My World … and welcome to it!

OK this is gonna be a total mash up of unrelated stuff. It’s all been rattling around in my head for a few days now.

So have you been watching Starz’s production of Spartacus? It bears little resemblance to history, I’m sure, but it’s nothing if not highly entertaining. I mean what wouldn’t be with all those muscled men running around in nothing but leather speedo’s? All the blood aside and the near porn-factor sex, it’s about as sudsy as they get.

I watched the season finale yesterday and my only comment was all it needed was an aria or two and we’d have grand Italian opera. That’s when the operatic choruses kicked in. Guess I’m on the same page as the director.

Kudos to the entire cast for some great work. I especially enjoyed Craig Parker’s last outing as Glaber. I mean it isn’t often you get somebody with that BODY doing full nudity. (insert evil grin) Nice package Craig. I mean WORK. Nice WORK. You may remember him in The Lord of the Rings as Haldir the Elf. I KNEW I had seen his face before but the blonde hair in LOTR threw me off. As Glaber he was delightfully hateful and easy to despise as the Roman Praetor who destroyed Spartacus’s life.

We lost a few other folks in this last episode. Not too many left for the series finale next year. Wonder where they’re going with this. We all know what happens … no surprises there as Spartacus and the rest of his band of “outlaws” get done in by the Romans. I will miss Lucy Lawless as Lucretia. This season I wasn’t sure if she was just plain frickin’ nutz or was plotting the revenge to meet all revenge on Ilithyia (stunningly portrayed by Viva Bianca). And while we’re talking about Ilithyia the big question is did she survive Lucretia’s caesarian on her?

Also gone to his reward is Asher (great job Nick Tarabay!). You just knew he would come to a bad end and for a gladiator, he sure did. I mean a WOMAN did him in with her sword. Hack hack hack.

Manu Bennett as Crixus finally won me over. Manu’s acting skills are a bit weak but that’s easily forgiven (see aforementioned leather speedo). He’s just SO earnest!

And Liam McIntyre did a stellar job of filling the late Andy Whitfield’s sandals. All in all, mostly enjoyable (If you close your eyes during the violent scenes). I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars.

And starting tonight, the 2nd season of The Borgias! yeehaw! More Italian suds, sex, and desperation. Of course it’s been an entire year since the first season so I hope I haven’t completely lost track of where we were when we saw the Borgias last.

Off on another topic, I’ve been trying to get through the 2nd phase of cold adaptation a la Jack Kruse, MD. I have a link to his blog over on the left so be sure and go see what’s it’s about.

The past week or so I have felt AWFUL. Finally realized it was not a “bug” but my body detoxing itself. blech. So I halted it yesterday by eating a bowl of popcorn (carbs kick you out of fat-burning mode, aka ketosis, thus halting the release of toxins bound up in body fat). Then I felt like crap because of the carb overload. Can’t win.

I’m on my 2nd mug of bullet=proof coffee OMG it is just SO delicious I cannot stand it. Here’s where to find the recipe —–> Bullet Proof Coffee

OK I’m running out of steam. I think detoxing also makes you tired. Plus it’s about time to go put the old ice bag on for 35 minutes. brrrrrrrr.

Geez, what the heck is going on? I’ve had dozens of attempted spam comments added to my last post over the last couple of weeks.

To the idiots who use these damn things … I have my blog set to approve every single comment so you’re only wasting your time. Or mine, I guess, as I have to remove the stupid things.

On another note, it’s been 4 months since I started the Wiley Protocol and I feel AWESOME! I’m sleeping better than I have in 30 years, my moods have evened out, my sister says my complexion looks fantastic. Life is great.

AND I found this great blog by a neurosurgeon who’s leptin Rx FINALLY brought me some actual weight loss. In two weeks I dropped 10 pounds. Only changed the timing of when I eat and nothing else. Check it out. His name is Jack Kruse. But don’t expect to be spoon fed anything. Reading his posts is like trying to decipher alphabet soup!

I haven’t laughed so hard in ages. This woman is completely nutz!

check it out:

http://thebloggess.com/

I cannot believe how GOOD I feel already! The estrogen did exactly what I expected given my history … swollen, painful breasts; bloating … all the lovely crap from my 40′s and 50′s that I’d rather not revisit. BUT. Once I began applying the progesterone those symptoms began to abate.

Today they are nearly gone and I figure by Monday they’ll be history.

I’m hoping the by my 3rd round of the WP I’ll once again have NO symptoms which is how life was for me in my teens and 20′s. Periods were a breeze. No PMS, no nothin’!

No weight loss though. As of yet. But I’ve fallen off the no-carb wagon a few times in the last 3 weeks so I”m not surprise. Also I figure since it takes 3 months for all the estrogen receptors to become activated it may well be that I won’t lose anything until then.

