ask me all the time if juicing and fasting on good wholesome (not organic) foods (raw foods) is cheaper than regular shopping. It can be. You just have to have an idea of what it is that you're going to do and how you're going to achieve it. There is a juice fast diet for anyone's budget I'm sure. I just happen to be single and not providing for a family now, so I do have more to spend on myself. 

    Lunch's juice was called "Belly Buster" and it is pineapple, ginger root, celery, green apple, spinach, carrots, and cabbage!  Whoa! That's a lot.  It was good too.  The pineapple evens out the tart apple and it helps with the mixing of the ginger root. That ginger root can be really strong if you let it be.  I use between 1/2 an inch and an inch cut piece when I use it. I also have ginger powder that I use when I use the Nutri-Bullet rather than the juicer. There are somethings you can do with a juicer that you can't do with a Nutri-Bullet, and vis-versa.  You don't want to use frozen food in a juicer, you can break the machine, but a Nutri-Bullet thrives on it, turning those frozen veggies and fruit into the smoothie part of the smoothie.  Icy good. (not good for the juicer, nope!)

    I wanted another juice around 4:00 p.m. rather than waiting for dinner, so I made a beet-based drink that ended up tasting really earthy, and by earthy, I mean it tasted a great deal like scooping up a chunk of mud and eating it. I love dirt, so that wasn't a problem for me, but you may not be a fan. Just so you know, beets can do that. I added beets, pineapple, carrots, and a cucumber I think. It was really good, and I remember about half way through it my tummy felt sort of bad. I think it was a combination of the juicing and not eating solids for over a day. I took a really hot bath with Epsom salts and baby oil, and yeah, I felt a whole lot better. It was just a little gas rolling around.

    Well, I promised you yesterday that I would tell you about the first day after the diet's poop.  You always want to monitor and keep an eye on your intake as well as your output. You need to be able to say that you get out as much as you put in, so that you're not stopping the plumbing with anything.  The morning's poo was really good -- not too hard and sufficient in size. Not "call-the-kids-to-brag" big, but you know, it was good. The dog left the room shortly afterwards, which is an indicator that it was a decent letting. No, I did not take photos. Sorry. I don't do that. I bet there would be an entire market of people out there who may want to pay for that...but I digress. 

    Dinner was just about 15 minutes ago, around 7:00 p.m. and I had what is called "Autumn Harvest". I found it on Pinterest.  It's literally sweet potatoes, carrots, honey, cinnamon, green apples and a pinch of ginger.  Ginger does so much for your gut, that's why it's used as often as it is. You should Google that. It's really really good for you. The whole find-a-meal-on-Pinterest thing is good too.  You can load up with 50 different ways to juice and never have to worry about trying to figure out what to make. Tomorrow I'm going to do something with purple grapes. They were on sale, and I just had to have them. I juiced cabbage today! That was new for me. I've never done that before. It was great. 

    Other than the little gas episode around 4:00 p.m. I think I was good to go. I know I slept from 11:00 to 8:00 a.m. basically, and I had really very lucid dreams. So lucid I was able to stop the dream, change the dream, be really loud and obnoxious in the middle of it, and laugh at myself. That's how vivid it was and I don't know if it was because I'm just weird or the juices are really doing their job. It could be that I'm just really weird like that. Years of being weird have it's toll.

See you tomorrow!

Photo Credit: Me

Juice Diet Day 1 (November 14, 2021)

 For the next week (and maybe longer) I'm going to be doing a juice fast and only drinking water, coffee, juices that I make with the juicer or the Nutri-Bullet, and one pea protein shake a day to be sure I keep up my proteins.  My goal is to drop 10 pounds before or right at my birthday, which is literally in 8 days. I don't know if I can do that, or if it's even realistic, but I'm going to do the best I can. 

I thought what I would do is just sort of journal rather than blog. I'll jump on at the end of the day to give you an update about all the things you may encounter during the detox and/or cleanse, and that way you can come up with your own decisions as to whether or not it's a good thing for you to do. 

LET ME START OFF BY SAYING what everyone else feels compelled to say when they start talking about changing diets and exercising; TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR before doing something drastic that could potentially cause you problems. You just don't want to end up sick or injured (or dead) just because you wanted to shed a pound or two. For me, I'd like to lose a total of 20 pounds. I've lost 47 so far, and it's been a really long and slow process. I did that on purpose so I could keep the weight off. 

On August 3, 2020 I decided I was fat (you may not agree with me) and I wanted to do something about it. I was overweight and considered obese by the doctors. I found myself not riding my horse because I was still riding as if I was thin; and I was certainly not thin.  Today, (November 14, 2021) I am right at 169 pounds and that was NOT my goal. My goal was to be 145 pounds by now. I'm not upset with myself because I know I've worked the program, but I do have to say we need to take so many things into consideration when we set goals that include losing weight, exercising, dieting, changing our lifestyles, dropping people from our lives who try to detour us from our goals, and yes, that's a real thing.

  My goal for this particular blog entry is to talk about DAY 1 of the Juice Fast. I thought a little background information would be great. I don't want to get too far into that. I'm here to discuss the goings on of the day, the way I started the "fast" and what my plans are for it.  Basically, I'm hoping to stay focused and to keep my mind off of eating solid foods for at least 7 and maybe 10 days. If I can do it 7 I can do it 10. If I haven't met my goals I'll keep going until I do.

  I woke up at 8:20 a.m. and walked the dog. I made coffee, and I wrote in my journal. Since this is something I do every day I won't repeat myself every blog. I'll just say it was a normal morning. I decided for breakfast to make a really thick protein shake to start the day off right. I used:

    Powdered pea protein, a scoop of collagen peptides, an egg, silt from last night's juicing. I'll explain that later. I added Maca, papaya seed powder, and psyllium husk powder. I added chia seeds and a bit of honey. The silt was made of carrots, cranberries and spinach.  I added water instead of milk and realized really quickly that the psyllium powder forced the liquid to bulk really quickly. Quickly (have I made my point?) I added more water, split the drink in 1/2 and ended up with more than I expected. I do that.

   Lunch rolled around and I made a juice in the juicer, which makes silt to be used the next day in the morning shake.  I made a drink of zucchini, parsley, carrots, and an apple and I poured in about 3 ounces of Kombacha juice for the probiotics. I added ginger root, and it was sooooo awesome. I think I typically have about 16 ounces when I juice. I need to measure the tumbler.

