Letting go

[kakariko]

Wow honeybera! Really inspiring!! So glad it turned out well! And glad that the squashes are thriving!

Sending you much care! Hope you have a good Holiday tomorrow!

[honeybera]

Hi guys!

I just had to write today and tell you that DS came into my room announcing that, "I'm putting in an order for MORE of that bread!!", making me smile from ear to ear! How cool is THAT!?? He had made peanut butter toast this morning. My bread is a HIT! (He also put in an order for chocolate-chocolate chip muffins, which I will do this afternoon.)

I also made my order from Amazon last night for all the necessary goodies to make the Nutritional Yeast Keto Buns, too. I can make either full sized hamburger or hot dog buns (but no loaves - it won't work that way), and yet still make a darned good loaf of bread to slice, toast, and eat with the recipe I made yesterday. I'll be repeating the old active yeast loaf bread recipe again today and will do so until the 15th when the Amazon order comes in. Then I'll try the buns and stick them into my freezer.

The new Bun recipe is again an almond flour base, with whole psyllium husks (normally used as a laxative - it's what makes up Metamucil - should keep us "regular" ), nutritional yeast (aka "nooch" by vegans I found out), instant yeast (more for flavor than anything else), salt, vinegar, water, and a few egg whites. Very easy recipe in the stand mixer and quite a bit cheaper to make. I am thrilled to have finally found a couple of recipes that I can use that imposing Kitchen Aid stand mixer for! It has been idle for far too long!! I'm finally using it for something positive instead of just gathering dust sitting on my sideboard. YAY!

Understand about the peaches. I've had to forego all drupe/stone fruit for a few years. Just think of them as poison - which is how my gut feeling becomes when I eat "toxic" foods

Oh, do I hear you!! I should be able to eat them eventually, but for now, NO! They are literally "toxic" for me, too, since I am hyperinsulinemic (WAY too much insulin and PLUS "insulin resistant"). My big belly, a tell tale sign of insulin resistance, is FINALLY shrinking, but once I began to indulge myself with those sweet peaches for a week or so, all the old problems began to reappear. Not good! I've unwittingly overloaded on sugar and sugary producing products for forever, like all my life! The overload on my liver must have been tremendous, and now I am suffering the consequences: Type 2 diabetes! Even eating a fresh organic peach (or peaches - but they're tiny) caused all that I've worked for for so long (20 months now) to fly out the window! So my choice is between that tasty dessert enjoyed or facing the ravages of T2D...yeah, thinking of them as poison for me gets easier, too.

===============================(Fourth of July @ midnight ) HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

Today (tonight really) I believe that I'll do my usual and just bring my dogs into my room, give them a treat, and have them lay down behind my chair in their bed when the fireworks go off...and go off they WILL! For some reason, my neighbors LOVE to set off all kinds of illegal fireworks: firecrackers, bottle rockets, cherry bombs (and bigger pieces of dynamite) - all kinds of loud things which scare my dogs half to death. It literally sounds like a war is going on out there!! I'll bring my girls in at dusk and give them love and attention and settle them into their safe bed behind me. That always helps them cope with the sharp and deep booming noise and the windows rattling. The cops won't do anything about it. We've tried!

I'm also thinking seriously about getting sort of political involved (locally) to help the US representative of our party for the 2020 election. I'll not say which party! I'm not looking for a fight with anyone on here, but this would be more of a volunteer thing to get me out of the house and meeting people. It may be a good way for me to "break the ice" here and maybe make some friends. I think it might be a good idea. Just a nice office job stuffing envelopes or something. They also have putting up lawn signs or writing letters to the editor. Heaven knows I love to write! It's just a thought bouncing around in my head.