In the meantime I”m enjoying not being bitchy if I don’t get enough sleep, retreating brain-fog, fatigue (ennui) beginning to fade and generally feeling more alive than I have in the last 18 months.

Life is good!

I am completely (or nearly so) brain dead today. I woke up about 2AM and couldn’t get back to sleep for about 2 hours. Thanks Lady Gaga. “Bad romance” kept playing in my head then I got hungry because it was, well, 2 freaking AM.

I finally stumbled out into the kitchen and ate a couple of apricots and then managed to get back to sleep. Woke up again about 9:30 so my day is shot.

Had two mugs of caf/decaf so far and am STILL not registering any brain waves.

So I wandered around HuffPo and found that there’s been a shooting spree in Wheatland, WY. This on the heels of a cop related shooting here in Sheridan a couple of days ago. My gawd the sky must be falling. We simply do NOT have this kind of behavior around here.

In other news, the creek is down … a LOT! So much for that 150% of normal snow pack, although to be fair this is the latest and longest the creek has run this high since we moved out here 15 years ago.

Monday is R day … we’re refinancing the house and cutting our payment by 2/3rds cause we “robbed” our next egg to pay down nearly half of what we still owe. YAY!!! So no house payment this month and hubby is celebrating by buying a used popup camper.

Sammy the cat is not doing well. He’s now back on valium along with the anti seizure drugs because he’s been having seizures daily again. I don’t think he’s going to be with us much longer. Once the meds stop working we’re going to have to send him to that big litter box in the sky. I am NOT looking forward to that.

And a note to spammers … don’t bother leaving links to your viagra/aloe vera/ wonder medication/porn sites. I approve/disapprove each and every comment. So stop it already. Your junk will never see the light of day on my blog.

Today begins a new chapter in my life. I have begun the Wiley Protocol which means I am now using bioidentical hormones at a level I haven’t seen since my 20′s.

I am also reading Susan Wiley’s book Sex, Lies, and Menopause: The Shocking Truth About Synthetic Hormones and the Benefits of Natural Alternatives which is beyond shocking.

I have been trying to figure out why I have devolved in the last 2 years into a lump of protoplasm. I’m too tired to do anything but sit at my computer and play games. The joy is gone from making beads or doing ANYthing creative. I’m too tired to keep up my house (though to be honest I have never been all that into housework but I’ve never just let it go like this).

The brain fog has gotten so bad that most days I don’t know WHAT day it is unless I stop and really concentrate and even then sometimes I have to consult the clock in the kitchen or the computer. Not to mention the fact I have REGAINED 38 pounds after suffering 18 months of near starvation on the Jenny Craig diet. DAMN.

My search for answers and a fix for all this has been enlightening, to say the least.

I started the year out by reading Gary Taubes’s Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. I had tried to read Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) but honestly it was like trying to read a college text and I finally gave up (brain fog, again).

Then I reread the good Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades’s The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle: The Simple Plan to Flatten Your Belly Fast! which I could have sworn I had already read but (brain fog) seemed all new to me.

This led me on to Suzanne Somers’s Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones which lead to me to the Wiley Protocol which led me to an osteopath in Loveland and a prescription for 3 months worth of “starter” hormones.

In amongst all this I also found (thanks to the Eades, again) The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body in 30 Minutes a Week which is a workout I can actually live with! I’ve done 5 workouts so far and have to say I’m already noticing a difference. Plus I love the fact I only have to go to the gym once a week! Yeehaw!

My goal in all this is, first and foremost, to drop the excess flab. I hate how I feel. I hate how I look. The hormones appear to be the last link in the chain as I noted while reading Taubes’s WWGF … there is an enzyme who’s function in the body is to shuttle fat into cells. That’s its job. If it’s a muscle cell you then have energy to work that muscle. If it’s a fat cell you can count on having to go up another dress/pant size. Estrogen OPPOSES the action of this enzyme on fat cells. So if you’re out of estrogen, guess what.

That little tidbit started the whole journey I’ve been on so far this year.

In addition to all of that I have decided to keep a strangle hold on my caloric intake. I know, I know. Low carb you shouldn’t HAVE to do that. I’ve been low carbing (and by that I also mean no more meal skipping which is one bad habit I have a hard time taming) since january and have GAINED 9 pounds. So while I wait for the estrogen to kick in (according to the instructions it will take up to 3 months for all the estrogen receptors to become activated) I’m going to hold my daily intake to under 1400 calories.

At least, that’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes.

If all I get is some relief from the brain fog and the ennui, I’ll be thrilled.

Stay tuned!

It’s a little unnerving to look out my dining room window and see water rushing by. We live next to Big Goose Creek and normally (like 98% of the year) there’s barely a trickle in it. But in the Spring we get a run-off that, since we’ve lived here, has been short lived. At most it might reach the bottom of the pump which DH has set on a 3 foot stand down by the water.

