Life's Lessons According to Me

This lesson is one I've had a really difficult time learning and I've been having to deal with it a lot this past month. I'm a fixer/doer, whatever by nature. If I see something is broken I just fix it. I look at a problem, figure out the best way to fix it and just get it done whether it's painful or not. Well, you can't do that with other people, you have no control over them and it doesn't matter what you say or do, bottom line; they have to decide it's broken and fix it themselves. You can offer support, advice, life experiences, a shoulder to cry on, money, a place to live, etc. but you can't fix their problems. You can't make them get help, you can't get them to stop their self abusive behavior, you can't make anyone do anything. The only person you have control over is yourself.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to walk away and believe me I've had to do that a lot over the years. Many people I love have had drug and alcohol problems and I've had to walk away and let them fall on their face, go to jail and nearly die. I spent hours in the hospital with my little brother watching him struggle with his alcohol addiction and there was not a damn thing I could do to help him. I thought he learned his lesson with the first ER/ICU visit but nope it took two visits before he finally got his act together and he's been sober now for nearly 10 years! I spent hours with a friend who OD on drugs just trying to keep her alive, I was successful that time but it was several more years before she got her shit together. I busted down a door and fought with a woman to get the knife out of her hand so she could not cut her other wrist in an attempted suicide, talk about a nasty scene. Every time I thought I could help but the reality is if the person does not want to fix their problems it really does not matter what you do or say their problems will continue until they take ownership and fix them. I remember leaving a friend of mine in jail because I was tired of the 4 AM phone calls, she just could not get over her drug addiction. She's still struggling with it today. I've known this woman my entire life, she's like family but I can't help her. I walked away years ago.

Lesson # 2:

You can NOT fix other peoples problems.

Free Saturday!

It's not often that I have a free Saturday so it sure was nice to be able to sleep in and just hang out all day. My mom came over and we drank coffee and chatted for about two hours then Rhory's mom came over and visited for about an hour. She took RJ home with her for a couple days and I already miss him :(

I had planned to go to the curling club this afternoon to support the Olympic athletes and then catch Amy and Loafy's broomball games but around 1 PM I got one of my headaches that pretty much ended any plans of going out. It lasted about 6 hours which is kinda long, usually I can get it under control in a couple hours. Not sure what I did but I think maybe moving some furniture around may have caused it. Plus I've been a bit stressed at work lately and haven't been sleeping too good. I'm feeling pretty good right now but it's almost 2030 so I don't think I'll be doing much but reading my book and going to bed. Gotta work in the morning.

I weighed in at 135 lbs this morning, which is 2 pounds less than yesterday. I don't think it has anything to do with the cleansing/detox program I started; I think maybe it's because I did not eat a lot on Friday. I'll see what I weigh tomorrow morning, I've been eating all day today. Made my delicious vegetarian chili this afternoon. I'm already thinking about lunch tomorrow.

Well, now that my headache is gone I think I'll finish a couple chores and go to bed.

G'nite!

Total Body Cleanse

I've decided it is time to take back my life and rid myself of the pain I've been dealing with for years. As they say "When you're sick and tired of being sick and tired you'll change it" Well, I'm sick and tired of dealing with pain every day so I'm going to change it! I've had a headache since 1992 and the past 5 years I've been dealing with arthritis. I made the decision that this is the year I take control, I'm tired of "pain management" I want to be done with it. I have done everything from drugs to holistic healing, chiropractors, acupuncture, acupressure, I spent months in a pain management clinic and years in physical therapy all to no avail.

About three weeks ago I started reading about pain management through diet, this makes sense to me. I've always believed you get what you give, you get out what you put in. We are made up of energy and the things we put into our bodies is energy. It's like gas in your car, if you put in cheap ass gas your car does not run very good. If you eat cheap ass food your body does not work so good.

I've slowly been removing things such as alcohol, caffeine and potatoes from my diet. This week I'm cutting sugar and processed foods. I'm also adding things...like vitamins. I've always had trouble with vitamins and being a vegetarian it's something I should really take. But they make me nauseous so I always quit. Well I've found some liquid vitamins that seem to be working. I mix them with my Cherry Juice concentrate. This is a great mixture, it doesn't look good, actually it looks nasty but it tastes good. The Cherry juice concentrate is super tart and the vitamins are sweet so they taste good together.

Today I started my detox and body cleanse. I've decided that if I'm going to change my diet I might as well clean my system and start all fresh and new. I usually just fast for a few days but I was at the health foods store the other day and found a "Total Body Cleanse" that looks good. It's organic and it contains no yeast, wheat, soy, gluten, salt, sugar, dairy, animal products, binders, filters or artificial ingredients. This is a 14 day, 3-part internal cleansing program made with 100% organic herbs and fiber. It assists with the body's natural detoxification processes and provides comprehensive support for the liver, lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys, skin and blood.

I'm hoping with my diet change and the cleansing I'm destined to lose some weight so the first thing I did this morning was step on the scale, this is something I have not done in months, so I was a bit apprehensive. Last year was not one of my better years for exercise, I spent more time recovering from injuries than actually exercising so I was worried about what the scale was going to say. I am happy to say I weighed a buck thirty seven! YAY that's 3 pounds less than my normal. Not sure how that happened, maybe it's because I stepped on the scale right away in the morning. Don't know but I'm happy about it. This is going to give me a starting point.