It's late again. I'd better get some rest. DS said he'd help me get my beans planted tomorrow. It's really a two man job to fill those 30 gallon pots since they unfold nicely...until I lift one of those heavy bag of potting soil. Then they collapse and fold up...and there I stand holding the heavy bag over a newly FOLDED UP SmartPot unable to dump the bag anywhere!! AARRRGGGHHH!! So I put down the bag, UNFOLD the SmartPot again, lift up the potting soil bag...and...yep, you guessed it! The darned pot folds up again!! I tried and tried to do it some way by myself that it would work, but I came to the conclusion that it's really a two man job!! One guy holds it open and the other guy dumps in the potting soil...EASY! DS is working dispatch from home tonight, so although his heart is in the right place and he did volunteer to help me tomorrow, I'm probably looking more at Friday morning for any help. It won't take long, but the heat is coming. It's already up into the 90s with the 100ºF days just around the corner! Those aren't the days to plant beans or anything else!

By next year, all the pots will be filled with soil and planting them won't take long, so it will be done in the Spring, as it should be. I can move/tug the SmartPots around on the straw with some ease, but I need them filled first. I'm getting better and better at this as time goes on, understanding what goes where and how much sun/water/shade this or that plant needs. Next Spring I'm also going to have a gardener/landscaper come out and plant my poor pear and Asian pears and apple trees for me in the dog's yard. I'm also considering not using my SmartPots anymore, slowly transitioning from them to simple tires placed onto the ground and filled up with some potting soil and chopped straw on top, but freely able to sink roots into the tilled ground below, especially for my squash plants and salvia plants for the hummingbirds. I can really see that working.

BTW, I have a hummingbird come around and sip the nectar from the salvia right outside my windows. He comes every day at around 4pm. They are very territorial, and when he sees "that other hummingbird" (really himself) in the reflection in my sliding glass door (with the reflective film on it), he hovers and zips back and forth, challenging that other bird! So funny!! So lots of salvia around the bird bath and the bird bath feeder. It's very entertaining to watch them. I just got a new couple of salvias called Wendy's Wish. (Google the images - so tempting for the hummers!!) Great plants, nice and healthy so far! But I have to plant them, too!! My little hummers should LOVE it. I also got Butterfly Bush in a pretty purplish-blue (I think). I need a tub for that, too. Lots to do! Oh, and a tiny little Bay Laurel tree! For bay leaves. Got a pot for that as well. I'm having fun!

Ok, now to bed!!!

Honeybera

[Fleur]

Oh this phone is a nuisance. Takes deep breath. Second attempt -

Hello busy bee honeybera


Always a good sign when someone requests the cook to make something again

Hopefully the fireworks display was brief, so that your dogs weren't upset very long

You and your son shall make a great team when you are ready to fill the new pots

I smiled about the hummingbird flying at the reflection. One way to get the birds to stay around longer. Your bird feeder ideas sound very pretty

Agree with you regarding becoming a volunteer being a nice introduction to connect with like minded people. May your thoughts be fruitful

Trust you will have a lovely weekend


Much caring

[honeybera]

Hey Fleur!

Oh this phone is a nuisance. Takes deep breath. Second attempt -

Oh wow. Doesn't that get frustrating?! Thanks for the tenacity!

Always a good sign when someone requests the cook to make something again

I found it so. It's so encouraging - although I still haven't attempted the Keto Nutritional Yeast Buns recipe yet. I already made another regular yeast loaf the other day, I think on July 4th. Things got a bit chaotic around here and I left my second attempted loaf in the oven for "too long", about 20 minutes "too long", and yet it was completely forgiving! So I like that recipe VERY MUCH now, even after all the fear and research I put in to it. "That which doesn't kill me only serves to make me stronger."

I'm finding that using a recipe a couple of times takes the sting out of it for me, too, allowing me to get both familiar and comfortable with it. And besides, it's teaching me a valuable lesson in life. As terrified as I was re: my keto mayo (the internet is rife with dire warnings about how the mayo can "split" or "curdle"), now as soon as I run out of one container of mayo, I just whip up another in less than 5 min. - and it rarely, IF EVER, doesn't turn out GREAT! So that builds my self confidence, and that is nothing but GOOD for me!! It's very healing.