    I had a "snack" at 3:15 p.m. of another Nutri-bullet drink. I use my spinach in it, as it doesn't seem to juice well in my juicer. I used spinach, silt from the earlier time, grapes, and ginger root.  I love my ginger root. The dinner juice, which I just made, and I'm allowing myself to drink after 8:00 p.m. for the fast, is from the juicer.  I used a yellow apple, several carrots, cranberries, parsley, and Kombacha. I love that Kombacha!  I love parsley too. It's amazing, and if you don't know why, you should go research that.

    OK, so this is my first night with the fast. I want to go to bed around 11:00 and wake up around 8:00 a.m. Since I'm not working I let my body wake up on its own. The dog usually has something to say about when that happens as well.  I'll let you know how I slept, and if there are reasons to alert you to anything that may or may not be happening. I'm sort of curious to see how the poop will be tomorrow. Yes, I'm going to tell you, so just prepare yourself. Poop is essential to good living, and you need to be doing it as often as you can!  It's all about the poop.

      Enjoy your evening. I'll catch you tomorrow. I don't want to write too early as I want to give the day it's fullness so I can report correctly on it. I won't weigh myself on a daily basis. I don't want to do that. I know what I weigh now, and I'll weigh on Sunday the 21st.

Bye!!

Photo Credit: Mountainfeed.com

If At First You Don't Succeed - - It May be Math Related.

 Most of you know that I'm not technically "working" at the moment, I can't go into details at the moment, but I'm free to do just about anything I want to do, and without fear that I can't meet my bills. Well, unlike most happy-go-lucky souls who would (or could) find themselves in this particular situation, I am not sitting around the house doing nothing, NO NO NO...far from that. I am studying how to become a stock broker and/or financial advisor. I could go in so many various directions; you just never know. If you asked me, and you should actually ask me, I think I want to become a swing trader.  A swing trader does somewhat the same thing that a day trader does, but a swing trader only trades a few times a week rather than multiple times in the same day.  Ultimately, it boils down to what your passions are in the investment world.  Do you see yourself standing up all day squeezing a stress ball while watching 16 monitors and going without bathroom breaks for the sake of a good trade? Neither do I?  That's why day trading is out of the question for me.

    An average Joe swing trader earns a bit less than the average day trader but they spend far less money on antacids too!  A day trader can literally make over $500,000.00 a year, and they can scrape the bottom of the barrel and barely break $15,000.00 if they lose their shirts (and the rest of their suit) while working like a maniac to make the most exciting trades.  A swing trader, by contrast (and I like this part) does a lot less Math and uses more time and common sense mixed in with a good dose of luck and perception to earn an average salary of just over $100,000.00 a year, but to be honest, there are commissions and bonuses that go along with it. The average swing trader who works for a firm in the U.S. can take home a hefty $40,000.00 end of the year bonus quite easily; so that alone can make someone stay at their desks on the days they're not actually trading.

    Swing traders and day traders alike could find themselves working from home if they choose to; or if their employers are of the mindset that being at home may be overall more productive and provide fewer distractions.  More swing traders remain at home while day traders sort of feed on the competitive frenzy that is the backbone of their profession. I (again) would prefer to take less money and do less Math. I would also prefer to take less money and keep my guts and ulcers in check. I don't want to worry about where the next "Dip" is going to come from.  A "dip" refers to a point of sale between the best bid and asking price of a trade.  Remember the old adage "Buy high, sell low"? Well, it works. It really does create the dip and that's when your best strike should be made - - for day traders, that dip comes often and at a furious unknown sort of anticipated point of time all throughout the trading day. For swing traders it's a calculated and more precise timing thing - - I prefer that.

    I want to get to the point that I don't need the calculator, but I don't foresee that being realistic for a while. I also don't want to spend other people's money until I know what I'm doing, and that's still a long way off from today. Literally, at this point, I'm learning the lingo. I'm working through the prep practices, the study guides, the YouTube videos and the information I can Google to find out all that I need to know. I took the official test for the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) today, and I failed it. I didn't come up with a 70%. I made a 62%, and I needed just two more correct answers. The way I see it,  I would love to have passed, but now I have 30 more days to study and I've decided to make the most of it. Not only am I making myself flash cards, but I'm doubling down on the very things I missed and will go over and over the conversion formulas so that I know I won't miss THOSE questions next time. I don't know exactly what I missed, but I know I didn't know about 40% of the test obviously. Math plays about 10% of that equation - - If I can make up that 10% I've got this!

    If you ask most people on the street if they know the difference(s) between a Bullish or a Bearish outlook for our future (economically speaking), most won't know the terms in the first place, but if you show them a photograph of the famous brass icons from 11 Wall Street, NYC, NY, they may say something like, "Oh yeah, I've seen that. It's stock broking stuff, right?"  Yeah, it's stock broker stuff, but there are so many more angles to the industry.  Securities can be equity (money) or debt (bonds) and they can be high yield, no coupon, long, short, covered, even naked. You can be naked in the Market! It's not a good thing really, but it can happen! When people say "That's the long and short of it", they are referring to a financial situation, a position, that a buyer finds him/herself in, and most people don't know that either. I find it fascinating that every penny we earn or spend is manipulated every single day one way or the other by unseen people, by those we never think about - - but we just keep paying them what they ask us to pay. I wanted to be a part of that world - to a degree.

    I want to understand the process. I want to dig in and get my hands dirty. I won't compromise my character or my morals; nothing like you'll see in a Wall Street Mogul type movie.  I want to be respected, I want to be generous, I want to be honest, and I want to be trustworthy. When I choose a company to be appointed with for the sake of taking the exams and learning the ropes, I want it to be a good solid company with an earned professional reputation for excellence, not money grabbing. I'm praying about it now. As soon as I sit the SIE and pass it I know that dozens of companies will call me to say they have slots available. Everyone wants to hire the newbies to give them the grunt work. I welcome that grunt work. I want to know this industry from the inside out. 

    Once I have my feet planted and my head swimming with the right information I want to take the show on the road and work ADRs (American Depository Receipts) for foreign investors. I want to work as an American liaison for the new Scottish Stock Exchange, or for the London Stock Exchange. I will be stationed in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I will work from home most likely. I have pretty specific dreams in my head, but also prayers in my heart.  God is with me. He is helping. I could have used His recall today during the test, but something tells me He allowed me to fail so I could take a needed step back and do more of my own heavy research. No one pushes me like I push myself. I am the Queen of Self Butt Kicking!  Long live the Queen, and may she never be found naked in the market.  Being bullish like I am, I'm thinking of buying myself a Coo.