This year is different. Snow pack in the Big Horns is, according to reports, 150% of normal. And we’ve been in a drought for the last 8-10 years.

The run-off started slowly. It’s been a very cool Spring. The last 10 days have brought unusual amounts of rain. What might be a little shower to most folks is a downpour out here in the arid West.

The creek has been rising but it still isn’t at the bottom of the stand. Yet. DH, thinking ahead, pulled the pump yesterday while I stood nervously up on the bank fretting that he might slip and be swept downstream. Yes, the water is barely knee deep at the bank but the current is swift.

When we bought this place we had to have a survey done for the flood insurance. I absolutely KNEW that we were not in the flood plain. Anybody with two working eyes, or even one, could see that. But you know the feds. So $1500 later we had proof. We are 8′ out of a 100 year flood. I sure hope that isn’t THIS year.

Across the creek, the land slopes away and down from us and this year, because of the beaver invasion, we can really see that.

The normal channel for the creek is between that mound of debris towards the middle of the pic and the line of brush/trees across from it. Everything else is overflow.

This is looking upstream towards the neighbors place.

Another view across the creek taken just about above the pump:

Downstream looking at the bridge on the Beaver Creek Road:

We’re getting more rain and thundershowers in the next few days and the temperatures are still moderate — somewhere in the low 70′s. So that immense snowpack won’t come rushing down on us all at once. YET.

Yes, I’m a little nervous. Roundup, MT has been flooded twice already. My sister tells me that snowpack in Colorado is so immense they think they’ll still be skiing in Aspen mid-summer.

All of this pings memories of the Big Thompson flood which happened just before we moved up to Wyoming. It was terrifying to see what that much water can do. And, of course, there are all the recent images of the tsunami’s in Japan that tend to replay in my head.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine but just in case … I have my emergency route picked out. We’ll grab the cats, the external hard drives for the computer, my late Mother-in-law’s birthstone ring and run like hell. Hope we don’t have to.

The Artisan and Glassworkers Legal Fund continues to come up with creative ways to raise funds to provide legal defense to some 30 of us who have been wrongfully targeted in a Texas lawsuit. If you want to know more about it, please visit Debbie’s site

If you’d like to help us and help yourself in the process, please visit the new Artisan Crafts Page.

On a personal note, I finally went to the doc about my finger. It’s the middle finger on my left hand and enough with the jokes already. The middle joint has been swollen for the better part of a year and it has been off and on excruciatingly painful. Diagnosis? End stage osteoarthritis. As in there is NO cartilage left and it’s bone on bone. Those bumps on my other fingers? Signs of more arthritis. Well crap.

That does NOT bode well for future beadmaking or jewelry making. I’ve ordered a bottle of acetaminophen from Melaleuca but right now am taking enteric aspirin.

Looks like I WON’T be taking up bowling again. I somehow don’t think all that stress will be good for what’s left of my finger joints.

In-laws are due here tonight so need to get moving. And I have beads to pack up and get in the mail as well. yeah, someone bought some! I need to get back to work. Before I can’t do it anymore.

I just spent about 30 minutes arguing with our plumber about the tea party and trickle down economics.

Admittedly (and surprisingly) we agreed on several major points. But the big schism came when he insisted that making the uber-wealthy pay their fair share wasn’t right because they “provide jobs.” Well, maybe they provide a job for HIM but what about the rest of us?

He also seems to think that Bill O’Liely speaks nothing but the truth and that Obama is a socialist. He also insisted that socialism and a monarchy are one and the same (that is why, he claims, we broke from England).

Oh my aching head.

This is truly sad because I like the guy. He’s personable as all get out, really amiable … likeable. But so misinformed (and, yes, I imagine he thinks the same of me) it hurts.

He railed against the “libeal media” and laughed when I pointed out that the “media” is owned by a handful of HUGE corporations who are anything BUT liberal. He claims GE gave Obama a million dollars so it’s the Democrats fault if they don’t pay taxes.

Aieeee. (insert sound of my head banging off my keyboard)

I wish I had my husband’s wonderful ability to reason with people. I’m a hot head. I go off like a firecracker and make no sense. Damned right brain.

I sure hope our plumber doesn’t fire us as his customers. I’m willing to ignore his politics. Sure hope he can say the same about me.

I received the following in an email from DH (which he’d received from who knows. You all know the internets and that forwarding thing that clogs all the tubes). Anyway, I have thought along these lines many, many times during the last 40 or so years. I plan on printing it out and mailing it to several key congressional representatives and the President. They all seem to have forgotten just who they work for and who is footing the bill. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.

Alan Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming, Co-Chair of Obama’s deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security” to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. August, 2010.

Here’s a response in a letter from a unknown citizen in Montana … I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is!

Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight.

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other
parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money.

Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt. To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the “greedy” ones.

It is you and your fellow nutcases who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it. And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.