I got the main recipe from good ol' Butter Bob Briggs except that the more I read on different sites, the more I could see that all the fussiness and strict rules that went into making it were silly and unnecessary, so here is my own (almost) never fail homemade keto mayo recipe (literally copied directly from my own cookbook):

• 1 large egg, whole
• 1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon Water
• 1 tablespoon ACV or Lemon juice (we prefer the Apple Cider Vinegar)
• 1 Cup Olive Oil – do not use extra virgin; use extra light instead (less strong olive oil flavor), gently poured on top of the rest all at once.

• Add into a tall wide-mouth lidded jar (that will accommodate a hand held stick blender) the above ingredients in that order.

• Place stick blender blades at the bottom of the jar, turn on, and leave it running on the bottom, unmoved until thick white curds begin to form and rise towards the top of the jar.

• Only then begin to move the blender around, incorporating the remaining oil, et voila! MAYONNAISE, nice and thick and creamy!

And SO delicious! Doesn't take a genius! It's so easy to do! And for sure, I know what's in it and what it is that I'm eating! And for sure it's NOT soybean oil and sugar!! And with the mayo done, I can create salad dressings of all kinds, "secret sauce" for my burgers, even tartar sauce for my fish...just add a few spices to it along with other condiments/pickles and such. Only takes a second or two + a bit of imagination. I'll never go back to Best Foods again! ALL of their mayo is sort of stale + it's ALL made from soybean oil, even if they claim otherwise. It's right on the label!

Hopefully the fireworks display was brief, so that your dogs weren't upset very long

I wish! Poor old girls were inside, but had to put up with my nutty neighbors shooting off some SERIOUS and powerful fireworks, just like you'd see a City put on! Noisy, too! At one point a couple of teenaged kids ran up on my porch, knocking wildly at my front door, running to use my hose for something, and then running off again with the hose still running. DS had to work at midnight and was trying to get some sleep before work, but when some teenaged strangers (to me anyway; DS recognized them as from across the street) came pounding on my front door, I woke him up to handle it. It was so bright with the flashes from these explosives that even though my lights were on in my front room, there were brilliant flashes of light on the wall opposite the window each time one of these things went off. And the din from the explosions was deafening, even inside my house. Luckily, my room is clear to the other side of the house, yet the last big BOOM that I heard was at 12:30am! The police won't do anything even if called due to a "hands off" policy for illegal fireworks that the department has concocted; they call it a "code yellow" or something, and it takes place on every July 4th. I hope your...4th? Oh wait...that's right. Do you even celebrate something like this in Australia?

You and your son shall make a great team when you are ready to fill the new pots

Yes, we will if we ever get out there to do it! I have all those nice (and some are rare) little plants just waiting for a larger pot to snuggle into! But they keep working DS at his job and he's got to sleep sometime. He also likes his videogames and relaxing a bit from time to time. We'll get to it soon. I'm doing what I can, but I'm coming to realize that I'm no spring chicken anymore, nor do I have the strength that I used to have. Plus with that UTI I had, they gave me some very strong antibiotics that have some serious side effects, especially for seniors. I only had the strength this morning to water and pick up some yard debris plus harvest a whole container FULL of squash! By the time I'd finished, my feet were completely numb and I was SO tired! I only have a couple of pills left, so I'm just going to finish them up by Monday (the full 10 days) and hope for no recurrence of the UTI! I sat down and texted DS and asked if tomorrow and/or Monday would be ok with helping me and he said, "Sure." So good!

I smiled about the hummingbird flying at the reflection. One way to get the birds to stay around longer. Your bird feeder ideas sound very pretty

Yes, the birds do keep me entertained, as do the lizards that do pushups on my fence! (Not kidding! ) One of the things that I'm going to ask DS to help with is setting up a more extensive hummingbird garden near the regular bird feeder, just underneath it. The bowl is about 3' high on a pedestal, and with about 3 of those 30 gallon SmartPots nestled underneath there with Black-and-Blue salvia (my hummers favorite so far), my new Wendy's Wish salvia, my old standby Red Hot Mama salvia, plus maybe a fuchsia or two and my new PURPLE Butterfly Bush, it should be really busy out there! A great draw for the hummers...and the bees and butterflies. It is pretty out there, and very soothing to my soul as well. Peaceful for the most part. I'm trying for a haven for my hummers. They so deserve it!