Photo Credit:  Treasures of Nature.

    

Juice Diet 101

 Years ago I bought a relatively good juicer so that I could lose weight, detox, and basically keep up with all those fancy schancy folks who were juicing on TV and talking about it at work. I thought there had to be something about it, something worth looking into, heck so many people were all about it. Turns out the money I spent for the juicer was well worth the hype.  I didn't go overboard with it because I wasn't quite sure if I could even make the thing crank out good juices. There are about 7 different parts to the thing. I watched YouTube videos, used Pinterest to find recipes, and basically I just followed the leaders online and did what they did. I do remember writing down that a Gala apple was more frothy than a Granny Smith. If I don't remember anything else, I do remember that.  That memory has served me well.

    This week, after years of being away from it, I found the juicer in a closet! I was proud of myself for not throwing it out, and I couldn't for the life of me remember why I stopped using it in the first place. I think I moved! I think when I moved to this apartment I just boxed it up and never unboxed it. If I had to guess that would be it; who knows. I found it, and I washed it, and I have successfully created a few of my old time favorites. I don't know what everyone else calls them, but I just call them what they are. I put a few things together, write it down, call it a name like "Carrots, Apples, and Cranberry" and I go with that. I know I usually add something like ginger root or mint to it. I do that from time to time too. I think I'm going to start looking up other people's recipes and trying those out. I bet they have much cooler names and everything.  There are juices for detoxing, juices for weight losing, juices for energy, juices for sensory gain. There are juices for no reason whatsoever other than just getting their goodness into your body!

    Most of my internet searches regarding juicing had to do with losing weight. I'm forever trying to get this fat off my body. I look up old ways, new ways, ways of the East, the West, the people of the Southlands. I look up Yankee recipes from time to time, and believe it or not, I don't recall one of them being all that bad really. That's actually saying something coming from a Southerner. I will add that we don't put biscuits and gravy in our juicers down this way, and we don't typically add sweet tea to the mix either -- despite what my Northern cousins may tell ya! It's strictly veggies and fruit for me, and yeah, the occasional root. I do roots. I especially love a good beet -- "Bloody Murder" would be a great name for a beet based recipe; one with peppers and lemon juice. Now, I'm thinkin'.  (Maybe I should patent that)

    This weekend (starting tomorrow) I've decided to do what all the other cool kids did back in the day. I'm going to do a three-day juice fast. It's not really a fast if you're drinking stuff, but I am giving up solid food for three days to see if I can jump start the metabolism and get about 4-5 pounds off the body for the time being. Once it comes off it won't be going back on my body. These past few months have been stagnant in terms of losing. I've hit another plateau, and the more weight I tend to drop the more stubborn these plateaus have become. This one is going on it's 3rd month and dang it, I'm just not a happy camper. It was a really good thing I found this juicer when I did. I'm hoping that it will do more than just change up my intake from solid foods to juice, but I'm hoping to kick my gears into overdrive for the next few days to banish weight and build muscle where I need it. 

    I won't stop exercising while I'm juicing, but I will lay off the heavier more dense exercises. I'll stick to the heavy rope jumping, yoga, stretching, weight lifting on the vibration plate (10-15 pounds during squats) and I'll walk a little since the weather will be nice. I can get 12,000 steps a day in for sure, and yes, I can still drink over 100 ounces of lemon water. That should be enough to flush the living tar out of me...literally.  I am doing one thing that is super upper duper fun and cool. I'm drinking Kombucha! If you've not done it, do it. I say that, be careful, ask your doctor, then do it. Kombucha is a fermented tea that has a gazillion living probiotic with good bacteria. It's a new old thing of course, one that every diet exert in the world is pushing, but I found it at the grocer without any fanfare. I didn't know what it was, but Aldi was selling it so I tried it, and yeah, it's weirdly oddly refreshing in a strong sort of fizzy vinegar tart way.  It's going a good job on the gut I know that. I feel it going down into the tubes!

    Basically, my recipes consist of about 4 or 5 small carrots, cranberries, Kombucha (3 Oz) and an apple. I throw in mint or parsley for the goodness and drink to my heart's desire. I save the silt and throw it in the next protein shake I make.  You can't (or shouldn't) waste good veggie/fruit silt. The fiber lives in the casing you know. Never lose sight of the skin of an apple or a carrot. Revamp. Think of ways to boost your protein shakes and save your fiber. It's a win-win.  OK, so that's it. I'm going to keep you posted on what if anything occurs. I'll be thinking about solid food I'm sure, but thinking and dreaming will have to take a backseat to juicing and blending this weekend. Only juice and water, no milk, and all the veggies I can muster -- poured over pineapples of course. Of course. Most people lose 3-5 pounds with this three day diet - - let's see if I'm normal. I don't count my chickens on that one.

Photo Credit: Cleveland Clinic

The Pangs of Growing Old

 When you're a kid you hear your grandparents complain about all the aches and pains in their old bodies and you think to yourself how sad it would be to get to be so old! You jump, play, run, do flips in the air. You dive, you climb, you wrestle, move, dance, you have next to zero concerns about biting a pecan open with your teeth because you know that teeth are pretty hard and you can do this! You really don't give much thought to any of it until you have the first real knee injury, or perhaps you shoulders hurt the day after you helped brand a few Mustangs. Why is that? Wasn't it just yesterday that you were hang gliding off the side of a craggy old mountain in the southern hills of Oklahoma? Wasn't it just a few weeks back that you ran a mile for the hell of it to see if you could beat your best friend's time? She said she was pretty good, if you beat her time that would make you pretty good, right? We get old.

    Now, the word "old" is a relative term of course; you can said you're old in comparison to something or you can say you're old just because you feel like crap and don't have a better way to describe how it that you feel. You say words like "he's too old for her" or "she's too old to do that", and maybe you'd be right if what you said about the person actually had a time limit. If I'm older than say, 40, I can't go off and enlist in the U.S. Army, but that doesn't mean I can't pass every physical they would have given me. (I wouldn't pass, but all I'm saying is, there are times when time matters.)  You can say you're feeling old when really what you're feeling is down, out, tired, exhausted, hurt, injured, scared, or just plain done. The reason(s) you're feeling that way likely have less to do with the clock and more to do with the lack of energy you have created or reserved for yourself. It's been my experience anyway - - so far, and yes, in about 11 days I'll be officially "old" to some. I've been officially old for others, and I'm actually still rather young to still others, so what is old? Old is when you give up.