Janauary 29, 2010 weight 137 at 0430, first round of body cleansing. No beer for two weeks, cut coffee from one pot to about 4 cups. Next week down to 3 cups, then 2 cups, then 1 cup then Karen gets crabby! No not really, I'm sure I can cut the caffeine, it's just that I'm going to be bouncing off the walls, caffeine is what keeps me calm. It has adverse affects on me, I hear tell it's 'cause I'm a bit hyper. In any case that is my only concern with cutting the caffeine. This week I'm going to work on sugar, it's amazing the things that have sugar! Now it's time to do some more research...

Quote of the Week

"You can't pray the Gay away"

I think I found my calling...

Now if there was just money in it. As a person who is a wee bit hyper it's sometimes hard to find something to keep me interested. Well... back in December Miss Rhory and baby RJ moved in and I've discovered that a baby is a hell of a lot more work than a puppy. You can't put a baby in a kennel and leave for the day.

Little RJ is a bundle of joy, I get to play with him every morning before I leave for work and he's full of laughter and smiles when I come home from work. We are now working on our letters and numbers in sign language. I'm also working on the basic signs, eat, bottle, potty etc.

Because RJ fights sleep more than I do we work very well together. Neither one of us can sit still so we dance, play airplane and run around the house. We chase the puppies and sing songs. I can stand and rock him until he falls asleep in my arms. It allows me to keep moving and the movement puts him to sleep, it's a win win situation. This also allows Rhory to have some freedom.

There is nothing like the giggles and squeals of a little baby, he makes me laugh every day! I cannot believe how much I am enjoying having a baby around the house. Even Jake and Lash have come to accept RJ. I don't know how long they will be staying but I'm going to spend as much time as I can with this little guy. What a precious gift I have been given.

I wonder if there's any money in rocking babies???

Womens 5 and Under

I spent the weekend in Grand Rapids Minnesota curling in the Women's 5 and Under bonspiel. We headed up Friday afternoon, checked into the Timberlake Lodge, grabbed a bite to eat then went to the club for our 7 pm draw. After registering for the event we found out that because there were only 5 teams playing that the bonspiel would be a scored event. Meaning that instead of deciding the winners by games won, each game will be scored and the team with the highest score would win. It seemed kinda odd to me but with 5 teams I guess it was the easiest way.

Although my team did not win many games we threw good rocks which for me is the most important. We lost our Friday game and had a bye right away Saturday morning! YAY we don't have to get up early. Our first game on Saturday was at 11:30 giving us time to try our hand at doubles curling. Lisa and I played against Michelle and Mary. After two ends Mary wanted to quit and Lisa was cold so Michelle and I practiced until about 11:15 then prepared for our game.

We lost our 11:30 game, we played a good game but just couldn't get the win. Because of the scoring it was almost more important to win each end than to get a lot of points. Michelle was not happy with her game and asked me to skip the rest of the weekend. Lunch was next on the agenda, soup and sandwiches.

Our next game was against the other St. Paul team; Amy, Loafy, Mary Jane and Amanda! WooHoo we finally won a game and were able to get a bunch of points on the board. Our last game was at a little after 6, we again threw good rocks but were not able to win. This game also allowed us to get some points on the board.

It was after 8 pm by the time we were done curling; talk about being tired! Whew! Everyone sat down for dinner and awards. The Anderson team was once again the winners of the 1st event! YAY for St. Paul bringing home the trophy again. Some how my team was able to pull off a 3rd event win. I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised.

I had a really fun weekend and I'm looking forward to heading back to Grand Rapids in March for the Women's Gopher State 'spiel. The Itasca Curling club was fantastic! They had the cleanest ice I've ever curled on.

This was my last year for the 5 and Under so I guess I'm no longer a "novice" player. My next goal is to find a team to grow with and become more competitive. I can't believe I just said that, I'm not competitive by nature but I really want to play in more events and do some traveling.

Lifes Lessons According to Me

With the New Year comes a little melancholy, I think about the past year and even years before that and I muddle over what I've accomplished and what I failed to do. What I plan to do in the upcoming year, so on and so forth. Along with the New Year I also celebrate my birthday right away in January which also gets me to thinking about the past and the lessons I've learned.

Today I decided it's time I started to share some of the lessons I've learned in my vast 47 years of existence. They will not be in any particular order I'll share them as they enter my head.

Today's lesson is on friends. For me my friends are the backbone of my life, they are my rocks, my mentors, they are here when I need them and they are here when I'm an ass. I believe in order to have friends you need to be a friend. This leads me to my lesson, when I meet new people I take a look at their friends. Do they have friends? What type of people are they? Who do they surround themselves with? Are they really friends or just acquaintances, work people, sports people etc.

So if someone enters my world and they don't have any friends I'm a little wary. It doesn't stop me from getting to know the person but if after several months they have not talked about or introduced me to any of his/her friends I start to wonder.

What I've learned over the years is the people I've met that don't have any friends, don't last long in my life. Now of course if I meet someone who has just arrived to the city/state whatever it stands to reason that he/she may not know many people. However, one would think that they have friends "back home." And after about a year they should have made some friends.

I'm not saying I judge people by their friends, it's more that it's their capacity to be a friend. It tells me a lot about a person if they cannot be a friend, generally they are not the kind of person I want in my life.

Lets see how can I simplify this: in order to have friends to need to be a friend, if you don't have any friends then you are lacking something in your character that I need in order for you to be a part of my life.

Lesson # 1 "Be very careful of people who don't have any friends."