In the bird baths, both the one for water and the larger one for food, are the sparrows, mourning doves, and even the occasional blue jay. The blue jays gulp down the pieces of corn or pound open sunflower seeds that the sparrows and doves leave, and those others eat the rest, mostly smaller seeds. We even get little fledglings, barely flying but still with their mothers, flapping their tiny wings and looking towards Mama with their tiny beaks open and begging for a bite. It's really fun to watch them from so close, but with that film on the window (where I can see them but they can't see me due to the reflection), it's a real treat to be so near to them without their knowledge. It's delightful!

Agree with you regarding becoming a volunteer being a nice introduction to connect with like minded people. May your thoughts be fruitful

Well, I've never done anything like this before, and I doubt that anyone there is actively "doing keto" and/or fasting, so there may be a TON of food there that I can't eat, BUT I'm doing an OMAD sort of fasting, so I rarely eat anyway except at around 2pm while watching Dr. Phil or something. That should not be prohibitive for me. If I see a Krispy Kreme donut or something, just the thought of all that sugar hitting my system is slightly nauseating anyway. As long as I don't indulge, I'll be fine.

Being a high-functioning autistic is a different matter, though. What makes me "autistic" is an inability to recognize "social cues". I'm just not good at it. But it is an adventure and I'd like to at least give it a try. Who knows what could happen?

I am about to go into the kitchen and familiarize myself with the new KETO BUN recipe...and to make myself some Cherry-Almond muffins and do the dishes. The Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk muffins that I just made are ok, but they're DS's favorites, so I'll just make some more using that new Cherry flavoring that just came in from Amazon. YUM! These "muffins" do double duty (no pun intended) due to the fact that they have cinnamon in each one (controls blood sugars) and a good dose of ground psyllium husk (same as in Metamucil!) and/or oat fiber (not flour but very high in fiber and ZERO net carbs). They look like a muffin, taste like a muffin, but pack a wallop of fiber and blood sugar control...and all they are is almonds and eggs and sweetener and a half cube of butter. Sort of like the bread recipe, but "sweetened". Talk about guilt free!!

BTW, the lady with the YouTube Nutritional Yeast Buns recipe also has a recipe for Cinnamon Sweet Bread, same recipe as the buns but with added sweetener and cinnamon! Imagine that as toast with a cuppa Bulletproof coffee! I even have some Raisin extract! That would go nicely together, I'm sure! I'm always thinking!

Off to the kitchen with me!
==================================(forgot to post this! )

Nothing new except I weed-eated the front yard before the City threatened me with a huge fine for weeds being more than 12" tall. Worse than an HOA! But I did do it before I was threatened, and since I put down all that RoundUp, I only had a few weeds to mow down. Progress! Only took 15 min. or so.

While I was out there, however, I saw my across-the-street neighbors outside and said hello to them (for the first time in the 10 yrs. or so that they've lived there! ) and asked them about their kids knocking on my door on July 4th. They said that they had seen "flames" in my backyard and that the boys put out the fire by running first to my house and then to my next door neighbors and using their hose to put the flames out over the fence. They said it was really deep down the side of my yard near my kitchen windows. Hm. So I thanked them very much for extinguishing the fire and then went to check for any damages. OMG! Right where I had just put all those bales of loose straw mulch down for weed control there was about a 5 foot circle of black ashes from the burnt up straw!! It came about 1 foot away from the house and 1 foot away from the fence on the other side. How close we came to disaster!!!!!!!! And how grateful I am that they put it out!! DS was sleeping when they knocked and I was just in my room comforting my dogs. By the time we would've realized that we were on fire it would have been too late to do anything but escape! But luck was with us.

I'm pretty sure that it was the cross-the-street neighbors who (probably accidentally) set the fire, but I can't prove it and they vehemently denied it, even though I never accused them in any way. They put it out, all I lost was some straw (probably more useful now as fertilizer since it burned) and a few branches on my salvia bush, and all turned out ok. But OMG. That was WAY too close!! I'm on my knees grateful!!!!!!!!!!