    I hurt, yes. I have aches, I have pains, I have knee tendons that don't want me to continue my exercises, but my knee tendons can suck an egg! I'm working out.  I have aches in my joints, and tears in my ligaments at times. I heal. It's not fun, but it happens. It is what we do. We heal. We get over it, or we learn to live with it. If we give up, we're so much worse off. I say that, if I were to die today I'd be so much better off because I'd be in Heaven but I'm trying to keep this on an Earthly and more in-real-time thing. It is and would be a REAL event if I died and went to Heaven, but here on Earth we like to say "keep it real" meaning, keep it in the reality that we experience on a daily basis here. So yeah, I'm old in some ways, younger in others, and it really doesn't matter to me what anyone else may call me I have to decide for myself what I will accept as a compliment or an insult. Believe me, I don't feel anywhere near as old as the calendar says I am. Why should I? I work hard not to let the clock catch up with me like it has to so many of those I graduated high school with back in...wow...1979. 

    I went to the dentist yesterday to have a tooth pulled. He gave me a great compliment and said he had just taken 28 teeth out of a 42 year old woman who didn't take care of her teeth. He said I had. The fact that the tooth I was having removed was even a thing was due to my age actually. In the late 1960s and early 1970s some of the medications given to kids actually caused lack of tooth enamel and it left us with hollowed out molars. Yuck. Some would say "that's not fair" and they may be correct, but what is fair in life? The medicines saved our lives otherwise. Now, after so many years, and for some, bad hygiene, it's time to pay the piper - - we have our teeth pulled. I know people of all ages with missing front, back, and side teeth. It happens. I've tried to live my life in such a way as to be more concerned with how I handle a situation as opposed to the situation itself. I lost a tooth, now, instead of feeling old about it, I'm going to learn to adjust my chewing habits. The dentist was quick to tell me that we really don't use our back molars that much anyway; that was kind.

    My dentist gave me nitrous gas and about four shots to work on the back molar. It was painful and it was so much not fun, but the alternative would have been so much worse. Thank you, Jesus for drugs. Thank you for skilled people. Thank you for tools, thank you for electricity, thank you for suction drainage systems. Thank you for comfortable chairs to sit in, and to be able to be at the right angles. I'm telling you, we have so much to be thankful for, and saying it's not worth it to have a tooth removed that hurts or cuts my tongue just wasn't an option. Age or no age, it was "time" to let that go. I spent over 10 years rubbing my tongue over a hard jagged edge and I was finally just tired of having to adjust my speech to avoid a calamity with my tongue! Nothing in this world is "normal" really -- we have to adjust and compromise at times. We have to adjust and change. We have to overcome if we can, and yes, we have to surrender at times and admit defeat.  I was glad to have the nitrous but I didn't accept any pain meds after the procedure. God made Ibuprofen for that.

    My good friend (no name) is in the medical profession. He/she (no I won't say) is about 60 pounds overweight, smokes, and has a drinking issue.  When I asked him/her to go for a hike the other day the answer was quick and with a finalization that left no wiggle room. He/she said "I'm too old, hell you're too old. We're too old to go climbing and put ourselves into that sort of situation. You can fall and break a hip! You can get caught out there with no one to help you. I can't help you and you can't help me. It's stupid and you should act your age for once!"  Well, as you can imagine, I let him/her rant, but I didn't agree.  No, my thoughts were more along the line of, "Here's a thought; lose weight, stop eating crap food, put the bottle down, ditch the smokes, and really live again. Breathe!"  I stopped going to High School reunions after the first one. Who wants to listen to a bunch of liars comparing themselves to other liars? Nope.

    God made us with an expiration date. I get that. We don't necessarily know when that will be and the world tends to place (put) time limits on us from the day we're born to the die they think we should slow down and take it easy. Be that as it may, I say you're in charge of your own work out. You're in charge of your own decisions to be healthy. You buy the food don't you? You take the cart around the grocery store yourself (or you call it in to be delivered now) and you make the final decisions about what goes into your mouth, and that includes drinking alcohol, soft drinks, sugary frizz drinks, caramelized drinks, sugary fancy coffees, shakes, whatever. You make those decisions. We all do. No one is forcing us to drink that next latte or Frap are they? No, we do that to ourselves. What about the push ups, sit ups, running, walking, climbing, jumping, moving, dancing, and the whole I need to get in better shape thing? You do if you do, and you don't if you don't, but you make that decision if you're still healthy enough to do so. Did you let yourself go to the point that you can't? Maybe it's not too late.

    I won't be the one to cut down or berate someone for having let themselves go, but I will be the one to say get up, take a breath, make something good happen now. Make a change, be the change, keep the change, and become a new you.  Brand new can be good. It may not be easy -- no, it won't be. If it's worth the prize you have to work for it. You may not have been blessed with good genes. Have you been using that as an excuse too? You still have a shot! Take it. You still have a way. Make it. If you can't, and all you want to do is give up; I'm not your girl. I can't do that to myself. Sorry. Maybe I'm "cheeky", maybe I'm conceited, maybe I'm arrogant. I know I don't have a Peter Pan syndrome but  maybe I just love myself enough to really try and keep myself in health for as long as I really can. That clock will some day chase me down, I'm sure it will, but until that day, I'm moving through the pain.

Photo Credit:  Amazinartco

Let Go! (Let God)

 I've probably written this particular blog before, but I was just listening to one of my online preachers, J.D. Farag of Calvary Chapel Kaneohe.  He was giving his weekly prophecy update on his channel at www.jdfarag.org where he was saying the same things he's been saying for a very long time, and using words I personally live and breathe by.  I'm sorry, but I just have to say it again, I'm not sorry for saying it again.  No, I'm not the least bit sorry, because the word (The Word) needs to be spoken, needs to be heard, and whether YOU are the one that needs to hear it, or someone else, I need to say it, so it's going to be said. Here we go.  LET GO.  Let go of what it is that is holding you to this Earth and LET GOD have the reins of your life. Sounds so simple, right? Just say a prayer, accept Christ, and all of your worries and problems will just melt away - - right? No. They don't melt. They are still right there and they are still very real, very bothersome, quite in the way, and no, not fun.  The difference is though, when you give God the reins to your life and let Him have the control over the baggage you seem to be dragging behind you, He finds ways you couldn't even imagine, ways you couldn't possibly think of, to clear the way for you to live again. He truly is the ONLY one who can do that for you. (Psst....and He does that all the time for those who ask Him to do it. It's sort of His thing.) 

