SSS EXCLUSIVE

Welcome to another SSS episode!

Our word this week...

"EXCLUSIVE"

I'd like to think that we SSS

participants are an EXCLUSIVE group

of people who enjoy sharing photos.

=;]

I might be biased.

My photos this week would not make it into

any EXCLUSIVE group of

talented photographers' work.

It was taken on the fly...

or on "the drive" as the case was.

Its hard to get good shots out of a moving window.

As I understand the word EXCLUSIVE,

it means that something is outside

of the average scope or scale.

Certain criteria must be met to open that door.

I told you the photos were not good!

Behind this fence...

with its posted "No Trespass" sign...

Beyond this field with its charming deer...

Is this secluded and EXCLUSIVE home.

EXCLUSIVE 

because I'm betting that while many a man's home is his castle...

few claim a castle such as this as their home! 

That's all folks!

Have a happy weekend.

 

SERIOUS PREVENTION

Yep.

This is pretty much how I feel about wearing paper medical gowns.

(  found here : http://www.wweek.com )

I do not know a single woman who says 

"YAY!"

when its yearly physical time. 

My turn rolled around today.

I have a new, new doc.

He truly reminds me of Mr. Bean.

They have the same eyes and smile.

(from wordpress.com / Mr. Bean's Holiday)

He walked into the exam room and ran into the door on the way in.

Last time I was there with Randy...

Doc lost his rolly stool out from under him and nearly hit the floor.

Being a klutz myself,

I find the quality endearing.

Donning the paper gown was a trip...

they have a tiny dressing room.

I kept thinking... so this is how Superman

felt changing in the phone booth.

Everything went well enough.

Good in fact.

I've lost 8 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks.

My BP was down.

He took away one medication because I no longer need it.

All my blood sugars and AC1 test are outstanding.

The healthy diet and cardio are doing their job.

He said he did not find any lumps.

 Wah hoo!

I'm sure you don't want the gory details of the actual

exams.

But here are some strange things about the "visit". 

( Visit... as if this is a pleasant experience. Ha!)

I have never seen a speculum with a headlight before!

Why do they wait so long to see you that you have time to work up a good 

boob sweat?

I entertained the question...

Yikes!  Is that a finger or a baseball bat?

Someone farted and it was NOT me!

I've never seen a nurse hurry out of a room so fast.

I think that was a sign of guilt.

The worst part over,

he allowed me to play Superman in the phone booth again

and regain my clothing

while he made a phone call.

This part is weird and serious.

He returns to tell me that he is sending me to an

Oncologist...

that's a cancer specialist.

My immediate reaction was to say

"But you said there were no lumps."

I remember my mother's Oncologist...

and losing her vividly.

Oncologist is a very scary word.

He quickly raised his hand and said no, no...
nothing wrong with my breasts, uterus or tired old ovaries...

but with my family history...

a preventative double mastectomy would be something to seriously consider.

They would of course do breast reconstruction.

He patted my hand and continued. 

But we aren't there yet...

(to butchery and plastic fun bags)

What I need to do is go see the Oncologist and let him

map my genes.

Then have one of my sisters genes mapped...

both gene maps will be compared

and

IF I have a different map

I get to keep my own boobs.

If our genes match exactly...

I get to lose my old friends and get Barbie boobs.

I am unsure right now how I feel.

In a way... 

avoiding cancer and getting a boob job sounds pretty good.

So does keeping my old gals since I am rather fond of the girls.

I guess its a win-win situation.

But it doesn't feel like one.

It feels creepy and weird.

I know I am being irreverent here.

This is how I deal with things that are scary for me.

No offense to any other person's experience with

breast cancer.

Much much better to laugh than the alternative.

 Here is a serious question for you friends.

If this were you... or your wife...what would you do?

Would you do the gene testing and willingly give away your/ her breasts

if they found the bad gene?

Or would you wait and let cancer show up

before any surgery...

living blissfully oblivious until the cancer hammer fell?

Randy was already sleeping when I got home.

So other than talking with Doc Bean,

I haven't spoken to anyone about this.

I know what Randy will say anyway...

that this is my decision and he will support me on it.

If you are uncomfortable with answering that question...

that's cool...

I think I just needed to say this out loud.

Well, sort of anyway.

 

 

TEA LIGHTS

Our best neighbor's son is getting married.

Our neighbors are giving the bride the wedding she wants.

I'd say she lucked into some nice in-laws.

The wedding's theme is "hiking".

The bride and groom are avid hikers and campers.