OK, I'm off to bed now. Pleasant dreams to all of you.

Grateful Honeybera!!!

[Fleur]

Oh my word honeybera - what a shock you would have had seeing the burn had been close to disaster - very grateful for their quick response

Great to know about your culinary efforts going brilliantly


Wishing you and your son all the best

[honeybera]

Hey Fleur, dear friend!

Oh my word honeybera - what a shock you would have had seeing the burn had been close to disaster - very grateful for their quick response

How right you are! DS and I worked on the yard some yesterday and I showed him the actual burned spot and he was amazed, too. Even though both of us think that it was them that set the fire, both of us also feel that it was a complete accident caused by kids playing with very dangerous fireworks and we are thankful that they saw fit to put it out!!! So thankful, in fact, that I'm sending DS over with some of those wonderful donut peaches and some zucchini (not the last that they will get, I can assure you)!

Great to know about your culinary efforts going brilliantly

Thanks! I'm making more bread today. I saw that DS had some peanut butter toast last night. That really does my heart good!

This "morning" (1 pm ) I was feeling a bit weak willed re: my fasting regimen, so I did what I always do: watch a YouTube video on fasting/keto. That always perks my fasting determination right up. Dr. Jason Fung (nephrologist from Toronto and the BEST fasting guru out there!!) has a new podcast out via dietdoctor dot com (only a week old ) and in this video he discusses how the sympathetic nervous system controls our insulin levels via different hormones, including cortisol, the stress hormone. I believe when I was beaten as a child and felt so powerless to change my circumstances (as I was and felt), even to the point of succumbing to learned helplessness, that my hyperinsulinemia and subsequent march towards Type 2 diabetes BEGAN! The outward appearance of its onset is a larger waistline, or "pot belly" - and that was one of the things that MD ridiculed me for, even at the tender ages of 7-teenage. I've always had a pot belly which MD just could not tolerate. However, nowadays I can plainly see that she not only caused it in me, but even now it delights her that that my now HUGE belly makes me look deformed, assuring her that she is ok and that I am "LESS THAN"!!

What she doesn't know is that my belly, while still pretty big, is SHRINKING!!! And since she's undisciplined and completely inactive in that nursing home (where she claims that "the food is very good" and she maintains a candy dish nearby which she dips into constantly), now SHE has gained a tremendous amount of weight!! DB claims that she is way over 200 lbs., but she is saying that she's around 140. Lies, all lies. When I was still talking with her, she was complaining of rashes underneath her breasts. I knew exactly what that is and told her how to combat it. Also, years ago, she told me triumphantly that she did NOT have T2D! She only had PRE-diabetes! For Pete's sake, it's the SAME THING: hyperinsulinemia!!! Her a1c was just a bit lower than mine, but not "normal" by any standards!!

Lordy, she gave me up for DB. I was and still am a good daughter. I dare not go around her to protect my own self, but I would have definitely been the better choice. I never would have put her into the nursing home, and with her house less than a mile from my own and with all my nursing experience, I could have so easily done it. But she had to play her games. Oh well.

I must admit that since SHE now has a weight problem (in spades!!) I do feel a bit of retaliation. She tortured me about my weight from childhood on. It was a constant, droning, nagging thing, and yet her treatment of me was the cause of my pot belly!!! It's such a mind-blower to me.

But now with a little self-discipline (fasting and keto), I'm reversing so much of the damage that she did to me. I kept saying, "I'm circling the drain!" to my DS before starting on keto/IF, meaning that I was actually getting close to death. I feel SO much better now, my fasting blood sugars are dropping (albeit slowly) and even my formerly beach ball sized belly is getting less and less by the day. My liver and gall bladder and even kidneys are healthy again (Dr. did blood work tests), and I never want to stop eating this way...EVER! Once my weight is down, I can lighten up on the OMAD fasting, instead having maybe two meals/day, spaced nicely apart by 4-6 hours. And ALWAYS KETO! No more sugars for me!!! Maybe a one potato beef stew or a tiny bit of sweet potato, but NO CORN EVER!!! And even easy on the fruit from my back yard. (That freeze-dryer is calling to me still.)