    Pastor J.D. was saying that people are super worried about losing their jobs and not being able to gather for holidays because of the "You know what".  You can't even say it without being censored, and that's when you KNOW it's bad, right? If you can't even say something about something because someone told you you can't do it without consequences for having done so, you need to LET IT GO and give it to God. Let the world have the world. Let the rich have the rich, let the famous have the famous, let the people have the people. As Fanny Crosby (hymnist of over 8000 hymns including "Blessed Assurance") said, "Keep the world, but give me Jesus!"  Yes, keep the world.  You can have it. There's more of less nothing but less and less; every day it gets smaller, weaker, lessened by the opinions of those whose opinions really don't stack up to Jesus. What good is it if you gain $$$$ but you lose your soul? Where will you spend that money when you're in Hell? Where will you spend it if you stay here and the world goes to Hell? Money? Stature? Position? Power? Can anyone you know or anyone you've ever heard of create air? Can thy hang a star? Can they calm an ocean's wave? Can they put a coin into a fish's mouth and then direct a man to go fish and pull out the first fish he finds to find that coin and pay debt? C'mon!

    Jesus was with God during the Creation. They are two of the Trinity, and with the Holy Spirit, they are the Trinity, and THEY are God. They created it all, they are in charge of it all. Do you really have anything anyway? How long will your pretty new Tesla survive? (and then what?) Nothing remains when time ends. Time is not even real, folks.  He's coming back. Jesus is coming back, and there's nothing, not one thing on this Earth that I would want EVER and I mean EVER, that could keep me from letting it go and choosing to let God have what I thought was mine. PEACE like no other when you let it go. PEACE that only God has and only God can give, and ONLY YOU can ask Him for it. I can't ask Him for you - - I can only ask Him for me; and I did.  I don't worry about anything now and that's a really big thing to say.  

People wonder about me sometimes because I so often don't have what I need to make ends meet, but I'm not freaking out over it. Why would I? Does freaking out help? NOPE.  I am nothing on my own and He is everything. I let it go. I haven't ever been let down. It hasn't been easy, but I don't worry about what will happen -- because I have His word (Word) that it will be OK.  "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and who are called for His purpose."  All things. Not all things except this or that. ALL THINGS. 

    If He lied about one thing He's a liar. God can't lie. Let Him have whatever it is that you seem to think is so very important that you can't stop squeezing onto it -- you don't need it. Let it go. It's holding you back from your personal freedom. Believe me, not money, not a person, not a kid, not a grandkid, nothing will stand between me and Jesus. I won't let it -- I let it all go. I want things; sure I do. I work toward goals, and I occupy my time while I'm waiting on Him, but I don't think about whether or not I'll be successful - - He is to be praised. Not me.  If I do what He's asked me to do, He has promised me the desires of my heart. That's all I need. Money? No. It's overrated. Fame? Never. No thank you. Status? Power? For what? Nah, you keep the world, just give me Jesus.  Peace out....well, peace always.

Photo Credit:  James Avery

There is a Difference.

 She's a COUGAR? No, she's not. She's a mountain lion, and while they may look the same, there is a world of difference between the two. It may not be all that easy to detect, and the fact that people interchange the words without thinking and without actually knowing the subtle differences, the cougar and the mountain lion are often mistaken for the other one both in the wild, and even in nature parks where one has been captured for the sake of observation and study. This is both incredibly sad and hurtful when you think about it. If I taught your kid that it was OK to misspell a word just because I didn't want to take the time to spell it correctly, would that be on me or you for not stopping me? (I'm thinking of words like "there", "their", and "they're" or maybe "your" and "you're".  Cougars are smaller than mountain lions, thank you very much. They are a different shade of brown (tawny) and they have darker facial features, often smaller heads, and they are simply smaller by nearly 40%; they are not mountain lions. Another really big difference between the two would be geography. Mountain lions are found in North America, ranging from Canada to Florida, whereas the cougar is an animal from South America and yes, also around the border areas.  Why am I telling you all this? Read on, please.

    My daughter Laura loves it when she can teach me something and she decided to use a quiz she found online to do just that. "Hey Mom," she cried as I was minding my own business studying for another stock broker exam.  "Yeah, what?" came the answer.  "Think of an animal, and tell me what you would want to be if you were one...an animal".  I thought about it, and I said the obvious answer, a dog.  A dog, OK, yeah, a dog. I am thinking of a dog, I would want to be a dog, so I said a dog.  "A dog is good", she added, and then "OK, God didn't make dogs, so now pick another animal if He decided there were no dogs."  I thought for a second, and knowing me, if you know me, you know I love my horses, so I said with almost no surprise in my voice, "I'd be a horse I guess".  Her answer, "Oh hey, good answer, and yeah, I can see that."  She continued, "OK, but God decided there were no more horses, so pick a third animal you think you would like to be."  I said the mountain lion, and she came back with "Like a cougar?"  WHAT? NO...I didn't say a cougar, I said a mountain lion!

    She said she didn't see the difference, and it didn't matter for the quiz. She went on to tell me that according to the experts who came up with the quiz I see myself as being a dog, while the world sees me as being more like a horse.  In reality, if the truth was known, I was actually a mountain lion. She then read off the characters of the cougar and I stopped her. STOP. "Stop Laura, not a cougar, I said a mountain lion, and there is a difference. Lots of differences in fact." She said the test or quiz didn't have mountain lion characteristics but it did have the cougar so she was going with that. According to Wikipedia, because it does list the characteristics of mountain cats vs the jungled lower lands type cougar, the mountain lion is a nearly perfect predator. It only kills for food, never for sport, and it stalks, observes, researches, understands, studies, and learns the habits of its prey before striking. The cougar strikes and will strike out of fear or for territorial rights. The mountain lion will roam to hunt and will rehome itself rather than be held captive by its environment.  THAT is the difference I wanted to make clear to my daughter. 