One day our neighbor, who also hikes often,

came across this great log laying there waiting to decompose.

As often happens when one is trying to have a nice wedding without

going to the poor house...

inspiration hit.

 She hiked back to her car and drove home for her husband and son...

and drove them back... chain saw in hand...

to cut the fallen log into sections

of varying heights.

After returning home with the log bits...

she dumped them into a wheelbarrow and wheeled them 

over to our house.

"I need a favor." 

she grinned.

"Oh course you do." 

said the man, who grinned back.

Favors have gone back and forth between our families

for years, I am told.

She held up a stump with an X in the middle of one end.

"I need you to cut out a circle where the X is that goes 

deep enough to hold a tea light."

She passed the stump to Randy and turned to me.

"I'm going to use them on the tables."

I said

"What a cool idea."

(The man gave me a you-are-crazy look from over her shoulder.)

She left and came back right away with a wheelbarrow full of these suckers.

So that is how I was enlisted to be a "clamp" today...

I am often a clamp.

My job is to hold whatever needs to be held.

Today I clamped stumps.

Or I held a clamp that helped me to clamp stumps.

It was messy.

He used a 1.5 inch spade bit...

that blew sawdust all over me.

But I wore safety glasses and thick leather gloves.

Still, it made my nose itch.

I was glad to wheel them back to the neighbor's house.

Well, actually... to walk next to the man as he wheeled them.

But...

much to the man's horror...

I got him to promise to make me some.

"I'd like to put them on the mantle this Christmas.

Maybe I'll put some red bows around them."

That earned me another you-are-crazy look.

But he knows that already.

He didn't complain.

Its nice when your crazy is accepted.

=:]

 

 

SHEDs

(Gut let out...)

A couple of weeks ago, my oldest, came down to help the man

pour a slab for a wood shed.

Gut sucked in.)

Hee hee.

Perhaps concrete mix gazing is part of the process.

It made for a good weekend.

I got to play with Joshie and Olivia...

and talk with Stacy.

Fun stuffs!

But that was not the only reason that I put these photos there.

I liked the "gut out" and "gut in" aspect.

It tickled me because the man refers to his beer belly

as his "shed".
"Shed?" I said.
"Yeah, for my tool."

I'm sure you've heard that reference before now.

Remember when I talked about how I was recommitting to my 

getting into good health, exercise, etc.?

I said that I don't like to join groups for that.

It seems that I lied.

But this group is different.

Their goal is health... not diet.

Diet and exercise as well as mental wellness.

I don't have to do any rah-rah stuff.

I can participate in private. 

Or be social... which I am not.

Maybe you have heard of them.

Free Diet Plans at SparkPeople

SparkPeople.com

They are committed to healthy living.

You don't have to need a diet to use them.

They don't cost a dime... they can tell you about that.

What they do have is all sorts of information on nutrition,

wellness, exercise and recipes galore.

 

They will give you free diet plans, menus and weekly shopping lists if you want.

I like that they have a licensed dietitian who specializes in diabetes.

 

But the best part are the "tools".

Nutrition, exercise and wellness trackers.

They have cooking videos, exercise videos and articles of interest.

They have yoga and meditation videos.

Calculators help you see how many calories, etc.

You can also punch in a recipe and have the calculator figure out

all that information on meals for you.

Learn about Granny's famous chicken casserole.

So I can track everything about what I eat...

calories, fats, carbs, sodium, minerals.

I get a daily report on my eating habits that help me fix gaps

in my nutrition.

Very cool!

Ditto for my exercise.

I have an exercise plan that I do and the tracker records my progress.

I can even rate my mood levels and keep track of them.

They give helpful suggestions on what you can do to alter your moods.

Exercise suggestions are very do-able for any level.

And its all very upbeat.

I'm pretty excited about it.

I'd never heard of it until C4C told me about it.

Now, after a week... I'm hooked!

There are lots of diet styles too... or don't diet.

Customize the tools to do what you want or need.

So this post was about sheds...

weather it's the kind that shades your tool...

or the kind that you keep your tools in.

Hee hee.

(In this case the man will keep his wood in there.)

I walk at 2.5 MPH and burn 186 calories in 30 minutes.

I also now have begun weights to build upper arm strength.

I'm feeling very empowered!

Oh and I've lost another 4 pounds.

Yay!