I need to get going in the backyard. DS and I disturbed the Black and Blue saliva last night and they need to be out of the direct sun. They're wilting. One pathetic little hummingbird came as I was typing this and hit every salvia blossom that he could. I need to go now. My hummers need me!

{{{{{{{{Fleur!!}}}}}}}}}}}

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Today I learned how to propagate my Black and Blue salvia, by far the hummingbird's favorites (so far)! It looks quite easy! I'm sending away for some rooting hormone dust to help the little plants grow into nice new plants once I use the trimmings from pruning to propagate more of them. I thought my Black and Blues were goners this afternoon after the disturbing moving of them yesterday afternoon (they were rooted underneath the SmartPot and into the ground), but with a little drink of water they plumped right up from their sad and weary limpness back to thriving plants again. I now have TWO hummingbirds out there trying to compete with each other, including air battles!! And they're so quick and funny!! (I doubt if they think it's funny, but I do! ) They're very territorial and each one is claiming the more spaced out salvias!!

I can see what it is that I have to do out there to get all of my new plants planted and in roomier pots than what they're in. It's been up to a month of them sitting in tiny pots and enduring the heat out there. I need to clear their spot of the current whippy weeds (Invasive Morning Glory Vines). Since the WW vines are in the shade in this spot of my yard, they have no flowers on them, just vines that twist up onto everything, smothering all in its way!! It has taken over fruit trees, my fence, slithered all over my garden, but I'm gaining on it! Tomorrow I'm going to ask DS to move two of my raised planters (on stilts/legs) (Adams Manufacturing 9303-96-3700 Deluxe Garden Planter, 36" - GOOGLE IT) or I may try to move the two of them near my WOW by myself. They are filled with gardening "stuff", but come apart. I may disassemble them and then move them, exposing the sneaky whippy weeds underneath them. I'm going to cut out the WWs and then place the big 30 gallon SmartPots right there, filled up with salvia for the hummers, butterflies, and bees. Oh, and of course, the regular birds feeders and bird bath will remain in that corner for the seed eating birds.

It's so funny to see the chaos already out there with the lively lizards chasing each other around and doing pushups, the birds darting here and there and fluttering everywhere, some settling gently back into pecking at the seeds in the tall birdbath. Then my old dogs, once ferocious and lively and a real threat to these birds, lazily plodding along and walking up to my WOW to see if I'll open the slider and let them in and give them a treat as I often do. The birds don't know the difference and FLEE to higher ground until the "threat" of my dogs has passed, and then flutter back down to the seed and water. It's a hoot to watch them, especially with the ability to be so close to them without their knowledge of my presence.

Lots to do plus I'll need my rest and it's already 1am! So nighty night. Sleep well. I wish I could share more with you, like pics, but ¡no es posible!

¡Buenas noches!
Honeybera

[Fleur]

Hello honeybera


Strange how life turns out sometimes. You with a mother who could have chosen a different way to handle her daughter, me having a dad who just refuses to understand his negative impact on all of us

You are making progress with positive lifestyle choices, changes. All kudos to you

Am very happy your son likes homemade bread - it will be a quick and easy meal if he so decides. At least something extra to fill his stomach that won't damage his health

Was awoken by birdsong this morning. Then a clunk - think one feathered friend hit the window. No sign when I checked

Trust you are drinking enough water to stay hydrated. Sipped often rather than guzzled seldom seems key point

Thanks again for sharing your garden news - great gesture towards your neighbours who might or might not have started the fire and certainly extinguished the blaze

May you enjoy sleeping and have a lovely rest of your week


Much caring

[honeybera]

Strange how life turns out sometimes. You with a mother who could have chosen a different way to handle her daughter, me having a dad who just refuses to understand his negative impact on all of us

Yes it is...more odd than "laughable" funny. It's sad, too, that our parents seem to be oblivious to what it was that they missed out on with us due to their insane behavior. More and more lately I'm realizing just what a treat and source of pride I could have been if not silenced so harshly and completely. She was merciless, but it did teach me to "stay in the cage" and tolerate the "shocks" (learned helplessness). How sad for her. She has missed out on so much!