    People say "regular lions" this and that, but there is no regular lion. What they are saying is an African lion will do this or that; and I get that. The coyote and the wolf are two canine for sure, but they are worlds part when it comes to looks, actions, behaviors, habits, family, socializing; everything.  The mountain lion is a loner of sorts, you don't see packs of them. You see one, if you see one. They are stealth and quite capable of watching from a far without any intent of coming near; only observing. They are intrigued, genuinely interested in their surroundings and capable of going days without eating to learn more about their future meals and their resting habits. It's essential for the mountain lion to know what its getting itself into; it won't pounce on anything it can't take for itself, and it will never take more than what it needs. They do not kill for sport. If they have cubs they will kill something larger such as a deer, but for the most part they take smaller animals for themselves.

    I didn't know the test would be about comparing my personal life and my personality traits with that of an animal. You're not supposed to know that fact, you're supposed to speak from your heart, from you soul.  I did that.  I see myself as a loyal friend, a good natured person (dog) who will kill or die for its person or for its friend. I see myself as being attached to things and people, but in reality, I'm really not. I'm loyal, absolutely, but I am not attached. I have reasons to roam now, and I will roam. As for the horse, well, that's how others see me.  They see me as being strong, willful, free, wild, even strong headed and stubborn, but able to be wrangled and tamed if necessary.  But then...well, then there's the truth of it all.  I am out there roaming, hiding, watching, thinking, learning, deciding if and when I will pounce, or if I will simply watch for now.  I think I find it fascinating that I knew in my core that I wanted to say an American animal. That was never part of the question or expected criteria.  I choose an American animal all three times really - - in my mind I chose a mutt, not a purebred dog like a German Shepherd or a Labrador Retriever. I was thinking more of a Pit Bull mixed with a larger terrier type, maybe throw in a little Dachshund for the hell of it because I do think of myself as being a bad ass sometimes.  The horse? Oh, that's easy, the American Mustang. There is no other.

    So yeah, it matters. When you think of an animal, when you think of a friend, when you think of your family, and when you think of yourself, remember we are all multi-faceted, multi-layered and we have so many differences and sides to us. At times I could be considered an eagle type bird too; but not an American Bald Eagle. No, I wouldn't want that sort of fame and glory (or pressure). I would have to be more like the red-tailed hawk in Oklahoma; a predator for sure, a hunter, a protector, and again, a loner of sorts.  The mountain lion? Sure, I can see me as being one of them. I prefer a little meat on my bones anyway -- and I do like to watch before I pounce. I'm really good at watching. I'm pretty patient too. Very willing to wait. (Her head down, crouched behind a rock, panting, thinking, gently twitching her tail; no one sees her but she sees them.)  God knows what He's doing. 

Photo Credit: A-Z Animals

Shock the Metabolism!

 For many people, diet and exercise sound like a lot of work, and it is. Working out, taking the time to get off your bum and either drive or walk to the gym is a hassle; let's face it. We don't want to do that! We would rather sit at home and lounge out, or just not exercise. For most of us the idea of eating less food, or less sugar, or less carbs just seems like a nightmare.  We hate forcing ourselves to be better and do more for ourselves, but it's something that's both unavoidable and unrealistic if our personal goals are to be anywhere near close to being healthy. Am I right? I know I'm right. I was there for far (far) too long. It's a pattern we allow ourselves to get into; it's a rut.  Ruts are not good. Keep that in mind at all times, ruts bad.

    From time to time my dog has taught me a really good lesson by just being a dog. She'll lay on my lap and just be chill. She isn't working, she isn't worried about anything, she's just there to be there and she lets me know I'm doing what I do and it's OK with her.  This week she taught me that the same treats I've been giving her for years are boring and frankly, she's had enough of them. She began setting them down and walking away from them as if to say I could do better.  OK, how does that equate to this blog? Well, I'm so glad you asked. You did ask, right? Well, it seems that shocking my system is the best way to get my body back on track again. I had allowed it to take a break from all the routine work outs and the conscientious dieting it had been accustomed to.  My dog's reaction to the stale routine and same old same old, let me see that I needed to shake things up. I was...well... I was boring. Can't have that!

    Knowing there are several key tricks to jumpstarting your metabolism is a good thing to have in your back pocket. You can pull this information out whenever you need it, and it's there, always there, to remind you that you're not alone in this journey of yours. Nope, there are literally millions of others just like you who need and want to work out, need and want to eat correctly, need and want to feel better but for some reason(s) or another, they aren't able to force themselves (me) to get up and make it happen. I mean yeah, I do the jump roping, I do the vibration plate, I do the weight training, and I walk. I ride horses, I do Doga (not the same as yoga, as you have to manipulate the dog while stretching) and I do the basic things I know is right -- oh, but I stopped short. I began allowing sugar to creep into my body again. I allowed creamy gravies, and I allowed carbs like no other, for about a week. I did this, by the way INTENTIONALLY! 

    That's right, I knew what I was doing, and I hope my body can figure it out as well. During the week I allowed myself to eat anything and everything I wanted. I packed in the calories, I put up with the knowledge that what I was eating wasn't "on my diet", because it would never have been on anyone's diet if they were trying to lose weight. What I was doing is stepping up to the plate and creating a starting line to start the race over again. You can do that you know. You can start over and over and over again, and not be any further behind than you were because you hadn't started so you are where you are. You need to draw the line in the sand! Make the point of making a point, and then stick with it. I choose the easy route, which was to eat what I wanted to  and get the body ready to be shocked. 

    By going from 2200 calories a day to about 1100 I'll not only shock my metabolism, but I've also put my bowels on alert, my heart, my brain, and even my liver. Everything is now on alert, waiting to see what will happen over the next 21-40 days. It takes about 21 days to get a cycle set, so if and when you're ready to shock your system keep that in mind. You cram the food for a week, then you stop doing that and you diet correctly with the needed supplements and required protein, and you do that for the next 21 days at least. I'm going to try to keep it up through the end of the year, allowing both Thanksgiving and Christmas day as cheat days, but I don't want to over do either of those. I'm one of the lucky ones who can cook and bake, but not have to "sample" everything to be sure it's good. I'm good knowing if I made it it's gonna be good. Too many years in the kitchen to start doubting myself now. Besides, I have Gramma staring down at me from Heaven every holiday to be sure I'm still using her recipes since I stole her mixing bowl when she passed. (Yep, that was me...confession)

    So, if you're into change and you want to be the best you can be for yourself, do a few things that tell the world and yourself that you are absolutely worth the effort -- because you are. YOU ARE FABULOUS. You are the only you that you can be, so be the best one ever. For me, and for millions, just a simple change of metabolic mix-up can make good.  I bet I lose 5 to 8 pounds in the next two weeks, and by my birthday, which is just under 3 weeks from today, I should be about 10 pounds lighter. That will be good. That will make me really super duper happy and I may even post a pic! Why not? I'm FABULOUS too!  We all are. Shake it up baby.

