TheCG

They were talking about it in relation to POTS and dysautonomia in general. Not sure if that involves MS, but it seems to me like it should. I mixed up peppermint oil and water and have been spraying like crazy around the kitchen and the rest of where we're seeing them.

I saw something calling it the "October Slide". We have ants. In half the house. Both kids rooms, the kitchen, the game room. Luckily not in our room or I'd never sleep. Meatloaf & potatoes for dinner for everybody else, sweet potatoes for me. I was planning on creamed spinach, but we might just be doing broccoli and cheese 'cause I'm tired.

Y'know, I realize it's still 90F out, but it's going to get cold before too long. Why the crap don't the stores have decent coats out yet? The only place that had non-frufru coats was one of the western wear stores that had all the FR coats for men - nothing decent for women. Found a coat online - here's hoping it fits when it gets here!

I think it sprinkled yesterday? Hurricane rain doesn't really get out to west Texas much.

Ewwwwwwww. No bueno.

The rain is supposed to hit here around 3 pm. I'm going to end up getting wet.

Maybe...she just needs an encyclopedia.

I seriously detest the "calories in, calories out" model. People spout off about the laws of thermodynamics, but they forget one key phrase: "In a closed system". I don't know about you, but my system interacts with the environment and is not a closed system. It sounds like she might have better ideas.

Instant Pots go on pretty good sales for Black Friday and Christmas. I went to a class on meal prep yesterday. Pretty simple, but she was talking about how you can chop all your veg and stuff and use it in practically everything throughout the week. I need to work on that so we actually eat veggies...

I have all of her books (the paper copies are at my mother's). If you're an ebook person, put them on your list to watch. Sometimes they'll be down to $1.99 or so.

Especially if it's not particularly intelligent...

I now have a humongous upright freezer that I can cook ahead and do meal prep with. *dances*

Active shooter in Odessa today (now deceased). We were over in that neck of the woods this morning. All of my people are accounted for.

I've been using flavored stevia drops in my coffee and have done a bit of low carb baking, but need to ramp it up with "fall" coming upon us (hey, it's only 92 for the high today!). A local lady who does meal prep is doing a class on it in 2 weeks - I might spend the $$$ to go see if she has any brilliant ideas I should know about.

Is that a comment on the amount of space I take up?

Ditto. I'll hide over here in the corner with you. *cranks up the music* However...I know I've got to make some changes.

We had a cold front come through! Highs are under 100. Hence why it fell to 99 as you crossed into Texas.

I love that show. Need to catch up on the new season! I picked up one with its own cell service at a pawn shop for $20. I think it's going to live in the camper as my emergency backup. They didn't swell (much) yesterday, and look practically normal again. They're randomly itching like crazy, though. Arrrrrrgh.

Came home a day early. Need to work on getting the camper drained, unhooked, and all that fun stuff. Also emptied out & cleaned the bottom 2 drawers of the fridge since most of the stuff is in the camper, and started the self-clean cycle on the oven (the 12-year-old dropped au gratin potatoes in there). Going to go slow, and keep my feet up when I can.

I almost had ankles this morning, after upping the water and electrolytes yesterday. Then we got in the car for several hours. And will be for the next few days. Aaaarrrrrrgh.

Heat + humidity + lots more walking = very swollen feet/ankles.

The wind was blowing hard enough on my way home yesterday that the dirt in the construction area was almost obstructing the view of the cars in front of me. Went through pouring rain, then turned on our road and had a state trooper and an ambulance go past. Got home where it was just sprinkling, parked under the metal carport next door, got out, and thought it was hailing because the rain was hitting so hard. It briefly let up, long enough for me to get back to the house. As I opened the screen door, it started picking up again. I don't know how much came down, but it sure filled the moat (drainage ditch across the front of the house) quickly!

Yup, that's what we're working on avoiding with supplementation and dietary changes and such. She's having me look at Dr. Gundry's Plant Paradox - I have known issues with a LOT of the things on his no-no list, but I'm not sure I believe some of his other recommendations. I'm still processing.

My alternative medicine lady told me that you really need functioning adrenals to fast, and I don't have that. To the point where she is pondering how I actually function. I told her sheer stubbornness. Basically...I have enough energy to fake it through work (not firing on all cylinders, but still productive enough to keep all the balls in the air), but when I'm done, I'm done and pretty much have nothing left. I'm also not digesting food (which I already knew), so I'm sure that helps. About 15 pounds of the 40 I've gained in the last year after going to work full-time are probably from inflammation, so we're working on figuring out what's triggering that (she thinks I'm probably getting exposed to mold somewhere - I'm highly allergic to most kinds). Working on supplementation and a few other things. FYI - I go to alternative medicine practitioners rather than a doctor because the doctors out here either suck to the point that they misdiagnose thrush as strep (yeah, antibiotics are not the answer for fungal infections) or do very very expensive concierge care. I haven't found an in between yet. We pretty much only go to the doctor when we absolutely have to.

A local police station received this question from a resident through the feedback section of a local Police website: "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?" The SGT working that day replied to the question.... First of all, let me tell you this... it's not easy. In the rural area we average one cop for every 505 people. Only about 60 per cent of those cops are on general duty where we do most of our harassing. The rest are in non-harassing units that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60 per cent of general duties are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So, roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 6000 residents. When you toss in the commercial business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 15,000 or more people a day. Now, your average eight-hour shift runs 28,800 seconds long. This gives a cop two-thirds of a second to harass a person, and then only another third of a second to drink an iced coffee AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to the challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilise some tools to help us narrow down those people we can realistically harass. PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbour is beating his wife" is a code phrase used often. This means we'll come out and give somebody some special harassment. Another popular one is, "There's a guy breaking into a house." The harassment team is then put into action. CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or drivers with no licences and the like. It's lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file. LAWS: When we don't have phone or cars, and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "statutes". These include the Crimes Act, Summary Offences Act, Land Transport Act and a whole bunch of others... They spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the law, you can just drive around for a while until you find someone violating one of these listed offences and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, the book says that’s not allowed. That meant I had permission to harass this guy. It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because, for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to "harass" some people. Next time you are in the area, give me the old "single finger wave". That's another one of those codes. It means, "You can harass me." It's one of our favourites.