But it was NOT my fault! It took me years and years to finally come to grips with that F-A-C-T. When I was little, from a toddler to preschool, I was quite the performer! I had the ability (due to my eidetic/photographic memory) to memorize poems and songs with ease, I was as cute as a button (I know that now) and would "perform" at the slightest provocation for the positive attention it got me. I loved it! But it only served to make MD that much more insane once the company (or my father) was gone. Her answer to her jealousy of me getting attention that she also craved? Beat the living hell out of me and shriek at me that I was UGLY!!

I even remember most of the words to those songs ("Johnny's a Big Boy Now" and "I Think I'll Eat A Tadpole"). OMG! Through the wonders of the internet, I found that old song!!!!!!!!

I Think I'll Eat A Tadpole
Norval Knight - Martha Dewer

© Ridgeway Music, BMI 1951

Nobody loves me nobody loves me nobody really cares
So if I should do what I'm plannin' to do the thought of it really scares me
I think I'll eat a tadpole think I'll eat a bug
I've got some worms down in the garden just recently dug
You said you didn't love me you told me we were through
So honey that's the reason this is what I'm gonna do
I'll eat a big ole tadpole run away and hide
And you'd be sorry oh so sorry if I stayed away and died
So if you really love me just tell me with a hug
Before I eat a tadpole or a bug

WOW! Talk about prophetic!!!!!! I was about 4 at the time that this came out. Both of my parents were fans of the old style hillbilly music, very country, and we had a record player and she played this song which I listened to over and over again. The S-A-D and morbid songs that MD would sing to me on her lap until I cried (which in her mind required a severe beating and the demand to "STOP THAT CRYING!!!" "before I give you something to cry about"...) I'm now learning were all old country songs. MD's people (NOT the adopted ones that I grew to love deeply as my grandparents) came out from the Oklahoma panhandle to the USA West Coast "Grapes of Wrath" style in the 1930s and brought their music choices with them. We had a radio that played in the kitchen of our little cottage in the back yard of my grandparent's house all day, every day. My fertile mind took it all in.

However, the DAILY and unprovoked mental and physical abuse was so horrendous that I did try to flush myself down the toilet at 4, believing that I'd "go down there wherever the poop goes" (I remember thinking that with great fear) and finding that thought less horrible than continuing to keep being abused. I guess the learned helplessness hadn't quite kicked in quite yet. I still thought that I could escape her abusing me, but I couldn't in the long run. And at 18, I married and left home - to face the world alone, confused, and afraid, a total wreck.

I remember telling my T at the time that I felt like I was a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that wasn't there. OMG. Just this morning, getting up sleepy eyed in my room darkened by blackout curtains and stumbling towards the bathroom (and probably still half dreaming), I saw a flash of a black cat near my bathroom doorway...and it made me smile! I'm just NOT that wounded, frightened person anymore, so unsure of herself. Oh, I have my moments - we all do - but for the most part, I'M HAPPY. AND I'm grateful, too! "You've come a long way, Baby, to get where you've got to today!" That was a cigarette commercial from a long time ago, and once (A LONG TIME AGO, THANK GOD!! YAY!!) I bought a carton of those cigarettes and it had that saying on a key chain packed inside. I kept my keys on that key chain for the longest time. I had also placed a little sign that I'd cut out from something onto the back of my bedroom door back in my old apt. (1979-2001) so I could see it every night/day: "BE GOOD TO YOURSELF." And now inside my closet is my shirt inscribed with the saying, "KEEP CALM AND KETO ON", so each time I open up my closet there is that message to myself. It's been a LONG slog out from the early days of my life, fending off so many people who would have liked to see me FAIL, but they're going to have to wait a good deal longer!