    For breakfast I had a two-egg omelet. I added heavy whipping cream and cheese for the proteins. I added Texas style chunky salsa and sour cream on top. You don't have to worry too much about the fat, just the calories; keep that in mind too.  I decided a pea protein shake would be great, because the more protein you can add to the breakfast meal the more you'll be charged up for the day.  I add a scoop of pea protein, a scoop of collagen powder, psyllium husk powder, maca powder, ginger powder, papaya seed powder, sesame seed (ground), chia seeds, honey, strawberries, another egg (raw) and milk. Believe me when I say WOW..just WOW...it is good, and good for me. It's thick as mud if you leave it to hang out for 10 minutes like I end up doing since I'm typing -- and you're done for hours! I don't think I'll even have lunch. I may just wait until 6 to eat dinner and be done. It's that filling. It is for me anyway. 

    My motto has always been "Make it Happen".  I'm that girl. I will force it (on myself) so that I make it happen. If I want it to happen it will happen. I'm the one behind the curtain in my life. I can do this with Jesus' help of course, but I can do this.

Photo Credit:  Me

She Might Like the Bee Gees!

 When did it start? Oh, I don't know, somewhere between "Jesus Loves Me" and Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock", but I was there in my bedroom just listening to the radio.  The bedroom, mind you, was a shared room. I had two older sisters and Mom placed my smaller-than-a-twin sized homemade crafted bed that Daddy made in his workshop, in between my Big and Bigger sisters.  Mine was the less attractive piece of real estate in the room, as it wasn't an end piece, and the front of my bed faced the open closet. It would have had doors on it, but Daddy had taken them off to paint them and that project got set back on the back burner for a few years.  Our matching beds were long boxes with a large drawer that pulled out for storing clothes. Daddy also made small (maybe 15-18" wide) tall cabinets that reached from the ground to the ceiling. Those cabinets had drawers too, and two shelves on top. In the middle he had crafted a hidden cubby that was "hidden" using a flat door that opened to make a desk that was about 15" x 15" wide. I'm telling you, we were special.

    I laid on my little bed with my tiny little transistor radio, that if I had to guess I would say it had both AM and FM bands. I don't really remember, but I know I listened to WKY which was on the AM band. I listened to the Top Forty mainly, but you know there were hundreds of other songs being played. I knew most of them, and I liked many of them, but I got really excited when I heard the Bee Gees singing...no other band could capture my spirit, no other band could keep my attention. To this day, if you ask me who my favorite artist is, it will be the Brothers Gibb - - The Bee Gees.  When I met my bestest best friend Jeannie in high school, she was wearing a Bee Gee t-shirt. I literally said "I get Maurice" before I said hello. He answered back, "I get Barry".  We're still best friends, even after all I've put her through.

    One of the reasons I liked the Bee Gees so much was that I had decided at age 6 or 7 that I was going to marry Maurice Gibb; he was the younger of the twins, and he and his twin brother Robin were about 3 years younger than Barry.  Maurice was already married to a pretty lady named Lulu, and she was a singer, but I was pretty sure that if I waited it out, grew up, and moved to England I could convince Maurice to marry me. I was really excited to find out a few years later that he had not only divorced Lulu, he was living in Florida, so that would have made things so much easier I guess it it wasn't for his new beautiful wife Yvonne.  I'm telling you, my timing has always been off by just a smidge. (giggles)  Married or not, it didn't stop me from writing to Maurice when I was about 14 and we became pen pals of a sort. He wrote to me, I wrote to him, we chatted twice on the phone about music and about the Oklahoma vs. Florida State game. He was more of a U of M fan, because he lived in Miami I guess, but it was fun chatting with him.

    On Saturday, August 4, 1979, my best friend Jeannie and I (and three others) pooled our money together and we rented a hotel room in the same hotel as the Bee Gees for their Spirits Having Flown concert tour. I can't say it without being understated, but I was pretty excited about finally getting to meet Maurice in person, and being able to see the "Boys" in concert.  You don't know the backstory of how it was that I came to work for Concerts West, or how I was able to wrangle tickets at next-to-nothing if not nothing prices. I think Jeannie and I have attended more than 300 concerts together, and separately, I couldn't tell you. I really couldn't, the years between 1978-1985 become a blur after I try to force myself to remember who all I've met, what jobs I worked, what assignments I had, and all the fans I had to beat back with sticks to keep my job(s).  I was a driver, an errand girl, I cooked, I made reservations, I worked backstage, I worked the stage, I worked front stage, I couldn't really be counted on for security due to my size, but I was alert and used my cat-walking tight-rope skills to pull a few excited fans from places they weren't supposed to be roaming! (It made it so much easier for myself to roam because I worked for the venue!)

    The Bee Gees put out about 28 albums I think, several singles, and they did some solo work as well. I KNOW I have every last LP even "To Whom it May Concern" which REALLY sucks. Sorry Barry, I know, you know it sucks. Sorry. Not sorry. I have not listened to it since 1982 I think. I also caught Andy Gibb in concert. Andy being the Boys' younger brother. His concert was a hoot too! My mom had made me a white satin pantsuit to wear, and I purposely curled my blond curls to look as close to Andy's as possible.  I knew I would be on stage, but I had no idea how that was going to happen. I wasn't working for the venue at that time. Make it on stage I did. I went backstage and one of the roadies literally grabbed me and pulled me to the side saying it wasn't safe for me to go out without my manager present. Well, there you go. He thinks (in the dark) that I'm Andy, so I'll stay put.  I met Andy. He laughed. The roadie shook his head and basically chased me off stage after that.