 

PROGRESSIVE SSS

Welcome to my Saturday Scavenger Shots game entry for this week!  This week's word is "PROGRESSIVE" and was selected by the always interesting and informative AlienCoffeeGrounds at
Swamp Gas & Moonlit Reflections

Wow was this one a tuffy!  
At first I thought about the insurance folk who go by that name.  You know... the one with Flo!  
I thought if I drove around I'd see a billboard with her on it.

Wrong.  I just got hot and sticky.

Then I thought about politics.  They seem to be everywhere these days.  I've tried to avoid it, but that's impossible.

This led to a memory...

Many years ago, I lived in Cali near my dear sister

Cinderella.

She had a fascination with Teddy Roosevelt.

This led to me owning two cats named Teddy and Alice...

Alice after one of the real Teddy's daughters.

And my knowing more about Teddy Roosevelt that I normally would have.

That little memory jogged up the word 

PROGRESSIVE

because dear, Teddy was a member of the 

PROGRESSIVE political party...

a.k.a.

"The Bully Moose Party". 

Well, I don't have a pic of Teddy Roosevelt that I took myself

for obvious reasons.

But I do have a picture of ...

 My favorite PROGRESSIVE rock band album...
King Crimson
In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Love the art work.
Love the music.


However...
it has been many years since this came out 
in the early 70s.
I guess that makes me not very
PROGRESSIVE
at all.
Other bands that I am familiar with that fall into
this genre that you may know are
Jethro Tull, Jon Anderson, Mike Oldfield...etc,.




I'm not sure what makes this music 
"PROGRESSIVE"
but I think it has something to do with the fact that these artists have taken rock beyond the typical pale
with classical and jazz influences
and a great deal of complexity.
I just like the way it sounds.


=:]

 

NOT MUCH

(courtesy of facebook)

Not a good day.  Not a bad day.

A weird day... for lots of reasons.

The man's check was not automatically deposited as it should have been.

But it arrived in the afternoon mail.

I learned from laura b. that today...

at 7-11 is free Slurpee day

from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

I immediately notified my family of the occasion.

We are long time "squishie" lovers!

Off I went to my nearest Slurpee provider.

The store was packed.

This impressed me because there were so many empty parking spaces.

A mob of high school aged young men occupied all the space

by the slurpee machine.

Locust.

Most of the swarm had moved outside before I noticed

one bad buzzer...

who was filling his small cup,

crouching behind an end counter

(No small task as he was very tall.)

and drinking most of it...

then refilling it.

I did not take the little free cup.

It was 93 degrees in the shade and that much would not last

the entire trip home.

And I wanted to put half into the freezer 

to use in the mixing of an adult beverage later this evening.

The people who owned the store had heavy accents.

I am assuming that they were Pakistani... 

yet I could easily be wrong.

I'm not good at accents or how people look to give me a clue.

I tried to make conversation that was light...

a comment about how busy they were.

The woman never looked at my face, smiled

or said a single word.

She took my five dollar bill and then set my 

change on the counter and walked away...

to yell at her partner.

Ok.

Out in the car...

I phoned my favorite Chinese restaurant and ordered

chicken chow mien.

I always ask for the kind that has bean sprouts...

they have another type that has other things instead.

I picked it up and the nice lady with the heavy accent there

was friendly and talkative.

Her restaurant was totally empty.

I got home and turned on the air to cool my cave.

When I was cool enough to eat,

I opened the box and found that most of my 

chow mien was bean sprouts!

I'm guessing that with the language barrier

between us that she thought I wanted

extra bean sprouts.

lol

No matter.

It was very tasty that way.

That's the way my day has gone.

I am hoping that tomorrow is a bit more regular.

But you never know.

Either way,

if this is as bad as tomorrow gets...

I'm getting off lucky.

ANOTHER FLIMSY EXCUSE

Holy moley!  I picked this word myself... "FLIMSY"
for Saturday Scavenger Shots... and had a devil of the time finding ways to represent it in pictures.

This is our old fence... old being very important to its description!  Another word that one could certainly use to describe it is "FLIMSY".  Note the obvious patches. Not a fence that one is terribly proud of or willing to count on to keep that rascal pup inside.

 As clouds go... these are pretty darned "FLIMSY".


Now... as my final example, a "FLIMSY" explanation... I am two days tardy to this Saturday event.  I am so sorry!  As it happens, we had three different sets of grand kids drop in on us this week!
I should have gotten this set up a few days before Sat... and put it on the to be "scheduled" thingie.
But I did not. (Hanging head in shame.)




So now I will pass on the honor of choosing next week's word to our friend, Alien Coffee Grounds!
I know he will come up with something great to challenge us. 


=:]   Silly Rabbit out!