Fleur, you mentioned "all of us". Were you blessed with brothers and sisters? I hope your journey down your path, although also a long and apparently a quite harsh one, is a very fruitful one for you as well. I know you've mentioned going to the hospital for a lengthy stay from time to time. I hope all that has helped you tremendously dealing with what happened to you with your father. I don't know if you realize just how much of a positive impact you have had on all of us here, but from what others have said and what I have experienced with you myself, it's been substantial. I hope you can appreciate how others appreciate you and your calm and positive messages to us. {{{{{{{Fleur!!}}}}}}} Thank you so much!!

You are making progress with positive lifestyle choices, changes. All kudos to you

And to you.

Am very happy your son likes homemade bread - it will be a quick and easy meal if he so decides. At least something extra to fill his stomach that won't damage his health

Having him on a sort of keto diet (he does Carnivore - mostly meat and fat, very few veggies) is very helpful to me. All that "bread" is is nuts and eggs basically, so he can have it and still lose weight. We eat quite well, believe you me! Even the "muffins" are very healthy and made from well thought out recipes. I'm delighted that he's joined me.

Was awoken by birdsong this morning. Then a clunk - think one feathered friend hit the window. No sign when I checked

My "dumb doves" do that all the time!! They don't get hurt; just irked and confused! And then they fly off FAST. My entire slider is covered in a one-way mirror film, so I guess that they think they're going to "fly" into that other image, and then THUNK! The little birds don't do that that much, and the hummers only "see" that "other bird" challenging them. But the doves crash into the window several times a week. Luckily, they are learning and the occurrence is becoming a more rare thing. And happily, no one has gotten really hurt yet. Tough little guys!

Trust you are drinking enough water to stay hydrated. Sipped often rather than guzzled seldom seems key point

As usual, I am awash with water. I love water!! I have a BIG 64 oz. JUG of filtered ice water with me at all times + my cuppa coffee once a day + some tea or a soft drink if I feel like it. So yeah, I'm like the Queen of Hydration! You, too?

Thanks again for sharing your garden news - great gesture towards your neighbours who might or might not have started the fire and certainly extinguished the blaze

You know I love to talk about my garden. Today I cleared out a whole bunch of whippy weeds, untangling them from posts and shrubs back there, wherever they had slithered around. I used my new kama (Japanese sickle) as a weapon against those tough weeds/vines. It cut through them like butter! YAY! I also gave everything a nice drenching with the hose. I took my kama and freed some of the strawberry planters, too, but much work awaits me there. I'm also considering that IF I SEE a squash on one of my plants, I should PICK IT IMMEDIATELY!! These squash get HUGE overnight it seems!

DS apparently DETESTS working in the garden, but he does it grudgingly anyway. I appreciate that. Not everyone loves the garden or even the veggies that the garden brings. I am happy for my neighbors who will willingly take some of this from me since my payoff is just the growing of them (ok, eating them, too, but there's so much of it this year)!! My backyard will just be getting better and better!

May you enjoy sleeping and have a lovely rest of your week

Thanks, Fleur, I'm about to give that a try right now. This post got SO LONG! But it's always healing for me to write it out, and I hope it's not too boring for any of you. I'm hoping that someone who was in the "brain fog" state that I was in many moons ago can get hope out of my ramblings, seeing that there is an end to it eventually and with a little bit of effort can be overcome. I remember feeling so alone and overwhelmed.

I hope your sleep comes enjoyably to you, too. Good sleep is so important. And during the summertime, Mother Nature doesn't tolerate those of us who'd rather sleep in late. It's supposed to be up in the 100ºF PLUS by this weekend. So to water appropriately and to give my garden it's fair share, I need to do the watering and any work EARLY. What a great incentive!

Honeybera

[EasyStreet]

Hi honeybeara!

There is a discussion on Reisha's 2019 thread about replying/not replying to people with long standing "personal" threads.

Based on my thought process, I want to make sure this doesn't happen or happens less.

So I want to ask: Is it ok to just post a smiley or sometlhing on your thread even if I have not much to say? Just to let you know I SEE you?

Please let me know.

Be well!