    The Bee Gees have forever and will forever be in my spirit, in my mind, in my veins, in my dreams. I can't let them go and I have no plans to stop singing their words any time soon. I'm too too too excited that all of the Boys are Christians, this means I'll have eternal concerts to go to, and Maurice and I can talk more about football, music, paintballing, animals, living in Australia, and horseback riding. I'm still planning on hanging out with him for about a million years once I get to Heaven. (Nobody gets  "Too Much Heaven" you know.) Ha!  (If you know, you know, and if you don't, you should.) There has never been a time when I couldn't pull myself out of a funk just by recalling the words to a tune I have known a 138 years; or longer. Jeannie and I will often text one another using ONLY Bee Gee lyrics as means of communicating, and that can be hilarious. I'll start off with "I had to follow you, though you didn't want me to."  and she'll come back with "You stepped, into my life, and I'm oh, so happy".  It goes on and on and it may take us days before we run out of things to say.

    With years upon years of happy songs, sad songs, crazy songs, and songs no one has ever heard before "Mr. Natural", "Blue Island", "High Civilization", "E.S.P." and more, and I know virtually every song on every LP....and every silly movie - - I don't know of any other band with a more eclectic range of titles or subgenres. I mean, Cucumber Castle in and of itself is more than enough to send most die-hard Bee Gee fans into endless conversations about which of the brothers they would follow.  For me it's no question, Prince Marmaduke all the way -- silly sexy man, that one. Forever!  I will follow that man around Heaven FOREVER! ("You can believe what you wanna, but I know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna believe in the Lord!)  At age 53 that man left us far far too early. 

    If you've never seen the movie "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" from 1978, you should run out, don't walk, RUN out ("Run to Me") and buy it. It's probably less than $2 and let me tell you, the acting in that film is not worth that, but you'll never forget it, you'll watch it over and over again, you'll sing, you'll laugh, you'll shake your head, you'll laugh more, then you'll realize that the Bee Gees (and Peter Frampton) sing the Beatles songs so much better than the Beatles. Aerosmith too!  Yeah, Aerosmith, and Alice Cooper!! They're in the movie.  Aerosmith's version of "Come Together" far exceeds expectations...it really lands! You'll just have to listen and watch and watch and listen. But you can't have Bob...Bob Henderson is SPOKEN FOR!!  He's mine.  Mine. All mine, just....just .... well, he's mine.  I'd love to get "Closer than Close" and go "Above and Beyond"  but it's not going to happen, he was and will be the "Omega Man" and he is gone; until the rapture. HURRY UP, Jesus!

Prince Marmaduke on the right.Photo Credit:  The Bee Gees 

My Personal Phobia (Entamaphobia)

OK, so you knew there had to be a name for it, right? The name for what I have is "Entamaphobia", which is, according to www.fearof.net this: "Entamaphobia or the fear of doors is a debilitating phobia often associated with Agoraphobia and Claustrophobia. The word Entamaphobia is derived from a combination of Greek words 'Eisodos and portos' for entrance or entryway and 'phobos' which is the Greek God of fear."  Except, I don't have a fear of the door itself, but what may or may not be hiding behind it.  It's not EVERY door that freaks me out either, no, just those little short doors that you see in houses sometimes. I think people feel that they need or want access to an area behind the stairs or in the eaves where it's too short for a person to walk into but they could bend over and get something out of a storage area; maybe Christmas decorations, blankets, or something else. I don't know, but the little doors just do something to my psyche.  They start the Myelin sheaths of my wee brain to burst into flames with incredible fury.  

   

     Since it's Halloween I figured a creepy little story would be in order. My Granny had a gorilla living in her closet, and he didn't freak me out. I mean, I never actually saw him, but she said he was there, and he would eat us if we went into said closet, so of course, not one of us cousins ever ventured into it. I'm not saying that I didn't peek because I did. He may have been out for the afternoon on the day I decided to test Granny, I don't know, but I'm still here, and he has probably passed on since gorillas don't live to be too terribly much older than however long it's been since I've tested the rumor.  Gramma said it, I believed it, and that settled it.  Gramma also told me that Santa was real and if I ever said he wasn't she would never bake another cookie. You know I still believe! (Ain't much better in this world than warm loving for the kitchen.) 
 

    So small doors and me are a no-go. I look at houses I think I want to buy and if they have a tiny door in the hall or up near an eave, I find an excuse to move on to the next house. I don't bother opening up the door to see if houses insulation, books, maybe pickled olives, I just walk out the front door with the realtor lagging behind me still checking off boxes on her clipboard and telling me how nice the kitchen suite is. She's never been one to worry or bother herself with petty phobia. She makes suggestions like "We can take the damn door off Jude; no one is coming out of the eave to kill you when you're sleeping!" How would she know? She's never ONCE slept in my house when tiny people make their way through their tiny portals. She has no standing to make those claims. I've seen The Borrowers. I know it's possible. 
 

    I'm not saying that having a genuine phobia is wrong; but what I have is certainly not logical and it's not feasible if I'm thinking of getting a two-story house someday. If I do find one I like and there happens to be an elf-hole I'll likely just do what April suggested, and take the damn door off of it - - maybe box it in and create a little shelf to hold something cute that I'm not oddly taken back by and I can call it mine. Maybe I'll even leave the door there and post a little welcome sign on it, but when someone does open the door, they only see a BRICK WALL where I sealed up the creature(s) and I've gone all Cask of Amontillado on the would-be murderers! You just don't know me if you think I won't do that. I can use a trowel.  
 

    We all have our oddities and our quirks, don't we? Some of us have sound pertinent phobias and/or aversions. Some of us create needless anxiety for ourselves with misunderstood tiny entrance ways that purposely have no malice but are actually designed to assist. Be that as it may, the doors are weird, they creep me out, and no, I don't have to explain myself. It's my brain that has the problem, not me!  I personally, don't mind the doors but I can't convince the intellectual folds of my head's fleshy tenant that there is nothing harmful or dubious about these tiny hatches. They are simply there to taunt me. I know this to be fact.  
 

    Think of what gets under your skin and ask yourself what you could, would, or should do about it -- I know I do. I try every now and then to find one so I can face it and tell it I'm not afraid of it, but then I laugh at the very thought of having done so. I mean really, it's not going to answer me, it's not going to reach out and pat me on the back and say "That's OK, you don't scare me either".  Or is it? 

Photo Credit: Pinterest